The game of nations, Dobbs knew, was like playing chess on the deck of a sailboat in a gale. One had to think about the pull of the tide, the whip of the wind, the subtleties of roll and pitch as the pieces slide in disarray to be reassembled from memory while the matrix of the original play etched and faded in the mind.
Within minutes of the explosion, the perpetrators had obliterated all, hopefully all, of the trail signs. Electronic eyes and ears, fingerprints in his apartment, any telltale signs. The FBI would find nothing. But I know how he died, Dobbs assured himself. And, yet, it was not enough. He had to know why. How, otherwise, could he make sense of how wrong he had been?
Fingering the files, he opened another. It was a Uruguayan transfer, another stitch of information in the intricate fabric. Latin America was one vast American intelligence pool, he mused, snickering again at all that human rights talk. This was the real world, he thought, tapping a finger on the first page of the report. Two faded photographs lay face up, clipped to the papers. Looking closely, he saw the faces of two young men smiling back at him.
On the left was Palmero, about twenty. It was 1956. Beside him was a taller, more assured youth, arrogantly swaggering into the lens, dripping with self-importance. He turned the picture and saw the name, Raoul Benotti. He had died in that plane crash in Venezuela, the one that had been bombed.
Dobbs knew that Benotti had been marked for assassination. He had followed the executioner's trail, had watched as Palmero deployed his unique arsenal, his women, aiming them with telling accuracy. But how had he set the charge within them? That was what he had to know.
The picture was taken at Punta del Este, just outside Montevideo, where families of the oligarchs of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay watered in splendor. They would fill the hotels and villas overlooking blue waters and smooth white beaches, with retinues of chaperones, servants and assorted retainers to exhibit their wealth and progeny.
While the families frolicked, the men exercised their venery at the ornate bars and beach clubs sporting expected lures, women in search of fleeting affluence among wealthy princes, married and unmarried. The other picture clipped to the file was of a young woman, Elena Mendoza, twenty-one. One could see the villainous smirk of the conquistadors, barely softened by the splash of indigenous blood, a deep glow in her eyes. She had apparently died of pneumonia in a Chilean prison six months after the coup, but not until the Chilean authorities had made her talk, the transcript set before Dobbs now, as casual as hors d'oeuvres at an afternoon tea.
Women, always women, Dobbs hissed silently, feeling his own malevolence crying out from somewhere inside his petrified libido as he forced his concentration on the words.
***
It was not the first summer that Eduardo had visited Raoul, whose family rented one of the larger villas. But their boyhood games had graduated from the surf to the nightclubs and bars, where, goaded by the risen sap of their young manhood, they followed the scent of "chucha," pussy.
To Eduardo, whose emotions had already become obscured by political passions, Raoul, with his smooth good looks and casual self-confidence, was beyond comparison with what Eduardo felt was his own social inadequacy. Raoul, he was assured by the prince himself, could seduce a stone, and was eager to exhibit his prowess at every opportunity, especially to the audience of his spellbound friend.
He was even, as Eduardo was to witness, skilled in extracting the honey from the protected hives of the oligarchs. The infatuated princesses could always find ways to dodge their duennas, governesses, for a few passionate moments with Raoul.
"That one," Raoul would say, as they sat idling on beach chairs, ogling the big bosomed girls with their trailing duennas, parading along the surf-line as if they were flesh in a slave auction. "I fucked her in the cabana. They guarded the entrance while I sneaked under the tent." He howled with joy. "I also fucked her maid and her mother."
"Her mother?"
"See that one there." He pointed to a patio in the distance, where a woman in a gauzy dress stood into the breeze, her body outlined by the wind. "She is the hottest potato in the sack." He laughed again, proud of the pun.
"Somebody will stick a knife in your ribs, Raoul," Eduardo said.
"What is life without danger?" he replied.
"I envy you," Eduardo said sincerely.
"There is an art, a rhythm to this business," Raoul said, prodded by the compliment, lifting his bronzed, muscled arm to wave to a girl heading their way.
"That's Anna," he whispered, watching as the graceful figure approached. "Her father is a German, an ex-Nazi." Raoul had an awesome fund of knowledge about such things. "Jealousy is a double-edged sword." The girl approached and kneeled beside him in the sand.
"This is Eduardo," Raoul said, jabbing a thumb in Eduardo's direction as if he were inanimate, which was the way he felt. The girl had eyes only for Raoul. Her gaze pugnaciously washed over his tight-bronzed body, resting briefly at the lump in his crotch which, Eduardo knew, Raoul had deliberately accentuated by tightening his buttocks against the canvas seat.
"The sun is strong today," Anna said, insinuating herself into the arc of the umbrella shadow. Raoul reached out and stroked the fine hairs of her arm. She did not pull it away. Eduardo imagined the hairs rise in response. If he had done it, the girl would have pulled away as if his fingers were charged with electricity.
It was a gesture of territorial gesture, Eduardo knew, a staked claim, since Raoul was hardly interested in conversing with the girl ignoring her attempts at conversation by mumbled responses. The girl didn't seem to mind. The great Raoul was touching her and that was all that mattered.
"Will you be at the party tonight," Anna said, suddenly anxious. Eduardo watched the tightness form on her lips. It had been the reason for her coming in the first place.
"Tonight," Raoul mused. He smiled. "I must check with my friend."
"You can bring him, of course," the girl said quickly.
"I go where he goes. He is my guest." Raoul said, knowing he was torturing the girl.
"Eduardo will be very welcome. There will be lots of pretty girls." She had turned her blue eyes toward Eduardo, penetrating in their entreaty, since Eduardo now held the key to the invitation.
"I go where Raoul goes," Eduardo said, feeling his own malice. Raoul winked at him. "Very good," his wink said. "Play with her." But Eduardo could not sustain his cruelty. "Why not," he said.
"There is your answer," Raoul said, suddenly tightening his hand around Anna's slim wrist, acknowledging her presence in a more direct way. He swung his legs in an arc, spreading them slightly as he flattened his feet in the sand, placing himself before the squatting Anna so that she was crotch high. He could see her eyes dart to the bulge at his crotch, larger now, as the stud had fixed on his target.
The girl seemed to sense the attention, perhaps feeling the fledgling anxieties of forbidden pleasures. Raoul bent over and stroked her bare shoulders. This time the girl moved, tore herself away, for appearances' sake. Raoul was a blatant exhibitionist and enjoyed the perpetual gaze women lavished upon him.
"Let's swim," he said to the girl, reaching for her hand. The invitation offered more than the obvious and Raoul turned and winked to Eduardo.
"You, too, Eduardo. Come on, it's hot as hell here." He looked at the girl. "And getting hotter."
Eduardo joined them, following them into the water. He watched them dash ahead into the surf, Raoul's sinuous bronzed body arrogantly assured, literally dragging the girl along as she nervously giggled in anticipation. The surf was calm now. Little rivulets of waves, spent themselves impotently, darkening the edges of the white sand.
They were chest high beneath the tide, snuggling together like flotsam logs, entangled in each other's limbs. Eduardo approached them hesitantly, diving like a porpoise, the intensity of his own activity designed to mask his interest. Raoul had lowered the girl's shoulder straps and was nuzzling his bare chest against hers. The waters hid what was going on below, but they were blue and crystal clear and Eduardo swam close underwater to get a better view. Raoul had freed his erection from the sides of his swimsuit and had directed it into the crotch of the girl, who was obviously savoring it through whatever sensations could find their way upward through her one-piece bathing suit.
Eduardo surfaced in confusion and embarrassment, annoyed at his compulsion to be a voyeur, which he felt was somehow demeaning, unworthy. He had surfaced quietly behind the girl's back. Raoul winked at him, smiled broadly, enjoying his own performance. He raised one finger, a signal to remain attentive, looked down at the girl, then swung her around to face Eduardo, his hands cupped on her breasts.
"Look at the latest in bathing tops," he cried. The girl struggled to free herself, but Raoul had her wedged against his body, his erection, lying now in the furrow of her buttocks.
"Please, Raoul," the girl protested, facing Eduardo, her eyes rolling in exasperation. Eduardo tried to look away from the tan hands wrapped snugly around the white melons on her chest.
"You like the style, Eduardo?" Raoul shouted.
"I'll scream," the girl pleaded.
"One scream and I will take the top back to the store," Raoul said teasingly as he stuck his tongue in her ear. She stopped struggling. Eduardo felt her humiliation and dipped his head in the water to cool his burning cheeks.
"You shouldn't be upset," Raoul said soothingly now that the girl had quieted. "He is my friend. A friend of a friend is a friend. Tell him that you are also his friend."
The girl hesitated.
"Tell him… or…." Eduardo sensed the first hint of malevolence. Surely, the girl had also felt it.
"All right. All right." She turned her head toward Eduardo. "You are also my friend."
"A good friend." Raoul coached.
"A good friend," the girl repeated. Raoul's hands were kneading her breasts now.
Eduardo wanted to leave. You are being cruel, he admonished Raoul, but would not voice the sentiment. He was not quite certain whether the girl was being pained or pleasured, a reluctant or willing participant. Raoul continued to smile, kissing her ear and cheek and winking at him.
"And there is something I would like to show the friend of my friend," Raoul said.
"No. Please, Raoul," the girl said quickly, squirming.
"A friend is a friend."
Her eyes looked skyward in exasperation.
"And here are the somethings." Raoul's hands dropped below her breasts, holding her viselike over her rib cage. "Dadaaa!" Raoul mocked a fanfare and the girl's breasts, nipples stiff in a ring of goosebumps, glistened pugnaciously.
He had shifted her body so that she would not be visible from the beach. Eduardo stood transfixed, but only momentarily, then dived and swam toward shore, looking backward only after he had gained the beach. They were still locked together. He was curious at the reaction of the girl, wondering if his pity was wasted. His answer was not long in coming as he watched them walk out of the surf hand in hand.
"She is something, eh, Eduardo?" Raoul said. Eduardo had closed his eyes, letting the sun dry him as he lay in the beach chair. He squinted upward, saw the girl's smiling face, her hands playfully jabbing at Raoul's forearm.
"You'll be at the party tonight," she said.
"And Eduardo?"
"And Eduardo."
Then she was gone and Eduardo could feel Raoul settle beside him on his beach chair.
"If it was me," Eduardo said, "I would have kicked you in the balls."
"Then she would have hurt her own hand," Raoul said. He paused, slapping Eduardo on his stomach. "Someday I will teach you about women."
"Teach me," Eduardo responded. "I have been surrounded by them." But he knew that Raoul was right.
The patio of Anna's parents' home was decorated with long strings of Japanese lanterns. A three-piece band scratched out American dance music. A light breeze rustled the lanterns and the paper tablecloth under the punch bowl and the hors d'oeuvres that stretched across a long table. The girls wore flowing white dresses and the boys wore white linen suits. The guests were, as always in Punta del Este, the sons and daughters of the oligarchs, a tight-knit group, more than welcome in the home of this ex-Nazi who had squirreled a fortune into the boot of the hemisphere, investing lavishly in the one commodity that gave him instant status, land.
Raoul, looking luminescent in his glistening white linen suit, a blue silk handkerchief spilling out of his jacket pocket, surveyed the group, knowing that every passing female glance was upon him.
"Delicious," he said.
"What is?" Eduardo asked.
"The scent of pussy."
"You're unbelievable, Raoul! Your whole life is wrapped up in your crotch."
"Is there anything else?"
His lectures were an exercise in futility, since they were often delivered in his own head. You are looking at the dry rot of the twentieth century, he had wanted to say. It is hopeless, he decided. Besides, he adored Raoul. Even his blatant envy could not dim his adoration, and he loved to bask in Raoul's aura, knowing that his proximity to Raoul enhanced his own importance.
"How does it feel to be in the home of a butcher?" Raoul said suddenly. He would do this on occasion, reveal a tiny morsel of morality when one least expected it.
"And here again is the butcher's daughter."
Anna came toward them, radiant in white chiffon, her blonde hair bouncing as she carried her smile forward reaching out to touch Raoul's hand. She acknowledged Eduardo's presence with a brief nod. She glided into Raoul's arms and he moved onto the dance floor, merging with her, a cloud of white with four pairs of extremities. She rested her head against his cheek, her eyes closed, as Raoul undulated slowly to the music's rhythm, exhibiting his superior magnetism to the group.
Eduardo pressed into the shadows as he contemplated his peers. Within himself, he could not quite subdue his emotions with his intellect. It had become typical of him lately, but seemed increasingly difficult to bear. The disparate affluence of his family had begun to exasperate him. We have so much. They have so little. "They" were the vast underprivileged, a nation within a nation. He had begun reading Marx, listening to the growing sounds of unrest that slipped into his consciousness through the press, and his occasional contacts with servants and radicals on campus. Observing the display of arrogant superiority before him fed his disgust in this gathering, where he had actually begun to feel alienated.
The alienation was more than political. It was social. His relationship with girls was a trial and an agony. Near them, except for his mother and sisters, he felt awkward, clumsy, self-conscious. Could it be that he could not resolve his romantic view of love with the physical reality of sex? He could react, sometimes with embarrassing effects. Once he had actually had an orgasm while dancing with a girl and he had been reluctant to dance ever since. The moments before he fell asleep were a torment of physical hunger as his body craved sexual surfeit. Sometimes the image of Isabella and his father intruded. Even his sense of revulsion had reshaped itself as erotica and this, too, had filled him with guilt. But he had never confided that to anyone, certainly not Raoul, who would have ridiculed it. He had also not told Raoul that he was a virgin. Raoul would have been dumbfounded.
"Eduardo," Raoul whispered as he swung Anna into the shadows. "Come pick yourself a cherry." Eduardo watched as he buried his tongue into her ear. She shivered lightly and giggled. "We will have to leave unless Eduardo finds himself a friend," Raoul warned. Anna, obviously frightened, crossed the patio and returned with a tall flat-chested girl who, like Eduardo, seemed either shy or intimidated by some inner alienation.
"This is Estacita," Anna said with mocking sweetness. The tall girl reluctantly held out her hand, and Eduardo took it, feeling the nervous moisture of both their palms.
Raoul beckoned and drifted further into the shadows in the direction of the sea wall. In the distance, the surf pounded the beaches.
Raoul removed a silver flask from his back pocket, took a long sip and passed it around to the group. Anna hesitantly followed, sipping freely. Eduardo lifted the flask but plugged the opening with the tip of his tongue. Estacita refused. Anna melted into Raoul's arms again and they danced to the music, their pelvises moving in languorous circular motions. Estacita, giggling nervously, turned her eyes away and concentrated on the barely distinguishable surf in the distance. Eduardo continued to observe his friend. Soon they were oblivious to him. Estacita moved back to the crowd, filling him with a vague sense of loneliness. He walked to the table, helped himself to some punch and faded again into the shadows, watching the couples pair off in some mysterious mating game from which he felt brutally excluded. Contempt was no substitute for loneliness.
Later, he roamed the sea wall, looking for Raoul. Raoul and Anna had disappeared. A muted curse hissed from somewhere on the beach below and Eduardo peered over the shallow wall following the sound. He could make out vague thrashings in the darkness, the sounds of struggle.
"Raoul," he called, his voice lost in the surf's. The thrashings persisted. "Damn you," he heard. Then the sharp sound of slapped flesh. Eduardo lifted himself over the sea wall and struggled forward, his shoes filling in the soft dunes. Again, he heard the slap and could see movement in white, like sheets flapping in the wind. Eduardo hurried closer to the figures. Raoul had Anna pinioned against the wall and she was resisting energetically as Raoul struggled to keep her still. He could see his friend's bare buttocks glowing like fleshy globes in the faint light.
"Raoul," Eduardo hissed. The sound froze them and Raoul's face turned toward him, twisted with anger.
"Mind your own business," he mumbled. His voice was heavy, his speech slurred.
"He is hurting me," Anna pleaded. "Help me, Eduardo."
"Goddamned tease," Raoul hissed, groping beneath her dress.
The girl squirmed furiously, whimpering finally as her energy failed. Eduardo gripped Raoul by the shoulders and pulled him away. They both fell into the sand. Anna slumped against the wall, rearranging her clothes. Eduardo was no match for Raoul, who quickly subdued him, straddling his body and pinioning his arms. He could smell the alcohol on his breath.
"Stop it!" Anna called, rushing to them now, an edge of panic in her voice. Eduardo looked upward into Raoul's face, watching the contortion settle, the familiar look return.
"You should mind your own business," he said, smiling suddenly and shaking his head. He released Eduardo, who stood up and smoothed his clothes while Raoul, unruffled, calmly hitched up his trousers and redid his belt.
"You'd think I was about to murder you, you bitch," Raoul said.
"You know why?" Anna pouted. Eduardo was confused, as his eyes wandered from Anna's face to that of his friend. Raoul turned to Eduardo, seeking judgment.
"I am a bareback rider," he said.
"And I don't like playing Russian roulette." Anna whispered.
"Screw yourself," Raoul said with disgust, grabbing Eduardo under the arm and hurrying forward.
"Where are you going?" Anna cried.
"The hell away from here."
"But the party…."
"Fuck the party."
They did not look back and moved swiftly through the small dunes, parallel to the sea wall beyond which music continued to blare. They reached a path of wooden slats and walked swiftly toward the crescent road, which fronted the beach, stopping only to empty their shoes of sand. In the distance, the lights of the hotels flickered. Eduardo followed silently behind Raoul.
Had he misconstrued the incident, Eduardo wondered, humiliated that he might have really intruded on some odd game. They went into the Mirador Hotel bar. Raoul squinted into the darkness and, nodding at the bartender, squeezed through the crowd to the spot where the bartender had beckoned them.
"Ricardo," Raoul said, acknowledging, as always, his proprietary interest. The bartender smiled and put a double Scotch in front of Raoul.
"Give him ginger ale," Raoul mocked, as if Eduardo's lack of interest in alcohol somehow denigrated his manhood. Eduardo caught the message of bemusement.
"I thought you were raping her," Eduardo said. Raoul lifted his glass, drained it, placed it on the bar, and laughed.
"Raping her." He pounded his chest. "Me?"
"It actually sounded like you were murdering her."
"She loved it." Raoul paused. "We were merely having a little dispute on some of the more technical aspects."
"Technical aspects?"
Raoul signaled the bartender for another drink.
"Eduardo. You are truly the stupidest man I have ever met when it comes to women."
"I'll grant you that," Eduardo said morosely.
The bartender came over and leaned on the bar, pointing with his eyes to a dark corner of the lounge where a woman sat by herself. She wore sunglasses and an odd snarl on her lips, but was attractive, in her early twenties. Raoul slid toward the bartender.
"She has to raise the fare back to Santiago. And her lover has also stuck her with the price of the hotel," the bartender whispered. Raoul patted the bartender's arms and looked at Eduardo.
"He is the cleverest bird in Punta del Este," Raoul said, watching the bartender smile proudly. He stood up and, beckoning Eduardo to follow, moved through the crowded lounge towards the woman. She did not look up as Raoul slid into the seat beside her.
"Ricardo says you might welcome company." The woman looked to the bartender, who nodded a protective assent. She looked at them and, with difficulty, let the snarl fade from her lips, managing a thin smile. But she did not remove her sunglasses and her face was, therefore, not fully visible. Eduardo surveyed her. The sunglasses also created the illusion that she could not see him. Her skin seemed milk-white in the sparsely lighted room, her hair soft, but jet black, done in a pompadour. The rise above the table showed large full breasts, features not lost on Raoul, who eyed them with unabashed interest.
"I am Raoul and this is Eduardo. We are also Chilean."
The woman nodded. She had acknowledged their presence with little interest. Raoul looked at Eduardo, winked.
"Ricardo says you have a bit of a problem."
The woman nodded, revealing nothing of herself. She was, despite her predicament, quite lovely, Eduardo decided.
"It is purely financial," she said.
"I understand," Raoul said, winking again to Eduardo. "And I am prepared to be your benefactor."
"I will need bastante plata," the woman said.
Raoul confidentially dipped into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. It was another familiar characteristic, the display of cash, always folded neatly and pinched with a heavy silver money clip. With a flourish he counted out the bills on the table, almost depleting his roll.
Eduardo could not tell whether the woman had observed this. Beyond her dark glasses he could see nothing.
"And I am also the benefactor of my friend."
"That will require an extra sum," the woman said. Obviously, she had watched him. Raoul's head fell back as he laughed, signaling the waiter to bring more drinks. They came quickly.
After Raoul had polished his off, he said, "The price is outrageous." His speech had become slurred. He called for another double Scotch.
Eduardo, admitting his lust for this woman, felt suddenly worried that Raoul was merely toying with her. He felt the charge of his own excitement.
"I can offer some…" He hesitated. "…benefactions." He nearly swallowed the words.
"You are my guest," snapped Raoul. "Besides, I am the negotiator." Another drink came. Raoul drank it and ordered another. He was becoming irritable and ornery again, Eduardo observed. The woman shrugged, took the bills from the table, and stood up. She was quite tall. They followed her through the crowd into the lobby of the hotel. A bored elevator operator brought them to her floor.
Eduardo felt his heart beating heavily. The woman was thin-hipped, with firm buttocks that swung in a tight arc, suggesting promise and power. He felt desire rise in him. Raoul staggered beside him. The woman stopped to open the door of her room. Her lover had apparently been initially lavish. The room seemed one of the best in the hotel. It had a wide view of the ocean through a large bay window that opened onto a small balcony.
Inside, the woman removed her glasses for the first time. Her eyes were puffy. She had obviously been crying. Eduardo imagined she was just a year or two older than they. Raoul poured himself a drink from an opened bottle on the cocktail table. Eduardo's eyes met the woman's. Let him, they seemed to say. Without her glasses she was less self-assured. He imagined an element of disgust in her demeanor. She was also less arrogant. She sat on the large double bed, hesitating. Eduardo felt awkward, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"Well," the woman said, reaching behind her to unfasten the clasp of her dress. Her dress fell off her shoulder, revealing a pink brassiere strap. She unpinned her pompadour and her hair collapsed to her shoulders.
"Why don't you look at the stars?" she said gently to Eduardo.
"Yesh, the shtars," Raoul said, staggering toward the bottle again, his face clenched with drunken concentration. The woman shrugged, darting him a look of bemused resignation. For the first time she smiled broadly, genuinely. Eduardo went out on the balcony, stretching on a divan and looking up at the canopy of stars. The night was warm, the sound of the surf gentle now as the tide had moved further out to sea. In the distance he could hear faint music, probably from Anna's outdoor party.
The woman's scent, the light smell of gardenias, preceded her presence. Her voice was soft. Eduardo suddenly remembered Isabella, and the image of that night outside his father's study flashed through his mind.
"Your friend is beyond hope," the woman said gently. "He is obviously ignorant of his body. Liquor is not an aphrodisiac."
She seemed so knowledgeable, strong, confident. He felt intimidated now, although she seemed softer somehow than the hard arrogant woman at the bar. She moved her body closer toward him. The scent of gardenias grew stronger.
"It is amazing how ignorant men are about women," she said. He wondered whether she felt his presence, since she did not wait for a response. "He could not bear the fact that he could not move me."
"Who?" Eduardo whispered, his throat tight.
"Juan." She sighed. "I did admire him greatly. Of course, I told him that I loved him, which was a lie. I could have lied about the other. But he did not move me, and I finally told him that and he left. Just like that. I was at the beach today and he just left."
"He was your lover?"
"In a manner of speaking. But he could not bear the truth." She paused. "And yet it was not his fault. He was not the first. No man has moved me, not one."
"You seem so young." Eduardo was finding his courage now, the implication clear.
"I am twenty-two." She turned toward him and smiled. "My name is Elena, Elena Mendoza." She put out her hand and giggled like a girl much younger.
"Eduardo Palmero."
"I am not a prostitute in the traditional sense," she said. "But when one is desperate and there are fools…." She paused. "He is a fool, you know." She jerked a thumb toward the room. "He is quite taken with himself, too much with himself to ever really move a woman."
"They seem to go mad for him."
"There is more than what meets the eye," she sighed, looking up into the sky. "What a lovely night." Her hand reached down and covered his as if the need for a stranger's touch seemed important. The feel of her made him shiver and he felt his loins react, the blood surging.
"I doubt if I will ever find a man who moves me," she said, squeezing his hand. "Perhaps it is me. Sometimes I am convinced it is me."
"You are lovely," he said, his throat constricting. Eduardo felt the heat of a deep flush.
"You are very kind to say that, especially since there is really no need."
"I mean it."
She squeezed his hand.
"I know," she said.
"It is not easy to be a woman in this society," she said. Apparently, she had given the matter a great deal of thought. He caught the spark of her intelligence, the political implication, and felt himself drawing closer to her.
"It comes from generations of thinking of us as chattel, as a commodity for instant gratification." She chuckled. "I hate men. Yet, I forgive them. Can you understand that?"
"Yes," he lied, admitting his confusion to himself. He had only a partial understanding.
"This thing with Juan. It is not the first time it has happened."
"Perhaps you're too honest."
"Perhaps."
"And what will happen when you find a man that moves you?" He was feeling courageous now. The soft gardenia, salt-tinged scent in the night air, the faint rhythm of the surf and the nearness of her flesh goaded his manhood. He felt the throbbing of a compelling erection. He looked at her. Through her slip he could see the nipples on the white globes of her breasts. His breath seemed to catch and his enunciation faltered.
"I will follow him everywhere. To hell and back," she said firmly.
"And if he betrays you?"
"Well then…," she hesitated, searching in her mind. "Then I will kill him…."
Eduardo shivered, feeling the strength of her conviction. She pressed his hand.
"There is nothing on earth I would not do for a man that moves me. But he must be only my man. I would be faithful to him until death. I do not seek the embrace of a Casanova. He must be mine, and mine alone…." Her voice drifted into silence. "I am talking nonsense," she said.
"You would do anything for him. Anything?" Eduardo had not yet tasted the power of this.
"Of course," she said, responding again.
"And would the same be true of a man? If a woman moved him?"
"I cannot say. I'm only a woman." But the thought must have lingered in her mind. "I would be perfectly willing to direct a docile slave. Perfectly willing. Unfortunately it has not happened." She turned to him and smiled. "And you. Would you take advantage?"
He shrugged. "Why not?" It was so far from the realm of his experience, he could afford to be cavalier. After a pause he said, "But how do I find it?"
"Search for it," she said turning toward him parting her legs. He looked downward to the thatch of dark hair between them. She watched his eyes. "Fish the waters," she said. "Someone will bite the hook." He felt the awkwardness of his innocence. "And you, my benefactor. Let us see who moves whom." A hardness had begun to seep back into her, which he noted indifferently. His desire for her was overwhelming him.
"I've never been with a woman before," he blurted, feeling his helplessness. Somehow he trusted her with this secret. She moved a hand down to his crotch, caressing his erection.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be a physical problem," she said, unzipping his pants and holding him in her hand.
"Do you think I can move you?" Eduardo gasped, his breath shortening. He felt an exquisite lightness as her fingers touched him, then a consuming sense of urgency as concentrated pleasure engulfed him and a sound gurgled in his throat.
"I am ashamed," he said, after he had recovered himself. She cradled his head in her arms and moved his mouth to her breast.
"Never be ashamed of your pleasure," she said. "It is a gift. I envy you."
"But I have failed…."
"Shh." She caressed his head and he sucked her nipple in some vague memory of his infancy. He felt the security of it, the warmth of her flesh, the odd comfort of her caress.
"You are beautiful," he whispered.
"And you," she said, stretching out on the divan, helping him remove his clothes. He felt the flood of his manhood begin again.
"You see. Life is renewable."
He felt tears run down his cheeks, the scent of her filling him with a joy he had not yet known. Then her hand was guiding him and he felt consumed by her. This is paradise, he thought. All the hurts of his life were suddenly being sucked out of him. Her body moved under him, tantalizing.
"I love you," he said, feeling his body overflow again, the delicious, mounting, unbearable pleasure, the release of all that had ever pained him. "I love you," he said again, hoping that he might hear her respond. But her breath barely moved against his cheek and he knew that he had not moved her.
"And if I had moved you," he asked later as they sat quietly on the divan looking into the blackness of the sea.
"Then I would follow you forever, even to the edges of hell."
Dobbs put down the file and shook himself, as if the act might loosen his momentary fixation on Elena Mendoza. So they had really wanted to know this man, Eduardo Allesandro Palmero, to crawl inside his soul. It was something he knew that he, Dobbs, also wanted, and it annoyed him. Somehow the realization seemed discordant. The soul, after all, should be a private place, hidden, buried from all prying eyes. Even his own.
