The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  While the carriage was leaving Mario Toulon could not think of anything else: that delicious smile that Laura had displayed on her lips by simple and pure education. It had stuck in his soul. Although it was a funny grin of the most normal and rehearsed, to him —that was nothing more than a clumsy gallant— seemed to him the precise demonstration that beauty exists. And the look. What a look! He stayed behind that vision demolished inside, abstracted from the world. If he had died at that moment, he would have done so with the assurance that he was not lacking anything better, or anything more beautiful, than to see on Earth.

  With the beautiful women, and Laura Lopezosa was largely, Mario Toulon behaved like an incorrigible exaggerated.

  4

  When the princely carriage turned down a street to the right and was lost from sight, Mario Toulon seemed to come to himself. Still with his mind on Laura's smile, he approached a skeletal and filthy man. He was hunched, badly dressed and badly shaved. He seemed to have seen everything from a corner, where he asked for alms with a certain mastery of his trade. Mario Toulon’s passage was indecisive, because he still felt the pain of the stone of Feliciano's mother, who had barely concealed during the bland conversation with the angelic and delicate woman who had him half hypnotized.

  “Do you know her?” He asked as soon as he reached the corner.

  "What are you talking about, gentleman? I do not know anything. For charity, an Alexandrian bronze," the beggar implored, controlling the muscles of his face to simulate greater grief and helplessness.

  “Do not play with me. I have seen that you have not lost your eyes since the lunatic woman appeared. I want to know if you know the two ladies I spoke with a moment ago and defended from that woman, " he repeated in a more severe tone.

  The man stopped concealing, put an expression on his less forced face, and replied:

  “Of course I know them. Who does not?”

  “Who are they?”

  “Irene and Laura Lopezosa Quesada, Don Higinio’s daughters.” He paused. “Are you a stranger, right?”

  “Yes. Who is the darkest hair?” Asked Mario, who did not seem to remember whom each of these names belonged to, even though he had heard them from each of the sisters' own voices.

  “You mean the youngest one?”

  “Yes. It must be the youngest”

  “That's Laurita.”

  It was true. Now he remembered: Laura was the name of the earthly personification of absolute beauty, always according to the thief’s perception. He would never forget that name in his life.

  “Do you know where they live?”

  “Sure. Who does not?”

  "You have repeated the same thing a couple of times," he reproached resignedly. “I am asking where they live.”

  “I see you very interested in these two women. Maybe they do not want you to know all these things.”

  Mario Toulon looked up and down at the beggar. It was not easy, but he could sense the extent of the last words he had heard and, acting accordingly, he said:

  “It is okay. I already know what you intend. I give you a silver Alexandrian for the information.”

  “That three be better, noble sir.”

  “Two is fair.”

  “Add an Alexandrian more to that amount and you will have paid a fair price.”

  “Look at me well. I have a foolish face!” The beggar did not say yes or no. “From what I see, any rat in this damned town knows these ladies, am I wrong?”

  The beggar merely shrugged.

  “If it is not you, it will be someone else who will inform me. You have been insolent! Now I am not going to give you two silver coins. Not one either. You will have to settle for ten bronze Alexandrians.”

  The beggar did not seem to agree, but he did not say anything. Mario Toulon began to search among the stolen. He had hidden in all parts of his body the totality of the harvest of his robberies. Exactly eighteen Alexandrians of silver and fifty-six of bronze. Finally, after searching through several gaps in his clothes, he took out the ten bronze Alexandrians.

  “Here you are, and you better tell me the right way or I swear I'll come back for you to kill you.”

  The man counted the coins slowly and awkwardly, and accepted the deal by shaking his head in approval. It had been many months since he had so many coins in his hand together.

  “Speak already!” The thief yelled impatiently.

  The man, who looked like a beggar with a few years of profession behind him, although very well used, slowly kept the coins in his rags and after sighing loudly, he prepared to give the information:

  “Follow that street until you reach the Inn of the Eternal Rest of the Happy Boar. Turn right and go straight a good distance, almost until the town is over. There you will see a large house all covered with ivy. That it is. You will recognize it because there is a square at the back, and in the middle a fountain with a huge pylon.”

  "Very well," Mario said with satisfaction and with a wave of his face said goodbye.

  "Allow me a piece of advice," the man interrupted before Mario turned away from him.

  “And how much will it cost me?”

  “This one I give it for free. You have behaved like a miser to me, but in spite of that, no man deserves to ignore what I want to say to you; not even you, who are not from here and do not know people of this town. I do it because, otherwise, I would remorse consciousness later.”

  “Tell then.”

  “Don't come close to that family.”

  “What family?”

  “The Lopezosa Quesadas”. They are bad people. The worst that this filthy world has given birth. They are dedicated to exploiting hardworking and honest people," the beggar replied, looking into his eyes as challenge him. “The bastard of Sir Higinio, the two women you met today father’s, managed to ruin me and my whole family. Our only sin was to skin the sun while we split the back sowing their disgusting lands, which later did not bear fruit because of the drought three years ago. The drought! Do you remember?

  "Yes, yes," Mario muttered, although in reality he was not aware of those things.

  "He stayed with all the little benefit we got that year and how it should not have seemed enough, that son of a bitch, stole the four things I had ... He only left us the clothes we were wearing and a few blows scattered all over the body.”

  The man spat on the ground something dark green. Then he rubbed his mouth with the dirty threadbare sleeve of his shirt."

  “As for Irene, she's a bitch like all this big town," he pointed out, "and I would not be surprised if the story told by the woman you hit was as true as it is now day and the sun shines."

  “As a man of honor I should punish you right here for saying such things about such a delicate lady," the thief warned, taking his hand to the hilt of his ridiculous sword.

  "You are not a man of honor.” He denied, convinced. “Perhaps haggling a miserable Alexandrian to a poor man shows something of honor. You, rather, are a fool who does not know where you get...”

  Mario Toulon was partly discovered and said: "As you will understand, I can not believe the words of a beggar...”

  “Then go with God, and that nothing happens to you.

  But Mario wanted to know something more:

  “And about Laura... you also have an opinion.”

  “She is the only one who is saved, but who knows if she will eventually become the same as her whole family: In a damn devil.”

  “I do not want to hear more nonsense.”

  “Very good. You are already warned. My conscience remains calm. Now do what you want," was the dry farewell.

  At the time the poor man disappeared among the people as if he had never been in that place. Meanwhile, Mario Toulon was thoughtful.

  “Bah...!” He exclaimed after a while, dismissing in this way the best advice he would receive in his life.

  CHAPTER 4

  In the sister’s hands

  1

  I

 
rene Lopezosa Quesada, who at first was combing her blond and well-groomed hair —long beyond her waist— had stopped doing it to listen to the neighbors in the room, as it was evident that they were more than usual. She was quiet for a while with her ear pressed to the wall —having fun while eating grapes from a bunch that a servant had brought a few hours before—, but when Mario Toulon collapsed in the water, she could not identify the noise caused and she went out with curiosity to see with her own eyes what was happening in her sister's compartment.

  First, she took the copy of the key that Laura, perhaps ingenuously, had entrusted to her charge a few years ago. She tiptoed to the door and opened it slowly and without noise. She found herself in a very funny situation to her mind: Laura was looking at her frightened in a corner, covering her round breasts of newborn Venus with her left arm and hand and pubic hair with her right hand; and on the other side was the man they had met yesterday, soaked and naked, stuck in a basin and paralyzed by the surprise of seeing that he had been discovered.

  Laura asked for help silently, without saying anything; it was enough to see her. However, her sister did not notice it, fixing her attention on Mario Toulon's face, which turned out to be a gigantic comedy. Irene suppressed laughter and went into the room. She turned the key in the lock and, in addition, locked the door with a wedge-shaped wood that Laura had there for this purpose. She checked again the scene before her eyes and laughed a little, leaving a smile on her face that remained intact the rest of the evening. She took the towel that was left on the floor and spread it over the spilled water, so that it would be soaked in it and not fall to the floor below. Then, to the other two people’s astonishment, who remained silent, she calmly approached to the window and closed it, thus preventing the constant gulp of heat from the outside.

  “Well, well...,” she whispered thoughtfully.

  Mario Toulon remained still without reacting, absorbed and embarrassed by the insolent visual examination of his anatomy —very slowly and from top to bottom— that Irene Lopezosa, with an absolute face of malice, had performed. With that gesture she wanted to imply that the control of the situation was hers; she knew very well what she was going to do.

  "Gentleman," she greeted, making a humorous bow, lifting up her skirt made of fine muslin cloth, adorned with multicolored ribbons and pompoms; and flexing her legs at the same time that her head was leaning forward. It was a more comical than credible position.

  The thief also moved his head forward without knowing very well why, perhaps out of inertia, and then quickly covered his parts with his hands, as if he had not yet given Irene time to see them in the tiny totality in which they were at that moment.

  "You, who have so kindly come this far, will help me give some practical lessons to my sister," Irene said, her unbalanced mind working with chilling rapidity. “These are things I had wanted to inculcate her for a long time, but unfortunately I have not had any volunteers willing to lend themselves to such a charitable and benevolent teaching," she added, still smiling. “The poor woman is only fifteen years old and she needs to be fluent and learning according to what things. Do you understand me?” She asked, mocking even more. “Believe me when I say that I have tried tremendously so that Laura did not end up ignorant of all there is to know about these conflicts, but in this, you will agree with me, practice is an essential and necessary part...”

  "Fifteen years," Mario muttered, as if it seemed to him that Sit Higinio's youngest daughter should have a minimum of five more; but then he felt something hit him in the face. After the impact, he could see that a white towel that Irene had rolled up hit him. Before, she had taken it from one of the cupboards while explaining, with that facility of her words, some details of his sister’s education.

  "Get out of there and dry yourself, good sir," she ordered.

  Laura, meanwhile, kept calm, quiet and not knowing what to do. She did not understand what her sister was talking about or what her intentions were going to be; but she trusted her, and now that she was there, she was much calmer. In spite of everything, she could not help but put a huge face of surprise when Irene took off her white and yellow blouse from walking around the house. The garment was much more luxurious and expensive than any of those that could be seen in the town streets, but it looked more like a man’s than a woman’s and did not show any adornment, so Irene Lopezosa never used it outside of the walls protection of the mansion on the hundred fires street. Once she threw the blouse to the floor, she uncovered two huge, beautiful and upright breasts that seemed impossible in a woman with a waist so thin.

  “I have to repeat it to you!” Irene exclaimed as she peeled off her skirt without any shyness.

  Mario Toulon admitted that, despite the situation, the order to leave the basin and dry was reasonable enough; so he got to it, but it was hard to look away from the woman who was stripping off her clothes with feline speed. The thief could see that her legs were long and thin, like her neck, but they ended up in a butt, perhaps a bit too full of flesh. The abdomen and shoulders, curiously, had them muscled and defined as those of a person accustomed to hard work. The triangle of curly hair that gave way to her hard, round thighs was shaved so that it represented a heart. A heart that ended in the only thing that hid in that moment. All the parts of her body fit as if each belonged to a different person, but the result of this curious mixture was incredibly attractive.

  The thief, once dry, conditioned the towel as a skirt. He told himself that he had to be strong and look away from where that pair of breasts were not, that at any movement of her mistress, they were swaying sensuously, still aiming at the ceiling. Moreover, at the end, he gathered enough strength and after verifying that the towel could not fall from the waist, he walked to where he had thrown his clothes. He was ready to leave because the situation was clearly out of his hands: although he had before his eyes a pair of beautiful naked women, capable of driving any man crazy, he did not feel capable of controlling them. Especially one of them. The love spell that Laura seemed to have sent him, now vanished at the unexpected change of roles. The woman with the huge tits pretended, without a doubt, to want to send him over and that was something that he could not tolerated from any female person.

  "No, no, no," Irene denied, shaking her head from side to side. “You will not be so discourteous, after you have come this far, after so much trouble on your part...” She put on a studied face of offense. “Now you will not refuse to teach the one who does not know with your priceless example, noble sir.”

  “Listen, my lady. You have converted something that would be beautiful and clean in complete nonsense," Mario Toulon said, without Laura sharing his opinion. “Nothing has happened, with which I leave. I do not like your game; In fact, I do not understand it.”

  “I remind you that you are in this house without the owner’s consent. Perhaps your game is honored...”

  “If you think that way you should take me to justice,” Mario answered quickly.

  It was not the first time he received a similar threat. In general, no one complied, knowing that only the sheriff’s guards of the Kingdom great cities were effective. In the villages a finger was rarely moved to solve the problems of its inhabitants.

  “It's not a bad idea. I could sue you,” Irene acknowledged. “You know that my father was a sheriff's guard in the city of St. Josafar. He has many influences...”

  “You can go and tell what you like," said the thief, thinking that the woman was lying. “I do not doubt that you will like to invent what has not happened here. It will not be the first time nor the last time justice seeks me. But I warn you, by the time you want to take action on the matter I will be far away, far away!” He commented, annoyed, turning his back on the two women, and trying to put on his breeches without removing the towel from his waist.

  Then he noticed something stinging on his back. Something that pricked him right up to the limit where he almost started tearing his skin. When he turned, he saw Irene without trying to hi
de anything from her curved body. The woman held the thief’s ridiculous sword.

  “Gentleman, you have convinced me: I will not denounce you.” She laughed amused. “You seem a good man and that game of mine that scares you so much, you will soon see that it is most innocent and pleasant...”

  Irene Lopezosa made a movement with the weapon, typical of the best swordsman, who stripped Mario Toulon off the towel at a strike. The sword visibly bent with the simple weight of the towel, but it endure with dignity with his work. The shorts that Mario had up to his knees fell to the floor and felt a terrible chill all over his body. A little more and the blade would have been there where it hurts the most. Cut, it would not have cut anything, since the sword had not been sharp for years, but it would have taken a terribly painful blow. Maybe castrating.

  “I gave you the towel to dry. At no time, I told you to cover yourself with it,” Irene explained ironically, as she gave her sword to her sister. “You see, nobody hides anything here. That's the way it must be,” she explained to Mario Toulon, as if it were not obvious, and then turned to Laura. "At the slightest suspicious movement, as soon as he does something different from what I order, do not hesitate to use it. After all, he is the intruder and once hurt; we can always claim that he intended to rape us. We, poor helpless and innocent ladies, only defended ourselves as we could.” She laughed again, savoring a situation that, if it happened, would give him great pleasure. “You can be sure that you would not leave this house alive. When people learned of your corpse in the town tomorrow, no one would ask questions and poor of anyone who dared to suspect your malign intentions. I hope you have it clear, Mario Toulon Middle-Voice Rabid," she pointed out, as she made it clear that she remembered the thief’s name, "because here, in this town, everyone will believe the story I tell. Not because it's true, but because they have no choice... And, besides, you cannot do anything from hell to defend yourself."