I didn't come to my senses all at once, and I'm not sure I was ever completely knocked out. It came more as a realization that I had been in the hotel bar, and now I was here, in the back seat of a dingy van, driving down the road.
I looked to my right, and saw a familiar face. The girl. She had been at the bar. Something was very different though. As the seconds ticked by, more details arrived in my brain from disparate locations.
The girl had been at the hotel bar in Mexico City, but there she had been wearing a cute floral print sundress, with flowing black hair falling on her shoulders. Now she was wearing camouflage cargo pants and a tan t-shirt, and her hair was tucked into a tight ponytail.
I had known to be suspicious of her when she sat next to me at the bar. She left a seat between us, but the bar was otherwise empty. She wasn't glamorous, but cute in a sporty way and probably half my age. I'd been in enough hotel bars to know what hookers looked like, and she didn't fit the profile. Neither was she the half-drunk cougar that chats you up for lack of any better entertainment. These are the only easily recognizable archetypes of women who ever sit next to me at a bar.
"Hola," she had said, without looking at me.
"Hi," I responded, not even trying with my horrible Spanish.
"Buy my drink?" She asked quietly.
I paused. There's never a good solution for this conundrum. Buy her a drink and participate in whatever scam this might be. Refuse, and be that asshole.
"Ok," I said slowly, gesturing to the bartender, who had been watching our exchange with a hint of amusement.
The girl and the bartender spoke briefly in Spanish that went by must faster than I could pick up. He looked at me, questioningly. I nodded and said, "Margarita for me, rocks, no salt. Whatever she wants."
That's about all I remember from the bar. I think the bartender brought us drinks, and I have a vague memory of the girl looking up at me with big brown eyes and long eyelashes.
Had she put something in my drink? Had the bartender been in on it? I'm not sure I'll ever know. Whatever it was had left me feeling pretty mellow about things that were not at all mellow as I looked around the van I now found myself in.
The man driving the van was tall and had short dark hair, and wiry muscular arms, wearing the same tan colored shirt that Lupe was wearing. Yes, somehow I knew the girl's name was Lupe. She must have told me at some point.
Flash bulb memories from the bar bubbled to the surface in my mind. Laughing because we couldn't understand each other, her whispering in my ear. Her hand on my thigh, big brown eyes...
There was another man in the front passenger seat. I could see a little more of him, and he was big and burly like a linebacker. I looked to Lupe, who was watching me carefully. Even without the sundress and windblown hair, she was pretty, now with a distinct tomboy affect. Her expression was unreadable; the enigmatic smile I had seen in the bar was gone, replaced with a more serious, slightly anxious demeanor.
The man in the passenger seat said something in Spanish that seemed to be directed at Lupe. I didn't catch it all, but it seemed like part of it was "before the medicine is gone" or maybe "wears off".
Lupe responded by reaching into a backpack at her feet and producing what looked like handcuffs. Not the metal kind that cops have, but the plastic loop kind. She gestured at my hands, indicating that I should hold them in front of me. I instantly complied.
Why did I do that?
She casually advanced the zip ties over my hands, pulling the plastic pieces so that they tightened around my wrists.
I don't like that. This seems wrong.
I rested my hands on my lap, twisting my wrists trying to find a position where the plastic didn't dig into my skin. Lupe, who had been watching me as if to judge my reaction, lost interest and turned to look out the window.
I did the same, realizing that we were not in Mexico City anymore. We were driving down a narrow two-lane road in a rural area. We passed dilapidated structures occasionally, but the vista was made up mostly of trees and fields of corn, brown and dead.
As the minutes passed, my head cleared more. While there was never an "oh shit" moment, the realization slowly came to me that I had been kidnapped, and was in a van with strangers.
Finally, I decided I should say something. "Where are we going?" I asked.
Lupe looked at me as if to reply, but the wiry man driving the van spoke first. "Be quiet. We tell you more soon."
That seemed reasonable. But not really, I wasn't sure. I looked to Lupe who smiled reassuringly at me. That was nice, I liked her smile. My cock started to get hard, and that was embarrassing. Had she noticed?
We drove for a few more minutes in silence before turning off the road on to a bumpy dirt road. The jarring ride down this road lasted only two or three minutes, and then we were pulling off to the side.
The two men in the front seats got out, opening the sliding door for Lupe, who also stepped out of the van. All three of them pulled worn looking rifles out of the back of the van. I watched this happen, but stayed in my seat, not sure what to do. The man who had been driving peered in through the door and shouted, "out!"
I climbed out slowly, my legs not moving quite in time with my brain's instructions. It was an odd, somewhat pleasant sensation. Once out of the van, I stood on the side of the road looking around while my three companions busied themselves with backpacks that seemed quite large.
When they were finished closing their packs, the wiry van driver walked up to me and looked me in the eye.
"You are host-age," he said in broken English. "We are bring you away until your company pay the money. Then you go. Do what we say, don't get hurt."
He stared into my eyes for a long moment after he finished speaking, and I realized it was my turn to say something.
"Ok," I said. That seemed like the right thing to say, but a bit of fear was creeping into my addled brain as the chemicals wore off and the reality of the situation began to sink in.
The burly man who had been in the passenger seat laughed from a few feet away saying something in Spanish that I roughly translated to "he's still high."
The wiry van driver looked at me skeptically. With his rifle slung over his shoulder, I realized he had something in his hand, which he held up to my neck. It looked like a dog collar, and he placed it around my neck as if I were a dog. I was perplexed by this, it just didn't make any sense. After that, he pulled what could only be a dog leash from his pack, maybe 6 feet long, and attached it to something on the collar.
"Hey man," I said in light protest. Before the words had even left my mouth, his arm had whipped around and caught the side of my head with the back of his hand. I nearly fell over, but managed to stay standing with some effort.
"Do what we say." He said again, pointing his finger at me.
"Yeah, alright." I said, surprised but not injured.
There was some rapid communication between the three of them that I couldn't understand, and finally the wiry driver handed the end of the leash to Lupe.
"Your type," the man said with a small sneer as Lupe took the end of the leash, the other end of which was attached to the collar around my neck. "Maybe you will... keep his mind off his problems..." Lupe's face broke into an embarrassed grin.
The unexpected blow to the side of my head had helped clear my foggy brain even more, and everything finally clicked into place. I had been drugged back at the hotel. Somehow Lupe had gotten me into the van with these two guys. I was their hostage, and they were holding me for ransom, no doubt aware of my employer's deep pockets.
The three started walking, leading me down a trail that might have been a road at some point. I felt ridiculous with my hands cuffed in front of me, being pulled forward on a leash like an animal.
We walked like this for a long time. Through fields and wooded areas that felt more like a jungle. Past abandoned vehicles and barns. It must have been at least two hours in the high desert sun, and I was sweating profusely, more thirsty than I had ever been.
Lupe turned to look at me, and called a halt to the procession. The wiry van driver had been at the front of the group, and he turned back looking annoyed. Some clipped words were exchanged between them in Spanish.
I took the opportunity to say, "Could I please have some water?"
