Part 20 (1/2)

The woman's face burst into a warm, beautiful smile, as she came around to embrace me and Demetrio. The man visibly relaxed, but could not stop pouting. The woman touched a clear ointment to my wounded hand, and it healed instantly.

”And now,” said the woman, stepping away from us, and sprinkling a handful of pale gold dust over us. It twinkled like stars as it fell. ”By the powers invested in me, I announce that you may kiss one another without negative consequence.”

”But not until I leave,” groused the man. ”I don't think I can stomach it.”

”You're just bitter and jealous,” said Demetrio.

”I'm not jealous,” insisted the man. ”I'm logical.”

”He sounds like my mom,” I whispered to Demetrio.

The man, Diego, whistled for the dogs and cats, and they all gathered around him - including, to my astonishment, Buddy. I felt betrayed.

”You can get him later,” Demetrio told me. ”I think we need some alone time right now.”

I watched as the man and woman left the church, closing the doors behind them, and then I turned to face Demetrio in the soft light of candles.

Demetrio wasted no time, pulling me in close to him, and moving in for the kiss. Gone was the reticent bad boy from before; he'd been replaced by a seductive bad boy with only one thing on his mind: Me. The hunger in his eyes was completely intoxicating, knowledgeable and mature, and where I'd longed so desperately for his kiss before, I now began to wonder if I could handle whatever it was he had in store. I was relatively inexperienced, having only kissed two boys in my life, and even then not so much.

”Don't worry,” he told me, as though reading my thoughts once more, ”I'll show you what to do.”

I held my breath, and closed my eyes, waiting, every cell in my body resonating in pure and perfect harmony with his frequency, more alive, and afraid, and excited, than I'd ever been.

He kissed me, and the music in my soul and cells swelled and crescendoed, beyond where I had imagined it could ever go, into a felt but not heard thrum of the lowest low and the highest high, woven all through me in every direction.

I felt the floor drop out from below my feet, as it had in the dream, but this time I didn't fall. This time, it felt as though I floated for a moment, with his arms holding me; and then it - and I mean this literally, and not in a hackneyed romantic symbolic sense - felt as though we spun, and soared.

When I opened my eyes, I was still in Demetrio's arms, but we weren't in the sacristy of the church in Golden. Only a few seconds had pa.s.sed since our lips had blissfully touched, but we were somehow now on the side of Highway 14, at mile marker 21, in the bright blazing light of the winter afternoon. My feet were on the ground once more.

It was real.

I stared about me in shock, as Demetrio chuckled, apparently delighted by my dis...o...b..bulation, and by the fact that he had someone to share his world with now.

”How did you do that?” I demanded. It was starting to be a habit with me, that question of him.

Demetrio pulled back from me just a smidge, c.o.c.ked his head to the side again, to get a better look with those unflinchingly beautiful eyes, at my dumbfounded face. He grinned like the cat that got the mouse.

”Do what, mamita?” he asked. ”I didn't do nothing.”

I didn't hold back this time. This time, confronted with his ridiculous denial of obviously miraculous accomplishments, I reared back and slugged him, playfully but hard, in the arm.

”Ouch!” he cried, rubbing the spot where I'd made contact, affecting a much more beleaguered face than the blow required, playing along.

”So you can still feel pain?” I asked, popping him lightly again on the arm. ”Yeah?”

He grinned, and held my hands back now, far more powerful than I was, but gentle, too. Every fiber of my being quivered as the did this. I wanted him with a profound ache. He came close, and brushed his lips against mine again, biting me a little, playful still. I could scarcely breathe.

He whispered in my ear now. ”Of course I still feel pain. During the day, everything about me is human, as it was in the days before my death. Everything.”

He kissed my neck, and below my chin, and then the chin itself, and my lips. I couldn't move, except to accept his offerings, my eyes closing on their own accord. I let out a little groan of pleasure. He pulled away from me, and began to tickle me, switching gears.

”You suck!” I cried, tickling back.

He laughed, and dodged my hands. I managed to slug him again.

”Easy there, mamita.” He grabbed me in a powerful embrace now, and held my arms down at my sides. ”Don't make me hurt you.”

”Unlikely,” I boasted, enjoying this normal, childlike display of affection.

”True. You'll probably hurt me first,” he said. ”You're a strong girl, Maria Ochoa.”

”So you can bleed and break bones and die?”

”Sort of.”

”What if you get killed again?”

”I forfeit my rights to redemption.”

”That's rough.”

”It's part of the deal.”

”Why'd you take it?”

”Beat the alternative.”

”How are you so glib about all this?”

He nuzzled my neck as he answered, hungry for me. ”What else can you do, you know? I try hard to be careful.”

”Where do you go at night?” I asked him.

”Too many questions,” he said as he ran his finger across my lower lip. ”Too little kissing.”

He kissed me again, harder than before, and longer, and more deeply, pressing me hard to his body. I kept my eyes open this time, though, hoping to catch any shenanigans he might try to pull on me. The world around us began to move, the way it does when you're on a carousel, faster and faster. The bottom fell out again, and suddenly we found ourselves in the center of a gold and white tornado, though we floated in complete stillness as the sparkling light spun around us. I gasped, broke away from the kiss, and looked at his face. Demetrio looked back, calmly, comfortingly, and winked to let me know it was okay. I giggled, and tried to push away from him, to touch the sparkling lights, but he grabbed me, hard, with a stern look.

”Do not let go of me, whatever you do,” he said. ”Not here.”

I heeded the advice, and clung to him. In short order, the spinning stopped, the storm faded, and we were once again at the side of a road, one I'd never seen before. It looked to still be New Mexico, but there wasn't any snow now. It was warmer, and the vegetation was different. I looked around me, and saw another set of descansos, near a road sign that indicated we were about twenty miles from Carlsbad Caverns. We were in the Southern part of the state, south of Roswell, hundreds of miles from Golden.

”What the...?” I asked, breathlessly.

”Kiss me, mami,” he said with a naughty, teasing grin.

I did as he said, and again the ground fell away, again we were enveloped in the warm tornado of golden light, and again we alighted in a new place, this time in a foot of snow, next to a field with six freezing, skin and bones cattle hunkered down against the wind, two of them calves, one a large black bull who seemed to be trying gallantly to protect the herd. Again, we were near roadside crosses.

”Come with me,” he said, as he jumped the fence to the field, and strode toward the cows. They looked at us with weary, tortured eyes, but didn't move away. They were too cold. The babies especially seemed to be in terrible condition. I was sickened by the sight of them, at the cruelty of people toward these peaceful creatures.