Drug Lord's Gifts

So, after a weekend of stewing about it, I stopped after work Monday and bulled head. The woman who met me at the door disappeared before I got my request out and returned with a guy only a little older than me. His stiff collar introduced him before his greeting.

"Yes, my son. How can I help?"

"Could we go somewhere alone?"

"Certainly." He led me through the main part of the church and into his office. You know? I'd never before thought about a priest needing an office. By the time we got there, he knew I was Matt Worden, and I had just remembered his correct address was Father.

"Have a seat," he said, so I did. He crossed behind his desk.

"So, tell me," he said.

"Well, sir, I have this little problem."

"Is this something that should be handled in Confession?"

"I don't think so ... and besides I'm not Catholic."

He nodded, but his eyebrows had raised.

"Be best if I started at the beginning. It's a long story."

The expression that took over his face said this wasn't the first long story he'd had laid on him.

"A year ago, I saved the life of a Mexican guy who was a big dope wholesaler south and west of here.

"He owned two young women, probably illegal aliens, certainly unwilling prostitutes.

"In gratitude for my help, he gave them to me, and got very uppity when I tried to give them back. My attempts terrified the girls. They said if I didn't stop trying to give them back, Mr. Espino would be very unhappy with them and might beat or kill them for disobeying him—or kill me, too. He apparently killed the pimp who brought them into the states—in front of one of the girls.

"So, since then, they've been living with me, and yes, we have sex. They're happy with that, and so am I. I have a good job and easily support them. I think they both love me, and no question, I love them both."

I paused a moment to see any reaction the priest's face might show. But his didn't. I don't know if he was stunned or what.

"So here's my problem. These girls need education, and I can't put them in school somewhere because they have no immigration papers and I don't want to chance them getting deported back to Mexico. Sure, I can teach them myself, and I try, but if I do so alone, they'll be old as my mother by the time I get them to high school level.

"Now, they're not catholic, either, so I'm not here trying to dump this on your church. But they speak Mexican Spanish pretty well, and they're not stupid by a long shot. I'm hoping you could use a couple teachers-aids in your preschool here, free-gratis, with your promise to help them learn at least some of what they should know as the adults they now are."

He leaned back and scrunched his lip up against his upper front teeth. I'd have bet he'd never run into this sort of problem before. After maybe five minutes he leaned forward again.

"Mexican, right?"

I nodded.

"No papers?"

"Far as I know."

"Over eighteen?"

I nodded. "Nineteen as far as I can determine."

"Speak Spanish well?"

"Well, some of it's not very refined. You know ... in that profession ...."

He nodded.

"Mister Worden, I have an idea. I'll discuss it with the priest in charge of our grade school over in the North Central Area."

Yes, I'd heard of that part of town. I wasn't really sure about sending my girls over there—at any time or for any purpose.

"Now, I'll see you out, then get working on that, okay?"

Two minutes later I sat in my car in the church parking lot, wondering how I'd break this to Anna and Maria.

***

I had two days before the priest called me back, so after his call, breaking the news could wait no longer.

The best way, of course—or should I say, time—was when the breakee, my first or second of the evening, was no more than two strokes past a climax. The difficulty lay in recovering quickly enough I could break the news to the second before the two of them broke it between themselves. That certainly would not be fair to the second, now would it?

"Oooh!" Anna moaned. I couldn't tell if her moan came from satisfaction we'd just given each other, or if it was the result of what I'd just told her.

"You do so always good!"

"What?" I said.

"Tell something nice when us feel so nice already."

Well, she had me figured out. I suppose Maria did, too.

"You don't want me to say nice things when we make love?"

Her answer was to jam herself against me, driving what little remained of me outside as deeply into her as possible. My impulse—one not to be denied—was to tighten my arms around her and pull her tight against me as possible. For that I'd tell her a never-ending string of nice, whatever it was!

"Oh, Senior Matt. Anna love you so much. How she am so lucky?"

"You are lucky because you make me lucky, too. Simple as that. You're good for me, and I hope I'll always be good for you."

"Anna make sure always she good for you. Maria want be always good, too. You see."

I didn't have to see. Already life with these two mirrored a morning sunrise that stretched from horizon to horizon, only to be followed soon after as a similar sunset.

The bedroom door latch clicked, and its hinges squeaked softly as the door opened.

"Maria?" Anna whispered. "That you?"

"Si. Can I in come? I miss him too much outside in sleep-room by self."

"Come in, Maria. Might as well. Not much left of me—Anna saw to that—but what's left you can share."

Of course, there was no need for me to say this. Already Maria was slipping into bed alongside me.

"He tell? We go escuela? Or he just fuck you?"

"He fuck good ... and he tell good."

I sure hoped St. Joseph's School could improve their English!

"He say he fuck better more when we get more smart?"

Of course I'd made no such promise. How could I improve a perfect sunrise or sunset?

"Oh, you two! Don't you ever think about anything but fucking?"

"Si. Only think fucking you!" they said, more or less in unison.

"Huh."

"Come on, Anna. You get him down there, I get him up here." She shimmied up until her breasts swamped my face. A pair of lips down below invited my non-erection to revitalize.

"Maria like her breasts best when you kiss them, Mattie," she whispered in a harsh voice, left over from earlier or new for now, I couldn't tell. Did it matter?

***

I came in the back door after work. Whatever was cooking sure smelled good. I'd learned that Anna and Maria had used that ploy to keep Senior Espino, his thugs, and before that, Rudy, away from them—at least some of the time—by cooking very well for them. Maybe there's some truth to that saying the path to a man's heart leads through his stomach. But, as they'd told me, once they fed those men, my girls still had to screw them. Oh, well. Some time off was better than none.

Anyhow, what they cooked certainly was good, and as they learned to read more, the variety included in dinner and the other meals broadened. In actuality these girls were saving me money. We seldom patronized restaurants anymore. Around home mostly it was eating what they'd cooked, and then working it off in the bedroom. Did I mind? Hell no!

"You two sure seem happy tonight," I said as supper wound down.

"We decide we both fuck you tonight."

No fooling me. There was more to this than just that.

"Okay, let's have it."

Both girls looked down in the way that told me something special was up. When they looked up, I looked straight at them.

"Sir, Mattie?" Maria said.

I looked first at Anna, then her.

"You let us pretend shopping?"

"What?"

"Shopping, you know, like American woman do always."

Did I want these women of mine getting into that habit? Aw, hell! I could afford it, and their housekeeping was saving me several hundred a month for the neighbor lady to clean my place.

"What you want?" I said, more as asking 'where you want to go?' rather than why do you need to spend money?'

"Oh, not buy. Only look. Then we go to that Goodwill place and buy so we come home and one fix while us other make like again with you."

Well, that didn't sound dangerous to my financial well-being. So, after they got their semi-respectable clothes on, I took them to the second nearest mall close to my place. This place was pretty nice, but not overly so. It had a couple big stores like the now-gone Sears, a Kohl's, a struggling Penny's, several regional department stores, but no Walmart.

As we broached the door into the mall, both girls grasped my elbows and stopped as if they'd never seen a sight like the hall ahead of them.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh Sir Mattie," Anna said.

"What?"

"So scared."

"Why?"

"So big, and look so much price."

"Doesn't cost if you don't buy."

"No?"

I shuffled them into the closest store. It happened to be a more local version of a store like Penny's. My girls hung onto me tightly, as if only I could save them from the worst death imaginable.

"Come on. Don't be scared." I reached to my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet, and extracted two $50 bills. "Here, take these. Now you're both rich ladies."

"Oh, Senior Matt. Anna and Maria not take."

"Why not?"

I noticed they'd sort of urged me out of the path in front of the quadruple entry doors.

"We not take your dollars, please?"

"Why not?"

"We make like with you because you nice to Anna and Maria. We like you because you make we feel good—wonderful is word? We not take your money. Maybe we should give you money, like we give Rudy—only Rudy make we give. He not treat Anna and Maria nice. He only take."

So? Anna and Maria wouldn't spend my money because they no longer viewed themselves as whores? How was I going to explain that a man provides for the women he loves, and his family, if he has one? Nothing wrong with that, right? And when they made love, he did his best to give them back as much 'wonderful' as they gave him? They gave, he gave, and they won all around. Like the pat cliche', everybody wins.

"Okay, then don't spend it. Just hold it in your hand while we look around."

The looks I got back said some sort of 'okay, if that's what you want, Master, we will do.'

First department in our way was 'Cosmetics'. I urged my girls in that direction. When we got close enough they could see what was there, they stopped.

"We need?" Maria said, looking up at me.

I shrugged. Far as I was concerned the choice was theirs.

"Not need," Anna said, took my hand and led us away.

I held back, just a little, to let her know I wasn't sure.

"We need, Master? she said. "If need, then you take Anna and Maria to bed and we figure out how not need. Then you like we? Or you like smelly, lip-sticky things better? We best, we show you!"

How could a guy beat logic like that? How could a little powder, perfume, colored goop and paste make their perfect faces any better? I gave in, and followed as they led me away from the cosmetics. 'Cosmetics' means surface, right? Anna and Maria's beautiful went all the way to their hearts.

I suppose it figured: The next department down from 'Cosmetics' was 'Sleep Wear', and as we got further away from 'Cosmetics', the more 'Sleep Wear' became 'Little sleep at all' wear—at least if Anna or Maria were wearing those itty-bitty things. I picked up a top, wondering how that would look on either of them.

Maria lifted it off my hand. "No, Master," she said. "Not show enough woman."

'Jeeze,' I thought. 'Not much to that collection of string and postage-stamp-size pieces of cloth.'

She led me on down the aisle ten feet, then picked up an even smaller fabric and string collection off a display hook. Yeah, she'd look good in that, too.

Maria held it up, and turned it in her hand several times before putting it back on the hook and shaking her head.

"Not good," she said and led me on past.

Not good? How could she not look good in that? I mean, other than out of it and bare-assed naked?

We looked a lot, that evening, but bought almost nothing. Anna and Maria's answer to everything I though they would look good wearing was: 'Not spend Mattie money, we make better. We make better so Mattie like better. You like better if we make, yes?'

How could I contest that?

Chapter 3

The majority of popular stories about relationships take place over a short time period: a few days, a week, a month, or on the long side, several months. Look at the typical romance novel if you doubt me. But real relationships, the ones that last, take time—even years—to develop.

By the end of our first year and a half, Anna, Maria, and I had more or less morphed into a family unit, as the psychologists and other government blessed bureaucrats call it. I worked, I came home each evening to the best deal any guy ever fell into, several evenings a month I went to a car club meeting or the local historical society's meeting, then came home and like usual, bedded-down with my woman of the night—or both, quite often—and repeated something similar the following night. Sounds like most relationships, doesn't it? Except for the both women part, which I can assure was like few others, because if it were, all the other guys at work would have come in each morning with silly smiles on their faces, too. The office women, maybe, too!

Anna and Maria kept my house, cooked, did our laundry, did the shopping—a duty I gladly delegated now they had learned enough reading as well as the rudiments of doing numbers so they understood money and could make change—and kept me so rung out I'm sure I had one of those silly grins on my face most of the time.

One evening along about then, I lost my way finding a going-home shortcut through that thug's fancy residential part of town. I ended up going past where Anna had taken me the time I tried to see Carlos Espino to give her back to him. Now, there was a thought I hadn't entertained in months, you better believe!

But there it was, his house—or should I say, his compound—in the middle of the block, barred gate, high wall, and all. My surprise was the realtor's sign alongside the driveway where it met the street. Its post tilted at an angle and gave the impression the sign had been up a while, the leaves and trash blown up against his gate said no one had been in or out lately, reinforcing other hints the place was uninhabited. Of course, with the economy as it had been for several years now, there were many other houses with long-standing real estate For Sale signs in front of them.

My curiosity got the better of me, so I got out and picked the realtor's info sheet from the plastic box screwed to the For Sale sign post. Yes, the place was for sale, for a price I couldn't afford in a ga-zillion years and obviously too high or it would have sold long before now, a notation saying it had been confiscated in a DEA forfeiture, the Realtor's name, her brokerage's name, and a phone number.

So, with curiosity still running rampant, I called.

Yes, a Mister Carlos Espino had been the owner, but he'd passed away just over a year ago. Yes, the house had been cleared out, cleaned and was ready for immediate occupancy, yes the taxes, fees, and assessments were current, and yes her brokerage had financing waiting in the wings if I needed. If I needed? Good god, there couldn't be enough financing in the whole world to put that purchase price within my reach! I did, however reluctantly and only to be polite, give my name and cell number to the real estate lady, hoping this would be the last I heard of this and her.

So Carlos Espino had died. I wondered if he really had been sick? Or had he tried stiffing his suppliers and met the same end he gave my girls' pimp? If so, he deserved it. The good side was Anna and Maria's debt had likely become a non-factor—good, in that it seemed unlikely anyone would ever come to take them away from me, but not so good by the fact nothing bound them to me any longer. Oh, well, they could have run anytime since I took them in, so I thought there little risk of that.

But what did happen to Carlos Espino, anyway?—the guy I saved from dying in a dry desert coulee nearly two years ago? One way to find out. I headed for our main city library's newspaper morgue.

"Well, ladies," I said when I returned home several hours later.

"What, Azucar-Matt?" Maria said breathlessly after breaking her I'm sure glad you're home kiss. Anna had the corresponding look on her face.

"I don't think you gotta worry any longer about Senior Carlos Espino."

Oh? Shown on both faces, suddenly with full-blown fear.

"By accident I went by his house on my way home tonight. There's For Sale sign on it. According to the newspaper, he got himself shot in the back of the head, execution style. Cops think it was drug related." I figured our Daily Bleat probably got that much right, if not the rest.

"Maybe he try run out on them, like Rudy do. That what he do to Rudy. Anna watch."

'Yeah. Oh, god, poor Anna!' I thought again. I looked toward her and saw her look down.

"Well, that's justice, I suppose. Now, I think both of you should just forget all of them. Forever."

Maria scooped Anna into her arms and then scooped me against them both. "Oh. Baby," she whispered. "I so glad you got us."

"I'm glad I got you both, too, and you got me." That brought even stronger embrace, almost violent, as if the mere possible existence of Carlos Espino and Rudy-the-Pimp had somehow separated us.

"Okay," Anna said, pulling back after a moment. "Forget Carlos Espino. Forget Rudy. Only remember we have Senior Worden!" She stood on her toes and kissed me. As soon as she ran out of breath, Maria kissed me, too. I looked down at both.

"Honey?" Maria said. "You go help Anna forget them. I finish cook supper."

"No, Maria. He's your turn." She looked at me then. "You go make her feel good forget them, I be cook food."

"I think you both need forgetting. Shut that stove off then you both come with me. If supper's ruined, too bad, we'll go to Ben's Barbeque or something."

Both women giggled, and I think both said something under their breaths like, "Don't you just love him? He no longer must protect us, but he still wants to."

Anna shook her head. "He just wants fuck us both, that what he wants."

I nodded and smiled. Truth is truth. With a twist of two knobs on the stove, our immediate plan for the evening was set, and two hands led me toward our bedroom with no hint of reluctance showing. None at all.

By the time we got to the bedroom door, both my women were as naked as you can get and still have on shoes and the plain neck-chain I'd given each their first birthdays I'd known them. By the time we got from the door to the bed, I was the same—minus shoes and neck chain. I'd never been much on men's jewelry, and every time I hinted at something, they kiboshed the whole idea, anyway. "What you want gold for?" they'd ask. "Maybe it get in way with what we want." No doubting what she meant!

"Anna? You be on bed first," Maria said in her efficiency boss voice. "Next, you, Mattie Sir."

So I complied as soon as Anna lay before me. Her knees folded up and pointed toward her shoulders.

"Hurry, Honey," she said, her eyes sparkling. "I want you so much it hurts. Please? Put your pleasure in me?"

I knelt on the bed's edge and looked her in the eyes as I closed in on her. "Please, Baby," she moaned. "Hurry up, okay? I wanted you all day so much it hurt."

"Mattie Honey? You know Anna is slut?" Maria said with a giggle.

"Well, you just try being this close to having him inside you and not want to hurry!"

"I know! Isn't he beautiful? Slip into her, Mattie Honey. Make my sister please you, okay? She wants you, you want her, and I want you, too, so quit wasting time."