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Episode Three
Seedy and isolated, way past its prime, the motel is Donna Maria's
legacy. Crippled swingset, murky swimming pool, a sun-beaten wooden
virgin: this is what she's inherited. That, and the ghosts of
a thousand traveling lovers.
Her abuelita would curse every human being born with a penis if she could
see the pocked stucco walls, the broken glass glittering in the
gravel lot, the wasps' nests poking like mud tumors from under
the eaves. In dusty pots, her grandmother's geraniums spread their
limbs like leggy sluts. Abuelita should never have trusted the property to a strange man. Men
didn't care about these things, she would have said, unless a
woman pointed them out. Men's eyes weren't made to see such wounds,
and their hearts weren't made to heal them.
I'd have to agree, thinks Donna Maria, gazing out at the empty parking lot from
one of the motel beds. I'll never trust another man with anything that bears my name
-- whether it's an old motor inn, or my own body.
The motel was established by Donna Maria's grandfather, who named
it after his mother, the first Donna Maria Santos. That Donna
Maria is the woman on the sign, the Mexican virgin who coyly swishes
her peasant skirt for drivers on the highway. Now her skirts are
soiled, her face smudged with dirt. She hasn't been cleaned since
abuelita died. Grandma maintained her mother-in-law's image like a shrine,
even after her husband left her for a barmaid from Gilroy. She
didn't maintain the sign for the sake of her unfaithful husband;
she kept the wooden virgin clean for her granddaughter.
When Donna Maria saw her grandmother for the last time, in the
nursing home in San Jose, the old woman had acted as if she were
handing over the keys to the Emerald City. But the Motel Donna
Maria has turned into a heap, too far gone in its downward slide
to draw enthusiasts of roadside kitsch. Only the weariest of travelers
stay here, or lovers craving total anonymity, or wanderers who
need cheap shelter for a night or two.
The man lying next to Donna Maria was looking for a place to hide.
That's what he told her last night, when he showed up in the office.
If there's one thing Donna Maria can relate to, it's the need
for flight. He didn't want to give her his name. That was fine
with Donna Maria. She only sleeps with strangers.
For thirty dollars she let him have a room overnight, gave him
two new bars of soap, and let him share the meatball soup (her
grandmother's recipe) that she was heating up for dinner. Because
he didn't bother to conceal his purpose, he didn't worry her too
much. Besides, he had eyes the color of milky blue beach glass,
and veined forearms that begged for her mouth, and a silver starburst
of a scar on his left cheek.
Now he is lying in bed next to her, in Room 3. She put him there
for luck. Donna Maria doesn't believe in luck, but her grandmother
loved the number 3, the number of the Holy Trinity. Three beings,
meshed together into one divine entity: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. There are plenty of spirits at this motel. Maybe the Father
and Son have left for higher ground, but the ghosts have remained.
Ghosts can be temporarily banished with the heat of living bodies.
Slowly Donna Maria peels the sheet off her new lover's shoulders.
Like a child, he is sleeping on his stomach, face tucked into
his folded arms. She bares his smooth back, waist, ass. His ribs
rise and fall with the rhythm of his sleep; he may be a fugitive,
but his dreams are peaceful this morning. With a touch as light
as a leaf, she sweeps the back of her hand down his spine. He
moans and rolls over. The sheets release a warm, yeasty scent.
Donna Maria sinks into the fragrant valley left by his body and
slides her arms around him. Blinking into consciousness, he smiles.
"Donna Maria," he says, "our Lady of the Motel."
She throws her head back, baring her throat to him. The act of
trust feels sweet, even though it's feigned. He kisses the grooves
and hollows with a delicacy that makes her shudder. Donna Maria
buries her hand in his hair and pulls his head away from her throat.
"How did you get this?" she says. Her fingers circle the cobweb
on his cheek, which is blurred by a sandy morning beard.
"My face had a close encounter with a flying beer bottle."
Donna Maria laughs. Her lover's cock stiffens against her sticky
thigh. What is it about her laugh that makes men hard? To her
own ears, her laughter sounds rusty, barbed with pain.
"You think scars are sexy?"
"No," Donna Maria says. "But when I see one, I can't stop staring."
"I can tell. When I was checking in, those big brown eyes of yours
were fixed on my cheek. I had a feeling that the scar was going
to get me laid."
"Well, I knew I wasn't going to rest unless I got to touch it,
especially with you sleeping here."
"I can assure you, Ma'am, that I didn't sleep here last night."
Donna Maria laughs again, and he pushes into her. In the sunlight
that spears through the burnt-orange drapes, he's so pretty that
she almost wishes she knew his name. His blue eyes are translucent.
His lips are smooth and pale, laced with tiny white cracks. Donna
Maria kisses him. She had forgotten how much she loves the taste
of men's mouths the morning after sex-that sour-sweet mix of beer
and tobacco and pussy. A taste of the past. Sometimes she thinks
that the past is her true lover. All of her pleasure comes from
memories; the present is just a sheer curtain, always in motion.
"You've got a scar of your own," he murmurs. His callused fingers
have found the thin ridge of tissue that runs along the inner
slope of her right breast.
Don't.
Donna Maria goes rigid.
"It's okay, baby. I won't touch you there. See? I'm leaving the
territory."
He moves his hand to her ass and rubs her buttocks in smooth circles,
as if he were currying a horse. With long thrusts he begins to
fuck her-back and forth, a deep, slow rocking. Each stroke draws
more honey from the well. She lets him have his way until she's
thoroughly soaked, then she throws her leg over his waist and
rolls on top. She settles onto his erection, letting her weight
drive him further inside her. He reaches for her breasts, but
she takes hold of his hands and holds them together at the wrists,
using them like a pommel as she rides his cock.
"I like having you on top of me, Lady Maria," he says. His voice
is thick, his eyelids heavy.
They always like to have her on top, these men whose names she
never knows. They assume that because her hide is tough, her will
is tougher. I don't have any will, she wants to tell them. I'm just not willing to die.
She rides her lover hard, rubbing her cunt against his pelvis
as if she were trying to set herself on fire. In her mind's eye
she bursts into flame, combusting on his cock, setting the whole
bed ablaze. The motel goes up like a cardboard box of matches,
while Donna Maria's spirit drifts through the air on a plume of
smoke.
"Holy shit," he gasps. "I've never felt a woman come like that."
Her lover is breathing hard underneath her. His forehead is dewed
with sweat, and his scar is livid. His chest rises and falls.
Placing her hand in the center, she feels the stunned thud of
his heart. His warm seed ripples down her thigh.
"You were on fire," he says. He touches her stomach with one cautious
tap, as if it were the belly of a red-hot furnace.
"I sure was."
But I didn't come. I never come.
Tires crunch on the gravel outside. A car motor settles into silence.
A door slams.
"You've got visitors," says the man on the bed.
Suddenly he is a stranger again, polite but distracted, already
back on his own journey. Donna Maria eases herself off of him
and clambers out of bed. She goes to the window and pushes the
curtains aside. A woman stands in the parking lot. With one hand
she shields her eyes against the sun and gazes up at the battered
wooden virgin. She is slim and fair, dressed like a schoolgirl
in a calico cotton dress, lacy white socks and chunky Mary Janes.
But the skirt is as transparent as a bridal veil, and when she
takes a step backward, Donna Maria sees the cleft of her cunt.
The blonde isn't wearing any panties.
The driver's side door opens. A man climbs out. He has long hair
the color of molasses, shot with premature gray. Slim body, with
an ass that fits snugly into his faded denim jeans. He is holding
a camera, already focusing its lens on the effigy of Donna Maria's
great-grandmother. Donna Maria smiles. Her amusement tastes sour
on her lips.
The man with the camera is just like his father -- he can't do
a thing until he's captured the virgin.
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