The Storyteller (7 page)

“I’ve come home,” Angela whispered. “Come home for the final time.”

There was another gust of wind, and like Mariano before, the old promoter was gone.

Once she was ready for her professional debut, which had taken place in this very ring, Mariano launched his female protégé. The team of Mariano and Angela became a hit in the border towns, appearing in what was termed as mixtas. As a seasoned pro, Mariano fought the large bulls, while Angela fought smaller ones, where their performances were marvelous. More often than not, both left in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd. The scene was repeated time and time again. Tijuana, Nogales, Juarez, and Reynosa were some of the places where they won unprecedented acclaim together.

All the while, Angela never forgot her lesson from long before, where she was taught by the slap of a belt that she would always run the hand.

Competitors in the ring, and lovers away from it.

“Run the hand.”

Angela heard the disembodied voice and then a loud, unanimous scream. Five thousand shrieking cries, shriller than her wail when Mariano had taken the belt to her unprotected behind in the very bullring that was soon to be history.

“Noooo!”

She saw Mariano being carried from the ring, a mass of torn flesh, silk and blood. In the El Toreo De San Luis, as they appeared side by side, he had forgotten for one fatal second the very lesson he had beaten into his student.

He forgot to run the hand, and the animal slammed right into him.

“Mariano?”

The figures evaporated into thin air, but the message was clear. The ghosts of an empty plaza wished to claim their own.

“I’m coming home soon,” she whispered as she made her way out from the arena floor and through the doorway leading toward the steps. Ascending, she found herself in the stands, looking down at the circle of sand. Soon all would be a memory.

She had carried on after Mariano died, fighting for him as well as herself, but that was long ago. He was dead. Most of her predecessors and friends were dead. She had never married either, for how did one replace the solitary love of a lifetime? Soon, however, she would join him. She was one of the last great survivors of the El Toreo, and when it died, she would die with it.

A step at a time, she climbed past the seats to the top of the bullring. In a moment, she would go over the edge and fall to her death below.

“I wonder which of the murals they’ll find me under?” she asked the empty ring. “I hope Rafael doesn’t see it happen.”

In her mind, she heard the slaps once more, as she cried that very first time Mariano punished her. They had never done such a thing again, though they had tried about every other sexual act beyond. They never spoke of the incident to anyone either.

“Owwwwwwwwwwwwmmmmmmmm!”

Angela was not sure if it was a groan of pain reflecting upon the savage belt spanking she had received and the humiliation that turned her into a great bullfighter, or the fact that she was about to die. In either case. She started to climb over the summit of the bullring.

“Don’t do it!”

She was certain she saw the sleeve of a red and gold suit of lights, like Mariano had been wearing the day he died, reaching across and pulling her back to safety. As she spun around, she expected to see the face of her long dead lover greeting her. Maybe she had jumped and didn’t know it. Was she a ghost already?

“Are you crazy?”

Rafael had seen what was about to happen and come to her aid from nowhere.

Crying, she fell into his arms, but there was nothing erotic about it. Confusion and despair overwhelmed her.

“Life goes on,” Rafael whispered. “I know what you saw here today. I’ve seen them too.”

“What?”

The old man nodded, pointing to the sand.

“They come and they go, but they aren’t ready for you yet.”

On the sand, Mariano Flores was taking a lap around the ring, triumphant after giving a memorable show.

“Up here!” Angela called. “Mariano!”

“He doesn’t see you,” Rafael explained. “Just for now we can see him. Sometimes they are strong enough to punch a hole back into this world and return. They are never here for long, but sometimes they come.”

Angela nodded, understanding the way of things. Once again, she had learned a lesson in the El Toreo.

“Goodbye, Mariano,” she whispered in a soft voice.

“This is not a goodbye,” Rafael corrected. “We will all meet again when the right time comes. We will do it with or without this bullring.”

Angela stared at the spot where her lover saluted a crowd only he could see.

“And then?”

“The life of the El Toreo ends soon,” Rafael said wisely. “Life, however, will go on.”

Without another word, Angela started down the stairs and outward into a new world she had denied herself for so long. Before her on the sand, Mariano vanished and the phantom applause was only the wind once more.

“We’ll see you again someday,” she reminded herself. “I love you, Mariano. I always will.”

Behind her, the El Toreo De San Luis stood like a giant, but one about to be destroyed. For a long while, its shadow had covered her, but it would do so no more.

Chapter Three

The Pentagram

Julia was more drunk than she realized, but this seemed like a fine idea at the time, following her breakup with a boyfriend of three years. All that effort and all those plans shot in the ass. The Pentagram bar had looked like a great answer to the problem, but now she was home and the truth of the matter was setting in once more.

Unsure whether she could make it to her bed or not, she fell on the sofa and shut her eyes. The world spun around her, and holding back tears, she called out the name of her former love.

“Sammy. Oh, Sammy.”

“To hell with Sammy.”

The voice was audible. Opening her eyes, she sat up to expect herself confronted by some intruder in her home, but she was alone.

“Is someone here?”

The voice was dimly familiar to her, coming from the past that had long since been forgotten. It was a voice she had never expected to hear again.

Falling back on the sofa, she again shut her eyes and waited, but there was nothing.

Again she thought of the words, as her lover told her he had found someone else.

“Sorry, babe, but after all this time, it just isn’t working.”

The images were hazy in her alcohol-sopped mind, but nonetheless aching to behold.

“To hell with that son of a bitch!”

Once more she heard it and sat bolt upright, only this time she found herself staring face to face with a friend of old she had been forced to forget about. He had not entered through the door, but materialized.

“Erbmoh!”

“In the flesh, baby. I always come when you need me.”

Julia looked at him in utter disbelief. He was no longer a little boy, but grown into a man. They were around the same age.

“Erbmoh?”

The intruder knelt on the floor beside her and stared into her eyes.

“It’s been a long time.”

Memories long forgotten came back as Julia regressed into her childhood. Erbmoh was an imaginary friend she had created for herself, until her father had put a stop to that.

“You aren’t real,” she chided. “I made you up.”

“I look pretty real to you, don’t I?” he asked. “Want to feel my arm?”

Though her eyes were wide open, Julia’s mind was elsewhere. She was thinking back to when she was a much younger girl and could hear a different voice echoing within her skull. It was not that of her surprise visitor, but her father.

“You’re too big to have an imaginary friend anymore, and I want you to stop it! I want to hear you tell me there is no Erbmoh.”

Erbmoh had been her mentally conjured playmate, at least according to those around her, but back then he was very real. Acknowledging him, however, proved to be a big mistake.

“Either you stop it now, or I’ll spank it out of you.”

Daddy was not as patient as he might have been, and she remembered what happened. He had taken her upstairs, lifted her dress, pulled down her panties, and beaten her red with a hair brush. For someone in third grade, it was a traumatic ordeal.

“Say it,” the enraged voice kept demanding. “Say it! We don’t stop until you say it!”

Finally, through tears, the words came, and Erbmoh was no more.

“There is no Erbmoh!”

It was as if her returned friend could read her mind.

“Daddy was full of shit,” he smirked. “Doesn’t matter though. Him being dead and all. Nice of him and your mother to drop off like they did and leave you this house.”

“Daddy was a good man, overall,” Julia rebuked, “He was a good father.”

“Except when he busted your ass and convinced you I wasn’t real when we both know I am,” came the reply.

Julia had forgotten that furious going over with the hair brush and had forgotten Erbmoh from Planet Horecod as well. Now however he was back.

“You could have come to me sooner,” Julia complained. “Nothing stopped you.”

Erbmoh pouted like a small child himself and held a finger to his lips, encouraging silence.

“No. You stopped me when you blotted me from your mind. You stopped me by denying my existence. You told your father a lie and knew it was one. You drove me away.”

Julia wondered if it was the alcohol bringing this all into play or if she had suddenly lost her mind.

“Now why was it you refused to believe in me?”

“Because my father pounded my ass!” she shouted. “He spanked you right out of me!”

Erbmoh placed his hands on his hips and glared crossly at his former friend.

“So he spanked me out of you? Well, how can we fix that?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” Julia grumbled as she eyed her purse. Inside were cigarettes and some Pentagram matches.

It was then her old friend’s voice reached a triumphant note.

“Exactly.”

Julia’s face wore the expression of a silent question. The intruder grinned even more menacingly.

“Since your father hair-brushed it out of you, maybe we should brush it back. You think I’m not real? I’ll prove otherwise.”

With long forgotten memories of her father administering the bare bottomed spanking of a lifetime suddenly coming back to her booze dulled brain, Julia protested, not wanting a second helping of the same from Erbmoh after the passing of so many years.

“Noooo!” she shouted, but it was clearly too late.

Erbmoh was undeniably from another planet, for his eyes took on a bright yellow glow. As she stared into them, Julia found her free will melting. She was forced to obey whatever the alien friend commanded.

“So, you don’t believe in old Erbmoh from Planet Horecod, do you? Well, just like the truth was flailed out of you, we are going to flail it back in. Get up and take off all of your clothes!”

“I’ve had too much to drink to do that,” Julia protested, but Erbmoh’s eyes turned yellow once more, and as she stared into them, she felt the drunkenness leave her body. In moments, she was perfectly sober and even more stunned Erbmoh had not gone away.

“When we were little, I thought you were the most beautiful little blond girl in the world,” Erbmoh grinned. “The years have been kind to you. You’ve grown up. Now I see you are the most beautiful blond young woman I have ever laid eyes on, and soon you’re going to have the reddest ass around!”

“I believe in you,” Julia protested, as a superhuman force took over. She could feel the last resistant bits of drunkenness fading. “There’s no need for any of this bullshit. Okay? I get it now. Fine.”

Erbmoh shook his head in the negative.

“Take off all your clothes. I want to see you naked.”

“What kind of friend are you?” Julia started to plead. “I said I believe in you.”

“You say it with your mouth, but not with your heart,” the visitor corrected her. “Once you believe with your heart, I am going to show you things you never dreamed possible, and when we start, you’ll never miss this asshole named Sammy, your parents, or Seattle again. I’m doing this because I love you.”

“Daddy said the same thing when he was beating my ass purple to make me say you didn’t exist,” Julia snorted. “Wasn’t one spanking on your behalf enough?”

“No,” Erbmoh answered. “The thing is, if we don’t do things this way, you will go to sleep and wake up in the morning thinking this was a dream. Now get up and get those clothes all off.”

Resigned to her fate, Julia arose and stood before Erbmoh. Her breathing intensified as she slowly started to unbutton her blouse, one step at a time. Once it was open, she took it off and hurled it to the floor, so she stood before him in her bra.

“We never played doctor when we were young,” she complained. “This feels weird.”

“Be quiet and keep undressing,” Erbmoh scolded. “I want you naked!”

“Then what?” she asked.

Erbmoh shook his head in a defined answer.

“You will find out. Now get those clothes off.”

Julia sat down on the sofa and untied her shoes, taking them and her socks off, so she was now in her bare feet. Reliving shadows of what the hair brush had felt like long ago made her try to put off the moment as long as possible, but her friend from outer space was having none of it.

“Stop stalling. Get your clothes off or I’ll rip them off myself!”

The eyes flashed once more and Julia was compelled to obey.

Silently, she unhooked her bra and let it fall as well, so she was now topless before her antagonist. Her breasts were of average size, with a whiteness where her bikini bra had covered them during the summer. The nipples started to perk in spite of her effort to hide the same. Once again, her breathing intensified and Erbmoh grinned when he noticed.

“Now the pants.”

Julia unsnapped her jeans and yanked downward, taking her underpants along with them as well. These fell to her ankles, where she kicked out of them and stood for inspection with her arms at her sides.

Her tan showed there also. Standing bare in the living room, her tits with their reddish brown nipples were not only visible, but her blond, hairy pussy as well.

“I’m not going to give you a spanking you’ll never forget,” Erbmoh declared with a severity in his voice. “I’m going to spank you until you believe once more. Now you go to the bathroom and get the hair brush. You know the one I mean.”