The Long Day of Revenge (12 page)

There was still one more bull left to go, and still bottomless in her living room, she watched the nerve-twisting dance with disaster. Everyone in the Nogales ring was clearly disturbed by what had happened. Their mind was not on the enterprising Garza and what he did before them, but what they imagined was going on right now as De La Torre was being rushed to an emergency room.

“Go!”

“Is he gonna make it?”

“I’ve got him! I’ve got him! Go!”

“He’s got a bad one. How could something with horns that small cause that damage!”

In her mind, Lucinda heard all the voices from the past, then her own husband, from way back in time.

“I’m going to get better, and when I do, I will be back in the ring. One of the things I am going to be sure to do is kill that fucking bull that did this to me.”

“I love you, Manolo.”

“Yes, Lucinda...”

There was not much glory in Manolo’s performance. He, too, wanted to finish things and rush to his hotel room, where he would change clothes and most likely take a cab to the hospital to await news on Fernando De La Torre.

Manolo’s nerves were clearly showing as he faltered with the kill. Several times, he missed before he finally sent the bull to the ground and the crowd, suddenly unsympathetic, turned on him with a chorus of jeers.

“Fuckers,” Lucinda cursed in reference to those in the stands. “Bastards. Dicks.”

As the camera zoomed in on him, Manolo was uttering the very same things. Hurling his lure and bloodied sword to the sand, he looked up at the mob and sneered in contempt. They were a monster with many heads and one mind, combined and unpredictable. Earlier they had praised his name, and now they swore at him.

“Let’s go,” the camera picked him up saying as he motioned to Rafael and his helpers. “Let’s get out of here. I want to get to the hospital.”

One of the newscasters was now on the arena floor. How he had gotten there so fast was a mystery, but trying to pull some words from Manolo Garza was as futile as Lucinda trying to resist one of her many spankings.

“No time,” he grunted, as he shoved past the would-be interviewer. “No time. I want to get to the hotel and change. Then I want to find out what the hell is going on.”

He paused and looked directly at the commentator.

“You don’t have any word, do you?”

The commentator shrugged.

“I saw what you saw.”

Rising, Lucinda shut off the television and went to lie on the bed, stripping off the rest of her clothes as she went. It was dinner time, yet she was in no way hungry. Not after what she had witnessed.

“This is what I plan to do tomorrow. Don Eliseo…”

“Someday the people…”

“No, I am not fucking okay…”

“The molinete de rodillas…”

She thought of how she and Manolo had worked out in Agua Prieta and she had helped him inch toward a dream that was fast becoming a nightmare. Maybe she deserved her many spankings for playing a part in his success.

“I hate the world of the bulls,” she mouthed. “I hate it. I just hope Manolo will get this nonsense out of his head and retire rich. There are other things...”

“You’re going to get it!”

Again the words came. She wondered if, like her husband, she was starting to flip her lid from the strain.

“Pull down your pants and bend over!”

“Owwwww…”

She saw the replay of the goring, as Fernando De La Torre spun on the horn. Unlike in Manolo’s case, he had been lifted high into the air, and it was obvious he’d received a big wound.

“We naturally do not know the nature of the goring itself, aside from what we have seen, but by appearance it does look severe. The loss of blood would indicate…”

The television commentary was sticking with her.

“No time.”

Would De La Torre be back? If so, there was no vendetta he could conduct against the bull that gored him. Manolo had seen to that.

“Manolo…”

As she mouthed his name, her cell phone rang. Reaching it on the nightstand, she answered and heard her husband’s panicked voice. She was expecting this.

“It’s me. Look. De La Torre took a big goring, and I mean a big one! I might get a different flight home, and I may be staying here until I know he’s out of danger.”

“I saw,” she whispered.

“Gotta go. I love you.”

With their brief conversation ended, she put the cell phone down and went back to her prone position on the mattress, feeling its coolness.

“I wish this would all be over for all of us.”

She had drifted off and started to dream when her cell rang again.

Struggling for it, the words sent a chill through her entire body.

“It’s me. Never mind. Fernando De La Torre just died.”

Chapter Nine

Manolo Garza was drunk. The funeral in Guadalajara had been a gloomy affair to say the least, but that was to be expected. The reception afterward offered a crying wife and kids who did not know the real man, who was off to places like Casa De Campo on the side. Though Manolo knew these secrets now, it was better to keep them within.

Knowing what a scoundrel De La Torre had been was not the only reason Manolo had drank so much. It was his own fear that had been evoked inside.

What if Gaditano was destined by fate to be his assassin?

He did not hate the bulls as a whole, nor even the one that killed De La Torre. It was just Gaditano he loathed.

Kicking off his shoes, he clumsily removed his jacket and tie, then flopped across the hotel bed, while Lucinda looked on.

“That was unpleasant,” he whimpered. “That was horribly unpleasant. All those crying people. Jesus, but it was depressing.”

Lucinda nodded as she started to take off her own clothes. She was sober.

“One of these days I’ll be retiring, but not for a long time. I just hope the bulls let me live long enough to retire.”

“You will live a long time,” Lucinda reassured him while inside she was not so sure. “You and I will live together for a long time and in the afterlife we will be together some more.”

“But you still won’t suck my dick,” he mouthed out. “Were you ever spanked for not sucking my dick?”

“Yes,” Lucinda sighed, now down to her undergarments. “You rest up. I’m going to shower.”

Manolo tried to nod.

“Naked, I hope. I should spank you for not sucking my dick.”

Lucinda was too frazzled to even masturbate in the shower, but after where they had just been, it didn’t seem fitting anyway. As she turned on the water and let it run over her, she thought of the events of the day and evening. Would she one day be a grieving widow like Lucia De La Torre, weeping over a dead husband? Once again she thought of bringing up the idea of leaving the bulls to Manolo, but knew it would do no good.

She had always hated those small bars of soap the hotels provided. They were so useless. She could hardly get a lather going.

There was something also, that Manolo had whispered to her after the burial, that had left her disturbed.

“You know all this about De La Torre being a great guy and matador is shit right out of the animal’s ass. He was a prick. I knew the real him. Ask him about Casa De Campo.”

She, of course, had no idea what Casa De Campo was and felt it better never to find out.

How little did she know in the other room, Manolo was thinking of the very same thing, though his thoughts were made groggy from the mixed drinks.

“I came like crazy. You fuck good.”

He remembered Esmeralda’s words to him in that near empty bedroom and how willingly she had serviced him. He was ashamed to admit he found himself wishing he was married to her instead.

In his drunkenness, he had blurted out about Fernando De La Torre and the Casa De Campo in Nogales, but had caught himself before saying anything else. That would have been an utter and unbolted disaster.

“De La Torre ended up just like that guy in those stupid films,” he muttered to the ceiling. “He cheated on his wife and went to face God with his suit covered with blood and sand alright. Right in the fucking groin, where all the big arteries were. That goring could have killed an elephant.”

A vision from the past came back to haunt him, where again he saw himself at the Manzano ranch being dragged from that little ring, while in the distance Gaditano watched the whole show, relishing what had happened.

“I nearly went to God in a suit of blood and sand, and that was before I went to Casa…”

He caught himself, biting down on his lip. Lucinda really didn’t need to know what he had discovered and done in Nogales.

Perhaps that was the key. Treat Lucinda like a normal woman. No more spankings, even when she deserved them. No more requests to have his prick eaten. Just let her do as she pleased in the bedroom and save himself for Nogales. He would most assuredly be returning there for a benefit bullfight for the De La Torre family. It was already in the works.

“People love a dead hero,” he slurred out. “They love a dead hero better than a live one.”

He could picture his next session with Esmeralda. This time, he would have her strip naked and bend over the bed. Then he would start with his hand.

“This is what you get for being bad. You get a bare bottom spanking.”

“No! Ow! Please!”

He didn’t need to use a paddle. He knew how to make the hand hurt plenty. Lucinda found that out in Agua Prieta. It was wrong to think of her here, while with another woman. The devil was in him now, and there was no turning back.

“Owwwwwwww!”

Esmeralda shook and shifted as the blows came, but this was what he paid her to do. Her ass was turning hot, too. The blows were seeing to that.

“Stand still and take it!”

More slaps came, echoing in the room. As they did, Esmeralda’s cries became harder to understand. They were being marred with the tears. This turned him on even more, though he now wondered why. In Agua Prieta, out of impulse, he had discovered how much he enjoyed discipline. Maybe he liked it too much? Was Lucinda right and Esmeralda wrong?

“Stop…”

Esmeralda finally managed to blurt out a distinguishable word, but he knew this was not what she meant. She wanted more and wanted it hard.

“You just be glad I’m doing this with my hand and not the belt. You might get the belt, too. If you don’t stand still and stop wiggling, I will give you the belt.”

“Owwww! Oww! Owwww!”

The feel of her flesh against his palm as he whapped at her sent sensual shocks through his nervous system.

“Owwwwwwww!”

The way Esmeralda was bent, with her legs spread, he could see her own dark beaver was growing wet with excitement. Beyond the pain, she was stimulated by this as well.

“Maybe I should just stop and fuck you now. I would, but you haven’t been punished enough. I can only imagine what you might have done that I don’t even know about, behind my back, besides what I do know. Shame on you. This will make you behave.”

“Pleasssseeeeeeee…”

“Don’t you beg me for anything. You aren’t in a position to negotiate. I’m the one in charge here, and I’m going to keep spanking you until I’m sure you won’t be bad.”

“You’re being bad, too,” she responded. “You’re cheating on your wife.”

“Don’t blame me! Blame Fernando De La Torre. He told me about this place, and when I got here, I found you! You all made cheating too easy!”

“Everyone’s fault but yours! Tell that to God!”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the church anymore! I thought you didn’t believe in God!”

“Owwwwww,” was the only answer that came, for he’d landed multiple strikes against her bottom as he spoke.

It was at that point Manolo halted, with the distinct feeling he was being watched. Were there hidden cameras in the room?

“Get up and stand in the corner. We’ll continue the punishment in a bit, and it is going to be severe.”

Crying, Esmeralda stood up and rubbing her badly spanked behind as she went, relocated to the familiar corner.

“I wish we were married,” Manolo whispered, but his eyes were darting about the room. “I wish you and I could be together, because we know what we want.”

Esmeralda was still furiously rubbing herself, but her tears had turned to sniffles.

“You really hurt my butt,” she moaned out. “Owwwwww.”

Manolo looked at her naked body, studying every inch he could. He had, for a matter of fact, hurt her butt just as she proclaimed.

“If it hurts that bad, I am glad. You don’t need to be rubbing it. Put your hands by your sides. This is supposed to be painful! If it doesn’t hurt, you won’t learn a lesson.”

Again, Esmeralda obeyed, dropping her hands away from her injured ass.

“That’s better. Now I am going to take out my prick and jerk it until I shoot. You’ve been so bad; you don’t deserve to be made to feel good yet.”

Suddenly, the phone rang. Manolo had not noticed a telephone on the dresser before.

“I’d better take that,” Esmeralda said as she left her post. “It might be important.”

Manolo threw up his hands in exasperation. The whole charade was lost.

“I thought the Casa De Campo was more professional than this! Jesus Christ! What the fuck!”

Esmeralda was listening to whatever voice was at the other end and shaking her head. She then turned to Manolo and offered him the receiver.

“It’s for you.”

“What?”

Manolo was stunned when he took the phone and heard a voice he never expected to hold conversation with again.

“You shouldn’t drink so much if you have secrets to keep. You know, you nearly blew everything for yourself just now.”

“Fernando?”

It was distinctly Fernando De La Torre at the other end.

“Yes. I was at the funeral, too, but you didn’t see me. I took a look at myself in the coffin. I thought I looked pretty good there, but I wish they would have buried me in my purple and gold suit of lights. I liked that one better.”

“You shouldn’t be talking to me. You’re dead.”

De La Torre laughed at the other end.

“It isn’t that simple. Did you ever see that one movie where Scrooge gets visited by all those ghosts who try to tell him to straighten his ass out in that thing they show on television at Christmas? It’s kind of like that. I’m here to give you some advice.”