Page 24 of A Good Prospect

“I don’t know,” Don Salvador said, and reached for the aguardiente bottle, although clearly his cup was still full. He looked sideways at Ophir as he poured a second cup of the fiery liquid. “Were we discussing how we need assistance writing a letter?”

This question seemed to fluster Ophir greatly. He actually seemed to fumble when he tried to yank a third chair from where it stood against a wall. Tamasin usually sat in a rocking chair when she visited Ophir. He said, “Well, not perhaps so much in writing it. You’ve seen the books I read, Sal. I actually finished that entire Christmas Carol volume yesterday.”

Don Salvador smiled lazily. “Yes, and I noticed you had borrowed History of the Conquest of Mexico.” He slid the second cup of aguardiente toward where Tamasin stood lamely in between the two men. She supposed he meant it for her, after discovering she was imbibing during the boxing match. Yes, the boxing match… “Attempting to know more than I as usual, I see.”

Ophir thudded the straight-backed chair down and gestured for her to sit. “That’s not difficult to do,” he said affectionately.

Tamasin sat down as genteelly as possible, wishing she wore the veil Doña Carmen had given her to wear in the house, wishing she had never come. Timidly now, she drew her tasseled rebozo closer about her shoulders and took an overly hearty swallow of the burning liquid. She had just been overcome lately with ceaseless, enduring visions of the fifth round—was it the fifth round?—of their boxing bout. When Don Salvador had been flung onto his back and Ophir had straddled him, it had stirred similar overpowering sensations in her lower abdomen, such as she felt when she rapidly flicked her fingertip over that sheathed protrusion between her legs. This was a rush of—lust?—that raced downward through her body. Her heart rate sped up, her mind quieted, her eyes grew round when Ophir grasped both of Don Salvador’s wrists in one broad palm.

Her quim moistened, her knees weakened, and most embarrassing, her breathing came fast and shallow. She could scarcely believe her own eyes, the manner in which Ophir clamped his athletic thighs about Don Salvador’s hips, essentially squashing him to the dirt, both of their swelling chests heaving from what appeared to be exertion. Tamasin was particularly riveted by the bulging, sinewy muscles of Ophir’s shoulders, all of which seemed to operate on plates that slid under and over one another with their separate bunched waves of brawn. And the slope of Don Salvador’s nude underarm as he bucked and arched his magnificently muscular hips to throw the darker man off—the fluffy tuft of hair in that hollow was, she knew from standing next to him feeding him from the whiskey bottle, a most pleasingly fresh scent, not the eye-watering stench that wafted from her dead husband’s person when she was forced to be near him.

But this was not a pugilistic behavior, from what she had seen in Ireland. Ophir’s penis stood out audaciously with what could only be venereal intent, a towering bold animal display of his lust, curving slightly downward with gravity and the pull of his pants. Was this some bestial manner of demonstrating his power over the other man, his victory? Not from anything she’d seen of the battering, dueling pugilists in Ireland. They merely bludgeoned each other mindlessly and without emotion, from what she could tell. Ophir’s long, thick penis was so blatantly displayed she could even make out the ridge of the crown through the flimsy material, and it did not disgust her.

She had to grip the tip of a ring stake to remain on her own two feet when Ophir plastered that monumental erection against Don Salvador’s bulge, and they ground their hips together in an angry show of competition. Ophir whispered some things against a pulsating vein in Don Salvador’s neck, and when they smeared their panting, sculpted lips together, Tamasin nearly thought she would reach that apex of lunacy that she always strove for when masturbating. It was a clutching idiocy that happened if she diddled herself long enough, if no one interrupted her. At first it had frightened her, but as it seemed to happen consistently, she grew less afraid of the sudden swelling of ecstasy that gripped her uterus and clamped up all the muscles in her thighs and belly. Then as she watched the men’s jaws working as they licked each other’s tongues, she thought it might happen spontaneously, without her moving a single finger anywhere near her sex.

Why were they doing that? Did they do that often? Perhaps they did. Perhaps Californios had a different style of boxing…More Roman, perhaps.

“Who are you writing to?” she now asked.

“My old master in North Carolina,” Ophir said conversationally. He stood and went into the bedroom.

Don Salvador regarded her with a mellow expression, although he had not touched his own aguardiente. “You are a very good umpire. Will you act as umpire again during the rodeo? I think spectators would enjoy seeing a woman act as umpire. It will be different.”

Did he mean…in front of a thousand people? She had to gulp a couple more large swallows of her drink in order to squeak out, “Will you and Ophir face off again?” She did not think she could tolerate undergoing that ordeal again.

Tamasin had somehow imagined that if she could gratify them—one or the other, in her imaginings they were one and the same—make them call out in strangled wild incoherent sounds—well, it was just a vague concept, but Tamasin knew they would be grateful, not mean. They would be loving, not cruel. They would make her feel safe and would hold her in their arms in a comforting manner, and such behavior would make her want to do it again—whatever it was she had done to deserve such good treatment in the first place.

Don Salvador looked down modestly, his long lashes glistening as though he had just emerged from a swim. “No, I don’t think such a bout would be…satisfactory.”

Ophir came back with something in his hand, which he displayed in front of Tamasin’s face. “See? I need to write a letter to purchase my two children back from that miserly old master.”

It was a daguerreotype, housed in a thin leather casing, unprotected by glass. Only about two inches square and much battered, three sets of eyes peered out, wide-eyed, holding their breaths for the camera. The woman embraced two children of about four years old, one on each knee. Tamasin couldn’t tell much about them from the shoddiness of the daguerreotype, but she smiled up at Ophir. “What a lovely family. You’re not going to buy back your wife?”

His smile froze then, and she turned her face to Don Salvador when he responded for Ophir. “No wife,” he said simply. “I imagine Ophir here needs my assistance to send a trustworthy messenger to San Francisco to post his letter.”

“That’s right,” Ophir agreed.

Tamasin said, “You are so kind to Ophir, Don Salvador.”

“Call me Salvador, please, Tamasin,” he said gently. With more rancor, he pointed at Ophir and declared, “I will do more than send a messenger to San Francisco. I will send someone on a ship to North Carolina to punch that hijo de puta and steal your children back for you!”

Two men, both capable of behaving in such a peaceful and mutual fashion! It was beyond Tamasin’s comprehension, but her mind entertained itself with striving.