Three
We spent all day Saturday out in al campo, leaving separately and meeting down on the Gran Via. Her English was not very good, my Spanish not much better, but we managed. It just seemed to make it all the more fun, laughing at each other stumbling over words. I was seventeen again and this was the most beautiful day of my life. We returned late in the evening to a bus stop on the Via and held each other a long while before she finally shooed me away.
"Cuando?" I asked.
"A noche.", she said, motioning again for me to leave.
Walking home I prayed to any gods that might be listening that this meant tonight, and it did. More tonights than I could ever have imagined, and nowhere near enough. She would slip out through the window and come to me, sometimes catching me asleep but not often. She would stay as long as she felt was safe, sometimes hours, sometimes only minutes. In the beginning we made that soft kind of love, slowly and tenderly exploring each other. But it wasn't long before the passion engulfed us. It damn near killed me. And in one of those peculiarly Catholic ironies, she absolutely refused to use any kind of protection.
We did see each other occasionally in daylight; a couple of more Saturdays and even a Saint's Day when school was out. For nearly four months she told no one, not even her best friend, and neither did I. We had begun talking about the possibility of coming out, but as soon as we considered her parent's reaction the conversation would end abruptly. We both knew, of course, that it would be the end of everything. And so it was.
She was by then beginning to show. Her father must have noticed and come to her room to stroke her hair and ask if she was alright. Finding rolled up clothes under the blanket, he felt that stabbing pain all fathers must feel when they first realize another man is stroking their daughter's hair; in this case, a man as old as he was. He waited in the living room until hearing her return through the window, but said nothing. He simply sat there until morning when the pain and the rage finally boiled over.
These things I can only imagine; I never saw or spoke to Remedios again. One morning they were simply gone, the entire family. I was told they had gone south for the winter. And not a word from her father. If I had been him, I would have---
Enough! I’m going to be sick. We both know exactly what you would have done. Now, enough of this pitiful whining, we have a long night ahead.
I must confess, I used to admire Henry. I had always been there, lurking in the back of his skull, twitching my tail now and then to give him ideas, but never, not once in all those years did he cave in. This, of course, was before Remedios. The moment that light came on, I knew I finally had him. Henry says that he was unable to summon the will to hold me back. He even blames the window; can you imagine? I can tell you that it was, in fact, Henry himself that turned me loose; eagerly, I might add. Either way, it makes no difference now. I will allow him his pathetic delusions as long as it keeps him quiet.
Tonight, as always, we will prowl the darkened streets and alleyways, seeking the trail of something seen earlier at the shopping mall, or the schoolyard. During our recent travels from city to city, I have honed my instincts to the point where I can pick up a scent and follow a warmth left hours, even days before. Tenacity, subtlety, single mindedness…I would love nothing more than to catalogue all of my remarkable skills for you, but that will have to wait for another time. All this talk has made me hungry.