Omar hunched his shoulders. “How’s Mother?”

Panchito smiled a little, running a thick paw through his slicked hair. “She’s tough, you know, she can handle a lot. But this one hit her real hard. Her little grandson, you know. She wants you to come home, Omar. Everybody does.”

Later that night, we sat across from each other at a rickety table in his tiny kitchen alcove, the bottle of tequila between us.

“Let me come with you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grabbed the bottle and got up, leaning against the sill of the open window as he drank, stars glittering in the night sky behind him. Fuck, he was beautiful. His rugged jawline, that direct stare, his utter lack of self-doubt. This power he had. I felt a dropping sensation in the deep space of my pelvis, telling me what it wanted, yet again; I had a premonition of the beginning of a bad habit, a brand-new one for me—child that I was—but the part of me that should have been afraid—Jaguars! Snakes! Tarantulas!—was obliterated by the strongest pull of all, sweeter and darker and delicious. And who can argue with the body and biology, the thing that keeps the world spinning on its axis? I wasn’t the first in line for that.

The yellow liquid in the bottle swished like nausea in his grip, the blind tequila worm twisting in the dregs. He took another drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Suddenly he looked a decade older than his twenty-seven years.

I got up and snatched the bottle from him, took a gulp, my head already warm and runny and spinny after two sips. “I’m coming with you.”

All information to the contrary, I had begun to conjure some fairy-tale magical life under the stars in “nature,” away from the filth and noise of the city; just us in a hut making love endlessly for the rest our lives. He would kill the jaguar, and all would be well. His family would welcome me with open arms. Fruited trees would drop their bounty on us; the fields of manioc—whatever that was—would provide.

Everything I knew about the jungle then came from The Jungle Book. Surely a kind and wise panther animated by some baritone-voiced actor would guide me through the not-very-scary cartoon perils of a green and mysterious world.

“No electricity. No running water. No fancy restaurants, no roads, no stores, nothing. You live in a hut made of palm and bamboo.”

Stores? Really, I couldn’t care less. And fancy restaurants? Wasn’t that where rich people went to celebrate with their families? “I’m fine with that.”

“Have you ever fired a gun?”

“No, but I’ve seen plenty of—”

“Movies? Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?”

I shook my head.

He began to pace. “A slingshot? Blowgun? Spear? You afraid of blood? You’re a vegetarian, for crying out loud, you’ll be freaked out every second of every day. Everybody eats meat there, fish. Not from some market where it comes wrapped up all pretty, understand? Catch it yourself, clean it yourself, cook it yourself.”