La Paz

La Paz

I had been meaning to call her, but felt embarrassed and ashamed and...well, just not ready. But there she is, exquisite as ever, reaching for agave leaves at Caputo's Grocery.

"Elena?" I say to her. She stops her reach. She thinks. I hear her catch her breath. She smiles, turns around.

"Michael!" she practically screams. "Oh, Miguel!" She hugs me tightly to her, her head next to mine, a long time. There is no better place to be than in Elena's embrace. "Oh, God, I am so happy to see you again! Let me look at you. You seem different already, in your voice." She looks into my eyes, deeply. Her black agate eyes shine, as they did before.

"You have found something, eh, Miguel?"

"How is Roberto?" I ask, avoiding her question. A cloud passes in front of her sun.

"I no longer know, Miguel. I am not sure I ever did. Would I surprise you to say that sometimes, just when you think you have answers, along comes questions you never thought would be asked?" I shake my head that I understand, knowing that all too well.

"Can we get together, Elena? I have missed you so! Roberto told me there is nothing like spending a day with you. A Sunday. Manana?"

"Si, Miguelito!" she says touching my face. "I would love that. We have much catching up to do." She kisses me. "I was wrong, you know, about choice. It isn't always a matter choice. Come for desayuno. 9:30." I kiss her back and get her address. I am going to spend Sunday with Elena!

I left her and Roberto's house about a year ago. Not a day has passed that I did not think of her, sometimes hating her, mostly growing in love with her. I thought she knew everything. Roberto had called her his mentor. I was jealous and hated them both. I hated that she showed me how little I knew. Unshapened is what she called me. But I love her for sending me on a completely different path.

Saturday night, I fall asleep thinking of Elena. I dream, instead, of the demons, once again, and the hell in Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights." I am trying to cross a plain but am surrounded by the cacophony of flesh and pleasure, drink and food, all worldly things crushing against me. Devils block my way, pour wine down my throat to make me drunk, to make me pass out in their midst, so they can gnaw at my legs and balls and scrotum. The demons fill my mouth with food, use their feet to shove it down my throat. I feel pleasure and enjoyment, then disgust and revulsion. Pleasure and enjoyment. Disgust and revulsion. Pleasure, disgust, enjoyment, revulsion. I never try to leave. I do not fight the demons. I throw up the food and ask for more. I battle the demons and always lose. They cut off my limbs and they grow back as stumps. They pour more wine into me until I can no longer fight. Then I beg for more wine. Lust for it. A spirit flits about me like a hummingbird. It tries to suck the food and wine from my mouth with its beak. I kick at it with one of the stumps I have left for legs. It will not leave. The spirit asks if she should stay or go. I order her to leave. As she flies away, I yell "Stay! Come back!" She returns. I ask her to suck the pleasure and enjoyment, the disgust and revulsion out of me. She does. I ask her to take me away. I fly with her out of my own hell.

It is Sunday morning.

[how do i look, author! nice shirt, michael. you look better than a year ago, much better. you are not so tentative nor cock-sure, excuse the pun. you are not whining about being stupid. i hope all goes well. oh, you know me-i can go from zero to stupid in 5 seconds! i want to make this day the best in elena's life. make plans, michael. don't plan the results!]

"Buonas dias, Senora Arroyo!" I say, bowing, as she opens her door, wearing the same elegant Japanese kimono, my last image of her. She smiles, curtsies, and asks me in,

"Café, Miguel? Si?"

"Lord, yes! Negro, por favor." I walk with her into the small kitchen. As she pours the coffee, I touch her lightly around the waist. "How is my Elena, mi pequena flor?" I ask.

"Peh-kay-nyuh, Miguel." She corrects me. "Your vocabulary has improved but you speak like a gringo!" She laughs. "You are taking Spanish lessons?"

"Not really. I play tapes in the car. Then no one can hear my bad 'pequenas'!" She turns to me and embraces me again. "A year it's been! I've dreamed of you longer than that, I think. Twice a day. That makes two years!" She kisses me lightly. I kiss her back much harder. My hands reach to her ass and pull her to me. She grinds lightly against my hardening cock. She kisses my neck and ear, my cheeks. She grabs my ass and pulls me to her.

"The huevos can wait. Make love to me, Michael! I need you to hold me and kiss me. Be inside me!" There is a pain deep within her. I can only guess from Roberto.

"Do you want us to make love or do you want me to help you forget something?"

"Que?"

"I cannot help you forget Roberto...or anything else. You would be using me. That would be like you fucking me. Remember, Elena? You taught me--I have chosen not to let anyone fuck me."

She leads me to her bedroom. It is bright and festive and feminine. It smells of talcum powder. I stand behind her and she unties the obi. I slip my hands beneath the collar behind her shoulders and pull gently toward me. It slips off. I kiss each of her bare shoulders, nibbling them, and then gather her hair and lift it, move to her neck, and kiss her lightly. She leans back and moans, sighs, another moan and a sigh, as though she has returned home after a long absence. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me, then extend my hands down her thighs. She pushes her ass against me. I move my hands up to her breasts and hold them. They seem fuller, richer, than I remember. I breathe deeply, all through my nose, to capture her smell completely. She is my wine, my comfort food, my woman's smell.

She turns to me, unbuttons my shirt, and slips it off. She leads me to the bed and I sit. She pushes me back flat and kneels. She unties and removes each shoe and sock, and then unbuckles my pants and removes them. Still kneeling, she extends her hands to my groin and massages my balls. Moves to my cock. Back to my balls. Her breathing quickens, as does mine. She licks the inside of my thighs. She sucks my cock into her mouth. Oh, I remember her lips on me, their moistness and fullness and silkiness. She licks me and I feel hardness flowing into me. Elena sucks each ball into her, tongues it, nibbles at it. A spark she ignites radiates throughout me, coursing throughout my veins, leading from my cock to the tips of every pore, like the tequila. She awakens a passion that I could not have felt a year ago. "Mi dulce," she says. I become hard in her mouth and her suck is firm, makes my heart race.

I stand and we embrace, and get on the covers. Then I kiss Elena as I have never kissed someone before. My tongue extends deep into her and she sucks on it, sucks my mouth dry. I explore the ridges of her teeth, all around them, her gums and her cheeks. I will explore all of her today. We lie down. Our legs intertwine, straighten, and intertwine again, trying to touch in as many ways as we can, finding new areas of our flesh not yet caressed. Our hands never stop seeking each other, flying from part to part like we are each a guitarist and each a guitar, creating new and beautiful measures, new chords, new melodies, stopping at the right notes to create a sostenuto. I am kissing her in every place my lips can reach in our embrace, over and over. If I could melt within her, or she into me, I would gladly have that.

"Elena," I say into her eyes. "I'm in love with an angel."

"No," she says. "You love me. I was a puta, remember. Never an angel."

Elena breaks her embrace and kneels straddling my legs. "I must have you inside me, Miguel."

She guides my cock to her, moistens it with her cunt, and slowly glides on top of it. The moment I enter her is exquisite. She stops. Then slowly lowers herself farther, she settling on me. I look into her eyes and smile as I penetrate all the way into her. Her look is of...grace? And pleasure.

She lies atop me and cups my head. I feel her muscles work my cock, as before. "Miguel, you are so hot and hard inside me. When we made love before, I did not tell you how much I loved you in me. How deep you were inside me, how deep you came inside me. Now, I want to lay before you. I want to wrap my legs around your waist and feel you make love to me. I want you to make love, hard and hot and for all day!" She pauses. "This is not about Roberto. This is all about you and me being a man and woman."

As she lies on her back, I kiss her deeply and move to her breasts. "Kiss them, Miguel, but do not suck. They are tender." I blow on her nipples and they become hard. I lick them, swirl my tongue around them. They taste so milky sweet! I blow across her stomach and it flutters, like a tiny bird is inside her. I reach her hips and bite them lightly, kiss inside her thighs, lick them and up to her cunt. I look at it and feel such an overwhelming desire to consume her. I kiss her gently and then hard. Elena moans and I am taken with passion, lapping at her slit, licking up to her clit, her sounds urging me, her hands holding my head to her. She remembers the water. The salt.

I rise to my hands and knees, extended over her like a net to toss about her. She guides my cock and I slide in, just the head, and hold. I feel the heat of the crucible flowing from her into me and shooting throughout me as a burst of temperature. I glide deeper, slowly, feeling her moistness. She reaches around and grabs my ass, pushing down on it. "Fill me," she says. I plunge in and we grind together, dance an undulating chacona. It is loving and passionate and exquisite. Elena sighs and pants, growls and purrs. She digs her nails into my ass and bites my shoulder. "You turn me into a furnace, Miguel. You burn me with passion!"

She wraps her legs around me and tries to push me in deeper. I raise up and place my arms against her thighs and raise them, push them forward until she is nearly doubled over. I thrust hard and deep, light and shallow. My cock feels so hard that I think it may break off inside her! But her wetness tempers the heat. I withdraw and replace my cock with my tongue. I lick her lips and begin to suck her clit. Elena pounds each fist into the mattress. "Madre del Dios, Michael! Yes, oh, yes!" I tongue her deeply, lapping her juices and swallowing her, gulping her, sucking her dry. She pulls my head and holds it down on her, thrusting her pelvis up. "Ooooh, Miguel!" She shudders, quakes, quivers, thrusts again, and shudders, thrusts again, and quakes. Then, she is all quiet.

I sit back on the bed and she kneels in front of me, grabs my cock. "You cannot do this and leave me for another year, Michael!" She leans over and begins to suck me. I lean back and extend my legs. She takes me all the way down her throat. I feel her pulse her throat, as her cunt did, squeezing my cock and relaxing. She moves to my balls and takes them both into her mouth. She licks them, rolls them, then kisses and blows on them. My skin tightens. She again holds my cock and licks it, over and over, under the purple hood. I can barely breathe as she buries me as deep as I can be. She pulses her throat a couple more times and I cum. I should have told her I have not been with a woman since her--cum is not the right word. I explode, detonate, erupt, launch, eject, spew more cum than I would think possible. Throw in my brains and heart too. She coughs and some semen drips from her onto me. She lies atop me. Quiet. Then she starts to laugh. "You know, Miguelito, it is okay to jack-off once in a while!" I kiss the top of her head.

"I was going to bring flowers, but they're awfully trite, don't you think?" And we laugh together, warm.

I hear crying. That is a baby crying. Next door? In the next room? Elena and Roberto had a baby? I look at her and she has a shit-faced smile about her. "A pequena muchacha wants to meet you," she says with a laugh. She rises from the bed and leaves the room. Roberto and Elena had a baby, a daughter, and now he is gone. Elena must be a father as well as a mother. The smell of talcum, the sore, fuller breasts--doltness takes its holidays, but it always returns!

She stands naked in the doorway holding the baby, no longer crying. It is the most beautiful Madonna and Child I have ever seen. I cover myself up out of instinct, and Elena stands next to me. "Would you like to hold my baby?" she asks.

[uh, author? it is just a baby, michael. go ahead and hold it. women love men who aren't afraid to hold and cuddle a baby! knock elena's socks off--or something!]

I take the child. I'm not big on babies. Puppies, kittens, baby gorillas I would hold. She is beautiful, not as dark as Elena but with the same black agate eyes and black hair. I kiss and snuggle to her. Strange I should feel so close to her. Elena lies next to me.

"How old?" I ask.

"Tres meses," she says.

"Cuál es su nombre?"

"Paloma," Elena says. "It means 'dove.'"

"I think she likes me. I can almost feel her hugging me!"

"Ella ama a su papa!" Elena laughs, with that shit-faced look again.

"Que!?"

"Si, Paloma MacGregor Garcia Ramirez!"

[now, michael, i didn't have anything to do with this! you've got to believe me! it's as much a surprise to me as to you! wait a minute, author! that's bullshit! you're writing this! what the fuck do you mean surprise?! this is all from elena. michael, believe me! i had no plans for this to happen!]

"You are telling me that I came in you once in a hot tub and...."

"Si, Miguel. You have strong seed! Good swimmers!" Elena laughs.

"How do you know she...."

"Isn't Roberto's? That is why he is gone. The testing showed she wasn't his. And you are the only other man I have been with in years."

"I...uh...I...uh, can't, uh...fucking believe this!" This baby, this Paloma, is my daughter!

[how could you not know this, author?! you fucking prick!

how was i suppose to know? i haven't been with elena for a year, since 'la guitarra.' a year's a long time, michael! see what can happen in a year? now, elena, i can't just let characters take over a story like this. i had different ideas, you know, about how to end this! senor autor, fuck off! go write some pornografia and have someone in your story fuck you in the ass--without lube! let them dance on your back with boots and piss on you!]

"I did not know where you were, Michael, or I would have told you. I thought of an abortion, especially when Roberto found out. His anger and pain were ceaseless. He did not mind that the baby was ours. He could not stand the thought of today, that you would return. Then what? But look at what I might have done! The choice may have seemed to be there but it really was not."

"You...and I...are parents? This is...our baby?" says a man a little slow to understand.

Elena takes Paloma from me, kisses her, and sets her on the bed next to her. She hugs me. "Miguel, listen to me very carefully. Yes, we are the parents of the most beautiful baby in the world. Yes, it is our baby. I went ahead and had her never expecting to see you again. I always hoped I would, but I never expected it. I always hoped you would meet her, if just once.

"I do not pray. Yesterday, when I heard your voice, I realized I had been praying. Paloma is here for you anytime, Miguel. She will need a papa. She will want to learn about you and from you. Better about and from you than from me. Much better.

"You can walk away, Miguel, as well. It is a choice for you to make."

I hold Elena to me, holding her with the love I am capable of feeling, and reach to touch Paloma.

"I have another choice, don't I?" I ask.

Paloma. The dove. Peace. La Paz.

[well, you're just a fucking asshole for a writer, author! you really suck when characters in your stories do stuff you don't know about! jesus!

did elena say she'd marry you? i took myself out of the loop when she said the baby was yours!

why should i fucking tell you?! so you can write a happily-ever-after story with characters out of control?

remember the last time we talked? you said if i put you in another story with elena, you would tell me what love is. so, michael, tell me-what is love? i cannot tell you that and there are hundreds of people who could do a better job. but i have learned this. you cannot really love another until you love yourself. and if you love yourself, then no one can ever fuck you. and if no one can ever fuck you, you live in grace! now, get the fuck out of here! i must learn to be a papa...and a marido!]