23. La Cucaracha

A light tickling on my right calf awakens me. I'm aware of George's strong frame beside me, and smile. Then I realize that I know exactly where both of George's hands are. So what's tickling me? Craning my neck, I see something dark brown, two inches long, with another three inches of antennae waving at me as it strolls along my leg.

George bolts upright at my scream, a gun in his fist before his eyes are even open.

"Get it off me, get it off me!" I holler, slapping at the horrible thing which jumps off my leg and flies right at my face. I shriek and duck. George stares at me. Looks over at the multi-legged monstrosity that's landed on the wall beside the window, then back at me. "What the hell is that thing?"

His lips twitch. "La cucaracha."

"My ass, that's a cockroach! I've seen cockroaches, George. They're about yea big," I hold up my fingers to show him what I think of as an average cockroach. "I've seen chihuahuas smaller than that thing!"

Someone's pounding on the wall behind us, yelling that it's cinco in the morning. The alleged cockroach is moving, and I'm afraid it's going to attack again."For god's sake, kill it!"

George shrugs, sights on the cucaracha, and blows a hole in the plaster you could stick your fist into. The guy in the room next door gets magically quiet. "Better?"

"Thank you." Right about then, it dawns on me that we're both stark naked, and the last thing I remember was that moment of bliss. "Um, did we?"

"You fell asleep," he says dryly. I'm completely humiliated. He chuckles, his arm going around my waist. "It's all right. You had a rough day."

"First, I really need to, um..."

"It's the door to the left of the stairs," he says, understanding what I'm suddenly too self-conscious to say.

Grabbing the blanket off the bed, I wrap it around myself-I'm not putting those nasty, funky clothes back on any sooner than I absolutely have to - and snag the nearest pistol out of my bag in case there are cockroaches in the bathroom, too. With the late Señor Gomez's pop gun clutched in my hand, I depart for the facilities. I return much relieved and acceptably clean.

The little pearl-handled pistol goes on the nightstand, I drop the blanket, and stand there giving George an eyeful. He's enjoying the view -I can tell. We spend a moment admiring each other, then I get onto the bed and snuggle down beside him.

Here I am, lying in the arms of a man who's name I don't even know, feeling dangerously content. Feeling happy. I'm used to thinking, not feeling. Feelings are dangerous, frightening. He murmurs something in the language he thinks I don't understand. "You are going to be the death of me." His lips brush against my neck. "Catherine." Mahogany hair is soft against my cheek. There's a border of stubble along his jaw, rough against my throat. His sinewy hands explore my breasts.

Stretching like a cat, I let my fingertips wander through the thick mat of wiry hair that graces his lean body. I want to think it's because he's so damn sexy, but I'm not fooling myself. I can't blame it all on hormones. The man who's tenderly kissing my wounded arm has breached my defenses. My heart is his hostage.

Tenderness, passion, pleasure: what can I say? Yin, yang. Male, female. Hard, soft. Give, take. Need, satisfaction. All those tired old clichés are true...I had no idea. Prior to my abduction, I'd had two sexual partners, just enough experience to figure out how things fit together. After Buffalo Bill, sex was limited to a series of impersonal transactions designed to get specific results, as much a part of business as bugging someone's phone. This is different. This is real. I don't have words for it, but it's right, somehow. Scary - terrifying - but essential, nourishing something I've denied for a very long time.

As we're holding each other in the afterglow, I start to giggle. He looks down at me, bemused, a question in his marvelous amber eyes.

"You know, it's funny," I say in my best Spanish, "For a man who sleeps with a loaded gun under his pillow to think I'm going to be the death of him."

kerttu: It's a technique that's often used in interrogations: cruelty for an extended period, followed by kindness. The subject is frequently so grateful that the small mercy is what breaks them. Kate's been under a lot of stress lately, in addition to the stress she puts herself through by being so hard-shelled. I don't see her as someone who spends a lot of time analyzing her feelings, so right now, she's really confused.

mssparrington: I find that El is fairly easy to write; I approach him with a combination of chivalry and ruthless justice, depending on the circumstances. The movies give enough examples of his peculiar conscience; it's a question of, "If he did this when that happened, what would he do here?" The romantic angle is a bit trickier, since Kate is a much different animal than Caroline, plus he's had to deal with a lot of grief since then. My take is that killing Marquez gave him closure about Caroline's death, and he's been alone long enough to be attracted to a fearless, energetic woman with a certain amount of Southern charm.

Dawnie-7: Kate and El both have ghosts in their past; in her case, Buffalo Bill is always going to haunt her to some extent, while El has seen two women that he loved (and his daughter) gunned down before his eyes, so he's got to be asking himself whether he has the right to endanger someone else. (Even if that someone does a pretty good job of taking care of herself.) There's a lot going on in his head, but he's not the type to talk about his feelings, so that comment is about as close as he's liable to get. He's more likely to show it in how he treats her, especially now that he's seen that she isn't tough all the way through.