—You can blame your father for that. There‘s a lot of things we don‘t do anymore. Esperanza glanced down at his crotch to make her point.

Santo stood up and pushed the table with his knees. Esperanza grabbed the jug of water to keep it from tipping. Dallas and Bobby didn‘t move.

—One maldito trip to see our old friends. Can a man at least dream?

Los Llanos

1961

Back in Los Llanos, when Don Chan looked at Miraluz, it made him forget the blanket of stars above them. Her black eyes and reddish brown coloring that blended in with the fire aroused his body. He returned home to Doña Caridad at night and searched inside his wife‘s skirt for Miraluz‘s wisdom. He kneaded her thick thighs and full ass, trying to understand how Miraluz knew about Trujillo‘s death. It couldn‘t have been a dream. He had heard of people who dreamed the future, but so accurately, as if she had the power to make things happen?

—Get out from under there, Doña Caridad said, pulling down her skirt. —Don‘t you see I‘m trying to get things done?

Doña Caridad wasn‘t ready for Don Chan‘s new affection. He wasn‘t one to touch her, let alone kiss, lick, suck the juices from inside her. Their intimacy was simply him entering her and her relaxing into him, until he was ready to climax. First, he took that crazy trip into the capital, then he suddenly became fascinated with her body. She had heard that, like women, men go through a change of life. Did Don Chan want another child? She was too old to have children. Would he abandon her because of it? She spread her legs and allowed him to look inside her vagina so he could hopefully find what he was searching for.

He stretched her lips, feeling her insides, so warm, him wondering what did Miraluz taste like. He kissed Doña Caridad‘s inner thighs, trying to push the desire for Miraluz away, focusing on his wife, who had given him his son. To feel the inside of her walls tense up around his tongue and fingers excited him. How deep could he have gone inside her without losing himself completely? Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could slip into Caridad and be reborn again.

Doña Caridad didn‘t know what made her body shake and release with such joy when Don Chan dug his fingers and tongue inside her, but she too had become filled with passion, sometimes finding herself touching her own body and riding the waves of highs and lows that often brought her to ecstasy. She perfumed her body daily with rose petals from her garden, just in case Don Chan returned home with desire. She added rum to her hot chocolates and always shaved her legs in anticipation of his return.

Meanwhile, as Doña Caridad raged with desire, Don Chan became more worried over his newfound passion for Miraluz. She showed up every night at the campfire, asking Don Chan to impart a story that provided inspiration. Even though the men respected her, and some even feared her when she spoke her mind, she in turn waited to hear from Don Chan. Her presence brought on such frustration in him that he drank to forget, and soon the gatherings in the fields of Los Llanos were filled with slanderous stories that mimicked the popular merengue songs about women who betrayed men.