HOT BLOOD, by Arthur Wallace

Originally published in Spicy Adventures, April 1935.

The thick-shouldered, heavy-set Miura bull, black as the ebony mantillas of the Señoritas in the gallery, charged at the mounted picador, head lowered, massive body tensed in a frenzy of anger.

The crowd rose as a man, eyes centered on the thundering beast already enraged by five thrusts with the sharp, steel-pointed pica. They could see there was no way for the picador to turn his mount away from the bull’s sharp horns. The horse would be gored and if the rider did not fall free, he, too, would be trampled under foot or even fatally pierced. A wave of sound swept the Plaza De Toros as the impact came. The bull’s long, curled horns drove into the horse’s belly, lifting the dazed animal’s forefeet high off the ground and sending the picador spinning into space. Pulling his horns free, the bull charged again, but the squealing horse was out of range, wobbling crazily on its thin legs, blood-soaked entrails hanging from the rent in its belly like red sausages. Momentarily it remained erect, reeling like a drunken sailor. Then, as death came, it folded up and dropped clumsily to the sandy floor of the ring. The blood gushing from its wounds was hot and steaming.

A bugle sounded from the president’s box and four banderilleros moved out to place the gaily colored darts between the bull’s shoulder-blades. It was short and graceful work and when they were done, the beast stood in the center of the ring, four barbed poles, festooned with bright ribbons, dangling from his withers. The crowd applauded as another bugle call rang out.

It was the signal for Diego, the matador, to make his entrance for the kill. In a box directly over the cement portal, a young girl’s right hand fluttered to her breast, lean white petals of fingers curling about the firmness of a satin-clad mound. She turned to her companion, idolatry beaming in the limpid depths of her dark eyes.

“He comes… Diego!” she breathed passionately.

Manuel Rivero nodded slowly. He was annoyed with Alicia’s fanatical worship of the foul-faced bullfighter. For three days running now she had insisted on attending the corrida, solely for the pleasure of seeing Diego, the gypsy, at the kill.

“Si,” he replied, “but he will have trouble with this bull. He is fast and shifty. You may yet see him stuck on the horns like a sawdust doll.”

Alicia went pale, the color melting from her velvet cheeks. The ripe, cherry-lushness of her lips trembled and the upper crescents of her sun-glow breasts rose above the square neckline of her dress. She clenched her tiny hands.

“Que verguenza!” she gasped. “For shame! You should not say such a thing, Manuel!”

He shrugged, visibly annoyed at her defense of the matador. If they had been casual friends it would not matter. But were they not engaged to marry in a month? Had not the date been already announced?

His reply was stilled in his throat as Diego, resplendent in tight fitting red silk breeches and a heavily embroidered jacket, doffed his hat before the president’s box. That done, he wheeled and approached the waiting bull, a carmine and yellow cape draped over his left arm, a steel-bladed sword in his right hand.

Alicia, from her choice seat, lived and breathed with the matador as he courted death time and again in the vicinity of the bull’s sharp horns. With infinite grace, Diego executed the difficult naturales, leading the animal on with his cape and arching his hips to let it whiz by, a hair’s breadth from his body. When the time came for Diego to make the kill, Alicia’s eyes glowed with a strange luster. Her hands were cupped about her breasts, fingers digging into the resilient flesh with inordinate passion As the matador’s sword flashed in the sun, only to be buried hilt deep in the hump of muscle behind the beast’s neck a long sigh escaped her lips and electric shocks of delirious intensity whipped through her body, shaking her to the very core of all sensation. In her own mind she had often wondered why the sight of Diego plunging his blade into a bull’s body reacted so intensely upon her. This was the third time she had seen it, and each time when she rose to leave the arena, her breasts were rigid, and her breath came in little panting gasps.

As the bull dropped on its knees, Alicia stood up. “Come, Manuel,” she whispered. “It is enough.”

He protested feebly. “Ortega will kill next. He is clever. I wish to see him.”

Alicia shook her dark head. “Vamonos! It is enough!” She had no desire to be witness to the other killings. After Diego, they would be anti-climaxes.

Manuel followed her down the cement aisle. All eyes turned to watch her progress, fascinated by her signal beauty, the movement of her untrammeled breasts and the voluptuous undulation of her hips. Some knew that she was Alicia Montevideo, an orphan, but heiress to one of the largest fortunes in Madrid. Others knew only that she was a rare, exotic flower, and dreamed idly of holding such a one in their arms, of burying their lips in the soft hollows of her throat. At the exit, she turned and looked down upon Diego receiving the plaudits of the crowd. Desire shone in the bright pupils of her eyes.

In the drawing-room of Alicia’s palatial home, Manuel removed his cape and threw it carelessly over the back of a gilt chair. Alicia was standing at the mirror, adjusting the glistening profusion of her black hair. Manuel came up behind her and placed his spread hands on the svelte curve of her hips. Glancing over her shoulder he could see the projection of her breasts, the full, curving roundness of them limned beneath a clinging satin bodice. His lips brushed her bare shoulder, lingered to cling to the sweetly scented flesh. “Yo te amo, carissima,” he whispered passionately. She shuddered and broke away, passing the back of one hand over her forehead. “Please, not now. I have the headache.”

He stepped forward and slipped both arms about her waist, drawing her to him. Her breasts pressed against his silk shirt and burned through it—like coals—against his chest.

“I am sorry, querida,” he said. “Is there something I can do?”

Alicia braced her hands against his shoulders, pushed him away. “Gracias. There is nothing. I will go and rest.”

Manuel’s brow creased. “I wished to speak to you about the wedding, Alicia. Tia Louisa says—”

“It is enough that you have conferred with my aunt, Manuel,” she interrupted. “She will make all arrangements as my guardian.”

He followed her to the marble staircase, held her briefly in his arms, kissed the damp swell of her lips. “Adios, Manuel,” she murmured.

“Hasta luego, hermosa mia.”

The moment, from the upstairs corridor, she heard the door close behind her fiance, Alicia was all life and vivacity. She came down again, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with excitement. The plan had formed in her mind as the carriage was bringing Manuel and her home. It was a vagrant, forbidden thing, but for once in her life she meant to taste ecstasy and the fulfillment of desire. Manuel would never know. She would come to him on their wedding night and he would be none the wiser.

Trembling in anticipation she lifted the telephone receiver and held it to her dainty ear.

“La Hotel de Toros,” she spoke into the mouthpiece. Her heart pounded as the connection was being made. So much so that she held her hand over her left breast to still its clamor. Minutes later, when she replaced the receiver on its hook, it was still beating unmercifully. Somehow, she could not believe she had spoken to the great Diego. It was almost beyond the realm of possibility. But his voice had come over the wire deep and melodious.

“I will be honored, Señorita,” he had said.

Alicia raced up the stairs, dashed into her boudoir. Her fingers could not release the hooks of the satin dress quickly enough. At last it slipped over her curved hips cascaded to the floor. A diaphanous chiffon brassiere hugged her breasts, drawing the alabaster cones together and forming a definite shadowed valley between them. Inches of bare flesh separated the brassiere bottom and the top of lace inset panties.

Rushing to a closet, she selected an afternoon frock of old rose silk, donned it hurriedly. Her figure melted into the lines of the dress, formed a shapely symphony of hills and valleys. Her finger dipped into a rouge pot, applied the magenta coloring to her lips. She was trembling…trembling with anticipation.

In his suite at the Hotel de Toros, Diego Martinez leaned back upon a couch and permitted the woman who was beside him to toy with his coarse black hair and run her slender, provocative fingers over his face. Her too-plump body, almost bursting the seams of a tight silk dress, pressed against him, curving hill of one half-revealed breast resting like aspic on his upper arm.

She licked her red lips hungrily. Her eyes, bright with belladonna glittered from beneath violet-shaded lids.

“Today caro mio you were superb!” she intoned softly. “In all of Spain there is none so brave.”

Diego swelled pridefully. “You thought it was good eh, Josita? You saw el toro come to his knees for me, no?”

The woman slipped one arm under the small of the matador’s back, arched her fleshy hips. “Si, it was magnifico!” Her lips found his throat, teased with their damp sensuality. “I was proud that I am the favored one of the great Diego. Is it not so?”

Diego laughed softly. He was thinking of the girl who had called him on the telephone. Her voice was young and charged with life. She would have a young body, too, and a young face. He looked down at Josita, pressing against him in the first frenzy of her endless passion. Bah! She was getting fat and disgusting. It was high time he, Diego Martinez, matador primero, had a young girl, one of good blood.

Josita’s hand found his, pressed it to her bosom. His fingers brushed the softness of curved flesh, felt it give way before him. He was tempted to capitulate to her mute, gasping offering, to plumb once more the bottomless depths of her desire, when a faint knock sounded at the door.

He sat up, pushing Josita away. In a moment he was on his feet, adjusting his orange silk shirt.

“You will go!” he muttered, pointing to another exit from the room.

She demurred, clinging to his shoulders, giving him all the lush curves of her body at once. Diego spat viciously, tore her arms away.

“Go, I say!” He raised a clenched fist as though to strike her but she dropped back against the wall, breasts heaving like bellows. In a flash she had changed from soft allure to snarling hatred. Her lips curled back over white teeth and the muscles of her rouged cheeks twitched nervously.

“Si, I know!” she hissed. “It is another woman!”

The knock sounded on the door again. Diego sprang at Josita. His hand shot out and whipped across her face.

“Caramba! Get out! Puta!” The vile name leaped from his lips. He swung the door open, curled his fingers about her plump arm and threw her across the threshold. A moment at the mirror, combing his raven hair and he was ready to answer the summons at the other door.

Alicia’s smile was half-joy, half-fear as she stepped into the hotel room at Diego’s bowing invitation. Now that she was here, close enough to him to touch him, a sense of remorse gnawed at her heart. Diego, less graceful with women than he was with bulls, sought to put her at ease. He was amazed and delighted at her beauty. Never before, even in the Basque country, had he seen so beautiful a woman. Her skin was almost white in contrast to his own brownish complexion. Her body was delicately fashioned, not gross and heavy like Josita’s.

“I came, Señor,” Alicia explained haltingly, “because of my admiration for you. In the corrida today—”

Diego’s lips twisted. A scar on his left cheek became livid as he flushed pridefully.

“You saw me today with the Miura bull? He was a hard animal.”

“Si. I saw you. I was thrilled.”

He came to position beside her on the couch, his quick, flashing eyes taking in the firm pout of her breasts and the mature fullness where her supple thighs joined the lyre of her hips.

“I do not even know your name, Señorita,” he said. “That is where you have the advantage of me.”

Panic gripped her. Should she tell him her real name? At the moment she could think of no other. “I—I am Señorita Alicia Montevideo.”

He jerked to his feet, bowed at the hips. “The pleasure is mine, Señorita. I have heard much of your family. I am happy to know that you are interested in the fighting of the bull.”

Alicia shuddered. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her close. Her mind’s eye framed a picture of him, sword in hand, pirouetting for the kill. Everything flashed before her: the disemboweled horse, the hot blood rising in a steam of vapor, the black bull on its knees with Diego standing over it victoriously. Her breasts swelled, strained at the silk bodice. He was a killer…a thing of blood and death…and yet…and yet…

She swayed dizzily. Diego’s arms came out to catch her, circled her pliant waist. Her warm breath fanned his cheeks.

“Dios! Dios!” she moaned over and over again. The matador eased her into his arms, tensed when her warm breasts brushed against him. His lips found her mouth, parted it, and drank of honeyed nectar.

Outside the door, Josita had heard enough. She ran down the back stairs, careful to avoid Diego’s peones who were congregated in the hotel lobby. Her mind worked feverishly as she ran through the streets. She remembered vividly seeing the announcement of Alicia Montevideo’s impending marriage in the paper. She remembered, too, the name of her husband-to-be: Manuel Rivero. A smile creased her lips. Diego would pay for the insult; pay through the nose.

A scarce half-hour later she was leading Manuel up the back stairway of the Hotel de Toros. The story she had told him was embellished with frightful insinuations, most of them vivid fictions of her inflamed mind. Arrived at the rear door of Diego’s suite, Josita hesitated.

“I warn you Señor, that he is dangerous. Si, more dangerous than the bulls he kills. From them he has gained courage and strength.”

Manuel was oblivious to her whispering. He shook his head when she offered him a short dagger.

“No! I kill him with my hands. Only cowards use the knife!” He swung the door open, stepped into the sleeping quarters of the matador’s suite. Josita pointed to another door.

“She is in there with him.” Again she offered the blunt knife. “Take it”

Manuel strode forward, his eyes hard and brittle. He wrenched the door-knob, drove the door in. The sight that met his eyes chilled him like a blast of icy air. Alicia was stretched supine on the couch, her slim, white body clad only in the sheerest of step-ins. Diego’s gnarled fingers were fumbling with her brassiere, ripping it away from the pulsating mounds of her breasts. He could hear both their labored breathing, her muted plaints.

With a sense of timing earned in the bull-ring and an acuteness for the presence of danger that was born in his gypsy blood, Diego slipped out from beneath Manuel’s body as the latter lunged at him. Alicia, awakened from the semi-stupor of passion, screamed. The cry broke through the air just as Diego leaped to his feet with the agility of a cat. He was on Manuel, reaching with taloned fingers for his unprotected throat. Manuel’s fist drove like a piston into the matador’s stomach. He could feel his knuckles bounce off the rigid abdomen muscles. Again he connected, this time higher up. Diego groaned, loosened his grip. Manuel held him oft, shot a short, jabbing right to the point of his jaw. The matador stumbled back, dropped in a corner. He shook his head like a wet terrier. Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth. A broken tooth, white in a welter of red, rolled on his tongue and dropped to the floor.

Manuel waited for him to get up. He was cool now; cool and calm. There was no desire to kill the matador, just the desire to beat him to a pulp.

Diego’s eyes shifted about the room, came to rest above him. Within reach was the telephone on a small table. In one motion he was up on his feet and ripping the heavy instrument from its wires. His arm swung through the air. Manuel ducked. It whizzed over his head, the receiver dangling, and crashed through the window. The sound of broken, tinkling glass was drowned out as Manuel charged, hitting the matador low and crashing him against the wall. Like two wildcats, they clawed at each other, rolling over and over, Diego always trying to curl his steel fingers about Manuel’s throat. Once his nails swiped the Castilian’s cheek, leaving a row of bloody ruts.

Alicia, frozen with fright, gained voice as the carmine life-fluid poured over Manuel’s face. She screamed again, crying out to them to stop. Josita crouched in the doorway separating the two rooms, her short dagger clutched in her right hand. If Diego was getting the better of the fight, she planned to use it. It would give her pleasure to plant the blade between the bull-fighter’s ribs, just as he buried his sword in the backs of tortured beasts.

Her right arm stiffened as the matador reached his goal… Manuel’s throat. There was a gurgle…a hoarse, liquid rattle. Manuel kicked out with his feet, turned completely over. Diego spun like a top, slid across the floor. Josita realized this was her chance to help. She tossed the knife at Manuel’s feet, watched him stoop and pick it up. Diego paled as his eyes caught the flash of the blade.

“Por piedad!” he screamed. “Mercy! Mercy!”

Manuel came at him, the knife poised. Diego crouched in a corner, pink bubbles slobbering from his lips. His eyes were horror-stricken pools of ink.

“Por piedad!”

Suddenly there was a crash. Manuel wheeled as the front door flew open and men crowded into the room. He threw up the knife to protect himself, but Diego’s peones swept over him like a wave, beating him down to the ground, trampling on his head until thunder roared in his ears and blackness brought silence.

* * * *

Josita was bathing his forehead with cold water when he regained consciousness. He looked up at her, his eyes pleading for information.

“They have gone, Señor, but I know where,” she whispered. “By some fortune they did not see me. When you are well enough to move, we will follow.”

He leaned up on one elbow. “I—I am all right. Let us go!”

“We will need horses and a carriage,” she explained. “It is miles from Madrid.”

He got to his feet, tested them. A thousand devils seemed to be digging into his head with hot pitchforks. He looked at the couch where Alicia had been lying. It was empty, but he could see her naked body with Diego arched over it. The vision gave him strength.

“Vamos!” he muttered.

Like a madman, Manuel lashed at flanks of the roan team, beating them into a foaming lather of speed that carried the light buckboard into the air as it hurtled along the Maripo Road. Great clouds of dust formed in their wake, sucked into a swirling whirlpool behind them.

Josita shouted above the rush of air. “It is to the ranch of Don Miguel he has gone, Señor”

Manuel had heard of the place. It was said to be the largest breeding ground for fighting bulls in all of Spain. He had heard of Don Miguel and his cutthroat vaqueros, too, but somehow the thought of riding into danger no longer bothered him. Then, he had taken the precaution to bring a revolver. If it was necessary he would shoot them all down like the gypsy dogs they were.

Josita pointed to a ranch house in the distance.

“It is the one, Señor.”

Manuel snapped his whip over the steaming horses. The giant muscles of their sleek flanks rolled under their skin as they pounded on through the ranch gates. He drew them up before the low, rambling house, leaped to the ground. A greasy vaquero, lounging in the sun, came to attention. From inside the house, raucous laughter sounded. Manuel stepped to the porch, was about to mount the steps, when a tall, lumbering man emerged from the door. A bull whip dangled from a sash around his waist. On the other side was a bone-handled stiletto. His shaggy eyebrows twitched.

“What do you wish, Señor?”

Manual’s hand slid to the pocket where his revolver rested. “I seek a matador, Diego Martinez by name. He is here.”

“He is not here.”

The gun came to light in Manual’s hand. He advanced a step. “Do not move! Diego is here! Produce him!”

The other’s pig eyes gleamed. “I tell you, Señor, that Martinez is neither here nor has he been here.” He shrugged. “Of course, if you wish to make certain for yourself, I welcome you to my house. I am Don Miguel. I am entertaining a few buyers of bulls for the Plaza De Toros.” He bowed and indicated the door.

Manual advanced slowly, his forefinger taut on the gun trigger. “No trickery!” he warned. “Por Diablo, I will shoot!”

Don Miguel smiled smugly. “You think lightly of the hospitality of my house, Señor.”

Manuel entered the front room, swept it in a glance. There were men grouped about a table, drinking and laughing. He recognized none of them. Don Miguel was at his side.

“You see, Señor, you are wrong. Martinez has not been to my rancho for—”

A woman’s scream split the air. Manuel turned on his heels, faced the door. He saw his horses bolting and Josita being pulled from the carriage seat by two vaqueros. He raised his gun, shot through the open door. The bullet went wide, spattered into the road. The next moment he reeled as the bone handle of Don Miguel’s knife cracked on his head. There was a rush of pounding feet and a dozen men bore him down, pinning his arms behind his back. When he was securely held, Don Miguel motioned him to be raised up.

“You see, Señor,” he sneered in Manuel’s face, “to be suspicious is a dangerous thing. Now you will have audience with Diego but it may not be so pleasant.” Half-dragging, half-carrying, the vaqueros brought Manuel to the edge of a bull corral. Diego, a vicious smile playing over his scarred face, leaned against the boards. Two of his peones held Josita prisoner.

“So, my friend,” the matador said, “you thought it wise to follow Diego.” His hand shot out and crashed against Josita’s cheek. Manuel strained at his captors. “And all because of this Puta. Caramba! I will show you how we treat such a one. Then, you will be next because you dared strike the great Diego.” His sensual tongue came out and laved his lips. “The beautiful Señorita I will keep for myself.” He turned to the corral. “Huh! Huh!” he called, using the familiar cry of the vaqueros. From a covered pen at the far end of the enclosure, a giant black and white bull emerged. Slime glittered on his broad snout and his bloodshot eyes burned with fire. He pawed the soft ground, tossing his thick head up and down.

Manuel looked on in horror, as, at a word from the matador, the vaqueros who were holding Josita lifted her high into the air and dropped her struggling body into the corral. Screams of agony rent the air as the doomed girl saw the mad bull brace himself for the charge. She leaped to her feet, moved only a few steps. Then the half-ton of taut muscle hit her, curving horns driving into her back and lifting her off her feet like an empty sack. Insane at the smell of blood, the bull tossed Josita’s gored body off his horns, charged at it almost before it hit the ground and impaled it through the stomach. Manuel turned away but Diego caught his hair and jerked his head back. He closed his eyes to the sight of the dead girl, her bared breasts rising like sandy hills in a welter of blood. The bull, satisfied that its prey was without movement, nosed its muzzle in the tangle of flesh and intestines and walked away.

The matador laughed hollowly. “And you, my friend,” flipping his fingers across Manuel’s nose, “are next. But first I will show you how well the beautiful Señorita enjoys Diego.”

* * * *

Dragged back to the room where he had been overpowered, Manuel looked on as Diego came in with Alicia. Her beautiful face was pale and drawn, a portion of her dress torn away, baring the soft whiteness of her shoulder, a hint of her voluptuously firm breasts. The matador’s arm encircled her waist, the tips of his fingers creeping up to touch her breast. Fire raged in Manuel’s veins. If he could be free for but one fleeting moment—!

“Alicia,” he whispered softly.

She looked at him, her eyes seemingly far away, but Manuel caught a message of understanding…of sympathy. Diego drew her to him.

“It is Diego you adore, is it not, querida?”

She went limp against him, thigh to thigh. Diego laughed. “Take him to the bull!” he ordered, leading Alicia to the door. “Come, chiquita, we will see how brave the Castilian is, or possibly you do not care to?”

“Si,” she murmured. “I do.”

At the corral, Manuel fought with all the waning strength his body possessed, but it was to no avail. The strong arms of the vaqueros held him aloft and dropped him into the enclosure. The bull, aroused by motion, turned at the far end of the corral, spotted the sprawling figure of Manuel and moved forward slowly. Thirty paces away, he set himself for the charge. As he sprang, Alicia wrenched herself from Diego’s arms, ran to the iron gate and threw it open. Then, triumphantly, she tore her old rose dress from her body, waved it in the air. The bull, his attention caught by the fluttering red silk, changed his course and plunged for Alicia’s naked figure. She held her breath, waiting until he was close enough and the thunder of his hoofs was a roar in her ears. Out of the corral he came, head lowered, sharp horns projected. Alicia hurled the dress into the air, leaped aside. The beast shot by her, his glossy rump rubbing against her naked thigh.

In a moment, the ranch was a madhouse of screaming vaqueros, Manuel, dazed by the suddenness of it all, quickly recovered. He was at the gate, lifting Alicia from her feet, running with her to where the carriage and team stood. The bull, attracted to Diego and his men at the corral, lunged into their midst, his horns goring right and left. The matador escaped the first rush, but seeming to possess a sense that told him this man would eventually kill him in the ring, the bull charged Diego. Pinned against the corral fence, there was no escape. Diego shrieked and threw up his hands to ward off the attack. The shriek changed to a bloody gurgle as one horn punctured his stomach, coming out carmine-tipped at the small of his back.

Reaching the carriage, Manuel threw Alicia’s limp body across the seat, leaped up beside her and gripped the reins. The whip in his right hand hissed over the horses. He looked back as they plunged. All he could see was blood on the short grass, blood on ripped bodies, and blood on the face of Diego, stuck like a wax dummy on the bull’s horns.

He looked ahead, towards Madrid. The sky was burnt orange and yellow against a field of blue. There was no blood on the dipping sun. It was clean and bright.