The Long Day of Revenge

by D. P. Adamov

  “It was at a tienta where they test the bulls on a ranch for bravery, determining which go to the stockyard and which go to the bullring. I was new in the profession and invited to take part, which could have been a big break for me. That was on the Eliseo Manzano ranch down in Hermosillo where the animals are from. Anyway, Gaditano came into the ring, and I tried to lead him away from a fallen man on the sand. That’s when I tripped, being younger and dumber than I am now. Gaditano, likewise being younger and dumber, gored me in the intestines. Had he been the size he is now, I would not be here today.”

  “But did that goring not make you famous?” the reporter asked. “You owe your fame to this bull, and now you will kill him for it?”

  Manolo continued to glare at Gaditano, who shook his head menacingly, as if to indicate the gigantic pair of horns were ready. Tomorrow, the time would come.

  “The long day of revenge is coming,” he whispered, not to the reporter, but the bull. “The time is coming. I’ve waited long for this. We have waited long for this. I will take back everything this bull has taken from me.”

  “And what exactly has he taken?” the reporter probed.

  “My wife and I are separated, and one of the reasons is because of this bull. I have listened to her, over and over again, telling me how I have lost my mind and am obsessed with what I plan to do tomorrow. Well, that’s okay, because in the afternoon ahead, everything comes down.”

  “Do you plan to retire after this fight?”

  “Now that’s a stupid question. Of course, I do not. I plan to go on with my life.”

  “A life without your wife in the way?”

  Manolo turned and frowned. The reporter was truly annoying.

  “I’ll tell you why my wife and I split up. You can report it tomorrow, because if I get killed it won’t matter anymore, and if I live we will never get together again anyway, so let everyone know. I went to the Casa De Campo right here in Nogales. If you haven’t ever tried it, I would recommend it to you wholeheartedly. Anyway, she wouldn’t suck my dick for starters. Second, I like to spank people. I never did until this one training session where I was working out with Lucinda, and she had this pair of bull horns which she hit me right in the balls with. So I pulled down her sweat pants and spanked her. That’s where the whole thing got going. As we got together, I spanked her before sex. I spanked her when she was bad. I started thinking that giving her a spanking before a bullfight would bring good luck. We all have our superstitions, you know. Some men won’t wear green costumes because they think it is a color bringing bad luck, but I don’t give a fuck, and I’m wearing green tomorrow. Me? I like to spank people. Period. Maybe I’m just weird, okay. Oh, I like fucking and I love to have my cock sucked, but spanking gives me one very big thrill.”

  The reporter stared disbelievingly. He could, of course, print none of this word for word.

  “That’s where the trouble is. You see, when I was a kid, I was taught that spanking was a great way to correct problems. Since we had already spanked before, I decided to use spanking for its intended purpose. It wasn’t just for romance. I spanked my wife as an adult when she did something stupid or something I didn’t like, just like one would do with a little kid. I don’t know. I guess it got overboard. I never beat her or abused her like these dickheads slapping and punching women around. I don’t believe in it. I never did. But I spanked, I whipped, and I paddled her ass, and always bare except when she was having a damned period, and then if we had to, we did it with the pants up. I never hated her back then. I still don’t really hate her now. I look back and wonder if I fucked up.”

  Again, he looked through the window, evading the other bulls and gazing upon the horns of Gaditano.

  “For some reason, right here in Nogales, I went to the Casa De Campo. De La Torre, who was killed here, recommended it to me as he was more of a typical bullfighter than I am. He had no qualms about cheating on his own wife. Anyway, I went there to find a whore who liked spankings and dick sucking. I found one named Esmeralda, and here is where life really takes a strange fucking turn. If Gaditano gored me in the intestines, life gored me right up the asshole.”

  The reporter raised his eyebrows.

  “My wife found out about the Casa De Campo. I think when I was really drunk I blabbed something out about it and De La Torre, so when we were in Nogales a few months ago, she tells me she’s going shopping and goes to this goddamn place instead. She has a gossip session with Esmeralda, and as she is leaving, I walk in. Now I assumed she had been cheating on me somehow and doing a girl on girl thing, but before I could say anything, Lucinda realized just why I was coming there, and that’s the end of the two of us.”

  The reporter nodded.

  “So anyway, when I come back to Nogales, I set up another appointment with Esmeralda, and she tells me my wife came to her trying to find out more about spankings and how to make me happy. Go fucking figure. If I’m lying, I’m dying. That is what I was told. By then I had shot my marriage in the ass. I may be a man at the top of the world as far as the fans go, but I am a real piece of shit. I know all of this now. I admit it.”

  The reporter again nodded.

  “If you want to go to the Casa De Campo and follow up on the story, you won’t find Esmeralda. She’s gone from there. Felt guilty and moved, I guess. I have no idea where she is now, but she left a message with the madam. I was told to get back with my wife at any cost. Easier said than done. In fact, I have spent the past month or so whooping it up with whatever woman out there who wants to party. You know? All that shit about filling a void. I spanked the shit out of a lot of women and fucked some of them, too, but I’ve been using condoms at least. You won’t see my cock drop off from prick rot!”

  Manolo gave yet another look through the window. Gaditano was waiting for him. He even let out a casual snort to verify he knew the day was coming.

  “Well, this is all I have to live for now. The chance to fight and kill one bull. I could live long or die. Gaditano could kill me. We could even kill each other. I don’t know. This is all I live for now. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I have no wife anymore, but I have a bull.”

  Gaditano again snorted, as if offended by the remark.

  “Yes, Gaditano. I know. We will be meeting again and for the last time. Our lives have led up to this moment. Tomorrow. Tomorrow it ends…”

  The great beast turned, showing Manolo his ass. The matador noted green shit stains beneath the tail.

  “The same to you, old enemy,” he murmured. “The same to you.”

  “They say you have been drinking.”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what usually happens when a marriage falls apart? The only thing is, since then, I have really cheated plenty on my wife. The past month or so has been total insanity. I went to see Esmeralda, and we ended up talking. That is not all. When I went back to the Casa again to set up an appointment yesterday, Esmeralda had left, and with her gone, I didn’t feel like seeing another girl just then, but in the weeks that came before, I found lots of them. That lasted for a short while. I partied. I fucked. I spanked. It grew old. Believe it or not, I mean it grew old, and I grew sick of it fast. I still love Lucinda. I didn’t know it then, but I sure do now. But does she love me? The point is; I just don’t give a fuck about anything anymore. I want to kill that bull. That is what I want to do. Every move I made the past few years has been the wrong one. Now I have one last chance to make the right one. Out there it is just the two of us. It is my day, and it is his.”

  Manolo hesitated.

  “In the hospital I had a dream. I made a deal with the devil in order to live. He didn’t want my soul, but said I could live if I killed Gaditano. Now as I look back, I realize he did take my soul, but did it as I was distracted. He did it slowly and not with any contracts signed in blood.”

  “I think I have enough of a story for now,” the reporter noted. “Look, I will write about the bullfight, but what you spoke of today I will water down.
I will just say something along the line of your breakup playing heavy on you. Okay?”

  Manolo fidgeted with the thought of lighting a cigar, but decided against it. With his luck as of late he would set loose straw in the corral on fire and burn up before facing his horned opponent.

  “Eliseo Manzano is at the hotel we are both staying in. See him. Or see my manager, Rafael. The ring has been sold out, but both bought extra tickets for guests. One of them will give you a ticket, and you can sit with someone who can keep you informed about what is going on tomorrow as the action takes place. If you’re going to write about the bullfight, at least make it accurate.”

  “The people have heard of you on both sides of the border,” the reporter responded. “They say you made a deal with the devil, and the superstitious think he entered your body, which is why you perform like a madman but have never been gored since that ranch fight. Tomorrow, we will see if the devil leaves you or claims his own.”

  It was an unusual thing to say.

  “Now you sound like these God-damned ghosts who have latched on to me. I don’t tell people about them much either. There’s Fernando De La Torre, who got killed right here in Nogales, and this fucking gypsy woman with a talking dog puppet. They keep popping up all the time and warning me about all kinds of shit, but I am sick of them, too.”

  “We all have our own ghosts and demons,” the reporter replied.

  Manolo, however, shrugged and went back to studying his future opponent. The other three bulls were of little concern.

  “I’m going to fight you first and get you out of the way, you bastard. I really don’t care how great I am or aren’t with you tomorrow, as long as I see you dead. I will eat your body for steak, you son of a bitch. Tomorrow you die. So you mull that over tonight, you bastard. Tomorrow the sword awaits you.”

  Gaditano had turned to face the corral window again. In response, he shook his head, again indicating the horns were ready.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Manolo hissed out in a voice like air escaping from a nail-punctured tire. “I felt the horn when it was small, and I will not be feeling it tomorrow. I am a matador de toros and one of the best there is. I am not some green, crazed, and ignorant kid any longer. You do not frighten me. I have no fear.”

  “We all have fear,” came a familiar voice.

  Turning, he saw De La Torre, dressed in his burial suit and not a bullfighting costume. With him was that infernal old gypsy from his past dream. It was De La Torre who spoke.

  “We all have fear and any man who says he doesn’t lies.”

  The old woman chimed in, interrupting him.

  “To fight a bull when you are not afraid is no accomplishment, as that is insanity. To not fight a bull when you are afraid is no accomplishment, as that is common sense. To fight a bull when you are afraid is something else. That is an accomplishment, as you swallow your fear and go on to do what terrifies you. That is the measure of a man. That is true courage.”

  She started to laugh. For once, she didn’t have her puppet with her.

  “Hear me, and hear me well. I remember when you scoffed at my words and the warnings of Fernando De La Torre from beyond the grave. You will scoff them no longer, for tomorrow when you learn the truth; you will see the extent of my power. In the midst of death, there will be life. It is not the bull you must conquer, but yourself.”

  De La Torre nodded and pointed at the old woman, indicating she spoke words to be heeded. He reiterated what she had said.

  “In the midst of death there will be life.”

  Manolo turned back to Gaditano, who watched him menacingly.

  “And this means…”

  There was no one to reply, as the figures were gone.

  “Well, I have had enough of this.”

  Leaving the corral, he started down the passageways below the ring, when at the point where he reached the wooden gate leading out to the sand where he would enter tomorrow, he heard noises.

  The gate, which had been closed before, was opened.

  “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”

  The sounds of a spanking?

  Silently, he walked through the gate, not knowing what he would see.

  “Ow. Ow.”

  What he saw stunned him. The reporter was evidently a spanker too, but how he had found someone to punish was a mystery. Yet that was the very scene he encountered.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

  He was kneeling on the sand. Next to him, likewise kneeling, but down in doggie fashion was a naked woman, with her knees and elbows protected by a pink capote hurled to the ground for her to position herself over.

  Manolo observed the ritual in silence.

  “Ow! Ow!”

  “This is what you get for being bad!” the reporter yelled as he delivered whap after whap. “This is what you get! You’ve needed a naked spanking for a long time! Not only can I see your ass turning red, I’ve seen your tits and your pussy, too. I see everything about you and so will everyone else. You are going to be humiliated after this. You are going to parade naked right in front of everybody and stand in the corner where they can see you and your shame!”

  “Unbelievable,” Manolo whispered. “This is too ridiculous to believe. How…”

  “Owwwwwwwwwwww,” the punished woman shrieked. He could not see her face and could not be certain from the distance how red her ass was getting, but the sound of the whaps told him she was going to be crimson pretty quick, if she wasn’t already.

  “Owwwwwwwwwww! It hurrrrrrrtttttttssssss!”

  The cries were familiar. Had Esmeralda made it back to Nogales and somehow set up an appointment with this reporter, outside of Casa De Campo, that he was not supposed to be witnessing?

  “Unbelievable,” Manolo repeated as he watched this session of discipline unfold. He felt like he was in a porno movie.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

  “That’s enough of that,” the reporter informed his prey. “Now you stand up and walk across the bullring to the other end of the fence, just like a bullfighter in the parade. Only you will be doing it naked. Then you position yourself with your chin and arms on the fence and stick your ass out. We aren’t even close to being done.”

  Crying loudly, the girl did as she was told. Marching across the ring and rubbing her punished butt all the while until she came to the end of the sand and the beginning of the fence, she did her walk of shame. There she went into position as ordered.

  “You’re getting the belt for this, you bitch! You’ve been bad, and you’re going to be punished! I’m gonna tan your hide! I’m gonna blister your buns! I’m gonna redden your rump! I’m gonna fix it so you won’t forget this lesson ever!”

  “Fucking unbelievable.”

  Manolo said the words too loudly, and the reporter turned to him.

  “Matador?”

  Manolo nodded.

  “Who did you expect? De La Torre?”

  The reporter unbuckled his belt and pulled it from the loops, offering it to the matador.

  “Would you like to get in on this?”

  The matador shook his head.

  “No. I cheated on my wife like this, and look what it got me. I’ll just watch.”

  The reporter gave an evil smile.

  “Well, watch then. More people have come to Nogales for your bullfight than you realize. I think you will find what happens next to be most interesting.”

  With belt in hand, the reporter made his way to the waiting girl and struck her hard. The sound of the whap echoed through the empty bullring, as did her wailing.

  “In the midst of death there will be life.”

  Manolo had no reason to say these words. There was a show going on in front of him and he should logically have been more into it.

  “You’ve changed. You’ve changed way too much for me.”

  He remembered the words from someplace. It was Lucinda’s voice.

  “Didn’t you say Granero was killed?”

  These words were spoken at the
rodeo ring in Agua Prieta. Happier times? Maybe. Definitely different times.

  “Ow! Ow! Owwwwww!”

  The girl was really taking an ass whipping, and her screams were reaching to the very top of the bullring.

  “Owwwwwwwwwwww! Oh, Godddddddd!”

  Manolo decided to move in for a closer look. He did, however, feel odd walking across the sand at this moment. Too soon from now, he would be here again, dressed in his green and gold costume, while the people cheered. At that time, he would be walking toward his fate and not some reporter enjoying a shared fetish.

  “Owwww!”

  His mind drifted away from the present to times he had shared beyond the spankings and the sex with Lucinda. He had truly wasted the best thing in his life. Her concerns about his drive to sword Gaditano were selfless ones. She was worried about his health, his sanity, and his life. That was then and this was now.

  “Owwwwwwww....”

  The woman on the sand cried much like Lucinda. She screamed like her. She moaned like her when taking the belt. The body looked similar.

  “Owwwwwwww...”

  It was then the impulse of old overtook him.

  “Hey, give me that belt. Let me get in on this after all.”

  “So you still haven’t learned,” the reporter answered, looking up from his duty. His face had changed. On his head were two small horns, much smaller than those of Gaditano, but horns nonetheless. His eyes were as red as the girl’s ass.

  “That’s right, Manolo. It’s me. Your other old friend from Hermosillo, come to see if you live up to your bargains.”

  It was then another voice, being more familiar to him, broke the silence.

  “Hello, Manolo.”

  Lucinda turned from her position against the fence and faced him.

  “Surprise.”

  The entire scene shook with an earthquake, and Manolo screamed louder than his wife had ever done during a spanking session.