Ortega gave the Vietnamese girl who worked at the store a kiss.
He hugged and kissed her like it was the natural thing to do but he did feel a bit odd as he did it.
They were at the back of the store, in the warehouse, and the sun was shining brightly through the windows.
Kissing her was like a long-awaited breath of fresh air but it still seemed orchestrated.
It almost seemed redundant. Yes.
Ortega couldn’t help but feel like a stranger even to himself.
Eventually, when the air finished, the kiss did too.
After their lips parted and they let go of each other gently, her hand softly brushed the arm Ortega had injured while he was on the Point Of No Return mission. She saw the painful expression he had on his face but didn't comment or ask him about it.
He looked into her eyes.
She had big, dark eyes, slender arms and small, delicate hands.
She had a wonderful back, long and graceful that reminded him of a glass stem.
Then there was her beautiful jet-black hair.
Ortega stroked it softly, captivated by it.
A smile came to her lips when her eyes met his.
He softly put his hands on her head and rocked it gently.
Their faces moved towards one another and then they embraced.
They were leaning up against each other so closely that their foreheads touched.
Ortega closed his eyes.
He could feel something warm inside.
He could almost feel some kind of rest, between the arms of that wonderful girl.
He finally felt at home, his real one, not the American one. He was scared to go back to that one.
The reason being I’ve become a killer.
A contract killer.
Home, love, family... Everything he had always believed you’d want to come back to... No. His brother and parents had, in his view unexpectedly, turned into complete strangers. What’s more, his pre-war life and native country itself now felt incredibly distant, far away and at times imaginary to him.
A foreign country.
Everybody used to refer to the US as ‘the real world’, although he felt the exact the contrary. To him, Vietnam was the real world, whereas the US – inevitably – wasn’t.
The real world – Ortega said in his head giving it further thought.
Maybe, those who coined that term would do well to remember the nutty ones, like him for instance. They were the ones who seemed to lose their way and subsequently forgot who they were in Vietnam.
Not that he gave a shit or anything like that.
He didn’t care about his father, his mother or even his brother any more. Helen was part of the real world too though.
They may have broken up, but Ortega was still in love with her.
***
Ortega was half-naked and laying on a bed in the Hu chi Hotel.
He embraced the girl next to him; he buried his face on the side of her neck.
She smelled like flowers. She was intense and awesome.
He glanced down to stare at her.
Ortega was as tense as a violin cord. He was anxious and ready to spring at any instant. Yet, as he looked at her, he got the feeling his insides were melting.
A sense of exhaustion seemed to come over him leaving the impression he’d finally gone back to being his old self again.
Her neck was long and perfect, and her jet-black hair flowed down her back.
He slowly took in the rest of her.
She was tiny. She had petite breasts in a petite bra and her bellybutton looked like a small dimple in the middle of nowhere.
He placed his hand on her back, softly. A gesture as simple as touching her naked back with his hand touched him so profoundly that she truly was the ultimate escape from reality for him.
Embarrassed by how intense his feelings were, made it difficult to look her in the eyes. No matter what Ortega used to talk to her about, as soon as he did his eyes were practically already fucking her. He looked at her with such intensity it embarrassed her. In all honesty, it embarrassed them both.
The problem was that it had been virtually impossible, for Ortega, to address her without staring at her lips, her eyes or entire face. It was impossible to be in front of such beauty without it overcoming him or to be awed.
It surprised him therefore that in spite of feeling overwhelmed, he still managed to seduce her.
Beauty...
Female beauty was the only thing that could make him feel better instantly since he’d begun that godforsaken life. It always would.
When she inquired about what part of the military he actually belonged to, he even had a hard time lying to her.