2 comments/ 7603 views/ 0 favorites Ofelia Ch. 03 Pt. 04 By: CervanServidor iv. An hour later they were dressed and clean and on the road. Daniel's friend was named Mitch and he lived in a condo on the nicer end of town. It was about a twenty minute drive, and during the entire time Daniel was playing more of that 'se plin' music he had played for her the day before when he was showing her his silly machines. She didn't care for 'se plin' music, and much preferred tejano, salsa, banda. She wished he would turn it down. Or at the very least, that he would just play some rock music, some sort of compromise between her tastes and his. Mitch and his wife Betty were pleasant people and they took an instant liking to Ofelia. Ofelia warmed to them also, and to just about all the others who came to eat clams and drink beer. Rock music was playing from a big P.A. system, and even though she didn't like it very much, it was still a far sight better than 'se plin'. Ofelia marveled at the pool, which was lit up with an impressive array of Chinese lanterns. She gave Daniel a firm elbow in the ribs for not telling her to bring a swimsuit. Daniel was even more upset at that oversight than Ofelia was. One of the couples there were Latino: a good looking young man named Carlos and his equally good-looking girlfriend, Inez. Ofelia learned that Carlos and Mitch were co-owners of a landscaping business, and it turned out that they both knew a few of Ofelia's uncles and cousins who worked in that field. There was another married couple, Philip and Francine, and two young men who had come by themselves, Curtis and Kenneth. Kenneth was Japanese and Ofelia found him striking. He was one of the best looking men she had ever seen. He was not even as tall as Daniel but he was slender and fit, and he had a very young face despite the fact that he was in his mid-thirties. Ofelia would have guessed him to be around twenty or so. She tried not to look at Kenneth too much but it was impossible. When Ofelia and the other ladies had a short moment alone Inez made a comment about him which made Ofelia blush. She was standing right next to Ofelia and smoking a long skinny cigarette. Ofelia was irritated by the acrid smoke riffling through her hair, hovering on her skin. "It's obvious he's preoccupied with you, though. I guess I can't fault him for that. You're even prettier than he is." "Oh, thank you. I'm not all that." Ofelia said, and at that point the men came and whisked them off towards the patio where the barrels were set up. Ofelia relished the clams, but she had to keep reminding Daniel that she didn't drink any kind of alcohol. Finally, however, after enough badgering, he talked her into taking a sip. She made a face and everyone laughed. "Jesus, where did you find this girl." Inez remarked, "She's like a saint. Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke. What does she do, Danny-boy?" Ofelia could tell that Inez was already drunk. Carlos shook his head, "Hey, let's keep this shindig G rated, kay?" his eyes were daggers as he looked at Inez. Kenneth and Curtis stood off to the side, off the patio, and talked quietly. Kenneth was drinking Seven-up. He was dressed better than anyone else, and he had a gentlemanly style about him which Ofelia found extremely appealing. He wore white slacks from Calvin Klein and a beige long-sleeved golf shirt from Ashworth. One thing Ofelia knew was clothes. That reminded her of where she worked, and she hoped the conversation wouldn't come around to careers, though she felt that inevitably it would. Then she remembered that Daniel had introduced Ofelia as a member of his department at the mill. She relaxed and let herself take a few more swallows of beer. It began to taste better and better. Soon she was feeling light-headed and hung on Daniel's arm, looking at him with her eyelashes batting up and down. Her admiration was obvious. Kenneth and Curtis were colleagues of Mitch's wife Betty, who worked with the cable company. They installed cable for TV and Internet, modems, routers, home-entertainment and computer systems. They were also techies and troubleshooters. Ofelia managed to get one of Kenneth's business cards while Daniel, Mitch, and Curtis were arguing over some techno-babble in Mitch's heavily-wired living room. Carlos, Inez, Philip, and Francine had drifted off toward the pool, leaving Betty, Ofelia, and Kenneth alone on the patio. It seemed to Ofelia that Betty was trying to sell Kenneth to her. She continually mentioned the fact that Kenneth was a bachelor and that he planned on having his own business in a few years. Maybe she didn't realize that she was preaching to the choir as far as that went. Ofelia could see for herself what a draw Kenneth was. He had a soft voice with a barely discernible accent, as he had moved to the states from Osaka as a young teen. By this time Ofelia had consumed almost two entire cans of beer and was animated, nearly euphoric. Out of the blue, Kenneth asked her, "Are you and Daniel serious?" Ofelia snapped her jaw shut for a moment, then answered, "Well, yeah, I mean, it ain't like we're getting married or anything, but." "I see." Kenneth answered, smiling at her, watching her fidget with her fingers, as if she had gloves on. He could tell he was making her nervous. "He's very lucky." "Oh, no, no." Ofelia answered, and she was blushing. She waved her hand, pushing the compliment away from her. She was letting the old Ofelia re-surface. That bubbly queen of denial. "You're from Mexico, right?" Kenneth asked. Ofelia nodded. "Umhm." "What state?" "Nayarit." "Sounds beautiful." Kenneth said, enjoying the way the syllables rolled off Ofelia's tongue. Suddenly Ofelia realized that Betty had wandered off. She worried that Daniel would see her alone with this Adonis and become upset. "Maybe we should go inside?" Kenneth said, seeing her uneasiness. He turned without waiting for her to acquiesce, and she followed him through the sliding glass doors, into the house. She and Kenneth joined the general hubbub around the entertainment system. Mitch was bragging about his speakers, which were blaring some awful noise. Kenneth leaned towards Ofelia and said loudly so she could hear him over the din, "You have my card." He smiled, and nodded to her, and she nodded back. She raised her hand and there it was, tucked away against her palm. v. Daniel took Ofelia home just shortly after midnight. He wanted her to come back to his apartment but she explained that it was difficult for her to keep doing that. Her mother was still the head of the house, she explained, even though Ofelia and Manuel were adults. She had to respect Dominga's wishes and expectations, which, though they weren't exactly written in stone, had been made crystal clear to Ofelia only that morning. Ofelia was intoxicated. She had consumed three whole cans of beer, all by herself. She gave Daniel an enthusiastic kiss goodnight which lasted several minutes. Finally Daniel told her in his own beer-laden voice, "Either go now or you're coming back with me." "Buenas noches, mi amor." Ofelia whispered, and gave him one last kiss. She sang to herself as she ascended the stairs to her apartment. It was the chorus of one of those crazy songs she had heard at the clam-bake: "She's got lehh-ehhggs, she knows how to use them...." What kind of silly words were those, anyway? Those gueros were crazy. For a moment she thought of knocking on Leonard's door. His apartment was dark, as he had been in bed for at least an hour already. He was a creature of habit, and he always retired at eleven-thirty. He would be angry if she woke him up. He would be doubly angry if he smelled the booze on her breath. But would he be angry if she went down on her knees and gave him what every man desired more than anything else? She had trouble getting the key in the lock, and used an expression she had heard many times over the past several hours, "Oh, smack my -- ass -- and call me Sally!" She laughed and her muddled brain was full of Kenneth's face. She felt a tickle from some remote place in her stomach and checked to make sure she still had his card in her bag. It was there, permanently curved now from being held tightly in her hand for over an hour. She finally got inside and then had trouble locating the light switch. That was sure nice of her Mom and Manuel, leaving the place pitch black. She found the switch after much fumbling along the drywall and headed off for her room. She wanted to give that boy a piece of her mind. He didn't even leave the hall-light on like always. She was smiling when she went into her room, prepared to give her brother a playful tongue-lashing. He wasn't there. He must have gone to Jose's again. Her vision was fuzzy, and she felt her stomach twist unpleasantly as she sat on the bed. Manuel had left a long-stemmed red rose for her. Under it he had written a note in his blocky, all-caps. The note was in Spanish. It read: "As it is now, it will be always. Anyone hurts you, my Queen, my Love, they die. Yours forever, Papi." Ofelia felt too ill to be as touched as she would have been otherwise. She lay back on the bed, but that was a big mistake. The room began to spin. She saw the dry-wall, the sparkles, the ceiling fan, all swimming by like images of bananas and lucky sevens in a slot machine, faster and faster. "Mama..." she moaned, as she crawled to the bathroom. She leaned over the toilet and spent the next half-hour vomiting and drifting in and out of a shallow sleep which was more like delirium. Her heart pounded in her little rib-cage. Her stomach hurt and her throat was sore from the bile she kept bringing up. The smell of half-digested beer and clams made her even sicker yet, and she quailed, "Mammmaaaaa!" again. "Que paso?" She heard Dominga barking, her slippered feet pit-patting hurriedly through the bedroom. "Hola!" she said cheerfully, when she saw Ofelia hunkered over the toilet. "You had a wonderful time, I see!" "Mammmmaaaaaaaaaaa!" Ofelia cried, like a little girl, spewing yellow belly-gruel into the toilet, her hand frenetic on the flusher. "You have to wait for the water to fill back up!" Dominga told her. "Dios mio. What happened to you?" The older woman shook her head. She didn't trust that Daniel and now she trusted him even less. Dominga softened and went to kneel beside her daughter. She pulled Ofelia's hair back and braided it for her, to keep it from getting soiled. Dominga looked at the tiny shorts Ofelia was wearing, her long, smooth legs. The girl was live bait for all that was rotten in the world. A 'shit-magnet', as her sister Delia would say. Dominga cleaned Ofelia up and undressed her. She put her in bed and noticed the rose there, and the note. Dominga read the note, recognized the bold characters even before she came to the signature. The note only told her what she already knew. She put the flower and the note on Ofelia's dresser and quietly returned to bed. v. Ofelia had a restless sleep, full of disturbing dreams. She woke every hour or so and it seemed as if the night was taking forever. She was grateful for the fact that she wouldn't have to rise early for work. She thought constantly of her Aunt Delia and their usual church-going Sunday morning. She would have to ask Dominga to tell her she couldn't go. There was no way she would be able to go. She never felt so ill before. Even if she wasn't able to ask her mother to do her this favor, she was sure Dominga would do it anyway. Manuel never came home. Ofelia so wished he would, so she could feel his supportive presence. Even if he decided to act contemptuous of her, and even if he really was contemptuous of her to some degree, she would sense that bedrock of unconditional love underneath and gain a foothold upon it. Dominga loved her, but she also wanted Ofelia to get the most out of her punishment. Dominga wanted Ofelia to marry Leonard, for her daughter's sake, not her own. She hoped this experience would color Ofelia's worshipful feelings towards Daniel. Ofelia finally drifted off into a deep sleep shortly before sunrise. She woke again and felt a sudden sense of alarm when she saw the lights on her bedside clock read 12:16. She had a pain in her head and when she sat up it felt as if the pain had taken the shape of little pebbles that rattled around inside her skull when she moved. She wasn't sick to her stomach anymore, probably, she thought, because there was nothing left in her stomach to bother her. She was spared the exhausting torture of dry-heaves, which, very luckily for her, she knew nothing about. She heard her brother and Dominga in the kitchen, because her bedroom door was wide open. How many times must that brother of hers have come in to check on her? Manuel was telling his mother that he had talked to Jose and was hoping to get a job with his older cousin in construction. Manuel had tried a series of jobs and found none of them to his liking. Despite feeling the pain in her head, Ofelia smirked when she tried to imagine Manuel working as a laborer for a construction crew. There he was one minute, pushing a wheel-barrow full of rocks uphill, sweating in the hot sun; and there he was the next, parking the wheel-barrow and taking out his pocket volume of Lorca's poems, or William Carlos Williams'. Ofelia smiled. The more she lay there the more she became aware of something unexpected. Something silly and ironic. Her heart was beating stronger than usual, probably, she thought, because her body was working hard trying to purge itself of the poison which had been so foolishly invited into it; but also because of the thoughts racing through her mind, all of which were absolutely filthy. She imagined herself lying back on the sofa and letting Manuel mount her right there in front of Dominga. She pictured herself bending over the sink in the kitchen with her bottom sticking out and her panties at her ankles, inviting her knight in shining denim to take his pleasure. Her lips pursed, because the idea of that was just.... hot. She giggled, imagining herself down by the pool with her top off, going from Manuel to Diablo to Whomever to Kenneth to Mr. X to Daniel, taking them all in her mouth, one after another. The thought of Kenneth made her heart take a little jump. She felt a knot of anxiety, and tried to recall if she had done anything untoward with him. She didn't think so. She remembered his card, which was in her bag. She felt a wave of guilt suddenly. Two days as Daniel's girl and already she was thinking about another man. But it wasn't as if she was really thinking about doing anything with Kenneth. She wasn't going to call him. She just took his card to be polite. She went back to her fantasies, and felt herself getting moist down below. She reached her hand down there and touched herself through her panties, just a little. She remembered Dominga then, taking care of her, putting her to bed. She wanted to get up but at the same time she wanted to stay in bed, not to sleep longer, but in the knowledge that Manuel would be coming in soon. He wouldn't be able to keep from checking in on her for very long. His heart was too good. Ofelia decided to do something completely crazy. She lifted her tiny butt and pulled her panties down. She quietly shimmied them down and off her feet. Then she took off her bra. It was exciting to lay there naked with the door wide open and her Mom and Manuel talking a short distance away. Damn, I want it! she thought. In fact, she didn't recall ever feeling quite so randy before. The problem was, whenever her fantasies built up a head of steam and got her heart beating, her head would pound with pain. The only way to make the searing pain go away was to think of something else. Then she would try again. She touched the top of her sex with her fingers, closed her eyes and imagined Daniel on top of her. Then she imagined him behind her, and she liked that even better, especially since when she had him behind her she had Kenneth in front of her, and his penis was even bigger than Manuel's, and perfect and beautiful, and she could taste it and enjoy it all she wanted while her lover ravished her from the rear.... Then the searing pain. She had to knock it off. She didn't like Kenneth that way. It wasn't like that. He was just a friend. Sheeez! I don't even like pretty men! Ofelia turned onto her side. The old Ofelia wrestled with the new. She shook her feet to keep from hearing her heart pound in her ears, to keep from feeling it literally rock her petite body on the mattress. She rolled again onto her back, her eyebrows knitted together. She folded her arms and grimaced, and was very close to calling Manuel's name out loud. She was the very picture of impatience. When he came into the room he was going to have her again whether he wanted to or not. Let Dominga hear them, she didn't care. Or they could go onto the floor. Or do it over the dresser. Finally she heard him coming. Good boy. She knew he would have to march back to her soon enough to cast his worrisome eyes into the room. Ofelia thought about faking sleep, but didn't want to risk losing her chance. When he popped is head into the doorway she hissed, "Hey!" "Hey, Pooper." he said, and it seemed to Ofelia that he hadn't called her that in such a long time. "Get over here, Esse." Ofelia said, tugging the blanket up to her chin and sitting up against the headboard. It was like deja vu for Manuel, who immediately stopped halfway on his way over to her. "I guess you're okay now." he said. "Well, I'll be going then..." "Don't you dare! Stop! Don't move. Get back here." Ofelia barked in a hoarse whisper. Good boy, she thought, seeing him freeze in place and slowly turn around. She smiled at him, waving her finger, "Cierra la puerta!" "Why? What? No way, Mama's out there. Are you crazy?" They were both yelling at eachother in whispers. It was so comical they both had to stifle their laughter even as they argued. Ofelia was going to win, which they both knew, and it was a wonder to both of them that Manuel even bothered trying to stand his ground. "Yes, I'm crazy. Now, close the....wait! Go and tell her I...wait! Shit!" Manuel was aghast. First drinking, then swearing. Surely, his beautiful sister was possessed. She took her hands, made silly little fists with the thumbs sticking out, and pounded her knees. She reached out and grabbed his hand and yanked him to her. He sat on a little space of mattress beside her and looked at her wide-eyed. Looking at the doorway, Ofelia took his hand and guided it under the blanket, to the wetness between her legs. "I need you, Papi. See? You gonna help me or what?" "Dios mio. Let me. Wait. What can I tell her? Why the hell would we need to close the door? Forget it, mi amor, you're on your own." He tried to get up and leave. He could smell her. Ofelia was making a weird face. She took his hand and turned it palm upwards, and said, "Put your fingers in me...this way." "Aiy aiy aiy..." "All the way, and reach up. Up, up. Ariba, ariba!" She changed her voice comically, imitating Speedy Gonzales. Manuel's eyes got even wider. But she was not messing around. She squeezed his wrist hard. Ofelia closed her eyes as Manuel slipped the two fingers that she was holding inside her. She was so wet it was not difficult at all to get both of them into that little opening. Her strong smell was driving Manuel crazy, but he focused his mind on her and tried to forget himself in her. Her mouth hung open and she slid her little bottom down a ways, giving him a better angle. He smelled her breath and for the first time it didn't smell like a breeze from Heaven. It smelled like puke. "Oh...Oh....Oh...." she was whispering, holding his wrist, moving her hips around. The blanket fell away from her breasts. Manuel kept looking at the doorway, since Ofelia was now past the point of being mindful of anything but what was going on inside her body. She felt that throbbing pain in her head but she ignored it, pushed it aside. He reached up and up, like she told him, and pushed his fingers in as far as he could. He felt his fingers touch a smoothness that yielded and pushed back, and his sweet beloved moaned. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he knew that he had found what she wanted him to find. She bit her lip and gasped, getting wetter and wetter. Ofelia Ch. 03 Pt. 04 "I want you in there, Papi." she told him, "I want to feel it in there, inside me..." "Oh my God." "I want your cock inside me..." Ofelia said, and the way she said that bad word, that nasty word, made the very thing that word referenced even harder than it already was. It turned her on to say it as well. She looked at him, feeling his fingers push and stroke and make love to her deep inside. She said again, in a bright, tense whisper, "I want your cock... inside me, Papi." "I can't." he told her. "Holy Hell, girl." Ofelia was lying on her back now, holding his wrist and forearm, fucking his fingers. Her legs were apart, leaving him precious little room to sit. But he didn't dare try to move. She breathed faster, faster and harder, and in very quiet whispered tones she was repeating, "I want it, Papi, I want it..." She let out a long, twisted groan and Manuel felt his hand get very wet. She opened her eyes and looked straight at him, her eyelids at half-mast but her stare so strong and direct it almost scared him. As pleased as he was to help her to -- ("get off", in English, was the only phrase that came to mind) -- he was also worried for her, and for himself. What was she turning into? She was acting like a sex maniac. What happened to the old Ofelia, the one who kept pushing his hand away every time he touched her? Now she was holding his hand inside her and acting like she would never let it go. Maybe she really was crazy? "Is she getting sick again?" Manuel heard Dominga ask, and he could hear her sandaled feet coming down the hall. She must have heard Ofelia moaning and groaning. Manuel took his hand and fixed the blanket over his sister, who was buck naked underneath. She was holding her head with her hand now, moaning in agony rather than ecstasy. "She's got a real bad headache." Manuel answered Dominga, who stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. "Good." Dominga said, "Maybe she will think twice before she does something so foolish again. If she wants to feel better, let her get some aspirins. Don't baby her, hijo." Dominga walked off. But in a moment she was back in the doorway, "I'm going to see Tia Margot. I don't know when I'll be back. You should leave her be. You're spoiling her." "Bye-bye, Mama." Manuel said. "Are you listening to me?" Dominga said in a stern voice. Manuel nodded to her. Dominga shook her head and left the doorway again. Manuel heard her leave, listened for the sound of her car. When he was satisfied that she was gone he got up and fetched a glass of orange juice and two aspirins and brought them to Ofelia. She took them both gladly and thanked him. Manuel sat beside her for a long while. Ofelia took his hand in hers and interlocked her fingers with his. Her big dark eyes rolled up and looked at him with warm regard. "You don't hate me do you?" Ofelia asked him. "I love you." Manuel answered, flatly, as if he were simply stating a fact, like 'two plus two equals four', a fact which could never change, no matter what. Then he added, "Even though you're crazy." "Maybe I am." Ofelia said. She kissed his hand. "You want to come in here with me?" "I don't know..." "Please?" Ofelia asked him, and batted her eyes playfully. "I'm not done with you yet." "Oh no?" "Nope." "Well, okay then." Manuel undressed and crawled into bed, and Ofelia gave him the time of his life. ii. By four o'clock Dominga was still out. Ofelia got up and was feeling much better after a couple more hours of sleep. The aspirins took the edge off the pain in her head, and the sex made her feel invigorated. She gave Daniel a call and drove to see him. It was past five when she pulled into his driveway. He pulled her to him and kissed her. Then he held her at arm's length and said, "I thought you were spending the day with your fiance?" Ofelia shrugged, "I think I got dumped, mi amor. Yesterday, he kicked me out of his apartment." "Jesus," Daniel said, surprised, "what happened?" He sat on the couch and put his arm around her shoulders. His other hand fumbled with a plethora of remotes until he found the one for the television and lowered the volume. He was watching a football game. "I don't know." Ofelia answered, "I think we expected too much from him. He's a man, you know. We forgot that." "So you told him that you and I...." "Si." Ofelia said, and she had a vacant look in her eyes. "At first he was like, okay; but then, he got mad. When I told him that I had feelings for you, that it wasn't just, like fooling around." "Well, it's hard to figure these things out." Daniel said, leaning forward and picking up a beer that he had on the coffee table. Ofelia felt her stomach twist and couldn't believe he wanted to taste that stuff again. "There's a fine line between what we fantasize about and what really happens; what we think we might want and what we really want." "Yes." Ofelia agreed. "He said something like that, too. I think, he doesn't mind when I'm just fooling around, when it's just like kid's stuff. But it bothers him to know that this isn't like that. That my heart is in it." Daniel said, "I was going with a girl once and I found out she was cheating on me. When I thought about what really made me angry, it wasn't that some other man had been with her, had sex with her. It was the little things that upset me, Ofelia. Like, not that they were in his car, kissing eachother, caressing eachother. I kept wondering, did they have the radio on, was there romantic music playing? Was it romantic, their time together? That's what bothered me. Sex is just sex. Making love is a whole different thing." "I know. I feel stupid because I tried to make a game out of it. I thought he would like it. He did at first." "So how are you with this, sweetie?" Daniel asked, "Tell me the truth." Ofelia took a while to answer. She played with her fingers, pulling the invisible gloves. "It hurts. It hurts me. The way he talked to me." "Go on." "He made me feel...like. I don't know. I don't like to lose. I don't want to talk about it anymore." "Are you sure you lost?" "Yes. What are you watching, anyway?" "Football. Don't tell me you've never heard of football?" "Of course I have, but this ain't football, Mister." Ofelia said, confidently. "It's a bunch of overgrown boys jumping on top of each other." Ofelia and Daniel sat on the couch without talking for a while. When Daniel got up to get her a Pepsi she looked at him, watched him walk. He was wearing a tank top and white denim shorts. She liked the way he looked. She admired the muscles of his legs, his arms. When he sat back down she snuggled up to him and played with the hair on his chest. Her fingers found his nipple under his tank top and she looked at him while she played with it, smiling. "I wonder why boys have these." she said. "Do you get milk out of here or what?" "Well, I never tried. So I don't know." Daniel answered, and Ofelia laughed. She let her hand roam freely, over his belly, down to his bare legs. Out of nowhere it occurred to her that she was cheating on him. She had just spent a long time in bed with Manuel. They had both climaxed several times. She had never thought about it before. First she was just cheating on Leonard, with Paul, with Manuel, with Daniel; now that she was Daniel's girl she didn't think to stop doing what she was doing with her brother. It never even crossed her mind. But the old Ofelia was still wrestling with the new, and the new Ofelia had been damaged by the very thing that had called her to the surface: the truth. Consequently, Ofelia quickly buried those revelations. Not only did she bury them, she danced on the mound of dirt over top of them. Ofelia traced her fingernails along the top of Daniel's thigh, and then made her little walker with two fingers. She marched the little walker up the leg of his shorts, right to his fly, where there was a nice little hill for him to stand on. She was humming. Daniel watched with amusement as Ofelia made her little walker jump up and down on that hill. She made little grunts, as if of frustration, then raised her eyes to him. "He wants to get in there." "Sweety." Daniel said, "Can we make your little finger-man a finger-girl? Otherwise, no open sesame." "Okee-doke." Ofelia said, then made her humming sound higher pitched. Daniel wondered how any man in his right mind could possibly resist her. They stayed in bed until nearly ten o'clock. Ofelia learned that variety was definitely the spice of life for Daniel. He made love to her in many different ways, from the side, from behind, with her on top, frontwards and backwards (he especially liked her backwards), the prayer position, with her on her side and him kneeling. At one point, when he was behind her, he tapped his finger on her posterior opening and said, "You're very beautiful, here." For a moment she was worried, but then he said, "But I can see it would be like trying to push a Q-tip through a brickwall..." One thing he seemed to like most of all was having her take him in her mouth. That was fine with Ofelia, however, because she was developing quite an appetite for that anyway. It gave her a sense of control that she didn't feel with intercourse, even with her on top. She liked being able to manipulate his degrees of pleasure, and so far she found nothing revolting or nauseating in the experience. Her cousin Ana wouldn't do it, and told Ofelia once that it made her want to throw up whenever she tasted the man's fluids. The third time Daniel finished, which was the last time, he finished in Ofelia's mouth. He told her she didn't have to do that, but she wanted to. His issue was small at that point anyway, and she didn't mind the taste or the feeling of it in her mouth. When she had him all milked dry she padded off to the bathroom and emptied his semen into the sink. She rinsed her mouth out, not to rid herself of its presence, but simply as a matter of hygiene: a courtesy to Daniel. Even as she did so she found herself wondering what Manuel's tasted like, though she would be afraid to let him finish in her mouth because of the force of his ejaculations. She would probably choke. They napped for about an hour and it was eleven o'clock when Ofelia woke up. She was sleeping on her stomach, with one of her legs lifted up. She had slept that way for years, especially when it was hot. She didn't feel Daniel's presence on the bed and then realized that she could see him in the mirror over top of his dresser. He was holding a small camera and taking pictures of her. She lifted her head and craned her neck to look over her shoulder, "Hey!" "What?" Daniel answered, lowering the camera for a moment, "What's the pro-bleem-oh?" "What are you doing?" Ofelia asked him, and put a smile on her face. She didn't want him to feel embarrassed, though she felt imposed upon. She rolled over and pulled her knees up. "Oh, sure, spoil my fun." Daniel said, and took a seat at the foot of the bed. "I just wanted to try out my new camera." He held up the tiny gadget, and then began to go through the whole spiel of how many thises and thatses it had and all the bigitty-boombats it could whatnot. He ended by citing the price, which was more than Ofelia got paid in a week. "Why didn't you ask me, mi amor?" Ofelia politely implored him, and she didn't care for the nervous look he had. She reached out and touched his knee, "I wish you asked me. I would have said yes." "I didn't want to wake you." Daniel answered. "I know you had a bad morning and all, because of idiot me making you drink beer." Daniel got up and put the camera on his dresser. Ofelia didn't want to make him feel uneasy, "Can I see them?" she asked him cheerfully. "Sure." He came and sat next to her and showed her the tiny screen. He scrolled through the photos, one after another, from behind her, from the front, over top, some of them very close-up. Several of them showed her face. "How many did you take?" she asked, and wrested the camera from him. She elbowed him playfully, and scrolled through the pictures for herself. She had never seen pictures of herself like this, because she never let anyone take such pictures. "Erase them, please?" She asked him as she handed the camera back. Then she checked her expression, and her tone, "Por favor? Please?" "Why?" Ofelia had to remember that this wasn't Manuel she was speaking to. She touched his arm "Mi amor, please. Erase them? Please?" "Jesus, alright." Daniel said, and he got up. His thumbs were moving all over the little machine. He looked like a big baby whose balloon had just popped. "I thought you might like it, that's all. I know you like to be looked at, admired, all that." "Yeah, I do. But. I'm sorry. Are you mad?" "Oh, heck no." Daniel said, then tossed the camera onto the bed where she could easily reach it. Her eyes flashed to it, but she didn't reach out. "I was just trying the camera out. Come on, you better get dressed. It's almost eleven thirty. In a half hour you turn into a fairy god-mother, or like, a bunch of talking mice." Ofelia laughed. She quickly got dressed and let her eyes flash to his little camera while he was turned away. She wished he would have to go and pee or something so she could pick it up and see if those tiny-little padlocks on her personal freedom and autonomy were still trapped inside. She would just have to trust him. Ofelia left, feeling that she had lost twice in the same day. She had never felt weaker, more vulnerable, in her life.