Summer Dreams (19 page)

Quivering like a mass of jell-o, she gazed at his handsome features. His look was stern, his eyes hooded. He was playing the game. Fantasizing being Esteban's sex slave titillated her beyond rational thought, driving her to the edge of shuddering ecstasy.

Her legs twitched and she rubbed them together, trying to relieve the burning ache in her vagina. She arched her back, offering her breasts. She was so hot she could feel her own juices, scalding her thighs.

But still he didn't touch her, except to capture her wrists with his good hand and pull her hands above her head. She writhed beneath him, silently pleading for his touch. 

He used his half-healed hand to spread her thighs wide, and he lowered himself and without a word, plunged into her. His entry sent her over the edge. She spiraled out of control, bucking and arching, drawing him deeper, wanting him to climax with her.

"Oh, Esteban, Esteban,
por favor, por favor
..." She whimpered.

Like the piston of an engine, he drove into her, over and over, wringing the last drop of release from her body. And when he knew she was satisfied, he reared back bringing her with him, their bodies still intimately linked, and settled her on his lap.

Rocking back and forth as if they were in the old swing, he dallied with her, playing with her breasts, teasing her nipples into strutted points, easing his hand between their bodies and stroking her clitoris, withdrawing and then entering her, again and again. 

Slowly, her passion mounted once more, reaching a new plateau, rising to a feverish pitch. Attuned to her body, he lowered her to the ground again and plunged into her, a frenzied, almost-punishing coupling, joining with her in a fierce passion, pounding into her body, silently proclaiming his mastery.

He took her to a place she'd never been before---a climax so powerful it wrenched the very breath from her lungs, sapped the marrow from her bones, and rendered her nerves an insensate, jumbled mess.

Clinging to him in the aftermath of their passion, she whispered, "I'm yours, Esteban.  Forever yours.
Por favor
, don't ever leave me."

But she still couldn't say the words of love.

***

Squeezed into the Chevy pickup, Natalia and Esteban, along with Pura, returned to the farm in a festive mood. They'd been to Esteban's first game since his wrist had healed. Though his wrist was still weak and he'd only gotten one hit, it was a start. 

"Do you think the scout might come back before your season is over?" Natalia asked, knowing he hadn't been able to play when the scout had visited a couple of weeks before.

"Anything is possible. But I'm not counting on it. Taos is a long way to come and ..."

He gasped and pointed at the barn, exclaiming, "
Por Dios
, what happened?" 

Natalia's gaze turned to the barn, and she was shocked by what she saw. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, wishing the awful image away.

The barn's doors had been wrenched from their hinges. One door lay on the ground in the dirt, and the other hung crookedly, supported by only its top hinge. Obscenities, spray-painted in six-foot tall letters, covered the walls, vivid against the weathered pine boards.

Spewing gravel, Esteban pulled into the farmyard. Pura hadn't said a thing, only gasped once. They spilled from the pickup and wandered around the yard in mute shock, surveying the damage.

All of the livestock was loose, milling uncertainly in the yard, looking as shaken as they felt, from the chickens to the cows. Apolinaria, the goat, was nowhere to be found, having made good her escape.

Fences had been partially torn down, in a haphazard fashion, a few boards here and there, a post uprooted every few feet. The chicken coop had been completely demolished, as if beaten to death with baseball bats. It lay in crushed squalor, a broken litter of chicken wire and wood. The tool shed had been pushed over, falling on its side and crumbling into pieces. But the farm implements were still there, sitting incongruously in the open, on the concrete slab that served as the floor.

At first glance, it appeared as if the vandals hadn't bothered to take anything, just leaving wrecked destruction in their path. Only when they looked for the woodpile, did they realize it was missing.

Venturing inside the barn, they were surprised to find the damage was minimal. One stall had been torn apart, board-by-board, then, as if the effort wasn't worth it, the remainder of the barn had been left intact. But the loft had been emptied. All of the hay had been thrown to the floor.

Stifling a sob, Pura finally found her voice, "My home, my home. What about
mi
casa?"  She reached for Natalia's hand and pleaded, "
Ven conmigo
. I'm afraid to look."

Natalia squeezed her grandmother's hand, offering a reassurance she didn't feel. She and Pura approached the house. Esteban trailed after them. But as hard as Natalia stared at Pura's wooden-frame house, she couldn't find anything amiss. They mounted the two steps and gazed around the porch. The rusty yard chairs hadn't been moved, and the porch swing swayed gently in the breeze, its chains chanting musically.

"
Por favor, esperensen un momento
." Esteban's voice stopped them from unlocking the front door. "Could you step aside for a minute? I'd like to see if the lock was jimmied."

Obediently, they moved to one side while Esteban squatted down and examined the lock, jiggling the doorknob and peering through the keyhole. When he was satisfied, he rose and said, "Doesn't look as if it has been tampered with. That's a blessing."

Pura sighed and slumped against Natalia. But Esteban dispelled their short-lived relief by saying, "Go inside and wait for me. I'm going to check the back door."

Pura opened the screen and unlocked the front door. Clinging to each other, Natalia stepped inside with her
abuela
. Nothing was out of place. The living room looked as it always did.

They heard Esteban's footsteps crossing the kitchen and glanced up. Coming through the dining room, he said, "The back door is okay and the storeroom. They must have left the house alone. But just to be certain, I'm going to check the other rooms." He stroked his chin and speculated, "I wonder if they heard us coming and ran off. I don't want them to come back later."

He turned to Natalia and said, "You better call the police and have them come right away."

Terrified by the thought that the vandals might return, she led her grandmother to the sofa and settled her. Crossing the room to the hall, she looked around, peeking in her room and finding everything as she'd left it.

Esteban brushed past her. "Call the police, Natalia."

Taking her cell from her purse, she punched in nine-one-one and waited for the dispatcher to pick up. When she got the dispatcher, she explained the situation and gave directions to the farm. She returned to the living room and found Esteban with his arms around Pura, trying to soothe her.

But her grandmother wasn't hysterical. On the contrary, she appeared to be in deep shock, her eyes glazed over and one hand nervously plucking at the sofa cushion.

"Should we take her to the hospital?" Natalia whispered to Esteban, alarmed by her grandmother's uncharacteristic behavior.

"I'm not sick, Natalia," came the reedy answer.

Pleased to hear her grandmother sounding more like herself, she leaned down and kissed the crown of her gray head. "I'm worried about you. Will you be alright?"

"Of course," Pura said.

"Just give her some time," Esteban advised. "Why don't you two wait here for the police. I'm going to round up the livestock and try to pin them somewhere."

"Take good care of the chickens," Pura said.

"I will, I promise. And I'm going to check the damage more closely, too. I want the police to make a complete report."

But when the two police officers finally arrived, a full hour after Natalia had called, they weren't much help.

With Esteban's assistance, they took copious notes, documenting each piece of destruction and vandalism. They questioned Pura closely, asking if any of her students might have a vendetta against her. She wasn't much help, unable to believe her students, no matter how bad-mannered they might be, would dare to destroy her farm.

But despite her protestations to the contrary, in the policemen's estimation, the damage bore the distinct earmarks of adolescent vandalism. Natalia was relieved to learn from the officers that this kind of vandalism was usually an isolated event and unlikely to occur again.

There was one thing that bothered her, though, and as soon as the officers had finished their report, she confronted them, complaining about their tardy arrival. They apologized, but pointed out that the farm was several miles from town and connected by a very poorly maintained road.  They even suggested her grandmother might resurface the road for her own safety.

After Natalia ushered the officers from the house, she turned to the dining room table. The map and offer Hector had left lay open on the table, as if silently mocking her. Seating herself, she studied the map carefully.

***

"I think you should reconsider, Abuelita," Natalia pled with her grandmother. "It took the police a full hour to get here, and they blamed your road. With a new road, it would be so much safer and convenient."

"I don't want a road cutting my farm into little pieces, and that's final," Pura replied stubbornly. "I would think you'd be ashamed to take anything from that snake of an ex-fiancé.  We aren't that hard up yet. There are other ways to get the road resurfaced."

"What other ways? Do you have the money to fix the road?"

The front door opened, interrupting their argument. Esteban entered and said, "I think I've got a temporary chicken coop rigged, but all this hard work has made me hungry." 

"There's some leftover
arroz con pollo
in the kitchen," Natalia said without looking at him. "Help yourself."

"Maybe I better go out and come back again," he said. "The reception is a bit chilly, don't you think?"

"Don't mind her," Pura interjected. "She's in a bad mood because I don't agree with her."

"Agree with what?" He asked.

"She wants to let Hector put that blasted road across my farm. Says it's for my safety and that it took the police an hour to get here because my road is bad."

"You heard them, too, Abuelita," Natalia said. "They didn't just tell me."

"Pah." She waved her gnarled hands. "They said that to cover their own incompetence." Pura turned to Esteban and said, "I told her she's crazy to take anything from that awful Hector."

Natalia glanced at Esteban, also looking to him for support. Maybe he could convince Pura if she couldn't. But what she saw in his features stopped her short. 

His face looked like a thundercloud waiting to storm. Frowning, he shot her a reproachful look and admitted, "I have to agree with Pura. We'll find another way to fix the road. I thought you'd learned your lesson about Hector but apparently not."

He started toward the kitchen, must have thought better of it, stopped and turned. "I'm going back outside. There's still an hour of daylight left."

Natalia stood in the center of the living room and watched him leave in dumbfounded silence. She'd expected him to be reasonable, to understand her point of view and support it.  She'd expected him to help her convince her
abuela
. Instead, he'd sided against her.

And like Pura, he'd rejected Hector's offer due to his personal dislike of her ex-fiancé. But resurfacing the road wasn't a personal matter. It was a matter of safety. And Natalia didn't care where or from whom they got a new road, just so long as they got one.

Her grandmother's safety was at stake---couldn't Esteban see that?

***

Hammering boards into the fence posts helped to dissipate some of Esteban's anger, but the physical labor didn't erase the hurt. He couldn't quite believe, after the lovemaking they'd shared, that Natalia would go running to Hector for help.

He heard the front door slam and footsteps crossing the yard. Without turning to look, he knew it was Natalia. And if he didn't miss his guess, she was spoiling for a fight.

"Esteban," the agitated sound of her voice reached him, but he didn't stop hammering.  "Stop that racket and look at me," she demanded.

He delivered several hard blows and finished the board he'd been working on. Parking the hammer in his belt, he pivoted slowly to face her. His earlier assessment had been correct by the look of her flushed, frowning face.

With arms akimbo and fists riding her hips, she'd never looked so beautiful. And it took all of his restraint not to sweep her into his arms and carry her off to the barn for a tumble in the hay. But judging by the reception he'd received in the house, he didn't think she'd respond to caveman tactics.

"I can't believe you don't see my point of view about the road, Esteban. I want Pura to be safe. She needs a new road."

"Like I said before, there are other ways to get a new road, Natalia," he replied. "I know Pura has savings and---"

"Those savings are for her retirement," she interrupted. "Why should she spend her money when she can get a new road and additional money? It just doesn't make sense."

"Does it make sense to force her to put a road across her farm she doesn't want? After all, Pura is a big girl, and this is her farm," he said.

"This may be her farm," Natalia retorted, "but that doesn't mean she always knows what's best. Sometimes, she's stubborn, just to be stubborn. Sometimes, she needs help to see things clearly."

"You mean she's getting senile."

"That's not what I meant! And you know it." Her scowl deepened. "I can't believe you're taking her side. The farm needs a new road, and I don't want her to dip into savings to pay for it."

He ran his hand over his cropped head. "Then I'll pay for it. I've some money saved for college."

"You will not. That money's for your college."

"Okay, Natalia, you pay for it."

Narrowing her eyes, she said, "This isn't about the road, is it, Esteban? This is about your personal vendetta with Hector. Even though you know it's the best solution, you reject it because the money and road would come from him. You're letting your emotions rule your reason, just like Pura."