More than a week passed in which she did not have the slightest chance of executing her plan. One night she had been invited to the De la Vega´s, and for the rest Zorro was quite occupied with a group of bandits terrorizing the faraway farms and a new scheme of the alcalde to capture him. Of course, he outsmarted both the alcalde and the bandits - how could it be otherwise - but all that was left for her were a few loving phrases and a tender but quick handkiss in public.
"And that is to be my life?" she muttered rebelliously. "No! It shall not be! The first time he comes to see me again after closing-time...!"
But that very night, when she entered her bedroom with a flickering candle, she found the familiar Z of roses on her pillow. Her breath caught. Was this it!? Was he here? Or... had he been here...!
She closed the door behind her and put down the candle on the nightstand. And just as she reached out to touch the beautiful flowers, there was the sound of the curtain being thrusted aside and there, next to the window, was Zorro. Her Zorro.
A shock went down her spine. "Zorro!" This was it, this was perfect...!
He stepped around the bed to take her hand and said passionately: "I couldn´t bear to stay away from you a moment longer." He kissed her hand, and Victoria felt like she was in seventh heaven. Here he was, within a meter´s distance. She´d have to be cunning now! Very cunning, like a female fox! Cunning and charming! She´d have to make him mad with desire, so mad that he´d forget all propriety and just wanted to have her!
Carefully she brought his gloved hand to her cheek. She rubbed it against her skin, like a cat. "I´m so glad you came," she whispered sottovoce. "I missed you. I missed you so much. I long for you, every day, every night... Your kisses, your arms around me, your mere scent..."
Comforting he took her in his arms. "I know, Victoria. It´s hard for me, too. I want nothing more than to hold you forever and ever..."
Victoria bit her tongue. This was not the time to be whining about that. She had a different strategy this time, remember? "Well, what´s keeping you?" she asked softly.
She felt him smile and kiss her hair, but he didn´t answer. So she snuggled up in his arms and hoped her instincts would tell her how to act. After all, what experience did she have in these kind of things? She tried to envision what alcalde De Soto had done when he thought he had drunk Dr. Wayne´s potion for desire. But it was hard to concentrate on someone as repulsive as the alcalde when breathing in the fragrance of the man of her dreams. And who required her attention anyway: "What´s bothering you, señorita? You seem worried," he asked gently.
She looked up. Startled. "N... nothing. I´m just... I love you..."
A broad smile brightened his face. "I love you, too." He bent down for a warm, soft kiss. And as the touch of his lips grew more ardent, all of a sudden Victoria felt she knew how to make her plan happen. They had always been rather cautious in their kisses. They were delightful, but prudent. Controlled. Proper - aware as they were of their impropriety anyway. And Zorro, of course, was one of those ´every inch a gentleman´, who would never take advantage of a lady in any way. So he would always pull back before their kisses got critical, and - though reluctant - she would give in and quit the kiss, too. For propriety-reasons only, for they both realized that there was more to it; something amazing they yearned to explore. But they both felt things could easily get out of hand, and go too far if they didn´t pull back in time. Too far. How far? Until they would end up in bed making a baby?
Well, if that was it, all she had to do this time was to resist when he´d try to back out. To continue when he wanted to quit. Overcoming that wall of propriety and pushing away all ideas of prudence and caution that she had been taught since childhood. And not give him the chance to be prudent either!
xxxxx
If you don´t want to read M-rated fiction, it is enough to know that Victoria succeeded in seducing Zorro. Since the rest of this story is definitely no more than T-rated, I figured I´d post it here, and for those who want to know more about the missing M-rated scene, they can read it in the M-rated section: Distorted Arythmatics, the M-rated scene!
xxxxx
It was a considerable time later before that passionate rhythm died down and they both got back to their senses. Still panting heavily, Zorro rolled on his side next to her. They were both still half-dressed, but there was no denying of what they had done.
Victoria looked back at him and smiled cautiously. "That was wonderful," she whispered.
Zorro nodded pensively; then shook his head. The mask rustled. "No. It felt wonderful indeed, but we shouldn´t have, Victoria." There was a hint of sadness, of regret in his voice. "You know as well as I do that this was a horrible mistake. It wasn´t time yet for... such things. I´m sorry."
Victoria felt lazy and thoroughly excited at the same time, and slowly she responded: "If I´d have to wait till it was your time, I´d have to wait till you´re old and grey."
He shook his head. "Now you´re being ridiculous."
"I am not!" she stated firmly. "But here I am, in the bloom of my life, and life itself is just passing me by! Everyone gets married and has children, and all I ever do is wait! I just wanted to experience what it is like to be loved. Before I grow old!"
He eyed her suspiciously. "You mean you did this on purpose? Pushing through every time I tried to back out?"
"Yes, I did," she admitted proudly.
Zorro sighed. "Don´t I have any say in such matters?"
She shook her head. "Not this time. Then I´d still have to content myself with a kiss and some roses."
Her mentioning the roses made him look up and smile. The roses he had laid out on her pillow earlier that night were now entangled in her black curls. She looked lovely. But again he shook his head. "And what if..."
Victoria quickly put her hand over his mouth. "No ´what ifs´ tonight, if you please," she said. "All we did was being selfish for a change. Instead of thinking of the good of the pueblo, we did something we wanted. For the very first time in seven years. Is that too much to ask?"
Zorro sighed again. "No, it isn´t. Still, I´d wish you had picked some other activity we wanted to do in case we felt like being selfish for a change."
She smiled enigmatically. "I don´t. I loved it. And I will treasure this forever - at least until the day we get married. It was wonderful."
He nodded with a sigh and started to get up. "It was. But still..." He pulled up his pants, started buttoning up his black shirt and picked up the rest of his outfit from the floor. From the bed she watched him getting dressed. The last garment he had to put back on was his black hat. But first he looked at her, and with a hesitant smile he whispered: "You look lovelier than ever, señorita. But please, don´t do this again till the day we are married."
With a last little kiss on her forehead he put on the hat, and disappeared out of the window.
xxxxx
Quickly, Zorro lowered himself down in the shadows. His mind was in turmoil, but it was necessary to keep a clear head. He wouldn´t want to run into the alcalde. And definitely not now. Carefully he crept from shadow to shadow, to the back of the houses lining the plaza. He found Toronado where he had left him, climbed onto his back and raced home.
"Madre de Dios, what have I done?!" he moaned over and over again. Victoria was right in one thing: it sure had felt wonderful to make his seven-year-old dream - and obviously not only his - finally come true. But not like this! Devoid of all propriety, ruining her reputation... He had always thought they´d get married first before jumping to the exploration of making love. And now...! How could he forget himself like that!? For a moment he tried to blame the whole thing on Victoria; hadn´t she admitted openly that she had seduced him to this on purpose? But that wouldn´t do. Making love needs two people; he was just as guilty as she was. "I should have pulled away, I should have run away, I should have slapped her in the face to bring her to her senses, I should have..." He should have lots of things. But he knew very well that he hadn´t. There was only one thing he had done that counted: he had shamelessly made love to Victoria, and there was nothing he could change about it...
For once he was glad to find upon entering the secret cave that Felipe had grown tired of waiting and had gone off to bed. So he looked after Toronado himself, and then changed to his ordinary caballero clothes. His watch told him it was past three in the morning. But he felt far too agitated to go to bed, and so he passed the rest of the night pacing around the cave and occasionally watching his experiments. And all that with one single thought torturing him: "What have I done!?"
xxxxx
Victoria lay back on her bed. She felt wonderful. "This is what a flower must feel like when opening up to the first rays of sunshine in the spring," she thought.
Then she turned her attention to her belly. Would her plan have worked? She was pretty sure Zorro and she had done what her mother so doomingly had called ´go to bed with a man´. So was she carrying Zorro´s child now? Her belly still seemed disappointingly flat, and she watched it intently as if she expected it to blow up to huge proportions any second. But nothing happened, and she heaved a deep sigh. Oh well, perhaps it was still too early to tell. As far as she had seen from other women in the pueblo, a pregnancy could easily stretch over four, five months or even longer. She knew so little about these things... She´d just have to wait and see what would happen. That is: if her mother´s warnings were true, and anything was to happen...
xxxxx
The weeks passed by and nothing much seemed to happen. Zorro did his work, still seeking her out in the plaza and courting her in public, but their private little encounters late at night in the tavern seemed to be history. Every now and then Victoria still found roses on her pillow in the form of a Z, but there was no Zorro to kiss and to hold her. And sometimes she wondered if she might have scared him off or something that night.
That night... And what result had come out of it? Nothing! Well... at least she thought it was nothing. She had felt a bit uneasy in the stomach a couple of mornings, and lately she felt she could sleep all day. But was that any indication of her being with child? She doubted it; those minor symptoms could easily be the result of her very own imagination, or even be caused by something as prozaic as a mild case of the flu. And besides, there was not the slightest sign of her belly starting to swell up, so...
The problem was that she couldn´t very well go and ask anyone. Not Dr. Hernandez, not any woman with experience in childbirth, not anyone. She had no sisters, and her mother had been dead for over ten years. And if indeed she was not expecting, she´d rather keep that wonderful lovenight she had had with Zorro a secret, and so not unnecessarily ruining her reputation any further. Once or twice, in the darkest hours of her lonely nights, she had seriously considered confiding in Don Diego. He was such a dear friend; he would never betray such confidence, she was sure of that. He would be shocked, but... And he was so well educated, and even had some knowledge of medicine. Perhaps he knew? Or could find out for her how a woman could know whether she was in the family way or not? But even though this not-knowing was positively unnerving, by the time the sun rose over the mountains in the east she had always decided against asking him just yet. If it wasn´t true, she´d still rather keep Diego´s general high opinion of her.
xxxxx
And Diego? He was pacing around the secret cave, waiting for some experiments to develop, and in the meantime still torturing himself with the same endless questions. What have I done? Why did she...? What on earth made her do that? ´Being selfish for once after seven years,´ she had said. He felt betrayed. And somehow he felt he had betrayed her as well. Ruined her reputation. True, she had made him to, seduced him, till he had been completely out of control, without a will, totally in her power, but still... he should have been the wiser. Stronger. More persistent in resisting her. He shouldn´t have let her... Of course, his desire for her was as strong as hers, but they had always managed to control it. No matter how much he longed for her, he had always managed to keep control, if only by fleeing from her as he felt his feelings running off with him. But this time she had very consciously added fuel to the fire, and he hadn´t been able to resist. It was horrifying to face the truth, but there it was: he, Diego de la Vega, had dishonoured the woman of his dreams, as well as disgraced his own family.
He had hardly shown his face in town after that night. As Diego that is; Zorro had had quite a few occasions to ride into town. But both Zorro and Diego feared the encounter with Victoria. As Zorro he had courted her and greeted her in public as usual, in order not to arise suspicion. But he had felt strangely restrained in doing so, and no matter how he yearned for her, he had not ventured to resume his nightly visits. Perhaps Victoria thought she had scared him off. He couldn´t tell, and he couldn´t ask her. For the fact was that he was dreading the time they´d next meet in private, either as Zorro or as Diego...
And so he continued his pacing around the cave, while in the back of his mind the question occurred how long it would take before the erosion would show on the floor.