by Calinda B
I know, dulzura, I know. A soul binding is the most serious form of communion that there is. It creates one where there was once two. It changes one’s biochemistry. It alters one’s life pulse. It must be a binding that is agreed upon by both parties. What I did was wrong!
I can almost feel him shuddering with the force of his words.
It is beyond reproach. My…my mother spoke to me. She told me that my father did the same thing to her. She said it changed him, and not for the better. I may walk down the same dark path as him, but I will not walk without a conscious. I accept responsibility for my actions. I will undo what I have done.
For an endless moment we both share a communion of silence. These are the words I thought I’d never hear. This is the sentiment I thought would never happen. This changes things. This changes everything. My heart feels as if it’s shattering. It feels as if it’s exploding into miniscule bits. What will I say to Rafe? What will I do with Rafe? Does this change how I feel about him? Does this erase the moments we have shared? I have to tell you something.
Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know.
This thought stuns me. It stifles and silences me.
I’m closing the gate again. I’m closing the gate between us. Any choice you make has to be done of your own free will.
Wait, no, Daniel! Don’t go away! Daniel, please! I’m sobbing now. I’m soaking this strange world with my tears as I beat my hands against whatever substance I am resting in. Daniel! Daniel, don’t shut me out again. Come back to me! Please! I’m met with silence inside and out. I hear nothing but my own sobs, my own heart fluttering against my chest, trying to escape the prison I find myself in. I have to make a choice. It’s the one thing that scares me more than anything. I’ll face Armando. Send El Demonio back from his grave. But please, please don’t make me face a choice between the Stealth Numen and the Night Numen. It’s a choice I don’t think I’ll be able to make.
Chapter 32
Armando drops the last wooden crate into the back of the Jeep outside of the decrepit warehouse in the isolated outskirts of a tiny town near Sao Paolo. He bangs on the side of the Jeep, and the military uniformed driver jerks from his doze. “That’s it! Now take me to my hotel.” He climbs next to the soldier, and they roar away.
Once he’s back at the hotel room, he pulls a couple tiny bottles of bourbon out of the small refrigerator mini-bar. “Where are those damn whores?” He chugs one of the bottles, pops a couple Klonopin into his mouth. “Kpins to the rescue,” he mutters. “These will chill me the fuck out. Now where are those damn hookers?” He picks up a crowbar and pries the lid off of one of the crates. Inside, nestled in a bed of shredded foam, lay three Colt M4A1 carbines. He lovingly picks one up and hefts it up and down. He holds it against his shoulder, peers through the gun sight, and pulls the trigger. The lever makes a hollow clicking noise. “This should do the trick,” he states. “When all else fails, resort to weaponry.”
A timid knock sounds at the door. He tosses the firearm on the bed and heads over to open it. Boobs and Tits stand in the air conditioned hallway with a blanket wrapped around their hips.
“Let us in,” Boobs hisses and she and Tits hustle into the room. “We’re a laughing stock. Everyone is teasing us and calling us names. We had to throw this blanket over us. Nothing else fits. Nothing else disguises.” She lets the blanket fall leaving them wearing two separate shirts and nothing on their naked, distorted, conjoined hips.
“You’re going to pay for this,” Tits adds.
“And just how will I pay, exactly?” Armando runs a finger down her cheek. “I’m the one doing you a favor by letting you live.” He tips his head and studies them. They do look like freaks. This will never do. He flicks his, hand and they instantly separate, falling away from one another. “Get busy,” he orders. “Get me off, and I’ll do you another favor. After I show you what you’re going to do for me in the field.”
“What if we don’t want to?” Boobs asks, turning around to see if a tail still exists.
Armando shrugs. “You go back to being freaks. I’ve got no problem with that at all. I can call someone else just as easily and with far less trouble than you two have turned out to be.” He wanders back to the mini-bar for another mini-bourbon. Drains it and plucks a cigarette from the pack on the counter. “Care for a smoke?” he asks them.
“Sure,” Boobs says, reaching for the smoke.
He lights it like a gentleman and takes a drag from his own. He’s starting to feel very relaxed. As in very….Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to take so many Kpins. That stuff is a “forget about the day” drug, not a “get busy” drug. His eyelids start to droop.
Boobs hands the smoke to her friend and saunters over to Armando. “So, what you want us to do? The usual?”
“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ve changed my mind. Let me show you what I want you to do for your task instead.” He picks up the gun from the bed. “Ever used one of these?”
Boobs frowns. “No.”
“You?” he nods toward Tits.
“No,” she says, nervously sucking on the cigarette. “Never.”
“Come here then.”
She hands the smoke to her friend and takes a few tentative steps towards him.
“Don’t be frightened,” he says gently. He puts the cigarette between his lips and leans in close to Tits. He remembers when he taught Gabriela how to shoot a gun. She was a quick study, but she hated it. He found it endearing for her to be such a good shot and so resistant to actually shooting the gun. He chuckles to himself. He tucks his arms around Tits’ back and positions the firearm along her shoulder. He places her hand on the vertical grip and wraps his hand around hers. “See, chica?” he says, using the endearing Spanish word he used to call Gabriela. “It’s easy. All you do is pull the trigger, and the gun does all the work. It fires like a machine gun. There’s a magazine that goes right here. The magazine holds the ammo.” He speaks to her like she’s a child with no knowledge whatsoever of guns. His arm grazes against her boob. A bit of ash falls from the end of the smoke and lands on her shoulders. He brushes it away with his fingers.
Lips leans back into him.
This is just like when I met Gabby, Armando thinks. We kissed for the very first time after she took her first shot. The stirrings of arousal stiffen him. He maneuvers the cigarette he holds between his fingers to Lips’ mouth. She takes a drag. He brings it to his own mouth, draws the tobacco into his lungs, and exhales a long stream of blue smoke. He sets the burning smoke in an ashtray and brings his arms back into position, securing the gun against Lips’ shoulder. He presses his erection into her ass.
Boobs looks on with a bored expression, finishing her own smoke.
He places his palm over Lips’ hand and guides it along the cool metal. “See, chica? You are a natural. You will be good at this.” He rubs his nose into her hair, rocking his hips into her. “Yes, that’s it.” Her hair is nearly the color of Gabby’s hair. She’s wearing a light, rose-scented perfume that reminds him of his wife. He’s suddenly more aroused than he’s been in a long, long time.
He frees his arousal from his pants, and strokes her tender flesh, rocking his hips with vigor, just like when he was a younger man. He groans and finds his release. When he comes, it’s perhaps the best orgasm he’s had in an eternity. It was almost like having sex with Gabriela.
He releases Tits and zips his trousers.
Tits whirls around and aims the gun at him. “Is this how you aim it?” she asks with a sneer.
His tender mood pops like a bubble. “Put that thing down,” he roars. “Never point a gun at anyone. Especially at me.” With an angry flick of his hand, he joins the two whores at the hips again. They fly together like magnets, shrieking. I’ll turn them into cats soon enough. They’ve got to track the scent of my prey. But for now that will keep them out of trouble while I plan. My son is in for a rude surprise.
An image of Gabriela flash
es in his mind again. Where are you?
You can’t find me.
I’m going to harm Daniel, you know that, right? You son is a dead man.
You can’t do that! I won’t let you!
There’s only one thing that will stop me.
What is it? Tell me.
You’ll have to figure it out before it’s too late.
You’re an evil man, Armando. Pure evil!
Evil I may be, but you always had a way of making me… He pauses, searching for the right word. You always had a way of making me behave. Without you, I’m out of control. He smirks at that thought and what he imagines her reaction might be. Without you, I can’t be held responsible for my actions. His smirk becomes a smug, satisfied smile. He cocks his head, waiting for a response. When nothing comes, he thinks, Gabby? Did you hear me? Your son is a dead man. Dead as our marriage is. He strains to hear something. Anything. Goddamn it, did you hear me? Where did you go? When nothing but the sound of the whimpering hookers fills his head, he grabs a canvas tote from the closet, shoves the guns inside and turns the whores into cats once more.
He clips a diamond collar on each one and fastens leather leashes to the collars. “Do your job, bitches. You’re going to do your scent thing and find the opening to the Shadow Lands. I’ll take it from there. I may be old, but I’ve still got a trick or two up my sleeves.”
Chapter 33
I must have fallen asleep because I am awakened by soft kisses on my eyelids. My eyes pop open, and I stare straight into the soft blue eyes of the Stealth Numen. His hands cup my cheeks. He’s crouching next to me, searching my eyes earnestly, honestly, openly.
“You were whimpering,” he says.
“Was I?” I sit up and wipe the sleep from my swollen eyelids. “I was crying. I think I was crying.”
“I know,” he says. He smiles at me indulgently. “I was giving you time to cry.” He brushes my hair away from my face. “We’re close, you know.”
The double meaning of his words lands solidly in my chest, making my heart ache again. I smile. “Closer every minute,” I say, smiling. When he doesn’t reply, I ask, “Close to what?” His face looks so beautiful to me right now. It looks like a face of mystery. It looks like a bright face of wonder. It looks like a face of unexplored possibility.
“You know,” he says and shakes his head sadly side to side.
I nod, mirroring his sadness. “When will we arrive?”
He shrugs. “Soon.” He looks away from me. “I just thought we might…you know…one last time.” He turns to me and his eyes are moist. “If you want, you know. Only if you want to.”
“Oh, Rafe,” I say, and my eyes resume weeping. I pull his face down to mine. We kiss, crying. We tug each other’s clothes from one another’s bodies. “It doesn’t have to end, you know.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asks. “It never really began. I live in a place that doesn’t really exist. That’s what I keep telling myself. To make it not hurt so much to lose you.”
“It exists. I exist. This exists.” I gesture to the small space between his body and mine. “I’m still here, Rafe. Still here…” I reach down and fit him inside of me. We both gasp as he enters.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I can never get enough of your beauty. Every moment with you has been a gift, Marissa. Thank you.”
He kisses my cheeks. Kisses my nose. Kisses my neck. Nibbles my earlobes. Thrusts inside of me and then his head falls back. He groans and thrusts again. “Goddamn it, Marissa, I can’t get enough of you.”
I wrap my legs tightly around him. I can’t get him deep enough. I want him all the way inside of me - every inch of him. I want to merge with him and dissolve into nothingness. That’s one way to avoid a decision, my sarcastic-self admonishes. I shove that thought into the recesses of my mind and focus on the present. It’s all any of us have. Any thoughts of past or future are but dreams. And right now I aim to be very, very present.
“What will you do if it doesn’t end?” I ask Rafe.
“I hadn’t thought of that. Don’t want to think right now. Just want to feel you, darlin’. Want to stroke you straight to heaven.”
I yield to his hips. Open wide to his hard cock. I take his tongue inside my mouth. Run my hands along his back. We’re both sweaty and grimy and desperate to connect, deeper than we’ve ever known. “I love you,” I say to him. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He smiles, and it’s as if the sun has come out to bless this moment. His face is radiant. “Thank you for loving me,” he says. “I love you, too.” He dips down to kiss me.
I feel amped. Pumped. Blown apart by gale force passion.
The pleasure builds and builds and builds. I sail along its edges. Surf along its curl of a wave. And finally, finally surrender to the force of nature guiding us both to ecstasy.
“Oh, God,” we both yell at the same time.
“Oh, Jesus, oh, God,” Rafe bellows. “Oh, Holy Mother of God!”
I don’t recall any man ever coming so long and so loudly. I guess this is where the Stealth Numen lets go, I think wryly. This is where he finds his voice.
We both seem to dissolve, just like I had hoped we would. For a stretch of time, we’re both nothing, two dots of light circling around one another.
A peculiar, tinny voice sounds, like someone speaking through an old, antique radio from “the Golden Age of Radio.” “We’re here,” the voice says.
“Here, where?” I ask. I land solidly against a wall.
“I can’t go with you,” the bizarre sounding voice says.
“Rafe?” I ask.
“This one is all yours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s an opening that only you can find, darlin’. Later. It’s been…it’s been….” He gives me one last searing, heart-blazing stare. And Rafe the Stealth Numen is gone.
I contemplate my surroundings. I’m staring at an obsidian wall. It stretches up as far as I can see. It stretches side to side as far as I can sense. It seems impenetrable. It’s smooth, shiny, and substantial. Is Daniel really behind that wall? The pulsing in my heart tells me “yes.”
Behind me is nothing but ominous clouds, dark as night. Overhead is the same. Underneath my feet, I see red and purple mist, with rivulets and pools of dark blood seeping out from under the obsidian wall. I run my fingertips lightly across the polished rock. “There’s an opening that only I can find,” I whisper. “I’ll bet if Sober were here, he’d help me find it.” I picture my Doberman, sniffing the wall, searching for a scent. Then I see him, clear as day. He runs and snuffles, splashing through the blood. Now that he has wings, I imagine him moving in every direction as he seeks his destination. As his wings propel him into the air, droplets of blood drip from his paws. I swear I can hear him bark as he finds something. “Is it up there?” I ask. “That’s kind of high up.”
The image of my dog dips down to where I am. His teeth clamp around my shoulder. He’s always had a “soft mouth,” a term breeders use to describe a dog that holds its prey gently. Still, it hurts being hauled into the air, even if this is my imagination. I cock my head and study my dog as he flies me to what he has discovered. His wings have grown even larger. They now shimmer, lit from within by beautiful blues, greens, and turquoise. “Are you really here?” His tail wags a hearty response. “Is that a yes or a no?” He wags even harder. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
He pauses at a tiny chink in the wall. “What do I do?” I ask him. He wags his tail again. I think he’s straining to hold me. We’re bobbing up and down from the weight of me. I’d better think of something fast. I picture the eye of a needle and imagine me diving through it. Nothing happens. I imagine myself as one, slender sliver of light, and I shoot to the other side of the obsidian.
In an instant, I find myself immersed in total, complete, “can’t see a thing” darkness. I’m spellbound by the absence of light. My other senses kick into high alert. Odd, snuffling
sounds come from my left. A heavy sigh, followed by a snort comes from my right. A crunching, gnawing noise sounds from somewhere beyond me. The place stinks, like blood and decomposing meat. My own breathing bellows in and out of my chest.
“I can smell him on you.”
These words land like a stone in my heart. Suddenly, more than from bone crunches or snuffling snorts from creatures I cannot see, I feel very, very afraid.
Chapter 34
“Can’t you fly any faster, woman?” Tom the dragonfly calls to his elderly lover.
“There’s so much to see, I keep getting distracted. I didn’t realize flying could be so fun.” Crazy Betty whizzes and whirls past Tom. She lands on a misshapen tree. “This place is weird.”
Tom zips up next to her. “It is that. Now get a move on.”
“What made you decide on dragonflies?” Crazy Betty asks.
“They’re one of the fastest insects in the world.”
“You did right, then. This is fun. I don’t remember the last time I had this much fun. I think it was when my last husband took us out to Coney Island - back in the good old days of Coney Island, I mean. We rode on one of them loop-de-loop machines.”
“You mean a roller coaster?”
“I think that was it, yes.”
“Let’s go, Betty.”
“I’m just getting to the good part of the story, Tom. Hold your britches up.”
“I don’t have britches. I’m a dragonfly.”
“Well, stop interrupting and let me finish. This eyesight is pretty spectacular, I must say.”
“I thought you wanted to finish your story about the rollercoaster?”
“Oh. Well, my husband was screaming like a baby on that contraption. He was always a soft-hearted guy. Not like you, my stallion lover.” She lets her wings vibrate against Tom’s wings.
