The Queen's Assassin

By Cooper

The Queens Assassin dramatizes the adage that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In Trinia, a Caribbean island, anxiety rises among the dominant mulattos and the more numerous blacks as the country prepares to hold a national election. Enter a young American, Scott Peck, who does not know whyor by whomhe has been summoned to Trinia; he reluctantly participates in a tragedy involving the anglophile leader of the mulattos, the once-Marxist, now-Voodoo leader of the blacks, a cynical U.S. diplomat, a soulless American hedonista, and an extraordinary Russian beauty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465385901

Cooper

Sonni Cooper is an artist and author of the Star Trek tie-in novel, Black Fire.

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The Queen’s Assassin

COOPER

Copyright © 2011 by Cooper.

Cover Photo © Kitson/Dreamstime.com.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011918999

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-8589-5

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-8588-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-8590-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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CONTENTS

PART ONE

Scott

Crystal

Marley

Baird

Scott

Sandusky

Baird

Marley

Alexa

Sandusky

PART TWO

Crystal

Bradley

Crystal

Scott

Alexa

Sandusky

Crystal

Marley

Alexa

Baird

Sandusky

Scott

PART THREE

Marley

Scott

Sandusky

Alexa

Alexa

Scott

Marley

Bradley

Sandusky

Baird

Rita

Juana

PART FOUR

Scott

Sandusky

Baird

PART ONE

SCOTT

1

It was all deeply familiar. In the failing light the street below swarmed with Caribbean life: taxis bleating, shrill vendors hawking mangos and straw hats, gaily-dressed tourists hustling through gaps in the hectic and querulous traffic. Hadn’t he leaned on this same fretwork in Rio, in Salamis, in Hong Kong? Smelled the same odors in Manila, in Kinshasa, in Port-au-Prince? Felt the same breezes, soft and fluidic, in Kingston, Papeete and Corfu?

He closed the rattle-paned doors but still the taxis bleated, the vendors cried. For a moment, reveling, he stood perfectly still. Why did he feel so at home here? Why was he so comfortable? Stretching out on the creaky bed with hands clasped behind his head he watched a small black spider, painfully industrious, inch its way up the east wall. Why did he so enjoy the first day in a new place, even in—no, especially in—a rundown hotel with zigzag plaster and chipped furniture and frayed red carpets and reeking of cheap disinfectant that failed to mask the sour stale smell of mildew? Why did he prefer this…this decrepitude to the plushness and high polish of luxury homes and hotels? He often thought that his preference for the rundown was one of those things in life that cannot be explained. Much like his preference for the transient: hadn’t he often smirked to his father, A rolling son gathers no moss? (Of course his father had usually countered with, Or much of anything else.)

By the time he roused, reluctantly, from his brief revery, the spider had reached the ceiling: relentless, senseless, like the universe itself. A moment later, standing over the small brown table that bore veteran scars (what stories in those scars?), he glanced for the hundredth time at the note:

The word prank, for some reason, amused him; joke would have seemed more comfortable in the sentence. Nevertheless the mystery was complete. Trinia was one of the Caribbean islands he had never thought to visit. Puerto Rico, yes, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Barbados and the Bahamas, St. Croix, St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe—never Trinia. He didn’t know a soul there and about the island itself he knew only what he had lately gleaned from the Cadogen guidebook.

According to which, Trinia’s central historical feature seemed to be a blazing hatred between its mulattos and its blacks. As in Haiti, once the whites had been driven out in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte the mulattos had replaced them as the island’s plantation owners and merchants and ever since had lorded it over the blacks—save for a period during the 1920s known as El Tiempo Malo, the Bad Time, when the blacks overthrew the mulattos and ruled with a mixture of ferocious cruelty and shattering incompetence that left the country screaming with poverty and pain. As his father would say, Another history lesson, boy: the cure is generally worse than the disease.

Who’s there?

Had someone rapped softly on the door? Padding in stocking feet across the balding carpet, Scott thrust his head into the hallway. Empty. Doors the caramel color of mulattos marched down the corridor to a shaded lamp that printed on the wall a pale hourglass. Not a soul stirring—unless you believed like a medieval that the palmetto bug scurrying along the carpet possessed a soul. (In the old days the Church had actually threatened insects—wasps, locusts, caterpillars—with anathemas and even excommunication.)

Maybe the summons to Trinia was after all a prank. (Again he smiled at the word.) Who in his right mind would offer a business proposition to a rolling stone like him? Unless…well, he wouldn’t courier drugs again, no chance. Better a prank—after all, at the very least it meant a paid vacation to Trinia. Sprawling on the bed, he was feeling the first prodromic pinch of hunger when someone rapped sharply on the door.

2

The glass had long since been broken out, the stone walls darkened with a smoky Lascaux soot. Golden flies steered in and out of the square eyeless sockets through which he could see, across a shimmering stretch of water, the new lighthouse tall and stylish as a minaret; even in daytime the occulting red signal brazenly advertised itself. At his feet in a rectangle of sunlight lay a swarming litter of detritus and human waste; each time the salt breeze slackened, even for an instant, he was tempted to handkerchief his nose against the organic stench of feces, urine and vegetal rot.

The locations of both lighthouses, the old and the new, were Xed on the crude map that the black child had handed him at the hotel. Was this Act Two of the prank? And would another messenger deliver him still another note here in the old lighthouse, and direct him to a third site, even more remote—perhaps in a tropical rainforest or high in the Sierra Alta mountains? Well, he would play along. He had enjoyed the curving drive on Trinia’s north coast, a Cook’s tour of small villages clustered in cool blue coves.

Patience may be a virtue, but how long should he wait? The anonymous prankster seemed in no hurry to make contact. (Of course this might be no more than evidence of the mañana syndrome.) The view of sun-glittered water pleased him but he did not know how much longer he could suffer the excited flies and the sour stench of excrement. Perhaps he should climb down and wait outside the lighthouse, in the friendly shade of a coconut palm.

Mr. Peck, I presume.

Scott caught his breath.

I mean no harm, I assure you.

In shadow stood a tall man, his face a pale petal.

You startled me. Though he resumed his relaxed and easy stance, Scott’s cheeks flamed and adrenalin sharpened his senses. I didn’t hear you.

Let us get acquainted—the man spoke in the calm smooth voice of a diplomat, strangely accented. First, let me assure you that I avoid the light not because I am the Phantom of the Opera but because anonymity is advisable in this situation. For the same reason I shall refrain from naming myself. Second, let me welcome you to Trinia, our small but agreeable island home. Third, and I do hope that you will pardon me for being so direct, I would like to take your measure with a few queries.

The accent oddly blended Latin America and England. Fanning flies from his face, Scott thought he detected, riding above the fecal stench, the sweet smell of pipesmoke.

I believe that your parents are deceased?

Excuse me, said Scott sharply. What’s this all about? Though slowly dissipating, the adrenaline continued to agitate him.

"Please bear with me, Mr. Peck. I may decide to offer you a very attractive business proposition. But first I must—how do you North Americans put it?—qualify you. Do you find this acceptable?"

No doubt about it: pipesmoke; Scott listened for the sound of puffing. Sure, he said. Why not? Indeed: what did he have to lose?

I fear that I have put you off by being too direct. Perhaps you would like to learn a bit of history. In Spanish the lighthouse is called El Faro del Cabo. Explorers found the coral reef here especially treacherous; they lost many ships before erecting this stone structure. Imagine burning a woodfire day and night for two centuries! Acetylene lamps finally put an end to such protracted labors; nevertheless this site is the relic of a distant past. We are especially proud of our new lighthouse, which is visible through the window. It is operated by electrical generator and requires maintenance only once a year. For poor Trinia, this is a marvel of technology.

Involuntarily Scott glanced out the window at the needle-like tower with its red cyclops eye; whitewater lashed its rocky base. Closer, the cries of an unseen seagull drowned in the ceaseless surf. Maybe you should restore this ancient lighthouse as a tourist attraction.

Indeed. Trinia must attract more tourism and rely less on sugarcane and other agricultural products. Perhaps we would be well advised to install a digital café precisely where we are standing—his voice was smiling—with a scenic view of our marvelous technology.

Good idea.

Well then, Mr. Peck, said the tall man softly, after pausing to puff his pipe. Shall we resume?

Go for it.

Your parents are deceased?

Smelling the sweet smoke, Scott remembered his father’s ritualistic caressings and tappings and puffings of the pipe, and the equally sweet (but less perfumy) paternal smoke.

Yes, dead. Scott swiped at the flies blitzing his face.

And there are no siblings?

Obviously you already know the answer to these questions.

No wife?

Right.

Fiancée?

None.

A college degree—no, two of them. In liberal arts?

Right. Useless.

The tall man paused, puffed. I should think a liberal arts degree would enhance your enjoyment of life and make you a more complete citizen. Of the type your founding fathers envisioned.

Useless for getting a good job, much less a career.

Another pause. Pardon me, but it is my understanding that you have diligently avoided pursuing a career and have in fact consistently eschewed any job that would be commensurate with your intelligence and education.

Yes, it’s true, Scott admitted after a moment. I guess I’m a bonafide slacker.

If I may be so bold…how do you finance your travels?

Cadging, mooching, odd jobs. His own candor surprised him. Whatever it takes, he said, to survive.

I see. In the shadows the tall man’s face shifted but Scott could not make out its features. You have no…more permanent plans for your life?

This echoed his father’s question, repeated ad infinitum and ad nauseum with a lift of eyebrows and a quizzical smile—oh yes, a smile: for Scott knew that in his footloose life he was living out not his own dream but that of his father, the freedom dream of a man rooted in responsibilities, chained by chores, a man who had missed out during the spirited sixties but been deeply imprinted by their libertine message—a man who, comparing his dream to his lived life, might consider suicide because he had squandered the only thing life on this lively small planet really had to offer: precious minutes, hours, days of playtime.

No permanent plans. He swatted at a fly on his forehead. I prefer surprises.

And risks?

It depends.

On what does it depend?

On the extent of the risk and the size of the reward.

Ah, said the tall man, and puffed sweet smoke.

3

Scott watched for her at the beach and at the Café Cuba. On the third day he thought he’d sighted her on La Playa del Sol; emerging from the surf, water streaming down her legs, she moved with the easy grace and confidence of the truly lovely—and indeed his knees weakened for without a doubt she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen: a Swede or a Finn, perhaps, with a curved forehead and high cheekbones and full lips and dimpled chin and sun-gold skin and a goddess body but it was not these features that wobbled his knees, it was the eyes, the incredible blue eyes: he thought them the keenest and most intelligent he had ever seen. Is this Crystal? he asked himself, hoped; but part of him knew that she was not—could not be—Crystal: for one thing she appeared European and for another, well, he simply could not be that lucky. And so it was: when he smiled hello she returned his smile in a mildy friendly but dismissive way and passed on, not giving him a second glance, to relax under an orange umbrella, to sip a drink and chat with a small Latino who trained jealous eyes on Scott like the black barrels of a shotgun. Not Crystal, no. According to the tall man’s description, Crystal would have more than returned Scott’s smile and of course she couldn’t—couldn’t—possess such incredible blue eyes.

And in fact, she did not: Crystal’s eyes proved to be a bleached blue, the color of stone-washed jeans, and rather than intelligence they bulged with the hysteria of a runner—a person who, according to Scott’s father, is desperate to escape from herself and cannot stand to be alone. Lesson from Pascal, said his father once: All the world’s problems are caused by people who cannot sit alone in a room.

Crystal. On his fourth afternoon at the Café Cuba he recognized her instantly. The scoop-necked señorita blouse puffed at the shoulders: the ruffled red skirt: the giant gold hoops on the ears and jingly gold bracelets stacked on her wrists. The brown sandals, scuffed, and the toes bearing blood-colored nails and rows of gold, gemstoned rings. She reminded Scott of a tarot reader, a fortuneteller, a New Age psychic. But she seemed too young and also, with her tousled blond mane and her rubbery wide mouth, too wild: half-turned on her stool she simultaneously laughed and scanned the room.

A tourist in a bright yellow shirt entered the café. Halfway to the bar he called out, Hola, amigos! And to the bartender: Señor, hit me with a Cutty Sark on the rocks. Parking on a barstool he looked Crystal over, pursed his lips around a low whistle. Say, young lady, you’re a doll. Where you hail from?

Aquí, said Crystal. I om—how you say in Een-glish—de native of theese place.

No kidding? You look like a good old American gal to me. Swallowing scotch, he ogled her from blond crown to sandaled foot. Señor, serve this little dolly whatever she’s drinking. He started to unsling the camera dangling at his waist. Say, if you’re really a native, you can pose for me.

Crystal snorted, tossed her head. It’ll cost you more than a lousy drink, she said—and laughed at his startled expression. Mister, in this life there’s no free lunch. Tell him, Reynaldo.

The bartender grinned a gold tooth as the tourist aimed his camera at Crystal.

Ten dollars! she cried—No, twenty! As though at center stage she spoke for all to hear and did not seem disappointed that apart from Scott all consisted only of a black bartender and two mulattos quietly sipping cerveza.

But you’re not a native, complained the greying tourist whose belly strained the buttons of his yellow shirt.

Yes I am! she cried.

You’re an American just like me.

"No! I’m an islander. I am! Aren’t I?—this to Scott—Tell this man I’m an islander!"

It’s true, said Scott. She’s albino.

"There. See? I’m an islander. Mas dinero. Thirty dollars—no, fifty! I’m the only albino on the island. Fifty dollars!"

If you’re an albino I’m a Zambesi. Here, hold still, let me get a snapshot. Hold still!

Crystal lifted a patrician chin. Extending her drink high before her, she swept grandly from the barstool. I’m tired of this game. She swayed toward Scott’s table; a wicker chair creaked under her sudden weight. Hello there. Fifty dollars is about right for an albino, verdad? Her voice leapt with laughter and her hoop earrings slung light. Scott studied her face: the pug nose, once considered a sign of low breeding, the mouthful of evenly-spaced but yellowish teeth, the dark roots that sabotaged her blond hair. She had a strange way of swiveling and tilting her head, as though it were loose on its stalk, and under the stack of bracelets her rubbery wrist sloshed gin over the lip of her glass. Stage laughter subsiding, she said, I feel like I already know you, and swigged gin. Confucius say those who laugh together become buddies—conveniently overlooking the fact that Scott had not laughed. I’m Crystal Hagen—hey, go away! Vamoose!

This she yelled at the tourist, whose instant camera had flashed her profile. That’s an unauthorized shot! I’ll sue! A million dollars! I swear, I’ll sue!—and her ample mouth launched another arpeggio of laughter, but broke off at the second flash and Basta! she yelled, That’s enough, you idiot! Get out of here! Get lost! But when the yellow-shirted tourist, boozily grinning, produced the snapshots, Crystal stared at them with intense interest—and then tried to snatch them. They’re ugly! They don’t look like me! C’mon, gimme those! C’mon—rising from her chair as the tourist retreated—Hey!

One for me, taunted the tourist, backing up, and one for you. Flipping a snapshot at the table, he pivoted on unsteady legs and made for the door.

My ass—quick-as-a-cat Crystal snatched the photo with one hand and with the other shoved him into the street. Get out! Vamoose! And don’t come back or I’ll call the policia!

Returning to the table she stared triumphantly at Scott. That’s how we handle tourists in Trinia! Tearing up the snapshot, she tossed confetti into the air. Then, seeing the other photo in Scott’s hand, she grabbed for it but he fended her off long enough to take a good look. "Give me that! Please! Please! I take rotten pictures. I’m not photogenic. Please!"

It was true: the snapshot face looked at once flat, drunk and dead-eyed: stripped of animation, it failed to mask the inner emptiness. Elaborately she shredded the hated image, flung the scraps to the floor. That’s that! Extracting a cigarette from her purse she handed Scott a pack of matches, coyly glancing at him as he struck and held the flame. She drew smoke deep into her lungs, exhaled simultaneously through nose and mouth. Ahhhhhh, delicioso. Squinting through the cloud of smoke, she openly appraised him. You haven’t introduced yourself.

My name is Martin Pax.

What kind of a name is that? Pax.

Czech, he improvised.

Oh. Where you from in the U S of A?

All over.

With eyes strangely hard, even cunning, she studied him. Pulling slowly on her cigarette, she released smoke luxuriously through nostrils and lips. I like you, Martin. You’re a guapo hombre. Let’s party.

CRYSTAL

1

When Crystal first arrived in Trinia she favored candy drinks but now she prefers straight gin. Sometimes she still sips a margarita or a manhattan, and sometimes a heavy Jamaican rum, and if she happens to be up before noon she launches her day with a screwdriver or a bloody mary, but usually from noon on it is pure gin, Beefeater or Gordon’s, neat. She is very grateful for this liquid bounty. She remembers the old times in Florida when she was forced to bum drinks from horny old geezers she later ditched, and often she blew most of her tip-money from waitressing just to keep a glow in her belly. When she first heard of Trinia’s Bad Time she got the idea of retroactively naming those hated Florida nights Crystal’s Scrounge Time. But that was then, this is now. Thanks to the deal with Marley, Trinia has become an open bar.

Crystal is disappointed to find so few souls in the Café Cuba. It isn’t the fanciest bar in town, mostly locals hang out here, but for that very reason it tends to attract the more adventurous young tourists, whitebreads who provide a happy diversion from Crystal’s slaves. Besides, she likes the salsa music. Also the bartender Reynaldo, who jokes a lot and has tight buns and an impressive bulge in his pants. Even more important, he services her open tab.

I’m bored, she says now to Reynaldo. I’m bored bored bored. If I don’t start having some fun, I’m going to leave the island. I’m going back to Florida.

You would put Café Cuba out of business, says Reynaldo. You would put all the bars in Trinia out of business.

Very funny.

Who would drink our gin? We would never again order Beefeater or Gordon’s. No, you must stay.

Well then, cook me up some excitement—leering at his crotch.

Reynaldo’s white teeth, highlighted by a single gold cap, dramatically display themselves. You will stay here forever. You will never leave our beautiful island. There are always many men for you to meet.

Four middle-aged mulattos enter the bar and sit down by the dusty window in the shadow of the arcade. A tourist with a straw hat and a loud pineapple shirt passes by, hesitates, then goes on. Beyond the arcade, the sunlit street bustles with taxis and bikes, vendors and campesinos. Reynaldo delivers four bottles of beer and four glasses to the mulattos and exchanges a few words with them before returning to the bar.

Fidgeting, Crystal says coyly, "Hey Reynaldo, pretty soon something really big is going down in Trinia. Something really big."

What is it?

I can’t tell you—with a mysterious, teasing smile—but it’s really big. It will blow the whole island away. I mean it. It will blow the whole island right off the map.

A hurricane? Reynaldo shakes his head. It is too early.

Not a hurricane, stupid. God, how dumb. Something bigger than a hurricane. Something bigger than anything. Something po-lit-i-cal. Flaring pale blue eyes to emphasize the importance of her secret knowledge, she shoves her empty glass at him. Mas, por favor.

You are speaking of our election, he says, refilling her glass with Gordon’s. It is true. That is a very big thing for us.

"No, stupid. Not the e-lec-shun. Something much more important than any old e-lec-shun. Don’t you know nothing?"

La Prosperidad will win, he says. La Prosperidad must win, or the Bad Time will come again. La Libertad will bring us the Bad Time. They are loco.

La Libertad, La Prosperidad, who cares? I’m not talking about the e-lec-shun, Reynaldo. I’m talking about something más importante than any stupid e-lec-shun.

What are you talking about?

She pooches her lips. I can’t tell you. I’m sworn to secrecy. But you’ll know about it soon. It will hit you like a bombshell.

Some country will drop a bomb on us? Reynaldo’s face is very serious. What country? Cuba? The United States?

2

I’m bored, says Crystal. I’m bored bored bored. From the chaise she eyes the black face of Marley who stands patiently by the gate like one of those natives she’s seen in magazines who can balance forever on one foot. His khakis are all wrinkled up like mussed bedsheets. I’m going back to Florida.

Please, let us not speak of that again.

Im bored. I can’t stand it anymore. The lapping of the pool feels like a tongue along her spine but her morning temples throb like voodoo drums and her internal organs feel very heavy. María! she yells, and the sound hurts her head. Shutting her eyes, she grimaces, and in a more subdued tone says: Mas café, por favor. And to Marley: I want to go home."

This is your home. You have no other home. Let us not speak of this again.

She eyes him. Sit down. I won’t bite.

I shall stand.

Oh, my head—pressing palm to forehead. I’m bored, I really am. I want to go back to Florida.

"Is this because of what occurred last—

A black woman appears with steaming coffee in a bone china cup. She is young, she is slender, she wears immaculate white clothes like a sister of mercy and on the poolside cement her crepe-soled nurse shoes make no sound.

Keep talking, says Crystal. María and I have no secrets.

But Marley waits for the maid to leave. This boredom is about what occurred last night?

Sipping the black coffee, Crystal winces. You promised me—glaring at him over the cup. "You promised me, Marley. You said anything I want. That was the deal. Anything I want."

If it is reasonable. Marley shows no emotion. Anything you want, but it must be reasonable.

That’s a lie! You never said anything about reasonable. Besides, who gets to decide what’s reasonable?

If you ask me to hand you the moon, that is not reasonable. If you ask me to lift a mountain, that is not reasonable. If you ask me to provide people for…vicious acts, that is not reasonable.

They aren’t vicious acts. They’re just a game, for fun. You’re a prude, Marley. Even if your shirt does look like you made whoopee all night. Crystal starts to laugh, but instead winces. Ow.

You drink too much. You talk too much. We must not have a scandal. It could destroy the coronation.

Oh to hell with the coronation. To hell with it! Closing her eyes, she lowers her back, balances the cup and saucer on her tanned flat stomach. I want to go home.

Marley says nothing and after a long silence Crystal peeks at him through slightly-parted lids. He stands as still as a garden statue and she imagines a pigeon perched on his head. This makes her smile, and when she speaks it is in the wheedling voice of a little girl: It was just a game, Marley. I only wanted to have some fun with my friends.

Fun for you but not for the others. You can call a slave many things, but not ‘friend’.

Well so what? she says defiantly. "You said anything I want. Anything. That was the deal. And if you won’t stick to the deal, I’m going back to Florida. Lowering the cup to poolside cement, she swings her legs into a sitting position. I’m calling the shots, Marley. Me. Remember that. Not you, me."

If you are reasonable, he says impassively.

3

In the full-length mirror Crystal gazes at her own naked body. How big do you think Marley’s thing is?

What thing?

"You know, his thing—his pene. Qué grande?"

María giggles but looks frightened.

This big?—Crystal holds her hands a foot apart like a man bragging about a fish—or this big—showing a thimble-size space between thumb and forefinger. Which is it? Laughing, she examines one lightly-tanned flank, then the other. No stretch marks, she says with satisfaction, not a single one. But look at that varicose vein!—pivoting, pointing at the back of her left calf. Already! Ugly purple worm! God, it’s scary to be a woman, María. I wish I had bigger boobs, Cs instead of Bs. I’m thinking of getting implants. But I’m afraid to. Do you think I should, María?

With a solemn young face that is both very black and very pretty, María appraises her. You look nice, she says.

I like my nipples, though. Aren’t they pretty?—tracing fingertips around one and then the other. Pink flower petals. How do you say ‘nipples’ in Spanish?

Las pezonas.

Men love mine, they always say so. My pezonas. I wonder if having kids will ruin them. I wonder if they’ll get all big and stretched out and gross, like the ones you see in girlie magazines on those women with huge watermelons. Yucky. Muy yucky. I like my nipples and my bush. Those and my long waist are my best parts. Isn’t it pretty?—stroking her pale brown bush with both hands—just the right amount of fur. I wish it was blond though. Should I dye it? I’ve been thinking about that. Then it would be perfect. Perfect. A ten. Men would love it even more, they couldn’t wait to go down on it. Parting and examining herself, she says, But you know what? My pussy doesn’t have enough smell. I don’t smell fishy like a woman. I wonder if I’ll smell like a woman after I have kids. Do you smell like a woman, María? Turning, she grins yellowish teeth. Here—reaching—pull up your skirt, let me smell you. Come on, María. I want to see if you smell like a real woman.

No. Stop.

Oh come on, don’t be a prude.

No.

"Okay okay, don’t have a fit. But I could make you do it. I could order you. You know that, don’t you? Marley said I can have anything I want."

With her eyes Crystal caresses her own mirrored flesh. Lay out the gypsy costume, María. I think I’ll be a gypsy at the Café Cuba today. What do you think?

María averts her eyes, keeps her distance.

"How do I look? Do you like me? Look at me! Do I look yummy to you?" Turning, she advances a step toward María, who spreads the red gypsy skirt on the bed. Crystal strikes a Playboy pose. Wouldn’t you like to make love to me, María? Tell the truth. Wouldn’t you like to make love to this tanned body? These pink flower petals, this beautiful bush? I know Marley would. How can you resist? Come on, María, let’s party!

No! Stop!