by Aitana Moore
James interrupted her, "I've never understood why people who have been unhappy in love sit listening to this kind of thing." He glanced around the room. "Look at those poor devils, they're just feeling worse."
Men and women nursed their drinks and mouthed the lyrics, some with tears running down their cheeks.
"Maybe they think that if they listen and cry, they'll forget."
"Let's get out of here," he said suddenly.
She didn't want to leave, because then he wouldn't hold her anymore, and she wouldn't see the pulse beating on his neck or feel the heat of his skin ─ but she smiled and nodded. She was in danger of doing something crazy, and it was better to go back to Sol's.
However, when they walked out into the street the men who had been exclaiming over her in the cantina followed them. James took her arm, his face closing in a scowl.
"Estoy enamorado!" the skull man from the bar cried after Lee. I am in love!
"Enamorado de tu puta madre," James said between gritted teeth.
"Give up that stupid gringo," the second man called out in Spanish.
The two men were gaining upon them. As the bigger one got closer and reached for Lee, he got James' elbow to the mouth. Blood gushed from his lips.
"A ver si la tocas de nuevo, imbécil," James told him. Let's see if you touch her again.
"Hijo de puta!" the friend cried, taking a step back.
"What's going on?" a man asked from the end of the street.
James was willing to stand there and get into a fight, but Lee pulled him by the hand and started to run. He ran with her, until they began to laugh. Reaching his hotel, they stepped into the threshold. She leaned against the wall and he placed his hands on either side of her in a protective gesture. Sticking his head out slightly, he checked if the coast was clear.
She turned her face up to his; she wasn’t going to look away. It was the tequila, the song, the wanting him.
"I'll take you to Sol's,” he said, but his eyes hadn’t left her either.
Lee shook her head.
"I made a promise, remember?"
"It's the Day of the Dead,” Lee said. “The world is upside down and inside out."
She pulled the mask over her face, then pulled his down. After a long moment, he lowered his head and kissed her. Her lips opened readily, and he brought her body closer to his by the waist. Lee's head whirled.
They broke away to run through the people standing in the hall of the hotel as if they were ghosts. In a matter of seconds, they were in his room.
And, although they had just been laughing, he now looked solemn and feral, almost angry. But when he lifted her, just as he had done in that other hotel room, she latched on to his neck and they fell on the bed together. His mouth tasted of tequila, of him, and he didn’t caress her — he gripped her thigh and pulled the shoulder of her blouse aside.
His lips wrapped around her breast as her hands remained suspended in the air. James pulled at her panties, his body moved over hers and she felt him slip inside her, easily — because she had longed for him.
Lee hissed and lifted her hips, so that she could take him deep inside.
"I'm not your friend," he whispered as he moved, and just before the abyss took her, she felt a savage joy.
TWELVE
The morning found them still kissing. She lifted her lips from his long enough to say, "My face hurts."
Still inside her, he rocked from side to side. "I hurt all over."
But they couldn't stop until they finally collapsed, rather than slept. When the sun was halfway into the room, Lee awoke with a start, waking James.
"The driver! I was supposed to text him last night."
"Don't worry, he won't move until you say so,” he told her in a gravelly voice.
Nevertheless, she got out of bed and looked for her phone.
"Damn..." she mumbled as she looked at the screen. There were twelve messages, one from Julio and eleven from Diego. The last one said, WHERE ARE YOU?!!!
She shrugged into James' shirt as she texted Julio first, then Diego: Sorry, got so drunk with Sol! How are things?
The reply came quickly: Can't call now, at mass with family. Not very good reception at the ranch. Glad you're all right.
Don't worry if you don't manage to call, I'll be home tomorrow.
The silence was heavy in the room when she hit “send.” James was watching her, his head against the wall as the sheet covered his lap. She knew that expression; he was about to get angry.
"What's the matter?” she asked.
"Trying not to get up and throw that phone out the window."
Her arms dropped. "And I'm trying to avoid a problem. The driver has been postponed till tomorrow."
"Is that when your boy doll comes back?"
She frowned. "He is not 'my' anything and you know it."
"Is that when he comes back?" James insisted.
"Yes." She looked at the phone again.
"I swear I'll smash that thing."
"It's something else. A girl — the brother's girlfriend."
"What about her?"
"She was supposed to text me and say how things were going at the grandfather's, and she hasn't."
"Probably forgot."
"You don't understand—"
"Not sure I need to."
"It was a big deal for her to be invited up there,” Lee insisted.
His eyes had become detached again. She hesitated for a moment, then approached the bed and sat by him. "James, you should know—"
"I don't want to know."
Her hand covered his mouth. "Please listen! When I told you I didn't have anything on Diego, I meant I didn't have anything that I think is bad enough, not yet."
He snatched his face away and turned his back on her. "Why would you start talking about this?"
"He doesn't touch me," she cried.
For a moment he was still, then half turned. "What do you mean? Not at all?"
"He's using heroin. Both brothers are. I think he wants me there to avoid questions, or to seem like some sort of stud when he can’t—”
There was a mixture of relief and puzzlement on James’ face as he processed the implications of what she had just said. "That's not what happened with Caitlin, or she would have told me."
"He probably did something awkward — failed at the right time and then tried to make up for it."
"Did he do that to you?"
"He hardly managed even that. The video on Caitlin is probably some sort of insurance to stop her from going around saying that he can't do it. I wonder if he even has a video."
"I hate weak people even more than bullies. They make the biggest messes.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Time for you to get out of there."
"I can handle things with Diego, but there is some bad secret there, I know it. If I find out, we’ll be able to rest easy about Caitlin."
He said nothing again; once his anger started, it tended to simmer for a bit. She crawled over the bed and straddled his lap. "Cat got your tongue?"
The tip of his tongue appeared between his lips. She bent, put her mouth over his and sneaked her hand under the sheet to touch his body.
"I'm willing to continue, as you can tell," he said, "but I need some sustenance."
She reached for the phone and passed it to him. He caressed the small of her back as he ordered a large breakfast and she felt the deep contentment of a woman who could touch the man she loved and make him laugh as she nuzzled him.
When breakfast arrived, James was in no state to open the door. He ran into the bathroom while the waiter laid out the dishes and later emerged with a towel around his waist. Lee uncovered the plates and fed him pieces of fruit as he caressed her thigh.
"You're a maniac," she remarked. "I can't imagine you trying to learn Eastern disciplines."
"Where do you think I learned to bear the pain of lovemaking?” he asked. “Just to give you pleasure, too.”
“Yes, you�
�re very altruistic.”
"Besides, haven't you ever heard the saying, 'God make me good, but not yet'?"
"That's called cheating."
"Why would you say that, Magpie?"
"Stop calling me that before you start."
"I know mind control is the only path, but it's for when I'm older. Now I want to sit here and look at your legs, and at your breasts moving inside that shirt and remember how they feel. I want to think of your down there all red and wet ..."
"Stop," she said softly, because she wanted him to continue.
"If I followed the wise path I'd have to think that you're a precious soul but otherwise just a hunk of matter in a certain shape, that pleasure is illusion, that every word we utter is full of error."
"The first version is more fun."
"Thought you'd agree."
He picked her up from the chair and she didn't protest. In bed he opened her shirt to kiss her breasts and she threw his towel backwards in the air.
By evening, they had a pile of dishes in the room and hadn't worn clothes all day. James lifted the sheet to look at himself and grimaced. "It's crimson. How's yours?"
"Hurts like a million knives."
They had a bath together, hissing and wincing when water or soap touched them. Once clean, they got dressed and went out, moving as if in a slow dream.
"Look, Magpie, we could find an antidote to our pain here," James said when they passed a pharmacy.
He walked in first and she followed, pretending to look at the bottles of cold cream with the skull mask over her face. A girl of about sixteen appeared round a curtain, smiling. James muttered, "Oh, for God’s sake ..."
Lee snorted.
"Is your father here, perhaps?" James asked the girl in Spanish.
"No, but I can get mi mamá."
Lee ran out laughing.
At the next pharmacy there was an old woman and no one else, and James leaned his elbows on the counter but couldn't muster the strength to explain anything as she stared at him with heavy-lidded eyes. He bought toothpaste.
People roamed the streets in their costumes, unwilling to let the festival end as flowers were sold at half price. James put his arm around Lee's shoulder and held her hand over his heart. They didn't know why people were looking at them, until a woman and her husband stopped them with a vague smile. They were American.
"You two are beautiful,” the woman said. “I just thought I'd tell you that."
She would have moved away, but James handed her his camera. "Would you take our photo?"
He would never just take a selfie with his phone, of course. They stood against the wall as the woman snapped their photograph and returned the camera. "Very beautiful," she repeated.
At nightfall they found another cantina and danced cheek to cheek. Lee couldn’t make out all the words in the bolero. It was something about loving only once in one’s life.
"What does the song say?"
He sighed. "Something sad."
Back in his room they made love with their tongues, as anything else hurt too much.
“You’re shivering,” he said afterwards.
“It’s a good kind of shivering.”
“You coo like a dove, you know that?” he said against her lips. “You go ‘Ooooooooh, ooooooh.’ ”
“You barely make a noise — and then you go, ‘Ah!’ Or you go, ‘Ah … Ah … AH!’ Sometimes ‘Ah … Ah … Aaaaaaaaaaah!’ ”
“We like different vowels.” He lay over her, looking closely at her face as he caressed her breast. His expression became more serious. "And what is it going to be like now?"
"I'll find something on Diego—"
"I mean after that."
“James — you need to know that what I did—”
He frowned. “I don’t care—”
“Please, listen,” she begged. “I stole because I didn’t want to feel poor and powerless anymore.”
“I understood that much.”
“But I also liked it. You need to know that.”
“I understood that as well. It doesn’t matter.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “What now?”
She said nothing.
His eyes turned sad. "You have so much courage, Lee — but none for me?"
Moments passed without her answering him, because there was no answer she could give. She was more afraid than ever. He pushed himself off the bed and walked to the window. He was there, just a few steps away, and yet she could feel his absence already.
"I'll take you to Sol's," he said.
They didn't talk much as they crossed the town. The morning was cool and pink, but they didn't hold hands as they had done only the night before. Everything was clean, as if the holiday had never taken place; as if the dead had stayed in their graves.
At Sol's James stopped and slightly shook his head. He would go no farther. He pushed the gate open for Lee, and when she stepped through it, he walked away without looking back.
THIRTEEN
"You have been frowning so hard you'll get a bad wrinkle here.”
Diego touched the space between Lee’s eyebrows. She had been pensively tapping an eggshell with a small spoon, making no effort to break it. He reached over to take her hand, giving it a small shake, "Come on, what is it?"
"Just the whole thing with Luz."
"Mi amor, do we have to go over it again? You're an adult, not a girl like Luz. Couldn't you see it was going to happen?"
"It's just a lot sudden."
He shook his head. "It's not. It was coming, believe me. She lasted longer than she should."
"So David told her it was over in the middle of a holiday?"
Joining the tips of his fingers together, Diego gesticulated in near exasperation. "That is exactly it. Why do you think it's so strange? Doesn't it happen every day? Don't people break up?"
"She was so happy to be invited ..."
"Yes, she was happy to be invited, and my grandfather was an angel to her. Then she kept posting photos and getting people to say nasty things and crying about it. David finally lost his head and told her to go home."
"You mean he told her it was over."
"Yes. He told her it was over and sent her off to her parents, in a nice car with a driver, OK?"
"Oh, I guess that makes it all better, then."
He sighed. "What do you want me to do, Ashley? It's over now. David isn't the kindest guy when it comes to break-ups. But as he says, there isn't a right way to do it. The other person will hate you and feel hurt no matter what."
"I guess she will recover." Lee glanced at her phone. "It's just weird that she hasn't answered a single text of mine."
"Pero que sé yo." Diego clearly wished she would change the subject. "Maybe she is mad at you too, because you're still here."
Going on about Luz would only alienate Diego, and Lee didn't want to do that; not when she was about to get something on him and leave, knowing that he could never harm Caitlin. Luz was most likely somewhere in the north, angry that she had been dumped — or David had shut down her cell phone account, as he had threatened to do. Perhaps she would soon text Lee; perhaps she never would. In any case, it wouldn’t be long before David appeared with another girl who looked like her.
Diego stood, grabbed Lee's face and kissed her twice on the lips. "Gotta go to work. Promise you'll stop being mad?"
Lee wrinkled her nose. "I'm not mad, silly."
"What will you do all day?"
Look through your things.
"I'm so tired." She stretched. "I feel like an old lady, and I was only in Cuernavaca for three days."
"It's Sol. Can she talk! And drink." He kissed her again. "Stay at home, swim, sleep in the sun. I'll be home a bit late today. We have a board meeting."
"Fun." She returned his kiss. "See you."
After he left, she sat sipping her coffee and watching the movement in the apartment. She needed to find a moment to get to his safe, and it would normally be after th
e maids had made the bed, tidied the room and polished the floors. They tended to be done by end of morning, when they retired to the other side of the house until lunchtime, unless Diego was at home and in need of their constant attention.
Lee had a swim and waited by the pool. When she saw the women going back toward the kitchen with their buckets and mops, she walked swiftly into the house in her bikini, slipping into Diego's office.
It was always dangerous to shut the door while doing a job. She wouldn’t be able to hear or see people coming, and once they entered the room, it would be too late. But the maids might go through the corridor to put freshly ironed clothes in their closets or change flowers in the vases, and she couldn't let them catch a glimpse of her. She had no good reason to be in that room, but neither did they, once they had cleaned it.
There was the added risk of being seen from the terrace through the glass doors, but a sheer white curtain was drawn over them. She wasted no time pushing aside the painting that hid the safe. The machine whirred and clicked after she typed the combination. She rummaged inside with light fingers, observing how everything was laid out so that she could put it all back the same way.
There were contracts, property deeds, Diego's diplomas and his expensive cuff links. Lee could find nothing that would incriminate him: no photographs, no USBs or other devices that might hold videos of Caitlin or anyone else. People Diego's age — or hers — no longer kept physical copies of things. If there were digital files, they must be securely stored in a server neither she nor Quinn had found.
His iPad was pushed to the back. He used it to read, sometimes, and she had been dying to get her hands on it — but voices outside made her freeze. The maids had finished eating and were going to start their chores in the house again. She could take the tablet, but she might not have the opportunity to return it to the safe before Diego got home.
Something compromising was in that tablet, and the hair rose on the back of her neck to think that she was close to the end of her job but had to let it go for the moment.
The contents of the safe looked untouched; she shut it and pushed the painting back to its place. Steps approached the office, and she quickly ducked behind the curtain, opening the glass door that led to the terrace. After shutting it, she ran through the terrace to the bedroom. She would have to go back into the office to flip the glass door locked again. If the staff noticed anything in the meantime, it would be the first strike against her.
