THE TRAP

I have escaped them, but the liberating moment passes in an instant. I am back in their clutches before a second breath fills my lungs. Who are these fiends? They are the Twelve Apostles. And I'm the lucky thirteenth. How do I find myself in this predicament? It was a trap of my own setting. I am 58. Since I was five and my best kindergarten buddy and I crawled under the covers to explore each other's genitals, sex has held a privileged position in my life. As I grew older and my interests turned toward the opposite sex, I was curious about their pasts. I wanted to know the number and the circumstances, details I relished hearing during sex. Previous to Fabiola, I had been married three times. Jennifer, whom I met when I was 20 and she was 19, maintained she was a virgin. I had a small doubt, but I never dwelled on my suspicions. Marisa, whom I met when I was 25 and she was 20, admitted to a longtime boyfriend. Her football sweetheart never bothered me. Iliana, whom I met when I was 35 and she was 25, swore on her mother's born-again Bible that she was purer than Eve prior to the apple. I didn't screw her for seven months. It was during my marriage to Iliana that my need for story telling became as important as the touching and the kissing and the sucking and the fingering and all the other gerunds that contribute to fucking. We were married 15 years, two sons and a daughter, the latter dying at three months, the products of our efforts. When I saw her, I said to myself that she was going to be the mother of my children. I had been divorced for five years between Marisa and Iliana and sexually I was out-of-control. I was averaging 50 to 100 conquests a year, the majority prostitutes, one-night stands and weekend flings. Nothing excited me like strange pussy, my frequent disregard for rubbers an indication of my reckless behavior. I prayed that Iliana would cure me of my sinful ways, but she refused to use all her powers to intercede on my behalf. I could touch her, but I couldn't insert my finger, let alone my penis. She kept me at a distance by pinching my nipples with one hand and masturbating me with the other. There was never that culmination after ejaculation when I could cradle her head in my hands and tell her I loved her. She wouldn't fuck me and I couldn't take it. I was a sex addict and I needed a fix. I cheated on her with my usual promiscuity and never stopped. We were ten years into our marriage when another test for venereal disease returned positive. She had married forever and was beside herself with frustration. She had discovered her sexuality in her desire to please me, cutting her tubes after the third child, which allowed me to drain myself inside her. "How many women have there been?" she begged me as she held the gynecologist's depressing news. "Please be honest." She had lost none of her beauty, her svelte figure sharing the couch beside me. With a traditional Hispanic upbringing, she had lived a sheltered existence and there was no higher priority than her husband and children. She scoured my eyes. "How many?" Either I was going to be faithful to Iliana or I was going to end the marriage. I couldn't take the lying and the cheating as well as the paranoia that I might be infecting her with AIDS. No más! In order to move forward I had to be brutally frank. I didn't know the exact number. There had been dozens, mostly prostitutes, but I wanted us to survive together and I could only achieve that goal by delivering a terrible truth. "About a hundred." She collapsed onto the cushions. I had coldcocked her with a horrible statistic. She raised herself and pulled me into her breasts. "Thank-you, mi vida, thank-you for being honest. I love you." As much as I wished differently because I feared the repercussions with the boys, there was no hope. I returned to my sordid conduct. To rescue our marriage, we separated for a year, which permitted me greater freedom. Then we divorced to save our relationship and my libertine lifestyle accepted no limitations, a different woman for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If I hungered for a snack, I could visit the massage parlors in Brownsville or the strip clubs in Matamoros. "You're being faithful to me?" "Of course." We sustained our tenuous ties until I called her and said that I had met someone with whom I was going public. Her name was Fabiola Mendoza. But Fabiola had been the coup de grace. The realization that we had reached the end of the road occurred a weekend we spent in the colonial bordertown of Mier. We were sitting on a bench in the plaza across the street from the church watching the people go about their business. We could have been a thousand miles south of the United States. "Put your arm around me." "What!?!" "Put your arm around me. It's a beautiful evening." "Not now," I growled, wishing there were a thousand miles separating us. "I need my space." Nevertheless, the last years with Iliana were the best sexually. She knew all my weak points and worked them expertly. Though I had free reign with her body, I was probing for sexual anecdotes: Did her brothers make a move on her? Was there a boyfriend who touched her tits? Did she play with a guy's dick? She recalled for my delectation that a priest had taken her to his house and danced with her in the frontroom. "He didn't kiss you? He didn't fondle you? He didn't try to convince you to have sex with him?" "Please!!!" In the same manner she had matured sexually, she recognized that since my mental cravings were as insatiable as my physical cravings, she would have to concoct stories to both stimulate and satisfy me. She found fodder for her fiction with a weightlifter at the gym where she exercised. He had complimented her on her youthful appearance and she had used his flattery to provide me with my pornographic fantasies. I had reached a point with Iliana that I couldn't savor our sex without her rendering to me the latest chapter in her salacious saga. Not only was I addicted to sex, I was addicted to her stories. I had to have this vision of someone nailing Iliana before the blood could rush to the extremities. "Did you fuck him?" "Yes, I fucked him." "Where?" "At his house." "Did he invite you to his place after you worked out?" "Yes." "What did he say? 'Come to my place?'" "He asked me if I would like to come to his house for a glass of wine?" "And what did you tell him?" "I said yes!" "And did you go in one car or two?" "I followed him." "What time was it?" "It must have been after nine. It was dark." "And did you think he might try to fuck you once he had you at his place?" "I thought about it." "Were you getting excited?" "Yes." "What happened when you arrived?" "He invited me to sit on the sofa and he served me a glass of wine." "Then what happened?" "He put on music, turned down the lights and sat next to me with his glass." "I'm going to come before you finish. Tell me when he fucked you." "He kissed me and told me how much he wanted me. I told him that I wanted him too." "And?" "That's when he pulled off my T-shirt and bra and sucked my tits." "Were you getting hot?" "I wanted to fuck him, so I reached down and grabbed his cock." "You're telling me the truth? No goddamn bullshit! If it isn't true, it doesn't do anything for me." "When I squeezed his cock, he pulled off my shorts and panties and went down on me." "How did it feel? Would you like me to pull out and eat you right now?" "No, just fuck me." "I'm fucking you, mama. I'm fucking you. Keep talking." "I told him I wanted him to fuck me." "And how quickly did he go for it?" "He turned me around and fucked me from behind." "Did he say anything? What did he tell you?" "He told me that I was better than any younger woman he had had." "Did he tell you anything else?" "He said he couldn't get enough of me. That's when he came." "I'm coming! I'm coming! Did he come in you?" "He came in me." "Aaaaaaahhhh. That was good!" Throughout our three-year separation Iliana and I met two or three times a week. One of the boys would call, at the insistence of his mother who knew she could manipulate me through our sons. We would go to a restaurant and I would return to her apartment and stay the night. After a bottle of wine or several beers, I was ready to screw Iliana because nobody in the corral could compete with her running commentary. I could coax stories out of the others, but most of them didn't feel comfortable recalling their pasts or couldn't combine the prose and the passion in the proper rhythm. And none of them could pinch my nipples with that deft touch either. Iliana had learned well. Her skills consummated our couplings like nobody else could. Had I never loved again, I could have spent the rest of my days living easy. But I wanted to cradle somebody's head in my hands and tell her I loved her. With Idalia, the thrill was gone.