Chapter 5
"Wh-What? Me... go to the General? But... I-I've been cooperating and... and oh, God!"
Polly's emerald eyes squeezed scalding tears down her satin cheeks as she took one last look around the jail cell as would a drowning man before the last mouthful of water.
Helga said nothing; holding in her agony with stoic pride which unmasked was pure unadulterated fear. A warden handcuffed them together and the girls walked outside the dingy walls to sit on a cement bench and wait for the bus under a sun shining hot and high in a clear blue sky.
Nobody briefed them on exactly where they were headed, but Helga had an idea it wasn't for the border
A rickety, dusty bus with bad brakes screeched to a halt and the warden ushered the prisoners on board, passing by a beady eyed little Mexican driver with a leathery tan and a face wrinkled as a week old apple peel. He seemed to grunt as the two slender, bosomy American girls brushed past him and slid into a seat somewhere near the middle.
By San Pedro's balls, thought the Mexican bus driver blasphemously as he peered over his shoulder. These Gringa girls get better looking every year. These policemen must take in only the prettiest. Ohh, and these two... so tall and fair and their breasts... ah, they have such breasts as a poor mortal like me can only expect to see in paradise.
As his antiquated ramshackle bus thundered down the dusty road, heading toward Monterrey, the driver wiped the mirror clean of smudge and adjusted it to examine the reflection of his Yankee riders sitting dully unobservant behind him.
Something alerted Helga to the unnerving fact that she was being inspected and she squirmed nervously on the hard uncomfortable seat. Had she known how that driver revered her blonde hair, bleached white by his native sunshine, she would have forgiven his obtrusive stare and considered it a compliment that his beady eyes bored into the melonous mounds of her heavy breasts set high, standing out proudly beneath the light cotton dress she wore.
Had the driver been able to drag his eyes away from Helga's sensational body, he would have discovered that she possessed a face to match her physique. Her sparkly eyed beauty was accentuated by the school girl pony tail she wore.
Perhaps that driver might have been a bit ashamed, though, had he known the sadness and emotional strain hidden behind that veneer of polished beauty... ashamed that a girl was being tortured at the hands of his fellow countrymen. Every few minutes the battered old bus would hit a deep crater in the road, leap into the air like an overloaded bomber struggling for a take-off and then settle back onto the asphalt while a tortured metallic scream issued from its rusted springs.
And the one beside her! Oh, dear God, those green eyes! Ignoring the possibility that his decrepit vehicle might sail off a cliff or pile into a tree, he studied the reflection of her pale, wan faced beauty. And those teets! "By San Tommasso... look at those teets!" the driver muttered under his breath, running a Volkswagen off the road and into the ditch while he adjusted the mirror for a better view. Dear Jesus, why doesn't sometheeng like that come my way! Oh, to fuck a Gringa like that!
"Aaaaahhh!!!" came a general scream of panic from the passengers as the smooth worn tires of the bus struck gravel, trembling on the cliff of a deep arroyo.
Damn Yankees get too nervous, swore the driver under his breath as with irritation he pulled his vehicle back to the center of the road. Helga, catching a glimpse of his lewd eyes in the rear view mirror, yanked her dress down sharply over her thighs. As if her body hadn't caused enough troubles without getting them all killed just because a foolish driver couldn't keep his eyes off her chest and on the road.
Her thoughts of the betraying man who'd befriended her in Mazatlan were distracted as the bus plunged headlong into another pothole in the road and rose up in the air like an elephant attempting to trample a lion. Two nuns in the front row seized their rosary beads with one hand and their seats with the other, suffering silently for the sins of mankind. Seated behind the driver sat a drunken bum who inevitably seemed to try to take a sip just as the rusty old vehicle was about to lunge into the air. Whiskey dribbled from his stubbled chin, but still, he managed to drink enough to blot out how fearfully close to his maker he'd come with the last jilt of the bus.
Helga tried to look out the window and concentrate on the view instead of her misery, but her mind was elsewhere. Sadly, she remembered how jubilant she felt at meeting Douglas Kinsey on the beach... how he gave her a place to stay, took her out to dinner, arranged for friends to pick her up in the San Antonio bus depot and drive her to the airport. He had turned her life upside down the same way this damned bus was turning her stomach upside down.
Polly broke the silence with a kittenish whimper. "Wh-what's gonna become of us? I wanna go home..."
Helga hid her own chagrin behind a feigned smile. "Don't worry... we'll get out of this... wait and see."
The sky had turned pink, fading into a hazy grey when the bus pulled into the Monterrey bus depot and squawking chickens, prayerful nuns and drunks debarked. Tired, hungry and abysmally depressed, Polly and Helga were ushered to a taxi that sped off for the mountains skirting the city. The greenery passed in a blurred flicker as the car wound its snaky path up the scrub-bushed side. What hell lay ahead of them, they were too tired to ask.
It must have been around noon, on the last leg of their journey, when the taxi made the last hairpin curve and drove down a driveway flanked with azaleas and magnolias and came to a jerking halt at the wrought iron gate where an armed sentinel stood guard.
The Spanish chatter awakened Helga who lifted her weary head from her cell mate's shoulder and nudged Polly awake. "Look... it's not home, but it's sure not Nuevo Laredo!"
No cockroaches here! A servant, well dressed in a crisply starched white uniform opened the gate and waved the taxi on down the brick drive toward a mansion set in a wooded area, its white columned pillars standing out in a clump of lush greenery where splashy colored birds of exotic species snapped at insects from high boughed perches.
"This is the General's house?" Polly whispered, her green eyes taking in the richer hue of this oasis of magnificence in the midst of Mexican squalor. "I thought it was going to be another prison?" A baffled look crossed her Cupie doll face. "Why did they send us here I thought this was the ultimate prison...?"
"Hmmm... I don't know..." lied Helga, remembering clearly Manuel's threats about what happened to uncooperative female prisoners. "We'll find out soon enough..."
A fresh faced Mexican girl—not more than fourteen—opened the cab door and led the handcuffed girls into a stucco building around the back of the mansion that served as a dormitory for the 'visitors.' The girls shuffled along through the entrance way, an Alice in Wonderland look on their faces as they passed the solarium, the indoor swimming pool tiled in mosaics and the exercise room that reminded Helga of a health spa. Obviously, The General treated his prisoners well.
A guard undid the lock on their handcuffs while a masseuse hastened to massage their aching wrists with oil to heal their chapped skin. First to the sunken tubbed bathroom for a languid soak, then to the dining room for lunch... and nobody swore at them, nobody molested them, and nobody hinted at what all this pampering would lead to. After lunch, a uniformed guard led them to their shared bedroom at the end of the hall and they collapsed into the linen-dressed beds—with no blood stains and no cockroaches—and slept the sleep of the damned.
The sun had streaked orange ribbons, casting dark shadows over the valleys below when a timid knock on the door awoke Helga with a start. In that hazy, indefinable moment of confusion, she was back at the University dormitory. Dorothy was at the door, waking her up for a class.
"Senoritas... the day is nearly to an end. It is time for you to dress. The maid weell bring you coffee soon."
"Hmmmm?" Polly rustled lazily in her sleep, then opened one emerald eye to see her roommate sitting up in bed yawning, wearing the hospital-white robe supplied by The General.
"Come on, Polly. Time to get up and meet your maker. Something weird is going on around here... and I have the feeling we're about to find out."
"I don't wanna get up yet," complained the younger girl, throwing back her covers. "God, what a mess I got myself into... just for one crumby bag of dope. I could have scored in LA with no hassle."
The door opened slowly and a maid sauntered in, soft as a cat, holding a tray with a silver pot of coffee, two cups, a sugar bowl and cream pitcher, sided by a rosebud in a crystal vase. "For the Señoritas..." she said in perfect English. She poured their coffee and left.
Two cups each and a second knock sounded at the door. "Señoritas... are you ready for your bath and shampoo? The hair-dresser is waiting."
Polly and Helga exchanged baffled looks. Hairdresser...? "I've never gone to a hairdresser in my life," put in Helga, running her slender fingers through her waist-length hair.
"Si, Señoritas... he weell be in to see you in feefteen minutes." The maid disappeared behind the closed door.
The girls were sipping at their third cup when a knock rattled the door. "Senoritas... we must have you fitted for your evening gowns. May I come in and take your measurements?"
Evening gowns... what kind of prisoners are we?
"Si..." The maid shuffled in without a welcome and bid the girls to stand up, allowing her to slip the tape measure around their vital spots. "Hmmm... The General weell be pleased with the Senoritas. The Virgin Mary has blessed you well," chuckled the kind faced woman, pulling the tape to a tight 37 inches around Helga's breasts. The seamstress turned on her heel and departed.
What was this...? Some wacky version of Queen for a Day? Something disgustingly deceptive was going on behind the scenes in this jeweled palace and it didn't smell of roses.
For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, the girls were separated. Polly whimpered pathetically and Helga smelled trouble as the guard directed them to separate rooms.
The hairdresser and seamstress fussed over Helga with the ceremonious meticulosness of a princess being readied for her wedding... or was it a virgin for the sacrifice? They wound her shimmering locks into long-finger curls, pulled back high on her head and crowned her with fresh azaleas. The make-up was a bit garish for Helga's tastes but the effect of the smoky grey eye shadow and false eyelashes fluttering over her rosy high cheek bones was nothing short of mystical. They glossed her lips in a shimmering red hue that made them pout out like a Monroe cheesecake shot. They touched and re-touched her make up until not a pore could be seen. Helga watched with curious delight until they tugged the skimpy gold lame dress over her shoulders and yanked up the zipper, almost taking a bit of her flesh with it.
"Senorita, ees beeeutiful!" the seamstress clapped her hands in proud jubilation. "Señorita... you must look to see!"
If it felt tight, it looked even tighter. Helga let out a horrified gasp at the reflection staring back at her in the triptych mirror, turning for a profile that would have made her mother cry and her father throw all incestuous taboos to the wind.
The dress clung to her mounded flesh with the tenacity of wet jersey; its glittering gold lame caught the light and spangled off the protruding mounds of her heavy breasts, sparkling diamond-like at the chips of her nipples. It nipped in her waist to twenty inches and stretched gently over the smooth mounds of her hips and, sleekly as a caressing hand down over her thighs. Helga's stomach protruded just a flattering bit, and if it hadn't been for the slit in front of the skirt, that stabbed right up to the elastic band of her bikini panties, she wouldn't have been able to take a step. For a modest farmer's daughter accustomed to hiding her lush body under levis and loose shirts, it was a sinful sight.
"This is... awful! I can't let anybody see me in this!" she wailed, much to the seamstress' distress. I look... worse than naked! Panic set in and she darted for the door, her spike heeled gold shoes tapping hammer-like on the tile floor. The guards caught her and swooping in on her, linked their arms with hers and persuasively ushered her out the door into the warm, insect buzzing night.
"Get your hands off of me... you brutes!" she flared, biting her lip and trying to shake loose from their iron grips. "You can't do this to me!"
"Don't be a fool," hissed the guard on her right. "This is no high school dance... this is The General's annual party. I wouldn't make a fuss if I were you."
Helga's jaw fell slack. "You're... an American! What are you doing here?" She scuffed her right toe, struggling to keep up with their pace.
"Working off a sentence... like you."
"What . . . what do you mean?" she asked breathlessly. "What's this all about?"
Time allowed for no explanation. They rounded the manicured grounds nearing the front of the pillared mansion, coming upon a setting that reminded Helga of a scene from The Great Gatsby. A line-up of shiny black limousines driven by valets, made small circles in the cul-de-sac and formally attired military men bogged down by heavy medals dangling on scarlet ribbons emerged one by one from the cars and sauntered with square-shouldered military posture up the polished marble steps of the mansion.
The guards ushered the panic stricken prisoner to the steps and let go. Helga's fluttery eyelashes grazed over her rouged cheek bones as her head craned in every direction, wondering which way to run. First a lesbian rapes me... now they dress me up like a whore. What do they want of me?
Somebody knew the answer but wasn't telling... a medal-speckled military officer walked brazenly up to her, took a low bow, and slipped his arm graciously through hers.
"Greetings, Señorita. Are you from Nuevo Laredo or Santa Marta? We have been receiving our most beautiful women from those two prisons," he beamed. "Tell me, my dear, was it marijuana or cocaine?"
Helga's skinny heel caught in the hem of her dress and she nearly stumbled on the step, but he caught her. "What... are you talking about?" she stammered, her legs aching from the four inch heels and her head pounding with fear. "I... I came from Nuevo Laredo..." How does he know so much about me?
At the entrance to the foyer, lit with candles and crystal chandeliers, her smoky lidded blue eyes took in the crowd of mingling military men and young American women who, like Helga, were dressed in shimmering evening gowns and looked half distressed and fully confused. Like Helga, too, all were exceedingly beautiful women.
"Let me introduce myself. I am Major Jose Emanuel," the impeccably manicured forty-some year old said in perfect English. He turned his head in an arrogant profile and despite the fear rattling through her veins, Helga's heart beat faster at the swarthy symmetry of his handsomely distinguished Spanish features: the receding hairline above an aquiline nose, straight and dignified, the dark sensuous eyes and proud angle of the chin. He seemed steeped in military dignity. "And the Señorita?"
"I'm Helga... Helga Anderson," she answered in a lopsided smile, captivated by his Spanish charm. Black haired men had always been her downfall.
"Greetings to you, my dear. You are a most beautiful woman. You are Scandinavian, maybe? The General shall be most pleased to meet you, I am sure." Two blazing black eyes scraped over the lush mounds of her magnificent body, stopping to rest at the chips of her hardened nipples hugged tight by her one-strapped gown. "May I offer the Señorita a drink?"
The dining room, a menagerie of chandeliers casting crystal sparkles off of gold trimmed mirrors, smelled heavily of ripe, fertile flowers that hung from woven baskets everywhere. The full length of the burgundy carpeted room was monopolized by the buffet table where polished silver chafing dishes smelled richly of fresh herbs, exotic seafoods and an array of delights such as Helga's potato eating ancestry had never tasted:
avocados, mangos, papayas. A servant lifted the silver lid of a chafing dish and, heaping a plate of lobster bits, handed it to Helga who delved into the appetizers with a harvester-appetite.
Jose brought her a glass of sangria from the carved-ice punch bowl floating with flowers and she drank thirstily, momentarily forgetting about her captive plight.
"I suppose you are wondering what you are doing here?" Jose said, studying her over the crystal rim of his sangria glass. His eyes bored with ripe salacity into the nipples of her one-strapped evening gown and flickers of yesterday's debauchery flitted through her mind like birds on wing—all heading South, down between her slim thighs.
"I must admit, I am confused. You Mexicans have a knack for deception. One day I'm sleeping with cockroaches and the next I'm dining on lobster. I don't get it," she put in bluntly, licking off the butter-dripping toothpick with her glossy pooched out lips.
"You will be sleeping with a lot more than cockroaches before you ever go home to your America, again," he said in an icy witticism.
The wheat fields of North Dakota and momma's home-baked cookies seemed to be memories from a past lifetime... totally out of sequence was this horror of imprisonment.
Abruptly, Jose left, leaving his captive standing there in a whirlpool of confusion and fear. The allowable had not yet been sifted from the forbidden, and her knees knocked in fear of making a faux pas that would send her back behind bars.
Someone was tapping her on the shoulder, warm soft fingers touching her naked flesh. It was Polly, stuffing her mouth with sautéed crab meet.
"Isn't this fantastic?" she gushed. "The food! My God!" She licked the butter from her fingers and held up a chunk of coral crab meat. "Want some...? And your date... he's dreamy!"
"Polly... he's not my date, for Godsakes... this isn't a high school prom... oh...! OH...! OH MY GOD!"
Two hands snaked out from nowhere and grabbed Polly from behind, dragging her through a side door in a flurry of kicking feet and rumpled curls. Helga's heart stabbed in her bosomy chest and her hand flew to her rouged mouth.
That was the last time Helga would ever see her bubbly friend... with that same sweet innocent smile on her baby-dimpled face.
Jose, wary of his neglected duties, was there in a flash, castigating her with a frown. Communication between prisoners was strictly disavowed.
"It's time, my dear, for us to retire to the entertainment room. You may take your drink with you," he said smoothly.
Helga followed docilely.
In the ensuing foray, Polly fought like a frightened cat, scratching and clawing at the brown arms that held her tight to the chair. She missed the guard's shin by a quarter inch and her left shoe flew through the room, crashing finally into the book case where it sent a ceramic statue crashing to the carpet in a thousand pieces.
"You can't treat me like this! I... I haven't done anything!" she spat through pearly teeth. The spaghetti straps of her blue chiffon gown slipped over her creamy shoulders and crept down over the firm smooth flesh of her naked breasts until the berry tip of one puffy nipple peeked out over a wall of blue.
"No! NO! GET THAT AWAY FROM ME!" Polly's apple green eyes stared into the cool grey ones of the hypnotist, challenging his power, spitting at the gold pendant dangling in front of her panic-twisted face.
Frantically, she shook her head. "No...! No... you can't do... this to me!" she screamed, until her fear-widened orbs locked on the yellow gold object moving mesmerically before her dimpled face, like the smoothly moving hands of a well-made clock. "No...!" Her eyes moved to the right. "No...? Then to the left, until her protests quelled to a whisper.
"When I snap my fingers you will go into a trance. You will feel no pain... but you will respond as your body wishes, feeling only joy. When I snap my fingers and count from one to ten, you will awaken from this trance..."
Polly stared fixedly ahead, now, unseeing as the ceramic statue that lay on the General's carpet in a thousand shattered pieces.