RACHEL

I never had time for a son I've never met. I have little curiosity about him. My daughter, fifteen years gone, has dissolved into oblivion. I feel no emotion for either my bastard son or my dead daughter. Then why do I suffer such distress over Fabiola's past lovers? I was a teenager when he was born, Rachel, his mother, was Camilo Sifuentes' first fantastic fuck. Camilo and I worked at the Majestic Theatre downtown. We performed every chore from preparing the marquee to carrying the huge film cases from the foyer a hundred steps up to the projection room. During movies we alternated between serving behind the counter to ushering the patrons to their seats. We were juniors in high school and we appreciated the job. We saw lots of people and watched lots of movies. One evening I left early since Camilo was closing. The next day he stopped me in the halls at school and I couldn't keep him from babbling. He had finished cleaning the popcorn machine and was emptying the trash when he noticed a girl standing by herself looking at the posters for the upcoming attractions. "I returned from dumping the garbage and she hadn't move," said Camilo. "I began a conversation with her and she told me that she was alone and was going to walk home. I asked her where she lived and she said on the other side of the Southmost. 'That's five miles away and it's midnight,' I said. She said that her father usually picked her up, but her parents were visiting relatives in Mexico and there was nobody home. I told her that I would be more than happy to give her a lift. Once in the car I had a half-pint of peach brandy left over from the weekend and I asked her if she wanted any. She took a couple of drinks and I knew right away that she wanted to screw. We drove past her house and parked on the levee. She went wild. I'll tell you: She couldn't open her legs fast enough." Camilo never took her anywhere. She was pretty, but in those days peer pressure dictated your every move. Rachel was a poor Mexican who would have embarrassed Camilo if anyone from school had seen him with her. I saw her once or twice at the theatre and Camilo kept a running commentary on their encounters, but except for a pang of jealously that I hadn't been at the right place at the right time, I didn't pay attention to the relationship. That changed a Friday afternoon boarding a Continental Bus bound for San Antonio. Rachel was standing in front of me. I studied her from behind and I wanted to fuck her on the spot. Camilo had been so explicit in his effortless conquest of her that I imagined in my teenage fantasy she might be easier than a nymphomaniac jazzed on Spanish fly looking for a stick shift to mount. Rachel was wearing a one-piece cotton dress that didn't reach her mid-thighs. Her hair was long and Indian black and her skin was bronze. I was delirious with desire, trembling to touch her. "Rachel!" She turned around with a puzzled look on her face. "I'm Camilo's friend." "You know Camilo?" I couldn't believe that she didn't recognize me and I altered my approach. I didn't want to jeopardize my chances by saying that Camilo and I worked at the Majestic. "I'm a good friend of Carlos, his older brother. I saw you talking to Camilo at the movies and he told me about you." "What did he say?" "He said that you and he were friends and that you were a very nice person." "We're not seeing each other anymore. He has a new girlfriend." It was his same girlfriend, a blond whose father was a successful car dealer, but she didn't set off the fireworks for Camilo like Rachel. He had never mentioned that he had terminated the relationship, but thinking back he hadn't spoken about her either. "Are you going to San Antonio?" I asked. "Yes." "To visit family?" "Yes. And you?" "Same." We entered the bus together, but to my disappointment she took her place next to an occupied seat. I proceeded to the back of the bus from where I could gauge her movements. I stared at the top of her head. Thirty miles later in Harlingen her neighbor stood, collected his belongings and descended. My libido having reduced my reasoning powers to cruise control, I hurried down the aisle. "May I sit next to you?" I asked as I tried my best to avert my gaze from her exposed thighs. "Sí." We made small talk, but I was in a heightened state of excitement and the words passed through my head. She was a small girl and her breasts, as best as I could observe, were the champagne glass variety, but it was her slender thighs that inspired my surreptitious strategy. We had settled into our seats and were traveling through the sparsely populated King Ranch. I was scanning the brushland for a buck. Nature was in absolute control. Knowing that I had cornered Rachel for the remainder of the journey sharpened my senses. I controlled the high ground. I needed to devise a more precise tactic to snare my prey. I perceived instinctively that the thighs were her weak flanks. I had bought a Sports Illustrated to read. During a lull in the conversation I opened the magazine and stared blankly at the pages, my mind too full of dopamine to comprehend anything but photos. I had committed my ethereal soul to the pursuit of pleasure. I admire artists who possess that single-minded focus of their vision that I have experienced when I've been on the sexual prowl. I no longer had to think. The animal had assumed control of the situation. A force had usurped my body and was dictating my every move. I surrendered to the big mind. I was holding the SI in front of my chest. I lowered my arms so that the magazine was resting on my lap, the knuckles of my right hand lightly touching the side of her thigh. She didn't stir. I didn't move my hand for a few minutes in order to establish a beachhead. The tension was growing between us. How far would she let me go? Was she really this easy? Right here in the bus? I turned the pages more frequently with my right hand, brushing my knuckles against her thigh with firmer contact. Her muscles twitched. I abandoned subtlety and rubbed her thigh with my four fingers and thumb firmly pressed into her skin. I pressed my elbow into her side. She was squirming. I turned, my back to the passenger across the aisle and kissed her on the mouth. My right arm I wrapped around her neck and I squeezed the inside of her thigh with my left, increasing the pressure. I placed her hand on top of my cock. If her hands had had teeth, she would have chewed through the zipper. In less than a minute I had my hands inside her panties and my finger inside her cunt. We had lost control. I glanced behind to see who was sitting across from me. It was an old Mexican with several packages piled high on his lap. We traded looks at the same time and he did a double-take when he saw that Rachel and I were fondling each other. I told her we needed to cool our ardor. We looked at each other hopelessly. San Antonio was three hours away. When a bull inseminates a cow, he takes no longer than a doctor giving a patient an injection. By the time I reached San Antonio I was a syringe filled to capacity with those preparatory squirts spouting from it. We bounded from the bus and scurried a block to a flophouse. I paid $10 for a drab room on the seventh floor. We were in too much in a hurry to wait for the elevator. Once in the room, we gave no notice to our surroundings. She slipped out of her dress and I undid her bra and pulled off her panties. After five hours of foreplay, we had no patience for the preliminaries. Her hard breathing was muffled by the squealing bed. Five pumps and I came. I lay on my back and she rested her head against my chest waiting for the next performance. There would be no encore. The more she pulled me into her, the more she repulsed me. I scanned the peeling walls and the dreary colors and the cheap furniture and I had never felt so oppressed in my life. I had to free myself from her tightening embrace. "I need to go," I said as I leaped out of bed and dressed. "Where are you going?" "I'm going to the station to put my backpack in a locker. I'll be right back." Once outside the hotel I flagged a taxi and went straight to my aunt's house. A murderer couldn't have been more desperate to flee the scene of a crime. Two weeks later I couldn't contain myself and I drove to Rachel's, stopped in front of her house and honked. She ran up to the passenger-side window." "Bobby! What are you doing here?" "I need to talk to you," I told her with a feign tone of desperation. "Get in the car." Two minutes later we were driving toward an orange grove. "I have been trying to contact you since we were last together, but I didn't have your address. I've been in jail." "What happened?" she asked, hoping that I might have a logical excuse for standing her up while she was lying in bed waiting for my return. "When I left the hotel, I was in such a hurry to get back with you that I jaywalked. A cop spotted me and stopped me. He asked for my I.D. Seeing that I was from Brownsville, he asked me about my purpose in San Antonio. After I told him that I was visiting relatives, he asked me why I was wandering downtown. I stuttered because I couldn't think of a quick answer. He told me to empty my backpack. I poured out the contents on the sidewalk and at the top of the pile was a baggie of marijuana." Rachel's eyes widened. "What happened next?" "He put my hands behind my back, handcuffed me and shoved into the patrol car. I got out of jail yesterday and the first thing that I wanted to do was contact you." "You don't know how much I've miss you, Bobby." Bobby! I've often resorted to aliases to assure myself wriggling room. I told Rachel on the bus that I was Bobby Balderas. I might require an escape hatch in the future. We finished our conversation beneath branches heavy with overripe oranges. In my dad's cramped Mustang we managed an uncomfortable contortion. I was suffocating in the cramped quarters. "We need to go," I said. "Why? I want to do it again. That was too quick." "I'm sorry, but after the incident in San Antonio, I'm on probation and I have to be home before dark." Rachel and I met weekly for several months, but my need for her diminished as I became more and more adept at one-night stands and midnight visits. I was eating lunch in the cafeteria at Texas Southmost College a few years later when Camilo took a seat next to me. "Guess who I saw today?" he needled. "The milkman as he fucked your mother." "Close. Rachel." "You mean our Rachel." "Our Rachel, but not our child." "What are you jabbering about?" "I was at the mall and ran into her. She looked the same except she was carrying a toddler. I became unhinged for a second. She noticed my nervousness and said, 'Don't worry. It's Bobby's.' 'Bobby who?' I asked. 'Bobby Balderas,' she answered. 'Your brother's friend.' 'Oh yeah,' I said, remembering one of your favorite aliases. 'Have you seen him?' she asked. 'No, I haven't. He moved away. I haven't seen him in more than a year.' 'This is his son.' I looked at him closely and you can't believe how much he resembles you. He has your big head, your big nose and your big ears. 'I wish I could help you,' I said. 'That's okay,' she said. 'My new husband has adopted him and treats him like his own son.' 'And what's the child's name?' 'Juan.'"