Guadalupe: The Strange Shape Of Love
Smith Alexander


INTRODUCTION

This is the true story of a woman and a man, and it is the man who tells 
it. It is an unusual story and most male readers will identify with the 
narrator, but few women might be able to identify with the heroine, 
Guadalupe, an eighteen-year-old beauty from the slums of Mexico City, who 
presents us with a specific psychological case.

Few women, for that matter, might be attracted to Werner, the narrator, 
who chose his baptismal German pseudonym quite appropriately. He tells us 
he was born in Westphalia, a former Prussian province, but he leaves us in 
the dark about the time he emigrated to Canada where he became a 
naturalized citizen before moving on to Mexico.

It hardly matters whether Werner left Prussia as a boy, or as a young 
man. The typical Teutonic mentality of the “Herrenvolk” betrays itself 
constantly in his thoughts, speech and actions. One may safely 
generalize—especially since the days of the Third Reich—and ascribe to 
sixty per cent of the Prussian people a peculiar mixture of sadism and 
masochism.

It was always with a pseudo-stoic sense of “duty” that the Prussian 
lieutenant of old welcomed the daily tongue-lashings of his captain who 
with the same masochistic delight received the scoldings of his superior. 
The lieutenant, in turn, vented his sadistic urges on the sergeant who, of 
course, compensated for it by making whipping boys out of the common 
privates. The latter became veritable adepts in the masochistic acceptance 
of punishment, but they—poor fellows—had to repress their sadistic 
component until it could be given full sway in times of war. And woe to the
enemy, soldier or civilian, who became exposed to it.

This continual, chameleon-like switching from sadistic to masochistic 
behavior, and back again, was not only typical of the military, but also of
the industrial and business hierarchies, and notably of family life. The 
Prussian pater familias ruled his wife and children like an absolute 
monarch. It was Dr. Sigmund Freud who first discovered the unconscious 
mechanism which manifests this amazing juxtaposition of sadistic and 
masochistic tendencies in one and the same person. It was during World War 
I that Freud advised a medical colleague serving in the Austrian army: “To 
get along with a Prussian, you must yell at him first! Then he will respect
you. Kindness would seem like weakness to him.”

Werner, our autobiographical hero, shows many of the neurotic traits of 
his racial heritage, or as Dr. Carl Jung would have called it, the 
collective racial unconscious. Why could an emotionally integrated woman 
not fall in love with a man like Werner? Because she would instinctively 
feel his paranoid fear of giving himself completely. All he is able to give
are costly presents and sexual attention. This is exactly his attitude 
toward Guadalupe, the problem girl, he met in his early forties.

Voltaire's saying that every woman is a whore at heart was countered by 
Benjamin Franklin's thesis that every man is a potential adulterer. Either 
statement is biologically correct and psychologically incorrect. All 
patriarchal and matriarchal civilizations, including the most primitive 
ones, acknowledge the pubescent male's constant readiness for sexual 
intercourse, while a woman's readiness is conditioned by social and racial 
taboos and notably by emotional factors that play only a very minor part in
a male's constitution.

Werner, who is often guilty of over-simplification, attributes 
Guadalupe's readiness for sexual promiscuity to her racial background. 
Latin women, he tells us, have been conditioned through centuries to be 
docile and submissive as wives, mistresses, and prostitutes. He does not 
allow for the remarkable range of individual taste, temperament, and will 
power.

Guadalupe is simply the girl who can't say no. She might have shown the 
same character defects had she been born in any other country. She was a 
Mexican mestiza, born out of wedlock and brought up by an ignorant, 
unscrupulous mother, and half-heartedly “coached” by an older and more 
ambitious sister. The great poverty of her slum existence had not 
interfered in the development of her great beauty, but becoming a victim in
her early adolescence may have been decisive in the forming of her 
character, or rather in the lack of it.

It is true—as Werner generalizes—that Latin girls can't find a 
respectable husband once they have lost their virginity, but it is also 
true that those with brains and natural female cunning can exploit the 
average Latin male's strong sexuality which often exceeds his notorious 
male pride. Even devout followers of machismo, the cult of over-emphasized 
masculinity among Latin males, have been known to become the sexual slaves 
of clever, seductive beauties.

Overemphasized masculinity betrays unconscious doubts of one's strong 
maleness. And we shall see that our hero-narrator belongs in that class, 
although his kind of machismo was not ethnologically conditioned. He keeps 
asking himself what it is that made Guadalupe a girl who can't say no. In 
his amateurish analysis he explains her extreme passivity with an 
accumulation of guilt feelings and the consequent compulsive desire for 
punishment.

But if we regard Guadalupe less through the eyes of her lover and with 
more attention to her actions and reactions, we discover her desperate 
reaching out for acceptance. She tries to achieve this by a masochistic 
submission to anybody, male or female, who shows only the slightest 
interest in her. Guadalupe, the ripe Mexican beauty with the body of a 
pagan goddess, has remained a child, ever craving for parental, or 
quasi-parental, love.

What Werner can't see is that her total lack of will power does not 
render her helpless whenever she wants to do things her own way. She is, so
to speak, an acceptance collector. Like an usher walking up and down the 
aisles in a church with his collection basket, so does Guadalupe drift 
through life. The compulsion to be accepted replaces will power and also 
frustrates Werner's constant attempts at changing this fascinating wild 
flower into a domesticated house plant.

Guadalupe is a Carmen in reverse. The Spanish gypsy's motivation was to 
prove her female strength by collecting lovers and dominating them. She 
unmasked the phony machismo of matadors and caballeros alike, turning them 
into sexually dependent masochists. Guadalupe achieved a similar effect 
through her weakness, a masochistic mechanism which compelled her to 
collect lovers and protectors even if the latter were amateur pimps like 
the leather-jacketed beatnik artist whom she supplied with money earned 
with her body. It also seems that doing things for a lover stimulated her 
maternal instinct lying dormant in every woman. Werner treated her like a 
pet that has to be constantly restricted and watched and, although she 
welcomed guidance, she did not want to be a prisoner.

Werner serves as a classical example of the sophisticated man who has 
acquired a certain insight into other people's neuroses, but is disarmingly
unaware of his own. He can't be blamed for that since most psychotherapists
are incapable of viewing their spouses and children professionally. 
Emotional involvement and analytical insight are mutually exclusive. That 
is why no therapist is permitted to accept friends, or acquaintances, as 
patients. Any degree of personal intimacy would render the therapeutical 
value of the treating doctor nil. Many a therapist who might be tempted to 
look at his wife analytically, would quickly try to put a mental block 
between himself and a beginning insight. He knows that such insight can 
destroy much of marital love.

Werner who, in spite of some lucid observations, is a rather poor amateur
psychologist, is convinced his growing sexual dependence on Guadalupe may 
be called love. But is he really capable of love in the strictest sense of 
the word? He says of himself: ”... I am an extremely selfish person. I like
to do as I please and not be bothered about it. Frankly, I don't see 
anything wrong with that—doing what you want. In fact, I don't call it 
selfishness. Selfishness is when you try to get other people to do what you
want.”

But that is exactly what he keeps doing to his “love,” Guadalupe. He is 
determined to reform her, up to the last minute, and he refuses to 
relinquish hope even when he must admit that the situation is hopeless. And
what attracts him physically and psychologically to that olive-skinned 
beauty?”... I was considerably excited by her sexual passivity,” he admits.
“... I don't believe I get excited by a show of passivity because it makes 
me feel more virile. It seems to me that it is due to the paradoxical 
concept that one feels more in possession of the (partner's) body, an 
unlimited possession of the body, an unlimited possession whose 
manifestations will seldom shock the sexual partner, or if they do, no 
gesture will ever reveal her displeasure. If the woman feels she is really 
nothing, she does not even expect enjoyment from the act and apparently is 
satisfied being merely the vehicle of the man's pleasure...”

What mature woman would believe in the capacity for love in a man who 
talks like that? When he tied Guadalupe's arms and hair to a movable 
candelabra in the ceiling, and chain-hoisted her body into a specific 
position for the performance of cunnilingus, her cries of pain mixed with 
lustful moans gave him the ultimate sexual fulfillment. Such complete 
masochistic submission of his sex partner is necessary for him to prove his
masculinity. The more violently lustful his orgasm, the more intense 
becomes his dependence on his partner. He still calls it love.

What psychologically integrated male would confess that he “never planned
on having a close relationship with a woman...?” When his sexual attraction
to Guadalupe increases to the extent of making her part of his bachelor 
household, he remarks smugly: ”... We spent almost all our time together, 
and my surmise was proven correct. When I felt like reading, for example, I
would just take up a book and lose myself in it. Guadalupe never disturbed 
me and would most often sit without moving...”

In other words, his sex partner whom he pretended to love, pleased him 
with the obedience and docility of a dog lying quietly at his master's 
feet.

Once in a while Werner can see himself and his relationship with 
Guadalupe more clearly. Although he is convinced he is “a stranger to the 
psychoanalytical couch, which might count for my lack of introspection,” he
begins to doubt his “healthy” maleness after giving Guadalupe a most brutal
beating that left her body a mass of open wounds for days to come. It 
happened when he discovered she was deceiving him with a young, unwashed 
beatnik.

“I tried to analyze my reactions,” he muses. “What had inspired me to 
beat Guadalupe so ferociously? Had I been motivated by jealousy? I 
certainly had, but I had a feeling that it was not so simple as that... I 
guess we don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do...”

In other words, he becomes somewhat doubtful of his own emotional health,
but is too afraid to follow through in his self-searching. Because he 
might—perish the thought,—discover he was not such “a stranger to the 
psychoanalytical couch,” as he flattered himself to be.

In one respect Guadalupe is “healthier” than Werner. She is not an 
asocial person, although she usually effaces herself in the company of 
strangers. What, then, is Guadalupe's emotional sickness? Knowing her only 
through Werner's description, we may venture to diagnose her main problem 
as “lack of identity.” She is continually searching for an image of herself
by identifying with people who come a little closer to her.

The apparently modern problem, the search for a personal identity, lies 
at the base of beat-nikism, of addiction to psychedelic drugs, of our 
general feeling of insecurity and anxiety. In this book we are presented 
with a striking example of this problem, because Guadalupe's dilemma is 
caused by it.

The question arises whether Guadalupe would have wanted to acquire the 
identity with a dignified society lady. The answer seems doubtful. Werner's
lay analysis appears to be correct only in one point: Guadalupe lost her 
native identity with her virginity. In Catholic countries, especially in 
Latin America, being a virgin does give a woman a special identity; she may
be chosen for a wife and respectable mother of children. It enhances her 
civic identity in bourgeois society. The psychological value of this book 
is, among other things, the revelation that in some parts of the world 
virginity is the symbol of a collective identity, a group identity. The 
self-confidence inspired by belonging to such a group may enable a woman to
develop strong personality features which would have otherwise remained 
latent. Guadalupe had no personality, she was a blank, a void, that must be
filled by something extraneous. Not necessarily by a penis, as Werner 
suspects, but by any human interest in her; it could make her “move” as 
does the hand that slips into one of those woolen toy dogs, as into a 
glove, moving its head and paws. This metaphor may be easily taken for a 
sexual symbol, and perhaps it is. For that matter, what is not? Everything 
came into existence by an act of creation, and genital sex is only a symbol
for the working of the life force which is still the great riddle of the 
universe.

The reader might be led to believe that Werner acted quite realistically 
(and, therefore, un-neurotically) when he at last decided to save his own 
identity by severing all ties with Guadalupe. He expressed his feelings 
very clearly when he said: “One does not expect perfection in any 
relationship, especially in a marital one... What is unbearable is to make 
certain sacrifices to obtain a less favorable situation than existed 
before... Of course, this is where love comes in, most people will tell 
you... Maybe so... Well, I wasn't in love with Guadalupe in that way... I 
think if you abrogate your personality that far, you've ceased to live.”

In other words, you lose your identity. Werner feels this instinctively 
and to him it is the greatest threat. But it would be wrong to interpret 
this “realistic” viewpoint of Werner's as proof of his psychological 
health. He had lived with Guadalupe for a year and would have continued 
living with her in that torturous neurotic relationship had she not 
suddenly left him.

This brings us to another psychological observation: one of neurotic 
relationships. Thousands of case histories have proved that it takes two 
neurotic people to form a neurotic relationship, marital or otherwise. No 
matter how bitterly the unhappy wife complains about the brutality and 
irritableness of her husband she will not leave him, because his sadism 
appeals to her decidedly masochistic disposition.

And no matter how deeply a husband suffers from the infidelities of a 
nymphomaniac wife, or from the nagging of a frigid one, he will not divorce
her unless he finds another woman whose neurotic traits link up neatly with
his own.

This ambivalence in human relationships was called “hate-love” by August 
Strindberg, the Swedish playwright who revolutionized the modern theater at
the turn of the century and who also gave Freud much food for thought.

Had Werner been psychologically sound, he would not have started a 
neurotic relationship which stimulated his latent sadism into coming to the
surface, unchecked. The sexual thrill of dominating a female body like a 
slave's superseded the functioning of all normal controls. Paradoxically, 
it was Guadalupe's masochistic submission that made a sexual slave of 
Werner in spite of his firm belief in his male superiority.

And just as Guadalupe's guilt feelings and her constant craving for 
self-punishment were part of an over-all identity syndrome, so did Werner's
sadism spring from his insecurity and his unconscious doubt of his “strong”
masculinity. Any kind of insecurity may be part of an identity syndrome. 
For example, the self-assured Werner became alarmed when faced with his 
cruel beating of Guadalupe. He had to ask himself: “Why did I do it?” which
amounts to asking: “Who and what am I?”

The fundamental questions in the search for identity lie not in the realm
of psychology alone; they touch upon philosophy and metaphysics, both of 
which must not be confused with organized religion. Church-going does not 
necessarily lead to what the late Dr. Franz Alexander called “the 
corrective emotional experience,” the sudden insight which can bring about 
a transformation of character.

Those fundamental questions are: Who am I? What am I supposed to be doing
here? And what will be my lot, afterwards? Are my mind, my thinking and 
feeling really nothing else but the product of a chemical-electric process 
going on in my brain?

That is the question that our insecure youths feel dimly stirring within 
themselves and which they can't quite formulate in words. Instead, they 
rebel, they even become destructive, self-destructive by resorting to 
psychedelic drugs. How did the passive Guadalupe become a drug addict? 
Because two young marijuana smokers told her they were leading “a fuller 
life” than Guadalupe and her girl friends, and that they could give them 
something that would “put them out of this world.” These are the same turns
of speech used by our young LSD addicts who want “to get out of this world”
which can't answer their questioning search for identity.

The popular phrase that drugs are mostly “for kicks” has never been put 
under the magnifying glass. What are “kicks?” Intense emotional, perhaps 
physico-emotional, sensations. Only strong sensations can make us feel that
we are alive, that we exist. They give us a spurious sense of identity: We 
feel that we feel! In this way the quest for our genuine identity becomes 
side-tracked and turns into a dangerous kind of escapism. Since we can't 
find out WHO and WHAT we really are, we content ourselves with some intense
sensations, thrills, that assure us that we are. And that is where the less
desirable sort of existentialism enters.

Werner feels quite self-righteous about not seeking his identity in the 
thrills of drug-taking, quite forgetting that he needs the thrills of 
sadistically colored sex to prove to himself that he is somebody, a strong 
male, an individualist, who knows what he wants and gets it. He needs a 
submissive masochistic female as a mirror to recognize his maleness. 
Without her he becomes insecure.

Strange to say, it is Werner and not Guadalupe, who deserves our 
sympathy, because he demonstrates by his way of life the sad consequences 
of a fallacious realism. Love, according to Werner, means that you have 
something that I need, and perhaps vice versa. As soon as you can't offer 
me any more what I need, love dies. Guadalupe, on the other hand, does not 
despair when she has to do without the things she needs, because her 
realism, in contrast to Werner's, is genuine. She accepts reality as she 
finds it, while Werner can accept it only after making it more palatable by
seasoning it with some platitudinous philosophy.

The story of Guadalupe shows us above all that the sexual orgasm is far 
more than a “pleasurable sensation,” a “kick.” In sexual ecstasy the common
man finds an answer to his quest for identity. Philosophers and searchers 
after absolute truth might venture into mysticism which promises an “orgasm
of the soul.” But those who want to build on firm ground and become what we
call emotionally integrated persons had better not underrate the value of a
mutually satisfactory sex life. In contrast to the viewpoint of the 
physiological school of psychology, the sexual climax reached by two lovers
is not merely a glandular function, but a complex psychological process 
with far-reaching consequences. We see that a self-centered male like 
Werner and an apathetic female like Guadalupe become transformed 
immediately after their moments to intense sexual pleasure. It is 
unfortunate that the transformation caused by the thrill of orgasm is 
impermanent and ends as soon as the mood subsides.

But short as the duration of that mood may be, it produces feelings of 
tenderness and human closeness that are not experienced otherwise. “Sex 
should bring out the best in man,” said the German poet and thinker, 
Goethe, whose many passionate affairs increased and sustained his power of 
literary creation.

Those among us who think of sexual pleasures as of a poor man's luxury, 
or as the pastime of non-intellectuals, should be reminded that creative 
persons, artists, composers, writers and actors, often need strong sexual 
stimulations in order to function creatively. Dr. Carl Jung acknowledged 
the fact that the spiritual energies of such people are greatly increased 
by the aid of satisfactory sex relations and also that the creativity of a 
genius, or a great talent, may dry up without this aid.

Of course, much has been said and written about the value of sublimating 
the sex urge, advancing the thesis that it is possible to have sex 
relations of a profound character on “the higher, emotional plane,”—which 
may be true of a few exceptional people. However, the great majority of us 
mortals must strive after mental health; and the study of a case history, 
like the story of Guadalupe, can teach us that sex can bring out the best 
and worst in us, simultaneously, depending on the degree of emotional 
maturity of the partners.

Paradoxically speaking, the story of Guadalupe makes a unique book 
because its author was quite unaware of writing a unique book.

In the first sixty pages of his story he manages to keep up the light 
tone and the facetiously detached manner of a “causeur” chatting with 
friends over some drinks and telling them “an intimate story from my past.”
But he can't remain seated very long. Soon he becomes overpowered by the 
impact of his own story and he gets up from his chair and begins to pace 
the room almost excitedly until nothing of the initial “detachment” is 
left. And quite unaware of what is happening to him he gradually sinks down
on a large imaginary couch, the despised psychoanalytical couch, and does 
not “chat” any more: he relives the torturous and sweet weeks and months 
with Guadalupe verbalizing his sincere thoughts and feelings, thus making 
the reading public his analyst.

There are not many books around of which can be said that the author, 
while telling his story, became unwittingly an analysant on the couch, 
impressing the reader with honest confessions rarely to be found in 
thousands of extant memoirs. The honesty shows not only in the frankness 
with which the sexual scenes are treated, but in the manner; the manner of 
a cultured man who does not have to resort to a dry “scientific” vocabulary
to assure us of his “respectable intentions,” or who tries to titillate his
readers with the uninhibited use of four-letter words. Smith Alexander uses
them all by letting the situation and the mood of the moment decide whether
for instance, to call the male member a penis, or a prick. That honesty of 
unconsciously choosing the most suitable vocabulary happens only in the 
case of a patient lying on the couch spilling out the story of his life, 
and only rarely in a purely literary creation.

That is why the book cannot fail to get the undivided attention of the 
reader and hold it till the end. Almost every mood in the story, whether 
caused by the intimacy of a long love night, or by the fascinating charm of
the Mexican landscape, or seascape, grips us by the very directness of its 
description. All this, the instinctive use of the right vocabulary, the 
unconscious honesty and immediacy of describing the thoughts, feelings, the
situations and people, give “Guadalupe” its literary justification apart 
from the strong psychological interest.

* * *

Hilary E. Holt, Ph.D.

Los Angeles, California, 1967

CHAPTER ONE

We believe in a lot of myths that don't make much sense. At first glance 
it would seem impossible that they should continue to subsist. Maybe they 
do so because people are so seldom objective, which is another way of 
saying that they have very little personal honesty. As one grows older he 
becomes more impressed with the force that custom has on the lives of so 
many millions of people. I don't mean customs like having ham and eggs for 
breakfast, or even superstitions like guarding our actions every time the 
thirteenth of the month happens to fall on a Friday.

It would seem that of all the myths, the sexual ones would be the least 
likely to endure, mostly because they fall within the experience of almost 
everyone, and therefore could be easily disproven if some standard of 
objectivity were present.

Like most of us, I grew up in a culture which told me, in early 
adolescence, that virginity was the greatest offering that could be brought
to the marriage bed. I swallowed that one when quite young, but I soon came
to believe that it was a lot of nonsense. I think this idea was borne in on
me a short time before I discovered that another myth—that whores make the 
best wives—was also false. It could have been that the contradiction of the
two ideas called my attention to the matter, and I felt I had learned 
something about logic in perceiving that because one concept was false, the
opposite was not necessarily true.

Of course this was long, long ago. It happened many years before I met 
Guadalupe, who gave me an opportunity to take a new lesson in life when I 
thought I had learned, if not all there was to know about these fundamental
truths, at least enough to insure that my navigation in these waters would 
be agreeable and free from the danger of any tremendous squalls. I felt 
sure that a well-based common sense and experience had given me a right to 
expect that much.

I would not like to convey the impression that I took Guadalupe from some
select bordello, or even that I was a casual client who happened to find an
agreeable woman (perhaps, he thought, the ideal woman) with whom to share 
the more delectable parts of his life. No, the truth was even a little 
worse than that.

In the first place, as far as I am aware, she was not a member in good 
standing of the world's oldest profession. But then, there are a lot of 
women in every station of life who do not consider themselves as such, but 
who fill every one of the particulars in this regard if (and I really don't
like to insist so much on a point) we were prepared to view the matter 
objectively or had a modicum of honesty in our make-up.

The fact is that in this relationship I was never bright enough to see 
that the only rival I could never conquer and remove from the scene for 
good was this shadowy myth that was always hanging around in the background
of her life. From the beginning, I knew he was there. He never said 
anything openly, and the only manifestations I had of his presence were 
gleaned from numerous conversations I had with Guadalupe and, more 
important still, from her attitude toward many things which seemed to have 
no direct bearing on our relationship.

When I finally became aware of his power over Guadalupe's every action, 
especially the subconscious ones, I was foolish enough to believe that I 
could vanquish him with reason and with love—yes, even love— which came, 
much to my surprise, after a time.

I didn't meet Guadalupe in a house of prostitution. I met her in an art 
gallery, which in certain aspects comes to pretty much the same thing. At 
least I've always thought of it in that light. I've gone to a hell of a lot
of exhibition openings in painting, and I always find the show amusing. But
I don't go so much for the spectacle as I go because it's a very logical 
place to meet women.

When one is unattached, has reached a certain age and doesn't harbor too 
many illusions, it can be highly rewarding. At least it has been for me. 
Not only that, but the sort of women you meet there are a cut above the 
types you meet in other places. Even if you happen to like wholesome 
clean-cut American girls (a type I abhor), there are a few of them around. 
At a good opening—and by “good” I am not referring to the quality of the 
paintings on exhibition—you can find a formidable variety of talent. In a 
word, there is at least one for every taste.

The odd thing is that I did not go to this opening in the capacity of a 
hunter—I went there under compulsion. It happened that I had a friend who 
was a painter and who had insisted that I accompany him to this exhibition.
It was a collective one, including the works of a score of painters, and 
Irwin had a couple of canvases in the show.

Another singular detail is that Irwin is not one of my best friends. As a
matter of fact, I can barely tolerate his company for more than fifteen 
minutes. Irwin is a strange character. I really believe he's an outstanding
personality in one sense. He's the only bore I know who realizes he's a 
bore. Not many people know that, really. They all believe that they're 
scintillating personalities, and they feel that if you don't see them in 
the same light, you're just not up to the subtlety of their wit.

Irwin is not like that at all. When he comes to visit you, he knows he's 
boring you. He knows that he's telling you a story he has already told you 
four or five times before, and he's a bit apologetic about it. Now, if you 
have an apologetic bore on your hands, it takes some of the sting out of 
it.

Naturally, my first preoccupation was to escape from Irwin, but I really 
didn't have to worry too much about that. When we entered the gallery, he 
was approached by the owner, who immediately took him to one side. I just 
stood where I was and surveyed the scene. It was early and there weren't 
very many people there. So I looked back to where Irwin stood, still in 
conversation with the woman who owned the gallery. I wanted to be sure that
it would not be a conversation that would last only two minutes. (Most 
people escape from Irwin in that amount of time if the opportunity presents
itself.)

I saw that it was going to last a little longer than that. The woman he 
was talking to was a horrible creature. When you have a figure like that 
and will never see forty-five again, you have to do it with charm—there is 
no other way. What I have never been able to understand is why they have to
make things worse than they are.

For example, if you are fat and can find no reliable method of reducing, 
your obesity can't be helped. But why become voluntarily bald? This one had
one of those duck-bill haircuts like those the pachucos wore about the time
of the Second World War. I can't stand women who have practically no hair. 
It makes them seem like female eunuchs.

I found this view so disagreeable that I turned to look at the paintings 
on the far wall. I don't believe many people do this at an opening. 
Observation has taught me that most of them inspect one or two minutely. 
They do this only as a means of striking up an interesting conversation 
with someone, it doesn't matter whom. I'm sure they come more for the 
conversation than because they are patrons of the arts. Of course, if you 
have money enough to buy a canvas, that's different.

It was at this moment that I saw Guadalupe. I promptly forgot about the 
paintings. I even forgot about Irwin, who was still conversing with his 
eunuch. Guadalupe was holding a cocktail glass in one hand. It struck me as
being very singular that she was gripping the stem, not dandling it between
the fingers of both hands as most people do.

The background for the cocktail glass was a brilliant chartreuse silk 
dress—what the magazines call a cocktail gown. This gown, perfectly molded 
to her perfect figure, had black piping on the collar and cuffs. I 
continued my upward summation. Her skin was a rich deep olive color. Not so
much like the olive itself, but like the liquid in which the olives are 
preserved.

The lines of her face formed a perfect oval, even more accentuated by her
almond-shaped black eyes and her high cheek bones. Her lips were extremely 
full, yet delicate, almost fragile. Her straight short nose, with slightly 
flaring nostrils, was a perfect continuation of her ovaloid forehead, 
enhanced by slightly arched black eyebrows.

She had an accentuated widow's peak—that triangular growth of hair 
overshadowing the forehead which is often more exciting sexually than a 
lovely pair of ripe breasts. Her unbelievably thick glossy black hair was 
done very simply, drawn back from her brow, and the immense coils of her 
chignon formed a crown which set off her plump bare shoulders and her 
swelling breasts, whose fullness was evidenced by the décolletage of her 
gown.

It occurred to me that in this alcoholic oasis I still did not have a 
drink. I approached Guadalupe. “Excuse me, Senorita, would you be kind 
enough to tell me where you got that?” I asked, indicating the cocktail 
glass.

She smiled, with a flash of even white teeth. “I'll give you this one, if
you like. I don't care much for liquor.”

I took the glass from her smooth soft hand, and her tapering fingers with
the bright red nails trailed across the stem as though she were 
surrendering it to me with some reluctance. I raised the delicate glass in 
a salute to her, and she smiled in a reserved way and looked at the floor. 
“Tell me, Senorita, do you have a picture on exhibition?”

She looked up, but not at me, her glance going over my shoulder, directed
at nothing in particular. She pressed her hands together, the fingers 
extended, and rubbed the palms slightly. “Oh, no. I really don't know much 
about all this. I came here with my sister. She has a gallery, and she has 
to keep in contact with all that's going on in the world of painting.”

She pronounced the last phrase with such a childish inflection that I 
looked at her anew. How old could she be? She was extremely short of 
stature. Her head was barely above the level of my shoulder, and I am only 
of medium height. How much of what I had taken for social assurance was 
only girlish awe at being in these surroundings? I finally concluded that 
her age was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five.

At this moment we were joined by a young woman who spoke briefly with 
Guadalupe in subdued tones. Guadalupe kept her eyes on the floor and nodded
once or twice. At last she looked up rather shyly. “This is my sister, 
Mercedes,” she said simply, “un amigo.”

I took the small brown hand that she extended and pressed it, noting that
it was quite moist. “Werner—,” I replied. “Delighted to know you. Your 
sister was telling me that you have a gallery.”

“Yes,” she said crisply. “It's in one of those small streets off 
Reforma.”

Mercedes, although still short of thirty, was obviously a little older 
than Guadalupe. She was not as handsome, but quite attractive. She was 
slightly taller, her figure was slimmer and her glance more penetrating. 
Her sleek black hair was cut evenly at a level just below her ears, with 
bangs covering almost all her forehead.

I didn't think she was the type for bangs. In fact, I don't believe there
are more than five women in a hundred to whom bangs are becoming. 
Nevertheless, all of them try it at one time or another. At worst, they 
seem like sheep peering through a brush fence. At best, as in Mercedes' 
case, the result is not disagreeable.

“Are you interested in painting?” she asked.

“I buy from time to time when I see something I really like.”

“Then you must stop by my gallery. I have some very good representations.
Feel free to come at any time.” She gave me a card, at the same time 
indicating the hours that the gallery was open.

Guadalupe had kept her eyes on the floor during this exchange, and I was 
beginning to wonder if she had as little interest in the exhibition as I 
did. “May I have the pleasure of taking you to supper?”

The sisters exchanged a look. “I can't go,” Mercedes replied. “I'm going 
to have to stay here throughout the entire evening. But Lupe is free to go,
if she likes.”

“Well, what do you say, Senorita?”

She smiled, the same flashing smile that I had seen a few minutes before.
“Of course,” she said. “I'd like to.”

As we came from the side street onto Avenida Juarez, we paused for a 
moment, watching the crowds on the sidewalk and the rapid flow of vehicular
traffic. We had not spoken a word since leaving the gallery. Guadalupe 
looked up at me, smiled and squeezed my hand.

We raised our eyes to the battery of neon signs, so numerous that they 
seemed to hide the facades of the buildings. Above them, on this balmy 
spring night, one or two dim stars twinkled indistinctly through the screen
of fumes and haze that hover over any large city. I felt that this city was
mine, not because I was born in it but because I had been able to do things
here that would not have been possible had I remained in Canada.

For one thing, I had founded a small business some ten years before, 
without any capital whatsoever, and it had done quite well. Without having 
arrived at wealth, I was comfortably well-off at the age of forty and, most
important of all, the business required very little of my time. The work of
organizing it had been arduous but brief.

Once in the groove, it was an enterprise that practically ran itself, 
with only a light touch on the reins now and then to guide it as it should 
go. It is a business without crises, with an unflagging demand for the 
product, and the necessity to see only a very few people in the course of 
business dealings.

We began to walk again toward Bellas Artes, where I had left the car. A 
few people were beginning to come out of the building, and I knew that we 
would have to hurry if we were to get the car out of the parking lot before
the traffic jam reached great proportions.

We drove out to Tlalpan to one of those rustic but well-appointed 
restaurants which serve delicious barbecue. The restaurant was not crowded,
and we were able to secure a table in a dimly lit corner, somewhat apart 
from the rest of the diners. We had hardly spoken during the long drive out
from the center of the city. Guadalupe had asked permission to turn on the 
car radio, which I usually have tuned to a classical music station. She lit
a cigarette for me once or twice, but stayed cuddled up at the far end of 
the seat, apparently absorbed in the music.

We had martinis before dinner, but she didn't drink much of hers. During 
the meal, we talked of various aspects of the world of painting, and she 
was able to tell me a few things about the gallery part of it which I had 
not heard before. When the coffee came, she served the cream and sugar. 
Guadalupe does not smoke but, once again, she lit my cigarette for me. She 
rested her elbows on the table, her arms extended toward me. I took her 
small hands in mine, fondling the backs of them, looking into the depths of
her black eyes.

“Did you like the music we heard coming out in the car?”

She gave me a fleeting smile. “Yes, I liked it. I didn't understand it, 
but I liked it. Do you know the names of all of them?”

“All of what?”

“The symphonies and those other things they play.”

“No, I don't know the names of all of them. I can name only a very 
few—those that have impressed me the most. I don't think it's as important 
to know their names as to enjoy what the composer has written. You know, I 
probably spend more on records than I do on any other single item. I have 
so many records now, after years of collecting, that I'm running short of 
space to keep them in.

“Look, it's still very early—why don't you come to my house and we can 
spend a musical evening, whatever you like. If you name it, I probably have
it. And if you can't name it, I can surely introduce you to several things 
that you will like.”

She agreed readily. I had the impression that there was nothing she 
wouldn't agree to. I was later to discover that she was complaisant above 
all. It took me a little longer to discover the reason behind that 
complaisance.

I have lived in Tacubaya for a number of years. Although I like Tacubaya,
I would prefer living farther out of the city. The trouble is that I have 
to go into the office for at least a little while every day, and I hate to 
drive. Moreover, I hate to drive in Mexico City, where there is such 
anarchy in the traffic that every time I manage to arrive safely at my 
office or at home, I breathe a sigh of relief and say to myself, “Well, I 
made it that time!”

Guadalupe was as quiet from Tlalpan to Tacubaya as she had been on the 
drive from the center of town to the restaurant. The station was now 
playing some of the Vivaldi concertos for harpsichord, and again, she 
seemed lost in the music. Arriving at the house, I got out of the car and 
held the right door open for her. She stayed cuddled up on the seat. I 
thought she had gone to sleep and put my hand on her shoulder. “Guadalupe!”

She didn't move, except to turn her head slightly, giving me a brief 
smile which was scarcely visible in the dim light from the street lamps. 
“It was beautiful, wasn't it? I've never heard anything quite like it.”

We ascended the stairs, three flights of them. I had my arm about her 
shoulders. I didn't feel forward in doing so. From the first moment I had 
spoken to her, I had felt a protective feeling toward her, felt it the most
natural thing in the world to hold her hand and put my arm around her. I've
learned to be a bit cautious about having protective feelings toward women.
As a rule, when you feel that sentiment, it's you who stands in need of 
being protected, not the woman.

The porch to my house is one that runs the whole length of the house. The
wrought-iron lamp had been left burning since mid-afternoon, lighting the 
way up the worn wooden steps and making the old-fashioned lock visible. 
When I opened the door, I told her, “Wait here a minute, until I turn on 
the lights.” When they were lit, she still remained in the doorway, her 
hands clasped together, an expression of delight on her face.

“Oh, this is as wonderful as the music!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, but come in. It's getting a little chilly outside.”

“How did you ever find a place like this?”

“Well, I didn't find it—not exactly. I built it.”

Some years before, I had been looking for a place to live—not just any 
old place, not an apartment nor a house on a suburban street. I had 
stumbled on this old wreck of a house quite by accident and had quickly 
come to an arrangement with the owner, taking a long-term lease on the top 
floor of the three-story building.

Then I hired an architect who knew how to carry out unusual plans and had
torn out and ripped up everything at the top of the old frame structure. We
installed a large rough-brick fireplace, put beams under the roof, buying 
them from a chap who had stolen a sufficient number of poles from the 
telephone company. We put in a floor of dark red mosaic tile, which the 
architect warned me was a sad error in a climate as cold as that of Mexico 
City.

The living room walls were lined with rough brick, painted white, and I 
had gone to Oaxaca to have some orange and white sarapes woven in a special
size, to use as throw rugs. The upper part of the walls is taken up by 
large cedar bookcases, built into the wall (I buy almost as many books as I
do records.). The whole west wall was torn out and replaced with a 
sectional-frame window which gives a magnificent view of Chapultepec Castle
and the woods below it.

She walked over to the window and looked across at the Castle, lit up 
like an enormous birthday cake with a thousand candles. “Would you mind 
turning out the light?” she requested. “Ah yes, that's better. Now I can 
even see the tops of the trees and that fountain up on the hill.”

I moved to her side and put my hands on her shoulders, resting my chin on
the top of her head. My intention was only to hold her like that, to enfold
a moment of contentment, contemplating a view that I saw every day in the 
year, but which I found even more wonderful now because I was sharing it 
with her. We stood there in silence for a few minutes.

The rich perfume of her luxuriant black hair was intoxicating me far more
than any liquor could have done. My right hand moved to her abdomen, 
caressing it slowly and sensually. I bent down and kissed the nape of her 
neck. She shivered ecstatically and gave a smothered sigh which combined 
the elements of surprise and nascent excitement.

I took her chin in my hand and turned her around towards me. Her head was
tilted back slightly and, in the half-light, her eyes had a more oriental 
cast. Her mouth was only a dark blur, and I pressed my lips to it lightly, 
lingeringly, seeking to explore its form and define its being, bringing it 
to life.

Guadalupe did not move. At first her arms hung at her sides and then, 
when I took her lips within mine, tracing the inner membrane with my 
tongue, she clasped me tightly around the neck. I drew her to me, holding 
her by the hips which swelled, vibrant, under my eager hands. After a 
moment she turned away from my kiss, her head bowed, and asked, “Where is 
the bedroom?”

I told her and let her go, my arms hanging at my sides as hers had been 
moments before. I turned to the big window again, but without seeing the 
birthday cake with the thousand candles and the thousand trees spread out 
below it. I had known Guadalupe only three hours, and my desire for her had
been brimming over from the first moment I had seen her in the gallery. I 
suppose I must be a strange fellow indeed, since I am seldom impetuous on 
these occasions.

I soon heard the single word, “Come.” It was spoken softly, but it 
vibrated down the hall like a persistent echo. I undressed in a flash and 
walked quickly down the dark hall. The bedroom was also in darkness. I 
groped for the switch of a lamp on the bedside table. A soft light flooded 
the room, the wicker shade casting a lineal pattern on the walls and the 
ceiling.

Guadalupe lay naked on the bed, her olive skin in sharp contrast to the 
white sheets. The perfection of her body made me draw in my breath sharply.
There are bodies that sometimes excite us by a beauty enhanced by some 
imperfections. There were no imperfections here. The lovely column of her 
neck blended superbly into the soft flow of her shoulders, from which her 
perfectly formed high full breasts began to swell.

Her nipples were small, well-set and surrounded by large dark-purple 
aureolae which were quite smooth. It was the first time I had ever seen 
that—a woman whose aureolae were not granulated. Her waist was slim and 
tapering, belling out below in full womanly hips, the skin shining like 
satin. She had her firm well-fleshed thighs pressed tightly together, and 
her mount was almost innocent of pubic hair. Apparently she had pressed her
thighs together when I turned on the lamp. She raised her arms above her 
head and relaxed her thighs, opening them a little.

In an instant, I was beside her on the bed, kissing her soft throat, her 
smooth shoulders, her ears, running my tongue up in back of them.

She did not respond to my caresses, but huddled against me, shivering a 
little as my tongue explored the rim of her ear. For one who had acceded so
readily, she was extremely passive, almost as though she were saying, “My 
body is yours to do with as you like, while I remain withdrawn into myself,
and you will never know if I feel anything or think anything.”

I held her close to me, my hand delighting in the exploration of those 
wonderful hips, the way they swelled out from the waist in an almost 
horizontal plane, the resiliency they had in the fullness of the curve and 
their final molding with her voluptuous thighs.

I passed my hand over her straight smooth back, caressing the slender 
nape of her neck, thrilled by the soft downy sensation received through my 
sensitive finger tips. “Tu pelo,” I murmured, “dame tu pelo!”

She slid from my arms and rose to a kneeling position on the bed, her 
fingers busy removing the pins from the immense black coils of her hair. 
She put the pins between her lips, one by one, and when she had removed the
last, deposited them on the table, holding her hair in place with her free 
hand. Then she threw back her head, the thick black rope falling down her 
back. She ran her fingers through it, spreading it out over her shoulders.

“Stand over there against the wall,” I commanded her. She stood by the 
side of the closet door, still running her fingers through her luxuriant 
hair and tossing it a bit to free it. Never had I seen such tresses! 
Straight, sleek and shiny black, they fell below her hips. My organ had 
swelled up to such enormous size that I thought it would burst, and its 
pulsating was a throbbing repeated in my brain with blows like a 
trip-hammer.

I penetrated her the moment I took her in my arms, lifting her from the 
floor. I held her by the hips, and her legs embraced my waist. Her arms 
were around my neck, and her long black hair caressed my hands with each 
movement and thrust of my body. My tongue seconded each lower thrust and my
finger, teasing her anus slightly, finally penetrated it, burrowing as deep
as it could go. Now every orifice was closed and, although Guadalupe showed
signs of pleasure, and excitement, hers was a mild response in comparison 
with what I had known on other occasions with other partners.

My brain was throbbing from the extreme physical effort of copulation in 
this position, and I felt myself so near to orgasm that I laid her on the 
bed, only the upper part of her body resting on it, her ankles about my 
neck. A sound issued from her slightly parted lips which was half sigh, 
half moan, as she drew her long black hair from under her body, spreading 
it out to one side of her on the bed. For the first time, I was conscious 
of the flood of moisture within her, and my thrusts became more subtle, 
more varied, more angular, alternating occasionally with one of deep 
penetration.

She was breathing heavily now, her eyes closed, her lips more widely 
parted with the effort of respiration.

Withdrawing again, I dragged her crossways of the bed and lay down beside
her. She wrapped the thick silken mantle of her hair about my throat and 
gave me her mouth, opening it voluntarily for the first time to my lingual 
penetration. Now I could restrain myself no longer, and the abundant 
lubrication that I felt within her made me certain that she was excited to 
such a pitch that she also was close.

My desire for her had been so great, the way to its realization so 
unobstructed, that the orgasm was of tremendous proportions. In the moment 
of climax, I felt as though I had received a heavy blow on the forehead, 
such as might have been given by the heel of an unseen hand directed with a
great deal of force against my head. I saw all the stars of the firmament —
fifty thousand times the number of dim stars we had stopped to look at 
after leaving the gallery. I saw, as in a dream, Saturn among them, circled
by its hazy ring.

I lay exhausted on her lush body. My intense desire had not exhausted 
itself, nor did the size of my member diminish. I roused myself, aided by 
the sight of that dark nipple crowning a full olive-skinned breast. It was 
erect and became rigid as I ran the membrane of my lower lip over it 
repeatedly, rolling it on my tongue and at last nipping it with my teeth.

Guadalupe was uttering low soft animal cries. She lay under the shadow of
her dark hair which seemed to be asphyxiating her, for she pushed it all up
above her head and clenched her hands in it, straining her body against 
mine as though supplicating an increase in this sweet torture.

I turned her over on her side and she threw one leg over my hips. My 
hands were on them, drawing her pelvis in close to me. I made love to her 
that way in a slow languorous motion which had not the urgent drive of our 
first copulation. I wanted to prolong this leisurely delight as long as 
possible and when, much later, I felt the surge of the life-giving fluid 
leaving my loins, the sensation was not as spectacular as the first time, 
but possessed a sweet melting feeling which, in its distinct way, was just 
as gratifying.

I was just dropping off to sleep when I was awakened by Guadalupe getting
up from the bed. “What?” I said hazily. “What's the matter, Lupe?”

“Get me a towel, quick.”

She was standing near the foot of the bed, her thighs pressed together 
tightly, her ankles crossed. I went quickly to the bathroom and brought 
back a large rough bath towel. “I don't dare move,” she told me. “I got up 
to go to the bathroom and it began coming out.”

I forced the towel between her thighs, and she opened them a little. A 
flood of semen flowed from between the lips of her sex. I received most of 
it in the towel and then carefully wiped the remainder from her soft plump 
thighs. I was kneeling on the floor in front of her, my head at the level 
of her knees, which were so perfect that the kneecap was not visible 
beneath the soft dark flesh.

I embraced her calves and began kissing her knees first, then the backs 
of them, which made her shiver deliciously. My ardent mouth continued 
upward. I spread her thighs with my hands and remained a long time, kissing
the velvety inner part of them, suctioning the flesh a little with my lips,
continuing upward until I took her tender wet nether lips in mine, running 
my tongue over the surface of them.

I felt her knees quaver and stood up quickly, taking her in my arms. Her 
eyes were closed and her head lolled to one side, the long stream of her 
sleek black hair falling straight down at an angle independent of her body.
I put my arm under her knees and, lifting her inert form, carried her to 
the bed. She did not move, and gave all appearance of having lost 
consciousness. She did not respond at all to my caresses, but lay still on 
the bed, her arms at her sides.

I dedicated the last hours of the night to a minute exploration of her 
body—the visual, the tactile, the olfactory and even the sense of taste. I 
pressed her heavy black tresses to my face, stroking them and kissing them.
I took the delights of her full breasts in a variety of ways. I possessed 
her twice more before morning.

During all this time, Guadalupe gave no sign of life. She appeared to be 
sleeping, but I knew she could not be. I captured the impression that, on 
the point of exhaustion, she had delivered her body up to me, retiring into
that part of her inner self which I was never to fathom, never to 
understand.

The first gray bars of dawn were appearing in the sky when I settled her 
well in bed, a pillow under her head, all of her dark hair hanging down 
over the edge, the ends trailing across the carpet. I crawled in beside 
her, fitting my body to hers. The odor of sexually satisfied and sexually 
exhausted female was the last sensory thing I remember before falling 
asleep.

II

I have never been a late sleeper. If I am in a regular routine, I can 
sleep seven hours, sometimes without once waking up. However, the 
difficulty is that the later I stay up, the less sleep I get. I was awake 
by ten o'clock in the morning and lay in bed for half an hour, relaxed but 
without reflections, in a sort of mental somnolence that at times can be 
more relaxing than sleep itself. I felt intensely hungry and got out of bed
finally.

Guadalupe was lying in the same position in which I had placed her at 
dawn and apparently had not moved, except for burrowing her face more 
deeply into the pillow. I could see no more of her head than the curving 
line of her jaw and one delicately sculptured ear below the sweep of dark 
hair that cascaded over the side of the bed.

Taking my pajamas and bathrobe from the closet and slipping a pair of 
huaraches on my feet, I went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. One of 
the things I like about my life is that I don't have to bail out at some 
ungodly hour of the morning to go to work.

As I've already explained, I don't employ this time sleeping my head off.
I've always felt that sleep is just time wasted. It's necessary, but it's 
wasted. And, to tell the truth, I've always felt that way about most kinds 
of work. If I could run my business with half the time I put in on it now, 
I'd be very pleased.

I don't like maids around the house, either, and I've sometimes wondered 
if it hasn't occurred to anyone in Mexico that you spend just about as much
time serving them as they do serving you, and you have to cater to their 
whims and sensibilities, besides.

My day usually begins just like this one. I get up and fix my breakfast 
while still in pajamas. I drink a second cup of coffee after breakfast with
a cigarette, often sitting in the armchair in the living room. Then I 
bathe, shave and dress. I go to the office after that.

I don't have a downtown office. It's on a quiet street in Mixcoac near 
the plaza. However, I couldn't very well follow that routine this morning, 
so I picked up the phone and called the office to see how things were going
and to advise the girl not to expect me much before two o'clock.

I filled a pipe from the humidor on the mantelpiece and sat down in the 
chair in front of the big window that overlooks the park. Perhaps most of 
you will recognize that I couldn't have this type of activity (or 
inactivity), if I were married, not even within my own home. In other 
words, privacy is very important to me. I don't believe I would be capable 
of living with a woman and not seeing her as an intruder most of the time.

I suppose, if you look at it objectively, I'm an extremely selfish 
person. I like to do as I please and not be bothered about it. Frankly, I 
don't see anything wrong with that—doing what you want. In fact, I don't 
call it selfishness. Selfishness is when you try to get other people to do 
what you want.

For the first time, it occurred to me that I hadn't seduced a virgin the 
night before, and that was the least puzzling factor of the matter. I had 
never had a woman who was so submissive, who had yielded so readily. Why 
did she do it? It was obviously not because she was infatuated with me in 
the short period we had spent in the gallery and in the restaurant.

I recalled that her responses to intense sexual stimuli were not 
passionate, and I was sure that she had found the night's love-making 
little more than pleasant titillation. Of course it almost takes a longer 
sexual association to arouse a woman thoroughly, and I've usually found 
that a young girl doesn't enjoy much more in sex than the novelty of it. 
She doesn't reach the heights that a more mature woman scales with 
comparative ease.

The only clue I had to Guadalupe's character was her acquiescence. I 
sensed that she would do anything anyone asked her to do—not someone she 
cared for or was anxious to please, but just anyone. If this were true, it 
did not seem entirely beyond the realm of possibility that she would cut 
off her ears if the request were made forcefully enough.

What could it be that had produced such a state of mind? Did it stem from
resignation? I could scarcely believe that hypothesis. She was a young 
beautiful girl who had her whole life before her. She could make anything 
of it that she wished. Why should she do the will of others when she had 
all the weapons in her hands to make them do her will instead?

I was far from sure of my thesis, and I resolved to be as observant as 
possible, watching for indications that would prove or disprove it. If the 
premise proved sound, Guadalupe might be responsible for some new and 
enjoyable chapters in a well-settled life which was already running 
smoothly along on its rails. I thought there might be considerable 
advantage in a relationship with a woman who seemed to be completely 
lacking in ego and whose volition never surpassed the limits of the will of
the person with whom she was most closely associated.

Only one stone was missing from the structure of my thesis in regard to 
this girl, and it was the most important one—the reason in back of her 
attitude. As it happened, I found out the reason before much time had 
passed, but the discovery of it and my own reaction to it led me to swim 
against tides stronger than those I had known previously and caused me to 
suffer extenuating torments, which are the burden of this story.

There was no real excuse for my going through as much hell as I did, 
since I was already familiar with the sociological background of the 
situation. Nevertheless, it is one thing to see a recognizable pattern 
traced out in the stream of lives that you observe occasionally, but quite 
a different matter to have these titanic waves awash within the quiet 
confines of your own life, one whose course is already set and whose rudder
is fixed firmly on the course you have chosen.

I had been so completely occupied with my soliloquy that I might just as 
well have been on another planet, insofar as my perception of my immediate 
surroundings was concerned. I felt a pair of soft hands on my ears and 
their continuing caress down my cheeks. I tilted my head back to see 
Guadalupe's face looking down on me. I sprang from the Morris chair and 
took her in my arms, kissing her forehead, ears and throat. Then I stood 
back a pace, holding her hands.

“Let me look at you,” I said. “I've hardly had time to do that yet.”

She had a fresh subdued appearance. Perhaps another woman would have been
radiant. I don't believe Guadalupe is ever that. If she were capable of it,
she wouldn't be Guadalupe. This was the first time I had seen her in 
daylight. Her skin was as flawless and beautiful in the harsh morning 
sunlight as it had been in the evening shadows. Its olive coloring was even
more firmly toned than it had been under the strong artificial lights of 
the gallery.

Her almond-shaped eyes were more fathomable and more expressive than they
had been the night before. She had done her hair differently this morning. 
It was drawn tightly to the back of her head and plaited in a braid that 
fell halfway to her waist.

“Turn around, Lupe—I must have the full view!” She did not pirouette, as 
a model would have done. She gave a slow half-turn and remained with her 
back toward me. I took her thick glossy braid in my hand and saw that it 
was doubled. “Do you have to double it?” I asked.

I felt, rather than saw, her slow smile. “It gets in the way if I don't.”

I held her by the elbows and kissed her neck and shoulders, then released
her. It was not what I wanted to do, but what I knew I had to do. The 
contact of that thick silken braid with the palm of my hand had made my 
virile member stiffen to such an extent that it seemed ready to burst out 
of my clothes. I felt it straining against my navel, the first silvery drop
of lubrication being slowly absorbed by the cloth. I knew that if I didn't 
desist, I would have her spread naked on the bed within five minutes and 
that we would be there for the whole day.

“You never use make-up?” I asked, seeking to calm my agitation with a 
commonplace question.

“Only lipstick. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think you're perfect the way you are— adding anything more 
would be superfluous.” My gigantic erection was bothering the hell out of 
me. It was not only lifting my pajama pants, but also the front of my 
dressing gown. “Let me fix you some breakfast, Lupe.” I knew that if I 
didn't enter into some safe activity, I couldn't stand the pressure much 
longer.

“I've already had breakfast. I saw you had eaten, and I had a glass of 
milk and the piece of toast that you left. I never eat much breakfast.”

While talking to her, I had turned to the window again. I didn't do so in
order to hide my erection, but to avoid the stimulation of it that looking 
at her produced. “Querido,” she said softly, “sit down in that chair for a 
while and relax.” I plumped down in the Morris chair again, although I 
didn't believe that a simple action Like that was going to relax all of me.
Guadalupe sat at my feet, her hands caressing my knees lightly. “Can we be 
seen from here?” she asked.

“No.”

She ceased caressing my knees and unbuttoned the pants of my pajamas. The
symbol of my manhood sprang out. It stood up, full-bodied, its red tip 
slippery with lubrication. The blue veins, only a delicate tracery when it 
was in another posture, swelled and strained against the shining velvety 
skin.

She took it into her mouth immediately, and the caress of those soft full
lips over the entire length of it made me stretch out in the chair, toes 
extended, and groan with pleasure, even more than I had done the night 
before. I thought my head would burst, not with pain but with the 
unbearable sexual tension that had been augmented by her actions.

In spite of the intense stimulation, I still could not achieve orgasm and
I felt I had to do something, to seize something and hold to it, if I were 
not to go out of my mind. I took her head between my hands and my agitated 
fingers quickly scattered the few pins that held the end of her braid. I 
seized the immense length of the glossy blue-black rope that fell down her 
back and, holding it tightly between my fists, stretched it with all my 
strength, as though my very life depended on rendering it asunder.

The last thing I remember was the pulsating, spurting, heavenly sensation
of the orgasm. On recovering from the somnolence of the aftermath, I felt 
drained, as though my life fluid had been drawn out by a hypodermic 
syringe. I took her chin in my hand and raised her head, looking deep into 
her eyes, and I saw that I had not been the only one to reap fulfillment 
from what had transpired.

She smiled up at me. “It's sweet,” she said, “like evaporated milk.”

I took her head between my hands once again. “I was afraid I had all the 
satisfaction,” I murmured.

“Oh no, it incites me a lot to do that.”

“But you don't have any release.”

“Oh yes I do. Maybe not so much as at other times, but I feel so content,
mi amor.” She sighed deeply. “So content.”

III

It was past noon when I dropped her off in front of the gallery. The 
shutters were still up, and it was obvious that her sister had not come 
there that morning. When I questioned her about her late arrival, she 
replied, “It doesn't matter. There's never much business in the morning, 
anyway.”

“Yes, but won't your sister be worried about your being out all night?”

“I don't think so. It's not the first time it's happened. I don't worry 
about her when she doesn't come home.”

I made a date to take her to dinner in the evening and then went home and
called the office to say that I wouldn't be coming in during the day. I 
shed my clothes quickly and got into bed. As a rule, I can't sleep much 
during the day, but I was exhausted.

It was nearly six o'clock when I awoke. A man was playing Sobre Las Olas 
on a barrel organ in the street. I lay in bed listening to it. It was the 
first time in hundreds of times that I'd heard it that I didn't find it 
detestable and reminiscent of circuses, which I dislike intensely. The song
ended and only the hum of traffic came up from the street. I turned over on
my side and closed my eyes.

There was a flashing of orange lights, like bursting stars, behind my 
eyelids—the result of the contrasting darkness with the bright sunlight 
coming in through the window. They ceased exploding after a moment, and I 
seemed to see Guadalupe's face before me, wearing the wistful expression it
had when she said, “It's not the first time it's happened.” I still 
couldn't fit her into any category that I knew, and not being able to do so
bothered me.

When I first came to Mexico, I had the same mistaken idea that most North
Americans have—that Mexican women lead rather promiscuous love lives, or at
least are more natural in this respect than the American woman is. In fact,
I had always pictured them as carefree pagans, pagans who have the Catholic
Church on hand to comfort them while they do not feel especially bound by 
its strictures.

I quickly learned that nothing could be farther from the truth. They are 
far more Puritan than a strict New England Congregationalist. However, my 
understanding of the labyrinth of sexual folklore took a great deal longer.
Little by little, I began to see the generous amount of masochism present 
in their make-up, their disinclination to be seen nude by their lover or 
their husband.

I finally learned that they fitted into three distinct groupings—the 
virgin who remains so until she is married, the married woman who seeks to 
hold her husband's love and is faithful to him throughout his numerous 
infidelities in the course of their married life, and the “others” who have
not been successful in either of these two categories.

Guadalupe was obviously a member of the last group, but it is one which 
has so many subdivisions that it is practically impossible to classify them
all. Let it be said that they range from outright hustling, through the 
“mistress” class to the bohemian free soul or the wealthy married woman who
has an affair from time to time.

I didn't know enough of the details of Guadalupe's life to be able to 
proceed farther with my introspection, but I did have a clue.

I knew that the Mexican girl is bred to the idea that the man who 
deflowers her is her man for all time to come. If he marries her or lives 
with her in union libre, her problem is solved and no greater complexes 
result than the usual ones acquired during childhood. However, if this does
not occur, her sense of guilt makes her feel that she is a second-class 
woman, who can only atone for her sin in the convent or by prostitution.

If she does not choose either of these alternatives, she has a tendency 
to believe that, since she does not belong to one man, she may belong to 
all and that in any case her actions have no importance in the general or 
personal scheme of things. These beliefs are naturally more intense in a 
girl who has a lower class or provincial background, although the daughters
of the well-to-do are not entirely exempt from such sentiments.

It was especially significant to me that Guadalupe exhibited no shyness 
about my seeing her nude. Why should she, if she felt that her body had 
been stigmatized by the loss of her virginity? I must admit that in her 
case, as in others I had known, I was considerably excited by her initial 
sexual passivity. If you've ever had a woman who directs your every action 
in the bed as though she were organizing a sales campaign, you'll know what
I mean. An attitude like that is a practical guarantee of keeping almost 
any penis limp.

I don't believe I'm excited by a show of passivity because it makes me 
feel more virile. It seems to me that it's due to the paradoxical concept 
than one feels more in possession of the body, an unlimited possession 
whose manifestations will seldom shock the sexual partner or, if they do, 
no gesture will ever reveal her displeasure. If the woman feels that she is
really nothing, she does not even expect enjoyment from the act and 
apparently is satisfied with being merely the vehicle for the man's 
pleasure.

I have often lain awake during the entire night, after having possessed a
beautiful dark-skinned girl, tracing the lines of her delicate features 
with my index finger, kissing the soft black down on the nape of her neck, 
inventing a hundred delightful plays with a pair of firm breasts, with the 
sole object of seeing the nipple become tense, then hard, then finally 
straining upward as though it would shoot from that breast like a cork from
a champagne bottle.

If the girl were not feigning sleep, she would neither move nor stir nor 
give any evidence that she was enjoying the sex-play or was stimulated by 
it. And when I finally tired of it, I would raise myself on one elbow and 
look long into the depths of her limpid dark eyes which expressed nothing, 
revealed nothing.

All this has caused me to reflect many times on whether it's not a 
mistake to insist that a woman achieve the ultimate in sexual satisfaction.
If you have one that doesn't but is always willing, you have it all your 
own way. When you want her, you take her, and, when you don't, you're not 
bothered by her sexual demands. I don't know if my way is good or bad. I 
only know that if the woman doesn't enjoy it as much as I do, I feel 
defrauded—as alone as though I were playing four-handed bridge by myself.

IV

The restaurant I had chosen was in the Calle Hamburgo, Mexico City's 
Fifth Avenue. I only go to that section when I feel like visiting the zoo. 
You see some real peacocks strutting around there, a few social lions, a 
large quantity of wolves (mostly male, though not all) and others who, 
without having any special animal attributes, are as wary as the fox is 
reputed to be.

It's full of American tourists and what I call “professional” Mexicans. 
These are drones who speak English fairly well, who have only American 
friends to whom they delight in explaining the folklore, legends and quaint
customs of Mexico. They dress in American clothes, smuggled over the 
border, and are superlative in their expressions of admiration for all 
things American.

The restaurant was small and cozy, with red-and-white checkered 
tablecloths, candles stuck in bottles and leaded glass windows. I ordered a
whisky sour, but Guadalupe declined a drink. She was as fresh and subdued 
as when I had left her in the morning, and I was thinking that if this were
apathy, I'd like a little more of it.

She was wearing a pleated black wool skirt, low-heeled shoes and her 
bright orange V-neck sweater enhanced her dark beauty, revealing the cleft 
between her firm olive-skinned breasts. All of her sleek black hair was 
brushed around one ear and braided with a brilliant forest-green ribbon. 
The braid was doubled, and it hung forward over her shoulder.

Her hands were resting on the table. I took them in mine. “How old are 
you, Guadalupe?” I asked.

“I was eighteen in February.”

I was astounded. I had not thought she was that young. “You're Pisces, 
then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it's a sign of the zodiac. The theory of astrology is that one's 
characteristics are determined by the position of the stars when one is 
born.”

“What are my characteristics?”

I looked down at my hands enfolding hers. “Oh, I don't know that much 
about it. You'll have to ask someone else.”

Part of what I told her was true. I am not a firm believer in astrology. 
Nevertheless, like many phenomena which I don't understand, I always 
reserve a little room for doubt, without passing judgment. For example, I 
don't believe in reincarnation either, but certain cases have come to my 
attention which cannot be explained by any other means. So I store these 
bits of information in the back of my mind, awaiting further evidence.

I did not feel called upon to tell Guadalupe that the predominant 
characteristic of Pisces is extreme weakness —a weakness of the type for 
which there is an adage in English—the person who doesn't dare call his 
soul his own. I felt sure that Guadalupe fitted into this category beyond 
the shadow of a doubt.

After the meal was finished, I proposed that we leave the car in the 
parking lot and take a walk along Reforma, even though I had the impression
that she was not in the habit of taking walks just for the fun of it. We 
came out on Reforma at El Angel, that impressive golden monument to 
Mexico's independence, and walked at a leisurely pace along the broad 
tree-lined avenue.

The night was balmy and clear. When we reached the Diana, we found a 
vacant stone bench, and I suggested that we sit there for a while. We 
remained silent for some time, engaged in watching the flow of traffic on 
the avenue, each occupied with his own thoughts. I was the first to speak.

“Have you always lived here in Mexico City, Lupe?”

“No, only the last ten years. I was born in the Mixteca Baja, in Oaxaca. 
My mother brought us to Mexico City when I was eight years old.” She smiled
reflectively, looking at the ground. “I was a horrible little girl.”

“You mean you were badly behaved?”

“No, I was fat and dumpy.” She paused a moment. “I never knew my father. 
In fact, I'm not sure that Mercedes and I are more than half-sisters. I 
think she knows what the truth of the matter is, but she's never told me.

“Once we were settled here, my mother found a lover almost immediately. 
He was one of those men who approach you on the street, trying to sell you 
stolen watches. I saw him only three or four times. I think he was the 
reason that my mother sent me to a nun's charity school in Toluca. I was 
there until I was thirteen.

“When she brought me back to the city, the watch salesman had gone out of
her life, and I gathered that she had had two or three other men in the 
interim. Even though there were no other men in her life after that, she 
didn't show much interest in me. Mercedes had taken a course in stenography
and was working in an office. That was a couple of years before she had the
idea of starting a gallery.”

“What did you do in the meanwhile?”

“Well, I had finished the fourth grade with the nuns, and I believe my 
mother thought I had had enough education. She doesn't know how to read and
write, so I guess I seemed educated to her. I wasn't dissatisfied. I ran 
errands when they asked me to. I lolled around the apartment and idled in 
the street.

“It was a happy-go-lucky life. All the other girls my age were going to 
school. I didn't envy them. I would see them leave the apartment building 
in the morning with their satchels full of books, and I thought of the 
boring hours they would spend in school while I was more or less free to do
what I liked.”

“What did you want to do?”

“I didn't know. I didn't care. I thought that I would live my life 
prompted by the impulse of the moment, without thinking much about what the
outcome of it might be.”

“Well, I understand that. It's more or less the conclusion I've come to 
after having lived a lot more years than you have.”

She was silent for a minute. I waited to see what would be forthcoming. 
“But, you know,” she said reflectively, “something happened to change this 
outgoing attitude that I had toward life.”

“What was that?”

She took my hand in hers and was silent for a long while, looking at the 
ground. “A friend of my mother's had a small business,” she began, “making 
candy in her home. You know the type of thing—candy made from milk, 
coconut, sweet potatoes, that boys sell on wooden trays in the street.

“Well, we were passing through a rather difficult time, and this friend 
suggested to my mother that I be sent out selling the candy. They didn't 
ask me if I wanted to, but I didn't mind. It gave me the whole day to 
myself. Sometimes I went to parks and sold a bit there or just hung around 
the streets without making much of an effort to sell anything.

“Other times, I would pick a big apartment building and go all through 
it, knocking on every door. I went into a building one day and, after 
having sold some on the first floor, went up to the second. A middle-aged 
woman opened the door when I knocked and invited me in. She bought quite a 
bit of candy and paid me for it.

“Then she asked me if I wouldn't like something hot to drink. She gave me
a cup of coffee and mescal, mixed in equal proportions. I didn't like the 
taste of it very much, and I knew that mescal is what the men use to get 
drunk on in Oaxaca, but I was afraid to tell her I didn't want it. It was 
steaming hot and it warmed me after the cold in the street, but it made my 
head hum.

“'You're looking rather tired, my dear,' she told me. 'Wouldn't you like 
to lie down for a while in the bedroom?'

“I did feel a bit tired and did not refuse. She led me into a bedroom 
which was at the beginning of a long hall. She assisted me to lie down on 
the bed, putting a pillow under my head and, taking off my shoes, began to 
massage my feet. She had wonderfully soothing hands and as her fingers 
stroked and kneaded the soles of my feet I felt my body relax completely. 
It was so nice to be stretched out on that bed that I didn't feel like 
moving from there all afternoon.

“'You're a very pretty girl,' the woman purred in my ear. 'How old are 
you, chula? I told her I was fourteen. 'You're getting to be a woman,' she 
said. 'Let me see your breasts. I'm sure they're the kind any woman would 
be proud of.' She didn't wait for my assent, but quickly unbuttoned my 
blouse and spread it back over my shoulders.

“My breasts were not full like they are now—they were pointed and hard. 
She expressed a desire to see more and, apart from one or two feeble 
protests, I didn't prevent her. I knew that I shouldn't allow her to take 
such liberties with me, but the alcohol had so completely relaxed me that I
felt as though I were in a trance—a hazy agreeable trance where nothing 
mattered.

“She had no sooner finished undressing me than I noticed that we were not
alone. A man, about the same age as the woman, was standing in the doorway.
He was entirely naked and his tool stood up at an angle from his belly. His
body was not very clean and he was so thin that all his ribs showed under 
his skin. His gray hair was long and greasy and, in the moment he stood 
there, he kept brushing it back from his eyes, which had a fixed glassy 
expression.

“The woman had been caressing my shoulders, and now she seized my wrists 
quickly, before I had time to react from my surprise. 'She's all yours, 
Jaime,' she said under her breath. 'Now do what you want to.'

“The man advanced to the bed in one leap and, seizing me by the ankles, 
dragged me across it, my legs hanging over the edge. The woman let go of 
one wrist long enough to take one of my braids, roll it up and stuff it 
into my mouth, which was wide open though not a sound came from it. The man
spread my legs apart, as far as they would go, and drew me to him. He 
remained in a standing position and without releasing my legs, teased my 
vulva a little with the end of his penis.

“He tried several times before being able to penetrate me, but he kept 
forcing it and forcing it with movements of his hips. My own hair stuffed 
in my mouth made me feel that I was going to vomit, but this sensation was 
soon superceded by the rending tearing pain when he made his entrance.

“It made me feel that I was being split in two. It seemed that his 
immense tool was filling my insides up to the throat, and his movement back
and forth over my torn hymen, which now was bleeding profusely, brought me 
agonizing pain, as if I had a splinter under each fingernail with somebody 
moving them back and forth.

“I don't remember how I got dressed and out of the apartment. I don't 
recall having seen the faces of the man or the woman after the man dragged 
me to the edge of the bed. The first thing I remember was leaning against a
building, my head resting on its stone front. I was still bleeding, though 
not so much as before, but I could feel the blood trickling down my thighs,
and I knew it might become visible below my dress if it didn't stop soon.

“I had run from the apartment, leaving my tray and the five pesos that 
the woman had given me. My mother was not home when I arrived at the place 
where we lived. I cleaned myself up as best I could. I told her that I had 
fallen in getting off a bus and that the tray had been smashed and all the 
candy scattered in the street.

“I think she believed me, but she got very angry about the lost tray and 
the fact that she would receive nothing from the candy she had already paid
her friend for. She seized me by my braids, wrapping both of them around 
her hand and, having me in this defenseless position, slapped me about the 
face and head with her open hand until she got tired of it.”

I had my arm about her shoulders and now took her small hands between 
both of mine. She rested her head on my shoulder. We remained that way for 
a long time without speaking. What could I say? To have said, “I'm sorry, 
Guadalupe,” would have been paltry indeed in comparison with what I was 
feeling. I did feel terribly sorry for her, more so than I could possibly 
express—so much so that I gave up the idea I had of bringing her back to my
apartment that night.

We began walking slowly down Reforma toward the parking lot where I had 
left the car. Neither of us spoke, and my thoughts were such that I didn't 
care to comment them with her. I knew that since adolescence, she had been 
thinking she was damaged goods, that no one would marry her now and that, 
if she achieved some sort of relationship with a man, it would be one in 
which she could be no more than the source of his sexual pleasure, never 
the mother of his children. She would be relatively content if the man 
treated her well and if the affair did not end with the first signs of her 
pregnancy and the man's consequent disappearance.

CHAPTER TWO

I continued seeing Guadalupe and during the following ten days there were
only two that we did not dine together and spend the night in my apartment.
I took these two off by way of contrast, to see how I felt about being 
alone and to have the time to mull the affair over in my mind.

We went dancing a couple of times. It's an activity I enjoy a great deal 
and I think Guadalupe likes it, but perhaps is less keen on it than I am. 
The evenings in my apartment were spent listening to the music I had 
promised her the first night. I would turn the Morris chair around to the 
fireplace and she would usually stretch out on the divan, her head resting 
on a pair of cushions.

The hours would pass, sometimes without our having exchanged more than 
three or four phrases. I found that I liked this silent companionship more 
and more, and began toying with the idea of bringing Guadalupe to live with
me.

I had never planned on having such a close association with a woman, but 
there were many factors in the situation that attracted me. First of all, 
her physical appeal was not in the least dimmed by our constant sexual 
relations, but only made me want more. I was increasingly charmed by her 
sexual submission, by the surrender of her body to me without any limits, 
without any demands, and I felt her passivity slowly burgeoning into 
greater and greater response every time we slept together.

Her stories of financial difficulties (I don't believe there were more 
than two of them in the first couple of weeks), were quickly answered by 
substantial donations which I could well afford and which I did not mind in
the least.

I tried to picture what it would be like having her around the house all 
the time, and came to the conclusion that she would never be burdensome. I 
could converse with her if I felt like it, abstain from doing so if I did 
not. I couldn't see how she would be an obstacle to any of the activities I
had always enjoyed, either within the house or away from it.

The thought of possessing that supple body whenever I wished, without 
going through the formalities and difficulties that a separate existence 
implies, was the principal factor in my deciding in favor of that course. 
In other words, I would be giving up nothing that I had enjoyed up to 
now—the freedom, the vagaries, the caprices of a bachelor life, and I felt 
that this way of living would be made even more enjoyable by having her 
under my roof.

I brought Guadalupe to live with me toward the end of April. She took a 
lively interest in cooking, of which she had a total ignorance up to that 
time. I think she enjoyed having a place she could call home, perhaps for 
the first time in her life. I never saw her sister again and never entered 
the apartment where the two of them had lived with their mother.

I gathered, from what little Guadalupe had told me about it, that it was 
one of those cheap holes-in-the-wall with only a little sketchy furniture 
from the Lagunilla, odors of unsanitary drains, with brassieres and panties
hung on a short line in the bathroom. Not the sort of a place anyone could 
call home, just a place where you went to sleep after the other activities 
were over, one you promptly left after a hurried breakfast.

Life in Mexico City is constantly changing, and I think one of the 
greatest changes is the rise of an incipient middle class. A middle class 
which strives to be bourgeoisie, wants a decent home and may, if it is 
decent enough, spend quite a bit of time in it. Of course, for the poor, 
life is still lived on the street, since their homes are so dreadful and 
overcrowded that they can't all fit in it at one time except to sleep. 
Deciding whether inclination or necessity is the predominant factor, is 
like trying to decide if the hen came before the egg.

Guadalupe had very few clothes and I set about outfitting her 
immediately. It was the first time I had ever bought cloths for a woman and
I think I enjoyed this novelty at least as much as she did. She did not 
object to my selecting everything that was bought. I did this not in 
obedience to a desire to be arbitrary, but for two very solid reasons.

In the first place, you can't turn a girl like Guadalupe loose to buy her
own clothes or she would come home with a load of black mesh stockings, 
watered silks, horrible flowered prints and frilly lace openwork blouses 
which would make her look like somebody's maid.

In the second place, I don't believe in fashion and I've had occasion to 
observe that, for the woman who knows what suits her, there is no such 
thing as fashion. However, there are not very many women like that. I doubt
that their number is any greater than, say, the number of Doctors of 
Mathematics.

How many times do you see a woman on the street who would be absolutely 
ravishing if she had the ghost of an idea of what to do with herself? When 
you see one who does, she stands out in a crowd, even if she's not 
exceptionally pretty. She causes all male heads to turn from the herd of 
biddies—many of them basically more attractive than she is—who are so busy 
imitating each other in dress, make-up and attitudes that they've forgotten
they ever had a personality of their own—and I think it's quite likely they
never did have.

Guadalupe hardly had a personality of her own and, while I didn't propose
to create one for her or to cause all male eyes to turn in her direction, I
was determined that the feminine scenery that I had before my eyes every 
day was going to be my taste.

I chose everything that was bought. The panties and slips were all either
black or white—there were rather more of the latter, I believe—and were 
quite simple in design. The negligees were a little more elaborate and, 
apart from black and white, I selected one in red and another in sunlight 
yellow. We bought several pairs of informal pumps in various colors—some of
patent-leather, some of grained leather, one of brocade and two pairs of 
low-heeled shoes of the loafer type.

I bought skirts, sweaters, blouses, a few dresses for more select 
occasions, trying to keep to a line of simple good taste, avoiding the 
exaggerations most women seem to feel make them appear as exotic as the 
Guacamava.

Guadalupe was as excited with the new clothes as a child with a new toy. 
She tried them on one after another, in the privacy of the apartment, and 
preened herself in front of me. I was never sure if she approved of them or
if her joy merely stemmed from the fact of having so many new things at 
once—something that no one else had worn—after years of being the recipient
of clothes from cousins and in earlier years, from the children in the 
houses where her mother worked.

It was a lovely bright spring afternoon and I opened the sectional parts 
of the window to allow the warm air to circulate in the big living room. 
Guadalupe had come from the bedroom wearing a nylon dress of narrow 
black-and-white stripes. It sheathed her superb figure in a way that 
brought me to erection just by seeing her. Apparently she had the same 
inclination. While she was changing in the bedroom, she had unpinned her 
braid, which now hung to her waist.

“Do you like it on me?” she asked.

“You mean the dress? I like what's underneath it a lot more. The dress is
just like a wrapping on a Christmas package. It's pretty, but it only makes
you want to open it to see what's inside. I guess that's the way it should 
be.”

She pouted. “You mean I'm no more to you than a Christmas package?”

“I don't like comparisons of that sort. Let's say you're the best 
Christmas package I've ever received and, no matter how often I open it, I 
always find something new inside to delight me. Let's see what there is 
this time.”

It was one of those hot sultry afternoons such as are seen in Mexico City
only a few weeks in the year. The kind of afternoon that seems to invite 
sexual experimentation — the “Love in the Afternoon” feeling, a period when
one is not hurried and is inclined to be lazily sensual, having endless 
hours at his disposal.

During the weeks of our relationship, Guadalupe had never been thoroughly
aroused, and I thought that now would be the perfect time to see if she had
some odd sexual taste—perhaps unknown to her—which would bring her complete
satisfaction.

I lowered the zipper on the back of her dress and, with one swift motion,
peeled it from her shoulders, drawing it down over her body, over her full 
hips. It fell to the floor, spread out around her ankles like the satin 
used in window displays.

“Let me take the slip off,” she murmured. “That's not so easy.”

In a moment, I had her stretched out on the big orange-and-white serape 
and was undoing the fastenings of her silk stockings. I began kissing her 
soft inner thighs just above the stockings and as I lowered each one 
slipping it down over her shapely legs, I continued to find a place that 
attracted my lips—the soft backs of her knees, the curved parts of her 
calves, which I gently took between my teeth, nipping the flesh and moving 
it slightly from side to side.

She had given vent to a deep sigh of pleasure when I kissed the backs of 
her knees and, now that I had her legs bare, I took her small well-formed 
foot in my hand and began kissing the graceful arch. I ran my tongue over 
the fleshy part of the toes and then, separating them, let my tongue 
flicker between each of the crevices thus created, which caused her to 
extend all ten toes and whimper with pleasure.

I began my oscillatory return to the center of her desire, but stopped 
short of my logical goal. Slipping my arms under her supple body, I 
unfastened her brassiere and drew it over her arms. With equal facility, I 
stripped off her panties and she arched her back to assist me.

I licked her nipples and the dark aureolae around them, feeling them 
stiffen under my rapidly moving tongue. I took them in my mouth, at the 
same time drawing in as much of her full breast as my mouth could take. I 
rotated them by turning my head in small slow circles.

She was breathing heavily as I let my tongue slide through the bottom of 
the valley between them, licking her crossways on all her ribs, which were 
brought into prominence by the upward thrust of her firm olive-skinned 
breasts. Her navel was round and deep and the tip of my tongue gyrated 
there for a long time, occasionally leaving this delicious well to circle 
its orifice.

I turned her on her side, first gripping her well-formed pliant buttocks,
massaging them and spreading them apart. I opened them still wider until 
the pink star of her anus was stretched wide. I worked it back and forth in
a vibratory movement, feeling the shuddering of her body which made her 
firm buttocks tremble under my hands.

She broke loose from my grasp and rolled over on her back, her hands on 
my head, forcing it in toward her. I spread her thighs as far apart as I 
had her buttocks and remained a moment, contemplating the jewel that opened
before me. Her mound was not very prominent and the sparse silky black hair
did little to conceal its form. Her vulva was quivering like a sea anemone,
opening and closing. Half hidden by the inner lips of her sex her clitoris 
was beginning to emerge and, when I passed the tip of my tongue lightly 
over it, I found that it was almost rigid and had a slight palpitating 
movement.

I toyed with these inner lips for a considerable period, taking them 
between mine and creating a suction which must have extended through the 
vagina to the womb. The lubrication obtained by this heavy labial 
stimulation over her entire body was suffusing me with the strong smell of 
female in heat.

Guadalupe's manifestations of enjoyment had been scarcely more ardent 
than when I had kissed the backs of her knees. But now she began twisting 
and turning as though my pleasure offering were the most extreme kind of 
torture. I sensed that she was straining toward a goal which she would 
achieve only by an exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure and cast about in
my mind for a way to supply the former ingredient.

My eyes roving over the beamed ceiling, rested on a candelabra which I 
had bought in an antique shop when I was decorating the apartment. It was 
fitted for a dozen large candles and was hung from a thick rope which 
passed through a pulley on one of the beams, descending to a ring lower 
down on the wall. I had let it down once or twice to illuminate the room 
when I had guests and then had practically forgotten that it was fastened 
up there under the high roof.

Now I let it down until the knot in the rope reached the pulley. 
Guadalupe still lay on her back on the big serape. Her eyes were closed and
her entire body was trembling with unsatisfied desire. Taking a pair of 
leather thongs from the hooks of the chandelier, I turned her over on her 
side and bound her hands behind her back. She shivered slightly under my 
touch, but did not open her eyes.

I took the end of her long braid and bound it firmly to the iron hook at 
the bottom of the chandelier. Then I pulled the rope steadily and slowly, 
and the giant candelabra moved upward toward the ceiling. Her body at first
was dragged a few inches along the floor, then raised to a sitting position
as the braid came taut.

She moaned several times, a long, “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” —but did not cry out. 
As the tension was increased by the upward movement of the candelabra, she 
was pulled to a standing position and, as her feet left the floor, she 
began to groan and continued to do so while I tied the rope to the iron 
ring in the wall.

She hung suspended by her thick braid and her body swayed and turned 
slightly, for all the world like a corpse on a gibbet. I put my hands on 
her hips to steady her, and at that moment her moaning stopped and she 
opened her legs to me. The lubrication was so abundant that it ran over the
lips of her sex, wetting those wonderfully fleshed thighs. I took her 
quivering nether lips in mine, drawing her tight up against my face and 
working into her as far as I could go, moving back and forth over the 
membranes beneath the pubic bone and over her clitoris.

Her loud, continuing screams rent the air. They were strident and 
piercing, and were accompanied by an even greater flood of sexual juices, 
which made me desist, knowing that my purpose had been achieved.

I lowered her to the floor. Her body collapsed in a heap. I unbound her 
wrists and carried her to the bed. Most of her forehead and the nape of her
neck were suffused with the straining flow of red blood. My eyes did not 
leave her face during the time it took me to undress. Her eyes were closed,
the long dark lashes shadowing her cheeks. Her breathing came fast through 
her slightly parted lips.

She responded immediately to my brutal entrance, and a few sharp 
movements brought us to a simultaneous climax in which I was conscious of a
prolonged scream and her hot thighs embracing my waist.

II

It was dark when I awoke. The evening breeze was blowing the curtains far
into the room. Guadalupe lay still asleep at my side. I went to the closet 
to get a light soft blanket to put over her. She lay on her back, her knees
bent, her lips slightly parted. It seemed almost as though she were smiling
in her sleep. Although I knew I would not go back to sleep, I lay down 
beside her after spreading the blanket over the bed.

I felt terribly hungry, but did not want to leave Guadalupe's side, 
content to lie quietly on my back, listening to the steady even flow of her
respiration, watching the prismic patterns cast on the ceiling by the 
reflection of the lights from the passing cars. I sought her hand under the
cover and held it lightly. She stirred and murmured something. I turned to 
find her big black eyes upon me.

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Hello. How do you feel?”

She stretched her body deliciously and did not reply for a moment. “All 
right. But I feel drained, querido. I've never felt like this before. It 
was so wonderful!” She sighed. “All those things you did to me. I even 
loved it when you tied my hands. Tell me, do you think it's wrong to do the
things we did?”

“Wrong? Why should it be wrong? I think there's hardly anything that a 
man and woman can do together that's wrong. Now don't tell me that every 
time you enjoy something you feel guilty about it.”

She maintained a brief silence. In the midst of a sigh, she said, “I've 
never known such intense pleasure. I had no idea it existed.”

I said nothing, but lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it, then 
caressed it with my cheek. Her initial silence had given me the answer to 
my question. I knew Guadalupe suffered from the same complex as all 
downtrodden. If she enjoyed something, she felt it must be sinful, 
otherwise it wouldn't be enjoyable.

If something good came her way, her reaction was that she didn't deserve 
it, wasn't entitled to it and feared that someone might come along very 
soon and take it away from her. Conversely, if someone exploited her, beat 
her, abused her, she believed that she was only receiving her just due and 
adopted an attitude of resignation to this sort of treatment.

This is not only Guadalupe's case—it's the case of a great many people in
this world. It's one of the principal reasons why social classes and social
injustices exist, why wars can be fomented and carried out to their dreary 
conclusions. It is this outlook on life that makes possible the existence 
of the clergy and national legislatures.

For the rest. I knew that her attitudes toward sex had been molded 
entirely by the Sisters of Charity in Toluca, who surely must have told her
that people who made love merely because they enjoyed it were involved in 
the gravest of all sins. The logical result of this teaching was that, when
their charges went out into the world, got married and all the rest of it, 
they led rather dreary sex lives due, in my opinion, to the burden of guilt
they carried throughout life.

I was also sure that it had been in this same jolly convent that 
Guadalupe had absorbed the criterion that a girl who lost her virginity 
before marriage was a worthless being, one whose entire lifetime would not 
be sufficient to expunge the stigma. Well, she had contemplated new vistas 
this afternoon, and I was intrigued to see if this would produce any 
noticeable changes in her. I wasn't betting on it.

Women are always pleased of course, and they keep wanting more, but I've 
never been able to see that it affects their lives profoundly. I've heard 
from the lips of various women, virtually the same declaration that 
Guadalupe had just made, and for many years I was doubtful whether or not 
to believe it.

The first time this happened was in a cat-house in Calgary, when the 
whore whispered to me as we uncoupled, “Dearie, you're the first man who's 
ever thrilled me!”

I was pretty young then, but not young enough to believe that. However, 
it can't be denied that it does give you a nice feeling, and I suppose most
men, instead of reflecting on the implausibility of such an occurrence, 
feel so elated that they start expanding their chests, while the thought 
flashes through their minds that perhaps Don Juan and Casanova couldn't 
have done much better.

Since the experience in Calgary, I've had lots of others, mostly outside 
of cat-houses, and I've heard pretty much the same thing on a number of 
occasions. I must admit that I was over twenty-five before I had enough 
perception to know if what they said was truth or flattery. I don't believe
I'm less susceptible than the rest, but I have learned to muster a tolerant
smile for an agreeable falsehood and not allow my ego to be inflated to 
unreasonable proportions.

What I really believe to be the deep-down truth of the matter is just 
this—there is nothing more productive of female orgasms than a sincere 
attitude toward sex. By that I mean a dedication to the body you are making
love to, a worship, an adoration of the woman as revealed in the sexual 
act. Some people will tell you that if love is not present (the higher 
spiritual kind), the thing won't come off well.

That hasn't been my experience. I've had some tremendously successful 
sexual encounters with women I couldn't abide with fifteen minutes outside 
the bed, women I would probably prefer never to set eyes on again. 
Nevertheless, in those moments, I was sincere with them, and I must say 
they have usually been sincere with me.

“Do you feel strong enough to get up now, Lupe?”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Let's have a try. I'm hungry 
enough for both of us. You don't mind if it's just omelet, do you? That's 
the only thing I can do really well.”

“No, that's all right with me. They say eggs are the best restorative 
food there is.”

CHAPTER THREE

We lived a happy carefree life that spring. We spent almost all our time 
together, and my surmise was proven correct. When I felt like reading, for 
example, I would just take up a book and lose myself in it for hours. 
Guadalupe never disturbed me and would most often sit without moving in the
chair that was drawn up facing the big window. I would make occasional 
comments on what I was reading, but her responses were always laconic and I
quickly perceived that she had little interest in hypothetical or abstract 
problems derived from books.

If we went to the movies, she would prattle on for a long time on the way
home and when we were getting ready for bed about the fictitious lives we 
had seen portrayed on the screen, taking the problems and situations as 
seriously as though they were her own. At times I was led to believe that 
perhaps she did not capture the idea that this was a drama got up for 
people's entertainment and that she imagined we had seen only a small 
section of the lives of these people who, in the moment we were driving 
home from the theatre, were living out additional episodes which had not 
been included in the film.

I suspected that while I was gone from the apartment during the day she 
listened to soap operas, but she never commented any of these with me. I 
knew that she was dying for me to get a television set, but I had no 
intention of making that sacrifice. She must have realized this, since she 
never even hinted about such a purchase.

Among the few gratuitous comments I had made on the way home in the car 
concerning the matter of movies and television, I remember saying to her, 
“One should live his own movie.” Apparently she recognized the truth of 
that statement, for she was silent a long time before posing a question or 
two in which she tried to arrive at an understanding of my point of view.

I never knew what she was thinking, never knew what was going on behind 
those dark almond-shaped eyes. Sometimes I felt impelled to believe that 
she never thought anything. She was absolutely without criteria, except for
some vague notions of what was good and bad. She seemed to accept all 
people on an equal footing without the least differentiation.

Apparently it was enough for her that they were pleasant and agreeable, 
although the person in question might not possess a smidgen of personal 
loyalty, might be one of the worst crooks in the city or one of its most 
unendurable bores. She never perceived any of these facets of a personality
if they were camouflaged by a smiling face and solicitous manners.

We accepted a few invitations for supper and parties, but the results 
were not notably successful. I do not have many friends, and least of all 
would I bother with a person to whom it made a difference that Guadalupe 
and I were not married.

She was somewhat shy and uncommunicative and, although the men were able 
to draw her out a little by means of gallantries, the women rather openly 
snubbed her or at best patronized her. I didn't think she enjoyed these 
outings very much, and we gradually withdrew from what little social life 
there had been. Nevertheless, on one occasion she formed a friendship that 
interested her.

We were at a party given by a fellow I knew in a business way. He had 
made a fair amount of money rather quickly and was quite anxious to 
demonstrate his opulent way of living to a few chosen friends. Guadalupe 
and I were among the selected few permitted to attend this preview of the 
more abundant life when he gave a housewarming at his new residence in 
Polanco.

Personally, I think David has always had his sights a little crossed. He 
made the money so suddenly that it left him stunned. He's one of those 
people who is never quite sure who he is or what he is. I've always thought
of him as a wine taster. He sips a little from each bottle, which he feels 
entitles him to give an opinion on the whole shipment and on other 
shipments which he hasn't yet tasted, when the truth of the matter is that 
he has grown so confused by his tasting that he doesn't know which shipment
he wants to buy.

I feel profoundly sorry for people who go through life in this manner. 
Enjoying life implies that you be somewhat integrated. It's just not 
possible to spread yourself as thin as David does and get much out of it. I
have the impression that when he's seventy—if he makes it that far—he'll 
probably look back on the whole thing and think, I enjoyed the whirling 
around, but somehow I never got to complete one dance.

All this is figurative of course, because David was dancing at this party
and doing very well at it, too. He and his wife had been the first couple 
to step out on the floor after he had treated the guests to a demonstration
of what a stereophonic set costing fifty thousand pesos could do.

If there's enough dancing and drinking, Mexican parties can be very 
lively and enjoyable. In fact, I much prefer them to those given by 
Americans. If this is not the case however, they are dreadfully dull 
functions, with all the men in one corner and all the women in the other.

David's party, like everything he does, was a sort of half-and-half 
arrangement. I had danced a great deal with Guadalupe in the earlier part 
of the evening, but the affair degenerated in the manner I have just 
described and I soon found myself shunted off with the males into the far 
corner of the living room.

When I was first herded into this corral, the topic was boxing. After a 
while it changed to bullfighting, both of which are subjects in which my 
interest is nil and to which I have nothing to contribute. When I could 
discreetly withdraw from this group, I began to look for Guadalupe. I had 
had about enough of this and thought it was time to be going home.

I found her on David's horrible new red brocade sofa, deep in 
conversation with another girl. In reality, the other girl was doing most 
of the talking, Guadalupe most of the listening. From time to time she 
would raise her eyes to glance at the other shyly. We had been introduced 
to this young woman earlier in the evening, but I had completely forgotten 
her name.

She wore heavy glasses with black frames, which she took off now and 
then, employing them in some forceful gesture. She was of medium height, a 
few centimeters taller than Guadalupe, with one of those soft melting 
figures that are agreeable but whose outlines are not precise.

She wore a white pongee blouse with long collar points opened wide at the
throat, a sloppy Oxford-gray sweater which covered her hips, a tan 
form-fitting skirt and loafers. Her eyes were startlingly blue, her 
features rather heavy, as was her wavy chestnut hair which she wore loose 
and cut at a level just below her ears.

“I think we'd better be going home, Lupe.”

She looked up, and I realized that she had not been aware of my approach.
“All right,” she said. “I've been having such a wonderful conversation with
Georgina.” She clasped her hands before her in a reverent attitude. I 
wondered what the other girl could have been saying that interested 
Guadalupe so much.

“Well, it's not terribly late. Why don't you come home with us, Senorita,
if you like, and you can continue the conversation there?”

Georgina stood up. “Yes, I'd like that very much.” She hesitated. “The 
only thing is, I don't have a car and I'd have to ask you to give me a lift
home afterwards.” Her voice was husky, but had a vibrant insistent quality,
an odd combination that I did not remember having encountered before. The 
forcefulness of its tone contrasted with the languidness of her posture. I 
assured her that taking her home would be no imposition.

In the car, Georgina sat between Guadalupe and me. “Are you a friend of 
David's?” I asked.

“No, not really. I met his wife once or twice at my sister's house. I 
have no idea why he invited me to this party.”

I did have an idea. Like some businessmen, David has the impression that 
his work has compelled him to neglect certain facets of life that are not 
included in money-making, and he tries to remedy this defect by inviting 
“interesting” people to his house occasionally.

He likes mixing up diverse types when he gives a party. In addition to 
this girl, I had noticed a fellow with a beard and a corduroy jacket and a 
girl wearing sandals and a blue denim skirt, with one of those Brigitte 
Bardot hairdos with the strands cut to all different lengths. David feels 
that this type of person gives variety to his gatherings.

Georgina was complaining about some of the difficulties she encountered 
in the part-time job she held while attending the University when I became 
aware of the pressure of her thigh against mine. I moved a little closer to
the car door and found that the pressure was immediately renewed as she 
adjusted her position on the seat. She was forcing her leg against mine 
with such pressure that I maintained my foot on the accelerator with some 
difficulty. The drive from Polanco to Tacubaya is a very short one, and I 
had scarcely become aware of this little by-play when we arrived at the 
house.

“Oh, what a marvelous place!” exclaimed Georgina as we entered. “I've 
always dreamed of having an apartment like this. Your taste and mine are 
identical, Werner. I'm sure that this is a place that looks ravishing at 
every hour of the day and night. Do you know what I mean? It's so charming 
that it has no bad periods. After seeing this I don't feel like going back 
to my place at all.”

“What would you like to drink?” I inquired, opening the doors of the 
liquor cabinet. “Do you have tequila?”

“Sure do. Which would you prefer—Conmemorativo or Herradura?”

“Herradura.”

“Guadalupe?”

“Nothing for me. I think I'll make myself some coffee.”

“Bring one for me, will you, chula?” Georgina requested.

I poured out the tequila in little earthenware cups and handed one to 
Georgina. “Salud!” she said, raising her cup and fixing my eyes with hers. 
She drained it off in one swallow.

At this moment, a resonant clap of thunder shook the house, and the 
jagged flashes of lightning illuminated the room with a searing white 
light. The rain began to fall suddenly in torrents. I drew the heavy white 
cotton curtains over the big window.

“The first rain of the season,” I remarked.

“Yes, it makes it seem even more cosy in here. Do you think we could have
a fire?”

The apartment was cooler than it had been at any time during the spring. 
High winds and a rapidly lowering temperature had heralded the storm. I 
knelt by the fireplace and held a match to the paper placed under the logs 
and kindling. Within a few seconds, a roaring fire was leaping up the 
chimney. Guadalupe joined us, bearing a small lacquer tray on which were 
two mugs of steaming coffee.

I had turned the Morris chair around and was sprawled in it. Georgina was
sitting on the couch, her legs tucked under her. She took the cup that 
Guadalupe gave her and, after a quick sip, set it down on the library 
table. Guadalupe sat at the far end of the divan, her legs crossed, looking
at her newly found friend with restrained adoration.

“This coffee's still too hot to drink,” Georgina pronounced. “I'd like 
another tequila.”

I poured it for her and was about to put it back in the cabinet when she 
seized my wrist, caressing it lightly with the fingers of the other hand. 
“Just leave the bottle on the table.”

I sat down again in the Morris chair. “What do you study at the 
University, Senorita?”

“Filosofia y Letras.”

“You find it a rewarding career?”

“Of course, otherwise I wouldn't be studying it.”

“Yes, I know, but sometimes knowing a thing close at hand takes away some
of the illusions, not that one drops it because of that.”

Georgina lit another cigarette quickly, so quickly that I was unable to 
offer her a light. She inhaled heavily, blowing out two plumes of smoke 
through her nostrils. “Not me,” she said with determination; “I'm convinced
that it's only philosophy that can give us a method for living a rewarding 
life.”

“Only philosophy?” I was conscious of one eyebrow rising slightly.

“Well, philosophy is the guiding principle at least. The kind of 
principle which is best described in a phrase of Nietzsche's. 'La vida es 
la muerte y la muerte es la vida.'”

“Is that Nietzsche? I've read almost all he's written, but I don't 
remember encountering that.”

Georgina stubbed out her cigarette energetically in the ashtray. “Perhaps
it's not Nietzsche's, but the idea's sound no matter who thought of it.”

“Could you amplify that a little for me?”

“Well, the idea is that life runs in cycles. For example, the skin of a 
human being changes completely every seven years. This death of the 
epidermis is not only going on while he lives but, by renewing itself, 
makes it possible for him to live. The same idea is expressed in the Bible.
'From dust ye came, and to dust ye shall return.'”

I finished off the last of my tequila. “Years ago in Veracruz, I knew an 
Arab who, every time he got a little drunk, would repeat over and over 
again to anyone who would listen, 'One must suffer to enjoy, and one must 
enjoy to be able to suffer.' Do you think that's a variation of the idea of
life and death that you've just expressed?”

Georgina looked first at the fire, the dancing flames reflected in her 
blue eyes, and then let her gaze rest on Guadalupe. She did not reply for a
minute, and when she did, she seemed disinclined to continue the same line 
of thought.

“They have something in common,” she murmured.

She appeared to be unusually contemplative, and I wondered if the concept
I had introduced into the conversation had made her thoughts turn to 
Guadalupe. I dismissed this from my mind immediately. It could be no more 
than a coincidence that she had happened to look at Guadalupe at this 
particular point. It was ridiculous to assume that my discoveries regarding
Guadalupe's character were so obvious to all.

Georgina's silence, however, was not of long duration. For the rest of 
the evening she held the floor most of the time, giving us a resume of her 
philosophical courses, what the sum and substance of them had signified in 
the development of her personality, the role that they had played in 
enabling her to arrive at a true set of values. She talked a bit about 
literature, which interested me more than the part about philosophy, 
although I found that our reading had followed diverse paths.

Guadalupe had not changed her position on the couch. I could see that she
was tremendously impressed with Georgina, though I was certain that she 
hardly had a glimmer of the many ideas which the other girl expostulated. 
Georgina continued to serve herself from the bottle from time to time.

I was frankly amazed at her alcoholic capacity. With the continuous doses
of liquor, she became even more voluble, but her speech did not thicken and
the course of her conversation did not become vague. When she mentioned 
Freud in some passing statement, I interrupted her to ask if she had read 
all of his works.

“I imagine I've read all but one or two minor ones by now. I began my 
analysis with a Freudian several years ago, but changed to the one I have 
now when I became aware of the much greater benefits to be derived from 
'humanistic psychoanalysis.'”

“What's the difference?”

“Well, as you probably know already, the Freudian theory is centered 
entirely in the functioning of the libido and sexual gratification, while 
this one is based on one's love for one's fellow man, a deeper 
understanding and respect for oneself, resulting in the complete 
realization of the person as a mature individual, perfectly integrated in 
society.”

“What are some of the means to this personal realization?”

Georgina took another cigarette and lit it as quickly as she had the 
previous one. She sipped her tequila briefly and put her cup down very 
deliberately on the table. “The capacity for solitude is one of the most 
important roads to self-knowledge, perhaps the most important.”

“You live alone, don't you, Senorita? You must be well on the way to 
achieving success in this venture.”

Georgina frowned. She seemed a little annoyed by my comment and I sensed 
that she was a bit on the defensive. Although I did not know at that time 
that she was an assiduous party goer, the change in her attitude and the 
fact that she seemed to need such quantities of liquor suggested that the 
foundations of her life were not exactly anchored in bedrock.

“I have to see more people than I would like,” she said finally. “You 
know, my studies at the University, my job and a considerable circle of 
friends create a situation in which my time is not always my own.”

“Don't you think you could arrange to have more time to yourself if you 
really thought it important?”

“I don't see how.” She sighed. “That is my dream— to have a more 
contemplative life, a life of study and reflection.”

I held my cup out to her for another drink. “I have the idea that one can
have as much time to himself as he likes. Don't think that I'm 
unsympathetic to your plan. I think it's very important not to spend too 
much time with people. Look here, I'm in business. I have to see a limited 
number of people due to that, but I try to keep the number down to an 
absolute minimum.

“If I were ever to let the bars down, this apartment would never know a 
moment's peace. I find that if you really want to live the kind of life 
you've mentioned, you just have to be determined to do so. If you continue 
to refuse invitations, as we do, people stop making them.

“They put you down as a queer fish. They may even call you anti-social, 
but they do leave you alone. Anyway, I've discovered that it's much easier 
to find people when you have need of them than to get rid of them when you 
don't want to have them around.”

“Have you ever looked within yourself—I mean deeply, objectively—to see 
why you feel this way about people? I'd be inclined to suspect that it 
comes from a deep-seated persecution complex. Your last statement would 
indicate that your outlook is quite narcissistic and that you have a 
tendency to exploit your friends. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Yes, I've thought of it, but I don't believe it's true. Besides, I've 
already achieved the type of solitude which you seem to seek as a goal.”

“But it doesn't include a love for humanity,” she protested.

“It includes a tolerance toward it. Humanity has never demonstrated much 
love for me. There's a saying in English—'Live and let live—a cada quien su
vida.' I don't know of a better motto. At least it doesn't imply judgment 
of one's fellow creatures.”

The three of us were silent a long time, looking at the glowing embers in
the fireplace. At last Georgina looked up and said, “May I ask a very 
special favor of you?”

“Of course... if you feel you're not becoming abjectly receptive in 
asking it,” I could not refrain from adding.

She gave me a reproachful glance which seemed to say, “Only your 
ignorance of these matters allows me to forgive you.” She tossed off the 
rest of the tequila and asked, “Would you allow me to come here whenever I 
liked? It won't be too often, I assure you.

“I don't have that much time available, but I'd like to feel that when 
I'm overwhelmed by the forces of my life, I could find a quiet haven here.”
She glanced up at the wrought-iron chandelier on the ceiling. “I don't know
you well, but I have a wonderful sense of people, one which seldom fails 
me, and I think you'd be doing me an incomparable favor.”

We both assented heartily. Guadalupe was so far gone in her adoration of 
this woman that she would have agreed just as readily if Georgina had asked
her to pick up one of the glowing coals with her bare hand. For my part, I 
was glad for Guadalupe to have a woman friend. I had recognized that, her 
temperament being what it was, it was unfair to expect her to be endlessly 
content with the type of life we had led in the past few weeks.

I took Georgina home. Guadalupe had declared that she was very tired and 
preferred to go to bed immediately.

Georgina lived in a quiet side street off Insurgentes. We had spoken very
little during the drive from my place to hers and now we stood in the 
street a moment before parting. She held out her keys. “Would you mind 
opening the front door for me? The lock is such a difficult one.”

I took the key she had indicated and, on fitting it into the lock, found 
that the door opened quickly and easily. It gave onto a small lobby which 
had a few tropical plants growing in beds inside the door. A dim light 
filtering through a mask of black pottery, barely illuminated the entrance.

I returned the keys to her, and she grasped my wrist, drawing me into the
hall. She pulled my head down to hers and pressed her lips to mine. They 
were full, soft, moist and clung to mine with a slight palpitating motion 
which entranced me as the butterfly movement of her tongue penetrating my 
mouth. She thrust her loins against mine, her hips rotating slowly.

I raised my arms to embrace her, but she turned quickly and fled. I 
recovered from my surprise only in time to see her trim ankles vanishing 
around the turn in the staircase.

II

Georgina became an occasional visitor in our house. Her calls were no 
more frequent than she herself had said they would be. Sometimes, when I 
came home in mid-afternoon, I would find her there. Very rarely she and 
Guadalupe would be listening to music and I don't believe there was ever a 
time that my coming seemed to have interrupted a lengthy conversation.

On one of these occasions Georgina was seated in the Morris chair in 
front of the big window, looking up toward the Castle. Guadalupe was seated
on the floor at her feet, her head resting against the other girl's knees. 
I closed the door softly, standing beside it for a moment. None of us 
spoke.

Georgina turned her head as the door clicked shut. Her dark-blue eyes 
held such an expression of physical desire as I had seldom seen a woman 
display in the presence of a third person. Guadalupe did not lift her head 
from the other girl's knees, as though she were not aware of my entrance. 
Georgina had been holding both Guadalupe's hands in hers, and now she 
released them and patted her on the cheek, as though saying, “Well, that's 
all for now.”

I noted the bottle of Five-Star Hennessey on the library table as I went 
to the liquor cabinet for bourbon. Georgina said she would have a whiskey 
with me, but Guadalupe went to the kitchen to fix coffee for herself.

“How's the daily grind?” Georgina asked, standing close to me and running
her fingers over the nape of my neck. They were soft fingers, so incredibly
soft that their movement was transmitted to me as the breath from the 
fluttering of a bird's wing.

“It's not a grind. If it were, I wouldn't be doing it.”

She moved away from me as Guadalupe came into the room with the coffee. 
“You don't have any problems in your business, then?”

“Only routine ones, which are quickly solved.”

“Lucky fellow,” she replied, making a delightful play with her full lips 
in breathing out the two words. “Yo, si tengo un problema.”

I was instantly on the alert. When a Mexican tells you that he has a 
problem, it's invariably the initial approach to a touch. An American will 
blurt it right out, saying, “Look here, I need five hundred pesos very 
badly at the moment.” A German will recount the circumstances of his 
financial tragedy before asking for the money. The Frenchman makes a joke 
of his borrowing, and sounds out the proposition in a number of ways so 
diverse that you are not aware that he has asked for money until you see 
him stowing it away in his wallet.

I didn't want to dally with this matter, so I asked her point-blank, “How
much?” She gave me a hurt little smile, my punishment for not playing the 
game. I didn't want to play the game. I don't see any reason why I should 
listen to some long tale of woe for an hour or two when it can be 
forestalled with a couple of words.

I was ignorant of the details of the problem in this case, but I didn't 
want to run the risk that Uncle Pepe had died of cancer and that there was 
no money with which to bury him. If it stopped there, it wouldn't be so 
bad, but one might have to hear the history of Uncle Pepe's life, as well 
as the incidents of his final agony. I just wasn't for it.

I'm sure that most people here see me as the worst type of thief—one who 
has robbed them of the possibility of a wonderful histrionic achievement. 
Lo siento mucho.

In the present instance, Georgina wanted no more than a hundred pesos, 
and stayed only a short while after she had received them. I was glad it 
was so little. I never lend money—I give it away. Before reaching for my 
wallet I ask myself if I'm prepared to lose the sum. If the answer is 
affirmative, I lend it. If it is negative, I don't. I have to confess that 
the only times I've lost money is when I didn't follow this very sound 
maxim.

“You want to take a turn in the park, Lupe? I don't believe it's going to
rain before dark.”

She agreed readily, and brought her new white gabardine from the closet, 
tying a big black scarf over her head. On leaving the apartment, we crossed
the avenue and headed toward the flower-market gate. I held her hand in 
mine and we did not speak until we had entered the park.

“What do you two kids do in the apartment? You never go out with 
Georgina, do you?”

“No, we never go out. We just talk.”

“What do you talk about?” I really didn't want to pry, but I was at a 
loss to figure what conversation Georgina could have with Guadalupe for two
hours. I had never had a two-hour conversation with her myself.

Guadalupe walked along, keeping her eyes on the pavement, pointing her 
toes straight ahead as she walked. “She tells me about her classes in the 
University. She's very intelligent, don't you think?”

“Hmmm.”

“She's told me what her life was like when she was a little girl, what 
she felt, what she thought.”

“What did she think?”

“Well, you know, she's had some terrible experiences right in her own 
family. Her step-father had her as his mistress throughout her entire 
adolescence. Isn't that terrible?”

“It sure is.”

One of the few comments that Georgina had made to me when I drove her 
home the first night, was that she helped to support her widowed mother.

“How long has your father been dead?” I asked her.

“Oh, he died before I was born,” she replied. “And my mother was so 
terribly in love with him that she's never looked at another man since. She
swore to him on his deathbed that she would not remarry.”

Guadalupe was continuing her reminiscences of the conversations with her 
friend. “She's told me that it's very difficult for any man to rise to the 
level of a woman's sensibility in a love relationship. She says they're too
rough, too demanding and that they exploit a woman all the time.”

“Those are Georgina's words?”

“Yes.”

“Has that been your experience, too?”

She let go of my hand and plunged both of hers into the pockets of the 
white gabardine. “More or less”—she looked up quickly—“until I met you.”

“Have you found women so terribly comprehending toward the members of 
their own sex?”

“No, I haven't. My mother wasn't toward me and my sister, if she's not 
understanding, at least is tolerant. I guess that's as much as one can hope
for.”

“Do you think Georgina understands you better than I do?”

She made a gesture of impatience. “I don't like to think of it in that 
way, Werner. As you told me once, 'I don't like comparisons of that sort.' 
I don't know whether Georgina understands me better than you do. She seems 
interested in me—I don't know why. She makes me feel that all my thoughts 
and actions matter to her. Wouldn't you call that real friendship?”

“Yes, I would—if it's sincere.”

III

I came home one rainy afternoon in early July. It was almost six o'clock,
much later than the customary hour of my arrival. I found the apartment in 
a gloomy half light, the curtains drawn over the big window. I turned on 
the lamp on the library table and stood in the middle of the room for a 
moment. There was not a sound in the apartment.

“Lupe?”

There was no answer. I went into the bedroom. The shades were drawn, and 
I could barely discern Guadalupe's naked form on the bed. She was not 
asleep as I had first supposed. Once my eyes became accustomed to the 
semi-darkness, I saw that her eyes were wide open. She was lying on her 
back, staring at the ceiling. Her long heavy black hair was unbound and 
spread out about her on the bed. She was running her fingers through it 
idly.

“Lupe, are you ill?”

She turned her head slowly toward me. “Get undressed,” she said in a low 
voice. “I need you very badly right now.”

We slept some time afterwards, and when we awoke it was completely dark, 
so dark that I could not distinguish her features. I wanted to see them, 
yet I preferred to be wrapped in this comforting darkness, so I contented 
myself with tracing the outline of her face with my fingers.

“What's the matter?” I asked quietly. “You seemed so strange when I came 
in.”

It was not only her initial aspect that had prompted my question. In the 
lovemaking that had ensued, she had shown herself to be as passionate as I 
had always hoped she would be. In the final throes of her orgasm, she had 
been as violent as the afternoon I had hung her by the hair and made love 
to her orally.

Yet, it seemed to me that there was a subtle difference between the two 
reactions. On the former occasion I had felt that she wanted to prove 
something to me, and this time I sensed that she wanted to prove something 
to herself. “Don't you want to tell me?”

She sighed and snuggled more closely in my arms. “Georgina was here this 
afternoon,” she replied so softly that I had to put my ear to her lips to 
capture what she was saying. Even her vocal inflection was odd. She 
pronounced the phrase just as one might begin a story to a child. “Once 
upon a time, there were three bears...”

“Yes?”

She was silent for a moment, and then continued. “Yes, she came about 
three o'clock. We had lunch together here in the apartment. She was wearing
a riding habit—polished leather boots with blunt spurs, jodhpurs, a red 
coat with black velvet facings and a stiff black cap. She had a riding crop
in her hand and she kept switching her boots with it idly, nervously, as 
she stood in the door.

“She said nothing at first, not a word of greeting, but just stood in the
doorway looking at me with such a concentrated stare.

“'Why do you look at me that way?' I asked her.

“She gave me a weird smile. 'One must suffer in order to enjoy, and must 
enjoy in order to suffer,' she replied.”

“Was she sober?” I asked.

“Not entirely. But you know how she is. Even when she's had quite a bit 
to drink, somehow you never smell it on her breath.”

That's quite true, I thought, not even when she has her tongue halfway 
down your throat.

“Anyway, I got her to take off her coat and cap and we had a drink before
lunch.”

“You, too?”

"I just had some port. Georgina was not very animated during the meal. I 
almost had the impression that she was mad at me, although I couldn't 
imagine why she had come if that was the case. She seemed less hostile 
after lunch and asked for another drink. She insisted on building a fire in
the fireplace. I don't know why she wanted to do that, because almost as 
soon as it was going good, she complained that it was terribly hot and took
off her blouse and her brassiere.

“You know, her form is not very well defined and, when she was naked to 
the waist, I saw why. Without the brassiere, her breasts are terribly 
elongated. They look like those rolls of dough that bakers knead before 
making a pie. And her nipples! My God, they must be two or three 
centimeters long! They even have a separate movement from that of her 
breasts.

“She said she wanted to show me a new way of doing my hair and she made 
me sit down in the straight-backed chair. She let it down and brushed it 
for a long while.

“When I asked her what was the new hairdo she was going to show me, she 
became infuriated. She was panting fiercely as she divided the hair into 
two ropes, wrapping it around my neck exactly like a noose, and drew it 
tight. I began to suffer from the lack of air and felt I was going to 
faint. I was barely conscious that Georgina was undressing me.

“When I came to myself a little, I found that I was completely naked and 
lying on that big serape. Georgina was naked, also, except for the leather 
boots, which reached up to her knees. She was standing in front of the 
fireplace, holding the whip horizontally between her hands. She flicked it 
toward me a couple of times and stomped her feet so that the heels of her 
boots rang out on the tiles.

“'Do you enjoy it most when you suffer, Lupe?' she asked. Tell me. I want
to show you such delights as you never have known with a man, such as you 
never will know with anyone else.'

“'I don't know,' I replied. 'I don't want to do a thing like this 
Georgina. It's so unnatural.'

“'There's nothing unnatural about it!' she snapped and I noticed that her
husky voice had become even deeper. 'If you don't know which way it is, we 
can soon find out.' And she gave me two cuts across my breasts with the 
riding crop.”

Thoroughly alarmed now, I raised myself on one elbow and turned on the 
bedside lamp. The light revealed two long red stripes across her firm 
olive-skinned breasts. There was even a clot of blood at the base of one of
the nipples.

“I must have cried out in pain,” Guadalupe continued, “for in a flash, 
she was on her knees at my side, taking my head in her arms, pressing it to
those elongated breasts and rocking to and fro. She began stroking my hair,
crooning to me continuously in a guttural monotone. She began kissing my 
ears, my throat, my shoulders, and I felt her lips as a soothing balm on my
skin.

“They were cool and moist on my body but, when at last she sought my 
mouth, they were ardent and burning. I was unable to respond to her as I've
done with you, but the sensation was not disagreeable either, and I felt 
such a lassitude creeping over my entire body that I just lay still and let
her do what she liked with me.”

“You didn't feel repelled by her actions?”

She sighed and hesitated a moment, as though trying to recollect what her
reaction had been to being possessed by another woman.

“No,” she replied slowly. “I didn't feel that it was repulsive. I didn't 
feel any moral indignation. I only felt that, in some way I didn't 
understand, I was giving satisfaction to a person I admired. I found her 
kisses disturbing because they excited me a bit. I think if you ever were 
to kiss her, you'd see what I mean. She was becoming more and more aroused 
as her wanton lips strayed all over my body. She took my sex in her mouth 
and made all manner of plays with it.”

“And you weren't excited by all this?” I asked with vivid curiosity.

She buried her face in my shoulder momentarily. “I can't deny that I was,
but not at the beginning and not at the end,” she replied with the tone of 
a little girl whose mother has trapped her in some misdemeanor. “When she 
kissed my body, I felt more languid than excited. Finally, she was panting 
like a winded horse, a deep sobbing sound came from her throat. She 
straightened up and, seizing me by the hair, mounted me.

“I felt the long V of her pubic bone rooting at my vulva. With a series 
of swift jerking motions which bruised me rather than giving me pleasure, 
her entire body became stiff, rigid. I opened my eyes for a moment and 
looked into hers. Only the whites were visible, like the eyes of the blind 
man who begs in that little triangular park alongside the Cine Chapultepec.

She gave a tremendous groan and collapsed on my body, drawing down my 
hair to cover us both.”

I turned off the lamp and lay down, enfolding her in my arms. Neither of 
us spoke for a long while. At length I asked her, “You never had an 
experience like this before?”

She did not reply verbally, but I felt the movement of her head in 
negation against my shoulder. She withdrew from my arms and lay on her 
back, her eyes closed. “I had heard about it. I knew that women sometimes 
made love to other women, and men to other men.”

“You don't find the idea repulsive?”

“I don't know,” she said tonelessly.

I didn't know either. Without having any doubts about my own masculinity,
I had often turned the matter over in my mind and never in my wildest 
fancies could I imagine myself being attracted by another man. It is said 
that all of us have some hidden homosexual urges. I have never been able to
find any in myself. But then, unlike Georgina, I am a stranger to the 
psychoanalytical couch, which might count for my lack of personal 
introspection.

Nevertheless, I have had the opportunity to observe a number of cases. 
One of them was that of a staid family man who made homosexual advances to 
an errand boy I had in the office several years ago. The boy accepted them 
because he was poor and, with the profits from these adventures, was able 
to get married and buy a taxi as the basis for providing for an increasing 
number of offspring which he fathered year after year.

I could not help thinking that, in these countries, where the woman gets 
little from marriage but abuse and infidelities from the husband as well as
a large number of children she often has to support, it's a miracle that 
more of them don't become lesbians. Somehow it seemed to me that lesbianism
wasn't quite so repugnant as masculine homosexuality. At least a man could 
understand it a little.

Guadalupe's experience with men had not been such as to incline her 
towards marriage, even if it had been offered. Yet, in her recount of the 
afternoon's episode with Georgina, I captured the overtone that Georgina 
had not succeeded in inflaming her desires, but rather had carried the day 
due to Guadalupe's extreme complaisance. I couldn't help but wonder if this
factor, which made her the most satisfactory lover I had ever had, would 
not in the end be the rock on which our quasi-matrimonial venture would 
break up.

I caressed the nape of her neck with my fingers. “After such a wild 
afternoon,” I inquired softly, “why did you need me more than ever?”

“I just had to prove it to myself. What you've given me is all so new, so
wonderful, that at times I find it hard to believe it exists.” She turned 
on her side and enfolded me in her arms, caressing me lightly with her full
firm breasts.

“What a difference there is, mi amor! There's no comparison! There's not 
a woman in the world that could make me feel what I feel when you're inside
of me. Nothing can equal that supreme moment when I feel those hot 
pulsating spurts inundating me and I begin to go out of my mind.”

“Then I can't consider Georgina as a rival?”

She pressed me tightly to her. “Oh, my love! That I ever thought I could 
have her as a friend! Did you see it all the time? You must think me 
terribly naive.”

Her question caused me to laugh aloud. “No, I didn't see it all along,” I
replied when I had finally recovered my equanimity. “Certain signs led me 
to believe she was after me. Let's consider this as a nice little comedy in
human relations which, like all intriguing mysteries, is explained at the 
end, just before the curtain is rung down.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“You've never had any children, Werner?

“I've never been married.”

“Well, you don't have to be married to have children, do you?”

I was already in bed, and Guadalupe was standing in front of the pier 
glass on the side wall, brushing her hair. She did not use a comb very 
much. Her hair was so thick that she could not get even the coarse combs 
through it very easily. She used a large brush made of broom straws which 
is called escobeta and which can be had in the market for a few cents.

She was wearing a white negligee that contrasted beautifully with her 
dark skin. The sleek cascade of her heavy tresses fell forward over one 
shoulder, and she brushed them slowly and voluptuously down from the nape 
of her neck, holding them with her other hand. Her face was hidden from me 
as she asked the question, and I moved over in the bed, trying to catch her
expression in the mirror.

I was not successful. As though she wished to conceal herself from me she
began brushing her hair down over her face. I felt that her initial 
question had not been prompted by mere curiosity. Of course I had told her 
very little of my life during the months we had lived together and I 
suppose her question was normal enough. Nevertheless, the tone of her voice
led me to suspect that there was more to this than was apparent on the 
surface. I had learned that Guadalupe seldom went directly to the heart of 
any matter.

“It's true,” I replied. “You don't have to be married to have them.”

“You've never wanted any?” she persisted.

“I didn't when I was younger. I was the first child in a family of eight,
which leads you to the belief that children are nothing more than 
nuisances.”

“You still feel that way?”

I had given up trying to catch a glimpse of her face. She was bent over 
now, brushing her tremendous mane forward from the crown of her head, using
her free arm to limit the swing of the torrent of glossy hair that fell to 
her knees. I relaxed in the bed and locked my hands behind my head.

“Not as much as I used to. It might be rather nice to have one, but I 
think it's risky to start one at my age.”

“Oh, come now, forty's not so old!”

“It's not for some things, but it is for others.” I paused a moment, 
deliberately. “Don't tell me you're expecting?”

She did not answer immediately, brushing her hair up over her temples and
down to her extended arm. “I think I am.” She said it so softly that I 
could barely catch the words.

“How long has it been since you had your last period?”

“It's almost two months now.”

“I think it would be a good idea to find out for sure. I can get a 
competent gynecologist and make an appointment for you at the end of the 
week.”

“That won't be necessary. Georgina gave me the address of one. The only 
thing is, she says he's very expensive.”

“How expensive?”

“Two hundred and fifty pesos for the consultation.”

“I think we can afford that easily.”

“It's all right if I go to him, then?”

“It's all right with me. I'd just like to see the analysis when he makes 
his report.”

I had been more or less prepared for this eventuality, even though I had 
done nothing to prevent its occurrence. Our living together had never 
assumed the aspect of permanence in my mind that perhaps a formal marriage 
might have. I had sought this liaison and had given little thought to this 
side of it before bringing Guadalupe to live with me. Nothing had occurred 
until now to cause me to regret that decision.

We had a working relationship as far as it went. I had been satisfied 
with that and had not given much thought to the possibility of her becoming
pregnant. It's one of those details you are aware of but which, in the face
of more fascinating pursuits, you push to the back of your mind, somehow. I
had even half fancied that contraception was her department.

Now the decision would have to be made between having an abortion, which 
is no difficult matter, or having the child. Listening to her quiet regular
breathing, I kept turning the matter over in my mind long after Guadalupe 
had gone to sleep. It seemed to me that the problem had only two aspects. 
First, and most important, was whether I wanted the child for itself— 
second, whether I wanted it as the fruition of my union with Guadalupe, 
which could be an enduring one if we were going to have children.

I had never been much attracted to children in my youth. First, because I
regarded them as natural disturbers of the peace and later because I had 
realized that I couldn't be a father and lead the type of life I have 
always enjoyed so much. It's obvious that a child needs both a mother and 
father who love and are dedicated to him for a long period of years.

In sum, I had come to the realization that a child might be rewarding, 
but perhaps not so much as the free and easy life I led. I had come to the 
conclusion that I would prefer to forego the possible pleasures of 
fatherhood rather than make a mess of the job or carry it out regretting 
all the extra-curricular activities that were missing because of it.

I found that I had become more and more attached to Guadalupe as the 
months passed. The sexual relationship was still far and away the most 
important bond of our union. But, oddly enough, certain other factors had 
begun to creep into the picture, factors which I appreciated deeply and 
would be loath to give up.

Although our conversation seldom touched other than trivial matters, I 
began to feel the necessity of her quiet presence, of her silent 
companionship, of the way in which just her being there augmented my joy of
living. I could see no reason why this wouldn't be a much better foundation
for marriage than most of those I had observed around me.

I certainly would not care to embark on the venture of parenthood unless 
I could feel such emotional solvency, at least in prospect. I believed that
we were coming closer to that type of union with each week that passed. I 
recalled something that had been told me during my first years in the 
country.

It was that, in this type of relationship, the woman would be content 
only if there were children. Did I love Guadalupe enough to form a home and
keep it together, not due to ridiculous conventions but because there was 
really some substance to it? I felt pretty sure I did. In any case it was a
matter that did not have to be decided until I had the medical report.

I had given Guadalupe five hundred pesos for the consultation, and during
that entire week I received no news of what the diagnosis was. When I 
finally asked her about it, she said that the tests had not come back from 
the laboratory. At the end of the week, she asked for more money to pay the
laboratory fee and for another consultation.

The second week brought evasive answers from her in regard to the matter 
and I knew I had to do something. The longer the affair dragged on, the 
more difficult an abortion would be. I did not bother Guadalupe with any 
further questions, since I knew that nothing would be gained by doing so.

Quite by chance I had found the card Georgina had given her some weeks 
before. It was mixed up with some papers in my desk and, for the first 
time, the suspicion began to dawn on me that she had never gone to see him.
I called on the doctor that afternoon and had my suspicions confirmed. 
Guadalupe had never made an appointment with him, she had never set foot in
his office.

I took her to see another gynecologist that very afternoon. While she was
getting dressed, the doctor explained the case to me.

“I've made some tests as a matter of course,” he said, “but I can't 
promise you they'll be conclusive. If a pregnancy has been initiated, I 
could tell with absolute certainty a little later on. Nevertheless, I have 
given her an injection which, if she's not pregnant, will induce her 
menstruation within twenty-four hours. From what I've been able to 
discover, it seems very unlikely that the patient will ever become 
pregnant.”

“Why not?”

“She has what we call an 'infantile womb.' It is of a size that would be 
normal for a girl five or six years of age. She has told me that her 
menstruation has always been irregular, coming only two or three times a 
year. The ovulation is very weak, and therefore it is only rarely that 
there is sufficient to produce menstruation.”

“But couldn't she become pregnant at an appropriate moment in the cycle 
of one of these rare menstruations?”

He was seated at his desk, his elbows resting on it. He spread his hands 
in a gesture of doubt. “I don't see how there could be even one chance in a
thousand. The organ is underdeveloped. Unless it were dilated artificially 
in the course of treatment, it would not be able to receive the sperm and 
if, by some off-chance it did receive it, conception would not result.”

Guadalupe and I did not exchange a word during the trip home in the car. 
Arrived at the house, she sprang from the car before I had parked. She was 
just coming from the bathroom as I entered the apartment. She stopped stock
still at the edge of the living room. Her eyes were fixed on the floor. She
did not glance at me, nor did she move from the spot where she stood.

“So you weren't pregnant.”

She shook her head, but did not reply verbally.

“Why did you tell me you were?”

She licked her full lips briefly. “I thought I was. I hadn't had my 
period since the beginning of the summer.”

“But this is not the first time that's happened, is it? There have been 
other times when it's been delayed even longer—isn't that so?”

She nodded. I went to her and, taking her hands, led her to the couch. 
“Why did you lie to me, Guadalupe? You didn't even go to the doctor 
Georgina recommended.”

“I was afraid you'd be angry.”

She didn't sound very convincing. She still kept her eyes on the floor. I
was half-inclined to believe her. I suspected that she wanted a child. I 
knew that the sense of guilt she bore due to her lost virginity made her 
feel that being a mother would redeem it at least in part. In the peculiar 
mentality of the Mexican plebe, she would be transformed into that sacred 
image, the mother.

Adored by the child she had procreated and respected by society for 
having procreated it, she would occupy a niche second only to Christ. If He
sat on God's right hand, she, along with millions of other Mexican mothers,
would be sitting at God's left. All because of having fulfilled a 
completely biological function. Sounds a little ingenuous, doesn't it? But 
that's the way they think.

Nevertheless, I couldn't entirely buy her story, even though the 
rationalization in back of it was entirely in accord with what I had 
learned of these matters over the years. I did not question her further.

II

I never keep a great deal of money in the house. Usually there are a 
couple of thousand pesos in the desk, in bills of small denomination, which
I use for current expenses. The problem of making change is one of the 
things that drives you crazy in Mexico. In paying for something that costs 
three-fifty with a five-peso bill, you are often told, “No hay cambio.” For
this reason I keep a stock of one-peso bills in the desk, which I put in my
wallet from day to day.

It was a Tuesday, early in September, when I went to the desk to 
replenish my stock of small bills. Instead of the eleven or twelve hundred 
pesos I expected to find, there were a little less than five hundred. 
Guadalupe had gone to the dentist, and therefore I was unable to ask her 
about it. So I just took what there was and went off to the Lagunilla.

I don't have to go there very often, but my suppliers had snarled 
something up and I had to go down there to straighten it out. It's a 
horrible neighborhood, but it's not quite as bad as it was ten or fifteen 
years ago before the new market was built. It's a place, very near the 
center of the city, where you can buy almost anything you can think of—some
of it legitimate, some of it stolen.

As you walk through the narrow crowded streets, it seems impossible that 
anyone could live here. However, just by raising your eyes, you are aware 
that, above the tawdry shops, above the garish signs, are old crummy 
apartments with birdcages hung on the window sills and flowers growing in 
discarded oil cans.

I arranged the matter with my Arab in much less time than I had expected,
and I felt like wandering through el barrio Del Carmen, which I had known 
in much less fortunate circumstances on arriving in Mexico. I walked back 
over Palma to Donceles, down toward the Zocalo, turning off on Argentina, 
which I followed past the Abelardo L. Rodriguez market.

I've never been in New York, but I've always imagined that barrio Del 
Carmen would be the counterpart of New York's Lower East Side. The streets 
are narrow and crowded and are vibrant and pulsating with life throughout 
the day and until the wee hours of the morning. There are numbers of men 
with pushcarts and barrel organs competing for places amid the auto 
traffic, and occasionally one may see a nervous rat darting across the 
street trying to calculate the spaces between the moving cars as he 
scurries toward a fruit stand or a place where tacos are sold.

This is the oldest part of the city, some of the buildings having seen 
almost three centuries. They are mostly disreputable, the adobe showing 
through the chinks in the broken plaster. The entrances and the hallways 
are dark gloomy caves, with their rows of gas tanks, old truck tires and 
other accumulated junk.

Nevertheless, one sees handsome girls there, born and raised in the 
barrio, whose Parisian counterparts Zola described as magnificent gaudy 
flowers sprung from the dunghill. I had almost reached the end of the 
barrio when I noticed a couple walking along in front of me. The fellow was
wearing a black leather jacket with a skull and crossbones traced out in 
rivets on the back of it, dirty blue jeans and yellow pointed shoes.

His long curly black hair, shining with grease, was combed back over his 
ears and turned up at the nape of the neck as though it were held in place 
by an imaginary pink ribbon. He had his arm about the girl he was walking 
with and he caressed her bare brown shoulder continuously with the tips of 
his fingers.

The girl kept her head down as they walked along, only occasionally 
looking up in response to one of his comments. From the back, she bore a 
remarkable resemblance to Guadalupe—the glossy coils of black hair done up 
high on the top of her head, her slim waist and her manner of walking. She 
wore a black-and-white striped nylon dress which clung to her succulent 
figure. She had on a belt made of silver link chain, such as is used for 
collars of German shepherds and Doberman pinschers. I had given one just 
like it to Guadalupe the month before.

The couple turned off the street and into one of those cold dark windy 
hallways that led to the inner court of a group of slum apartments. As they
turned at a right angle to me, the fellow whispered something in her ear 
which, for the first time, made her laugh and she looked up as she did so. 
I caught a glimpse of her face, full-on. It was Guadalupe!

I walked past the entrance and on down the street. It was like one of 
those double-takes you see comedians do in the movies. The first thing that
flashed through my mind was, How strange! Guadalupe down here! What can she
possibly be doing down here?

Through the numbing chill that was spreading over my body, I remembered 
the child-like candor of her laugh as she looked up at this chango. Her 
laugh was so innocent, so sweet, like the spontaneous reaction that 
children have when the photographer goes through some antic to get them to 
smile before taking their picture. Not at all the laugh of a woman who is 
going to an assignation.

The scene I had just witnessed reminded me of numerous lovers I had often
seen strolling in Chapultepec Park on a Sunday. The young mason, with the 
cement still under his fingernails, his arm about the maid's waist as they 
walk up to the refreshment counter to buy some pink cotton candy. So 
innocent, so free, so charming.

What kind of fool was I at the age of forty? And this was the girl I had 
been thinking of keeping by my side always, because we got along so well, 
in the bed and out of it! I clamped my jaws together in silent rage. What a
dolt I had been! I had thought of Guadalupe as the naive one, and now it 
seemed that I had surpassed even her ingenuousness.

Would she be telling her lover at this moment, “I'm just playing him 
along for what there is in it, but I think the old fool takes it 
seriously.”

I was in such a rage of blind hate that I don't know how I managed to 
find the parking lot where I had left the car and drive back to the 
apartment. Apparently I have a built-in automatic pilot for these 
occasions, as I do for the times when I drink too much. I can drive dead 
drunk, half asleep or almost standing on my head, without getting into any 
difficulties.

The afternoon shadows were lengthening as I sat down in the chair in 
front of the big window. I felt more outraged now than when I had seen 
Guadalupe and that fellow on the street. The shock had been too sudden for 
me to plumb the depths of my feeling. I could have perhaps understood her 
infidelity if I had seen her lunching with some suave type in an elegant 
restaurant on Niza Street, or walking down Reforma hand in hand with a 
pleasant young boy of her own age. But this ludicrous clown with the skull 
and cross-bones on the back of his leather jacket... No, it was too much!

I continued sitting in the chair as the room got dark. I had long ceased 
to think about the incident I had witnessed that afternoon. I must have 
passed more than an hour without moving, my mind a complete blank. I did 
not even notice when the street lamps were turned on in the park and along 
the avenue. I heard the door latch click but did not look around.

Guadalupe came into the room, humming a little under her breath, 
something I had never known her to do. She went to the library table and 
switched on the lamp. She drew in her breath sharply. “Oh, you're here!” 
she said. “I didn't expect you so soon.”

“I didn't expect you so late.”

“Well, it was terrible. I would have been home long ago except that the 
dentist didn't show up until almost five-thirty, and there were four people
ahead of me. I thought he would never finish.”

She came toward the chair in which I was sitting, but stopped short when 
she saw the length of one-inch manila rope that was lying across my knees. 
I looked up at her. Her eyes held a sort of fascination rather than fright,
the sort of fascination that one might feel on seeing a centipede, lizard 
or some other unfamiliar animal for the first time. Her hair was carelessly
braided. The braid, doubled over in a sloppy manner, hung down her back.

I stood up and swung on her with my open hand. She fell backward with the
force of the blow and lay on the floor, whimpering, her arms about her 
head. I grabbed her braid and dragged her across the floor into the 
bedroom, paying no heed to her shrill screams. I tied her wrists to the 
tall foot-posts of the bed with some rope I had laid out there for that 
purpose.

She had stopped screaming as soon as I raised her from the floor, and now
that her body hung limply between the bedposts, her head slumped forward as
though she had lost consciousness. Seizing her braid, I jerked her head 
back viciously and looked into her eyes. They expressed only resignation, 
and the dull black of their depths appeared as opaque as suede in the dim 
light of the lamp. I drew the braid over the crown of her head and pinned 
it there.

She raised her head for an instant, and I saw that her eyes were bright 
with terror as they rested on the big bone-handled hunting knife that lay 
in front of her on the bed. I knelt by her side and took off her shoes 
before reaching for the knife. It was razor-sharp, and she winced as she 
felt the cold steel against her thighs. The weapon slit each one of her 
silk stockings with a slight hissing sound as I drew it down toward her 
ankles.

I cut off her garter belt and panties and threw them to one side. I 
straightened up and, seizing the collar of her dress with both hands, 
ripped it in two right down to the hem, using the knife to cut the 
shoulders of the dress. I cut the straps of her slip and tore it from her 
body, throwing it to one side in a froth of foaming lace.

The brassiere went the same way under the knife, and Guadalupe stood 
naked. Her body dropped in such a way that it seemed she would have 
collapsed had her wrists not been securely tied to the bedposts. Her head 
hung slightly forward and a little to one side.

For an instant, I gazed at that perfect smooth olive-skinned body, 
wondering if it would ever again be as flawless as my eyes beheld it at 
this moment. Drawing my arm back, I laid the first cut of the hawser across
her back and shoulders. The prickly ends of the hemp bit like needles into 
her creamy skin.

She threw back her head and screamed like a wounded animal, which 
arrested my action for a moment. But only for a moment. Then I lost control
and began whipping her savagely across the buttocks so that the rope sank 
half its thickness into that plump flesh.

I lashed her about the legs, over the back and shoulders and, once or 
twice, when the rope curled about her slim waist, her soft belly also felt 
the sting of the lash. She screamed only five or six times, and although 
she continued to leap and strain under the flogging, only low moans and 
animal grunts came from her lips.

I stopped only when my arm ached from the intense effort and regarded my 
work for the first time. Her lovely body was a mass of livid red welts, 
most of which oozed tiny drops of blood where the skin had been torn by the
prickly hemp of the rope. Guadalupe's head had fallen so far forward that 
it hung between her shoulders.

I put my hand under her chin and raised it. Her eyes were half closed, 
and rolled back so that only the whites of them were visible. She swallowed
a couple of times and endeavored to salivate her dry tongue in order to 
articulate a phrase. Her lips formed the words with difficulty, and her 
hoarse voice came to me as a whisper from a great distance. “I didn't... I 
didn't know you loved me that much.”

I withdrew my hand from her chin and her head fell forward again, her 
entire body slumping, her wrists chafed raw by the ropes which held her 
upright between the bedposts. I took the end of the hawser, now flecked 
with blood and, spreading wide the lips of her sex, forced it up into her 
vagina as far as it would go. I bound her ankles together so that it would 
not come out. It fell, like the thick round tail of a lion, from between 
her lacerated buttocks.

I took a mackintosh and rain hat from the closet, turned out the lamps in
the apartment and, closing the door behind me, walked slowly down the steps
to the street.

It was close to midnight when I returned. I undressed without turning on 
the light and dropped into bed, completely exhausted. I didn't know if she 
were asleep when I entered, but she gave no sign of noticing my coming.

I slept the fitful sleep of exhaustion. I was awake shortly after dawn. 
The early morning light, playing on Guadalupe's features, aged them 
unbelievably. Her face was like those of the Indian women, who, worn out by
child-bearing and a hard life, are old at the age of forty. Her head lolled
to one side, resting against her shoulder. Her eyes were closed, and this 
time I was sure she was asleep.

I got up, put on slippers and bathrobe and went to her. The hawser had 
come out from between her legs and lay on the tile floor. I untied her 
ankles first, and she moved a little and mumbled something. Supporting her 
body with one arm, it took me considerable time to loosen the cords that 
bound her wrists. She slumped against me and I half-dragged her to the bed,
not daring to lift her in my arms because of her wounded back.

I stretched her out on the bed, face down, and she gave a sigh of relief.
Still she did not open her eyes. I went to the bathroom and got some 
unguent, but was in some doubt how to apply it. If I swabbed her back with 
cotton, it would be like sandpapering the tender swollen skin.

I brought a long flat pan from the kitchen and poured all the unguent 
into it. I found that I had barely enough gauze. After soaking it in the 
liquid, I placed it over the wounded part in large swaths. She stirred a 
little and sighed as she felt the cooling balm being absorbed by her skin. 
Her cheek was resting on her forearm, and I saw that her position was such 
that I would be able to bathe her without altering it.

I brought a basin of warm water, soap and a soft cloth and first washed 
her face and neck. I washed her feet, legs and her inner thighs, amazed to 
note that the flogging had produced sexual excitation, evidenced by the 
dried transparent excretion that was caked on them.

There was no more I could do for her at the moment. Her full red lips 
were slightly parted and she was breathing gently, normally. She had once 
again lapsed into sleep, which would probably be the best cure of all. Her 
face had lost the aging lines I had seen in it only a few minutes before, 
and once again she was like a child—one who has played too hard throughout 
the day—wrapped in soothing restful slumber.

I remained looking down on her inert form for a few minutes. I was 
already regretting that I had given her such a severe beating. After all, 
if I could not rise above that sort of thing, there seemed to be little 
justice in expecting Guadalupe to restrain her unreasoned proclivities. I 
was the one who should have displayed a bit more patience.

She had filled a niche in my life that had been vacant until I brought 
her to live with me, and I had to confess to myself that I would not like 
to see it unoccupied again. Not that she was my be-all, end-all, not that I
had fallen into the ridiculous situation of some men in their middle years 
who had to have a young and handsome girl as a lover. No, it wasn't that.

She was so easy to live with, so docile, so companionable, that I had 
begun to form a genuine affection for her. I felt that we were only at the 
beginning of a relationship which could be even more beautiful and 
rewarding. Now was not the time to throw in the towel. We would work this 
out some way.

She was still sleeping at two o'clock when I came in with some chicken 
broth. She scarcely needed to change her position on the bed, and only had 
to raise her head while I fed her with a big spoon. She dropped off to 
sleep again before I had finished giving her the broth, in fact while I was
holding the spoon up to her lips.

I did not leave the apartment all day. At supper time, I made some 
liverwurst sandwiches on toast and took them in to her. I found her still 
asleep and, though she managed to finish the glass of milk, she ate only a 
part of one sandwich.

I had spent the afternoon making a splint frame so that I could cover her
at night without having the weight of the blankets on her body. It worked 
perfectly, the covers making a sort of tent which I was able to tuck in 
around the edges in such a way that the cold air was excluded and that they
did not touch her body.

I made up the bed in the guest room, retired early and slept soundly 
until morning.

It was late when I awoke, and I lay on my back for a long time, looking 
out the big window high up on the wall which gave a partial view of the 
trees in the park. Sleeping in a strange bed always brings confusion on 
waking up... the difficulty one has in adjusting to new circumstances when 
he is not alert.

Suddenly the events of two days before came rushing back into my mind. I 
could view them more calmly now. However, in spite of having slept well, 
the emotional strain of the past thirty-six hours had left me feeling a bit
logy, although I knew that this feeling would cede to another with the 
passage of time.

When I went into the bedroom, I found Guadalupe already awake. She was 
lying in the same position, probably the only one that was comfortable for 
her. Her eyes were open wide, regarding the far wall. She looked up at me 
briefly — a frightened glance — and then avoided my gaze.

“How do you feel?”

“A little better. My back doesn't sting and burn like it did.”

“Let's have a look,” I said, beginning to remove the blankets and the 
splint frame.

I took a corner of the first swath of gauze gingerly between my fingers 
and slowly began to peel it off. Much to my surprise, I found that it 
yielded readily. The unguent had not been entirely absorbed and there were 
only one or two spots that had a tendency to stick to the skin. The 
swelling had gone down almost entirely. I was relieved on seeing the 
improved appearance of her skin, although I was by no means sure that some 
of the marks left by the flogging would not be permanent.

“I'd like to clean this up, but I don't believe the time has come to use 
any astringent yet. Better wait until tomorrow for that. Do you think you 
could eat something?”

“Oh yes, I'm terribly hungry.”

“Well, that's a good sign. What would you like?”

“Bacon, eggs, toast, marmalade and coffee, please.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “What an appetite!”

The corners of her mouth turned up in a slight answering smile. “Well, 
I'm convalescent.” Her half-smile disturbed me a little. It was not the 
frank open one I had always seen on her lips. It was a worried insecure 
one, the kind you see on a salesman's face when he knows he has lost the 
last chance for a sale but has to keep up pleasant relations with the 
customer.

I ate sitting on the floor beside the bed. I had brought the things in on
a large tray and I passed the plates up to her, putting them at her side on
the sheet. She rested her head on one hand and ate with the other. We did 
not speak during the meal. When I had finished, Guadalupe was still eating 
ravenously. I slid over the floor, resting my back against the slipper 
chair and lit a cigarette, watching her from a distance.

“You have a little trouble deciding what you want, don't you, Lupe?” I 
tried mightily to keep the hard edge out of my voice, but was unable to do 
so. Guadalupe had finished eating and leaned over the edge of the bed to 
put the plate on the floor. She said nothing, lying on her stomach, her 
head resting on her crossed arms.

“Is there any way you can justify—in your own mind, that is — stealing 
from me in order to give to that mequetresse? I wouldn't have minded giving
you money for almost anything, but certainly not for that.”

She passed her tongue over her lips before saying in a muffled tone, 
“You'd have done the same, if you'd been in my place. You don't understand.
You've never been poor.”

“You don't know the whole story then, chiquita. I've been every bit as 
poor as that fellow I saw you with, but I didn't try to alleviate my lot by
getting money from women. Now, did he ask you for it, or did you offer it?”

She seemed in doubt as to what reply to make. “Well, he's a boy who needs
help. You see, he's a painter...”

I couldn't help laughing. “That one? What the hell does he paint—houses?”

“No, he's a primitivist. He's so far ahead of his time that he has 
trouble selling his canvasses. Nobody understands his work.”

“Are you quoting him?”

“Well, that's what he says.”

“Have you ever seen a finished canvas of his?”

“I've seen some that he's worked on.”

“But not a completed one?”

“No.”

“And this is not the first time you've given him money—smaller amounts of
course?”

“I've helped him a little before, when I could, when he hadn't eaten for 
several days.”

“And you've also given him to drink at the well of your delightful body, 
to quench his spiritual thirst and to moisten the fountains of his artistic
inspiration. Was that necessary too?”

The answer was a long time in coming. “I can't stand to see anyone 
suffering from sexual hunger either. I couldn't refuse him that.”

“Well, Lupe, there have been certain epochs in my life, some of them 
rather prolonged, when I have suffered from the same type of hunger, but I 
was never lucky enough to encounter anyone quite so charitable as you.”

All her explanations were no explanation. They were only a confirmation 
of conclusions I had already come to in regard to Guadalupe. Nevertheless, 
the certainty was far from reassuring, once it was all down in black and 
white. I realized that I had, as a mistress, a girl who was completely 
lacking in criteria, had not the haziest notion of what was decent and what
was not, one who attached not the slightest importance to her actions, 
whatever form they might assume.

I felt sure that she wallowed in the mud, not so much because she enjoyed
doing so but as a form of self-inflicted punishment for her imaginary sins.
She was not a libertine, but a flagellant. In the beginning, I had thought 
that she could be guided, or at least that her complaisance would work in 
my favor. Now I had to consider what possibility existed that the light of 
affection and sweet reason might win through to her dormant sensibilities, 
vanquishing the myth of her guilt.

What could I do with a girl like this in my life? A girl who was an easy 
target for any charlatan cunning enough to play on her naive 
sentimentality. I had the impression it wasn't safe to send her to the 
corner for a package of cigarettes.

What to do? Lock her up in this agreeable ivory tower overlooking the 
Bosque de Chapultepec, and let her out only when I accompanied her? I 
didn't care much for that solution. I didn't want to be anyone's keeper, 
either for well or for ill. I had a premonition that the matter would be 
decided on quite other grounds —as turned out to be the case.

III

The following morning I moved all of Guadalupe's things into the guest 
room. Apparently the moving did not disturb her slumber, or else she 
feigned sleep very convincingly while all this was going on. I had just 
completed the arrangements and was taking a last load of dresses from the 
closet, when I felt her eyes upon me.

“Buenos dias, mi amor,” she purred sleepily.

“Good morning, Lupe,” I replied with equanimity. “You will sleep in the 
other room from now on. I'm going to the office now and I won't be back 
till late tonight, so adjust yourself to the new schedule.”

She gave me her most submissive look but said nothing. I had expected 
that this would be more or less her reaction, but the truth was that I 
didn't care. I hadn't been to the office in two days, and my first thought 
was focussed on my business affairs. I would puzzle the domestic ones out 
later.

I found things running fairly well at the office. The girl I have is one 
of those fugitives from marriage, who has been with me almost since I 
started the business. She's not terribly bright, but she's really quite 
competent.

Not competent enough to straighten out any situations that call for 
initiative, but enough so to give the standard answers in a routine she 
knows inside out after eight years in the office. Nevertheless, there was a
vast amount of paper work awaiting me, and it was considerably after eight 
o'clock before I was able to leave the office.

I had supper in a German restaurant, one of the few good ones left in the
city. I was on the street again shortly after nine, without the slightest 
desire to go home. It had rained a good bit during the afternoon, but the 
skies had cleared shortly before sundown.

The air was clean, freshly washed, and a half-moon scudded in and out of 
the fleecy clouds that remained in the sky. It was an ideal night for a 
walk, and I took one of the back streets running off from the bull ring and
walked up through Colonia Nochebuena toward Mixcoac.

I tried to analyze my reactions as I walked along the wet pavement. What 
had inspired me to beat Guadalupe so ferociously? Had I been motivated by 
jealousy? I certainly had, but I had a feeling it was not so simple as 
that. It was undoubtedly in part due to resentment that she could leave me,
even momentarily, for this chango.

In other words, it was hurt pride. I guess we don't know ourselves nearly
as well as we think we do. A year before, I would not have believed that I 
was capable of such violence. Maybe there is some truth in the Spanish 
saying, Donde no hay celos—no hay amor.

Was the fierceness of my reaction the measure of my love for Guadalupe? 
She seemed to think so. Her phrase of that fatal night kept recurring in my
mind— “I didn't know you loved me that much.”

I didn't like to admit such a concept, even to myself. In the first 
place, I've always regarded what passes for love with a rather gamy eye. I 
knew what sex was about, but love I was never sure of. I didn't rule it 
out, although real conjugal love had not come within the realm of my 
experience and very, very rarely within the scope of my observation.

One indulges in sex because he enjoys it and yet, if there were not some 
hint of romance—even though both parties recognize it as a bit of pleasant 
fiction— the sex isn't quite so much fun. It was true that some of this 
make believe had crept into my relationship with Guadalupe, almost without 
my being aware of it. Therefore I had not asked myself if I were in love 
with her.

I found her pleasant, agreeable. I enjoyed her by my side, and I had not 
tested my personal reactions any farther than that. Some relationships that
never pretend to be any more than sexual can be vastly rewarding. I know, 
because I've had several. But I began to suspect that I had not looked more
deeply into my heart and mind in this present instance because I was afraid
of what I might find there.

If Guadalupe were to attempt the same type of analysis, I doubt that she 
would find it so complex. She had opened her legs to this fellow simply 
because he had requested it. I came to the conclusion that she hadn't done 
it because she was tired of me or because she desired the novelty of a new 
sexual adventure. She had done it simply because she did not feel that she 
was a person whom she herself could respect, one who was entitled to have a
will of her own.

The degradation in which the man had immersed her had, in some way 
peculiar to her mode of thinking, enabled her to atone in part for the 
sense of sin and guilt she had carried with her since adolescence. I 
wondered if there would ever come a time when she would feel that she had 
erased the past and if numerous acts like this would be required before she
could feel that at last she had a clean slate.

I didn't think this the way to achieve such a goal, and I knew that only 
a supreme patience could influence her in the direction she should go. 
Well, she had been caught in her misdemeanor, had received her punishment 
(another stroke of the eraser on the blackboard), and would be a very good 
little girl—until the next time.

Did all this mean that Father was going to disinherit her and show her 
the door? Or would Father take her into the warmth of his embrace, tell her
that he loved her still and that she must try to be better girl in the 
future? I didn't think I ought to follow the first course of action and I 
didn't feel quite capable of doing the second, either.

I tried to recall what had impelled me to bring Guadalupe to live with 
me. I knew that she was a girl a man could have in bed any time he wanted 
her. I remembered my doubts about being able to endure a woman around the 
house all the time. The only conclusion I could reach, after mulling the 
matter over for some time, was that I had brought her to live with me at 
least in part due to the pressure of my intense physical desire for her, 
and because I wanted to establish a monopoly over that lush young body.

I had never felt that way before, since I have always been certain that 
desire must fade as familiarity increased. In this sense, my union with 
Guadalupe had been successful, at least within the scope of a five-month 
relationship.

I found her vastly more appealing than when I had met her in April, and 
the difficulties that I had thought might arise in the course of living 
with her hadn't materialized. The danger had come from the least expected 
quarter, and I knew that the wounds she had inflicted on me were graver 
than those I had inflicted on her. Nevertheless, I knew that mine would 
heal in time as hers would.

But I was also sure that, if I could not find some way to cure the guilt 
feelings which made her regard herself as every man's whore, the 
occurrences of the last few days would be repeated, and their repetition 
would be the death knell of our relationship. Did it depend more on me than
it did on her? It seemed to me it did, and the possibility of losing her 
made me resolve to win this strange battle with the forces that held her in
bondage.

IV

Guadalupe's back healed rapidly. Within a few days she was able to bathe,
and the welts, although still in evidence, had subsided to dark purple 
blurs on her smooth olive skin. During this period she had demonstrated a 
contrite attitude which did not have the desired effect of drawing me out 
of my shell.

I scarcely spoke to her, and she, of course, did not initiate any 
conversations. During the last couple of days she had taken special pains 
to make herself even more attractive, as women often do after recovering 
from a prolonged illness. She must have slept a good bit of the time when I
was away from the apartment, which gave a clear brilliance to her 
almond-shaped black eyes and a subdued glow to her olive-tinted skin.

However, I could not yet be palliated by her attitude of complete 
submission to my wishes or by her unprotesting acceptance of the new mode 
of life that had come into being now we no longer shared the same bed.

At the end of the week, I arrived home somewhat earlier than I had done 
on preceding days. Twilight still lingered in the street, but the apartment
was almost entirely dark. I found Guadalupe curled up in the Morris chair 
looking out the big window, her head resting on her folded hands, her eyes 
fixed on the rosy streaked clouds, wet with rain.

She was wearing a frothy white negligee and her hair, divided into two 
glossy black torrents, fell forward over her shoulders. It was tied just 
below each ear with a bow of lavender ribbon whose streamers fell below her
waist, a little short of the ends of her tresses. She stood up as I came 
into the living room.

“Let's have some light,” I suggested, turning on the lamp on the library 
table.

“All right,” she said quietly. “I was just waiting until the lights were 
turned on at the Castle.”

I stood in front of the unlit fireplace and she sat down on the couch 
facing me. She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head over 
them. The part in her sleek black hair, running from her forehead to the 
nape of her neck, gleamed in the lamplight.

“I wish it had never happened!” she said fervently.

“Try to be a little more honest. What you regret is that you were caught 
at it.”

“I belong to you, Werner—not to anyone else. I have the proof of it 
here.” She stood up quickly and untied the laces of her negligee, letting 
it fall to her waist. She turned her back to me. “You've marked me as 
yours. How could I belong to anyone else now?”

“Let's not indulge in these sentimental fancies, Lupe,” I said, realizing
as soon as the words were pronounced that it was highly improbable she 
would see things in that light. These were not sentimental fancies to her.

They were the realities of life, in which the male figure, first 
identified with the authoritarian father, dominated the female, punishing 
her when her actions did not conform to his wishes and marking her as his, 
often with as common a symbol as a wedding ring. Guadalupe had no wedding 
ring, nor had she known her father. Perhaps these details made it even more
necessary for her to indulge in these primitive impulses, blood rites, 
masochism and all the rest of it.

“I love you!” she said forcefully—the only forceful statement I ever 
heard from her lips. “I want to be at your side always. I'll do whatever 
you say. I'll be anything you want me to be.”

“I don't want you to be any different from what you are now.” I was 
spurred to this lie by the surprise of hearing her say she loved me. She 
had never said that before. Nevertheless, I saw that her emotions were 
deeply stirred, and I didn't think this was the moment to outline certain 
changes I saw as vital to the continuance of our relationship.

“The only thing is,” I continued, “I'm a little different from what I was
a few days ago. Things will have to work themselves out with time. I don't 
even know what the final result will be.”

“Please! Just keep me here with you. I won't ask anything of you.”

Guadalupe did keep her word—in a sense. As far as I was aware, she did 
not leave the house, nor did I take her out of it. She displayed no outward
curiosity about my comings and goings. She did not complain of her 
situation or the fact that I was obviously avoiding her company.

I was not terribly pleased with my own conduct, but I could do nothing 
else. What's more, I didn't especially enjoy the free time I spent away 
from home. The world being as mad as it is, I have always preferred to 
spend as little time in it as possible, and my home has always been a haven
of refuge to me.

Nevertheless, my wounded pride would not allow me to resume normal 
relations with Guadalupe. I even began to wonder if I were not more 
childish than she, since I could neither send her away nor accept her 
presence and affection. The situation was intolerable, but there was 
nothing I could do but wait until my animus had worn itself out.

I have always been impressed with the fact that the less intelligent a 
woman is, the more she knows about enticing a man. Whether this phenomenon 
is born of a natural instinct among less enlightened females or whether it 
is due to this being the only life outlet they have is anybody's guess.

Guadalupe had always been very neat and orderly in the details of her 
person. Her clothes were always clean and well pressed and she never 
slopped about the house, looking like a drudge. However, since we had taken
to sleeping apart, she was more beautifully groomed than ever. In our brief
encounters in the apartment, she was always dressed to perfection, the kind
of perfection that most appealed to me—a very different kind from that you 
see on the street every day.

Since Mexico has become a “progressive” nation, the number of “elegant” 
women is on the increase. Their clothes, instead of being a means of 
enhancing their charms, have become garish carnival costumes designed to 
draw attention to themselves. I really believe that the modern woman 
doesn't mind looking ridiculous as long as she gets such attention. A 
hunchback gets a certain amount of attention, too, but who wants to be a 
hunchback? The jewelry of these women is exaggerated and now that they have
discovered the beauty parlor their coiffures are extravagant and 
pretentious, if not downright repulsive. For me, these creatures never had 
the charm of the simple peasant girl that is seen on the travel posters 
who, with the aid of a few ribbons and bangles is infinitely more desirable
than these artificial products of a modern and “progressive” society.

Guadalupe invented a dozen ways of doing her hair, most of which I had 
never seen before. I had selected all the jewelry she had, but she 
remembered those pieces which were my particular favorites and wore nothing
else. Her attitude was that of a quiet obedient child who is a model of 
good behavior, who asks nothing for herself, and is grateful for the few 
crumbs that fall from the table, instead of seating herself at it and 
partaking of a hearty meal.

She arranged that I should see her emerging from her bath, her dark body 
wet and shining, by the simple expedient of having to ask me to bring her a
clean towel. She led me to appreciate anew the lush curves of her 
formidable figure by such artifices as yawning discreetly and stretching 
her arms, raising her full round breasts under the white sleeveless 
sweater. She wore shorts around the house on warm afternoons while sitting 
in the Morris chair—slumped down in it so that I could not see her body, 
only her well-turned shapely legs stretched out on the hassock.

It was a campaign that was bound to succeed with time. I was sitting on 
the couch one night, listening to some cantatas of Buxtehude. My attention 
had wandered a little and perhaps for that reason, I was conscious of a dim
white form in the hall.

“I'm sorry to disturb you, Werner,” Guadalupe's soft voice came to me 
across the living room. “I can't unfasten the snap on my necklace. Will you
do it for me?”

I looked up, the light close by my side making her figure even more 
indistinct. She seemed to float toward me, a vague white wraith with her 
arms raised high, supporting the immense length of her black hair. She 
stood in front of the couch, and I noticed that her feet were bare. The 
classic sign of submission—the flowing hair and the naked feet. Perhaps 
these women were not so torpid as they seemed, for Guadalupe did not have 
the cultural background that would enable her to recognize the symbolism of
her act.

Even though she had raised the cascade of her heavy tresses high above 
her head, they still hung halfway to her waist. I brushed them over her 
shoulder and quickly unfastened the necklace. She remained in the same 
position. The nape of her neck, a smooth round olive column, rose to the 
sweep of her sleek black hair. It was a natural point of desire for my 
eager lips.

The labial contact caused her to shiver voluptuously and caused my hands 
to seek her firm breasts beneath the fragile gauze of the negligee. I 
stripped it from her shoulders and it fell about her trim ankles. She 
dropped her arms to her sides and her heavy perfumed tresses fell over my 
body, making me regret its clothing, making me regret that I could not 
receive their caress on my skin.

I turned her toward me and tenderly kissed her full soft lips, spreading 
them back with my own. Wrapped in this relaxed embrace, I caressed the nape
of her neck, her shoulders, her marvelously sculptured back under the thick
mantle of her hair.

I found her buttocks plump and yielding, but there my hands stopped. I 
felt some extraneous thing (soft as rose petals, I thought), softer and 
more fragile than her smooth skin. She took her lips from mine and nestled 
her head in the hollow of my neck.

“Werner,” she whispered, “I want to give you something that I've never 
given to another man, that I never will.”

Releasing herself from my embrace, she turned her back to me. Between the
luscious folds of her beautiful plump hips was a large red rose.

“But, Lupe...!” I protested. “You'll be all torn up. I...”

“I want it. Please don't deny me the only vestige of virginity I can give
you.”

She took the lamp from the library table and set it on the floor. Then 
she lay on her belly on the table, her feet planted firmly and widely 
spaced on the floor, and drew her hair forward over one shoulder. I quickly
shed my clothing and went to her.

On removing the flower, I found the stem heavily greased with vaseline. I
spread her buttocks, noting that her body was perfectly relaxed. Guiding my
prince carefully to the aperture which was now stretched wide, it took all 
my strength to force an entrance by stages that were as easy as I could 
make them.

I heard her groan repeatedly, but it was not a groan produced by sexual 
pleasure, and I saw that her features were contorted with suffering. When I
cleared the straining barrier and felt myself inside her, she began to moan
softly, and I knew she had passed from pain to pleasure.

I rotated my hips slowly before attempting the deeper penetration and, 
when I began this new type of smooth friction, I heard her gasp, “Oh, my 
love! Move slowly. I don't want this to end. Oh, it's so marvelous!”

I kept the rhythm as slow as I could, in spite of my mounting excitement,
bringing my loins in hard against her lovely bottom at the end of each 
stroke, and every time I did so, I heard her pant heavily. I held her by 
the hips, moving a little more rapidly.

Within a moment, I felt that tremendous sucking expanding vacuum in my 
loins, the forerunner of the throbbing pulsating orgasm which filled her 
with my sperm. I felt the muscles of my back and legs stretch with the 
delicious tension that precedes sexual fulfillment and then, the slow 
gradual relaxation.

Guadalupe lay inert on the table for some time after I withdrew and threw
myself on the floor. Several minutes had passed before I was conscious of 
her soft hand gently encompassing my still erect penis. “Look, my love,” 
she murmured. “It was wonderful, even to this last detail.” I raised my 
head slightly and saw that my member was covered with a light froth of 
blood. She kissed me fleetingly on the cheek and put her lips to my ear. 
“I'm really yours now, darling. You know that, don't you?”

CHAPTER FIVE

One night early in October, we were coming from a party. We had not been 
to one for a long time. I think Guadalupe liked it, and I had found it a 
very enjoyable evening. Perhaps one of the reasons she was so pleased was 
that her success had been overwhelming. She had danced with a number of men
during the evening and she was telling me about the propositions that had 
been made to her, commenting on the different modes of approach.

Although I did not allow her to see it, I was a little concerned. It was 
not at all impossible, Guadalupe's character being what it was, that one of
these bastards invite her to the garage to see the new power lawn-mower and
put it to her then and there before she knew what was going on.

However, I couldn't go around worrying about this type of thing forever, 
so I dismissed it from my mind. Anyway, these Casanovas are generally 
interested only in foreign women, especially blonde foreign women. Their 
taste is so exaggerated that even if the blonde has buck teeth and three 
warts on her chin, they will prefer her to a beauty like Guadalupe.

We had passed the Diana, and were driving slowly along the broad 
tree-lined stretch of the Paseo de la Reforma. It was late at night and 
there was little traffic.

“How would you like to take a trip for a couple of weeks, Lupe? We've 
never been out of the city together, and I haven't had a vacation in more 
than a year.”

I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Her hands were folded in her 
lap, and her dark eyes glinted in the dim glow of the dash lights. She 
nodded reflectively. “I'd like that. Where do you want to go?”

“I've planned on going to Isla del Carmen. I'm sure the office can get 
along without me for a couple of weeks.”

She nodded once again. “Where's that?”

“It's in Campeche.” Then, not certain that she would know where Campeche 
was, I added, “Down on the Gulf Coast.”

She looked up shyly. “Couldn't we go to Acapulco?”

“You've never been to Acapulco?”

“I've never been anywhere but here and Toluca. That's all I know.”

“Not this time, Lupe. We'll go to Acapulco later. We can do that any time
I want to take three or four days off. This'll be a longer trip.”

“Will we be going on the plane?”

“We could, but I think the car will be useful there and I'm sure you'd 
enjoy the trip a lot more. In a plane you wouldn't be able to see anything 
on the way.”

Since our recent reconciliation, I'd been considering this plan. I 
thought it would be like a honeymoon for us. I chose Isla del Carmen for 
its picturesqueness and its relative isolation. It is the center of the 
largest shrimp fishing operation in Mexico and is very little visited by 
tourists, or wasn't the last time I had been there. Guadalupe was 
undoubtedly keen on going to Acapulco, but as I told her it was something 
we could do any time.

If I had more money and above all more free time, I'd like to dedicate a 
number of years to exploring Latin America. It's not that I believe that 
Europe is entirely lacking in interest, but it has always seemed to me that
its draw for tourists from the Western Hemisphere is snob appeal.

Of course, that's the principal reason most tourists go anywhere—just to 
say they've been there. Somehow the idea has been propagated that one's 
cultural formation isn't complete unless it includes a European tour.

Perhaps I feel the way I do because of my own peculiar interests and 
tastes. In the first place, in very general terms, I have the impression 
that most of the large cities of the world are pretty much alike. I don't 
think there's much difference between Claridge's in London, the Ritz in 
Paris and the Waldorf in New York.

If you are interested in peoples and the way they live, you might find it
more rewarding among the chicleros in the vast tropical forests of Quintana
Roo than walking the streets and going to night clubs in any large city. Of
course it's never as comfortable. Perhaps that's one reason why more people
don't do it, that and a complete lack of imagination.

When I was young, I had the ambition to cross the Caribbean from Florida 
to Venezuela, taking small boats from isle to isle, staying in each place 
as long as my interest held me. I've never found a way to do that, but I 
have had a lot of rewarding trips and have encountered many fascinating 
details, like the descendants of Scotsmen on Roatan Island in the Caribbean
(much like Bounty mutineer descendants in North America) who, although they
are citizens of the Republic of Honduras, do not speak Spanish.

I was intrigued by the racial composition of some of the British colonies
in the Western Hemisphere, especially British Honduras. I like the casual 
life of Negro populations when they are not subject to racial 
discrimination, as found in Belize, Kingston and Rio de Janeiro —their 
carnival attitude toward life which they seem to prolong from the end of 
Lent to the end of each year.

Countries like Mexico, Guatemala and Bolivia, which have a strong Indian 
base, are rewarding studies in themselves in a variety of ways. In the 
years I've lived in Mexico, I've seen a good bit of this type of thing, but
never enough for me to get tired of it.

In fact, I've had somewhat the same outlook that a friend of mine voiced 
one evening when someone asked him if he had been to Europe. He shook his 
head. “Para que? Mexico es un mundo.” I've always felt pretty much the same
way. This is a terrain that I'd like to cover thoroughly before moving on 
to other fields, even if I have to do it in my old age.

II

Isla del Carmen, largest island in the Gulf of Mexico. A hundred square 
kilometers of sandy beaches backed by tall wild palms stained by the gray 
skies and curved by the onslaught of many a tropical storm sweeping across 
the Gulf. Isla del Carmen, barrier to Laguna de Terminus and the most 
fabulous shrimp beds in the world. Ciudad del Carmen, home of hundreds of 
trawlers, city of spars, of canneries, of tar and rock salt, with a history
heavy with piracy in other centuries and heavy with commerce today.

This is not the Mexico of the high dusty plateau, of adobe huts nestled 
among the magueyes at the foot of high mountains. It is an island, with the
sense of isolation and of being outside the turbulent current of world 
affairs that only an island can provide.

The houses are small, built of palmetto logs in the poorer sections of 
the city, and of planed lumber brought over from the dense forests of the 
mainland.

The streets are fairly quiet in the evening. The people are of a mixed 
stock, with a lot of Mayan Indian blood. They lack the ebullience of most 
Latins and especially of the Cuban Negro.

The ferry let us off on the docks shortly before sundown, and we found a 
good small hotel out by the airport. It was set in a grove of coconut 
palms, with very attractive little courts and gardens, fenced in with 
hibiscus and honeysuckle. The ceiling of the room was quite high, and an 
old-fashioned propeller-type fan kept the air moving.

Guadalupe emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a large white beach towel.
The beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead and on her upper lip. 
She gave me a shy smile. “It's terribly hot, isn't it?”

“Fairly so. I don't find this as sweltering as the coast of Tabasco, and 
I haven't noticed nearly so many mosquitoes.”

“Is that what those things are for?” she asked, indicating the mosquito 
netting hanging over the bed.

“You've never seen pabellones before?”

She shook her head.

“Well, let's see if the mosquitoes keep you awake tonight. The pabellon 
keeps them out but it doesn't quiet their buzzing.”

There are no good beaches around the perimeter of the city, and we took 
to driving out on the highway to Puerto Real, having been lucky enough to 
find a small lagoon or estero where I was able to give Guadalupe her first 
swimming lessons. She took to it quite readily, and within a couple of days
was able to paddle around in the deep water.

We saw very few people this far out from the city, and we could take our 
long walks along the beach entirely undisturbed. Occasionally we would 
encounter a barefoot peasant resting beside a pile of coconuts he had cut, 
or would see a man casting a small net, which is called chinchorro, in the 
trough of the waves a little distance out from the shore.

We came to a delightful little cove every morning after a late breakfast 
and stayed until mid-afternoon. We would swim until noon and, after taking 
a long walk down the beach, would lie on some straw matting we always 
brought with us. I lay in the sun during this time, but Guadalupe, like all
mestizos, would like to be somewhat whiter than she is.

So, I had rigged up a small shelter for her, made of four poles standing 
upright and thatched with palm fronds. I would have loved to see her 
beautiful body take on a mahogany hue, but I was unable to coax her into 
the sun except for the time we were swimming. She had darkened a little 
with that, her skin making a marvelous contrast with the white two-piece 
bathing suit she felt chary of removing even in this isolated spot.

“Why not?” I asked her. “There's no one here to see you.”

“It's not that. I don't mind being naked when we're at home. I feel so 
protected there. But here everything is so open—even if there's no one 
about.”

She was standing up, her hand resting against one of the poles, looking 
out at the surging gray-green sea. A strong breeze carried her long hair 
streaming away from her body. I knelt beside her, taking her hand. “Come 
and lie down with me for a while.”

We lay on the matting, some distance apart, only our hands touching. I 
had only once made love in the open air, and I hadn't enjoyed it much. It 
seemed to me that wanting to do it outdoors implies a lot more than an urge
toward freedom and naturalness. Vague cosmic feelings are involved, and I 
had the impression, on a former occasion, that the straw scratching her 
back figured more in the success of the venture than my prowess did.

This was with a poetess who had come from Van-cover to spend the summer 
in our province. She was a tall blonde Viking with the most superb breasts 
and thighs it has ever been my privilege to view. I can only attribute my 
success with her to the fact that I was the only person in this little town
who read books. At any rate, we took long walks in the countryside.

One day, after wading in a small stream that runs between the wheat 
fields, she said as I said to Guadalupe, “Come and lie down with me for a 
while.”

We lay on our backs, smashing down a large swath of tall ripe wheat, and 
she began to outline some of the ideas she had for a poem. While she was 
reciting that famous line from the Song of Songs, she raised her skirts 
above her waist and led my hand to her belly, “like a heap of ripe wheat.” 
I had never thought this simile a particularly accurate one, but on this 
occasion, I was fascinated enough to caress the beautiful golden triangle 
between her legs, and to stroke the nether lips, already drenched with 
abundant lubrication.

She drew my head down to her, cushioning it between her big firm breasts,
writhing on the ground so that her delicate pale pink nipples, now hard and
erect, caressed my ears and cheeks. When I penetrated her, her vibrant 
voice, in unhurried accents, proclaimed an ode to nature...

“O, majestic fleecy clouds,

Moving leisurely across the ethereal blue,

May you darken rapidly, letting free,

That heavenly moisture,

Fecunding the earth that my thighs embrace,

Bringing me into the compass of nature's sage cycle.”

From my position as acolyte, I didn't notice that she ever reached any 
climax in this ritual fire dance, and I managed to do so only with great 
difficulty, always keeping my ear tuned to the noise of the combines 
working close to us in the adjoining field, fearful of being discovered at 
any moment.

An ugly black freighter, throwing out heavy spirals of smoke, was drawing
in toward the island. I had raised myself on one elbow, watching the boat's
progress toward the city, and now I turned to look at Guadalupe. Her eyes 
were fixed on the palm fronds almost overhead and, when she caught my gaze,
she gave me a brief smile, her white teeth flashing in that dark face. “Are
you happy, Lupe?”

The smile continued to flicker about her full red lips. “I'm content. 
It's so restful here.”

“You say that as if you'd never been happy, nor had any hopes of being.”

“When I was a child, I never thought I'd have as much contentment as I 
feel right this minute.”

“You've never wanted or expected any more from life than that?”

“How could I? In situations like mine, you're just glad if it doesn't get
any worse.”

“You've never considered that it might depend on you whether it was worse
or better?”

“You only say that because you're a man. With a woman it's different. 
There's nothing she can do unless someone helps her.”

“Oh, I don't believe it's so much a matter of help. Influence is 
important, of course, but only if you want to make some kind of a name for 
yourself in the world. Much more important is what you feel about yourself.
Now what did you feel?”

She did not answer for a long time, her brows wrinkled with the effort of
recollection. I knew that no such intense effort was necessary. She was 
perfectly aware of what she had felt and was able to answer without any 
hesitation. I was curious to see whether she would invent something or come
out with the truth.

When she spoke, she did neither one thing nor the other. Her reaction was
like that of a child who prefers not to answer and adopts the stratagem of 
continuing the same theme with reference to another person.

“My sister Mercedes has a lot of initiative. She hasn't done badly with 
the gallery.” She paused and closed her eyes for a moment. “I remember when
I came back from Toluca to live with the family. Mercedes was going to 
secretarial school, and she talked to me a bit about the jobs she expected 
to get when she had finished the course. I didn't find out until much later
that she had a lover who was paying for the school. I remember asking her, 
when she finally finished the course and got a job in one of those fancy 
offices on Reforma, if she didn't find it terribly exciting. 'What?' she 
replied, 'That slavery? I'm only doing this as a starter, to be able to buy
some decent clothes and meet some people with money.'”

“You mean she had the idea of opening the gallery all along?”

“Apparently she did. When she had worked almost three years, she was 
quite presentable, she knew how to deal with these people and she had no 
difficulty in finding a man who gave or lent her enough money to set up the
gallery.”

“Tell me, what does she do with the ex-lovers when she no longer has any 
use for them?”

“I don't know. They just drop out of sight. But you see what I mean, 
don't you? She had somebody to help her. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have 
gotten anywhere.”

“Where has she got?”

“Well, she owns her own gallery. She makes a decent living from it.”

“Would that be enough for you?”

She wrinkled her brows again. “I don't think so, but it doesn't matter. 
I'm not ambitious like she is. Not only that, I don't know what to say to 
these people.”

“But you had to talk to many of them when you worked in the gallery.”

“Yes, but I didn't do it very well. I could never have organized the 
thing the way she did. I guess everybody knew I was just the little sister 
and didn't expect much of me.”

“In other words, Mercedes was the scintillating one and you were the 
Cinderella?”

“I guess most people saw it that way.”

“But don't you see, Lupe?” I cried. “It's not important what they 
thought! What did you think? That's what I've been trying to get at.”

She did not reply. I captured the impression that she felt she didn't 
have the right to think anything. She just accepted things as they were.

“You must have had some suitors,” I insisted.

“Not suitors exactly. There were lots of men who wanted me to go to bed 
with them.”

“And you did,” I insinuated.

“With some of them, the ones I liked.”

“And there were no offers of assistance forthcoming from these fellows?”

“Well, I talked with one or two of them about my situation, but they 
either pretended not to understand or they passed it off with a little 
cheap advice.”

Poor Guadalupe! Unlike her sister, she was not experienced enough to hold
out until they put up good-faith money. Here was a story you encounter 
rather frequently in Mexico—the girl who is so little schooled in the ways 
of the world that she believes, if she gives them what they want, they will
give her what she wants. Even repeated experience does not teach them that 
the man recognizes them for what they are and, having had his wishes 
fulfilled, washes his hands of them and their problems.

What had prevented me from doing the same with Guadalupe? Was it because 
I considered that she was worth much more than the low evaluation she had 
placed on herself? I wanted to give her the chance she had never had, and I
had enough faith in her as a person to believe that, given that chance, she
would be mine, as I would be hers, on more profound levels than just the 
physical one.

Now that my motivation had come to the surface, expelled from the regions
of the subconscious, it was still difficult for me to give it credence. I 
had never felt that way about any woman I had known, most of whom were more
promising in this sense than Guadalupe.

She sat up, pushing her hair back over her shoulders. “There was a 
woman,” she said, “who offered to help me.”

“What form of assistance did she offer?”

“She wanted me to go into prostitution. 'It's not hard work,' she said. 
'I have a house where you would meet only five or six men a week. It's 
quite well-paid, you know.'”

“Didn't the offer appeal to you?”

Guadalupe unclasped her hands from her knees and inspected her nails. “I 
was a little suspicious of it. Most putas end up ugly and diseased, don't 
they?”

“They do if they keep at it long enough.”

I was pleased that she hadn't struck a note of moral indignation. Of 
course she had done the wise thing in rejecting the offer. Had she accepted
it, she would have discovered too late that she would have to take on a 
dozen men every night, would have been a prisoner in the whorehouse, her 
“friend” taking the heaviest percentage of her earnings.

The “friend” undoubtedly had been aware of the fact that Guadalupe was 
laying various fellows on the strength of promises and had figured that, if
she would do it for promises, she would do it for money, and the “friend” 
would profit handsomely by the arrangement.

We were silent for a long time. The freighter had disappeared around the 
point of the island. “You know, Lupe, I haven't always been as well off as 
I am now. I spent enough years scraping bottom to think many times of the 
vulgar saying, 'A woman always has something left to sell.'

“I didn't have anything to sell, at least nothing that was wanted by the 
purchasers. They didn't want my muscles or my brain or my peculiar 
personality. As things turned out, I find I've done much better by not 
selling. You know why? Because. I've kept my integrity. Even in the bad 
periods—and they lasted a number of years—I always respected myself and, 
because I did, I could respect others too. Not for what they were, since 
that's rather dreadful, but for the rights they had as individuals.

“With the passage of the years, I've been compelled to recognize that 
they'll never become anything more than they are at the moment or than they
were when I knew them. Nevertheless, I knew then, and I know even more 
surely now, that that's not my problem—it's theirs. I realized that if 
everyone sold his integrity in one way or another, it wouldn't make my 
world any worse as long as I didn't.

“That's what I meant, months ago, when I told you that everyone should 
live his own movie. It's a figurative way of saying that everyone should 
stand on his own feet, draw from his own resources. Things have gone well 
with me in an economic sense during the last few years—I've been fortunate.

“But even if I hadn't, I think I would have lived just as fully. The 
peasant we saw at noon, cleaning out the weeds in the coconut grove, could 
enjoy these surroundings just as much as we do. Nobody's stopping him, and 
because his house is not as fine as the hotel we're staying in is not a 
preventive reason for his not doing so.

“If I can give you anything, it's the faith I have in you—nothing more. 
It's not the new clothes, not vacations in places like this one or a car 
and lots of love-making. It's up to you if you want to accept what I have 
to offer. I could offer it to you even if I didn't have the money I do. 
But, once again, it depends on you.”

She leaned against me and put her arm around my waist. “I want to be 
yours in that sense,” she said. “Keep me with you. Love me—teach me.”

III

I lay naked on the bed, my eyes fixed on the whirling blades of the 
overhead fan. Guadalupe, who suffered considerably from the heat, was 
taking her second bath of the day. I could hear the water gurgling in the 
drain and her soft humming as she bathed. I felt excitedly happy. Why 
shouldn't our life go on this way for years? I thought euphorically. I was 
confident that I could make her mine at last, and I felt that such 
confidence was warranted by the conversation on the beach that afternoon.

How much we had to give each other, and how rewarding it was to give it! 
I was sure that I was the most fortunate of men. There was no problem of 
any importance that could dim our happiness. We had reached an 
understanding that would make our life together unbelievably rich, much 
more so than I had imagined when Guadalupe came to live with me. Life, at 
this moment, was better than I had ever known it.

A bar of light penetrated the room and, for the first time, I was aware 
that the sound of running water had ceased. The light was suddenly 
extinguished, and I saw Guadalupe's naked form emerged from the bathroom. 
She went to the dressing-table and switched on the lamp. She stood in a 
pool of amber light, drying her arms and her plump olive-skinned thighs 
with a rough white towel. Then she seated herself on the bench in front of 
the dressing table, her body a vague blur in the large oval mirror on the 
wall. Her head was bowed, and she remained in that position for several 
moments.

“Mi amor,” she whispered, “I'm so tired. I'd like to ask a favor of you. 
Would you brush my hair and braid it? I don't even have the strength to 
raise my arms.”

I left the bed and came to her side. Her head was still bent. I began 
removing the pins from the coils of the glossy black hair wound around her 
head. The silken rope fell down her back, below the bench on which she sat.
I spread it out over her shoulders before taking the stiff brush from the 
dresser and passing it through the torrent of hair that hid her body.

I had not completed five strokes through that heavy black mane, when my 
straining erection made it impossible for me to continue. I took her by the
elbows and raised her to her feet. She turned toward me and buried her face
in the hollow of my neck. I seized her plump hips and drew her to me, 
penetrating her easily, as softly as the sigh which issued from her ripe 
lips as my knight assaulted her castle, bathed with the dew of languid 
desire. She threw her head back as I withdrew from the center of pleasure. 
Passing my arm under her supple knees, I lifted her inert form in my arms 
and carried her to the bed, laying her crossways upon it.

I sucked her full breasts until the nipples stood straining upright. I 
began kissing the soles of her feet, her dimpled knees, her soft inner 
thighs, before arriving at her juicy nether lips, which I opened with my 
tongue.

What is that irresistible urge that calls to man and makes him go down on
a woman? According to physicologists, it is an infantile response. That may
be. I know that it is only when I am completely carried away—not only by 
sexual frenzy, but also by motivations of tenderness and a desire for 
absolute loving possession—that I seek this means of expression.

She was moaning now, moving her hips slowly, running her hands again and 
again through the flow of her hair, which hung over the edge of the bed and
trailed along the floor. She passed to even greater activity, moving her 
vulva against my eager lips, massaging her hard clitoris against my 
stabbing tongue.

With an abrupt motion, I seized her hips and turned her over, drawing her
up to a kneeling position, and goring her with that deep, deep penetration 
that wrenched a groan from the bottom of her soul. I wrapped her hair twice
about my hand, pulling her head back sharply while holding her about the 
waist with the other. My prince was working slowly, smoothly in her vagina,
and I was finally conscious of her shrill cry of ultimate fulfillment. I 
covered her mouth with my hand to muffle her continuing screams and felt 
the flow of blood as her teeth clamped on it.

She collapsed on the bed and turned over on her side, drawing up her 
knees. I let down the billowing mosquito netting. Crawling in beside her, I
fitted my body to hers and, folding her in my arms, we slept.

CHAPTER SIX

We returned from the island on the first of November. We stayed a little 
longer than I had originally planned, but the vacation had been such a 
success in every way that we were loath to leave our retreat.

Once back in Mexico City, I had to work a little harder than was my wont 
making up for lost time, but it was worth it. Fortunately, the good fall 
weather lasted almost to Christmas—clear warm days and nights cold enough 
to enable one to sleep well.

It was nice to be home again. The homecoming, the enjoyment of one's own 
place and freedom from the necessity of eating in restaurants that vacation
always implies, formed a delightful corollary to the wonderful days we had 
spent on the island.

Nevertheless, I knew I had to resolve a problem of which I had been 
conscious for some time, one I had been postponing because I had no answer.
I was sure that Guadalupe would not be content to continue the mode of 
living she had followed since I brought her to live with me. She would 
never show me her discontent, if she were aware of it, least of all would 
she make any suggestion about taking on new activities.

However, it was obvious that she didn't have enough to do to fill her 
time, and I sensed that she was becoming a bit jaded by the soap operas and
comic books after the housework was done. We went out very little and few 
people called at our home to visit. I knew that I would have to take the 
initiative. It was my responsibility to formulate a program that would fill
the vacant part of her life. Not to do so was to invite trouble.

The problem was difficult. I knew that it was useless to suggest reading.
I had almost a thousand books lining the walls of the living room. Most of 
them were in English and German, but there must have been more than two 
hundred in Spanish. However, if one has not developed an interest in books,
and to some extent in ideas, by Guadalupe's age, it is highly improbable 
that one will acquire such tastes. In the months we had lived together she 
had never opened one of these books, and I doubted that she would begin 
reading merely because I suggested it.

Most of the girls of the close humilde in Mexico spend a lot of time with
embroidery, but Guadalupe had shown no such inclination and I sensed that 
hints about it would be fruitless.

I wanted her to have some activity that would interest her, even if it 
had to be carried on outside the house. I hoped I would be able to come up 
with some idea about which she would be enthused.

One night early in December, after a late supper, I built a fire while 
Guadalupe was doing the dishes and then sat on the couch, watching the 
flames leap up the dark hole of the flue. She joined me in a few minutes. 
We sat together, my arm about her shoulders, neither of us speaking, 
entranced with the convolutions of the blaze in the fireplace.

I was the first to break the silence. “Did you enjoy your work in the 
gallery, Lupe?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not much. It was pretty boring most of the time. 
There wasn't a lot to do and hardly anyone came in during the morning and 
early afternoon hours.”

“You never worked up any interest in the paintings that were being 
exhibited?”

“I don't know much about art.”

“Well, I don't either, but that doesn't prevent my having my own opinions
or my own taste.”

“You know what I enjoyed most? It was when Mercedes first rented the 
place and was decorating it. Didn't you like the decoration?”

“I thought it quite good. Were all the ideas hers?”

“Oh yes. I was dying to have a hand in it, but she wouldn't let me.”

I had a flash of inspiration. “How would you like to study interior 
decoration?”

“Study it? You mean in a school?”

“Yes. It happens that I know of a particularly good one. It's called El 
Instituto de Diseno y Decoracion, in Colonia Juarez.”

“Well, I don't know,” she said thoughtfully, but I could see she was 
intrigued by the idea. “What would I do after I finished the course? You 
wouldn't want me to get a job, would you?”

“No, I wouldn't, but that's not the idea. First of all, you'd be doing 
something you liked, and would be able to acquire a certain proficiency in 
it. After receiving your certificate, I could probably get you a few small 
jobs, if you were interested in working a little. In any case, you'd be in 
a position to earn your own living.”

She bowed her head. “When you get tired of me,” she murmured.

I put my hand under her chin and tried to raise her face to mine. She 
resisted but when I finally tilted her head back I saw that her big black 
eyes were bright with tears.

“I don't think that will happen. The only thing I thought of was this—I'm
more than twenty years older than you are, Lupe, and I'm not immortal.

“I'd like to know that if something happened to me, you'd be able to earn
a decent living. I've enjoyed a good income for the last few years, but I 
don't have a lot saved up—I've never believed in that. Aside from the car, 
my clothes and the house furnishings, I don't own a thing.”

“You talk like you might die next week, Werner.”

“Well, I plan to go on living for quite some time yet. Accidental death, 
you know. The papers are full if it.”

She put her arms about me and held me close to her. “I don't want 
anything to happen to you,” she whispered fiercely. “If it did, I couldn't 
go on living.”

“Well, I plan to go on living for quite some time yet. Now tell me, how 
does this idea strike you? Are you interested?”

“Oh yes, I think I'd like it very much. Won't it cost a lot?”

“Don't worry about that part of it—that's my department. The only thing 
is, I want to have this understanding with you. If you find you don't like 
it after a while, if it's something that doesn't appeal to you after trying
it, I want you to tell me. I don't want you going on with it because you 
feel you have to. Will you do that?”

“Yes. I will, but I'm sure I'll like it.”

Guadalupe registered at the institute and began her classes shortly after
New Year. They were held in the afternoon, between three and seven. It 
worked out rather well with my schedule at the office. I always took her to
the institute in the afternoon and called for her when classes were over. 
Often we would eat supper downtown afterward, sometimes going to a movie, 
sometimes taking long walks along Reforma. Once or twice, on Friday 
evenings, we went dancing, ending up in the early morning hours with 
mariachis in the Plaza Garibaldi.

She was even more enthused with her studies than I thought she would be. 
The beginning was a little difficult for her, mainly due to her inferiority
complex. Guadalupe had only finished fourth grade in elementary school with
the nuns in Toluca and tended to feel that this lack of formal education 
put her at a disadvantage.

Many of the students at the school were girls from wealthy homes and some
of them had considerable foundation in the art field. It was natural that 
she should feel a bit out of her element at first. However, she began to 
progress once I pointed out to her that her academic studies—or rather the 
lack of them—did not have much to do with what she might achieve in this 
field.

I was counting more on her innate handicraft ability —that magic 
connection between hand and brain all Indians seem to possess. It enables 
them to create autochthonous art from relatively simple objects, thanks to 
a congenital sense of form and color. It's a skill that does not depend on 
literacy, one training may be able to improve, but can never provide.

I had no doubts about her success in the venture. What caused me a little
concern were the problems of social acceptance. The girls I saw when I 
called for Guadalupe at the school were girls who had their own cars, girls
who dressed in the latest styles, had the same ridiculous haystack hairdos 
that you see everywhere today. I felt pretty sure that Guadalupe would be 
excluded from their senseless chattering about nothing, and that their 
attitude toward her would be more or less patronizing, even if no one ever 
asked, “How did that maid get in here?”

Guadalupe was not the kind to rebel at this sort of treatment if it were 
offered, since she had much the same opinion of herself that the others had
of her. I had not yet been able to convert her to the idea that an 
individual had value as a person, not because of the clothes she wore or 
the people she happened to know.

I wondered if, by any method, I would ever be able to get her to live 
down her background and overcome the submissive attitudes that had been 
created by it. I recognized that I would have to be content with partial 
victories—if there were any at all—for some time to come.

Nevertheless, I could see that these young chicks were intrigued. We were
the target of enigmatic looks every time I called for Guadalupe. They were 
curious as hell, but they weren't in a position to have their doubts 
cleared up.

They had noted that Guadalupe's clothes were expensive, although not in 
the same style as theirs. The car was neither an old one nor a cheap one, 
and I was obviously not Texas John from Lubbock, consorting with a Mexican 
girl of the lower classes just because she had opened her legs to him.

Even without asking Guadalupe, I felt certain that she had never 
mentioned what sort of a relationship she had with me, much less that we 
were living together. I knew that it would have to be a very exceptional 
rich girl to accept an arrangement such as ours.

Of course, I myself didn't give a damn what they thought about it, but I 
wanted to protect Guadalupe from this quarter as much as possible—just by 
being circumspect, minding my own business and adopting a hermetic 
attitude. That was as much as I could do under the circumstances. 
Nevertheless, human curiosity is overwhelming, and I knew that eventually 
one or two hardy females would dedicate some effort to clearing up this 
mystery.

One Friday evening, I was held at the office, thanks to having to wait 
for a long-distance phone call from Monterrey. There was nothing to be done
but to call the institute and leave a message that Guadalupe should take a 
cab home, since I would be unable to stop by for her.

It was almost eight-thirty when I got to the house. As I put my key in 
the lock, I could hear the subdued strains of a Brahms trio coming from the
record player inside the apartment and the hum of feminine conversation. 
Guadalupe was sitting on the divan with a girl.

Another girl was seated on the floor in front of them, her back to the 
fire. There were sandwiches and coffee on the library table. Guadalupe 
stood up as she heard the door open, and came running to meet me. Raising 
herself on tiptoe, she kissed me on the mouth, her arms encircling my neck.
She turned to her guests.

“This is Werner,” she said simply. “Angelica”—she indicated the girl on 
the couch—“and Lourdes. They're classmates of mine,” she added, at once shy
and proud.

I crossed the room to shake hands with each of them. Lourdes stood up, 
toying with a heavy gold chain on her wrist from which two large gold coins
dangled. She was a tall girl with a disproportionate figure, inclined to 
hippiness. Although not pretty, she had an intelligent open face, snub nose
and a winning smile. Her short hair was streaked with colorines.

Angelica was a real beauty. Her features were classic, well defined and 
in perfect proportion, setting off her beautiful blue eyes. Her face was 
framed in silky auburn hair, done in a puff over the crown of her head. She
was slightly taller than Guadalupe, with one of those slim delicate figures
with just enough hips and breasts to be feminine. Both girls were dressed 
in skirts and sweaters of pastel hues and wore high-heeled shoes.

“Lourdes and Angelica were kind enough to bring me home,” Guadalupe 
explained, “and I asked them up for a while.”

“Perhaps you'll stay to supper with us,” I suggested. They both demurred 
politely, but I saw they were dying to stay. They had not yet got to the 
bottom of this intriguing mystery, and the principal actor in the drama had
only just arrived on the scene. After I insisted twice more and one of the 
girls made a phone call, they accepted.

“Are you very hungry?” Guadalupe asked me.

“No, not terribly.”

“Then it's all right if I just fix some more sandwiches and make some 
more coffee?”

“It is with me. I'd like a drink first, to unwind a little. What will you
have?” I asked them. They both requested Scotch on the rocks and I had a 
tequila. Guadalupe went to the kitchen for ice cubes and then returned to 
her culinary preparations.

We sat in front of the fire, sipping our drinks. I did not initiate a 
conversation, since I knew that their curiosity would eventually channel 
the chatter the way they wanted it to go. Also, I had no curiosity about 
them. I knew that Lourdes was heiress to an industrial fortune, and that 
Angelica's family owned plantations in the Huasteca and several apartment 
buildings in Mexico City.

The corollary to this information was that they had been raised in 
moderately strict Catholic families, who had progressed enough with the 
times to allow their daughters certain freedoms that would not have been 
granted their mothers. They were families who had absorbed the Anglo-Saxon 
tenet that girls must be occupied until the time they were married.

Since sending them to the horrible “Communist” University in the Pedregal
was out of the question, they studied some profession they would never 
practice in the Catholic University, or repeated preparatory school, or 
took a course in stenography or designing, all with the view to not having 
them underfoot at home until the time came when they could be properly 
married and begin the career of child production.

“Have you been in Mexico long?” Angelica asked. She spoke in perfect 
English while giving me the full treatment of her wide blue eyes.

“A little less than fifteen years.”

“That was about the time so many of your fellow-Americans started up in 
business here,” Lourdes commented.

“About that time,” I confirmed. “Only they're not fellow Americans.”

“You're not an American?” Angelica inquired, making a slight moue with 
her beautiful lips, like a cat cleaning milk from its whiskers.

“I was born in Westphalia, but I'm Canadian.”

“What a coincidence!” Angelica said. “Lourdes and I went to school at 
Sacred Heart in Montreal.”

“Well, I'm afraid I don't know that part of the country, I'm from western
Canada.”

We had finished our drinks and, at this moment, Guadalupe came in with a 
tray of sandwiches and a pot of fresh coffee. The conversation lapsed into 
Spanish once again.

“And you like Mexico? You've found yourself here?” Lourdes inquired.

Angelica was seated in the Morris chair, her shapely legs crossed, 
balancing a jarra of coffee on an earthenware saucer. Lourdes had resumed 
her place on the serape with her legs doubled up under her. I was sitting 
on the divan with Guadalupe, my arm around her shoulders, my hand 
encompassing her thick black braid.

“I think so. Mexico has been a prolonged romance with me. How can I tell 
you? It's life as I've always thought it should be lived. It's like an old 
friend, a lover perhaps, with whom you have passed good periods and bad, 
but never dull ones. You've tasted the best there is, and you've also 
arrived at the dregs, but you've never had a moment of boredom, you've 
never wearied of the lover and sought another.”

Angelica and Lourdes exchanged a significant look. I wondered if I had 
gone too far. I've always had the custom of being frank with people, even 
with those who are only chance acquaintances. I don't believe it's a 
tactical error. If they are shocked by your declarations, you've rid 
yourself of a person with whom you wouldn't want to have any dealings. If 
they aren't, you may have found a kindred soul.

In other words, frankness is cathartic. It frees you of the heels you 
can't tolerate and, when you feel better for having done so, you are in a 
condition to appreciate what the rest have to offer. I poured myself 
another tequila, but Guadalupe's friends refused a second drink.

“What a lovely apartment you have here!” Lourdes commented. “Did you 
decorate it yourself?” I nodded.

“But what originality! What a wealth of ideas you had!”

“Excuse me, Senorita, but I don't think it was either. I just took 
advantage of what we have in abundance here. At most, it would be a matter 
of taste.”

“How do you mean?” Angelica asked.

“Well, I don't know if this ever comes up in your classes at the 
institute, but I've always seen it like this—there is too much tendency 
here to disparage anything that originates in this country. Mexicans have 
always looked abroad, copied foreign models when there was no necessity to 
do so.

“If you go through the better residential sections of the city, you are 
appalled by the imitation Gothic castles, the stained glass windows the 
Louis Quinze furniture and decoration. Aside from the extremely bad taste 
it represents, there's no need for it. Mexico has produced a style of 
architecture that's not only beautiful but is peculiarly indigenous.

“It has produced a decor that, apart from being essentially charming, has
the advantage of being relatively cheap—undoubtedly one reason why the 
wealthy don't buy it. The only thing I've done with this apartment is to 
buy things that are on sale in any rural market and assemble them here. I 
wouldn't call that decoration, at least not in the sense you're studying 
it.”

The girls demon started some interest in the records I had and, before 
they took their leave, we spent an hour listening to some string quartets.

I wondered if their curiosity had been satisfied, if this visit would 
cement their friendship with Guadalupe. Friendships are such strange 
things. Someone has said that they are no more than convenient arrangements
which allow us to obtain an audience when we want to talk about ourselves, 
which of course implies that we have to listen a bit when it is the other's
turn.

You can ask yourself how many friendships are completely disinterested, 
even in a sense as innocent as the example just mentioned. When you get 
married, buy a new house or a new car or have a cousin visit you, many 
people will come once and never darken your door again. Obviously, that's 
not friendship—it's curiosity.

I knew that the presence of these two rich girls in our home obeyed the 
same motivation that had been responsible for Guadalupe's social success at
the party we had attended before going on vacation. Guadalupe was in no way
a different person from what she was the year before, but her association 
with me had given her a status she had not enjoyed previously.

There's an apt name for this sort of thing in Mexico. It's called 
malinchismo, after Malinche, who became Cortes' mistress. The essential 
idea of it is that the native product has no value unless it's linked to 
something foreign. I'm sure that Guadalupe's criterion in this regard was 
identical with that of her guests, and I also knew that the continued 
success of our relationship depended on its changing.

I continued to catch fleeting glimpses of Angelica when I called for 
Guadalupe at school, but she never again came to the house. Lourdes, 
however, was an occasional visitor. Maybe she wished to use the freedom her
parents had given her, after leaving the narrow confines of the convent 
school, to learn a little about life and people.

She seemed a frank wholesome sort of girl, not without certain foibles 
but nonetheless with a sincere interest in Guadalupe. I watched closely to 
see if their friendship would turn out to be only a caprice on Lourdes' 
part, a desire to do something off-beat or daring, a spurt of rebellion 
against the society world.

Her reactions and motivations were no concern of mine, except as they 
might affect Guadalupe. Although she did not regard Lourdes with the degree
of adoration she had lavished on Georgina, she stood quite in awe of her. 
She was flattered by the rich girl's attentions, somewhat as a shoeshine 
boy might be if you asked him to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you
after he finished with your shoes.

Guadalupe was too shy and too conscious of her background to make any 
overtures toward these girls, and some time passed before she accepted more
than casual invitations from them. When she did, it brought difficulties 
that I had not foreseen.

II

It all began with the coffee breaks. At best, classes are somewhat 
irregular in any institution in Mexico. A lot of the teachers occasionally 
show up late or not at all, providing the students with intervals in which 
the normal reaction to their enforced idleness is to put something in their
mouths or pour something down their gullets, or both.

A cigarette is usually indicated in the first instance, coffee in the 
second. Guadalupe didn't smoke, but she was not averse to coffee. These 
brief outings had been going on for some time before she mentioned them to 
me.

“Do you always go to the same place for coffee?” I asked.

“Almost always. It depends on how much time there is.”

“And what is the usual place?” I really didn't like to question her so 
much. I had little interest in where they went for coffee, but I was 
seeking an indirect manner of finding out if she always went with Lourdes. 
I felt that Lourdes, if not a steadying influence, might at least serve as 
a check in keeping Guadalupe from doing some preposterous thing merely 
because somebody asked her to.

“It's a surrealist cafe in the Calle Hamburgo.” I knew the place. A 
friend had dragged me in there the year before on a dull Sunday afternoon, 
and the fact that I had yielded to his request had made my Sunday afternoon
a bit duller than it otherwise would have been. It was pretty quiet while 
we were there, with only a few long-haired young men in black sweaters and 
a few short-haired girls similarly dressed.

The music flooded softly from several loud-speakers, but I could see the 
drums and other musical paraphernalia on a small platform in an alcove. It 
wasn't difficult for me to visualize a musical evening in the place—a young
guitarist of the tight pants cult, crouching in that peculiar stance they 
assume, tossing the hair out of his eyes as he pounded out his jerky 
rhythms.

“What does Lourdes think of this place?”

“She says it's fun to go there, but she hardly talks to anyone while 
we're having our coffee. She just watches the other people.”

“Does anybody come to talk to you?”

“Well, you know how it is. There are always some boys on the make hanging
around, and then a few girls like Georgina. Their approach is a lot like 
that of the men at the party we went to just before going on vacation. I've
heard it all before.”

I was secretly amused at her posing as blase and secretly concerned 
because of her obvious interest in this spectacle and the people who 
frequented this den. My concern was not that of an aging lover who lives 
dreading the competition of the more youthful ones. My criterion of youth 
is not tinged with envy. Far from it. I am thankful to have got through 
that period of life as well as I did and am relieved to have it over.

As far as Guadalupe was concerned, if she could not see some value in 
what I represented, it would be much better if she went off with someone 
else. I wanted to be bound to her (and it has always been so in the 
relationships I've had with other women), only by the ties of her own 
volition.

It was natural that she should want to go out with people of her own age.
Her semi-marital status and other considerations made it difficult that I 
be included in the festivities. I saw no particular danger in the fact that
all her companions were single.

If Guadalupe had not been entirely lacking in judgment and had possessed 
a will of her own, instead of being so submissive and worse, so easily 
influenced, I would have had no objection to her going out with girlfriends
on occasions when I had something else to do, or when I merely stayed at 
home. In fact, I would have preferred it to the situation that was 
obtained.

Nevertheless, I knew her rather well by now. It was not that I wanted to 
absorb her, monopolizing her every free moment. It was that I couldn't 
trust her out of my sight for long periods, and this not entirely due to 
the question of sexual fidelity. I knew, for example, that if she ever had 
more than a hundred pesos in her bag, it was only a matter of time until 
some sharper would sell her the Torre Latino-Americana, the Bellas Artes 
palace or the Monument to the Revolution.

Her background and upbringing had left her completely tarada —stunned—and
I had discovered that she was incapable of any response other than that of 
a dog to his master. Even that attitude might have certain advantages 
except that, for her, the present master was the one who told her something
in a more forceful manner than the last masculine voice she had 
heard—something like the fellow with the norteno accent who sells tract 
houses on the radio, saying, “You have to buy a lot in the best colonia in 
the city!”

I've always imagined, on hearing the advertisement, the announcer as 
leveling a pontifical index finger at his unseen audience and tilting his 
Stetson over his eyes as he says it. At the same time, I imagine the 
subdued little housewife meekly trotting to the kitchen to take the 
bank-book out of the sugar can to see if there's enough money to buy a lot 
that she does not want or need.

Guadalupe was like that. I knew it and I had decided to keep her for 
other reasons. It was a problem I still had hopes of solving, but only with
time—lots of time.

I didn't like the look of this new situation, but there was nothing I 
could do about it for the moment. An absolute prohibition would probably 
not be heeded anyway and, if it were, would undermine and bring to naught 
the whole program I had formulated when she began to attend the interior 
decoration classes. So I said no more about it.

I knew that I had to guard her steps, just as I would those of a child 
who is just learning to walk. I had a certain amount of faith that if I did
this well, astutely, unobtrusively enough, she would recognize and accept 
the type of love I could offer her, when she had gotten past the stage of 
the first faltering steps.

Perhaps the words of the marriage ceremony are pretty well thought out 
after all—to cherish and obey. Cherishing certainly implies the acceptance 
of the fullest sense of responsibility for the loved one and a dedication 
to his well-being. I think, if one does that, the obedience part falls into
place by itself. At least that was what I felt then. However, this new 
experience with Guadalupe gave me occasion to review my thinking a bit.

III

The first terrible fall came in mid-April, the week following Holy Week. 
We had stayed in the silent deserted city. It's a mistake to try to go 
anywhere during that week. More than a million vacationists leave the city,
and I always enjoy it most during that time. You have it all to yourself. 
It becomes a metropolis almost without traffic, almost without people.

You can move about in it easily. The main arteries are deserted. The long
lines of automobiles have vanished. For a week, it's like being the only 
occupant of a forty-two room mansion. I've never wanted to live in a house 
of that size but, for a brief period, the novelty is refreshing.

I continued to go to the office, although I had given my employees the 
whole week off. I was trying to get things well enough in hand so that I 
could take some time off when the staff was working and business life had 
resumed its normal pace. Guadalupe had had classes only during the first 
three days of the week.

The weather was warm and the moon full. Our nights had been filled with 
intensely passionate love-making. I had been completely happy in them, but 
noticed a greater languor in Guadalupe than I had ever seen before. She 
surrendered her lush body to me with a greater freedom and with a greater 
passivity than I had been accustomed to with her.

We spent long hours in the big double bed, the room lit only by 
flickering candles, as I gave myself over to the perusal of well-known 
paths—of her supple breasts, more opulent than ever, of the swarthy by-ways
of her voluptuous knees and thighs, the ripely flowering lips of her 
sex-portals, to an ecstasy whose depths I plumbed again and again.

Delighted as I was with these rapturous pursuits, I noted vaguely that 
her response was not ardent, manifesting itself only in deep sighs, and 
that her breath had a strange musky odor as I bent over her to draw her 
full red lips into mine. The pupils of her eyes were rolled back with only 
the whites visible, although she was not yet in orgasm which, despite my 
best efforts, she did not seem to achieve.

This left me dissatisfied and disconcerted. I felt that there was some 
strange force at work within her I did not understand. When I sought her 
the following evening, she was irritable—a quality I had never before seen 
her display. She shook my hands from her shoulders with a gesture of 
annoyance.

I stepped back a pace. She remained in the same position, her head bent. 
Her fingers were writhing like snakes, the nails of one hand raking and 
tearing small pieces of flesh from the fingers of the other.

I realized that something was dreadfully amiss. Without speaking, I took 
her hands to stop this self-destructive action. I noticed that she was 
breathing heavily, as though she had just run up the three flights of 
stairs as fast as she could. Holding both of her hands in one of mine, I 
put the other under her chin and raised her head.

She looked up only a moment, then twisted her face away. It was shocking 
to see that unrecognizable visage. Her eyes were starting from her head. 
She was chewing her lips vigorously and they were mottled with light bloody
saliva. She continued to look at the floor and her fingers jerked 
restlessly, ceaselessly, under my restraining hand.

“You have to help me!” she demanded.

“That's what I want to do, if you'll let me. What is it you want?”

“I need heroin. You must get me some. I can't stand this any more! I feel
like I had a million worms crawling all through my body. You must help me. 
Get it for me!”

I did get it for her, but not in the way she thought I would. I took her 
to a friend who was Chief of Staff in the Hospital de la Raza. He gave her 
a small shot of heroin to quiet her down and then had a long talk with her.

When he spoke to me about the matter, it did not clear up any of the 
questions I had in my mind. Rather, it augmented their number considerably.

“She's only been on the hook about three weeks.” he told me. “At least 
that's what she says. I can check a little better once she's in the 
sanatorium and I have an opportunity to do a complete diagnosis of the 
case. If we're lucky, the cure may not be any longer than the addiction, 
but she will have to be watched carefully for some time.”

“I've been trying to do that, Doctor. She's not out of my sight more than
three or four hours a day. I can't understand how this could have 
happened.”

“Well, you know, with heroin, you don't need much of a warm-up period. 
Maybe it's better that way. If it had been morphine or cocaine, it would 
have taken you much longer to become aware of it, and the habit would have 
become more deeply entrenched.”

“After the cure, will there be any danger of her going back to the dope?”

He smiled. “That may depend somewhat on you. Tell me one thing—it will be
of great help in making a diagnosis in this case, and it may be the answer 
to the question you've just asked me. Is she an extremely impressionable 
person?”

“Well, I wouldn't use the word impressionable. She just has no will of 
her own, she'll do almost anything that's asked of her. I've never seen 
anything like it.”

“That's what I wanted to find out. I think she can be cured rather 
quickly, but the rest of it...” He raised his arms in a helpless gesture 
and shrugged.

I didn't go home after leaving the hospital. I even forgot about my car 
which was parked close by. I set out walking blindly, instinctively seeking
to escape the horrible experiences of the last two hours. Precisely because
I knew almost nothing of the circumstances connected with Guadalupe's 
becoming a drug addict, my imagination conjured up phantasmal situations, 
imagining smoky dens of vice, something like the pictures I had seen of 
Chinese opium houses.

I saw her taking innumerable shots, dancing lewdly and smoking the drug 
in a long pipe. All the while, her eyes were bulging, as they had when she 
turned to face me in the department and had demanded the drug.

Such contrasts always bring out the strongest impressions. Guadalupe, the
picture of sweet innocence at times, and Guadalupe in the depravities which
her impulses of destruction led her to. I was so beside myself that I began
to talk out loud, and it was only after a while that I realized that I was 
being observed curiously by the people I passed on the street.

At one point, I stopped and turned around. Various passers-by were doing 
the same—just standing still and watching me with a curiosity I found 
almost obscene. I felt as though I were in the grip of a terrible 
nightmare— a soundless nightmare, in which there was no noise of traffic, 
the cars passing by silently as though cushioned on air, the newsboy with a
hand to the side of his mouth, hawking his papers without uttering a sound.

I felt that in a moment I would begin to abuse the pedestrians 
voicelessly, haranguing them to go on about their business and leave me 
alone, to stop molesting me with their stares and their curiosity. I could 
see myself waving my arms and shouting at them soundlessly. Nevertheless, 
the burden of my thoughts would be understood by all as I stood raving in 
the silent street, and they would turn reluctantly and be on their way.

I was no longer sure of being able to distinguish between reality and 
this phantom nightmare I was living. As I resumed my walk, I kept repeating
to myself, “This is what she's become... this is what she's become!”

She had been a tiny kitten with a blue ribbon about her neck when I had 
taken her into my life. I had made a nice reed basket for her, lined it 
with velvet and placed it near the stove in the kitchen and, one day, when 
I went there to pet and stroke her, I found that there was no longer a 
kitten but a striped Bengal tiger with a chain about its neck instead of 
the ribbon. In the act of extending my hand, I perceived the change and 
drew back, horrified. The huge cat gave a tremendous roar and bared its 
fangs.

This waking dream was much more vivid, real and terrifying than any 
nightmare I had ever had in sleep. I don't know how long it lasted, nor was
I conscious whither my steps led me. When it gradually faded away in the 
distance, I first became highly aware of the return of sound—of the noise 
of the cars and the voices of the people passing me.

I found that I was sitting on a bench in the peculiar sunken park in 
Insurgentes. I felt calmer now and took out my handkerchief to mop the 
profuse sweat that covered my face. Night had fallen and there were a few 
promenading couples passing the bench, none of whom stared at me curiously 
as the other people had done during the course of my walk.

I took the pouch from my pocket, filled a pipe and sat there smoking for 
a long time, my mind a complete blank. My only sensory impression, apart 
from that of hearing, was the odor of the tobacco smoke as it floated 
almost stationary above my head, slowly dispersing in the warm air of the 
spring night.

I suddenly saw a scene from my adolescence, pictured as clearly before my
eyes while sitting on that park bench as though I had a panoramic 
motion-picture screen in front of me. I was walking up the wooden steps to 
the porch of a large frame house in my home town. I was carrying a big 
bunch of white carnations, wrapped in green wax paper.

A “mother” was sitting on the porch with her daughter. I greeted them and
gave the flowers to the girl. The mother smiled, almost a smirk it was, and
for the first time, I saw a slight resemblance between them. I looked from 
the mother to the girl and, for a moment, it seemed to me that the features
were identical.

The girl had become faded, with crow's-feet around her eyes, and she had 
a double chin. Her blue eyes were not open with surprise and delight as 
they had been when I was coming up the steps. They had narrowed a bit, just
as her mother's had when she smirked, and they seemed to look me over in a 
calculating way that I had never seen before.

I didn't believe that it was entirely a figment of my imagination. As the
girl's face resumed its customary lines before my eyes I had a presentiment
that I would never be swept into matrimony in the way most of my youthful 
companions would be. I knew that “daughter” would become “mom” in another 
twenty-five years. It was not just that she would grow older. We all do. 
And besides, I occasionally encountered mothers of forty who were quite 
handsome.

No, what I mean is something entirely different. It's a solidification of
mental attitudes after twenty years of marriage, twenty years of quarreling
with their husbands and fighting with their kids. Experience of life, 
instead of enriching them, has soured them and this fermentation of 
character produces a vintage.

When we grow older, the arteries gradually lose their elasticity. As a 
woman grows older, often without having been married, a stiffening of 
attitudes occurs whose cause may or may not be physical. Nevertheless, I 
have always thought of these manifestations as having been caused by 
hardening of the ovaries.

It produces the strident voice, the know-it-all approach, the loss of 
sweetness, tenderness and appearance of fragility that “daughter” had when 
I was calling on her, and that she undoubtedly has lost long before the 
time of this writing, no matter whom she may have married.

I didn't want any of that sort of thing in my life, and I still don't. I 
didn't want to pass all the hours spent in the home, and some outside of 
it, placating all sorts of ridiculous ovarian humors, merely to keep peace 
in the family. If you think this picture is exaggerated, take a good look 
around you. Ask yourself if you can find one relatively happy marriage 
among the dozens that make up the circle of your acquaintances, and if the 
type of thing I've mentioned is absent from even the more tolerable of 
them.

I had brought Guadalupe to live with me because I enjoyed her sexually 
and because I hadn't thought it likely that these dreadful situations would
arise from such a union. They hadn't. Nevertheless, others, most of them 
unforeseen, had changed my way of living considerably and had provoked 
situations which made it much less peaceful and calm.

One does not expect perfection in any relationship, especially in a 
marital one. What's more, one is glad to make certain sacrifices if the 
rewards are commensurate. What is unbearable is to make them in order to 
obtain a less favorable situation than existed before. You feel robbed. 
There's no other way to express it.

Of course this is where love comes in, most people will tell you. This 
state of pronounced idiocy is made to account for behavior that can't be 
charged up to any other score. Maybe so. Well, I wasn't in love with 
Guadalupe in that way. I had a certain affection for her that would never 
be so great that I would be willing to put up with anything to keep her at 
my side. I think that if you abrogate your personality that far, you've 
ceased to live.

I got up and began walking back to where I had left the car. Well, what 
was I going to do about all this? Nothing—nothing for the moment. I would 
see her through this scrape and after that... After that it seemed to be 
the better part of wisdom to send her on her way. If I didn't, I might find
myself in this park two years from now, still turning over the same guff in
my mind, moved a little closer to desperation by a whole battery of 
irremediable factors which had only increased in the interim.

IV

When I went to the sanatorium on the following day, Guadalupe's face had 
resumed its calm. She was sitting propped up on pillows in her bed, her 
hair neatly brushed and braided, her smooth olive skin shining. Her black 
eyes had the soft doe-like quality that had attracted me so much when we 
first met.

She appeared so beautiful, so trusting, so serene, that I immediately 
forgot about my resolutions of the night before about getting rid of her. I
had brought no flowers, since I had regarded my visit more in the nature of
a business call than an amorous one, and now I regretted arriving empty 
handed. I tried to be especially demonstrative with her, kissing her first 
on the forehead and then lingering on her full ripe lips. “How are you 
feeling?” I asked. She ran her tongue over her lips, and her welcoming 
smile changed into an expression of contrition. “Oh, I'm fine,” she 
replied.

“That's good.” I moved down to the foot of the bed and settled my back 
against the footrail. “Then you're in condition to talk about this case. 
Now, how did all this come about? How could you have gotten into such a jam
in this short space of time?”

Guadalupe is a strange personality. Like some criminals, after committing
the most depraved acts, she will make a full and complete confession if you
pin her down on it, and sometimes even without applying any pressure, she 
will tell you everything gratuitously. She twisted the counterpane between 
her fingers for a few moments and looked up with a sort of embarrassed 
half-smile.

“Well,” she began, “I told you that we had taken to going to this 
surrealist cafe, Lourdes and I, when there were no classes or whenever we 
had some time to kill. One day, among the many boys who talked to us from 
time to time, there were two who sat down and began quite a long 
conversation.”

“You didn't find their presence unwelcome?”

“I didn't care much for them, but I took my lead from Lourdes, and she 
didn't object.” Her reply was so in accord with her nature that I was 
convinced of its veracity.

“What was the conversation about?”

“Well, they were trying to convince Lourdes that they lived much more 
fully than she did, although they often didn't know where their next meal 
was coming from.” She gave me one of her brief fleeting glances from under 
half-raised lids and added, “I think they're what people call 'beatniks.'”

“I suppose Lourdes was intrigued to find out how the other half lives. 
How did she take all of this?”

“Good-humoredly. She let them do most of the talking. I don't know what 
she really felt, but I gathered she was not entirely opposed to their 
ideas. They offered us cigarettes. Lourdes took one, but I told them I 
didn't smoke. Anyway, it turned out that they were marijuana cigarettes. 
Lourdes insisted that I try one, and I did.”

“You always have a little trouble in refusing anything, don't you, Lupe? 
Did you like your marijuana?”

“Well, it does make you feel rather light and airy.”

“And did this smoking continue for some time?”

“Yes, we smoked several days in a row. I'll admit that I didn't get much 
out of the classes during that time. I had sort of a far-away feeling.”

“All right. The marijuana's neither here nor there. How did you get on 
the horse?”

She bowed her head and began to finger the sheet again. A moment passed 
before she replied. “I have to tell you, Werner, that I lied to you. There 
was no school all during Holy Week. Instead of going to school, I went to 
the cafe when you let me off. Lourdes was usually there.”

I recalled now that she had always insisted on getting out at the corner 
and walking the half block to school during those days. I found her on the 
same corner when I came to pick her up. The traffic is always heavy in that
part of town and, as I drove past the school, it never occurred to me to 
glance in that direction. I was too occupied with my driving.

She continued her story. “The boys suggested that marijuana was a pretty 
tame thing and invited us to their apartment, which was close by.. They say
we could sample something that would put us out of this world.”

“Look here, Lupe, you must have known that this was all wrong. What made 
you go?”

This time I got no answer. She smoothed out the counterpane and looked 
straight into my eyes for the first time during the visit. She gave me a 
light defiant smile, the smile of a child who is deliberately being naughty
just to see what reaction it can provoke. I wasn't sure that she herself 
had the answer to the question I had asked.

The only thing I could see in it was that she might have been following 
an unconscious urge to bring punishment down on herself in a more overt 
manner than when she had gone with the chango in the black leather jacket. 
We remained for a long time looking into each other's eyes, her defiant 
ones holding my humiliated ones. I saw that no answer would be forthcoming,
no matter how long I waited and that it would be futile to press the point.

“And what was it that 'put you out of this world'—a well lubricated 
prick?”

“Oh no,” she said, sucking in her lips. “I'm sure these boys were queer. 
They didn't want anything like that from us. They just gave us injections.”

“And you kept going back for more?”

“No, they said they couldn't give us any more because they were terribly 
expensive, but they told us where we could go to get it.”

“Was the compulsion that great after one injection?”

“Well it's like this—the higher you get on liquor, the harder it is for 
you to stop drinking. You see what I mean? If you hadn't gotten up to that 
pitch, you could probably put the bottle away and forget about it. I didn't
feel the terrible craving for it that I did a couple of days ago, but I 
felt a crawly, itchy feeling, not entirely unpleasant—a sort of tingling, 
you know.

“I was walking through the streets one afternoon, just like I used to do 
when I was a little girl and they sent me out selling candy, and I suddenly
thought why not? The address the boys had given me was quite close to the 
school, and I obeyed an irresistible urge to go up the steps to the 
doctor's office and ring the bell.”

I lit a cigarette and embraced my knees with my hands, blowing out the 
first cloud of smoke. “Tell me, Lupe, en serio, have you ever come face to 
face with a resistable urge so far as you can remember?”

She did not seem to hear my question, but was silent for a moment before 
continuing her narrative. “The door was opened by a young woman, and I told
her I'd come to see the doctor. She said that consulting hours were later 
on in the afternoon, but I mentioned that he'd often seen me outside those 
hours. She looked me over from head to foot, and her mouth turned up at the
corners in a strange sort of smile. 'All right,' she said, 'come in.'

“She took me right into the doctor's consulting room and left me alone 
with him. He was seated on a tall stool, looking at something through a 
microscope. He swung to the floor and turned to me, unbuttoning his long 
white coat. He was a short white-haired man in his sixties, I guess. He was
rather handsome for a man that old, but his eyes had a shifty expression. 
He smiled in a rather alarming way. 'What can I do for you, my dear?' he 
asked. I didn't care much for the 'my dear' part. I told him I had come for
some heroin.”

I burst out laughing; I couldn't help it. The picture of her marching 
into the doctor's office and asking for heroin, just as you might walk into
a drug store and ask for a box of Kleenex, was too much for me. I had not 
believed she was quite that naive. “Really, Lupe, you're incredible. Go on 
with your story.”

“He wasn't a Mexican; he didn't speak Spanish very well. He invited me to
sit down in a deep leather chair that stood beside his desk. He wanted to 
know who had sent me, and I had to tell him that I didn't know their names.
He saw the note with his address which I was still holding in my hand, and 
he took it from me and looked at it.

“'Yes,' he said, 'just so. Of course you have the money to pay for it.' 
He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and looked at me quizzically. I told 
him I had eighty pesos.

“'Oh, my dear,' he said, 'that's not nearly enough. It costs me a great 
deal more than that. But, let's see what we can do. First of all, I must 
examine you: heart, lungs and reflexes, to judge what kind of dosage you 
are capable of taking. It varies from person to person. Get undressed, 
please.'

“When I was nude, he asked me to walk up and down the consulting room, 
telling me to keep my toes pointed in as I walked. Then he had me sit on 
the edge of the examining table and he tapped my knees with a little hammer
which made the leg jump straight out every time he did it. He held one 
ankle in his hand, my leg extended, and caressed the thigh and knee with 
his other hand.

“'What beautiful legs you have, my dear,' he said. 'The kneecap is not at
all visible.' He bent down and began kissing my thighs. He laid me out on 
the table and began licking me all over, all over my body, even in my 
armpits.”

I knew it was useless to ask her if she had protested or tried to fight 
him off. The fact that a man laid strong and determined hands on her was 
enough to vanquish all her resistance. The fact that he wanted her body was
sufficient reason for her to yield it to him.

“Before long, he was on top of me,” she continued, “and I felt his huge 
shaft inside me churning around as though he were moving it sideways 
instead of back and forth. It was so big that it seemed to penetrate to the
level of my waist.

“After it was over, he gave me an injection in the forearm, and I felt 
quiet and peaceful again.”

“And you continued to go back there?”

“Oh yes. I went back every day. I had to, for the injections.”

“And he laid you every day?”

She bowed her head. Her attitude was like that of a shy young girl who is
being told the facts of life by her mother just before her marriage. It 
seemed to me that she even blushed. She nodded, her head moving up and down
vigorously.

“And then there came a day when he refused to give you any more 
injections. Isn't that right?”

She nodded again.

“And that was the moment you turned to me as a source of supply.”

She seemed so dejected, so contrite, that I moved closer to her on the 
bed, bumped my head playfully against hers and took her hands that were 
folded in her lap. “What drives you to do these things, Lupe?

Don't you realize all the trouble you could have got into in this case?”

She did not reply, but kept her head bowed.

“You see that I didn't have any trouble filling in the latter part of 
your story. Now I'm going to fill in the rest of it. It's true that these 
beatniks from the cafe don't hold jobs, but that doesn't mean they're not 
working. Their work consists of talking to impressionable young girls, 
feeding them a line about the wonderful life you can lead if you're willing
to be a bit unconventional.

“They begin with marijuana, then pass to heroin, which is supplied in 
order to hook the good-looking girls. They give them just enough to produce
a longing for it and then they give them an address where they can get 
more. This doctor shoots them just enough to create an addiction—that's 
right where you were two days ago—and then cuts off the supply.

“The end of this story, although the details vary, is always the 
same—prostitution. Either he tells you to bring him a certain amount of 
money every day, in exchange for which he will supply the necessary amount 
of the drug, or he sells you outright to procurers, who take you off to 
some cathouse in Tijuana or Matamoros.”

She threw herself into my arms, sobbing. It was only the second time I 
had seen her cry. I waited until the storm was over, and then wiped her 
tear-stained face with my handkerchief.

“You're so good to me, Werner, and I've been so awful! I really don't 
want to be, but I keep getting into these terrible messes. I want you to 
love me. What can I do to make you love me?”

I was slowly stroking the nape of her neck with two fingers. I did not 
cease doing this, nor did I separate my head from hers as I replied, “Just 
resist one urge —just one, as a starter. That's all I ask for the present.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Guadalupe came out of the sanatorium a little over two weeks after her 
commitment. She had been pronounced cured and the doctor, on releasing her,
gave me no special indications as to her care. The bill I received from the
sanatorium was of such size that I had to abandon the plans I had made for 
taking four or five days off early in May. I regretted this since I felt 
that a change of scene was highly desirable in our relationship at this 
particular moment.

She withdrew into herself even more after returning home, sunk in a sort 
of dejection undoubtedly born of a sense of guilt. My efforts to bring her 
out of this depression were not attended with much success, and I allowed 
myself to speculate on the injustice of a situation in which I was the one 
who had to deal with the moodiness without having been in any way 
responsible for provoking it. Of course there was no question of her 
returning to the school. Even before she came back from the sanatorium, I 
had called the Institute on the phone and had told them that she would not 
be back.

When I was at my wit's end to know what to do about this situation, David
came to my rescue quite gratuitously. I had seen very little of him since 
he had given the housewarming the year before and was really quite pleased 
when he appeared at the office one morning.

If a friend takes the trouble to come and see you, instead of just making
a phone call, you always appreciate it. Besides, I have a genuine affection
for David, as I think he has for me. Of course he is still trying to figure
out why it is that I am not impressed with his wealth, especially since I 
knew him before and after.

I can't say that I liked him better before, although the outward 
manifestations of my friendship have not changed at all. Before, David was 
a grubber and quite nervous about it, by the way. Now he's bemused. The 
money keeps on multiplying automatically and his amazement increases.

He was sitting on the big leather divan that I have along the north wall 
of my office, his legs crossed, smoking a long thin cigar.

“You still have the free time arrangement that you used to have in regard
to your work?” he inquired.

“Yes, I'm still running it the same way. Why do you ask?”

He knocked the ash from his cigar and cleared his throat. “Well, I'm 
inviting a group of people to my house in Acapulco for a few days and I'd 
like you to form a part of the group.”

“Who's coming?”

“I don't believe you know any of them. Perhaps one of the couples was at 
the party the last time you were at my house, but you may not remember 
them.”

“Of course, I'll be glad to come. The invitation includes Guadalupe, I 
assume?”

“It certainly does. I haven't invited any single people,” he added 
unnecessarily.

“What's the date?” I asked, reaching across my desk for the calendar pad.

“The ninth to the twelfth of May, inclusive. I've planned it a little 
ahead of the school vacation. It gets pretty crowded there the last two 
weeks of the month.”

When I mentioned the matter to Guadalupe that evening, she was mildly 
enthused, but not so much as I thought she would be. I said, “Come on now. 
It'll do you a world of good. You know you've been wild to go to Acapulco 
ever since I've known you, and probably some time before that.”

She came to me and nestled in my arms. “You're always thinking about 
what's best for me, Werner. Of course we'll have a good time in Acapulco. 
It's just that I feel a little dragged out since I came back from the 
sanatorium.”

“You don't feel ill, do you?”

“Not physically ill. I just feel a bit tired most of the time, and I 
don't have much energy.”

“That's why I'm sure a change of scene will do you good—get you out of 
this high altitude for a while. I know I need to from time to time or I get
to feeling a little stale.”

“Will we be driving down with David and his wife?”

“It didn't occur to me to ask him, but I think it will be better if we go
in our own car.”

It was during the trip down to the coast that Guadalupe began to revive a
bit. She had a child's excitement about going anywhere at all. She 
chattered gaily from the time we passed Cuernavaca, pointing out rather 
commonplace sights along the road. The scenery is not especially 
interesting until you begin the descent to the coast. Certain types of 
tropical foliage and some of the birds reminded her of our trip to the 
island the previous fall.

We began to talk about how rewarding it had been for both of us and, by 
the time we arrived at Acapulco, she had completely recovered her good 
humor and her charming naivete. She was once again the Guadalupe of the shy
smiles and the downcast eyes that I had known in the first days of our 
relationship.

David's house is out beyond the Mozimba district on the road to Pie de la
Cuesta. There's a hell of a steep drop from the highway as you drive down 
the road toward his house. I had never been here before, and now I saw why 
he had bought this place. It was the last house, hidden behind banana 
trees, bougainvillea and pinonona. The road climbs slightly at the end, 
bringing you to a promontory on which the house is situated.

It is in the style of the modern bungalow, but one of enormous size, and 
is surrounded by vast expanses of green lawn. It is designed in such a way 
that every room is exterior, and most have a view of the little cove below 
the immense terrace which stretches across the entire front of the house. 
The cove is protected by high jagged rocks, so that the tremendous tides of
this irregular coast do not disturb the calm of its waters.

I drove into one of the several carports roofed with red tiles built back
against the cliff. David's car, along with two others, was parked there. A 
maid appeared almost immediately and led us around to the terrace in front 
where a half a dozen people were seated in comfortable cane chairs, 
drinking Tom Collins.

David's wife, Estela, came forward to greet us. She's a little younger 
than David, perhaps a little short of forty still, but the signs of 
incipient middle-age have already begun to appear. In spite of having a 
figure that looks like a worn overstuffed divan, she insists on cramming it
into brocaded dresses which only help strengthen the impression of that 
simile.

Her face, which still had well-formed features when I first met her, 
looks as if it were inflated with an air hose, and her hair, now tinted a 
mahogany brown, is done in one of those waxy blown-up hairdos which only 
exaggerates the puffy lines of her face.

She has a nice smile remaining as one of the souvenirs of her youthful 
good looks—big, even, white teeth, set so close together that now in the 
gathering dusk, they seemed to be one solid line of gleaming white. I like 
to think that her smile expresses what she is essentially, the rest of her 
appearance and her clothes being chargeable only to bad taste.

Although I have known David for six or seven years, I have no idea what 
kind of relationship they have. I do know that she dates from the period of
his life when he was just beginning the upward struggle in the world of 
business affairs, and that she comes from a background even poorer than 
his. Peralvillo, I believe, is her home neighborhood.

Her appearance is a little misleading because, although she's not 
terribly bright, she has the wit not to mention the circumstances of her 
upbringing in the circles in which she moves today. She doesn't try to play
the great lady, either, and has the eminent good sense not to talk too 
much. There is really a much better person behind this ridiculous 
camouflage than you might suspect.

Probably my most favorite impression of her came when I found out that 
she had lived with David five years before marrying him. He was begging her
to do so most of this time, and the fact that she held out so long seemed 
to indicate that she was possessed of a greater degree of assurance and 
judgment than most women have.

As she presented us to her guests, a quick look around convinced me that 
I had seen none of them before. The exotic note in this gathering, which 
David never fails to include, was provided by Etienne and his Japanese 
wife, Motoko. They were young people, both of them well under thirty.

Etienne, a quiet reserved fellow, was one of the handsomest men I had 
ever seen. His wife, although somewhat attractive, could not have been 
considered a great beauty in Japan. The both spoke Spanish extremely well.

I had heard David speak of the other couple rather often, since Abel had 
lent him money when he went into business. However, due to the vagaries of 
circumstance, I had never met them. Abel was in his early fifties, a small 
slim balding man with thin lips that had a slight sardonic twist. He was 
unusually taciturn.

His wife, Maria Luisa, was about the same build as he, and had the same 
gray complexion. She was decidedly ugly and high strung. Her face was 
lightly pitted with smallpox scars, a phenomenon you find today in Mexico 
only among older people. I noticed, during the subsequent conversation, 
that Abel never took his eyes from Guadalupe, and I wondered if this 
marriage had not had its foundation more in a substantial dowry than in 
romance.

Maria Luisa was the living demonstration of a maxim which a witty 
Frenchman had told me a number of years before—“I can stand a woman that's 
beautiful and stupid,” he said, “or one that's ugly and intelligent. But 
one that's ugly and dumb...” and here he extended both hands, palms out, as
though warding off the most dire catastrophe.

When we were all comfortably ensconced behind our drinks, Maria Luisa 
broached the theme of conversation, asking Motoko if the Japanese women 
since the war were not participating to a greater extent in the social and 
political life of the nation. Motoko began to reply slowly, although she 
did not fumble for words.

I got the impression that she spoke that way in her native language. It 
was the first time I had heard Spanish spoken with a Japanese accent, and I
found that it was not devoid of charm. She set her glass down deliberately 
on the small wicker table beside her chair.

“A little more than formerly,” she replied. “I don't think that most 
Japanese women aspire to that sort of thing. Perhaps they are not 
accustomed to it.” She paused. “There have been a few women elected to the 
Diet—the national legislature—but I believe that the Japanese woman is 
preeminently a home body and always will be, no matter how many rights she 
is given.”

“Is her situation in the home so favorable that she sees that as her end 
ambition, that she's satisfied with being merely a housewife and mother?” 
Maria Luisa asked.

Motoko smiled quietly, as though to herself, as though she were thinking,
Are there other things a woman should aspire to? ”No, the situation is not 
especially favorable,” she replied. “The average Japanese husband is a bit 
of a despot, I'm afraid. He supports his home. He spends most of his time 
in it when he's not working. He respects his home, perhaps because his word
is absolute in it.”

“Well, there's really not so much to complain about, is there?” Estela 
suggested. “Maybe we haven't advanced even that far.”

“Tell me,” said David, tossing the stump of his cigar into the bushes. 
“Would you say that the Japanese woman is not dissatisfied with her 
situation, then?”

“No, she's not completely satisfied but, once married there is no 
possibility of changing any factors which are not to her Liking. The 
marriage contract is a final deed in a corporation in which she has neither
voice nor vote. Some young girls in Japan today take the only form of 
rebellion open to them—that of non-participation. They study some 
profession and make that their life.”

“And what has brought about this change in attitude?” Maria Luisa 
inquired.

Motoko smiled. “A little knowledge of the world. Before the war, we 
didn't know much of the world beyond our frontiers. I imagine that the 
foreign movies which began to be shown in Japan after the war were more 
responsible for this change than any other single factor.

“They showed, for one thing, that women in some other countries were not 
so completely under the husband's domination. More particularly, Japanese 
women have been impressed by the sexual freedom enjoyed by American women 
and have sought to secure it for themselves.”

David gave me a ribald glance. “What sort of sexual freedom do American 
girls enjoy, Werner? You should be an expert on that.”

I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. “Well, I'm not an 
American and I'm not an expert in the matter, but I do have a few ideas and
some experiences. Although American girls don't appeal to me very much, I 
do like their approach to this question.

“It seems to me that they're less inhibited than most. Part of it is a 
normal healthy desire to see what they're getting before they sign the 
contract. I doubt that they're less prone to marriage than other 
nationalities, but they're a little more circumspect about it.”

“But how do you explain the high divorce rate in the United States?” 
Maria Luisa asked.

“By the same motive—lack of inhibition, of not being ashamed to confess 
an error. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not holding this up as an ideal. I 
don't believe it makes any particular difference, as long as there are no 
children. There's the only real tragedy in divorce. Adults are capable of 
making their own adjustments to matrimonial failure. Children aren't.”

Abel joined the conversation for the first time. He had been sitting in 
silence, his green eyes regarding Guadalupe all the while. She must have 
been conscious of his gaze, although she gave no outward sign of it. She 
was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes cast down.

“Don't you think,” he asked, directing his question to the group in 
general, “that it's possible that the form of marriage is undergoing a 
change?”

“I'm convinced of it,” I replied. “A little knowledge of history and 
anthropology is enough to show that marriage, as we know it, hasn't always 
existed and it seems reasonable to suppose that it may not always remain as
it is.”

“Of course,” the young Frenchman noted, “sociological changes are much 
slower than many others, and we have a tendency to feel that the change 
process is not operative merely because we can't perceive any great changes
within the scope of our lifetimes.”

David filled all the glasses again, pouring from a jug encased in a 
wicker basket. Guadalupe had not drunk all her Tom Collins and David 
hesitated over her glass until she looked up at him and shook her head.

Abel cleared his throat nervously. “What do you think would happen,” 
addressing his question to Guadalupe, “If Mexican women became, shall I 
say, emancipated overnight?”

She glanced at him momentarily and then looked down at her interlaced 
fingers which lay in her lap. “I don't know,” she murmured almost 
inaudibly.

“Don't think it isn't already beginning to happen here,” Estela replied 
in answer to Abel's question. She had consumed the other drink rapidly, and
was halfway through the one her husband had just poured. “I could cite you 
a dozen cases among my friends, of girls who have sought some other 
solution besides marriage.

“Why have they sought it? Because all of them have seen too much of 
infidelity, neglect and abuse in their parents' homes and have seen what it
is to be saddled with a horde of kids. As one of them said to me, 
commenting on her sister's marriage, which has been rather prolific, 'They 
don't want them, can't afford them and don't know how to take care of them,
but they keep on having them.'”

Motoko was nodding in agreement, long before Estela had finished 
speaking. “Tell me,” she asked. “Do these women that you know abstain from 
sexual relations because they are not married?”

Estela tossed off the last of her drink, and wrinkled her face in a 
grimace. “Some do and some don't. I know of one or two who have even been 
driven into homosexuality due to this rebellion. They feel they will get 
more understanding from another woman, will get their sexual satisfaction 
at the same time and will enjoy freedom from disastrous family relations.”

I was mildly amazed to hear Estela express these sentiments. Her personal
value rose a bit more in my esteem. It was a minor miracle that a poor girl
from the slums of Mexico City had been able to evolve to such a degree that
she could see her way clearly through this matrimonial maze. She certainly 
was no nitwit.

I began to understand why David had not ostensibly strayed from the 
matrimonial fold and why their marriage had not been blessed with 
offspring. I chalked down Estela's case in the back of my mind as another 
in which external appearances had not been a reliable guide.

“I must say,” put in Maria Luisa in a stiff strained voice, rattling the 
ice cubes in her glass, “that all you people must have had a different 
childhood from mine. The children in my family were taught the concept of 
duty—in regard to our parents, in regard to each other and in the duty we 
all have to society.”

“I can see only one thing wrong with that concept, Senora,” I remarked. 
“If you have to pay out so much in the way of duties, your moral income is 
so reduced that there's not enough for you yourself to live on. On the 
other hand, I propound a doctrine that's not at all original, that few 
people believe in, that almost no one practices.

“The first duty of a person is toward himself. In other words, the 
doctrine of selfishness. I believe that the corollary is salutary, because 
if you fulfill that duty well, conscientiously and without shirking, you 
not only get what you want from life, but your relations with other people 
run much more smoothly.”

Several moments of silence ensued. Maria Luisa did not follow up with a 
rebuttal of my point of view, but I could hear the rustling of her taffeta 
dress as she squirmed in her chair. It had grown completely dark now. The 
southern stars were out in their full brilliance and the roar of the surf 
seemed somehow more audible than it had been in the twilight, pounding 
against the huge gray rocks. The silence was broken by Estela's 
announcement that dinner was served.

David's property includes a private beach, down below in the cove. We all
spent hours and hours there, swimming and basking in the sun. I found the 
company decidedly congenial, perhaps because I had seen so few people in a 
social way during the last few months. Guadalupe seldom took part in any of
the group conversations, although she and the Japanese girl talked together
for an hour or so in the afternoon.

She went in swimming with me a number of times and was now able to swim 
more than twenty meters without floundering. She began to tan right from 
the first day, and the dark brown color of her ripe body brought approving 
glances from others of the group besides Abel, who was so fascinated with 
her that he was almost drooling.

Abel and his wife were the only ones who did not fit in too well with the
tenor of the group. It seemed strange to me that David had invited them for
this particular occasion. Perhaps he had owed them an invitation for a long
while, and thought this as good a time as any to fulfill his obligation, or
maybe he was more financially indebted to Abel than I had supposed to be 
the case. Abel was so uncommunicative that I could form no idea of what he 
was really like, but I had no difficulty at all in cataloguing his wife.

The following day Guadalupe and I went down town. We were able to manage 
this gracefully, since Estela and David knew that this was her first trip 
to Acapulco, and it was natural that she should want to see the town and 
the various beaches.

First we drove through the plaza and out the Costera, past the Naval Base
and up to the mirador that offers a magnificent view of the entire bay and 
the city.

“Well, is it everything you thought it would be?” I asked her as she 
gazed entranced at the bay.

She turned toward me, flashing a brilliant happy smile. “It's even more 
than that. The sea is so vast and blue. You don't have any idea how big it 
is just by seeing it in the movies.”

“Not even in Technicolor and Panavision?”

She laughed and put her arm around my waist. “No, not even then. Wouldn't
it be wonderful to live here?”

It was a question I had asked myself the first few times I had come to 
Acapulco. In subsequent visits, I had decided that I wouldn't want to. Too 
much like living in Coney Island. The port has a great deal of natural 
beauty, but what probably impresses most people are the adornments man has 
put there.

The tall luxury hotels, gleaming with chrome and dark glass, their hidden
balconies bordered with a riot of colorful flowers—the restaurants which 
look like something from a Hollywood set of Polynesia. Even the numerous 
white and striped sails that dot the bay, making it indescribably 
picturesque, were not there thirty or forty years ago when Acapulco was a 
tiny sweltering port plagued by sand and mosquitoes, such as several I knew
up and down this coast.

However, I've had friends who have lived in Acapulco over a period of 
years, and they tell me that after a while you don't even notice the 
tourists, that it's just like living anywhere else.

“Don't be carried away by first impressions, Lupe. It's nice to come here
on vacation for a few days, but I imagine living here's another story. 
Anyway, Acapulco's more a state of mind than it is a place. It all depends 
on the spirit in which you take it.”

“Is there more than one way to take it?”

“Not just one—I've found at least three distinct outlooks. The people who
come down and set up in business are here to make money—they're not 
thinking of anything else. The tourists come here either to swim or to 
screw or to have some kind of an adventure. The natives are supposed to 
keep their minds on the work provided for them by the promoters from Mexico
City. So, everybody's got his own idea of Acapulco.”

I could see she was not completely convinced. It was all so new, so 
thrilling to her, that any reaction other than her present one must have 
appeared to her as abnormal.

“Come on!” I cried, warming to her enthusiasm. “Let's go down to Condesa 
and I'll buy you a drink. Don't you feel thirsty?”

Condesa has become the most fashionable beach in Acapulco. It used to be 
Caleta years ago, and after that Hornos. I suspect that its popularity is 
not due to being located near the Hilton Hotel and El Presidente as much as
it is to Beto's and a couple of similar concessions.

Beto's is the biggest. It's a restaurant with a palm-thatched roof, 
plenty of bamboo pillars and straw matting, and there is always a bowl of 
hibiscus on each table. You can dance at Beto's if you don't mind being 
jostled a bit, for the floor is rather small. The tropical combo is going 
full tilt, with bongos and maracas, from noon until a little after sundown.
The pace is liveliest from lunchtime through the pearly afternoon hours.

We took a table on the beach under one of those conical straw umbrellas. 
Guadalupe ordered a lemonade, and I asked for a beer. It was still a little
before noon, and the parade of people who came to see and be seen had 
scarcely begun. Groups of young girls were lying on the sand, and groups of
young men were strolling up and down the beach, keeping a conscious eye out
to see what was likely that morning.

We did not talk, but just sat watching the mountainous waves crash 
against the sloping beach and the movement of the people about us. A young 
Negro came up to ask us if we cared to rent a surfboard. Vendors of straw 
hats, coral and silver jewelry, sunglasses, fried fish, coconuts and 
sharks' teeth constantly interrupted, offering their wares, not missing any
possibility for a sale, no matter how remote.

A woman coming down the stairs from the street caught my attention. At 
first glance, she appeared to be a glamorous platinum blonde, well schooled
in the undulating walk. A man followed her, carrying various beach 
paraphernalia—towels, sun-oil, a large conical hat made of green rushes, a 
small leather satchel. He was about thirty-five and reasonably 
good-looking. He stood waiting for the woman to approach to ask if the 
table was all right.

She had lagged behind him after descending the steps, greeting numerous 
acquaintances seated at other tables. She passed them by with a light airy 
wave of the hand and an, “Oh hello,”... “Hi, there,” or, “How are you this 
morning, darling?” Quite the Queen of the May. This must have been one of 
the great moments of her day—when she made her grand entrance. After 
considerable vague looking around, she condescended to accept the table the
man suggested, and sat down.

I saw then that she was not a glamorous platinum blonde, but that her 
hair was naturally white. Perhaps when she was dressed, she could have 
passed for forty or forty-five, thanks to the refining art of plastic 
surgery. A look at her body, at her thin sagging breasts like empty pockets
turned inside out, at the brown wrinkled skin of her upper arms and thighs 
(which looked as though you could grab handfuls of it), convinced me she 
would never see sixty again.

She and her husband—at least I assumed he was her husband—were dressed in
matching beach attire. She wore a pink latex bathing suit, and his shorts 
and beach shirt were of the same hue and material. They began unpacking, 
putting some of their things on the sand and others on the table. A waiter 
came up quickly, and they gave him their order, or rather she gave it, 
saying as an afterthought to the man, “I suppose you'll want the same as 
always.”

The man took considerable time perusing the English-language newspaper 
from Mexico City before turning to a stack of magazines he had taken from 
the leather satchel. I could see only the top two. They were Male and True 
Adventure. Meanwhile, the woman had taken the first of several books she 
had brought with her, and was reading away distractedly. The book was 
entitled Bedside Homicide.

They continued reading, oblivious of each other's presence. The man, 
absorbed in his magazine, was so well trained that he did not even cast a 
surreptitious glance at the pretty girls who passed from time to time. The 
woman allowed herself a little more freedom, occasionally glancing up to 
remark on some group of newly arrived people.

They had been reading steadily for almost a quarter of an hour, when one 
of the beach boys came up to talk to them. He was a lithe muscular mulatto,
taller than most, his skin glistening with coconut oil and burned almost 
black by the tropic sun. The man gave him a brief hello and returned to his
reading. The woman put down her book and prepared to enter into a 
conversation.

“You're not wearing the waterproof watch I gave you,” she said.

“Loose eet,” he mumbled. It was fairly obvious that the only word he had 
understood was “watch.”

“And you didn't come to Edith's party last night, did you, you naughty 
boy?”

He had no answer for that, but merely squinted his eyes and looked out 
across the bay, while the white-haired woman was running her hand 
caressingly over his inner thighs, cupping his balls at the top of each 
stroke.

I was intrigued by the indifference this boy displayed. He was pretty 
young, but he had already learned that it wasn't necessary for him to 
butter up the client in order to insure the sale of the product. It was 
hard to say which of the three was the most lacking in human dignity—the 
boy who was allowing himself to be fondled like a piece of meat on a public
beach, the woman old enough to be his grandmother who was doing the 
fondling, or the man who accompanied the woman and kept his nose, 
ostrich-like, in his magazine so that he could pretend ignorance of what 
was going on.

I glanced at Guadalupe. If she had observed any of this show, it made no 
impression on her. She was busy taking in all the sights that the beach 
offered, sitting on the edge of her chair, her eyes bright with interest, 
her lips slightly parted. I looked out toward the rolling breakers. I was 
dying for a swim in those big waves, but I knew that to leave Guadalupe 
alone at the table would be to court disaster.

“Mind lettin' us share yur table?” said a voice close to my elbow. I 
looked up to see two gawky young fellows standing beside my chair. “There 
aren't any others vacant,” he offered by way of excuse and concluded 
lamely, “If it's not too much trouble.”

I glanced around the area in which we were sitting. It was true. While I 
had been occupied with watching the couple at the next table, the beach 
area had filled up. All the tables were taken, and some people were renting
straw mats to spread out on the sand.

“It's all right,” I said. “Sit down.”

It was easy to see that they were brothers. The older one was a tall 
hawk-nosed youth with a receding chin and projecting green glasses. The kid
brother was a little more comely, with more symmetrical features and 
reddish hair. I got the impression that the older one had grown a bit tired
of dragging little brother around with him. When the waiter came, they both
ordered beer. I had hoped that they would occupy themselves with their own 
private conversation, but the gods were not fated to be kind that day.

“This your first time in Acapulco?” the older one asked.

“No, I've been here before.”

“You like it here?”

“It's nice for a few days.”

“Where you from?”

“I live in Mexico City.”

“Oh yeah? Say, that's interestin'. How long you lived there?”

“About ten years.”

“Must speak the lingo pretty good, eh? I mean, havin' lived here so long 
and all.”

“That's right, I do.”

“Yuh know, funny thing, I studied Spanish for four years in high school, 
but I can't make out a damn word they're sayin'. As a matter o' fact, I'm 
studyin' it right now at the college I go to back in the States. I go to 
Wabash College.” He paused a moment and peered at me from behind his green 
glasses, not sure whether his announcement was a knock or a boost. “I guess
you never heard of it.” Cautiously.

“Yes, I've heard of it.”

“Hey, Jack,” said kid brother. “Here comes a fellah sellin' silver 
jewelry. Maybe it'd be a good idea to take a souvenir back to Mom. Lemme 
talk to him. I'll betcha I can get it cheaper than that bracelet yuh got 
for your girl in that store yesterday.”

A fat brown man, short of stature, wearing enormous dark sunglasses that 
made him look like a well-fed owl, passed close to our table. “Articulos de
plata,” he intoned, “brazaletes, collares, pulseras, aretes...”

The kid motioned him over with a pompous gesture and remained a long rime
contemplating the jewelry on the tray the man carried. After picking 
through several articles he held up a silver bracelet. “Kwantow?” he asked.

“Sesenta y cinco pesos. Muy bonito regalo para su novia—barato.”

The kid turned to me. “How much did he say it is?”

“Sixty-five.”

He began wagging his head theatrically, a doleful expression on his face.
“Mooie kero,” he said.

“Se po voy a dar en cuarenta y cinco,” the vendor replied. “Le parece?”

“How much is it now?” the kid asked me, a terribly wise smile lighting up
his sixteen-year-old countenance.

“Forty-five.”

“Yuh gotta know how ta handle these people,” he told his brother. “Now 
just watch this.” He shook his head at the man again. “No may gusta. No le 
kerro.”

I could not restrain a grin, and gave the vendor a profound wink. The 
corners of his mouth turned up in a slight smile at being told that the boy
did not love him.

“Que es lo mas que me dara por ella?”

” What did he say?”

“He wants to know what's the most you'll offer.” My amusement was 
beginning to vanish as he continued to use me as an intermediary. I get 
pressed into this sort of service from time to time, unwillingly of course,
and it often brings about distressing situations, like the time a 
forthright American girl requested that I ask the mechanic who had fixed 
her car if he was honest.

The kid hemmed and hawed a little and finally offered thirty. Now the 
vendor shook his head in a definite manner, and started arranging the 
jewelry on the tray preparatory to looking for other clients. He had gotten
only a few steps away, when he returned suddenly and pronounced the single 
word, “Cuarenta?”

The kid nodded with satisfaction and made a big show of pulling out his 
wallet. “Yeah,” he said, “I'll take it.” When the man had gone, he leaned 
back in his chair and gave his older brother a very knowing look. “See what
I tol' yuh. They robbed yuh in that place downtown yesterday. Yuh gotta be 
sharp.”

Greenglasses was obviously a bit annoyed that kid brother had got the 
jump on him. He shook his head disgustedly. “How dya like that?” he asked 
me. “I paid almost twice that for just about the same kind o' bracelet in a
store. Oh, I knew about this bargainin' business, but the girl wouldn't 
come down a cent. People here are really robbers, ain't they?”

I was on the point of asking him why he didn't take his vacations in a 
place where people were more honest, but I decided that sweet patience 
deserved another try. “It's not a matter of honesty,” I told him. “In the 
first place, the girl in the store is only an employee, and therefore not 
authorized to give any discounts. The store has to pay the salaries of its 
employees, taxes, rent and light—so their expenses are higher than those of
a street vendor.

“The man who just sold your brother the bracelet is his own boss. Apart 
from not having any of the expenses I just mentioned, if he wants to give 
away his merchandise, it's his own affair. Sometimes they do just about 
that. For example, if he has a large unsold stock and needs money 
badly—let's say for the illness of one of his children—he may sell the 
article for what he paid for it, in order to get his hands on some ready 
cash.”

Little brother, puffed up with his triumph, was regarding Jack with a 
leer, and Jack, to avoid meeting his gaze, was looking out over the bay. I 
am sure neither of them had paid the slightest attention to my explanation,
and I resolved, for the hundredth time, to make this my last such 
performance.

Jack seemed a bit preoccupied. “What was I sayin',” he mumbled, “before 
this guy interrupted us? Oh yeah, about goin' to college. What I mean is, 
yuh hafta prepare yurself for a career these days. If you don't, yur just a
dog—your nothin'.”

I sensed this recital was not going to be brief, so I decided to do my 
bit to help it along, hoping to bring it more quickly to an end. Moreover, 
I felt that it would reassure me to hear my voice in more than a 
monosyllabic answer. I was beginning to fear that it might come out through
my nose, like his.

“Well, if you didn't go to college, you'd have a lot of company. You'd be
in the majority. Most people never go to college, you know. You're one of 
the privileged few—practically an aristocrat.”

He sniffed a couple of times and took a pull on his beer, looking out 
toward the surf. He was not sure enough that I was pulling his leg to take 
me up on the last remark. He hedged slightly.

“But I mean, everybody could go—at least in the States, that is. We have 
equality of opportunity. Of course, in a broken-down country like this, I 
guess it's pretty hard to go to college. It's countries like this where the
Communists sneak in and subvert things. Haven't you noticed that sort of 
thing goin' on here?”

“Can't say that I have.”

He seemed disappointed and made another effort. “But what I mean is—of 
course I may be all wrong, an' if I am, you can tell me—where people are so
poor an' ignorant, it's easy for any joker ta come along an' fill 'em full 
o' lies an' half-truths. That's the way it looks to me.”

I made no comment.

“Isn't it true that most of 'em don't know how to read an' write?”

“No, it isn't. The country's a bit more literate than that.”

He took off his green glasses, cleaned the mist from them and popped them
back on the bridge of his nose. “All right. Maybe it's not that high. How 
many illiterates do they have here? How much percent?”

“It's a little under forty, I believe.”

“Well, my idea is this—you take when people are that ignorant, I mean 
when they got no eddication at all, anybody can come along with a line o' 
crap, an' they don't know the difference, see? Maybe I'm wrong, but it 
seems to me that they're a ready target for the Commies.”

This discourse was lasting much longer than I had thought it would, and I
decided to strike a blow for freedom—my own. “You are wrong,” I said. 
“Let's forget about Mexico and the Mexicans for a moment and concentrate on
your case. How many hours a week do you watch television?”

He scratched a pimple on his nose and reflected. “I dunno. I'd say about 
thirty hours.”

“You read the newspapers too?”

“Sure I do. Yuh gotta keep up with what's goin' on in the world.”

“Time magazine?”

“Naw, I read U.S. News & World Report. That's the magazine the 
businessmen read to get the real inside dope.”

“All right—fine! And you think the illiterates are being led around by 
the nose! They've got you so hypnotised, mesmerized and bewildered, Junior,
that if they stood you on your head tomorrow and kept you in that position 
for a month, you wouldn't know the difference. What's more, after a month, 
you'd be so adapted to it that you wouldn't remember you'd ever walked on 
your feet.”

Guadalupe was no longer watching the people passing by, and was directing
her attention to the young man behind the green glasses.

“Ya nos vamos,” I said to her. “Es hora de comer.”

“What was that all about,” she asked as we went up to the car. “You look 
rather put out.”

I sighed. There was really nothing I could say to her that would explain 
the matter satisfactorily. “You know, Lupe, a couple of years ago, somebody
asked me just what it was that I liked about Mexico. It was a question I 
couldn't answer right away. It's too complex. But I know now that one of 
the things I like about Mexico is that here it's no crime to be uninformed.
No one in the United States, no matter how humble his station in life, can 
afford to say, 'I don't know.' There's a little rhyme we learned as kids 
which everyone seems to ignore today—

'There's a lot of things

I'd rather not know,

Than to know so much that isn't so.'”

III

“Do you feel sleepy, mi amor?” I inquired.

“No, not very. I just want to lie down and rest. I don't want to move. 
It's so hot!”

It was our last day in Acapulco as David's guests. It was the only 
afternoon during our stay that everyone retired to take a long siesta. 
Perhaps this was due to the heavy lunch we had eaten, plus the fact that 
there was very little breeze from the ocean. The corridors and rooms of the
house seemed cool and inviting in comparison with the glaring heat on the 
terrace. Not a sound could be heard throughout the entire house. Even the 
chattering of the maids in the kitchen was silenced.

I lay naked on the white sheets, which still retained some of the cool 
freshness of the morning. Guadalupe had also taken off her clothes, and was
hanging her nylon dress in the closet to prevent its wrinkling. I had a 
tremendous erection which she noticed immediately when she turned around.

“How can you feel so amorous in this heat?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“The heat doesn't bother me especially,” I replied, taking her hand as 
she came to the bed, “and I promise it won't bother you, either. Get on top
of me and straddle my hips.”

She did as I requested. Tiny rivulets of sweat were trickling slowly down
from her navel and I wiped them off with my fingers, using this moisture to
lubricate the lips of her sex and facilitate an easy entrance. I remained 
prone and motionless as she raised her arms above her head, stretching, 
allowing me to achieve an even deeper penetration. My lance stood erect but
still, straining slightly only after several moments. It was answered by 
corresponding contractions of the walls of her vagina. She rotated her hips
slightly and pressed her hands to her full breasts, caressing the nipples a
little.

“No, don't move!” I commanded her harshly. “Don't touch yourself at all 
and don't touch me.”

“But my love,” she whispered in a still, panting voice, “I'm getting so 
excited.”

“You'll be a lot more than excited before this is over. Now do as I tell 
you. Please don't move.”

She dropped her hands to her sides and remained motionless, settling 
herself comfortably on her haunches. Our rhythmic genital contractions 
continued. At first it seemed that there was no increase in their spasmodic
workings, but I noticed that they were slightly augmented after a period of
ten minutes or so had passed.

“Do you want me to let down my hair?” she murmured.

“Yes, please do.”

She raised her arms and began taking out the pins from the coils of her 
hair, putting them between her lips. When she had removed the last one, she
held the coils in place with one hand and tossed the pins on the rug at the
side of the bed. Then she let her hands drop to her sides again and threw 
her head back, shaking it slowly from side to side. The rippling cascade of
her heavy black tresses fell down her back, the ends burying my hips and 
upper thighs. Her head was tilted back, her eyes closed, her lips slightly 
parted.

“Look at me! Don't take your eyes from mine.”

She did as I told her. Her eyes kept opening wider and wider, but at the 
same time, lost their sparkle and brilliance, lost all the expressiveness 
they usually had, becoming two enormous points of opaque black velvet. Her 
breathing was becoming more rapid, mingled with half-audible sobs.

Still panting, she asked me, “How much longer will this go on? I think 
that I'm losing my mind.”

“It may take half an hour, maybe more. Just don't move!” Although I had 
not arrived at the frenzy she was experiencing, it was difficult for me to 
articulate the words.

Our mutual internal spasms were increasing now— a throbbing that settled 
into a steady rhythmic beat After a few minutes, she threw up her arms, 
clenching her hands in her long hair, raising the black masses of it high 
above her head. Her body became absolutely rigid, and a prolonged animal 
wail issued from her rounded lips, echoing through the still house.

I drew her down to me in a fierce embrace, covering her mouth with my 
hand, stifling her screams so that they were heard now only as muffled 
moans. I drove deeper into her and at that moment felt the ecstasies of the
released flood leaving my body, and then oblivion, fleetingly conscious of 
her body pressed tightly to mine under the torrent of her dark hair.

When I woke, Guadalupe was lying on her back. She seemed to be sleeping 
still.

“Lupe,” I whispered.

She stirred and turned toward me without opening her eyes and mumbled 
something. “Do you want to sleep?”

Her hands, lying by her sides, fluttered slightly. Her eyes remained 
closed. “Sleep?” she mumbled. “I don't know. I want to rest. I've never 
felt so exhausted in my life. I don't even have the strength to leave the 
bed.” She turned away from me and sighed deeply.

I rose from the bed and put on a pair of swimming trunks. I looked down 
at her before leaving the room. She gave all appearance of being asleep. 
She had thrown one plump arm above her head in an attitude of abandon, the 
dark tones of her skin harmonizing with the background of her shining black
hair. I tiptoed to the door, closing it after me with a very slight 
clicking of the latch.

Only Etienne, Motoko and David were on the beach in the cove.

“Anybody ready for a swim?” I asked.

“We were just waiting for you,” Etienne replied.

“Guadalupe didn't feel up to it?” David inquired.

“No, she wanted to sleep. She says she's exhausted. Where are Estela and 
Maria Luisa?”

“They went downtown to do some shopping. Said they'd be back a little 
before supper. Abel hasn't stirred since lunch time. I think the heat gets 
him down a bit.”

Motoko was fastening the strap on her bathing cap. “Then we're all 
ready?” she asked.

We all ran full tilt down the sloping beach and our four bodies hit the 
water simultaneously. We swam for more than half an hour, but on coming 
back to the beach, I found that the exercise, which had invigorated me at 
the beginning, had tired me. The others talked of going back for another 
swim after they had rested a little, but I felt I had had enough for the 
day.

It was not just the sense of fatigue that prompted me to go back to the 
house. I wanted Guadalupe's company even if it consisted of no more than 
sitting beside her on the bed and holding her hand while she slept. In the 
year we had lived together, I had never felt closer to her than I did at 
this moment.

The physical need I had for her was as strong as ever, and we now enjoyed
a new and delicious companionship, a comradeship to which she fully 
responded. As I walked up the grassy slope toward the terrace, I felt such 
adoration for her that I wanted to be at her side to kiss her cheek softly 
and tell her, “Te adoro, sabes?”

On entering the bedroom, I found that she was not there. The bathroom 
door was partly open and I called, “Guadalupe!” There was no answer. 
Perhaps she had gone for a walk, although it did not seem a likely 
possibility, or maybe she was in the kitchen, fixing herself a lemonade.

I had just finished dressing after my shower, when I heard an anguished 
groan from the adjoining room. I was sitting on the bed, tying my shoes, 
and remained in arrested motion. I heard another groan, even louder than 
the preceding one. Abel! I thought. Maybe he's really ill.

I went out into the hall and stood by the door of his room. The entire 
house was wrapped in silence and no sound came from the room to disturb it.
I was just about to knock, when I heard Abel's voice gasping out, “Move 
down a little lower!”—and Guadalupe's voice asking, “You mean here, on your
stomach?” to which he replied, “Yes yes, that's it.”

I stood in the hall momentarily stunned, my hand still raised to knock. 
So Abel was having his way with her at last. However, from the scrap of 
conversation I had heard, it was obvious that he was not forcing her to do 
anything. I suddenly recalled that his bedroom had exterior windows, as 
ours did, and I raced down the corridor and out of the house. The window 
was perhaps a meter above ground level, but the Venetian blinds had been 
let down.

I stood for a moment, indecisive, and there came another groan, similar 
to the ones that had first attracted my attention. It was then that I 
noticed the aperture. One of the slats, close to the edge of the window, 
was broken, leaving a space sufficiently wide to allow visibility. However,
it was more than halfway up the window.

I looked back toward the terrace and saw a lawn chair off to one side on 
the grass. I fetched it quickly and climbed up on it, pressing my face 
against the glass. The sun was going down behind me, and its rays 
illuminated the interior of the room in a pattern of sunlit stripes.

Abel, entirely naked, was stretched out on the floor, and Guadalupe was 
standing on his mid-riff. She was dressed in a gray flowered skirt which 
fell to her ankles and had a ruffle around the hem. She had on a low-cut 
white blouse and a rebozo, worn in the form of an X, as peasant women 
sometimes wear it. Her hair, done in two thick braids, hung down her back 
and the ends of the braids were adorned with big bows of bright-colored 
silk.

Abel threw back his head and managed to gasp out, “Dig your heels in 
harder and raise your skirt just above the level of your boots. No, not 
that high! A little lower.”

Guadalupe raised her skirt as she had been told, and I saw that she wore 
gray and black suede boots which buttoned up the side and which had high 
spiked heels. She looked like one of the soldaderas you see in old photos 
of the Revolution. Only the crossed cartridge belts were missing.

“Press harder!” he cried. “Dig in with your heels! Step on me; trample 
me!”

“But I'm afraid I'll hurt you.”

“I want you to hurt me. I want to feel that you dominate me, that you 
abuse me. Now do as I tell you!”

She began to take mincing steps, bending her knees a little to compensate
for the lack of horizontal motion. I watched in horrid fascination as his 
tool came into erection, now straining, its slick vermilion head 
palpitating. He directed her to put her foot on his penis and press down 
hard, agitating the foot a little. She did as he had instructed her and, 
after a few seconds of moaning and gibbering, he discharged, the pearly 
fluid soiling her suede boots and trickling down over his loins. When she 
stepped down from his body, he seized her ankles and began kissing her 
boots, then licking them, finally biting the pointed toes.

I sprang from the chair and began running across the lawn and down toward
the beach. My only thought was to gain the solitude of the lonely sea, to 
escape this scene of horror that I had just witnessed, to run, to run until
I was exhausted—to escape, not to think.

I heard David call, “Werner!” as I sped down the rock steps toward the 
sand, but I paid him no heed. I jogged along as fast as I could run, my 
feet sinking into the sand as I ran, my shoes throwing up jets of sand in 
back of me. I was panting heavily. The sound of my forced respiration 
droned in my ears.

I entered the water several times in order to pass rocks that jutted out 
into the rising tide. I did not give a thought to the danger of being 
knocked off my feet by the force of the waves, perhaps being swept out to 
sea by the undertow or dashed against the rocks by the mountainous surf. It
seemed that I had been running for hours when I tripped over a log 
half-buried in the sand and fell prone. I knew nothing more until, much 
later, I felt the cold water of the steadily rising tide lapping at my 
feet.

I sat up and looked around me. Darkness had fallen. Far off in the 
distance, I could see the glow of the lights of Acapulco, but nothing was 
visible close at hand. A large breaker came rolling in toward the shore, 
and I scrambled to my feet and ran up the sloping beach. I sat down on a 
log a good distance from the surf and buried my face in my wet hands, 
stroking my cheeks and temples and my bursting head.

Slowly I began to come to my senses a little. The scene I had witnessed 
flashed before my eyes once again, but I rejected it by sheer force of 
will. I knew I had to if I were not to succumb entirely to the type of 
madness that had impelled me to run from the terrible scene I had 
witnessed.

This was not a thing she had been seduced into doing, as if an attractive
man had put his arm about her waist and whispered sweet words in her ear. I
found it despicable that she would go through with this disgusting farce, 
that she would dress up in the costume with which he had undoubtedly 
provided her and be a party to a degrading act from which she could not 
have derived the slightest pleasure.

Of all the scrapes she had been involved in since she had come to live 
with me, this was one that could not be explained on the basis of pleasure,
or of caprice, or even of her own masochistic necessity to provoke 
punishment.

I could not imagine what sophistries Abel must have employed to convince 
her and to secure her participation in the act. If she had loved him and 
had had a tolerant understanding of his abnormality, it would have been 
explainable. But such was not the case. If I ever had any doubts about it, 
I knew to a certainty now that Guadalupe was a girl who could be talked 
into anything—literally anything. The scene I had witnessed was proof of 
that.

In mulling the matter over in my fevered brain, I never once considered 
placing any of the blame on Abel. Poor fellow! He had trouble enough 
carrying the burden of his peculiar fetishism. He could not be regarded in 
any light other than that of a very sick man. But then, was Guadalupe not 
as sick as he? Maybe even more so. After all, Abel had only to secure 
satisfaction in the manner I had seen enacted before my eyes, and the 
problems connected with his sex life were more or less solved.

Guadalupe, on the other hand, was vulnerable on so many fronts that it 
was impossible to count them. Even the experiences I had been through with 
her surely did not cover more than a tiny fraction of the possibilities. 
New ones would keep cropping up from here to eternity. It was impossible to
protect her against herself.

I fumbled in my shirt pocket for cigarettes. No, I had not lost them, but
they were a little damp. The matches were soaked. However, after striking a
number of them, one finally caught fire. I leaned back, clasping my knee 
between my hands and looked up at the blanket of stars against their dark 
background of marine blue. The moon would soon be coming up, and I would 
wait for it. Now that the initial madness had passed, I was appalled at my 
folly in having run up the beach as I had and realized the necessity of 
some light if I were to find my way back to the house.

What could I do with this girl? I thought in desperation, and an echoing 
voice in my ear answered, “Leave her.” I had long realized, in this case as
in others, that we love people for something. On the lowest level, this 
something may be only because they flatter our egos. On the highest level, 
it may be because they supply something vital in our lives, because we feel
that we supply something vital in theirs.

I've never held to the criterion that one loves porque si, or just 
because he does. I've never been able to imagine myself in a situation in 
which I became a slave to a love relationship with a person who was 
completely unlovely. If I found that I had married a person who was the 
epitome of pettiness, spitefulness or, let's say, who manifested deliberate
ill will toward humanity in general and toward me in particular (none of 
which were constituents of Guadalupe's character), the marriage would be 
terminated very promptly.

I could never say to myself, “I love her, no matter what she is.”

While the situation in respect to Guadalupe was less well defined than 
the hypothetical one that occurred to me, I had given up any hope than the 
condition was curable, as I had been so sure it was during the first few 
months of our relationship. I cast about in my mind to see if I had failed 
at any point. Not just to ascertain if my love for her had been constant 
and true, fulfilling her, but to satisfy myself that I had made no tactical
error in dealing with what she was.

I felt a sharp wrench of almost physical pain, when I thought of how I 
had gone to her that afternoon, seeking some way, however elemental, to 
express the effusive feeling (call it love, if you like), that was welling 
up within me as I walked up the lawn toward the terrace. It seemed that 
every time my tenderness for her and my need of her was at its highest 
point, she did something that brought it crashing down to earth.

And yet, as I threw my cigarette into the sea and stood up to go, I 
really couldn't say in all honesty that Guadalupe was an evil person or a 
vicious one. She was undoubtedly an extremely weak one, a person driven by 
compulsions I was only beginning to understand a little after a year of 
living with her.

Well, I'd had enough of this type of education. After all, I wasn't a 
sociologist investigating a case. What would be gained by a complete 
understanding of her motivations, as long as she continued to be influenced
by them? I had my life to live and I would live it. Moreover, I would live 
it much better without Guadalupe.

The luminous dial of my watch showed that it was almost ten o'clock I 
realized that if I had received a severe wetting from the rising tide at 
sundown, going back by the beach would be utterly impossible now. The moon 
had risen enough so that I could discern the fields of chaparral that lay 
in back of the beach, leading up to the cliff that bordered the highway.

After a little reconnaissance and several false starts, I finally found a
goat-path whose zigzag course led me to the top of the cliff. Scrambling, 
slipping and grabbing bushes for support, I reached the highway at last and
began the long walk back to the road that turned off toward David's house. 
I tried lighting another cigarette, but used up all the soggy matches 
without being able to light it.

With grim humor, I thought that it is sometimes more painful to be 
deprived of tobacco than to be deprived of a lover. I smiled to myself in 
the darkness and said aloud, “Good for you, fellow—you've already started 
your comeback.”

There were few cars on the road at this time of night, and I found that I
could walk in the middle of it most of the way. I felt more calm now than I
had at any time since lunch and began to calculate how I would manage the 
keeping up of appearances until tomorrow morning when we would be leaving.

Naturally, I intended to say nothing to Abel, and I was hoping that 
Guadalupe would be asleep by the time I got to the house. If she wasn't, I 
hoped that I could exercise enough control so as not to reveal that I knew 
anything untoward had taken place.

It was after eleven when I arrived at David's house and, coming in from 
behind the bamboo and banana trees, I saw that it was in complete darkness.
Perhaps they had all gone to bed in order to make an early start in the 
morning. The front door was not locked, and I entered softly, closing it 
behind me without making the slightest sound.

I made my way noiselessly down the carpeted hall, my arms extended, 
touching the wall on both sides. I counted the doors on the left-hand side 
and stopped in front of the second one. The knob turned easily under slight
pressure, and the door closed softly behind me. I felt my way toward the 
closet on the far wall, and began to undress in the dark.

I went to the bathroom in pajamas, closing the door behind me before 
turning on the light. On opening the bathroom door, the wide swath of light
illuminated the empty bed. When I turned on the lights in the room, the 
first thing I saw was a large sheet of note paper propped up against the 
lamp on the night table. Written in Guadalupe's semi-literate scrawl was a 
single line.

I couldn't resist even one urge.

CHAPTER EIGHT

life quickly dropped back into the old round, resuming the pattern it had
before I knew Guadalupe. It was filled with the satisfaction of the 
familiar and the known, but it was not exactly the same as before, since I 
was not the same. Experience either confirms us in our own particular bent 
or makes us wary of seeking new experiments.

Within two weeks of my return from Acapulco, I packed all of Guadalupe's 
clothes and other belongings, and gave them to the parish priest down the 
street. I didn't want to have anything around the house that would remind 
me of her—that was a closed chapter in my life. I didn't want to be the 
possessor of a lot of useless women's apparel, any more than I wanted to be
the possessor of a stack of old magazines. I would never read them again, 
and the most sensible thing to do was to throw them on the trash heap.

I began to work a little harder at the office than I had done at any time
during the last few years. It provided me with a fatigue which seemed 
salutary. I returned late one night, having had supper in San Angel and, 
after a couple of relaxing drinks, retired for the night.

I noticed that the curtains were blowing into the room, twisting 
themselves and writhing as though they had a life of their own. I fell 
asleep watching their motion. It seemed that almost immediately I was in 
the country, walking across a broad flat plain among fields of sugar cane, 
suddenly coming to a river whose muddy waters were as dark as chocolate. 
Although the river was wide, the sand bars and rocks that were visible 
above the surface of the water led me to believe that it was not very deep.

I was about to descend the steep bank, when I became conscious of someone
calling me from the edge of the canefield. I hesitated a moment, while the 
thought flashed through my mind, He who hesitates is lost. Guadalupe was 
coming out of the field from between the tall stalks of cane. She was 
wearing a black wool skirt with wide pleats which fell to her calves and a 
white peasant blouse cut so low that the upper part of her firm brown 
breasts was exposed.

The blouse had a yoke of embroidered flowers about the neck—flowers of 
purple, white and yellow. Her feet and legs were bare, and I could see the 
muscles of her brown calves flexing with every step she took. Her luxuriant
black hair was unbound and fell below her hips. Her broad smile expressed 
the innocence of childhood, but was not entirely without guile. It was the 
glib smile of a child who is going to ask a favor.

I waited in silence until she came to my side and indicated that she 
wanted me to help her across the river. I took her small brown hand in mine
and we entered the water together. The river was no deeper than I had 
supposed it to be, but the current was very strong.

I took Guadalupe in my arms and forged ahead, planting my feet firmly on 
the sandy bottom and taking wide cautious steps. Her black skirt seemed to 
grow more and more voluminous with each step I took. The current had been 
enough of a problem up to then, but with the skirt billowing out like a 
sail filled with water, I found that I had to fight desperately to keep 
from losing my footing. The sandy bottom of the river suddenly changed to 
thick gooey mud, which necessitated my taking shorter steps and having to 
extricate my foot from the slime with each one.

Guadalupe found my difficulties very amusing. She clasped my neck even 
tighter with her plump brown arms and threw her head back, peals of 
laughter issuing from her throat. Occasionally she would stop laughing for 
a moment and regard me archly, putting her face down to mine, her eyes 
merry and mocking. She shifted her weight a bit and put one of her legs 
between mine, trying to throw me off balance. I was staggering, the sweat 
pouring from my face, the veins standing out in my neck.

Just as I felt myself about to fall and slide beneath the brown waters, 
she loosened her hold on my neck and slipped from my arms. She floated away
from me, her enormous black skirt billowing up above the water, her long 
black hair floating out behind her. She laughed once again, and I thought I
detected a note of sadness in her laughter.

The bottom of the river had turned to sand once again and Guadalupe, now 
some distance away, floating downstream with the current, gave me her 
brilliant sad smile and blew me a kiss. I stood in the stream, watching her
until her body disappeared from sight.

I must have called to her at the end of the dream for, when I sat bolt 
upright in bed, sweating and trembling, the echo of a call seemed to 
reverberate in the bedroom. I was now wide awake, but the dream was still 
so vivid that I could not believe it had been only a dream, but a vital 
pulsating experience whose aftermath projected itself into my conscious 
thought.

I put on huaraches and a bathrobe and went into the living room. I filled
a pipe from the humidor on the mantelpiece, and drew aside the heavy white 
curtains over the big window. It was a little after three in the morning, 
and the city was quiet. Only the occasional passage of a car breaking the 
stillness of the night.

The avenue was brightly illuminated by the double row of mercury vapor 
lamps, whose greenish glow made them appear as stationary fireflies drawn 
up for parade. The mist was fairly dense after the heavy rain of the 
afternoon, making the lights on the Castle waver and blink as I stood 
looking out across the tops of the trees to the promontory on which it was 
built.

I remained at the window a few minutes, looking out vaguely into the 
night. The solitude had a soothing effect on me, calming the agitation 
caused by the dream. I drew up the Morris chair and the hassock in front of
the window and sat there, smoking.

I could not get Guadalupe's face out of my mind. The sad sweet expression
it had held as she floated away from me—a sadness of childhood, more 
profound than that of adults. The picture was more vivid in my mind than 
the remembrance I had of her face as I stood looking down on her as she lay
naked on the bed in David's house in Acapulco.

My memories of Guadalupe were not tinged with bitterness or with 
indignation, as when I had sat on the log in the dark beside the sea. I 
even recognized that there had been a certain nobility in the last gesture 
she had made—voluntarily going out of my life as she had.

It was almost as though she were protecting me from her indefinable 
madness in a sure and final way, a way much more efficacious than my 
efforts had been to protect her from the obscure motivations that drove her
to self-destruction. And yet, I also recognized that it would have been 
futile to continue our relationship.

Maybe it had turned out for the best. Perhaps I never would have had the 
strength to rid myself of her. Possibly she realized this even better than 
I, in one of the rare flashes of lucidity that came to her, and had taken 
this resolution with firmness and integrity of purpose.

Sitting in this familiar room, in the very spot where we had spent many 
happy hours together, I almost felt an urge to search for her, to look for 
people who might have known her and to find her at last. I would tell her 
that by her last action she had redeemed herself forever in my eyes, and 
that this could be the beginning of a new life for her and for me.

I wanted to convince her that one who was capable of the type of nobility
she had shown on leaving me was capable of conquering all the strange dark 
impulses that held her in perpetual slavery to the whims of others. It was 
merely a matter of rooting them out, one by one, of bringing them out into 
the light of day where she could see them for what they were, so that she 
could see them fade away and dissolve into nothing, vanishing with the rays
of bright sunlight that filtered in through the enormous window.

It was only when I realized that I had not left this stone unturned, that
I had made this same effort many times during the year we had lived 
together, that I grew conscious of the fact that I was pursuing phantoms as
impossible and unreal as any that tortured her.

Remembering these conversations, I recalled her reaction at the time—her 
face serious at first, then her bright smile flashing out and her head 
nodding agreement with all I had said. And, when I paused a moment and took
her hands in mine, she would look up at me and say something totally 
irrelevant, such as, “Do you know what the maid downstairs told me this 
morning?”

I rose from the chair and knocked out my pipe on the side of the 
fireplace. No, it had been hopeless from the start. It couldn't have turned
out any differently than it had. Guadalupe would never change and, however 
confused she may have been in other matters, she had recognized that truth 
about herself.

During the following two years, I forgot all about Guadalupe. I doubt 
that she came to my mind more than a half dozen times, and then only when I
happened to see a girl in the street who resembled her, for Guadalupe is a 
mestizo type rather frequently encountered here. I gave up all thought of 
any more alliances of this sort, and dedicated myself to satisfying 
unsatisfied married women.

It was so easy and simple that I was surprised that I'd never thought of 
this angle before. Not that I hadn't had affairs with married women, but it
had never occurred to me to make a specialty of it. I don't mean that I was
a gigolo during this period. I was earning more than enough for my simple 
needs, and I didn't aspire to anything more than sexual fulfillment.

There are so many of these women, waiting only for a sign or a word and, 
of course, the opportunity, that it gives you quite a large field to choose
from. I chose only the attractive and the wealthy ones, and those close to 
my own age. My reason for choosing the attractive ones needs no comment.

Their wealth constituted a form of insurance for me, since it guaranteed 
that there would be no possibility of their leaving their husbands for the 
paltry financial considerations I could offer. I knew they didn't want to 
give up the power that went with the money, either.

In the brief encounters which came my way during that period, my bed was 
shared by a cabinet minister's wife and the spouse of the president of one 
of the rising new banks, among others.

Women like that love to cheat on their husbands. The slight danger they 
run in having such a liaison is more than compensated by the illusion that 
they're living life up to the hilt. The vicissitudes of romantic dalliance 
call up their finest histrionic talents. I even had one who arrived at my 
apartment disguised as a scrubwoman.

After the lovemaking, they would often lie naked on the bed and speculate
what our lives would be like, “If we could only go away together and live 
just for each other...” On several occasions, I was malicious enough to 
reply, “Well, I don't see why not,” and begin to enumerate plans for 
liquidating my business in Mexico as a first step to beginning a new life 
with the loved one in some other part of the world.

Later I began to tire of the game and, looking back on it now, I wonder 
that I had the stomach for it as long as I did. I gave up seeing people 
entirely, sought no new adulteries, my life being limited to my home, my 
office and frequent long walks in various parts of the city.

One terribly rainy night in July, I was sitting on the sofa reading when 
I heard a knock at the door. It was a sound so unaccustomed in the last few
weeks that it startled me. When I opened the door, I saw one of those tall 
crew-cut Americans of about my own age.

“Hi,” he said, in that typically informal manner that they all seem to 
exude. “Are you Werner H—?”

“That's right. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I have a letter of introduction from your brother in Los Angeles.”

“Come in,” I invited, taking the letter from his hand. “Will you have a 
drink?”

I had almost forgotten that I had a brother in Los Angeles. He is several
years younger than I, and I heard through some indirect source several 
years ago that he was working his way up quite successfully in the 
production end of motion pictures. The letter from my brother did no more 
than recommend the bearer, George F—, and request that I be of assistance 
to him if I could.

“How's Richard doing these days?” I inquired as I handed him his Scotch 
and soda. “You know we never correspond, and I haven't much idea of what's 
happened to him.”

“Richard's fine. He's become an assistant producer.

In fact, he's associated with me in the picture I came down here to see 
about.”

“Oh? Is he putting any of his own money into it?”

“No, Richard hasn't done that well yet. If he had, he'd be a producer in 
his own right. But I imagine he'll make it before too long, especially if 
this film does as well as we hope it will.”

“What kind of a film are you going to do?”

“It's one about life in the slums here in Mexico City.”

He offered me a cigarette, which I declined. I went to the mantel to fill
a pipe. “Well, that may be a novelty in the United States, but it's been 
done rather often in Mexican movies. Do you plan to film it here?”

He took another sip from his drink. “We're not sure yet. It depends on 
what sort of cost estimates I take back with me from this trip. I 
understand the unions are a bit of a problem too.”

“Well, you have to clear everything with the A.N.D.A. before you can go 
to work, but that may not be too difficult. American companies are filming 
here all the time.”

“What I came to see you about is this,” he began. “Even if most of the 
picture is shot in the States, we plan to film several scenes in a cabaret 
here. We want something absolutely authentic in regard to people, decor and
some other details. Richard said you would probably be able to help me out 
on this.”

“Perhaps I can. You know, cabaret life isn't what it was ten years ago. 
We have a moral city now. The old free-wheeling days, when cabarets were 
open all night, have gone forever it seems. It's been years since I was in 
one of those places. But suppose we do this. Set a date for some night 
soon—perhaps Saturday night would be best, since there'll be more 
people—and just hunt around until we find what you're looking for.”

“What's today?”

“It's Thursday.”

“Will you be free the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, we can make it then, if you like.”

“It's very good of you to take so much trouble,” he said, as he stood up 
to go.

“Not at all. It'll be entertaining for me as well. I'm curious to see if 
it's the same as I remember it years ago.”

III

“What kind of a place do you want?” I asked him on Saturday night after 
picking him up at his hotel.

George grinned. “Just about the lowest dive you can find. By the way, 
this is not especially dangerous, is it?”

“It might be a little more so if you hadn't dressed the way I told you.” 
He was wearing a dark nondescript sweater, baggy pants and a canvas rain 
hat. “I can't guarantee safety—there are brawls constantly in these places.
Best thing is not to talk in a loud or exaggerated manner, mind your own 
business and keep your eyes on your drink most of the time.”

I turned the car off Avenida Juarez onto Rosales and headed for Colonia 
Guerrero. It's a section close to the downtown part of the city, which used
to be full of pimps, whores, pickpockets, dope runners and all sorts of 
petty thieves. I assumed it hadn't changed much.

As I drove slowly along Calle Guerrero, I was looking for the Lotus Club.
I couldn't remember exactly where it was, and it was possible that it had 
closed down long ago. I had just about given up hope of locating it when 
George pointed straight ahead and said, “What's that?”

There it was, its marquee decorated with a number of red lights, 
practically the only illumination in this dark furtive street. Two 
policemen and a few loiterers stood just outside the door under the 
marquee. George pointed to them. “Do the police have to be here all the 
time to keep order?”

“No, it's not so much that,” I replied as I eased the car into a parking 
place half a block from the club. “They collect five pesos for every girl 
you take out of the club to a hotel.”

The long hall at the entrance to the club was crowded, mostly with young 
men in work clothes, although a few girls mingled with the group, talking 
to some of the men. These were fellows so limited in regard to what they 
could spend that they would have to get most of their enjoyment from 
watching the others dance and drink.

George and I brushed quickly through this group and found that the club 
was not nearly as full as the hall had been. We got a table on the far 
side, almost in a corner, and surveyed the scene, ordering beer from the 
waiter who appeared immediately.

Except for the space taken up by the bar and the platform for the 
orchestra, the walls were lined with booths, all of which were occupied. 
Although it was still fairly early—a little after ten o'clock—the air was 
foul with the fumes of alcohol and the stench of urine.

The blue tobacco smoke was so dense that I saw the men working behind the
bar across the room as though I were looking through dark glasses. The 
orchestra played on steadily, with breaks of only a minute or two between 
numbers. It was unbelievably bad, giving out in jerky rhythms in which 
there was at least one instrument always out of time with the rest, the 
trumpet usually taking the solo, and frequently emitting sour notes on the 
runs.

The interior decoration of the club was a clumsy attempt to make it 
resemble a Japanese tea garden. There were numerous flowered paper lanterns
hung from the ceiling, badly scorched by the light bulbs burning inside 
them. The orchestra was partially concealed behind frayed artificial rushes
placed at the side of a small ornamental bridge built in the form of an 
arch.

The bridge was nothing more than a few two-by-fours nailed together and 
covered with cardboard painted to resemble masonry. The cardboard was badly
scuffed and stained in some places, the wooden structure being visible 
under the rents in the fake masonry. A huge dragon, done in screaming 
colors, was painted on the wall in back of the orchestra. It was unique in 
that it had dog's feet instead of those of a reptile, and it breathed 
pictorial fire from between two rows of regular teeth that looked like an 
advertisement for human dentures.

George was fascinated by a man at the booth beyond us, a man with a large
Stetson and bushy moustache, who was arguing loudly with his companions. 
From time to time he would lean out of the booth and spit a large gob on 
the floor. Quite a small pool had formed when one of the floozies who was 
standing close by with a group of girls, snarled at him, “Oye cabron, 
cui-dado donde escupes! Este club no es tu pinche escupi-dero.” The man 
told her to mind her own business and to move on if she didn't like it. He 
was going to spit when he felt like it, and wherever he pleased.

“Do you think you can film all of this, George?”

“Some of it—not all,” he replied. “I'm sure we couldn't film what is 
going on over there in the corner.”

I turned my head slightly and saw two men holding their drinks and peeing
into a tin trough half filled with squeezed out lemons.

“Are all these girls hustling?” he asked.

“All of them. And they can be had very cheaply, too.”

As if by command, two of them appeared at the side of our booth and asked
if they might join us. One was a short fat woman in a flowered print dress 
that seemed to be all bulges. Her dyed brassy yellow hair was in ludicrous 
contrast to her swarthy skin and black eyes. Her companion, who was thin 
almost to the point of emaciation, was a little whiter and had several gold
teeth. She wore a brilliant orange dress of some sleazy, shiny material. I 
did not answer them other than to shake my head in negation.

“Jesus!” said George. “Are they all this ugly?”

“No, there are a few passable ones. Look. The girl dancing with that 
short fat fellow, almost in the middle of the floor, and the one with the 
three men in that booth close to the door. The better looking ones are 
already taken. These two who just came up are the dogs, looking for any 
sort of bone.”

“But how much can they make here in a night?”

“I don't know—it varies. They get a percentage of all the drinks they 
consume, fifty cents or a peso every time some guy asks them to dance and, 
if they can get one to take them to a hotel, I imagine they come away 
twenty or thirty pesos to the good.”

The waiter passed by at this moment, and I ordered another couple of 
beers. “I really don't know much about this operation any more. This is a 
place that used to run all night, but now they have to close at one 
o'clock. They have about five hours to make the money, instead of the eight
or ten they had a few years ago. It must be pretty tough...”

I felt a hand on my arm and heard a voice by my side saying, “Hello, 
Werner, what are you doing down here?”

I turned to face Guadalupe. I had recognized her voice, but that was all 
that was recognizable of the Guadalupe I had known. She was wearing a 
yellow voile dress, held together by safety pins in several places and 
filthy around the neck and under the armpits. Her slip showed irregularly a
good two inches below her dress. She wore no stockings, and her feet were 
shod in garish cheap red shoes, scuffed at the toes.

Her breasts—those marvelous breasts like ripe melons that I had kissed 
and fondled so often—sagged beneath the stained material of her dress. The 
tiny mound of her abdomen, where I had delighted in imprinting kisses, was 
now an indecent, bulging tambor.

But her hair! My God, she had cut her hair! Instead of the thick glossy 
mane that fell below her hips, her frizzy cheap permanent stood out all 
around her head like sheep's wool. Even the brilliant smile I 
remembered—those white flashing even teeth—was altered, for now she had 
three teeth missing in front. The purple lipstick she was wearing was 
smeared carelessly on dry cracked lips that had lost their fresh wholesome 
appeal and had taken on a lascivious twist.

I felt like breaking into flight, as I had done that afternoon in 
Acapulco more than two years ago—to escape from this horror, to run until I
was exhausted, as I had done that night. I felt my stomach turn over and my
gorge rise, and I desperately fought down the urge to vomit. In the moment 
it took me to get control of myself, she stood there smiling down on me 
with that ruined smile, as though inviting me to comparisons, flaunting her
present condition with a sort of defiant pride.

Could it be that, as a harlot, she had found a pride in herself which had
been totally lacking when she lived in different circumstances? Was she 
happy now that she had reached the bottom rung of the ladder? Did she feel 
that she was, in this way, atoning for all the real and imaginary sins of 
her childhood and adolescence? Was she content, now that there was no 
precept that she had to attempt to live up to?

No, I couldn't believe it, although I sensed that in her peculiar twisted
way she felt that the shadowy myth of her unworthiness, which had hovered 
in the background of her life since childhood, had finally conquered her, 
as she must have always known it would. Guadalupe had arrived at the level 
to which her complexes had predestined her.

I could almost imagine her saying with relief, the movements of her 
tongue visible behind the missing teeth, “Well, I'm home. The struggle is 
over.”

“Sit down, Lupe.”

I rose and she entered the booth. She sat down, resting her back against 
the wall. She pounded on the plywood table with an empty beer bottle. 
“Epifanio!” she yelled. “Bring me a cognac.” She took the cigarette I had 
just lit from between my fingers and put it in the corner of her mouth, 
tilting her head back and squinting to keep the smoke out of her eyes.

For the first time since Guadalupe had appeared, I turned to George, who 
was unsuccessfully trying to mask his amazement.

“George,” I said quietly, “this is a girl I used to know.” I paused a 
moment and looked up at the smoke hanging under the dirty ceiling covered 
with fly specks, added, “A long time ago. I want to talk with her for a few
minutes. Please excuse me if I leave you out of it entirely. Will you do 
that?”

I was pleading with him now, and it's possible that my eyes were more 
supplicating than my voice. “If... if you like, we'll go somewhere else 
tomorrow night. Do you understand?”

He swallowed a little saliva quickly. “You mean you want me to leave?”

“No, not that, George. Just sit quietly where you are for a few minutes 
and then we'll be going. This won't take long.”

He nodded and leaned across the table to give my forearm a hearty 
squeeze. He smiled warmly, comprehensively. “It's all right, Werner. Just 
forget about me for a while.”

I turned to Guadalupe, who had been watching George with a gamy eye as 
she chewed her gum. The few times I had thought about her since I had last 
seen her, I always felt that there was so much that I wanted to say to her.
Now that she was seated beside me, I realized that there was nothing to be 
said.

All the sentiments she had inspired in me had disappeared, and a new 
one—pity, had taken their place. And pity is a sentiment that can never be 
a topic of conversation with the person for whom you feel it.

“Feel like dancing, Werner?” she asked casually, stubbing out her 
cigarette in the ashtray.

“Not tonight. I haven't danced for a long time, and I really don't feel 
much like it now.”

“Well, how about getting a girl for your friend here, and the four of us 
going to a hotel. There's one right around the corner that don't charge 
much.”

I bent my head over the table. I felt the tears starting from my eyes, 
and I knew that if I didn't master myself soon, my shoulders would be 
shaking with sobs. I blinked the tears away, but still did not look up. I 
took Guadalupe's hand in mine. It was covered with cheap rings and was none
too clean.

“Listen to me, Lupe...”

She moved over, closer to me and then leaned over the edge of the bench 
to spit on the floor. “Yeah?” she said, straightening up.

I don't know what I thought I was going to say to her. Was it so hard for
me to realize that there was nothing to be said? I made a sign to George, 
and we both stood up. I took out my wallet.

“If you don't mind, Lupe, I'd like you to pay the bill for us. There's 
enough for the waiter's tip and there's something for you. Good-bye, Lupe, 
and good luck.” I took George by the elbow and we quickly skirted the edge 
of the dance floor. I looked back before we entered the corridor. Guadalupe
was standing by the booth, her eyes wide, holding in her hand the two bills
I had given her—the brown thousand-peso note and the grayish-green twenty. 
I turned, and we walked through the long corridor to the street.

We got into the car in silence. I put the key in the ignition and turned 
it sharply to the right. The battery groaned a couple of times and then 
gave up. “God damn it!” I swore. “It's not going to start. The battery's 
completely dead.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Well, I'll have to find a phone somewhere around here and call the 
Automobile Club. They'll put a hotshot on the cables and get us going in no
time. Wait here in the car, will you. I won't be gone more than five 
minutes.”

We had to sit in the car a long time before the service car finally 
arrived. George, sensing that I didn't feel like talking, was considerate 
enough not to initiate a conversation. Suddenly he tugged at my sleeve. 
“Look, Werner, isn't that the girl who came to our table?”

I looked toward the club. Guadalupe was standing on the top step, peering
up and down the street, her arms crossed over her breast to ward off the 
chill of the night. Finally, she sighted someone in the shadows across the 
street, and beckoned to him.

A small thin man, with fuzzy sideburns running down to his jaw from 
beneath his Stetson hat, came slowly across the street. He wore a fringed 
buckskin jacket and black cowboy boots with a red arrow down the side. 
Guadalupe descended the steps and took his arm. She kissed him on the cheek
and, as they walked past the car in which we were sitting, I saw her give 
him the brown thousand-peso bill.


THE END
