Page 51 of Vice
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION
“He told you to teach me about America?”
Natalia seems baffled. She stands three feet from me as we walk down the hallway together toward the library that is apparently located on the ground floor. She looks different today. She hasn’t been outside, scrambling through the forest, so she’s not covered in dirt and a thin sheen of perspiration. Her clothes are not what I would have expected, either: small black skirt that shows off the delicious curve of her ass, coupled with a dark blue strappy shirt made out of some floaty, see-through material that hints at the fact she might not be wearing a bra. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders in thick, caramel waves, and she smells like flowers.
I prod her in the side, just above her hipbone, winking. “Did you dress up for me, Natalia Villalobos?”
She flushes bright red. Her blush travels down her neck, to the base of her throat, where it burns crimson. “No, of course not. I just wanted…” She’s flustered. Embarrassed. She sweeps her hair back behind her ears, looking down at the ground. “So what if I have?” she declares, changing tack. “Why is it so bad for me to want to look nice for you? For you to want me?” She speaks quietly, so she’s not heard, but there’s a certain amount of defiance in her tone now.
I hold up one hand, grinning as I shake my head. “I’m not complaining.”
“Then what are you talking about?” Her lilting accent slays me when she’s riled up like this. She’s fucking adorable.
“I’m just letting you know that I’ve noticed,” I tell her.
“Then you should tell me I look beautiful or something, not try to make me feel ashamed.”
God. If I could take her in my arms and kiss her right now, I would. Since I can literally hear the electronic buzzing of the camera lenses following us as we walk past them, though, I don’t. I rub at the back of my neck, trying not to laugh instead. “You are beautiful, Natalia. You’re possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But then, I think that every time I see you. Even when your hair is all over the place and you’re covered in sweat. Even when you’re drenched to the bone, and you have mud all over your face.”
She slows, blinking at me, a tiny smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Are all men in America like you? Do you all know how to say the right thing at the right time?”
I can’t hold back the laughter now. I just can’t. “I don’t think many American women would agree with that statement, no.”
“So it’s just you, then?” She seems so innocent sometimes, like a child. In some ways, she is. She’s led such a sheltered life here, cut off from all social media, television, and other external influences. Then again, she has also been subjected to scenes of violence and death so horrific that it seems she should be aged well beyond her years.
“Yes. Just me,” I say softly.
Natalia guides me down the long corridor. The library is small, nowhere near as grand as I thought it would be. As soon as we walk through the door, I’m scanning the ceiling and the corners of the room, searching for surveillance. Natalia shakes her head imperceptibly as I go to sit down at a table close to one of the windows. “I don’t know where it is, but there is definitely a camera in here somewhere,” she says. Instead, she points me to a small table in the back of the room,
“Damn. I was going to bend you over the table and fuck you senseless,” I whisper. “Something about books makes my dick hard.”
Natalia looks scandalized. She sits down at the table, fidgeting in her seat, trying to get comfortable, but I can tell she’s thinking about what I just said and she can’t get the thought out of her mind. “My grandfather used to bring me to the library all the time,” she says. “He taught me French and Portuguese here. Among other things.”
I sit down opposite her. I have to fidget a little myself in order to get comfortable. I wasn’t lying; there’s something about libraries that turns me on. I have no idea why, but my cock is getting harder by the second and there’s literally nothing I can do to prevent it. The cameras won’t pick up a bulge in my pants, though. It’s dark here, at the back of the room, thank god. Maybe that’s exactly why Natalia picked this spot instead of one of the other tables by the huge picture window on the far side of the room.
Natalia’s legs are tangled up in mine, her right leg in between my own, her kneecap dangerously close to brushing up against my hard-on. I give her thigh a squeeze under the table. Fuck, her skin is so warm and smooth. It feels like silk beneath my fingertips. She tenses when I touch her, and looks around, as if she expects someone to be lurking behind one of the book stacks.
“So what do you want to know about America?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Have you ever been to Philadelphia?”
“No, I haven’t.”
She’s disappointed. I can tell from the look on her face. “Okay. Well, then. What can you tell me about the people from your country?”
“You meet Americans every day,” I say quietly, angling my head in the direction of the party room. “I think you know as much as you need to there.”
“Are you saying that all Ecuadorian people are the same as my father?”
She has a point. The people in the village of Orellana itself seemed like simple, happy people who lived clean, uncomplicated lives. I can’t imagine any of those happy-faced children I saw when I arrived growing up to be psychotic murderers, but then again you never know. “Fair point,” I concede. I think for a moment, and then say, “Americans are just like citizens from other countries. There are good people, and bad. Smart people, and not so smart people. It’s just that the bad, not so smart people seem to have a way of ending up in power, or in the spotlight for some reason. Those are often the people representing the country. It can look like we’re all bad and all not so smart.”
“You’re good,” Natalia tells me. “You’ve stayed here way too long, so I can’t comment on how smart you are, but I can see that you are a good man, Cade Preston.”
I just look at her. “I have no idea why you would think that. I’ve done plenty of dark, fucked-up stuff that I’m not proud of.”
“And why did you do them? For joy? For pleasure? Entertainment, perhaps? A good man will do necessary, evil things in order to help others, but he will not revel in his actions. A bad man will do the same necessary, evil things, and his heart will sing as he holds the knife, or pulls the trigger. See what I’m saying?”
