The Quest

Aldonza woke briefly, as if her eyes had been kissed by an angel, the tender skin pressing against hers with the slightest of pressures, the thin, loving moisture alerting her to come back to consciousness. They opened softly, curiously, like a newborn who was seeing the wonders of the world and the miracles of life around them for the first time. She glanced around secretly, taking time to adjust to the lack of light, the thick, penetrating darkness that seemed to absorb sound, create its own futile music of the night. It created madness from promises of love, easing her dwindling fears that the feeling was nothing but smoke and mirrors, madness and lies, insanity at its finest.
She fixed her sleepy, film-infused eyes on Pedro, who was sleeping soundly next to her. He was laid on his back, his arm outstretched underneath her as his hand wrapped around to cup her shoulder, pulling her into his warmth, his aura, his presence. His eyes were smoothly lidded, his indulgent eyebrows framing his features; his mouth hung slightly agape and a discreet bought of snores crept from his figure. He seemed entirely relaxed; for once, Aldonza noticed, he wasn’t worried about putting up a front for others. He wasn’t the leader, the one who was forced to exert his dominating charisma in order to help them survive, in order to keep him sane. He wasn’t the boss, the enemy, the cocky, arrogant one. He was merely Pedro Antonin, the muleteer who, as Aldonza had experienced firsthand, had a gentler side when he was enamored by beauty and personality.
She nudged herself closer to him, bumping her knees into his and tangling their ankles together like an inseparable knot. Aldonza was unable to decipher exactly why he had chosen to be so kind to her. Many men had paid for her services and had been rough, rude, downright mean and disgusting and brutal, as Juan had exemplified the previous evening. Most simply turned the other cheek, pretending with good Christian charity that the crime they had witnessed was simply a business transaction.
It’s not like she had a choice, honestly. She was desperately spawned and simply, easily forgotten. The world would remain spinning if she had never born. She had no purpose, and yet was forced to find one, create one so that she could sustain herself, survive. It was not considered living, because to live was to dream that there were situations out there that were better, that were feasible, that were attainable. No one wanted to give that chance to a filthy whore, the bread crumbs in the feast of life that was consumed by the rich and prevalent.
Pedro was the second person to give her a feeling of anything but despair, self-hatred not of herself but of what she was forced to become to mold into her circumstances; Fernando had been the first, when he took her in from the streets during her conviction of adultery with the local Padre. He brought her to the inn, gave her a roof and a meal every day; after she was found innocent, she remained there and had been working ever since, earning a minimal wage and helping the kind old man with whatever she could. Pedro, though…
There was something unique about Pedro Antonin. He possessed a disarming smile and a captivating smirk. He was clothed with armor of languid expressions, a pistol of a smile, a helmet of pride and a bow and arrow of quick-tongued wit. Dominating and learned, Pedro was a natural leader.
He was every bit a man. Aldonza traced a lazy finger across his bicep, tight caramel skin stretched across the muscle. Her eyes licked his chest and abdominals, noticing the tiny, reddened scratches, the distinctive pattern of freckles that lined his left side in random splotches, the valleys and mountains that each individual ab created. She raised her line of vision to his face, and smiled softly at him as he closed his mouth, turned slightly towards her. His grown black longs fell over his eyes until strands were kissing his nose. Aldonza took a weighted minute to memorize his lips, the pink wonders; the bottom was slightly larger than its top counterpart, and stuck out like a dirty pout as he slept through the restless evening. Bringing her hand up to his neck, she pulled herself closer until she was yet again pressed up against him. Still she wondered why, why God had been so lenient with her after years of turmoil and treachery. Would it last? Or was this all a cruel dream? Would the pounding of the innkeeper’s fist wake her from this luxurious dream with a cry of morning? Would the cock crow at the crack of dawn, signaling her to start the day’s chores? If she were to pinch herself right now, would she wake up, truly arise from her corpse-like existence in this remarkable heaven, to face reality?
She sighed sleepily and internally shrugged, reasoning that if this was indeed doomed to end, she would enjoy it while she could, soak up the love that was being freely given regardless of if she was accepting. Nuzzling her neck into the crook of Pedro’s, Aldonza returned to a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Aye, mi amigo, be quiet,” A voice muttered harshly. “She’s sleeping.”
“Not what it sounded like last night,” one of them murmured in a significantly lower tone. “She sounded pretty busy.”
“Was she worth it?” Juan asked, eyeing him darkly, his figure wracked with jealousy.
Pedro gave him a snarling smile. “She was free, wasn’t she?” Juan growled and made towards him, pressing himself to his hands and knees but was trapped by Paco, who was holding him down. “Not now.” He told him firmly.
“No, but really,” Anselmo asked with boyish curiosity, chalking his voice so that he sounded older, more mature. “How was it? Was it good? Was it like Juanita?”
“Or Roberta?” One called out.
“Or Alejandra?” A shutter ran through the men as they collectively thought about the awful experience that was Alejandra.
Pedro thought for a few moments, Aldonza gauged by the silence as she lay in the corner, silent and still. She imagined him biting his lower lip, brushing a strand of black hair behind his ear, his angled eyebrows acute with internal business. “She has tits, no? And curves? She’s a woman, of course she’s good.” In her mind, he finished with a coy smile, his signature smirk that drove her mad.
A chorus of objections crescendo’ed through the group and a hiss of silence echoed in return. “She is very… willing.” Pedro commented, his eyes glistening as he spoke. “Loud… Voluptuous… She’s fiery and passionate. When you tear her down she allows it to happen; you’re the bricklayer, laying brick after brick into her until you’re complete, and she’s a new creation, a new structure, a new home that has your heart rooted as the key.”
A few moments passed as the men contemplated their leader’s response. Anselmo’s face was lit by an internal wonder of unclean thoughts and boyish desire. A few chuckles circled the men as some thought about it; others sternly sat in thought of when their own desires could be fulfilled, and by whom.
“Well, amigo, it seems you’ve had your moment. It’s well-known that a whore can’t settle for just one man—why would she choose to be a whore in the first place?” A round of raucous mirth spread through the men, their faces lighting up with rosy cheeks at a possible opportunity for them to experience this apparent fire. “So who gets her tonight?”
Aldonza’s hazy face suddenly turned stony at these words. Who gets me tonight? She thought coldly, selfishly. She wanted to be with no one but Pedro. Sure, she had been with many men before, friends, even brothers, but no one had ever had such a profound effect on her as Pedro. The others beat her like livestock, using their hands and bodies to punish her instead of pleasure her. They were butchers, cut with clear intentions on what they were using her—the animal—for, while Pedro—Pedro was like the butcher’s son, who had the audacity to question what he was actually going to do to the animal. Was he really going to end it—or spare it, allowing it to survive, even live?
“Oooh, ooh, me!” Anselmo cried out in a high-pitched voice.
“No, no, you’re last on the totem pole.” Paco told him, punching his shoulder. “You know how it goes—just because you’re the leader’s brother doesn’t give you any special privileges.”
“What about me, huh?” Juan mentioned in a gruff voice. “I was supposed to have her first, until someone decided that she was his for the taking—“
“You were also the one that forced yourself onto her.” Anselmo pointed out, squaring his shoulders as he fought to appear physically tougher, older.
“What do you want to do, niño?” Juan asked him mockingly. “Run to your hermano and tattle?”
The other muleteers cackled and guffawed, joining in on the pleas and requests for the woman. “Enough!” Pedro exclaimed, silencing the men as he stood up, his dark figure looming over them. “We already set up another time for this evening.” He told the group as Aldonza raised her eyebrows, unaware of this apparent meeting though understanding his tactic of lying. Was he trying to protect her, or merely save her for himself? Aldonza struggled awake, groaning loudly and kicking hay so that the men knew she was awake.
“Looks like the whore has a heart,” Paco muttered, flexing his muscles as he punched a fist into his hand.
“Hearts can be broken, mi ago.” Juan told him, shooting a hate-filled glare at Pedro.
“Aye, believe it or not I do.” Aldonza grumbled as she stood, wrapping a ratted blanket around her otherwise exposed form. She met Pedro’s eyes with a no nonsense front, though internally she winked upon seeing him. She teetered towards the door and cracked it open; rays of intense sunshine flooded into the stable, temporally blinding herself and the men. “Too bad none of you will ever be able to have it.” She turned her back to them and dropped the towel, her naked ass shaking with seductive steps as she retreated to the inn.
“It takes one to know one!” Anselmo cried out as an afterthought, though Aldonza was not thinking of him. She was only thinking of one person, the one that consumed her with an internal flame that licked her insides and filled her thoughts.
Wrapping the blanket around her once more, she retreated to her room and changed for the new day, wiping away the smeared blood with rough scrubs and hiding the bruises that littered her neck, arms, chest, stomach, to the best of her ability. She hummed a little tune as she fulfilled her morning chores, surprising the innkeeper as she approached him for her in-town assignment.
“Someone’s merry.” He commented roughly, eyeing her with cocked curiosity. Nevertheless he gave it little thought, instead focusing on handing her a piece of tattered parchment. “Just the necessities, business has—“
“Been low, aye, it’s the same every month.” Aldonza finished, nodding as she tucked it into her shirt.
“Have you been trying?” Fernando asked her, scanning her over from head to toe. “There are lots of men this time.”
Aldonza set her jaw, her brow following automatically. “I’ll see what I can do.” She replied quietly, turning to leave.
“Aldonza?” She had reached the door frame and stopped upon hearing her name. “Remember what your purpose is, your fate.” Fernando told her with a sad undertone.
“Si, senor.” She replied, and quickly attired herself with her basket, rebozo and dwindling money pouch. The muleteers were now returning to the courtyard and eyed her wistfully, some touching her as they passed others murmuring to her, making offers of love and money and sex. “He can’t be that good,” One of them told her seriously. “Once you have your turn with me, you’ll never go back to that sad excuse of a man ever again.”
“Aye, senorita, you don’t want them old and worn out, you want them young, full of energy.” Anselmo smiled at her; it was Pedro’s smile, though the eyes were wrong.
“I want to see you writhing underneath me,” Juan murmured to her as he passed, eyeing her like a piece of meat.
Aldonza dismissed their advances with a hefty sigh before mounting her burro and heading off for the hills that would lead her to the nearest village. “Aye, mi gato!” A voice called out. Aldonza stopped the burro and turned around, a similar smirk rearranging her features as Pedro ran towards her.
“And what do you want?” She asked him with a cocked eyebrow. He swallowed as he looked up at her and fixated his own, characteristic smirk. “Right now or tonight?”
“Aye, yes, the inevitable tonight.” Aldonza replied, her tone loaded with snark. “I heard that was going to happen.”
“You… You what?” Pedro questioned seriously.
“Si, you and your men, in the stable. I heard what you said to them, and I heard that you told them that I cannot service them because you had already paid me. But, alas—“ she waved her nearly empty money bag at him. “No payment. You know I have a strict policy on payment.”
Pedro tipped back his head and laughed—physically laughed—with his entire body. He was shaking, convulsing as the rough, low register of laughter pierced the air with annoying contagiousness. “And what’s so funny?” She asked him, her lips forming a straight line across her face. “Why do you laugh?”
“It’s just—“ Pedro began, doubling over with intense laughter. “You’re so serious!”
Aldonza frowned and squeezed the donkey’s sides, forcing it to move her away from this mocking man. “No, wait!” He cried out, shuffling towards her.
“And why can’t I be serious?” She questioned harshly. “Is it because of what I am?”
“What you are—what do you mean?” Pedro asked.
“Oh, you know.”
“No, mi gato, I—“Pedro thought about it, kicking his toe in the dirt as he glanced up at her through muddy eyelashes. “May I join you?” Aldonza said nothing, though felt him mount the burro behind her. Together, the two created a damned, satirical version of Mary and Joseph. They rode together, Pedro’s hands grasping Aldonza’s waist as they made it into town, passing through aisles between makeshift storefronts, fields, playing children. “I do want another night with you,” Pedro told her as they dismounted the animal, tying it lazily to a post and shuffling in between stores. “I just didn’t get a chance to last night due to the… um, circumstances.”
Aldonza nodded, straightening herself up as she thought about this. “Fine,” she told him, haggling with a woman to lower her price on maize. “You can have your night. You can have your fun, your feelings, your bitch to slam into.” She turned swiftly towards him and pierced his face with a pointed glare. “But you do not have the right to say who I sleep with and who I don’t.”
Pedro returned the glare with an annoyingly handsome smirk. “The kitty cat is fierce today,” he murmured to her, laughing with amused frustration as she huffed away from him. “Fine, fine, I just thought that, perhaps, I was something special to you.”
“Special?” Aldonza questioned, buying a chicken from a man and watching with grim normality as they cut its head off and butchered it. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“You’re good at making love!” Aldonza spat, watching as his eyes softened slightly from the verbal blow.
“You seemed pretty into it,” Pedro reminded her, stroking her arm with the tip of his finger. “As I recall, someone asked for more.”
Aldonza blushed, unable to refuse the truth or camouflage her feelings. “You have to understand, mi gato, I—I have to act different towards the men than I do to you. What you heard me say was partially true. But I don’t want to give you to them, I don’t want them to experience you because I want to be the one who forces you to cry out into the night, the one that you choose, the one that you want.”
Aldonza paid for the poultry with a firm hand while her stomach twisted with somersaults. “How do you know what I want?” She quietly asked him as he returned from making his own purchases of rope, scrap metal, a new pair of cowhide boots. She spoke softly, purposefully, so that he would have to stoop down, lean into her, to hear.
“It’s a feeling,” he told her in the same tone. “Haven’t you had it before? A hunch?”
The young woman thought about this as she silently finished her purchases, carrying them back and securing them to the ragged saddle bag. She simply couldn’t admit to herself that this man made her happy because he drove her wild. Yet, his craziness, in some strange universe that she was experiencing, was her happiness. He was her ultimate happiness. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t physically tune her mind to another station. Everything reminded her of him, a constant cue that he was the script to her very soul. “It’s called love.” he prompted as he mounted the burro and reached his hand to her. Aldonza grabbed it with a grimace and heaved herself onto the animal, gripping his waist as he gripped the reigns. “And it’s not a sin.”
“And if it were?” She replied casually.
Pedro chuckled. “Ahh, well then what would be new to you?” Aldonza smacked his shoulder, though softly at the personal crack. “Ahh, lo siento, I’m teasing.”
“Well, even if you weren’t,” She mumbled. “it would still be true. Pedro,” she asked after a while. “Where are we going?” They were not on the proper trail home, but rather careening down a steep hill.
“Ahh, you’ll see.” He told her. Soon they were approaching a lake, its surface clear and seemingly steaming through the thick, mysterious waves of visible heat. It was pushing late afternoon, the peak of the heat. Climbing off the burro, Pedro extended a hand to Aldonza, who clamored off without accepting his offer.
“Why did you bring me to a lake?” She asked less than gracefully.
Pedro smirked as he untied his shirt and pulled it from his sculpted chest. “Aye, mi gato,” he explained, pleased that her eyes were moving down his now exposed torso. “I thought you might like to take a bath.”
“A bath.” Aldonza repeated, glancing down at her dirtied arms, tattered skirts and tangled hair. “I—you think I’m dirty?”
“I think you’re busy,” he told her, grabbing her hands and leading her to the mouth of the water. “And a beautiful woman needs time to take care of herself.” He dipped a toe in before removing it, hands sliding against her shirt as he pushed it to the side, exposing a bare shoulder. Leaning down, he placed a single kiss on it. Aldonza marveled the feeling and instinctually leaned into him, pressing her fingers firmly into his back.
“Okay.” She whispered as he removed his hands only to place them on the hem of her shirt, lifting it up so that her bare torso shone against the bright light.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, meeting her eyes with an awed smile. He removed his filthy trousers before walking into the water, waiting until he was half submerged to sink and swim a few strokes. Rising, he called out, “Coming, mi gato?”
Aldonza didn’t hesitate, and soon was dipping her naked body into the warm water, meeting the strong arms of Pedro. He pulled her against his torso, unleashing a full, bright smile. “Wash up.” He told her. Complying, Aldonza submerged her head into the clear water, rising with a flip of her long black locks. Pedro was behind her, running his fingers through it; each time his fingers would catch in a tangle, he would, with careful ease, work the knots until freed hair was running through his fingers. He hummed softly while doing this, a light tenor tune that rose and fell as the day around them transformed into a lavender and orange dusk. Soon her hair was completely smooth, and she turned around to face him. His eyes spoke with a dazzling sparkle accented by a toothy smile. Sure of her actions, who had an agenda of their own, Aldonza reached her hands from the water and cupped his strong, scruffy face, bringing it down to hers and kissing him with a loud, energetic passion. Her lips parted, searching for his as their tongues danced together, their bodies pressing closer together, their foreheads resting upon one another’s as they stared into each other’s eyes. His eyes widened when she pulled away, and she nodded, her cheek smearing against his as she whispered in his ear, “I love you.”