Sangria

SANGRIA.

Duarte would never forget the Rua de Pombo, and this he knew even as he began his long walk down the so-called street of doves. The birds that gave their name to the locale wandered aimlessly about here, their whiteness gave this one long street more of an ether of heat about it then any of the surrounding, shady district. A small cafe served the old, wrinkled patrons tiny cups of blistering hot coffee. Even on such a day, they wore their black velvet coats and hats, as they always had.

Doves had always colonised this street for centuries, or so it was said. No one knew why, exactly, but they seemed to find it agreeable enough. From somewhere came the sound of a piano. The street was walled on one side by high three and four storey buildings faced in bright yellow brick, and from one of thterlterly black window slits came faltering c. Ic. It had the repetitive quality of a lesson being learned, perhaps a child studious in practice.

The other side of the street, if it could be called a side, was just a straight sloping field down into the valley where some crops listlessly grew. Rua de Pombo was almost a city wall rather then a street, it was the point at which the hill stopped being a hill and began to be the town on its\' flat plateau. Duarte shuffled along, and the doves did not seem to mind. Nothing seemed to bother them, the passing of one more human being along the rua was nothing great in their scheme of things. They fluttered about with a soft sound like the slapping of velvet covered arm on velvet covered side as the old men occasionally moved around. The bricks were bare of plaster or adobe and mercilessly baked hard by the centuries, and the rua had barely changed in that time.

Duarte soon enough arrived at his destination, and nearly walked straight past it in doing so. He had to double back a few times to make sure he had the right place. To his side, the blank featureless wall was broken, once, by an incongruously green door. Duarte walked up to the door and hesitated before knocking. He looked around and down, he took out a slip of paper from his pocket and checked something, and replaced the paper in his pocket. Sure enough, as he had been told, there was a neat bundle of three dandilions, not yet wilted, laid casually on the ground to the left of the door. This was the place, the Casa Ferida.

He knocked upon the green door, now that he was sure, and in soon enough time Duarte was admitted within.

The first room of the Casa Ferida was tiled on the walls in brown with intermittent cream. The tiles were arranged in a loose order, but the room was slightly irregular and so the pattern was not continuous, here and there mistakes had been made. The ceiling was plastered, and the floor was brick not unlike the road outside. A curtain of plastered stone obscured the lower half of a dark old homosexual who beckoned Duarte in, he looked as though he had seen too many interiors in his dark old life. Duarte didn\'t havythiything personal against homosexuals, he had enjoyed several affairs with other men during his late teenage years, but then and now any dealings with them left him with the faint feeling that his fingertips bore a slightly rank odour.

He paid the correct amount, and no less or more. In exchange he was invited to walk through a bead curtain at the back of the room at his leisure and “do as he will”. The only lighting in the Casa Ferida seemed to originate from a multitude of unpleasant electric lamps dotted about haphazardly and all running off an unseen power source. The electric cables all terminated in extensions and further extensions that snaked away to places unseen.

And now at this time Duarte passed beyond the bead curtain which was itself beyond the green door and into the Casa Ferida proper. Duarte found himself in a fairly large hall which at one time might have served in some official function. All the walls here were whitewash. Around the walls were set small niches, each forming a room and fenced off on the open side by a flimsy curtain. There appeared to be little privacy in here. At the far end of the corridor a man, not a homosexual, sat behind a trestle table, reading a smaulp ulp book concerning detectives. As Duarte approached him, the man put down his book and looked up expectantly. Duarte spoke first, in English, hoping for clarity.

“I have paid,”
“Of course, senhor.”
“And so...” he left an expectant pause in the air.

The man behind the table nodded as though this were entirely forseen, and indicated to Duarte that he possessed a copious leather medical bag which contained various ointments, antiseptics and bandages along with more things that Duarte could not identify. He then proceeded to show Duarte a document which, he was assured, was a valid medical license. The man spoke up when this had all been gravely done.

“As you can see, I am a fully qualified medical professional. Should any complications arise, I shall assist.”
“Is this likely to be necessary?”
“That entirely depends on yourself of course, senhor.”
“Of course. And so I just...” again an expectant pause, as Duarte indicated with a motion the small niches around the hall.
“Yes, you are correct of course. You now choose, and then-”
“Do as I wish?”
“Sim por favour, as you say.”

Duarte nodded, and moved along one wall. He did not know if he was permitted to look beyond the curtains, in order to make some kind of informed selection. He supposed that it made no difference. He heard no noise from any of the partitions, as he expected he might if they were occupied. There was no other indication what his choices were. A little nonplussed at this rather casual treatment, Duarte pushed through the next curtain he came to, and arrived inside a small space barely ten feet to a side and quite square in aspect. The room was occupied only by two tables, one large one small, and a quite incongruous hatstand. The small table had upon it a tray with a white cloth upon that, and the large table was lain upon by a naked girl.

Duarte took the opportunity to divest himself of his cotton jacket and his hat, placing both upon the stand. The girl watched him with small curiosity. She was completely nudevingving not even a ribbon to hold back her long hair which descended in soft steps down her body, waving as it went. Her skin looked coppery in the dim light. The curtain was thin enough that the light from the hall was dimmed but not entirely occluded, there was more then sufficient within the space. Her skin was striking, because of the scars. Duarte just said “English?” and she nodded. He was glad she understood, because he needed clarity. He pointed at the covered tray and she nodded again.

Duarte pulled back the cloth gently, and folded it over, placing it neatly on the table beside the tray. Revealed beneath were knives of varying type. There seemed to be two knives of each distinct type. Two knives that looked like cutlery, to wide knives that were double edged and looked thin as paper. Two knives that curved at the point to form something of a hook or scratching point, two long thin rods with sharp ends, long needles. Several more then this. Duarte looked back at the girl, who nodded. He walked over to her, and examined her scars. The girl showed neither pride or shame, but moved around to afford him a better view conveniently.

The girl had been cut in some places, quite carelessly. Other places bore longer, more thoughtful scars. One bicep had what appeared to be a series of rings around it, but Duarte soon divined this to be a spiral, the other arm bore most prominently a crazy criss-crossing of scars layered on each other, the skin from elbow to shoulder was thick and whitened in appearance, as though viewed through a coarse mosquito net. Many more, all over her. She turned over to lay on her stomach, her cheek rested on her folded arms. On her back the scars tended to be more intricate, the open spaces of her flanks and shoulder blades had afforded an irresistible canvas and Duarte could pick out entire sentences, some of them little more then scrawl and some of them obviously intended to be legible to the eye once healed. He didn\'t bother to read, it seemed to him that to read what others had put would only taint his own discretions and make this moment less his own. Some areas were more or less scarred, her legs bore large bare areas, and her face and neck were entirely untouched.

“Those knives?”
“Yes,”
“And I do...?”
“You do what you want, senhor,”
“What is your name?”

She just shook her head mutely. She looked calmly into his eyes, entirely unafraid.

“What are the rules?”
“You do what you want,” she smiled, her grasp of English was obviously good, she seemed to Duarte to have something of a scholar or professional about her, she was very knowing in the way she appraised him. It was clear that she was laying down upon this table presented to him because that is how she intended to be.
“And if I cut your face, then?”
“If you want,”
“And if I cut your tongue?”
“If you want,” she replied, still entirely cool about the prospect,
“And if I cut your knees, or your elbows?”
“If you want,”
“You would be crippled.”
“Yes.”
“Why has no one cut your face?”
“I don\'t know. Ask them.”
“Why are you here?”
She just shrugged, allyally. She discreetly covered a small yawn with her fingertips.
“You don\'t seem to know many answers,” he stated.
“No. Do you?”
“I suppose not,” he wanted to congratulate her on a good answer. Duarte had really no idea why he was here, except per tha that he had asked to be here, and paid for the priviledge, and chos

Duarte turned back to his tray of implements. Perfectly clean, laid out for him neatly. He selected a simple plain knife, pointed end smooth un-serrated edge, and placed his hand on the girl\'s back. He read the braille of her life down her spine as his fingers moves over her skin with a dull hiss that was suddenly earsplitting in the complete quiet. Even the breathing of the girl, or Duarte himself, was not so loud as the faint rasp of skin on skin. Duarte lowered the knife to a point just below the girl\'s shoulderblade, on the left. He gently squeezed the skin, forming a low ridge with occasional flickers of scar across its otherwise perfect rise. The girl was slim, but not skinny. Oddly, he found this comforting and pleasurable in itself. Duarte pressed the very tip of the knife against her skin, and she shivered. He saw her skin pucker into goosebumps. He pressed a touch harder, and some came. The skin split evenly as he drew the kniown own four inches, a shallow scratch of a cut. Duarte straightened up- he hadn\'t even noticed himself bending over the girl for a close look at what he was doing- and felt a rush of euphoria come over him. He enjoyed this, taking a moment to do so, a moment of contemplative pleasure. He understood now why the light was kept at this low level in the niche, any more and his senses would have been enflamed grossly by the sight of red on golden, but in the dim it looked like dark burgundy.

For her part, the girl was shivering noticably now, and the one eye that he could perceive was shut tight. Duarte moved around the table, and leant down again. This time he just touched the knife to her, over her shoulder, he didn\'t touch her. He was watching her face as he dug the knife a little way in. It veryvery sharp and he percieved the tip penetrate her a tiny amount. He was watching her face. The girl knew thier uer upturned eye had opened a moment and seen him. He pressed down on the knife harder, and watched as her mouth opened fully, forming a desperate ring. He eased off the knife a little, and noted that her jaw came up a little, slowly like the closing of a Venus flytrap, steady. He took the knife out but pressed down again, just below the little red bubble he had just formed. This time as her lips parted the tongue snaked out, pressing forward just a little. Duarte watched in mounting fascination. When the tongue flicked, at the tip, he could barely contain himself. The girl was deeply aroused, sweat was beading on her body in the cool air of the room, and constant shivers moved his limbs. Duarte imagined the engineer of the spiral around her bicep, whoever it was must have had to hold her down to do it, she made no attempt to move consciously but her muscles darted nervously on their own volition.

Duarte walked stiffly back to the tray and set down the knife with a vulgar clatter and a small stain upon the steel surface. He took up one of those thin double bladed knives, sharp along each side and wickedly so. He just had to touch her hip and the girl rolled ont onto her back obediently. Her thighs parted a little, not suggestively, not invitingly, but a simple statement of what he had before him. Duarte stroked his palm across the girl\'s belly and it came away wet. Her skin was cool to the touch, and he could feel the tension just under the surface. He didn\'t know what he was planning or perhaps he had no plan, but his actions were all confident and brisk.

He touched his knife at the point on her where he imagined the point of a squat triangle between her navel, her hip and there, that special spot, lay. He applied pressure and the blade broke in easily. He ran the knife in under her skin, at barely any depth. The knife was now sheathed in her, and when he stroked his hand over her her could feel the hard steel very clearly beneath her flesh, the sharp cutting edges separated from his finger by only a slim gauze of skin. This action caused the girl to emit a curious high wail for a moment, released and then caught instantly. The leg on that side twitched and moved involuntarily, and her fingers clenched rhythmically into fists. Duarte watched as it seeped out of the wound and ran down her side in a slim river that forked and forked again.

Suddenly she moved, the most violent sequence of shivers yet coursing through her body. A brief glance told Duarte that the girl had orgasmed. Wary that she might slip off the sweat-slick table and fall or that the knife might move under her skin, he plucked it out swiftly and immediately her chest rose up from the table and she arched in a curve, dripping sweat and the other onto the table beneath her steadily. Her mouth was contorted in rictus and Duarte noted that she orgasmed again. He could also distinctly feel that moment approaching within himself, for no single thing in his life had held such concentration from Duarte as this or rewarded such attention with such erotic pulsation.

Duarte stepped out of the curtain, and in his daze realised he had forgotten his coat and hat. He ducked back in, embarrassed suddenly, and was just as shocked and enticed all over again, even after a respite form the girl of a matter of seconds. He pn hin his coat and couldn\'t speak, there was nothing he could say, no clarity at this moment. He just stared at the girl, the mess, and she abruptly orgasmed again, violently, with a crude hoarse groan followed by a flat grunt. She then lay still.

Duarte passed again through the bead curtain, rubbing his hands off on his handkerchief. He didn\'t speak or offer so much as a nod of acknowledgement to the homosexual who was still hovering on duty. To his credit, the man took this in good grace, he didn\'t seem at all surprised. Duarte pushed through the green door, and walked back along the Rua de Pombo. He supposed that the old men watched him go, and perhaps the doves. To those white birds it meant little, and the old men just nodded sagely over their coffee.

END.