Chapter Thirty
Later, while Dancy plowed through the sleep of the fit, forgiven, and freshly fucked, Martillo slipped under the diaphanous aura of mosquito net shimmering in the light of guttering candles and padded out to the porch rail. He never looked more like an Indian than walking barefoot on flat stone; or standing naked with a waxing moon tracing his deeply cut muscles and hollow eye sockets.
He looked down at the last embers of the fire, where Morales and Maldonado hunched under blankets, talking. A foreshortened form came near the fire, walking unsteadily, One of the women, squat in a black gavan. When she got close to the men, Maldonado snaked out a hand to garner her ample buttocks. She giggled drunkenly, and lurched over nearer the other man, Morales, who also reached out to idly fondle her. Maldonado objected, loudly enough that Martillo could hear his trademark skewed profanities. Morales dismissed his objections with curt syllables and stood up to put a proprietary hand around the woman’s shoulder. Maldonado also stood, and they squabbled with bitterness but no real heat. The desultory argument continued a few minutes, then Maldonado stalked off through the garden beyond the patio, angrily lopping off banana palms and lantana limbs with his machete. Morales watched him go, then turned back to the woman and took a longer look. He slapped her, knocking her down, then spurned her with his foot and moved off after Maldonado, pulling a half-liter of tequila from under his blanket as he went.
Thoughtfully, Martillo watched the woman snuffling and stumbling away, then stared for a moment at the bright disk of moon. He turned to the table, picked up a talavera pitcher of water and poured half of it on his upturned face, whipping his head to clear his eyes and snap water off his hair. Cupping his genitals in his other hand, he poured the rest of the water over them, washing off the residues. He picked Dancy’s cotton blouse off the back of a chair and crumpled it to his face, drawing a deep breath of it’s odor, then dried himself with it, wiped it over his face and scalp, and walked back to the bed. Behind the gauzy veil moonlight etched the swells and shadows of Dancy’s body, legs spread, arms tossed out at angles, face turned to the side as soft as a teen angel.
His blood hammered in his throat at the sight of her. This is what it had all been about. This is why he had killed his brother, his patron, his father, his best friend. To take this woman. But no, Armando had hit him in the face, it had been a justified fight; it had been Armando’s knife, after all, not his. But then, he’d screwed his woman–a definite provocation. And betrayed his trust. But it was for love. And Armando had kidnapped her, stolen her; he had won her fair and square by comparison. No doubt he had been mistreating her–there had been bruises on her. Armando, for God’s sake, had planned to kill her.
But then who was he to come between Armando and his game? Nobody: a street urchin, a bootblack, Juanito del Dios. Don Nadie. There was no way around it; it was a sin against God, against man, against all he’d ever cared about. And he was left with a woman who could never possibly love a man like him. He straightened up and looked down at her. Okay gringa, he thought, if damning my soul to hell is the price of you, I’ll spring for it. My manhood for your love. “Por tu maldito amor, Gringa, por tu maldito amor.” He pulled the gauze aside and reached for her.
His teasing fingers had Dancy slippery and pumping a slow cadence with her hips before she woke up. Without stopping the pulsations of her belly, she looked up at him, lazily raised her hands to interlock behind his neck. She was shocked to see the tears on that carved, bulletproof face, and felt something flow out to him that was almost maternal. “Tell me,” she said.
He tasted his tears, wondered what she must think of him for such a weakness. “It’s not just for the love, mi amor. Or even that I’ve thrown away my life and soul for you. It’s that it’s not enough.”
She brushed at his tears with her cheek, still slowly flexing herself against his hand. “I know. I’m not worth it.”
He was shocked. “Of course you are. Oh yes. And more. I just know that no price I could pay would buy you, nothing I have or am could mean anything to you, or could compare to you.”
She felt her heart suddenly, no specific sensation, just an awareness in her chest. She felt her lips grow cool, her eyes sting. She looked into that brown, flattened face and said, “I’ll tell you what. I can only guess what I cost you. But I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it was worth it for you.”
He stared at her, a look she could barely meet, but couldn’t look away from. She used her hands to pry his face closer to hers. She said, “I promise.”
He moved to where she would be slowly engulfing him with each tidal rise and fall. Then he shuddered, a violent tremor that made her joints creak. He started kissing her hair, her face, her shoulders, whatever he could reach. He started to move inside her, slowly but with building power. She closed her eyes and let him drench her with his tears and his kisses. She felt a drowsy peace that came from the certainty of her commitment. As he became more violent in his attentions, she even felt peaceful in her arousal.
But a small, bitchy voice from somewhere broke in on her, saying, “Oh, sure. Just what every sincere young man needs; his very own Barbiedoll super-tramp.” She tried to snuggle back down into the warm body comfort of single-minded surrender. I’ll make him happy, she thought defiantly, I’ll be his. The nasty nun voice crackled, “A little late in life for getting noble, wouldn’t you say?” She frowned slightly against the rising tide of new, warm love and physical passion. I’m only thirty three, she thought, and grabbed Martillo by the hair, pulling his face into the coconut-scented hollow between her sweating breasts, guiding his lips to her nipples. Her last real thought before going down under the breaking wave of emotion was, “Maybe I should have had children.”
She had come twice; full, satisfying climaxes like she hadn’t had since the first year of her marriage, and was pitching downward into sleep when she heard him murmur, “The bank.”
The eyes opened wide, fixed on his, luminous in the pale light. “We talking deposits here? Or withdrawals?”
Martillo, still wrapped in her legs, ground forward into her, and felt her nails on his shoulders. As if they just slid out, he thought, like a cat’s. He said, “I’ll ask the men. See if they’re crazy, too.” Her excitement, at that point, got pretty evident.