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Episode Five
She feels naked. Stripped-not just of her clothes, but of the
invisible hide that cloaks the soft core of her being. Joel has
his father's eyes. The first time Rick Conti turned his gaze on
Donna Maria, his stare flayed her to the bone. He had eyes from
another world, a translucent gray so much harder than the sugared
browns and mossy greens of the people she loved.
Rick's eyes demanded too much of her. They sized up Donna Maria
as if she were an equal, slicing through the half-truths that
cocooned her. Rick made her admit that she didn't like the Anglo
version of her name, the version that her grandparents used for
the sake of their white customers. She secretly wished she could
be Doña Marìa, like her great-grandmother. The old woman had earned
that title not because she was a lady, but because she was a hard-assed,
regal bitch who was strong enough to take what she wanted without
apology.
What about you, Donna Maria? Rick asked, the first time they made love. He was lying back
on the bed, scrutinizing her body as she tugged off her t-shirt
and pushed her bra straps off her shoulders. Even when her breasts
shimmered out into the open, his gaze never softened. How strong are you?
At nineteen, Donna had been strong enough to take pleasure like
an adult. She had been bold enough to be selfish in bed, to lie
back with her legs twined around Rick's shoulders and let him
drive her delirious with his tongue. She had the audacity to wear
her grandmother's black lace mantilla for him-and nothing else-while
he took one photo after another of her come-stunned eyes behind
the lace. When his film ran out, he pushed her onto her knees
and lifted the folds of the old mantilla, releasing the scents
of incense and mothballs. With her face unveiled, Donna Maria
was strong enough to grab what she wanted: Rick's cock in her
mouth, thickening until she thought she would choke, then filling
her throat with pale, bitter wine.
This is my sacrament, grandma.
Joel Conti is holding one of his father's cameras. Donna knows
the Nikon belonged to Rick by the timid, reverent way Joel grasps
it. Rick used to hold a camera with a combination of sensuality
and authority, the way he held Donna's breasts. Joel's hands are
unsteady under the weight of a dead man's reputation. Awkwardly
he lifts the camera to his eye, and without asking permission,
takes Donna Maria's picture.
Donna snaps back as if he'd punched her. What does he think she
is? A roadside curiosity? A living version of California highway
kitsch, weathered and outdated?
"Joel," says the blonde, "you should have asked first."
"Why?" Donna says. "What's to ask for?"
She shoves past Joel into the office.
"Carly is right," Joel says. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it."
"It was an impulse."
"I said, don't worry about it. Take whatever you want."
With a sweep of her arm, Donna gestures to the old cash register,
the cracked furniture, the dinosaur of a TV, as if to offer him
everything she owns. She retreats behind the desk, where she goes
about the business of checking in her guests. Followed meekly
by his friend-is the blonde always trailing after someone, like
a golden-haired lamb?-Joel steps into the dusty gloom of the lounge.
"Can we sit down and talk?" he asks.
Joel's desire to please her is palpable, cloying. He wants her
to join him in a cozy discussion of the past. He wants her to
absolve him, here in the wreckage of her past, before he drives
back to San Francisco in his hip old Volkswagen.
Not so fast. Donna Maria grabs two room keys and slaps them down
on the desktop.
"Hope you don't mind the smell of cigarette smoke," she says.
"We used to have non-smoking rooms, but the guy who took over
when my grandmother got sick gave the smokers free reign over
the place."
"Smoke doesn't matter," the blonde says. "But we're probably not
going to stay."
"We'll stay. Any of the rooms are fine." Joel steps forward and
scoops the keys off the desk.
The blonde -- Carly, Joel called her -- stares down at her feet.
Her clunky Mary Janes remind Donna of the shoes she used to wear
to Mass when she was a child. The patent leather, polished to
a holy sheen by her grandmother, was a badge that she didn't want
to wear. She would shuffle madly through the dust when abuelita
wasn't looking, just to subdue that shine.
But Carly is nothing like Donna Maria. As soon as she saw Carly,
Donna knew where the other woman had come from. Private school,
probably Catholic. Women's college, possibly Mills. Liberal professional-probably
a public school teacher or a social worker. She might have a dainty
little tattoo somewhere, in a place that no one could see. A butterfly,
maybe, or a baby-blue heart. A rosebud, on the brink of unfurling.
One thing about the encounter had taken Donna Maria by surprise:
she had never known that she could get so turned on by a woman
so different from herself. When Donna stepped into the parking
lot that morning and saw Carly pissing under that tree, her heart
stopped. First she saw Carly's bare ass, gleaming like a skinned
peach under the folds of her hiked skirt. Then came the clear
trickle of pee, splashing the heels of Carly's shoes. Her sigh
of release sent a tremor of lust through Donna Maria's body. Looking
at Carly now, she still feels the attraction, but she pushes it
away.
"I'll let you get settled, then," Donna says. "I have to go into
town."
"What?" Joel's face slackens. "We just got here. Don't you want
to talk about my father?"
Donna Maria pulls her keys out of her pocket. "Not yet."
"What do you expect us to do around this place? We came down to
see you."
"Joel, let her go," Carly says.
"You've got to be kidding. She gets us down here with her threats
and her photo, then leaves us standing around like a couple of
fools. And we're supposed to let her go?"
Donna Maria walks outside and climbs into her pickup truck. She
can still hear Joel protesting, Carly imploring him to calm down.
Calm. Yes, let's all be calm. Let's take deep breaths and hold
hands and pretend that the past isn't rushing up to meet us like
a concrete sidewalk at the end of a long jump. Because jumping
is exactly what Donna did when she sent that letter to Joel-on
the updraft of a tequila high, she closed her eyes and took a
freefall into memory.
Driving north, Donna Maria turns up the radio as high as she can
stand it. She finds a station playing 80's heavy metal, with a
beat that makes her blood pound. She recognizes one of the songs
she used to listen to in high school, an anthem of her escape
fantasies. After she graduated, she kept playing those songs when
she was alone in her room, but the music took on a grating edge.
No amount of pot or beer could silence the steely whisper behind
the shrieking guitars.
Who are you what are you why are you?
Two weeks after her nineteenth birthday, she went to hear one
of those bands play in San Jose. She went to the concert with
a girlfriend, but the two of them lost each other at the concession
stand. Donna Maria found herself being jostled through muscular
waves of bodies-male, female, a river of warm flesh. The chaos
excited her, especially when the music started, and the current
took on a lewd, gut-shaking throb. She wished she could be naked
in the midst of all those people, feel them prodding and nudging
and caressing her slick skin.
She came to a standstill in the middle of a knot of men. Nothing
about them was familiar, except for their solidarity with her
need. Breathing and surging around her, they were like a restrained
pack of animals-all long hair and dense muscle. Donna felt the
synchronicity of their pulses, and her blood took up the beat.
She began to dance.
Sometimes her hunger frightened her. Other times, like that night,
her need overwhelmed her fear. Undulating in the middle of that
circle, Donna Maria wasn't scared. She was tall, powerful, strong
in her own right -- and high on the mysteries of her body. Raising
her arms over her head, she gave in to the massive drumbeat as
if she were being fucked by rhythm itself. She danced like a priestess,
a cyclone of seduction. The men edged away a little, but only
to give her more space to move. Her whipping hair flung drops
of sweat into the audience, transparent beads that caught fire
in the stage lights. Her lips moved as she mouthed lyrics in silent
incantation. Her hard-tipped breasts shook so fast that they hurt,
but she was too far gone to notice any pain.
In the centrifuge of her frenzy, she didn't feel the men join
her. First a hand on her waist, a thigh against her hip-contact
that flowed naturally with her dance. Then one of the strangers
came up behind her, so close that he was almost touching, and
began to rock his pelvis in time with her motions. When the crest
of his cock nudged her ass, she went wild, bucking against him
with all her might.
The others took the signal and moved in, one of them cupping her
breasts, another grinding his hardness into the ridge of her hip
while he gripped her pussy. Her moisture came in pulsing bursts,
soaking the crotch of her jeans. Bone and muscle bruised her flesh,
hot breath misted her throat, and everywhere she felt the urgent
pounding of blood, the straining heat of cocks. Behind all of
it, the music, primal and electric. For what seemed like hours
she rode the keen edge of climax-so close to coming, but too high
to let go.
She wasn't drunk when she danced with those men. The booze didn't
come until later, when she met up with her friend Pauline at her
truck after the concert ended.
"You look like you got fucked," Pauline said.
"Not fucked. Just fingered."
"Was he good?"
Donna Maria smiled. "They were good."
"They? How many?"
"Ten. Twenty. Who knows?"
Pauline sized up her friend. "Still a virgin?"
"Like I said, who knows?"
The girls laughed, raucous and raw. Pauline drove Donna Maria
back to the motel and parked in the lot, far from the room where
Donna's grandmother slept. Together they climbed into the back
of Pauline's truck. Pauline lit a joint and handed Donna a quart
of Cobra in a paper bag. The two girls swallowed their cheap booze
and smoked with their eyes narrowed, like hardened streetwalkers,
as if they weren't frightened by anything that had happened that
night, or of anything that would happen in the years to come.
But when their high gave way to fatigue, they snuggled like runaway
children under Pauline's leather jacket. They petted each other
as they drifted off to sleep, fingers skimming each others' arms
and breasts as if they were made of frail porcelain.
The next morning was Sunday. Donna's grandmother was strangely
calm, considering that Donna Maria hadn't come to bed until the
moon faded to a mousy shadow. She smoothed Donna Maria's hair
as the girl lay in bed, her body weakened by the malt liquor.
"I'm going to Mass, mi'ja," the old woman said. "You rest, child." She pressed her lips
to Donna Maria's forehead for many seconds. Then she kissed her
granddaughter's closed eyes, as if to keep them sealed.
But Donna, in spite of her hangover, couldn't stay in bed. Ten
minutes after her grandmother's truck pulled out of the parking
lot, Donna was sitting up, rubbing her smoke-reddened eyes. The
air seemed to buzz with ominous promises, like the hum of a cloud
of locusts flowing over the hill.
On the floor lay the jeans and t-shirt that Donna had worn the
night before. They reeked of marijuana smoke and Donna's musk,
but she put them back on and went about her morning cleaning.
More than once, she stopped in the middle of her chores to lie
down and finger herself in time to that remembered beat. She handled
her pussy roughly, pretending the her fingers belonged to the
men who had danced with her the night before. She couldn't believe
that she had such boldness in her blood. She carried the new image
of herself around with her as she worked, cradling it in her mind,
so that it wouldn't fade in the midst of stained sheets and dirty
ashtrays.
That was the morning Rick Conti came to the Motel Donna Maria.
Donna Maria turns off the radio. She pulls the truck off the highway
at a roadside fruit stand. She hasn't thought about that concert
in years; now she wonders how she could have forgotten. A pulse
in her cunt thrums lightly, and her stiffened nipples chafe against
her t-shirt. Does flesh ever really lose the memory of joy?
Mounds of fruit glisten in wooden bins at the fruit stand. Donna
Maria's stomach groans, reminding her that she hasn't eaten since
yesterday afternoon. She gets out of the truck, strolls over to
the stand, and takes her time picking out her breakfast -- half
a dozen fragrant apricots, a basket of strawberries, and a bottle
of cold water. She sits down at a lopsided wooden bench to eat.
The sun-warmed fruit fills her mouth; its juices drench her parched
lips. She washes down the succulent meat with the sweet, icy water
and lets the run-off spill over chin. When she was a little girl,
she ate bananas this way, squeezing the fruit into a glorious
goop, loving the silken mess of it between her fingers. Her grandmother
would come at her with a dishcloth; Donna Maria would run away,
trailing screams of delight.
Years later, Rick would watch her eating mangoes naked. She had
a trick of devouring them without stripping the peel: first massaging
the fruit between her palms, then biting a hole in one end and
sucking out the pungent golden mush. As she twisted and squeezed,
rivers of sticky liquid would course down her throat and breasts;
if she were in the mood to be cleaned, she would let him lick
her dry.
So many spirits live inside her -- Donna Maria feels them shifting,
pushing, silently crossing paths like fish. For the moment she's
a woman having breakfast at a highway fruit stand, but she is
also the girl who found the first dark map of blood on her underpants,
and the teenager who painted invisible runes on her belly with
the juices of her solitary orgasms, and the toughened bitch who
used to travel up and down the California coast, searching for
a place where she could breathe.
These are the women she meets by daylight. In the darker recesses
lives another one: the victim, the mewling animal. The traitor
who stays hidden, but refuses to disappear.
Donna Maria stands up and stretches. The man behind the fruit
stand is watching her. She arches her back, allowing him a better
view of her tits. He leans forward on his elbows, laces his fingers,
licks his lips. He has a luscious mouth, tender and puffy, like
a girl's. Donna likes way that mouth contrasts with the bad-ass
tattoos on his biceps, and the packed ridges of his belly under
his muscle shirt, but he's not what she's looking for right now.
She climbs back in her truck and heads for San Jose. Today she
wants a lover who can keep company with the female selves inside
her head. She needs to be with someone who won't be afraid if
her pleasure unleashes a flock of ghosts.
Donna Maria knows exactly who she needs today, and where to find
her.
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