by J. S. Brent
Dear Jesus, Cortes breathed. He could just as well walk into the sunshine of the old man’s palace and ask for her. But the old man is steeling himself from the urge to do just that, just as much as he could feel the old man salivating over his lover.
You sick son of a bitch! Cortes swept the lamp from the table and left it crashing to the floor.
Cortes paced the room with his hands to his hair. He felt like a cornered animal. He always had the upper hand. Now he felt his mortality weighing down on him. He bit his hand and let it bleed. He wanted to feel the pain in a physical sense.
Ah, he cried after pillaging himself. He went to the bath room and opened the wash. He let water sluice down on his hand. He looked at himself in the mirror and found a man who had wasted his life to climb up the ladder only to find out that he would dupe his own self by letting the snakes enter his soul. Dyanela, as it turned out, was the redemption of his soul. He had let fate take its course and found the woman he loved. He should have known from the start that he would fall in love, that he was weak there for he must have known, saving himself for that one woman who would save him. Why didn’t he think of saving her as well. Even then, he must have known this would happen and should have prepared for the eventuality of saving her.
Perhaps, Cortes thought, he did. He could feel his heart beating fast and along with it his mind searching for a way to find her. His mind, his heart, his manhood had become one in the process of loving Dyanela. She is the ultimate reality of his dream. Everyone wanted the reality of his dream and immolate her to attain a greater glory over him.
His mind was searching. Cortes’s eyes landed on Dyanela’s laptop on the desk. The idea of an unattached server gleamed at him as the perfect reprise.
The game begins, he thought and was determined to win this out.
***
Dyanela made one look at the cane. She was unaware she looked at it. She had become so detached from her own self she felt numb all over and hungered for Cortes’s bite on her shoulder.
Lorenzo could feel the venom of the snake entering his blood stream. He knew it would kill him someday. This beautiful plaything, was not a plaything after all but someone who wanted to kill him. He, who could control governments and women, was confronting a woman who wanted to kill him. Ah, this woman would kill him first before Cortes did.
Lorenzo moved the cane nearer to him, across his chest.
Do you like pleasure, Dyanela? Lorenzo asked.
Who are you to ask me that with my name? she hissed.
I am Lorenzo and I am giving you a gift. Your life. But it comes at a price.
What price? Cortes? You want to kill him? I will die first before any harm comes to him.
I want to see the both of you dance. He will come. He will come to sit before me, the way we are doing now and he will kill me. Because, my little senorita, I know why he wants you.
Lorenzo traced his cane over her bare brown shoulder, dramatically.
I am a little in love with you as well, Dyanela, Lorenzo explained, I remember my wife, my Consuello when she was young and we were madly in love. I promised her the sun and the moon. And now here we all are. I have two children. They are both grown up living in the US. Both of them are practicing doctors. Ordinary lives, he sighed , I have grandchildren and they tend to look like me. I have strong blood. There is still hope.
Dyanela looked at him contentiously and was taken aback by the admission of humanity given by the old man. But her feelings of mistrust were still strong so she played along the only way she knew how by becoming the old man’s mirror and betraying him by his own feelings. He was tired and old, she figured, he must be feeling guilt-ridden, to what extent, she had no idea.
***
Dyanela was the mirror of his guilt, Cortes realized and by now they would be playing a game to distract themselves as they waited for him to come. Dyanela would not know the extent of the old man’s guilt, but Cortes knew deep in his gut, as certain as he saw the light go out from his own father’s eyes when he had taken to drugs.
The drug cartel was a strong and formidable opponent in the south. They would kidnap people and mishandle situations of civil propriety and negotiations by issuing an arm or a leg sent to the kin or the government and the kin or government would essentially yield. There was no winning in the war of the streets. There was great demand for drugs in the US. They reached the very pinnacles of power and to go on a solitary vendetta was almost unthinkable.
Cortes opened Dyanela’s laptop. He calculated the time before the cops would know Dyanela had been taken. He was certain his security outside had been infiltrated. He could also feel the hand of the controller in all of his movements as well. They would know when he would alert the cops, if he would do so or if he would simply walk away from the hell they’ve created in his home and find her own his own. She would be miles away on a plane and they would alert all their network signals for his coming.
Cortes opened a portal exposing several bank accounts in Mexico through his underground network. They didn’t know it would be him searching for he was using a different code name. He bribed them in exchange for information in a matter of minutes. Clean as a whistle bribing with no paper trail because he immediately put in large sums of money in their bank accounts. He narrowed down the largest bank account to a company with no established regularity with the government of Mexico and went from there.
Finally he was in. A bank manager in was offering his services and was responding to his bait. He had waved a large amount. The bank manager was willing to give a name.
HRS Companies had a major account in their bank. It was handled by a man named Terrero Aguilar. It was supposedly a shipping company but there was no sign of its existence in the building where it was supposed to hold office. A security camera showed an empty office with the help of his infiltrating network who had access with their own computer.
Before he could do much, a window opened. Terrero Aguilar dropped him an email. He opened the email and read. He was given a highway.
***
The plane landed on a private airstrip. Dyanela peered out of the window. The sun was shining. Beyond the horizon of the strip was a beautiful, sparkling ocean.
Lorenzo was a genteel company in the plane and continued to be so although he had told her that he would kill her.
She knew that he could, even if she escaped to any part of the world. He would find her and kill her just as she was afraid he would kill Cortes.
Dyanela was given a pair of shades and high heeled shoes before they went down. Her silken dress hopelessly flew about her as they encountered the hot Mexican wind upon emerging from the plane.
An elegant black car awaited them. Lorenzo helped her enter the rear of the car while his driver held his cane.
As they drove by fields of green in Guadalajara, Lorenzo proudly told her these were all his plantations producing a variety of produce. There were no signs of coca plantations at all and Dyanela dared not broach on it. He was in an exhilarated mood and was very relaxed.
“Why did you ask if I wanted pleasure?” she asked him.
“What?”
“Back in the plane. You asked me if I liked pleasure. What did you mean?”
“I meant well. Your boyfriend will come for you and you will all be treated like honored guests in my home.”
“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand you at all.”
“Let’s put it this way. It’s you I want to get to know,Who are you?”
Dyanela became silent for the rest of the journey.
***
They drove far and deep into the land of Guadalajara. Dyanela opened the window and allowed the warm breeze to whip her hair and face. She felt freer than ever before, as though she had been liberated from the confines of her stay in Los Angeles.
This was a different time and place. It was odd for her to feel so close to her natural surroundings and yet she was not home. She found this all exhilarating and even exciting
as though she belonged and yet did not belong. How could she betray herself, she thought.
Lorenzo watched her from the corner of the car. He found her beautiful and was filled with desire. Soon, they arrived at his hacienda. The focal point of it was a beautiful Mexican mansion with cream adobe walls, a fountain and a wide balcony on the second tier.
Black, ornate iron grilles were opened and by two sentries with rifles slung on their shoulders. The car entered the hacienda and eased in front of a colorful antique door with angels and saints battling with devils carved on it.
The door was opened and Dyanela stepped out of the car to stand beneath a hot Mexican sun. She relished the warm breeze that brushed her hair away from her face.
Lorenzo walked about the car to guide her to the mansion. He felt like a small child presenting his favorite toy.
He spoke to her about the hacienda covering acres of land with a horse stable filled with horses, a tennis court and gardens surpassing any garden from the whole world.
They stepped up the stairs to the ornately carved door. The door was opened by a Mexican woman in uniform who looked deferentially down on the floor. The interior was bright from the open glass sliding doors where white, lace curtains billowed in from the breeze.
There were many art objects and paintings scattered about. They were all in good taste. Dyanela observed a green glass sculpture that seemed to encapsulate light within it. Her eyes widened with irrepressible fascination over the beauty of the mansion. Lorenzo led her outside to a long veranda overlooking a blue kidney pool surrounded by thickets of shrubs.
Further away they could hear the neighing of horses and Dyanela realized that was where the stable was. Lorenzo thought she would want to see the horses so led her about the pool towards the stables.
The stables for horses was big and deep. The horses were huge, muscular black steeds , restless in their confines. The smell of the stables was stirring. Besides hay there was the smell of the horses themselves, sweating and very animal.
Lorenzo approached her and led her to his most prized horse. It was a huge, tall, massive black steed. Touch him, he told Dyanela and she did as she was told allowing her hand to slide against the black skin of the horse, feeling its contours and the muscle beneath it.
They returned to the house and the woman who opened the door for them came over to lead her up a wide flight of white and black marbled stairs to the upper floor. Lorenzo watched her go up from below. She could feel his gaze travelling all over her body, her exposed flesh, her legs beneath the short hem of her silken dress and how it would reveal her at a certain point of the stairs. She ignored his gaze and stepped further away from him. She wondered where he would go.
Her room was massive with a huge, four poster bed with a silken blue cover. The woman left her to stay inside and left the room. Immediately Dyanela rushed to the door and was relieved to find it was not locked.
She was strangely exhilarated by everything that was happening. The mansion was understandably irresistible and she could only appreciate everything it held. But she could sense the house was held on by secrets that were hushed like an afternoon of siesta.
She felt sleepy. She approached the bed tentatively and lay down on the silken surface before falling into a deep sleep.
***
When Dyanela awoke it was already night. She was still in her dress and felt sticky and unclean. She walked towards a big wooden antique closet, opened it and was assailed by an assortment of dresses in various colors. Beneath them were a line of shoes also in various styles and colors. There was a tray of make-up and some fine jewelry.
Dyanela was mesmerized. She put on a cotton blue floral dress that was had a low hem and a low décolletage. As though led by a hypnotic force, Dyanela left the room to go downstairs. She searched for Lorenzo. He was in the veranda where an array of dishes was laid before them on a long table.
Lorenzo, well-mannered as always, slid the chair backwards and she sat on it. He sat at the head of the table and steepled his fingers before him. She realized he was praying. After his short prayer, he came back with his usual sardonic wit.
Dyanela enjoyed the food, there were hot, spicy tacos and chinchilladas, a bowl of green salad and some warm sangria to wash it all down. Dyanela was getting tipsy herself and the words flowed through her mouth as the wine did its job.
Who are you, where on earth did Cortes Ancheta find you?
Dyanela suddenly looked down and smoothened her dress. She was feeling shy all of a sudden and was almost taken by the old man.
I am Dyanela from the island of Siquijor in the Philippines. It is an island reputed to be inhabited by witches.
Then, perhaps you are a witch, after all, senorita?
Dyanela laughed, feeling the sangria entering her bloodstream.
In Siquijor, she narrated, there is a thin line between a witch and a faith healer. Sometimes they are one, at other times you can really find the devil and God fighting for the soul between people who did good and those who choose not to.
You see, a witch, she continued, would harm a man when she is scorned. She can burn a paper doll that is an effigy of the man who has taken something from her, perhaps her freedom when he impregnated her and left her alone. And as certain as the sun sets in the sky at high noon, he will suffer. A faith healer will tell you how to counter the curse set on to him but with a promise that the person being healed will bring things to right.
I was a visionary and a faith healer. As a child I could hear voices of angels that were sharp and high like a choir singing hymns at church. They would tell me what to do. They taught me how to see the signs. I would feel the hand of a dying person and I would know exactly which part in his body is in pain and I would pray for intercession for the angels to talk to God and heal him.
Soon, rumors spread around that I could find people who were missing. I would touch something of value to the person and I would have visions of their agony wherever they may be.
People came to our house in droves. They would fill our house asking for my help. My parents exploited my skill and would make them pay money for my services. The police would secretly ask for my help, foreigners would test my prowess curious to know if the rumors were
true and people from my country would travel to my home to ask for all sorts of help, be it finding their loved ones, healing the sick and dying and even venerating me.
People surrounded me all the time. They propped me up like a saint by telling me to wear long, white dresses and coiling strewn sampaguitas about my neck. We had money then and I could have gone to school but everyone said I should stay home and continue helping people. I did, they just forgot I was still a child and needed to be cared for also.
Soon, my head would hurt. I wanted to go out into the world, away from the island and for everything to simply stop. My sightings were getting faded and as I grew up these sighting became more and more distant until I couldn’t reach them anymore.
Lorenzo listened intently to what she was saying, taking sips of the sangria in between.
Until you met Cortes Ancheta, he stated for her.
He was insistent and I couldn’t let him down. Also, he is a powerful man and could do wonders for the world at large. We can do good to the world together.
Really, you have such ambitions?
Yes, I never told anyone this but I honestly wanted to make a difference by helping him know the difference between right and wrong.
And what is right from wrong for you Dyanela?
She hesitated before saying more. She said more because she had to take control of their conversation and he was giving her the opportunity to do so.
You are hurting people. Cortes’s father died of a drug overdose. That is why he is fighting you back.
You do not know me, Lorenzo said looking at her intently, you still do not know how the world works. You are still young. Cortes would understand which is why we wait for him.
He will kill you. She said c
almly.
Perhaps and it would be a worthy death to dying on a hospital bed with a humiliating illness. He is a worthy adversary. To die by Cortes’s Ancheta’s hand would be an honor.
***
That night, Dyanela could not sleep so she stayed awake and sat on the balcony in a thin white nightgown.
The door opened.
Lorenzo was still virile at his age. He entered the room and saw her in the balcony, her hair falling down her back, the light from the moon illuminating her, the contours of her body very slight and apparent to Lorenzo’s eyes. He approached her and gave her a rose.
Dyanela’s breasts heaved and pulled beneath her gown. His eyes left her eyes and looked down at them. He touched one breast and she stilled herself. He pulled down the gown over her breast and watched a breast visibly open to him.
She had no choice. She could kill herself but he would let a thousand men enter her before she could kill herself.
He tugged on the gown some more and exposed both breasts to watched them for his pleasure. He laid her down in the balcony floor taking the rose. He pressed the thorny stem on the flesh above her breast and she moaned in pain. He was panting now.
