"No, he didn't." Ofelia said, feeling a hot twist in her groin, a lightness in her head. She opened Leonard's slacks and pulled the zipper down. Boxers, of course. Ofelia thought it would be better to fish him out through the front of his shorts. She reached in and drew him out, and it stood straight up, short and pudgy: Mr. Peabody himself. She wrapped her hand around it and squeezed, making the head swell larger. Leonard croaked quietly as Ofelia started to move her hand up and down, talking softly to him:
"He didn't have to wait very long at all, did he? He got special treatment."
"Jesus."
"Don't use that name that way." Ofelia told Leonard. He muttered an apology, and his eyes darted from her eyes to her hand around his penis. Ofelia got a charge from the fact that she didn't chastise Daniel when he used the Lord's name in that way only a few hours before. "You're supposed to say "sheeez" like I do, remember?"
"Yeah."
Ofelia giggled. "Good boy. Now, before we continue, I have to tell you first. Daniel wants to spend the day with me, either today or tomorrow. I told him I promised you we would do something together. Do you want to do something today with me? Drive to the beach? Rent some movies? Go shopping?"
"Do you want to go with him today?"
"Yes. But it could wait until tomorrow. Or you and me could have the day tomorrow."
"Then go today, Carina. Maybe we'll do something tomorrow." It was hard for Leonard to speak. All this today, tomorrow business.
"Okay, good. It's settled then." Ofelia said, glad that she would soon be together with Daniel. She moved her hand faster, but only slightly. Leonard was as hard as the proverbial Amish boy at a strip club. It made Ofelia smile when she thought of that expression. She had heard it from Daniel. She stopped and just squeezed his penis for a while.
"How does it feel when I tell you the truth, Querido? The real truth? It feels better than the lies, doesn't it?"
"What lies?" Leonard asked, and his whole body was stiff.
"All the little ones I tell you, all the time, because I think it's what you want to hear, when it's what I want to believe myself." Ofelia explained, squeezing his penis rhythmically but not daring to jerk him off, not yet. The truth needed to get out, and it was pushing just as forcibly to the surface, boiling, seething, under pressure.
"You know what I mean, Querido. Tell me you know."
"Yes, I do." Leonard told her. She waited for him to continue, cocking her head and looking at him. "Like when you pretend you don't like it when those guys come on to you. Like when you pretend you don't like it when Paul Diaz kisses you, or this new one."
"Right. It's a lie when I say I don't like that." Ofelia told him, and moved her hand almost imperceptibly. "The truth is, I like it very much. I liked it when Paul kissed me at the movies. I wanted him to kiss me."
"Uh-huh."
"But it is true that I don't have feelings for Pablo. I wanted him to kiss me, just because. You know, the way a man wants to kiss a girl, because she's pretty? There doesn't have to be another reason."
"Uh-huh."
"But with Daniel...it's different, Leo."
There was another silence. Leonard had been listening intently to Ofelia. He was excited by the thought of her kissing another man simply for the visceral pleasure it gave her, with no emotional attachment. But it was different when her heart became involved. Leonard didn't want to hear that part. It ruined everything. He put his hand on hers and showed her yet another example of his strength, by removing her hand, fixing himself, and zipping his slacks back up. Ofelia didn't move. She sat there with her arm on the back of the couch, her right hand in her lap, wet with his issue.
Leonard sat still and withdrew from his fiance. He thought of something and cleared his throat, and spoke flatly, "There's an old expression. Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it."
He looked at Ofelia and shook his head, "You should go."
"But, Quer...."
"Don't call me that anymore. I want you to go. How's that for the truth? You like the truth? Get the hell out."
Ofelia was so surprised by his words her head snapped back. Her eyes flashed, widened, but only for a second. She immediately gained her composure and left the apartment, closing the door as quietly as she could.
ii.
When Ofelia got back she had Manuel to contend with. He had spent the night at their cousin Jose's house, because he couldn't bear the thought of waiting for Ofelia to come home. He remembered their short exchange the last time they spoke, how she had loured over him, hard and severe, like a beautiful black cloud. He didn't dare start in with her. He knew she could devastate him with not so much as a moment's thought or effort. He lowered his eyes as he walked past her. She was on the couch, staring at the television but seeing nothing that flashed on the screen. Her bare feet were tucked under her bottom, her ankle socks and sneakers on the carpet.
"Hey." She called to his back as he marched past. Manuel continued to their bedroom and she heard the door close. He expected her to go to him, but she wouldn't. We'll see how long it takes before he comes out, she thought. Ofelia sat there on the couch, thinking: Okay, so everybody hates me. Now what? Now nothing. Let them get over it. There was one thing about her she knew would never change: she would never accept defeat. She would never yield to anyone's judgment of her.
Except when it came to Daniel. She had let Daniel manipulate her, mold her, draw her out. She had capitulated immediately and absolutely to his judgment. She had let Daniel change her: not the person she was inside, but the person she showed to others. It was this new person everyone was rejecting, but only because they didn't realize that this new Ofelia was the real Ofelia all along. It would take some time for them to adjust, that's all.
She played with her braid, broke split-ends here and there, wound them around her finger, and thought of Leonard. So, he wasn't going to let her have her cake and eat it too? He wasn't going to be the walking corpse she wanted him to be, the good-natured door-mat, the well-meaning powder-puff who turned the other cheek and looked the other way? She had known, really, that he had too much spine in him. She had known it all along.
She entertained the thought of simply taking up with Daniel. She wouldn't move in with him unless they were married, of course. She imagined getting engaged again, making all those plans, again. She didn't care what anyone else might think. That wasn't what was bothering her about this altogether new vision of her future. What bothered her was that something was missing, or something was just dead wrong.
She knew exactly what it was, but she chased it out of her waking thoughts and began to thumb through the channels on the television, flicking past station after station of noisy, vacuous drivel. Her thumb hammered on the volume button to silence it; and finally she tossed the remote at the television and watched it bounce off the black plastic underneath the screen.
Ofelia started to undo her braid. "Manuel!"
Nothing.
"Manuel!
More nothing.
"Manuel!" she shouted, hard.
In a few seconds she heard her bedroom door open, a soft click. Manuel came out, slinked down the hall into sight. His jeans were three or four sizes too big and she thought he looked ridiculous. He thought he looked tough.
"What do you want?" he asked her, spreading his hands out in the form of a question. Ofelia patted the couch beside her. The young man stood there for a moment. "I don't feel good. I think I got a cold." he said, and sniffled, then ran his forearm under his nose, sniffled louder and louder. He started to cough, hack, cough, sniffle, cough, hack. Ofelia pulled one leg up, her heel on the edge of the couch, wrapped her fingers around her knee, and tilted her head, blinking slowly at her brother and letting him have his fun. He kept his glasses on, which he rarely did around his sister.
Ofelia took the index finger of her hand and pointed it at him. She poked at the empty air three times, pointing directly towards Manuel, then turned her finger around and come-hithered with it. Manuel looked out at the kitchen for a moment, where Dominga was working on a crossword puzzle in the newspaper, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose like a vieja, where the sunlight was already flooding in through the blinds to fill the apartment.
