COOL MOONLIGHT AND WARM GUITARS
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
"WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM"
The sun was a brassy trumpet in the washed-out sky, the light pounding my eyes like the trumpet blasts of the triumphal procession, the heat pummeling us as heartlessly as the drums beating their cadence. For the toreadors were entering the arena.
"I tell you, it is because he is afraid." Manuel said to us through the din.
"No, no, it is because the spirit of the bull enters him. It drives him." Enrique insisted.
"How could a man who is afraid of bulls become a matador?" Salvador said gently.
"He tries to face his fear." Manuel said, confident in his answer. "I would do the same. Then, with the bull slain, the fact he could have died himself stares at him in the eyes of the dead bull, and he gives in to his fear."
"You mean to say that you are afraid of the bulls." Enrique said.
"My friends, my friends." I said quickly, before they could come to heated words or even blows. "This is an old argument and it can wait. We'll watch again and see if it is fear, or if he is possessed by the spirit of the bull, or if he is just a private man who just wants to avoid the crowd coming down into the arena to congratulate him." This was my own argument about El Posador.
We were in the seats on the eastern, sunlit side of the arena, they cost less and it was hard enough to make a living without spending the extra pesos it took to get into the shaded western side. The sun was in my face, even my sombrero could not block it entirely from my eyes. I wiped away the sweat without thinking about it. I had been living like this for a long time; if I wanted to see the bullfights, I had to settle for the sunlit side of the arena. At least the sun would drop even further and we would have some shade for the last part of the show, and it was the most important part. It was when we would see El Posador.
"There he is!" I shouted when I saw the familiar gold costume beneath the red cape among the matadores in the procession. "There he is!"
"We have eyes." Salvador said.
"But not ears any longer." Enrique said, holding his fingers in his ears in pretended anguish at my shout.
When I get excited, my voice rises both in volume and in pitch. As my mother said, "Juan does not shout, he shrieks." It was true, even my own mother admitted it.
So I sank back, ashamed. El Posador had heard me, even, upon the arena, for we were near the bottom rows. He turned his face up to mine, a square of noble manhood beneath the black cap, and he smiled at me. I could see it, a arc of moonlight white on his face, I could see it! Smiling, smiling at me! Me!
"He's seen me!" I shrieked out. "He's looking right at me! El Posador! Viva El Posador!" I waved like a maniac and he raised a genial hand in reply.
"Juanito, my friend, please!" Enrique said. "Your mouth is too close to my ears. I must move or be deafened and never hear the voices of my grandchildren."
I sank back, dazzled by this event. He had never seen me before but today! Today he saw me, me!
"You shall be lucky to even have one child." Manuel taunted him. Manuel was married and had two children, and so he could afford to be arrogant. For us other three, no lovely unmarried woman had yet been won over by any of our sweet words into forgetting our empty pockets. As Enrique once said wryly, it is difficult to talk smoothly to a girl without money to buy her drinks or flowers or small gifts, to make your words more sweet. I forebore from pointing out that with his prominent nose and skinny cheekbones that jutted out on either side, a woman would have to be blind as well as in love to find Enrique's finer qualities.
For myself, my mother was always trying to get me to meet this young lady or that. I argued that I was not yet ready for marriage, I wanted to be free. And while to her friends she repeated my words loyally, in private she moaned that she would die without ever seeing a grandchild from me, and me her only son. I was too interested in watching the bullfights to find a wife and make a family, she groaned in heartful despair. And then she would go off to the church and light another candle in prayer for me, begging Mary and all the saints to find a girl that I would like and send her to me right away!
How could I tell her that I could not give her grandchildren, because my heart had already found its match, and it was El Posador? I could not even tell myself that in so many words, when I lay on my lonely bed at night, every night, my hand at my manhood, pumping away in defiance of the priest's warnings about self-abuse, only when I would reach my peak and stain my blanket would I murmur so much as the name. "El Posador." the words would murmur unbidden from my lips. "El Posador, my love is yours." And I would wipe the salty stains away and fall into a fitful sleep, filled with black bulls and golden, beautiful El Posador.
And today, today! he had seen me and smiled at me. For the first time, he had looked right at me! I wanted to race back to my bed right now, throw myself upon the pallet on the floor, and yank my pud, spray my seed in white fury all over myself while that smile was still clear in my mind.
Still blinded by the light of the memory of that smile, I ignored the first fights, all the beauty and artistry went on around me unheeded. While my friends applauded or derided every action in the arena, I sat there unmoving, unseeing, seeing only that face, that smile. Right at me! He had looked right at me!
El Posador! The settler? The placer? The putter? Nothing could tell our dazzled minds why he had chosen this name for himself inside the arena. When other matadors were eager to have their Christian names all over on the posters on the walls, he was simply, enigmatically...El Posador.
When he walked into the arena, the final fighter of the evening, we were in shade and the sun was beginning to touch the horizon. But he lit up the arena himself, by removing the purple cape from his shoulders and accepting the plaudits of the crowd with the red cape. But none applauded or cheered so loudly, so heartfelt, as I did, and I wasn't applauding the fact he was about to fight the bull. I applauded because I could see him now. My reason for living, here, now, was this...to see him.
"He is afraid." Manuel insisted. "See how he quivers?"
"He is not quivering." Enrique insisted. "Only when he slays the bull does his body tense up and he runs out of the arena."
"He runs like a frightened child."
"He runs like a man possessed by demons."
"My friends!" I said to them. "Wait and let's watch him."
I barely saw the bull he was fighting, I was too entranced by his body, the way he moved around in gracious circles, like he was dancing, his brown limbs moving like the swaying trees in a wind, arced towards each other to grasp and switch the cape over if need be, and so I could envision myself in his extended arms. His body was large and strong, you could see the broad chest beneath the golden jacket, his face was beautifully still, almost stern in concentration of his art, I could envision his eyes burning down like that into mine.
"El Posador!" I shrieked out, and fell silent again. He had done nothing to merit my shout to the crowd around me, who were engrossed in his movements and otherwise quiet. My shout was a single burst of sound in a moment of tense quiet. I had not even known I was going to shout until the words came pouring out of my lips, full-grown, in all their fury. His head jerked towards me, my overloud shout, and the bull charged.
I groaned in fear. My shout had distracted him. But he stepped aside as smoothly as ever and the next few passes of the bull he handled with his back to the beast and its fatal horns!
The crowd poured out its shouts of praise to this intrepid hero.
"Afraid of the bull, is he?" I said to Manuel.
Manuel could only shrug. His theory of El Posador was gone. El Posador was NOT afraid of the bull! No man, even one out to prove his courage, would turn his back on a pain-maddened bull.
El Posador worked his poetry of motion, he wore down the bull, and then motioned for the sword. I leaned forward with the rest to the very edge of my seat to see the finale. Most matadors fought two bulls, but El Posador, only one, always. This would be his only kill of the day.
The light was getting weaker, the sun was diminishing. The bullfight was over as soon as the sword was driven home.
The flash of steel. The red spray of blood, a clean kill to an honorable opponent. The bull gave a last whuffle and dropped, decently dead.
The crowd waved their handkerchiefs. Both ears and the tail! Both ears and the tail! He must accept it this time for certain!
But El Posador didn't wait to receive the judge's call. As always, at this time, with his bull dead, El Posador's body jerked upright, and the crowd hushed. El Posador dropped the sword and the cape to lie filthy and forgotten in the dust of the arena, and fled, running madly for the exit, out of the arena and into the streets of the city.
I wanted to run after him. But I was with my friends and too far from the exits. One day, I swore, I would come without my friends, and I would sit by the exit and I would dash after El Posador. I would not shame him by telling anyone what I saw if I could but follow him.
I know it would have been simpler to wait outside for him to dash out of the main gate as he always did. But I never did that. If I did, then I couldn't have the joy of seeing him in the arena, the graceful moves of his body. So, as always, I sat where I was, a miserable coward, and only left with my friends and with the crowds when the final moments of the bullfight was over for another night.
I went home for a light supper and then back into the streets. It was night now, and the hot day departing was giving myself as well as everyone else some renewed energy and interest in life. The air was still warm from the day, and while the summer sun slept at last, we lived and rejoiced in the cool night air.
In the cooling air of day now gone, the guitars began to play. It seemed that night like every corner held a man with a guitar, making its warm melody. So soft, so slow, like a lover's touch, I felt so much at peace with my emotions, my dreams of El Posador. I could imagine, in those golden notes that floated through the air, that he would reach out and touch me. I found a bench and sat for a time, still tired from the hot day seated in the arena. I would but close my eyes for a time....
It was the moonlight that woke me. I was not sure how much time had passed, but the full moon was now high in the sky. The guitars played on, only a few now, but nearby. Slow, golden notes, soft as the light of the gentle moon.
I looked around and saw I was alone, then up to the sky, and the moonlight was the color of the smile of El Posador. And I saw that the moon bore a ring about it, what my mother always called "the wishing ring." It was only a superstition, that when the moon had a ring, you could make a wish upon that ring, but I felt a special power in that light.
"Ah, El Posador." I spoke to that white light. "If I could but hold you for one night, I could die a happy man in the morning."
Far off, some people laughed, and at first I thought they laughed at me. But when nothing more came of that, and I grew braver in my solitude, I turned again to look at the moon and I prayed, "Gentle Moon, only you know where El Posador hides after the fight. Guide him to me this night, I pray, let me speak to him as I have always wanted to. I can no longer bear the distance between us in the arena, for this day he saw me and smiled at me and my heart is broken in two. Please, take me to him, or send him to me, for this one night."
Some nights are magical, and the world moves to fit itself to your needs. I heard the footsteps on the alley behind me and I quickly turned and moved to sit down. And knowing the magic was mine that night, I was not very surprised when I saw first the suit of lights, and the lights that glimmered in the moonlight turned themselves into El Posador. So when he turned his deep eyes into my own, I was able to meet them with something like self-confidence.
"I saw you in the arena today." he said to me, recognizing me at once.
"Yes." I said to him.
"It was you who called out when I was facing the bull."
"That was me." I admitted. "I was afraid for you then. The bull nearly got you."
He only smiled. "The bull never gets me." he said.
I knew then that Enrique was also wrong, that he was not possessed by the power of the bull he had slain. And since the magic was mine that one night, the Moon had answered my prayer, I asked him the question that everyone wondered. "Why do you run out of the arena once you have killed the bull?"
"That is not easy to explain." he said to me, seeming to be willing to explain it. It was like he wanted to talk to me.
"Sit by me, and tell me." I said.
He moved and sat beside me on the bench. From nearby, the slow guitars continued their warm melody, and he was golden sparkling beauty beside me on the bench, lit only by the moonlight, we were wrapping in moonlight, moonlight and warm guitars.
"There is danger in the bull." he started.
"But you face that danger, unafraid." I said, fearing that he would say he was afraid.
"I am not afraid." he said. "But the danger is there. I would be the biggest kind of fool not to know that one day a bull may catch me and toss me about like a child's doll."
"It nearly happened today, because of me." I said.
"It was close." he admitted. "I like it when it is close like that, when there is something to take my attention away from the bull."
"You turned your back on the bull for a time." I said, in awe at his courage.
"I like it when I cannot know what the bull is doing for certain." he said. "The danger makes me feel...alive." And his eyes sparkled now with their own fire, the fire of the matador.
"Then why do you run when the bull is dead?" I asked him again.
"Because the bull is dead." he said. "And because I am alive. When I see the bull, see how strong he is and how cruel, and I know that I have killed him, I am alive."
"But why not stay and face the crowd, who only wish to honor you?"
"Because I am alive." he said, stood up and paced with the fierce energy of a cat. And all the beauty of movement of a cat, as well, his body shone with moonlit luster, the proud, strong body, the wonderful smooth face. "Because my blood is pounding in me, because my heart is racing, because I can see everything about me as clearly as if it were just created by the hand of God. It moves my feet, it makes me run, because I must see it all while it is still new, because my heart must do something, because I am alive."
"And so you run because you are alive." I breathed.
"Yes." He said and sat beside me again. "But then there is the problem of what to do next."
"To do next?" I asked, puzzled.
"How to keep that feeling, the feeling of being alive." he clarified. "My heart craves adventure, it needs excitement. Nothing I have found is enough. And so I return once again to the arena, to face the bull again and to feel alive once more."
"You could go dancing." I suggested.
"I have danced every dance there is." he said.
"You could drink the way many men do after a bullfight." I said. I had seen other matadors, flushed with their glory, drinking to their success.
"I have drunk all there is to drink." he said.
"You could take the attentions of a beautiful woman that has thrown you her rose." I said, my heart sinking to think of him in a woman's arms, instead of mine.
"I have taken the flowers." he said heartlessly to me, piercing my very soul. "I have sunk into their bodies and tried to drink myself alive from their bosoms. But there is nothing there for me."
"Then what else will you try?" I asked him.
"Everything there is to try." he said. "Until I find the one thing that makes me continue to feel alive, on and on, not just when the bull is dead. Then I can stay in the ring and accept the people's applause, instead of running out as I do."
"What will you try tonight?" I asked him.
"Tonight." he said. "I shall try you." And moving as if it were his right, as if it were my destiny, he took me into his arms, and that face, that beautiful face, reached for mine!
When his lips kissed my own, it was like the gates of heaven had opened up for me, and choirs of angels were singing all around me, surrounded by streamers of yellow light. His mouth tasted of sweet nectar, no hint of tobacco or alcohol was upon it, only the gentle, rare essence of him, El Posador, and he was giving it to me.
His hands clutched my back and pulled me to him tightly, and it felt as I had always dreamed it would feel, I could hear the faint rustle of his suit of lights, and his hands moved upon my back, feeling me, touching me. And the background to this music of our shared bodies, was the strumming of guitars.
I felt myself a clumsy child, I didn't know what to do! In fantasies everything moves so smoothly, but now, here, with El Posador holding me in his arms, I couldn't think what was best to do!
I reached below his arms to touch his waist, his slim, muscle-tightened waist, and it felt as if I could touch my fingers both before and behind him, though I knew that was impossible.
He pulled me tighter and I either moved with him or sprawled in an ungainly mass on the ground, so I moved up against his body though I had to stand with one foot on the ground and the other hovering in mid-air, my weight on that leg's thigh, but I didn't care for that. I was pressing my body up against his now, or he was pulling mine up against him, and I could feel it now, feel it as a knob against my stomach...El Posador's manhood, beckoning to me.
And he moaned into my mouth and shifted and his groin was pressed against me even more tightly, and now the knob became a shaft of warm strength that strained to get next to me, and my own penis was a gnarled, tangled, painfully constrained bulge below his own, and I dared to hunch upwards with my buttocks and I pressed my knot of turgid flesh against his own.
We rutted against each other like that for some time, long slow strokes of our bodies against each other, each movement running a line of passion up and down my body. I was kissing him still and his tongue entered my mouth and I greedily sucked it into myself, tasting it, tasting El Posador, making his flavor a part of my own senses, to be remembered forever!
El Posador let me overbear him, or perhaps he was still in charge and chose to be the one reclining at ease in this joining of our bodies, for he lay down on the bench and I was on top of him and I released his body and chose instead to touch his chest, his broad, strong chest, feeling him, knowing he was here, he was real. This was my night of magic, my one night with El Posador as I had wished. I had to make it last, make it special, make it everything my dreams had always wanted it to be!
My need gave artistry to my hands, now I touched him in the ways I had always wanted, now I caressed his body with long, slow, sensuous motions and he groaned his pleasure up into my face staring ceaselessly into his. I felt him though that suit of lights, and he let me feel him, let me touch him, let me make love to him, while he lay there and enjoyed my eager, worshiping touches.
I touched his face, running my fingers over his strong jaws, across his smooth cheeks, around his dark, smiling eyes, I traced the smile that he wore on his lips and when my fingers had circled that soft track, he reached up and kissed my fingertip, and that kiss, more so than anything else, gave me courage.
He was mine, this night. Mine to make love to as I chose, I sensed that now, he was not just soaking in the sensations of my hands upon him, he was waiting to let me choose! Such a wonderful gift to receive, your dream lover in gentle compliance to your desires!
I unbuttoned his shirt at the bottom, at first intending to unbutton it all the way to the top, but when I first saw that part of him I had never been able to see in the arena, when I saw the faint trail of hairs upon his midline, broken only by the faint line of the navel, I had to press my lips against it, and I did! His skin tasted of the arena, of bulls and barns and exertion and flirtation with death, a strong, firm, leathery taste that was composed of everything I went to the bullfights for, all of that which makes up a man was in this taste of his skin.
He groaned as I kissed his stomach and moved upwards, and I felt his cock like a sword-thrust at my neck. "Ah, my gentle, my own, El Posador." I breathed softly. "For this one night, you are mine. I shall give you such pleasure as you have never before had, nor even dreamed of. And your pleasure shall be mine."
With that promise of ecstasy for him, I turned my hands to the unfastening of his trousers, faintly astonished that they were so pedestrian in their design, a simple fly as adorned my own pants, quickly unzipped and unbuttoned, and this his only covering, his tower of masculinity sprung free and waved at me the way the sword waves at the bull, searching for the right place to bury itself.
I took the cockhead into my mouth, and it was salty and strong-smelling, smelling of sweat and heat and the torrid air of the arena, the first hot hours of the bullfight all nestled there in his groin. I heard again the trumpets and the drums, felt again the heat upon my face, and I reached up and grasped his foreskin and pulled it down and his glans caught, strained, and then burst free into the air and I covered it once more, this time with myself, my tongue tasting and swirling about the tucker of skin at the lower part of the glans, where the foreskin holds fast to the shaft with a curling, wrinkled pulpy mass of flesh, and I tasted it.
"Ah, ah!" came the soft sighs of desire from El Posador. "Yes, my little one, yes." he crooned. "Take my manhood into yourself, drain me of my very life, my strength, let me die like this, with you."
I lifted my lips from his blessed manhood, and it wept in gratitude. "Nay, El Posador, it is I who shall die at the end of this night, happy, because I at last have you with me."
And I dove back onto his pillar of virility, and now my body brought up from some unknown place the knowledge I needed to properly move upon El Posador's prick, for I was suddenly the most capable of lovers. I darted my tongue about his cockhead until he moaned in frustration, then sated that frustrated desire by delving deeply onto him, and I would make hard, fast motions of my head, and wring mountains of joy from his cock, until he was groaning and panting with the sheer sensation of bliss upon bliss, and then I would move slower, making shallower strokes, slowing down his pleasure and leaving him sobbing for breath, small, guttural, inarticulate sounds for mercy, yet I showed him none, for this was my night, my sole time with him, and I would make it last!
So I nursed his prong until it was a tower of steel in my hand, until it burned so hotly that I thought it would glow with its own light, until the beautiful face of El Posador was a sweat-drenched, lust-doused, breath-bereft ghost of my hero, for I had him at the very heights of pleasure and he was helpless now before me.
"Ah, my gentle El Posador." I said to him as I stopped my ministrations of my mouth upon him and worked him carefully with my hand, the heavy dong making slorp-slorp sounds, heavy moist plops of noise, with every motion of my hand. "This night is mine with you, and now I have done all I can with my mouth. You must now, if you wish a relief from this unending source of pleasure, become now the master, and take me here and now, in this alley, with this moon and the gentle sound like rain of the guitars."
And I lay back upon the bench as he rose, quivering, his chest heaving with his aroused passion. I felt now how he must feel in the arena, with the dark beast hovering, looking at him, about to impale him if it can. But unlike him with his cape, I did nothing to block the charge of the bull towards me.
My trousers I had unfastened but done nothing more. Now he was nearly ripping them from my lower body, my boots remaining in place, the pants stripped off around them, and flung down to the ground beside us and I was bare below my waist, and he reached out, his two hands like the horns of a bull, and he grasped my legs and he lifted them up and he held them wide apart, and pulled me up on the bench some, so that he could straddle the bench and my virginal ass was his for the taking.
"Oh, nobody else!" I moaned as his cockhead found my entrance. "Nobody else has taken me before you, El Posador. Take me now, take me as you will, it is all yours and only yours!"
He was maddened with desire and deaf to any entreaty from me had I begged for gentleness, so it was well I wished him to be the master here. He pressed his cockhead against my anus, and the pain was a bright spear at my vitals, but I only moaned and he pushed into me. I was being stabbed by El Posador with his sword of manhood, he was plunging it into my very innermost self and I could only stay as I was and let him do it.
His cock was a flexible saber that managed to fit itself into my curved channels, or perhaps it straightened them out in some gentle way, I know only that after the first burst of pain, there was no pain more, only the overwhelming feel of fullness, I was filled with El Posador, his powerful rod was filling me to capacity, and he looked at me with his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide and glazed over, lost in his passion.
With strong, sure moves like he used in the arena, El Posador began to fuck me and my glad cries were flung from me like the flowers thrown by the pretty ladies in the arena, while he closed his eyes, wandering about in his own pleasure while his body wrung more from my bowels, both for him and for me.
I could not dream of a better fate than this, to be fucked by this man, this hero, this legend, and I began to help him to fuck me, moving my buttocks to increase his depth and his joy, while my sphincter clutched at his tool tightly, milking at it, and he responded with small gasps of ecstasy, oh, oh, oh!
He released first one leg then the other, and I wrapped them around his waist while he leaned over and grasped the bench on either side of me and he hunched into my body harder and faster, while his mouth gaped open with a small "O"of his delight, though no sounds came from his mouth other than the hiss of drawn and expelled breath.
I felt it then, the familiar creeping puddle of ecstasy building within me. "Oh, oh, El Posador, I am near!" I warned him. "I will burst out upon you, I will soil your beautiful suit of lights, El Posador, you must be careful!" My warning done, I gave myself to my climax, my orgasm assailed my senses and I groaned loudly, fucking myself by clenching and releasing my legs upon him, and I expected all this time that he would move away so as not to be splattered with my explosion of joy.
But he did not, perhaps he was too lost in his own pleasure, and when I reached my peak and my volcano erupted, it sprayed all over him as I had warned it would. I was soaking El Posador, splattering the beloved form with my seed. He felt the first burst of it on his stomach and he gasped, his eyes wide as if with surprise, and then he humped me all the harder and then he was venting his pleasure the same as me, with the sounds of joy and the feel of hot jism spraying into my innards.
I clenched and milked him harder than ever when I felt that first burst of jizz into my bowels, I was a frenzy of clutching sphincter, I wrenched and squeezed his cockshaft hard and fast as I could, while he was driven to greater heights of passion by my body, so that his climax extended itself, even after he was done with his load of sperm into my body, still he was moaning and jerking his body and hunching at my buttocks and still I milked at him, determined to wring every last drop of his climax out of him and into myself.
Finally, he was done and he laid himself on me and I let my abused body gasp for air as it would without hindrance from me. His breath was the zephyr of springtime when the world is cool and alive, brushing over my chest and I reached up to stroke the sweat-soaked hair on his head, and he turned his face up to smile into my face, and this time, instead of becoming a maniac as I had in the arena, I smiled back into him, my body sated, my wish granted, my life complete.
"It was worth it, the wish." I said to him almost sleepily.
"What is that?" he asked me, puzzled.
I explained about the wish I had made, and how quickly it had come true. "And now I have my life's greatest wish." I said. "For you have made love to me and I now have memories instead of fantasies. It is all I could ask out of my life, this one night, with you."
"So you have found what you were looking for?" He asked me, smiling gently.
"Yes." I said, and remembered that he, too, had come looking this night. "And I hope that you, too, found something of what you wanted on this night with me."
He stroked my body, a loving but final sort of stroke and arose, adjusted his clothing and refastened it as I watched him. "I fight in the arena again tomorrow." He reminded me.
"I know." I said to him. "I wish that I could be there."
"You will not?" He asked me, puzzled.
"I come as often as I can." I pointed out. "But I have no money."
He smiled. "What is your name?" He asked me.
"I am Juan Garcia Esparza." I said. "My friends call me Juan the Crow, because of the loud way I speak sometimes."
"Well, Juan the Crow." he said to me. "Come to the arena tomorrow and give your name to the ticketmaster." he said. "And you will get inside, with your friends. I promise."
"I thank you, El Posador." I said gratefully. Of course he could ask the man to let me inside for free. It was a mere nothing to him, but it meant I could see him again. "I will see you tomorrow."
He smiled, his teeth a crescent moon of light, and then he turned and walked away. I rose, dressed myself, and walked off to find the sound of the guitars that echoed still in the alley, hoping that it would be a party and I could find some company there. But the guitars came from some upstairs room somewhere, I could not find them, and so I went on home.
My friends were suspicious when I said I was going to the arena. None of them had money and knew I had none. I chose not to tell them of El Posador, only said, "Come, let us go and ask the man to let us inside. We buy so many tickets, perhaps this day he will be generous."
"He never is." Manuel said pragmatically. But they had nothing else to do, they came with me.
I gave my name and nickname to the ticketmaster, and he was quick to reach down and pull out four tickets to us. Enrique was surprised. "These tickets!" He exclaimed. "They are on the west side!" For once, we were going to see the fight in the cool shade of the western side. He gave a thousand thanks to the ticketmaster, who waved him away and waited on the next in line.
We settled into the seats, right down in front, and my friends and I were happy. Salvador even reached into his pocket and found enough money to buy us each a small iced drink from the vendor. So we drank in comfort and were ready to watch the bullfights in style. I waved happily to El Posador when he came out with the toreadors, and he waved back, right at me.
They were as wonderful as ever, the bullfights, and it is so much better to see them from the shade, so that the sun does not block any single move.
As always, El Posador was the last bullfighter, and I watched him moving, that body which had so wonderfully pleased me the night before now moving in equally smooth harmony with the bull. I watched as he was in excellent form, never better, and the bull at last collapsed beneath his blade.
"Now he will run." Manuel prophesied. "He always runs."
El Posador stood, looking at the dead bull. Then his eyes lifted and he looked at me and as he did, a stiffness went out of his body, which stopped quivering. To everyone's uproarious delight, he turned to the judge's box and took his bow for the first time ever in any arena.
"He did not run!" Salvador said in wonder. "He did not run."
"He is no longer afraid." Manuel judged.
"He is no longer possessed by demons." Enrique pointed out.
El Posador turned and looked at me, and I answered, "No. He has found what he is looking for."
I had wished for one night with El Posador, and then death with nothing else to wish for. But now I saw my life stretching out before me, the many thousand nights to come with El Posador, and all of them filled with cool moonlight, and warm guitars.
THE END