by K. T. Tomb
“This tree appears to be larger than the ones below,” I commented. “What is even stranger, however, is that it seems to have taken root in the stones of the pyramid.”
“It has, indeed,” Eva agreed. We turned together to look at Andres.
“Yes, the Forbidden Tree.” he chuckled as he spoke.
“Forbidden? Why is it forbidden?” Eva asked.
“It’s probably just a myth, but the fruit is supposedly cursed. Sort of like the one in the Garden of Eden. It is forbidden to eat the fruit.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I laughed.
“Has anyone ever tested the truth of the curse?” Eva asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Andres replied.
“Have you ever been tempted to?” she pressed.
“You mean, like, have I ever had a serpent tell me to pluck a mango and eat it?” He laughed heartily. “No, I haven’t, in either case, but then, I’m not all that fond of mangoes.”
We explored a good deal longer, fascinated by the view of the Mango Grove that was afforded to us from our vantage point. Looking down at the way that the rows of trees were laid out with such precision, I couldn’t help, but continue to ponder the mystery of it all. Why was it so different?
“So, if we don’t look at them as spokes from a wheel, but like rays of the sun, does that maybe provide us with a clue to the mystery?” Eva was obviously lost in the same train of thought that I was. Her observation was a valid one.
I started to respond, but quickly lost use of my tongue and she snuggled in next to me, wrapping both of her arms around my waist and pressing her head into my chest. As fascinated as I was with the mystery of the Mango Grove, I was a great deal more mystified by the fact that Eva was becoming even more intimate with our interactions. There was no way in hell that I was going to ruin that moment.
Chapter Six
After having been in the sweltering heat of the jungle and climbing around on the ruins all day, a cool shower was exactly what the doctor had ordered. I stood beneath the water allowing it to flow over me as though it was the first time that I had ever felt such a wonderful sensation. My mind wandered to both of the mysteries that had recently presented themselves to me. However, the Mango Grove took very little of my thoughts as remembering the feel of Eva’s arms around me and her head on my chest tended to dominate.
After several moments of standing under the water, I felt my stomach grumble and was reminded that we had been promised dinner in a few minutes. With that urge in mind, I soaped my sweaty body, rinsed and then stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist and wandering back into the bedroom with my body still wet. The effect that my damp body and the soft breeze coming in through the window was absolutely wonderful and I sat on the edge of the bed and enjoyed the moment.
“Aaaaaaeeeeeee!”
The instant I heard the sound, I knew that it was Eva. With a sudden rush of adrenaline surging through me, I leapt from the bed, pulled the door open, crossed the hall and tried the handle on Eva’s locked door. The screams continued from inside the room and I felt panic rising up inside of me. Undeterred by the locked door, I slammed my shoulder into the door with all of my force. The jamb cracked and the door flung open.
I had barely entered the room before Eva flew toward me in a blur, wrapped her arms around me, spun me so that my back was toward the bathroom, buried her face in my chest and continued screaming. Not sure what was behind me, I fought against her to try to turn, but she held her ground.
“What is it? What is it?” I repeated several times, trying to glance over my shoulder at whatever danger would soon be leaping out of the bathroom and attacking me. After some moments, I finally got an answer.
“Sn… snake!”
“Where?”
“In the shower! Get it out! Kill it! Get it out!”
It took a moment for me to get my wits about me, but when I did, the first thing that I realized was that Eva’s large, nude breasts were pressing against my bare skin and that she was entirely nude. I was wearing nothing more than a bath towel wrapped around my waist. No doubt it had been the fantasy of every male at St. Paul University to see Eva nude, no less have her pressing her nude body against them, but I suddenly felt a mixture of delight and horror going through me. In the same moment, Eva’s rationality kicked in as well.
She stopped screaming and pressing her face into my chest and froze in her compromising position.
“I’ll get the snake,” I said, pulling away from her and attempting to avert my eyes, though I had already gotten a full, frontal view of her fantastic naked body burned into my memory before I could turn away.
Fighting every urge to turn around and get another long glance, I strode purposely into the bathroom and then stalked toward the shower.
“I think it bit me,” she called out behind me as she grabbed a robe and wrapped it around herself. “Is it poisonous? Am I going to be okay? Is it dead? Be careful! Oh my God, am I going to die?”
I couldn’t answer the barrage of questions until I was able to examine the snake. When I finally mustered the courage to look around the sliding-glass door and into the shower, I saw the lifeless body of a red, yellow and black striped snake lying on the floor in the stream of water. I reached the knob and turned the water off and then examined the snake.
“I think you stomped it to death,” I called out. My first thought when I saw it was that it was a Coral Snake, and extremely venomous… and then I remembered that the Coral Snake had a near twin. What was the saying that I’d been taught? Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black, venom lack. Thank God, the bands of black are next to the bands of red. I wasn’t sure how or why I knew that little saying, but in that particular instance, it brought comfort to both me and Eva, who had crept into the bathroom behind me.
“Is it dead?”
“It’s dead.”
“Is it poisonous?”
“No. Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black venom lack.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll show you.”
“I’m not going near that thing.”
“It’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She crept forward enough to peer over my shoulder into the shower. I could feel her shaking and she pressed herself into my back.
“You see how the bands alternate from red to black to yellow and then black to red to black before there is another yellow band?”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“If the red bands are next to the yellow bands it is the venomous Coral Snake. If the red bands are next to the black bands it is a harmless King Snake.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“What was that little thing you said?” Her nerves had calmed a great deal more by that point.
“Red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black venom lack?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a way to remember the difference.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“I’m sure. Where did he bite you?”
“On my foot.”
“He was probably fighting for his life. It looks like you stomped the crap out of it.”
“He shouldn’t have been in my shower.”
“Let me see your foot.”
She started to sit down on the toilet, but suddenly thought better of it and moved out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, extending her foot so that I could get a look at the two tiny puncture holes that had tiny drops of blood sitting above them. I examined her foot for a few moments, suddenly very aware of our proximity and the lack of clothing that I was wearing.
“I… uh… I better go get dressed. I take a better look at it in a minute.” I retreated from her room, making a note of the damage that I had done to the door jamb when I forced the door open. I’d have to let Andres know that I’d broken the door. Hopefully, I wouldn�
�t be charged for the damage.
Back in my own room, I took off the towel and dressed quickly. Trying to avoid thinking about the images of her nude body was next to impossible, so I tried to focus on other things. I was just finished getting dressed when I heard Andres in the hallway.
“Inez told me that she heard someone screaming. Is everyone okay?” he called out.
“We’re fine,” I answered, opening my door. I was dressed, but hadn’t put on my shoes. “Eva had a snake in her shower. When I heard her scream, I broke in the door.”
Eva appeared at that instant, dressed and wearing flip flops.
“Are you okay?” Andres asked.
“Yes. Adam said that it wasn’t poisonous, which is good because it bit me.”
“What did you do with it?”
“She stomped it to death,” I interjected. “It’s on the shower floor.”
“May I?” He asked permission to enter her room, glancing at the damage that I had done to the jamb on his way toward the bathroom. Eva and I followed close behind.
“Just a King Snake,” he announced after a brief examination.
“That’s what Adam said. Something about red and yellow…”
“Yes, red and yellow, kill a fellow; red and black venom lack. It’s an excellent way to tell them apart. Well, don’t worry about him. I’ll get rid of him and fix the door while you go down to dinner. I think Inez was just wrapping things up.” As he spoke, he looked up at me and I saw something flash across his eyes that I didn’t like.
Initially, I thought his look was one of amusement, but there was something else to it; it was that sinister look that I had thought that I’d seen before. As hard as I tried, I simply had a hard time trusting him, though I hadn’t quite figured out why.
“Where did he bite you?” he asked Eva.
“On the foot.” She slipped off a flip flop to display the bite for him.
“It probably stings a bit, but you’ll be okay. Have Inez take a look at it when you go down stairs, she can break off an aloe vera shoot and rub it on the bite. It will get rid of the sting and any swelling.”
“Thank you,” Eva replied, slipping her flip flop back onto her foot. “Are you ready to go to dinner, sweetie?”
The tone as well as the name surprised me and for a second, I wasn’t sure what her question had actually been, but my brain kicked in suddenly and I responded. “Oh, yeah… I just need to put on my flip flops.”
Chapter Seven
Most of the evening after dinner was spent in the study looking at the charts, studying the available information, logging into our computers in order to check in back home, talking and laughing. Eva was particularly eager to be near me and touching me, something, of which I certainly had no objections.
Eva was not overly anxious to return to her room, still thinking that there was an infestation of snakes waiting in her bathroom, under her bed, in the closet of perhaps in the dresser drawers. Though both Andres and Inez assured us that it was a very rare occurrence to find a snake in the house, Eva wasn’t buying it and her nerves wouldn’t allow her to let go of the fears that she had.
Though the topic came up a few times during the evening, for the most part, I tried to keep the subject on something other than snakes and did the best I could with my rather dry sense of humor to keep things light. Evidently it worked, because Eva seemed to be laughing and smiling the entire night. The one subject that I didn’t have the courage to bring up was the fact that I had seen her naked and that she had actually pressed her nude body against me. The images had continued cycling through my head, but I had done my very best to avoid anything that even went near that particular topic.
As the evening wore on, I had become a great deal more comfortable, to the point where I was beginning to act silly, doing things that I had never dreamt of doing around Eva. The more we laughed, the more she snuggled in close. It was the sort of night that one never wants to see end; however, at long last, our laughter faded and we became quiet as we sat in each other’s arms. It was Eva who finally broke the spell when she happened to glance at a clock.
“Oh my God, Adam! It’s two in the morning and we have got to get some sleep so we can go back to the pyramid tomorrow.”
As much as I hated to let her go, I had to agree with her. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” I avoided talking about snakes in her room, though secretly I hoped that she wouldn’t be able to go back to her room and would opt to sleep with me in my room. The thought raced through my mind as we made our way from the study up the stairs and down the hallway. My heart was thundering in my chest and my mouth was dry by the time we reached our doors.
“You going to be okay?” I struggled to get out of my cotton-filled mouth.
“I think I’ll be okay. Thanks for everything, Adam.”
When she looked up at me with her large, beautiful dark eyes, I felt all sorts of sensations rushing through me, but I gave in to only one of them. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her thick, parted lips and held her as tightly to me as I was able while we spent the last moments of our evening together in a long, passionate kiss.
“Well, goodnight,” she whispered, again looking up at me with her penetrating stare. She turned away from me and opened the door to her room, looking back over her shoulder as she stepped through. “Go to bed, silly,” she giggled when she saw me standing there, looking after her.
“Um, yeah, right. Goodnight.” I replied, turning toward my own door as I heard hers close. The taste of her kiss was still on my lips and the feeling of her body pressed against mine still lingered as I absently undressed and slipped into bed. It was another fitful night for sleeping as my mind replayed the events of the day over and over in my mind from the boat ride to that delicious final goodnight kiss. Eventually, I fell into a deep slumber and knew nothing until I heard pounding on my door the following morning.
“Sweetie, are you up?” Eva called through the door.
I looked toward the window and realized that the sun was well up on the eastern horizon. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Jesus, I overslept! “Yeah. I’m up,” I lied, scrambling out of bed and pulling on the clothes that were on the floor.
“I’m starving. Let’s go eat breakfast.” She was completing the last sentence as I pulled the door open. “You just got out of bed didn’t you,” she giggled.
“No, I’ve been up for a while.”
“Liar,” she laughed. “Go get ready for breakfast.”
She looked so incredible standing there looking up at me with a glow to her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes that had dazzled me the night before. “I’m ready. Just let me put on my flip flops.”
“You might run a comb through that tangle on your head too.”
I glanced at my hair as I passed the mirror. She was right.
We’d gotten a much later start than we’d planned, but with a packed lunch in our backpacks and both of us equipped with the fanny packs for our smaller, more valuable and necessary items, we started out the door and along the trail toward Kukulkan’s Pyramid and the Mango Grove.
Armed with a great deal more information than we’d had before, we discussed what sorts of indications we might be searching for in order to determine when and why an attempt had been made to disguise the existence of the pyramid. It was all speculation, of course, but in order to solve a problem, one first needed to come up with a theory and Eva and I had several.
The day passed slowly, but we accomplished a great deal in spite of the fact that we had to take several breaks from working in order to hold each other and revisit the kiss that we had shared the night before. When the sun began to set, we were still atop Kukulkan’s Pyramid, watching the streaks of color spread out across the sky, changing in shade and tone as light slowly gave way to the coming darkness.
With flashlights in hand, we descended the steps, watching carefully for crumbling spots in order to avoid a horrible accident. The going was slow, but we eventually made it to t
he ground and started on our way through the Mango Grove on the trail back to the house.
When we were nearing the edge of the Mango Grove and starting into the jungle, we heard heavy rustling in the brush and we froze in place.
“What was that, Adam?” Eva whispered.
I could hear the panic in her voice, at the same instant feeling my own rise up. “I don’t know. Probably a monkey.”
“The monkeys are up in the trees. Maybe it’s a jaguar.” She wrapped her arms around me clutching my arms tightly to my sides.
“It’s not a jaguar,” I fought to get my arms free. No sooner were they free than her arms were again wrapped tightly about my waist.
“How do you know?”
“Because…” I whispered, not exactly sure how I knew.
“Because by the time you hear a jaguar, he’s already eating you,” A voice spoke up from the brush where we had heard the noise. A figure rose up in the beam of my flashlight and began walking toward us.
“Who are you?” I asked, not exactly sure what I was going to do when he responded.
“That depends on who you are?” he replied.
“We’re archeology students and we’re staying in the house on the lagoon,” Eva replied. “And someone will be out looking for us pretty soon if we don’t get back to the house.”
“Well, then,” he replied, coming closer. “I guess I better let you get back to the house then. I don’t really fancy having someone out looking about. It would be bad for me. Thing is, I need to be sure that you’re not going to be tattling about seeing me out here.”
I saw the beam from my flashlight reflect off of a long, silver blade in his hand. “We’re not going to tell anyone,” I replied, shaking, but keeping myself between the approaching man and Eva.
“We have no interest in who you are or what business you have here, mister.” Eva spoke harshly from behind me. “Just leave us be.”
The man chuckled and then sat down on a boulder beside the trail. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he spoke again. “So you’re staying down at the house, huh?”