He took a step back, staring down at his claw-shaped hand, eyes wide in shock as if his fingers had acted on their own.

Jagged rocks dug into the back of my head as I slouched down against the cobblestone wall. I choked on tears, my swelling throat, and thick rivers of blood rushing back into my drained veins.

My fingers rubbed the sore spots where his had grabbed me. I coughed, wheezed, gargled in pain, glaring at him with blood-streaked eyes, and he stayed silent. He let himself fall onto the bed, shoulders slouched and empty-headed.

“You should leave,” he said, as he stared into the nothingness.

I sucked in a deep breath, filling my chest with enough air to speak again. His hands curled and seized up like charred chips of bark, strangling his knees instead of my neck.

“The house?”

“The room.”

It didn’t sound like a suggestion, but more like a threat. Like a warning that he was counting down the seconds before he’d let himself hurt me again.

“Right,” I croaked. “I could do with some fresh air.”

I tried to stand, and my feeble legs faltered, broken by panic, fear, and a lingering lack of oxygen. He didn’t help me up and just watched me struggle.

His voice was a deep rumble, a low, contained growl. “Give me a few minutes, Gordita.”

I held back a sigh as I crawled to the door, dragging my weak self across the cold tile floor. I’d give him a few hours, a few weeks, a few years if he wanted. Hell, I’d leave him alone for decades if he’d let me.

I opened the door, and hanging to its handle, brought myself to my feet. He didn’t move. Back straight, jaw clenched, eyes riveted to the wall before him, he sat still. The door shut behind me with a loud bang, sending an echo down the hallway that made the thick walls shudder, like skin under a chill.

A muffled sob crept out of my throat, aching as it pushed its way past swollen bruises, spilling from my lips like a desperate string of drool. I was lucky in my misery– I was sure there were worse things that Pablo could do, although I didn’t want to imagine what those things were. One more step out of line, and I’d find out.

The end was near, I could feel it, and I knew it wasn’t going to be a happy ending. Yet, for more reasons than one, that pill was hard to swallow.

I found a hammock to curl up in, hanging by the pool in the center of the patio. It was a pretty corner, although far from a comfortable place to sleep. The air was cold, far colder than at Pablo’s home, and the hammock’s coarse netting offered no shelter at all. Instead, its rough, bristly ropes dug into my flesh like thick restraints.

An icy breeze nipped at my skin like the dozens of mosquitos nagging my ears, whose constant, shrill buzzing ruined the song of a quiet choir made of nearby frogs and crickets.

The patio’s lights never turned off. They flickered beneath the shivering wings of thick swarms of moths and bigger beetles, and their searing lights pierced even through my tightly shut eyelids.

Worst of all was the looming threat of Pablo’s silhouette, seldom peeking through the curtain of his bedroom window.

I let a few minutes pass, and then a few other more. I waited for what felt like an hour or so, and even then, I was still afraid of the man awaiting me inside that dark, dreadful bedroom.

Long story short, I would have rather caught a hundred tropical fevers, let myself freeze into a solid ice block, and been slowly sliced to pieces by the stiff ropes of an old hammock all at once, than gone back to Pablo.

I almost mistook his voice for the soft bumbling of another bug.

“Em?”

I’d always thought men looked the most attractive when they wore tailored suits, but that was until my eye caught sight of Juan in an old, oversized shirt and grey sweatpants.

“What are you doing out here?” he said, pinching his lips around a cigarette.

My throat ached as I gulped. “Sleeping.”

He smirked, making his cigarette twitch at the corner of his mouth, and he started to rock my hammock back and forth.

“Did you argue with Pablo?”

“No, I just sleep better when I’m freezing my ass off and getting eaten alive by mosquitos,” I groaned.

Juan raised his eyebrows. “Oh.”

“Yes, I argued with Pablo,” I sighed.

“About what?” he asked, bringing his voice down to a whisper. “Not me, I hope.”

“If Pablo found out about us, I don’t think I’d be out here, happily swinging in a hammock,” I hissed.

“You don’t look really happy,” he replied, shrugging as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

“I’d be dead, Juan. That’s how you’ll know if he finds out about me and you,” I spat. “Although you might not have time to notice before he kills you too.”

“Does he ever seem worried about me?” he asked, as his eyes scoured the house’s second floor.

His hand tightened around the hammock, stopping it from swinging.

“I think he trusts you, but we need to be more careful.”

“Look angry,” he muttered.

“Of course I look angry,” I retorted. “Pablo and I just had this massive fight and–”

“No, you need to look angry,” he murmured, a worried line stretching on his forehead. “Angry at me. He’s watching us.”

I felt blood rush to my face, and pressure building up in my chest.

“Shit,” I hissed. “Do you think he heard us?”

Juan had a weird expression on his face. A mocking arch in his brow, a bitter grin on his lips. He disdainfully spat out his cigarette’s smoke instead of exhaling it. His pupils twitched amidst the bright whites of his eyes, as if they ached to look up rather than right at me.

“Not from where he is,” he mumbled. “But he can definitely see us. Act like we’re arguing, so he doesn’t think we’re flirting or something.”

I folded my leg, holding it against my chest, and sank into my hammock like I wanted to fall into the ground and disappear.

“If you don’t want him to think we’re flirting, you might want to hide that boner,” I hissed.

“That’s not a boner, Emily Smith,” he snickered, cocking his chin at me. “My dick is just that big.”

“Stop talking about your dick,” I whispered. “Is he still watching?”

“Yeah he is, but I’m telling you he can’t hear us,” he answered in an exaggerated, almost comically angry tone. “We can talk about whatever you want, but we have to act like we’re fighting.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I muttered.

“Keep going,” he spat, pointing an accusing finger to my face. “You’re doing great, Em. Really convincing.”

“I’m not even acting, Juan. This is stupid,” I huffed. “Can’t we just talk somewhere else?”

“Somewhere else?” he scoffed. “Sure. Meet me where the cars are parked. I’ll finish my cigarette and join you when he stops staring at me.”

I rolled my eyes at Juan’s antics, and hopped out of my hammock.

“That’s it, run away, like you always do!” Juan shouted as I walked off the patio, before lowering his voice to add: “And throw your arms up in rage, for good measure.”

I stuck up my middle finger, throwing a taunt over my shoulder as I tried my best to hold back a laugh.

Something squished between my bare toes as I treaded through the tall, wet grass. I didn’t know if it was a big dew drop or a slimy slug, and I didn’t stop to find out. God forbid my night turned from bad to worse and some angry snake bit my ankle before I could make it to the parking lot.

The road’s tar was still hot from the past day’s sunlight, but the wind was even colder now that I was further away from the house. I rubbed my arms to smooth down the goosebumps, warmed by nothing but my thrumming heart and the thought of Juan.

I leaned against the back of a pick-up truck, and stared at the fireflies dancing above the field. I breathed in enough fresh air to clear my head, and soon enough, I could hear Juan’s footsteps heading towards me.

“You’re a great actress,” he chuckled. “I think we totally sold that.”

I smiled at him, but not too wide. My reaction was only so realistic because he’d gotten on my already-frayed nerves. He took a deep breath, and lit himself another cigarette. I guessed Manée had been stressing him out too– he only ever smoked this much when they got into fights.

“Can I bum one?” I asked, grabbing the pack from his hands before he could answer.

“Sure,” he said, smiling at me as he gave me his lighter.

He only let me take three puffs before he plucked the cigarette from my lips and kissed them instead. Juan made my head spin more than nicotine ever could, made my heart race faster than cocaine ever would, and made me melt into his arms quicker than the world’s strongest drugs.

His tongue tasted like minty toothpaste and tobacco as it tied with mine. The smell of his perfume was inebriating, and the soft touch of his hands around my waist, intoxicating.

Something hard pressed against my lower stomach, and I looked down to notice a thick bump poking through the grey fabric of his sweatpants. Now that was a boner.

“My eyes are up here, Emily Smith,” he whispered.

A mindless giggle escaped from me, but I flinched as his hand slithered around my neck to prop up my chin.

Juan frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Just a little, uh, flustered.”

“I can fix that right now,” he snickered, one hand diving down the front of my pants, as the other dug in his pocket to fish out his keys. “On the back seat of my car.”

“Why do you carry your car keys in your pajamas?”

“The right moment comes when you least expect it,” he said. “That’s why I’m always ready.”

I stayed silent, nervously rubbing my sore neck. Juan’s words were only met with the cackling of snarky crickets.

“I have a bunch of condoms in the glove box,” he added. “They’ll last us all night.”

Placing my hand in the center of his chest, I gently pushed him away.

“Actually, I just want to go to sleep,” I told him, as my teeth picked at a patch of dry skin on my bottom lip.

“Nobody’ll find out, Em, I promise,” he whispered.

“It’s not that,” I mumbled. “I just had an ugly fight, and I’m really tired.”

His grin flattened as he swallowed back his disappointment.

“No worries,” he said softly, running his fingers through my hair. “There’s a bunch of empty rooms in the dependency, over there. They’re not as fancy as the main house, but it’s better than sleeping outside.”

He took my hand and walked me to the other side of the field, far away from the forest and all its loud critters, where we were surrounded by nothing but heavy silence. We were so quiet you could almost hear the cigarette paper burning, and its ash sizzling as it fell onto the wet grass.

The dependency looked like an old stable, a long building with only one floor, small louver windows, and creaky wooden doors.

“Let me check the bed for scorpions,” Juan murmured as he walked into one of the empty rooms.

“Scorpions?” I chuckled nervously.

“Yeah, those fuckers get everywhere,” he sighed as he pulled back the bedsheets. “Even in the main house.”

The bed only had a thin blanket, with a faded flower print that matched the sun-bleached curtains. The floor was covered in piss-colored linoleum, spotted with mold in two corners of the bedroom. Aside from the bed, the only furniture there was an empty wooden closet, half-eaten by termites, and a CRT television on a small metal stand, just like the one my Mom had in her living room.

“I’m sorry this is all I can offer,” he mumbled. “All the nice rooms are taken. We would have one extra but Manée wanted to sleep on her own.”

“That’s fine,” I chuckled. “It kind of reminds me of home. Although we had cockroaches instead of scorpions.”

He returned my smile, still holding a corner of the sheet in his hand.

“Should I tuck you in?” he joked.

“I’ll be fine,” I answered as I sat down on the bed. “Thanks, Juan.”

Stroking my cheek with the tip of his thumb, he left the word’s most tender kiss on my lips.

“Good night, Em,” he said.

The second he walked out the bedroom door, I started to regret not asking him to stay the night.

•••

The next morning, Pablo didn’t ask me where I’d spent the night. He didn’t greet me either, and hell, he didn’t even look me in the eye.

He had bags under his eyes, and seemed to have aged a decade overnight.

He glared at the tablecloth from the moment I sat down across him until he left the breakfast table, which happened faster than it took for a maid to bring me a hot cup of coffee and a plate of fresh fruit.

“Did you sleep well?” asked Juan. “Didn’t wake up with any weird rashes?”

I let out a breathy laugh. “No, it was fine. The bed was pretty comfortable, actually.”

“Then what’s that on your neck?” Andrea asked.

I felt my cheeks blush, and covered my skin with the palm of my hand.

“Doesn’t look like a rash,” she muttered, scrunching up her tiny nose. “It’s more like... bruises.”

“It’s nothing,” I answered.

She tried her best to raise her eyebrows, but they barely budged. A mischievous smirk drew back her plump lips. “Is it a hickey?”

I smiled at her, but didn’t answer, drowning my words in my cup of coffee to get rid of the sour taste in my mouth.

“Where did she sleep?” asked Hernan.

“In the dependency,” answered his son, his speech slow and weary. “She tried to sleep outside after she and Pablo had, uh, an argument.”

I nodded to confirm his words, and a disgusting grin grew on Hernan’s face.

“I figured you would,” he snickered. “Next time just knock on my door. There’s tons of space for you in my bed.”

I tried not to grimace, but my stomach still churned. He’d only said that because Pablo was far away, although Manée was sitting by his side with a blank, expressionless face.

The rest of the day went by relatively peacefully, and when I say relatively, I mean that no one tried to murder me.

Some guy, dressed from head to toe in the tackiest monogrammed Gucci clothes, showed up in a pick-up truck filled to the brim with hot chicks.

The man stopped by the hot tub, where we were all sitting with a cocktail in hand, and stared at Andrea from above the frame of his sunglasses.

“Finally got your tits done?” he asked her. “Took you long enough.”

She slowly sank underwater, until the bubbles tickled her bottom lip. Perhaps it was the blue tiles, or the effect this mysterious guy had on her, but her face turned a pale shade of grey.

“Dad,” Juan hissed when the man was out of earshot. “We told you not to call Lazaro.”

“My fucking house, my fucking rules,” his father spat back.

Hernan joined the man on the other side of the patio, greeting him with a friendly slap of the back and a fancy box of cigars.

“Are you alright, Andrea?” Juan worried.

“I’ll be fine,” she murmured, as she climbed out of the hot tub and back into the house.

The flock of girls spilled into the pool, giggling and squealing, their big fake boobies floating above the surface like flesh-colored rubber duckies.

Pablo’s face, which had been grim all morning, lit up as soon as he found himself surrounded by women. He splashed around the pool like a kid in a ball pit, his face all red from a few glasses of whiskey.

Hernan walked back over to taunt his son again. “See?” he said. “Even Pablo changed his mind about Lazaro’s girls. Look at him.”

“Yeah, well, keep his nose out of your cocaine stash, this time,” Juan muttered. “Don’t let them shoot at each other on my honeymoon. They already ruined my engagement party.”

Hernan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a fucking drama queen. They settled that fight months ago.”

I tried my best to keep my gaze down, but it felt like Pablo was trying his best to get my attention. He swam as close as he could to the hot tub, and laughed out loud as he spilled his drink on his chest and one of the girls volunteered to lick it up. He glanced my way when she did, and turned his head as soon as our eyes met.

“We should get out of here,” Juan muttered. “I want to find Andrea.”

“If I had a calendar on hand, and if I knew which day it was, I would have marked down the date as the first time ever that Juan Sandoval didn’t want to be around a bunch of prostitutes,” I said with a bitter snicker.

“Not the right moment, Em,” he snapped, as he tousled his hair to dry it a little. “But it’s fine. You wouldn’t know.”

I gulped. “Sorry.”

“It’s a touchy subject,” he sighed as we walked into the house.

“Was he Andrea’s pimp?” I asked.

Juan stopped in his tracks, and stared down at me. “Who told you about that?”

“She did.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat, and answered with a curt nod.

“As I said, touchy subject, Em,” he mumbled. “It’s been a while since Pablo stopped inviting him over, but my Dad still does it whenever he can.”

I didn’t really know what to say, and the guilt over my stupid joke had nailed my mouth shut. Those few clumsy words had slipped out as a failed attempt to soften the tense atmosphere, and now they were going to keep me up at night for the next twenty years.

“It’s fine, Em. Don’t look at me like that,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “I’m just on edge.”

He grabbed two wine glasses and filled them to the brim, and I followed him into the finca’s backyard, which looked more like a meadow– golden grass swishing in the wind, stretching down a hill and ending somewhere out of sight.

Juan turned to me, and handed me one of the glasses.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” he mumbled. “Usually, you ask me a ton of questions.”

“God, you’re in a mood,” I retorted, sinking my lips into my wine.

“Why were you looking at Pablo like that?” he hissed.

“Because he was acting like a dick.”

“And? You know he’s a dick,” he muttered. “You don’t love him, so why do you look like a kicked puppy every time you see him with another woman?”

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and pinched the bridge of my nose. It felt as if the whole world had finally united, fighting for the common goal to give me an unbearable headache.

“Because for someone who tried so hard to stop my wedding, you sure do seem hung up on him,” he added, drilling another nail into my aching skull.

“Excuse me?” I seethed. “You were the one who told me I should stand up and object, even though you guys were already married.”

“I was obviously joking, Em.”

“Wasn’t so obvious to me,” I retorted.

“Still doesn’t tell me why you care so much about him,” he said under his breath.

He glared at me, and I glared at him. Of all the arguments I had ever had, with anyone I’d ever met, this was by far the dumbest, most pointless one I’d had yet. It felt like a sword fight where we were both armed with toothpicks, poking at each other to see who bled first.

“Why, are you jealous?” I asked.

“Of course I’m jealous,” he replied. “What kind of stupid question is that?”

I helplessly glanced down at my feet, and swirled the last droplets of wine at the bottom of my glass.

“I just had this thought last night, when I fought with him,” I murmured. “He only kept me alive because he likes me, and I’m scared of what will happen if he loses interest.”

Juan scowled. “What do you mean?”

“He likes to be admired more than anything else, and it looks like he’s starting to realize I don’t love him as much as everyone else does,” I whispered. “Maybe I should fake it better.”

“You didn’t look like you were faking it, when you saw him with that girl.”

“It’s just–” I sighed, “if he finds someone else, then he won’t need me. And if he doesn’t need me, I’m dead. I can’t let another woman take him away.”

Juan nodded, and drank a long gulp of wine.

“What if someone takes you away from him?” he asked.

“Then he better do it quick.”

A wry grin etched on his tight lips, and he took one step closer to me. He laced his fingers with mine, hidden in a tight nook between our two bodies, and gently squeezed my hand.

“Got it,” he said.

“You wanted to find Andrea?” I asked, feeling my throat tighten.

He shrugged. “I mostly wanted to speak with you away from everyone, but since that’s done, sure.”

We found her sitting on a bench, snuggling in her fiancé’s arms as he dabbed the tears from both sides of her face. Her pain was obvious, sculpted in her traits, carved into every inch of her flesh.

We sat down by their feet, and chatted until the sun set. Every time Andrea sniffled, Juan made sure to change subjects. They turned more and more ridiculous as time went by– we started from recalling memories of old, fun parties, to discussing the wildest movie theories we’d ever heard of.

I quietly learned about the most famous movies that had come out since I was captive, and made a note in my mind to watch the most intriguing ones. Sing 2, because I liked the first one, the weird Nick Cage comedy where he plays himself but also some kind of spy, or something along that line, and that Encanto thing Juan sang a song from.

Things got quiet again when we mentioned Bruno, and Juan tried to make us list our three favorite reptiles.

“You come up with the weirdest questions, I swear,” Andrea giggled. “Guys, could you do me a favor and top up our drinks again?”

“Sure,” said Oscar. “Juan, help me carry them. I only have two hands.”

She watched them walk away with a smile on her face, which disappeared as soon as she turned back to face me.

“Em, what happened between you and Pablo?”

My tongue tied up, and my chest felt tight.

“What, the– when?” I stuttered. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“Why do you have bruises on your neck?” she asked in a calm, yet somewhat cold tone. “They look like fingerprints.”

“Oh, uh, Pablo had nothing to do with that,” I replied.

She shook her head, and her eyes narrowed. “I thought you were just into kinky shit, but then, why would you be sleeping from each other if everything was fine?”

“Andrea, please,” I mumbled, spit splicing down my throat.

“I don’t care how mad you made him. Even if it was your fault,” she whispered, placing her hand on top of mine. “He can’t touch you like that. Hell, even if you cheated, that doesn’t–”

I flinched, suddenly pulling my hand away from her. The last person to act this concerned for me was Mafer, and I hadn’t yet lost enough of my mind to forget how that ended.

“Andrea,” I said calmly. “It wasn’t him.”

She stared at me, waiting for an explanation. I had no proof, but I did have a feeling that she wanted some kind of information. Perhaps she wanted to catch me red-handed telling someone the truth about Pablo. She was Oscar’s girlfriend, after all, so there was a fair chance she might already know.

“It’s from the seatbelt,” I told her, rubbing a hand across my chest. “The long road trip, you know.”

“You think I don’t know what this is?” she answered, pointing at the dark dots spotting my neck. “Trust me, if he does it because he loves you, there’s nothing you can do to stop him from doing it again. And if he does it because he hates you, then there’s nothing worth saving.”

I felt tears gathering in my throat, boiling at the corner of my eyes, quivering under every square inch of my skin.

“You know he’s a good guy,” I lied through my teeth. “You know he wouldn’t do it.”

Her jaw clenched a little, and her gaze fled mine. She wrapped her hands around her knees, staring off into the sunset with a stiff lip and a light frown.

“Right,” she mumbled. “But if he ever does, just promise me you’ll leave him.”

Kerning

Tongue Tied

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