There were days when I wished Pablo didn’t love me. Maybe if he wasn’t so obsessed, he would have let me go. He wouldn’t have cared too much about what would happen to me if I left, and I could have at least tried to escape.

There were other days when I craved his affection, and the feeling of his arms wrapped tight around my chest. Because if Pablo loved me, he’d do his best to keep me safe. Safe from Hernan, from Oscar, from Gustavo, and everyone else who wanted to see me either hurt or dead.

Pablo and I were like two metronomes ticking half a beat apart. When I fled, he followed, and when I followed, he fled. Tonight, I craved his warmth, and all I got was a cold bed.

I’d done my best to ignore the crust of blood that covered the lower part of Pablo’s face. I’d slipped under the silk sheets and curled up against his bare chest. I just wanted to feel like he still cared, and be reassured that I wouldn’t be disposed of just yet.

After only a few minutes, and without a single word, he rolled away from me, and settled down on the opposite side of the bed. Perhaps he’s just being shy, I tried to reason. But perhaps he was bored. Maybe he liked the chase more than the catch, and maybe I wasn’t that much of a catch after all.

We laid in bed, still in the dark and silence of the night. Every now and then, a drop of blue moonlight reflected in the corner of his open eyes, and I knew he was awake and staring at me. For lack of a better word, I felt confused. One minute Pablo loved me more than anything in the world, and poured his heart out to me. The next, he’d close up, and it was as if he was gone.

If I was back in Goose Creek, I’d sit with Ana on a grassy curb, and pick the petals off of daisies as I repeated ′he loves me, he loves me not’, just like we did when one of us used to get upset over a school crush. Not that beheading flowers changed anything about the feelings of a boy, but Ana thought it was cheesy, and it made her laugh. And Ana’s turkey-gobble giggle was the best cure for any kind of unrequited love.

Pablo didn’t sleep, and neither did I. He stared at me all through the night, and by the time the Sun rose again, I’d ripped apart a thousand daisies in my mind.

•••

There was a silver lining to Pablo punching Hernan in the face. The Sandovals had taken their distances –only temporarily, according to Pablo– and their absence felt like a breath of fresh air.

It was a peaceful morning. The air was crisp, the garden glittered under a thin coat of morning dew, and the birds twittered high up in the trees, shaking down their blooming flowers every time they flew away. Thick wafts of steam rose from our hot cups of coffee, and from the fresh pastries that had been carefully piled up on gold-rimmed plates.

It would have been perfect, if not for Pablo, who sat slumped in a chair, his hands still tied behind his back. He was wearing the blood-stained jeans he’d slept in, and I’d thrown one of his shirts around his shoulders to keep him warm enough until Oscar showed up with the key for the handcuffs.

And all he did was groan, on and on, about how much he needed to go to the toilet, and how much pain he was in, and that his brother was a son of a bitch, and I was a cruel woman for letting him suffer for long, and mumble about how he was about to piss himself at the breakfast table just to spite us all.

“My shoulders hurt,” Pablo whined. ” And my wrists hurt, my back hurts, my nose hurts, and even my balls–”

“Oh, you think I don’t know the feeling?” I hissed. “Have you forgotten about that time you left me tied up in a basement for a whole night?”

“Well, you don’t have balls, so I doubt–”

Before Pablo could finish his answer, Gustavo walked up behind us, and greeted us both with a friendly slap on the back.

“Geez guys, thank God I know the context,” he chortled. “Otherwise, I’d think I walked in on a very kinky conversation.”

“Oh, uh– hey Gustavo,” stammered Pablo as his stubbly cheeks began to turn red. “How are you?”

“Since when do you blush at dirty jokes, Pablo?” Gustavo snickered. “You’re usually the one telling them.”

“I’m not blushing,” he mumbled. “I’m just hot.”

“Hot and bothered, it seems.”

Gustavo raised his eyebrows, and sat at the table. I might have been influenced by what Pablo had told me yesterday evening, but Gustavo didn’t seem that friendly anymore. His kind smile now seemed like a smug smirk, and the cheeky spark in his eye had turned into something evil.

“Does Oscar have the key for these damn handcuffs?” Pablo muttered. “I need to take a piss.”

“Yes,” answered Gustavo. “He was in the hall a minute ago. You should be able to catch him.”

With a sweeping glare and not a word, Pablo stood up from his chair. He stumbled as he shuffled away, almost knocking over Majo, the young maid, who walked out onto the patio, balancing our breakfasts on porcelain plates.

She settled them down on the breakfast table. The four plates held towers of thick, pillowy pancakes, dribbling with chocolate sauce and honey-covered fruit. My pancake tower was a little higher than the three others, my fruit a little brighter, and the cook had been more generous with the chocolate and the honey. But despite the divine sight and smells that came from my plate, I didn’t feel hungry.

“Provecho,” murmured Gustavo as he dug into his breakfast.

Enjoy your meal.

Majo walked back into the kitchen as fast as she’d walked out, leaving me alone with Gustavo, his nauseating mouth noises, and the blood-curdling sound of his silver fork scraping against his plate.

“So, you left Pablo handcuffed all night, with his bladder full and his face all bloody?” he asked me.

“I didn’t have the key,” I mumbled, as I stuck my hands between my knees.

“Well, you could have helped him,” he shrugged.

“What, holding his dick while he pees?” I scoffed. “Hell no.”

Gustavo smiled, and Oscar joined us. He greeted me with a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek, then walked over to the other side of the table where he stabbed his fork into his pancakes even before he sat down in his seat.

“Emilia!” he cheered. “The only woman who could leave Pablo handcuffed all night and live to tell the tale. You could have come and asked me for the key, you know.”

“Honestly, I didn’t really feel like making an effort for him. Not after how he treated me yesterday,” I shrugged.

The two men gave me awkward smiles, and I scowled at my intact plate. Any woman, no matter how smitten, could have been mad at Pablo’s behavior, but maybe I should have pretended I cared more about him. Keeping Pablo’s lie alive might have been what kept me safe.

No matter how much I told myself these two men probably didn’t want to kill me, and that was nothing but a lie that Pablo had made up to scare me, the pit in my stomach wouldn’t recede, and hunger never came.

“Are you okay Em?” asked Oscar after a couple minutes of silence. “You’re not eating. Do you want us to order you something else?”

“No, thanks, it’s okay,” I stuttered. “It looks delicious, but– uh, I’m just watching my calories.”

“It’s just pancakes,” Gustavo shrugged. “They won’t kill you.”

“Come on, Em,” Oscar smiled. “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

“Damn, Oscar, that’s deep,” whistled Gustavo. “Did you just come up with that?”

“Nope,” he grinned. “Some other guy named Oscar did.”

Majo walked back onto the patio with a hot carafe of coffee. As she poured it into Oscar and Gustavo’s cups, she glared at me. I wondered what I’d done to warrant such animosity from a maid, aside from witnessing her cringe-inducing conversation with Juan Sandoval over whether he should be eating rump steak in the morning.

“Y porque no está comiendo la gordita esa? Hace dos días se quería atascar de comida y ahora, nada,” she muttered.

Why isn’t the fatty eating? Two days ago she wanted to stuff herself with food and now, nothing.

“Y porque tu no te estás atascando de vergas, Majo?” Oscar spat back. “Hace dos días andabas chimando con el niño Sandoval y ahora–”

And why aren’t you stuffing yourself with dicks, Majo? Two days ago you were fucking around with the Sandoval kid and now–

Majo’s eyes opened wide, and she scuttled away like a cockroach in daylight.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Nothing that warrants your attention,” mumbled Gustavo as he chewed a slice of pancakes.

“How does she keep getting away with this bullshit? She’s not even pretty enough to be this rude,” Oscar hissed.

“She gives great blowjobs to the right people,” shrugged Gustavo. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“Who are the right people?” I frowned.

Speak of the Devil, and he’ll walk out onto the patio, pulling up the zipper of his jeans and buttoning up the lower half of his shirt. Pablo stretched obnoxiously as he sat down beside me, and, with the subtlety of an eight-grader on a movie date, wrapped his arm around my shoulder. He played with the strands of my hair, tangling them around his fingers and gently combing out the knots, occasionally pulling a little too hard, and making me wince.

He loves me, he loves me not. He hadn’t even looked at me as he walked over to us, and didn’t say a word to me once he’d settled down. The affection was most likely just a small show he put on for Oscar and Gustavo. I held back the urge to knock over the ornate vases and pretty flowers that decorated the table, and tear apart their stupid petals.

“So,” coughed Gustavo, breaking the crystal silence. “What did you guys do yesterday night?”

“We just had–” I began.

“Had sex,” Pablo interrupted, as he gently kicked my foot under the table. “Drunk sex. Lots of it.”

“With your hands tied?” Gustavo frowned.

“She was on top,” answered Pablo.

“After a fight?” asked Oscar. “Did she not try and choke you?”

“Guys, what the fuck?” I seethed. “I’m literally sitting right here.”

“Well you’re allowed to join in the conversation,” Pablo shrugged.

“Why are you telling them this?” I cried.

“Casual chit-chat?” he chirped.

“Do you usually share the whole tales of your sex life with your brother and head of security?” I scoffed.

“Yup,” answered the three in unison, each of their facial expressions telling a different story, none of which I wanted to hear.

After a few seconds of wordless discomfort, the conversation changed subjects. The guys spoke of the latest market trends for marijuana strains, routes and means of transportation to bypass border controls, new sightings of beheaded farmers in the North, alliances, enemies, submarine manufacturers and which brand of Champagne they should buy for their next parties.

I watched my pancake tower fall as it crumbled under the weight of the hot chocolate sauce. I played with the rose quartz stone around my neck, wishing Ana was with me, so that she could help me shred my way through fields of daisies.

I had one question on my mind, and it had nothing to do with sparkling wine, decapitations or growing weed. All I needed to know was whether Pablo really loved me.

•••

“That was weird,” I mumbled, as Pablo and I made our way up the spiral staircases.

“What was weird?”

“Why did you tell them we had sex?” I scowled.

“They’re supposed to think you love me, Gordita,” he sighed. “Have you forgotten everything I said yesterday? How drunk were you?”

“No, I remember. I’m surprised you do,” I muttered. “But it’s kind of obvious you’re lying. You’re like, making up this whole tale of a torrid night of drunk sex, and then you sit next to me at breakfast with your hand hovering over my shoulder like we’re band kids on a first date.”

“Hovering?” he grumbled. “My hand wasn’t hovering–”

“Whatever,” I huffed, stomping down the corridor that led to my bedroom. “You know what will make them think we’re in love? Maybe try to stop fucking that maid.”

“Which maid?”

“The one who served us breakfast.”

“Maria José? I haven’t touched her in weeks,” he shrugged, and his confused frown turned into a slight grin. “Why, are you jealous?”

“What? No!” I stuttered. “It’s just– she’s really mean towards me. Maybe she’s jealous.”

“Yeah, well a lot of women are jealous of you, you know.”

“If only they knew what went on behind closed doors,” I scoffed as I whacked my bedroom door open.

“If only,” he mumbled.

He sat on my bed and nonchalantly scrolled through something on his phone. God only knows what was on that screen. I didn’t want to know. Probably text messages from his whores. Racy pictures of whichever maid he’d replaced Majo with. I shook my head to get the thought of it out of my brain.

“Anyways,” I sighed, staring at the piles of clothes I’d organized and aligned along the bedroom wall. “What’s the plan for today.”

“Horse riding,” he mumbled as he laid down, his eyes still riveted on his phone. “Juan’s not here to bother us, so I can finally give you that lesson.”

“Alright.”

Without taking my dress off, I slipped into some clean panties and a pair of leggings I picked out from the piles on the floor. I pulled the dress over my head, and threw it in a ball in the opposite corner of the room. I stood in my bra, wondering which top I could wear, while Pablo laid on the bed, seemingly unbothered.

“Can I get a closet for my clothes, or something?” I asked, reaching around my back to unclasp my bra. “You know, since I’m going to be here permanently, it would be nice if–”

“What the fuck are you doing?” he gasped as he sat upright on the bed.

“Changing into horse riding clothes.“.

“What– while I’m in the room with you?” he stuttered.

“Pablo, why are you being such a damn prude?” I groaned. “You just told your fucking brother that I spent the whole night on top of you, and besides, you’ve already seen my tits. What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with you?” he retorted. “What is it that you want, for me to sit on the bed and stare at your boobs?”

“No!” I protested. “Don’t stare, just... just act normal, for God’s sake!”

“Fine, then, I’ll act like a normal person and walk out of this room so you can have some privacy,” he muttered as he stood up.

I tried to stammer out an answer, but the words wouldn’t come up as fast as Pablo walked out. Both our cheeks were bright red, and I don’t know what either of us was feeling. Was it shame, was it anger– it didn’t matter.

Pablo mumbled something about mixed signals, and how he’d wait for me at the stables. He slammed the door behind him, leaving me hardly half-naked, but more confused than ever.

•••

“Put your foot in the stirrup, and I’ll, uh, give you a push,” stuttered Pablo, one hand on the white mare’s shoulder, and the other hovering a few inches behind my back.

“Alright.”

“The other foot, Gordita,” he chuckled. “You’ll be sitting facing the wrong way if you get on like that.”

“Oh,” I muttered, and switched feet. I jumped up, and Pablo pushed the back of my thigh with his wrist rather than his hand, as if he was obeying a silent rule that forbade him from laying a single finger on me.

The back of his knuckles did brush past my legs when he adjusted my stirrups, and Pablo mumbled out an awkward apology. We barely made eye contact as he began to walk the horse in circles on a long lead.

“Alright, we’ll take things slow,” he said. “For now, we’re just going to walk, and then we can trot and canter once you’re more at ease. Riding horses is about communication, not strength – if it was, we’d be fucked, ’cause they actually weigh a ton. So for now, all you do is talk to her. With your voice, your body language, whatever you want. Show her you’re in control. Horses feel stress and fear, so you need to be confident. You need to look confident. Puff out your chest, and straighten your back.”

I frowned a little, and contorted around to try and follow Pablo’s instructions, trying not to slip out of the saddle in my hopeless attempt. Thank God that Juan wasn’t here, or he would have surely been rolling on the floor laughing at me.

“We’re getting there,” Pablo chuckled. “But think less ‘cobra snake’ and more ‘bad bitch’. Lift your chin up. Follow the movement with your hips. You’re doing great. Lower your heels a bit.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered. “I thought all I had to do was sit on the horse. This is complicated.”

“It’s an art, Gordita,” he smiled. “Don’t strain your ankle so much, and don’t put your feet so deep in the stirrups. Don’t point your toes out. Don’t point them in either. Knees straight forward.”

“Now I’m kind of confused.”

“Alright,” he nodded. “Pull on the reins a little so she stops. There. Good girl.”

He walked over to me, and patted the mare on the neck.

“Sorry, if you’ll just let me–” he whispered, as he moved my leg into the right place. I felt chills run down my spine as his fingers delicately traced lines down the top of my foot, the back of my calf and the top of my knee. “See, if you put your leg like this, it’s more comfortable, and you’ll have more balance. Do the same thing with the other leg and– there. Amazing.”

I rode around the arena, as Pablo watched from a few feet away, gently swishing the lead to keep the horse moving. From time to time, he’d give me a few words of encouragement. Good, you’re doing great, keep going, and I felt a warm ball of light filling up my chest.

“She’s a bit slow, but that’s not your fault, that’s just Damita. Squeeze your legs and let go of the reins– no wait, no, not completely,” he chuckled as he ran to me to pick up the reins I’d dropped around the horse’s neck.

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

“Sorry, that was a bit confusing. Here, like this,” he chortled as he wrapped his hand around mine to show me how to hold the reins. “You pinch them here, and then you open and close these fingers to change the pressure. Got it?”

“Nope.”

“Yes you did,” he smiled. He stepped away, and I immediately felt a longing for the warmth of his fingers against my skin. “Look at you go. Do you feel like trotting?”

“Is it more complicated than just walking?” I whined. “I feel like I’m already concentrating on so many things. And my hands hurt.”

“Is she pulling on the reins?”

“Uh, I guess, yeah.”

“Alright, this is a little advanced, but what she’s doing is resisting your contact. If you do a little push and pull with her, it’ll be harder for her to resist. Open your fingers on one hand, close them on the other, and then you switch. You give, take, give, take, until she yields.

“Like this?” I asked, squinting at my fingers as I tried to concentrate on what I was doing.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t expect a beginner to– never mind. She just yielded,” Pablo said, as his eyebrow rose in surprise and a proud smile drew across his face. “See that curve in her back? That’s exactly what you want. Juan took years to get to that point. I’m impressed. You’re very talented.”

There were few things in life than getting praise after years of craving it, and knowing I was the reason behind someone’s smile. I grinned like a brainless idiot at the dimples that dug into Pablo’s cheeks, and squirmed in the saddle at every compliment.

Our lesson ended a little early, because as the Sun rose higher in the sky, the weather became too hot and Pablo noticed the drops of sweat rolling down my forehead. When I tried to get off the horse, I forgot to take my foot out of the stirrup, and would have fallen head-first onto the ground if Pablo hadn’t caught me.

“Are you always this clumsy, or are you doing it on purpose?” he chortled. His arm wrapped around my waist long enough for me to break free from the saddle, and left a fire burning deep at the bottom of my stomach.

“Uh, no,” I panicked.

I watched him untack and brush my horse. I admired the definition of his strong arms and shoulders as they peeked under his shirt’s short sleeves. And yet, in his fingers, there was a care, kindness and humanity that made him seem lightyears away from the cold man with whom I’d shared a bed the previous night.

Occasionally, he’d throw me a smile above his shoulder. A genuine one, with dimples and wrinkles, half-hidden under his mustache. There was a new kind of tension in the air. Not the kind that makes you sweat and shiver and recoil in fear. It was the kind of tension that makes you cross your legs and roll your hips, and giggle like an idiot burning up with an ardor you’d only felt in the worst part of your teenage years.

I realized I wanted Pablo to like me. It made me feel good, and it made me happy. For lack of daisies in the stables, I directed my lusting wrath towards other kinds of flowers. I plucked an azalea off of a bush, and began to pick it apart – although, that might have been cheating, since every single flower on the bush had exactly five petals.

He loves me.

He loves me not.

He loves me.

He loves me not.

He loves me.

“What have my poor flowers ever done to hurt you?” chuckled Pablo.

“Sorry,” I whispered, and stared at the petals discarded at my feet.

“It’s okay,” he smiled, and winked at me. “There are hundreds of them. Pick as many as you want.”

Pablo loved me, and I didn’t need to decimate a hedge of azaleas to figure it out. He’d said it, he’d shown it, he’d proved it a hundred times. He’d protected me like the flame of a candle in a storm. No matter how much the winds howled and the rain roared around us, he’d held me tight in the palm of his hand, and he would have let me burn his skin and char his flesh down to the bone, if only it meant he could keep me alive for a little while more.

He wasn’t giving me mixed signals, I was. One second I smiled, the next I despised him. I was the mess, the one who ripped through his life like a tornado, thrashing like a trapped bird with a broken wing. He was only cold when he felt I needed space, and only held me back when he felt I was moving faster than my own pace. Sure, there were moments where he lost his mind, but only because I made him. In another universe, not so far from ours, where we’d met in other circumstances, I was the villain, and Pablo was my victim.

No matter how much I told myself this was all wrong, it felt good to feel loved, for once. It felt good to be the most prized possession of a man who had it all; to be on top of the man who ruled the world around him. I could have it all: money, power, a handsome man, envy and admiration, swimming pools, flamingo floats, and bottomless cocktails to forget the complications.

What’s the worst that could happen if I gave in, even just once? Pablo was attractive, despite the dumb-looking mustache, and I hadn’t had sex in a while. It couldn’t be much different than a one-night stand. It could make things less weird, chase away the god-awful awkwardness every time I found myself alone with him in a bedroom.

But it was wrong, so wrong. He was a criminal, a violent man, a frightening one, much older than me. He wore shoes in bed sometimes, he had a terrible taste in style and interior design, he’d thought of trafficking women, killed people I didn’t know, and also, just a small detail, but I was still his hostage. I couldn’t live with myself if I caved in to his manipulations. Yet still, I wanted to.

“This place is a fucking mess,” he mumbled.

He walked into the tack room, balancing the saddle over his head, and I followed, eyes set on the delicate curve of the muscles on his strong arms. As soon as he’d tidied away the saddle, he took a step back and tripped over a bag of feed half spilled on the floor.

He pulled me into his tumble, desperately grabbing my arm, hoping that I’d stop his fall. He landed in a haystack, and before he could curse, I fell on top of him.

The world really wants this to happen.

I don’t think I want this to happen.

Oscar’s words came running back to me, at either the best or worst moment.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

“Pablo,” I whispered, my breath so close to his neck that it blew away a few strands of hay.

“I’m so sorry,” he stuttered. “Are you okay?”

“Let’s just do it.”

He blinked, and his mouth hung open for a second or two.

“Excuse me?” he breathed.

“I think it’s best if we just do it,” I said, and immediately bit my tongue.

“Here? Now?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Rip it off like a bandaid.”

Pablo’s chest grew with a deep breath, closing the distance that separated our bodies.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Pablo, you know exactly what I’m talking about,” I sighed, and his hand slipped around the small of my back.

“I just want to hear you say it.”

His lips were just inches away, and I wondered if I’d regret the words I was about to say. It was either the worst or the best decision I’d ever made.

“Fuck me.”

Kerning

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

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