Benicio was cooking in the kitchen and Nate went into one of the rooms and closed the door behind him.The native girl they had seen on the dock was nowhere to be found and Gustavo and Fernando ate quietly in the kitchen exchanging grunts with Benecio. The girls rested uneasily in their appointed room.
A few minutes later a door slammed, and Nate could be heard loudly out of the back screen door: "Motherfucker!"
The girls slipped into the dining room to see what had caused Nate's anger.
"For one week, Benny," the girls heard Nate plead,"Maybe two" ,to this surprisingly vain man with slicked hair and a highly labor intensive perfection of a pencil moustache. His hair was colored but the lines in his face and perhaps the extremely thick lensed glasses made him out to be in his late sixties however he projected a dangerous virility usually associated with younger men.
"Estas Jodido!" Came Benecio's bellowing bullfrog of a voice.
He could even be a sociopath for all the girls knew and feared.
"Voor Niets gaat de zon op," whispered Nina,"There is no free lunch".
Dory shushed her and they held each other's hands.
"That's for me to decide,"replied Nate with as much aggression as he could muster . Clearly no match for Benecio.
"Are we not...compadres anymore," said Benecio, in a completely changed tone:that of the wounded soldier about to die. And before Nate could answer he continued: "Did I not tell you what the great Conquistadors called each other? They called each other compadres because they were together because they wanted to be -not because they had to be. Because they believed in the same things...en la gloria.. and nothing could tear them apart. Es un dicho de respeto mutuo! Compadre !"
"And nothing is tearing us apart, Benny."
"Mierda, "he said, "Shit".
"I am leaving and when I am coming back if they are not gone we will not be compadres any more,"he said lethally, "Entiendes."
"Are you threatening me?' asked Nate.
"I never threaten,"he scowled.
The men stood on a walkway leading up a hill in back of the cabin , in a garden where all kinds of common household flowers bloomed, much like you might find in Holland.The girls watched through a screened window in the cabin. Benecio's back was to them but they saw him lunge forward, pushing Nate's chest, causing him to stumble backwards all the while firing off a barrage of words they could only measure by their intensity.They saw him snarl fully in a fit of fury- his dentures tearing the flesh out of Nate's feeble verbal defense like a raging rottweiler-all of which ended with Nate three paces back and nearly falling to the ground.
"All right, All Right, you made your point," said Nate.
Dory thought she heard fear in his voice.
They came back inside. Benecio was smiling like an amiable host.Nate seemed fearful and embarassed but quickly lost the mood and rubbed his hands together in expectation.
"Did I tell you that Benecio owns a restaurant ? All the American oil workers in Agua Dulce, a town about three hours away from Francisco de Orellana along the pipeline, pass up the free food at the canteen to get his world famous ,Gringo Chili.
The girls nodded silently as they had quickly gone to seats at the dining room table and watched this man who exuded malevolence with every breath turn on the transistor radio that rested on a window ledge against the screen in the room.The radio received only one channel HCJV, a Christian Evangelist Station, broadcasting from the Capital, that had the fifth strongest AM signal in the world and so would reach even into the depths of the Amazon. They were playing some light classical, Strauss, which Dory detested.
Benecio returned from the kitchen in short order and professionally served them a bounteous dinner , family style,like the girls could never have imagined.
"Eet ! Eet!" he implored "Very special food. Sir -fried."
"So tomorrow," Nate said, in the same good spirit he had had before their arrival, we'll start our first excurison at sunrise." He smiled again, thoroughly enjoying his meal unaware of any problems in the universe.. The meal was venison of some sort with a flavor like beef but the meat was much leaner and the fibers were short and tender. Vegetables so fresh they must have been picked right before cooking: eggplant, baby carrots ,sugar pea pods, cauliflower, were in bowls down the center of the table. They were perfectly cooked and the girls, at first timid ultimately could not control their desire for this luxury and helped themselves to more and more vegetables. "These are precisely cooked," ventured Nina scooping more baby carrots on to her plate, "and so delicious.Did you cook this meal,she continued bravely trying to make some connection with the man, "Senor Benecio?"
"Yeees," he said , producing the smile of a dentured Cheshire cat.His thick glasses were blotched with fingerprints contrasting sharply with his immaculately trimmed moustache. Dory immediately brought to mind a Latin emulation of John Wayne in the way he moved, and spoke deeply and from the back of his throat. (Juan Wayne she secretly dubbed him.)Only a bottle of rum and a glass sat at his woven thatch place mat.The heavy man must have eaten earlier.He smoked a cigarette and made it clear that he did not want to be involved in any discussion.
"Yes Benicio's a hell of a cook all right ," began Nate .
"And he grows these things here ? " asked Dory.Nate nodded. "Well what about what you told us about this land being of such poor soil quality and the insects that would come to eat these varieties of vegetables. These are not tropical vegetables."
"Remember what I told you about Terra Preta. They think it might be in twenty percent of the Amazon and at least some of it anyway is here."
"Si,"said Benecio,Juan Wayne, the Cheshire with dentures,now more clearly showing the effects of the rum,"la verdad."
After dinner Nina and Dory volunteered to do the dishes in a spotless kitchen few men could ever maintain and Benecio, out cold, head down on his place mat,jarred from sleep by the clatter of kitchen cleaning , lumbered off to a room and closed the door. Nina went into the room that had been designated for the girls with its twin beds and Dory and Nate went out to the veranda and sat on a long bench which Nate explained had once been a canoe that had rotted along one edge beyond repair. It was tradition , he told her, to make canoes that had served the owners well into benches so that one could sit on it at night and relive the great hunts the canoe had led them to. A sympathetic breeze was coming off the lake and made the smoke from the cigarette she had rolled dissipate in all directions. The sough from the nearby palms seemed to fan away the unexplained tensions their arrival had brought. "So what's going on here, Nate? Tell me."
"Just a slight misunderstanding."
"Tell me."
"Well ol' Benecio and I, he's Colombian actually, but he's been in Ecuador forever building jungle camps for oil exploration companies -he built this cabin-and handling the catering- the Jungle is floating in oil you know, just a matter of time till they got a Walmart down here, anyway I met him at the hotel Auca and he told me about this place and there was some urgency to buy it before the Socialist President,Otumbato, gave the Quechuas title to all this land so he brought me down here and showed me how beautiful it was and I fronted him the money to buy it.We own five thousand hectares."
"But why was he so angry ?"
"Because he sees this place as our own private paradise and he thinks that as soon as you start to bring other people here- it loses its magic power. That it will no longer be paradise."
"But so angry- I thought he was going to kill you."
"Yeah he did overreact. I'm learning more things I don't like about the guy everyday."
"I think he has some big plan for this place," said Dory, "that does not include you.Maybe there is oil here."
"No. he doesn't have the cash for an oil operation and besides you have to make a treaty with the government before you can drill for oil."
"He wants something, here," she said.
"Well , he has mentioned some problems back home. No specifics. But I figure everybody is running from a little bit of something. But he loves the forest and I'm sorry you won't have the opportunity to walk through it with him for there is very little he does not know something about and he has imparted that knowledge onto me.
"You are naive or a liar."
"Probably both."
"So you have no plans for this land?"asked Dory.
He took a gulp of rum and then another. "I don't think I have to do anything with it, do I ? Everybody's got to be somewhere and I"m here."
"No," said Dory thoughtfully,an owl hooted nearby. "I don't guess you have to do anything with the land ..."
"This would be a great hideout if I was running from the law," he said with a smile.
"But you're not!"she said and punched him in the shoulder for playing with her.
"No I am not.," he laughed,"And although I'm not sure I don't think Benecio is either.I am running from all the things I did too young in life and all the things I am now too old to do."
"But you are so young"
"Lady, I'm at least ten years older than you maybe more and if you can't read the road map on my face you must be looking at me through rose-colored glasses.I'm a Conquistador just like Francisco de Orellana and I may not find El Dorado but I know I've hit some kind of mother lode." He bent towards her and kissed her. He thrust his tongue and she responded. Their mouths began to glow, capricious and profuse. He took her by the hand past the dimly burning kerosene lantern on the dining room table into what was his room. They helped each other undress unfettered by arousal.
"What is this motherlode?" she asked, knowing with a touch she could bring the level of passion back up.
"It's a source of infinite wealth,"he said panting,"and that's what I have here. You'll begin to see it tomorrow."
She finished undressing him and took him in her mouth.He nearly came pushing her back into temporary confusion. She tasted sweet to him and he thrust his tongue inside her as far as it would go, She let out the tiniest of groans. Finally she mounted him and began to thrust. Fiercely, she gyrated, moving her body from side to side and capturing small pleasures for herself on the road to their crowning glory. She stopped once, breathing heavily. "Too much smoking," said Nate and he thrust upward a half a dozen times reviving her machinations. Still harder she thrust and Nate finally came. She lay on top of him spent, their bodies covered in sweat. He was not quite sure if she had come but he knew he had given her a good ride. His cock disgorged and slipped out of her. She rolled over beside him. "You are so small," said Dory, dreamily.
"What!"he propped to one elbow facing her.
"No sorry. What I meant to say is you are just the right size. With my boyfriend Rene it was always so painful because he was so big but you- I could never have had such good sex with Rene."
"So there IS a future for us pencildicks ?"he asked, still feeling slighted.
"That was the best sex I've ever had,"said Dory.
"And I'm the second guy you ever made love to?"he asked, hopefully.
"No." "Just. The smallest."
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