The hut where Connie and Alita were taken was a twin to the one where the men were having their heads shaved except there were no poles. Being women, they were not considered dangerous enough for any special precautions other than the henequen cords that bound their wrists.
One young Maya, newly initiated into the corps of guardsmen, was thought to be more than sufficient to keep watch on them. After all, he was a full-blooded Mayan male, and these were only a spoiled gringa from Los Estados Unidos, and a Mexican puta, never mind what she claimed her bloodline to be.
Connie slumped down against one of the staked walls. Tears made little wet trails down both sides of her face. She could not reach around with her bound hands to wipe them away.
“Damn it,” she said, “I can’t stop crying. What are the bastards going to do to us?”
“I don’t know,” Alita said honestly.
“Oh, God.”
“Hey, you been pretty good so far,” Alita said. “Don’t go all soft on me now.”
“What the hell, I’m scared. Who are you, Joan of Arc or somebody?”
“I’m scared, too,” Alita said. “But as long as we’re still alive, we got to keep ourselves together. Try to think of something.”
“Yeah, okay.” Connie made an effort to compose herself, bending her head down to wipe the tears as best she could on the shoulders of the white Mayan dress. “Where do you think they took Hooker and Buzz?”
Alita pointed with her elbow. “To a hut like this one across the patch of grass out there. I saw them through the doorway. There’s a couple of ugly-looking guards out in front of their hut and lots of people coming and going, so I don’t think we can wait for them to help us.”
“Shit.”
“That don’t mean we can’t help ourselves.”
Connie showed her bound wrists to Alita. “Are you kidding? I can’t even wipe my nose.”
“I got an idea,” Alita said.
Connie looked at her curiously. “I’d love to hear it.”
Alita inclined her head toward the guard. The young Maya lounged in the doorway of their hut, eying the women through hooded lids. He licked his lips.
“These people are only supposed to talk ancient Mayan, but I got a feeling this one understands the new dialect.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Watch.” In the modern Mayan dialect spoken in the cities, Alita said, “He is very handsome.”
The young guard inflated his chest and smiled before he remembered to glance guiltily out the door to see if anyone were watching.
“What was that all about?” Connie said.
“I gave him a little test. He understands, all right.”
“So what?”
“Maybe we can use it.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Just keep quiet and watch me.”
Alita hitched herself across the dirt floor of the hut on her buttocks until she was sitting at the feet of the young guard.
“My name is Alita,” she said in the modern Mayan dialect.
The guard glanced down at her but said nothing.
“I know you are forbidden to speak the new language, but never mind. I will talk. You can listen.”
“What are you saying to him?” Connie asked.
Alita shook her head and kept her attention on the young guard. “I have Mayan blood,” she went on. “You can see it if you look into my eyes.”
The young guard looked down at her. Alita put on her most seductive expression, the one she used to distract the players in her father’s poker game.
“I like the way you look very much,” she went on. “Do you like the way I look?”
A twitch of the corners of his mouth told Alita the guard felt just fine about the way she looked.
“You do not like the yellow-haired woman better?”
A narrowing of his eyes said no.
“I could make you very happy.” Alita shifted her gaze very deliberately to the swelling at the young guard’s crotch. “Do you know what I mean?”
His flared nostrils and increased rate of breathing said he knew very well.
Alita let her cheek brush against the soft cloth of the man’s trousers where it stretched over his erect penis. He gasped and pulled back reflexively, glancing over at Connie, who remained huddled against the wall.
“Don’t worry about her,” Alita said. “She cannot understand what we are saying. She cares only for herself, like any gringa.”
The guard relaxed, and Alita slid over closer to him again. She put her face against him, touched her lips to the bulge at his crotch.
He moaned softly and looked down at her with eager eyes.
“Do you want me to make you happy? I know how.”
Again, the guard looked over at Connie, who was watching them silently. He shook his head.
“We don’t have to do it here,” Alita said. “Take me out behind the hut. No one will see us. No one will know.”
Doubt crept into the eyes of the young Indian.
“Please, my warrior. My handsome warrior. Let Alita do nice and happy things to you.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the young guard reached down and pulled Alita to her feet. She kept her eyes fixed on his, her lids half lowered the way she had seen women do it in the movies.
“Where are you going with him?” Connie asked.
“I tell you later,” Alita said back over her shoulder, keeping her full attention on the young man.
Holding Alita by the arm, the guard thrust his head out of the hut and looked in all directions. There was activity across the way in the hut where the two white men were being prepared, but no one was paying any attention to him. It was his good fortune, he decided, to be given the hot little Mexican as his charge rather than being assigned to the men. Perhaps, as she claimed, she did have Mayan blood. Of one thing he was certain; she had lips that could drive a man crazy.
He took her out through the doorway and around to the back of the hut. There was a bare space of some eight feet between the hut and the city wall. No one would see them there.
The rain had started falling harder again, but that made no difference. It was warm and sensual on the skin. The young Maya pulled Alita around to face him. Her eyes were on a level with his.
“All right,” he said, speaking in the forbidden modern dialect, “make me happy.”
Alita turned to show him her bound hands. “I will need these to do a good job.”
He studied her while the rain pattered down, whispering softly across the grass that surrounded them. “I must tie you again afterwards.”
“I know that. It does not matter.”
He drew the narrow-bladed dagger from his belt. It was like the one the high priest had used to administer the coup de grâce to Chaco. With a swift upward slash, he cut the henequen cord between Alita’s wrists, then returned the dagger to his belt.
She brought her hands around in front and worked the fingers, rubbing the tips with her thumbs. She knelt before him and reached for the opening in the front of his trousers.
Reflexively, the guard jumped back.
“Do not be so jumpy, my warrior. I must undo the laces of your trousers to bring out your mighty weapon.”
“I will do it,” he said quickly. With clumsy fingers, he untied the knot in the leather laces and pulled them out through the eyelets. He reached in and freed his erect penis.
“So big!” Alita said, gazing at the organ with admiration. “So strong. So beautiful.”
The young Maya rumbled pridefully in his chest.
She took his penis in one hand, stroking it gently. With her thumb, she drew back the foreskin. She leaned forward, bringing her mouth closer.
Her shoulder bumped against the hanging sheath of the guard’s double-edged sword.
“This thing is in the way,” she said. “Can you take it off?”
“It is not permitted.”
She let her tongue slide out and touch the very tip of his erection. “Many things are not permitted.”
“But — ”
“Please, my handsome warrior. If I am to do justice to your magnificent natural weapon, I must not be hindered by the metal one.”
No longer able to protest, the young man unbuckled the sword and sheath and lay it on the ground at his feet. Alita snuggled closer, pushing her face into his crotch.
“That’s better,” she said. “So much better. Do you not agree?”
She drew back slightly and popped the head of his penis into her mouth. Such behavior, she knew, was unheard of in the strict code of the Mayan women who followed the old laws. However, it was a universal fantasy among the Mayan men, particularly the younger ones who had some knowledge of the customs in the cities.
“Ah … ah … aah!” was all that the young Maya could manage as Alita slid her lips up and down his organ, her left hand holding it steady at the root.
The guard began to breathe rapidly as he approached orgasm. His eyes closed ecstatically.
Looking up as she continued to service him, Alita saw his eyes close. She used her tongue gently, prolonging the moment. Her free hand found the hilt of the sword he had put down. Slowly, carefully, she eased it out of the scabbard. With the soft splash of the falling rain, the sucking sounds she was making, and the young man’s heavy breathing, the gentle scrape of the sword sliding free could not be heard.
The young Maya put both of his hands on the back of Alita’s head as he felt himself about to ejaculate. He pulled her face all the way into him, gagging her as his penis jabbed the back of her throat.
Gripping the hilt of the sword, Alita brought the point to just behind the man’s testicles. With all her strength and accumulated rage, she thrust upward.
The guard, impaled on his sword, jerked and lunged spasmodically, uttering little cries of shock and pain. Alita pulled her mouth off his penis and spat out the semen. She jerked the sword back and forth, slicing with both sides of the blade, and pushed him backward. Hot blood spilled over her hand on the hilt of the sword. She withdrew the blade from up inside the young man as he stumbled away from her, clawing for the dagger in his belt. He yanked the knife free and slashed at Alita, even as the insides of him slipped out through the gash the sword had left behind his scrotum.
Alita held onto the sword with one hand and pressed the other to her side where the knife had caught her. She watched the guard die on the wet ground in a widening pool of his own blood mixed with rain water and mud. Then she pried the dagger loose from his clenched fingers and went back into the hut.
“Jesus,” Connie said, “what happened? You’re all over blood.”
“The guard is dead. Now we must get the men.” Alita laid the sword on the ground and used the guard’s knife to saw through the cord binding Connie’s wrists.
“Are you hurt?” Connie said.
“Nothing important.” When she had freed Connie’s hands, Alita handed her the knife. “You take this. I will keep his sword.”
“There’s blood on everything,” Connie said.
“You better get used to it. There’ll be a lot more before we get out of this.”