Tomorrow's Woman

Retribution and Desire

Dinner was as bland as usual. Sourly, I looked down at the items on my plate that were in severe need of being livened up.

Really, I could cook better food for myself, but I just wasn’t up to it in the evenings so I often made use of the town of Rawlings lone diner, which also doubled as one of only two bars in town.

Bars and I didn’t get along well, which made having to eat the bland slop on my plate in one made it all the worse for me having to bear.

One of the local loudmouth buffoons was going on and on over at the bar about how a herd of sheep had sounded as they fell to their deaths over a cliff. Having to listen to him in the backdrop was especially grating on my nerves as I played with the tasteless food on my plate.

I had no use for fools, but sadly much to my chagrin the world seemed to be full of them. At least in this town anyway. The open mouthed mirth of the fools in the room carried along in lock step fashion with the loud mouthed gun hand that rode for one of the valley’s big cattle brands who was relaying his story with the boldness of one above the law.

A fork full of burnt steak was half way to my lips when some hidden inner sense directed my gaze to the doorway of the bar. It was a mystery as to who was standing in the darkness of the void beyond, but the hand gripped over the top of the door was brown and very femininely proportioned.

I let the fork settle back down to the plate as I grew conscious of an undercurrent in the atmosphere. The rowdy gun hand by the bar had moved on from sheep to recounting the terror to be beheld on the face of the herd’s shepherd boy as they had come galloping up on the flock.

My gaze swung to the cowboy at the bar. I was ready to kill him myself, but the task was already taken care of it seemed.

There was a swish of fabric and my eyes swiveled back to the doorway. The girl, really woman, was a mystery no more.

I had never seen a prouder driven carriage of bearing as this girl possessed. Seeing the way she was made, though only made the urge to dominate her rise up in me somehow.

And what a body to dominate. My thoughts were entirely out of line with my conservative ethics of being, but then again were they really?

The girl wore no ring on her finger. She was free to be imagined over.

Only, as my gaze roamed with appreciation over the approximately 5’4” of exotic beauty that had more zest and flavor in an ounce of her attitude than this place had ever employed in its cooking, I couldn’t help but think what a handful of trouble a girl like this one would be. Anger seethed like a tangible thread of visible reality across the entire visage of the girl as she approached the loudmouth at the bar, who was suddenly the only one laughing at his own jokes.

Unsteadily he peered about and then turned. He blinked and then the look of lust that was on many a man’s face within the room descended upon him and though imbibed heavily with alcohol his man parts began to swell for Sessina Martinez was quite the looker.

Every aspect of her from her long black curly hair to the upthrusting fullness of the pair of breasts meant to be handled passionately by a man down to a waste that narrowed impossibly inward until it widened back out generously to curve into a pair of hips that begged to be taken a hold of even as everything about her said that she was an ideal specimen of a female if ever there was one.

A woman meant to be bred and used to pass on the species of humanity in the hopes that she would give birth to daughters that would look just like her along with sons strong enough to create empires all on their own.

The gun hand began to brashly open his mouth in no doubt what was going to be a very lewd statement of the facts to be seen of the physical aspects of this girl, only to suddenly cry out in pain and grasp at his torn and bleeding cheek instead, even as a loud crack reverberated through the stillness of the scene. There was an audible murmur of surprise as the men within the bar took in the Spanish leather plated bull whip that the girl had just used with the precision of one who knew how to use it with expertise.

The whip cracked again and Curly went down cussing loudly as the whip curled about his left leg and with a strong jerk, which sent the girl’s full breasts swaying even as her hips twisted, the girl sent the cowboy hard to the dirty floor of the place. Curly with a yowl of fury was back up on his feet, even as every man in the place put lust for the girl aside and labeled her as too hot to be safely handled. Every man that was except for me.

With another painful crack of the whip Curly was driven past common sense in terms of what reasoning would bring him and went for the gun strapped to his hip. With gritted veracity the girl’s wrist snapped forward and the plated leather whip followed unerringly.

Blood spurted from Curly’s fingers as the whip lashed across them and his gun hit the floor even as whip strike after strike was brought down upon him as if the hand of God had been activated in the room. A compatriot of Curly’s, in defense of his friend, slowly moved his hand and lifted his gun free of its holster to take aim upon the revenging Senorita that all within the room had suddenly gained a very healthy level of respect for.

************

Sessina, as if in a slowed down point of survival driven focus finally took in the truth of the reality that her peripheral vision was showing her, of a gun being leveled off and pointed at her. It was too late, but she brought the whip back to attack the second target anyway, even though she knew it would do her no good, as the shooter was beyond the reach of the whip.

In complete desperation for survival, she watched on hopelessly as the sad reality that her life would soon be over occurred to her in vivid living color. Something of intense heat and fiery purpose passed by her cheek so closely that it clipped several strands of her hair.

In consternation she watched even as the shooter’s finger tightened on the trigger, but the shot, she had been expecting didn’t come and yet there had been a shot fired. The man’s face twisted with sudden horror and with shocked consternation he glanced down to the red bloom of color issuing forth from his chest.

With a sunken look of defeated realization that he was dying, he fell slowly down to the floor with his back to the bar. He was dead before he reached the floor.

************

All eyes in the place swiveled to me. Smoke curled up from the end of my gun barrel still held poised and at the ready.

Glancing about when all I wanted to do was meet the enigmatic black-eyed stare of the girl who had suddenly made me the focus of all of her attention I said, “This looks to be a private fight between these two. Let’s keep it that way.”

The girl blinked at me even as her face reflected extreme consternation that anyone within this room of mostly white men would have come to her aid. I had to fight the urge to call out to her then as Curly did his best to capitalize on the sudden lull in the action.

Chair held high he rushed and sent it crashing down on where the girl had just been. With a good command of presence, she swung away from the downward crash of the chair before it arrived.

The chair disintegrated into pieces and growling Curly lashed out with what remained of the chair that he still held in his hands. The girl once more evaded his wild swing at her.

Then, dodging in close she punched hard. Curly’s head snapped back and it was my turn to blink with surprise.

The girl could really dish it out!

Curly was making to lunge in and swing at her with his own fist, when nimbly she dodged forward once more and sprayed the entire contents of a salt shaker into his face. With a howl Curly dropped the remnants of the chair and clutched at his face even as he slid down to his knees on the hard floor.

It was an ill prepared movement as in his descent, his head was seized by two strong, slim hands and sent crashing forward into an uplifting skirt clad knee. The sound of Curly’s nose breaking was unmistakable in the room and with a squeal like a stuck pig, he collapsed over onto his side in a fetal position.

It did him no good though. Several hard, sharp booted kicks to his ribs followed quickly.

Moaning and groaning, he begged for mercy in a way that sickened most of the men present in the bar in an entirely different way then could be brought on by the sight of just blood. Beneath all of his bravado Curly was nothing but a two bit coward in order to now be begging as he was.

I watched on as the girl leaned down and took a grip of a handful of Curly’s greasy blonde hair and with surprisingly little Spanish inflexion to her words I heard her say, “Maybe next time you not think it so funny to ride down a little shepherd boy. A boy with far more courage than you’ve ever had in your entirely misbegotten wretched life!”

That last statement said she straightened up and with true savagery she kicked her booted foot forward and Curly was laid out cold on the floor. For good measure, then in an ode to her Spanish heritage, she spat down onto the body lying still on the floor.

I wasn’t entirely sure that Curly was even still alive. Whether he was or wasn’t I could see that it really didn’t matter to this girl.

She had come for blood, and apparently tonight with all it had to offer still wasn’t even close to being enough to satisfy her need for more of it. I could see the urge to cause even more pain written all across her face as she gazed accusingly at all those present in the bar near where Curly had been standing.

In appearance she seemed eager, even chomping at the bit to cause even more pain, even death. It wasn’t a good way to be.

Gathering herself, then she pulled away from the limp body on the floor and headed for the door. Her eyes found me and idly I nodded in return and touched a finger to my eyebrow in a salute to her.

She glanced away quickly. My eyes followed her out the door and everyone within the bar remained still as we listened to her mount up and ride away.

What a girl that one was!

My gaze took in the room at large as they all now stared at me blankly as if unsure of what came next.

“Show's over folks. Time to move on with life.”

A man kneeling on the floor beside the man I had shot said bitterly, “You should’ve let Ed plug her with one!”

My gaze centered in on the man. Abruptly I stood away from my table and the man visibly flinched before slowly straightening up with grave reluctance reflected in every move of his frame.

I stared at the man with all the loathing for his kind that I felt and looking quite shaken the man glanced away as if to say that he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Slowly I spoke, “It’s a pretty sad day when a man can say what you just did. Tell me, do you go around shooting unarmed girls in your spare time?”

“Well, uh….. no, of course not! But she…… well, she ain’t white!”

My detest for the man grew, “No, she certainly isn’t as white lily livered as you are, you twisted up sanctimonious little piece of human waste. Now either draw your gun like a man or run along and hang out with your chicken skinned whiteness in a dark alley somewhere and pretend to yourself about how great you think you are, because nobody in here can see it.”

The man abruptly fled the bar. Looking at my half eaten plate of food I forsook it all together as I had quite lost my appetite.

I laid enough money down on the table to cover the tab.

Just as I headed for the door, under the now the conspicuous gaze of a growing number of hostile eyes I heard Curly groan. He was alive after all, what a pity.

The man would either leave town or stay on, but in either case the young Spanish wildcat had made herself a very bad enemy. She’d embarrassed the man.

It would’ve been better for her if she had killed him. As it was now all the man would think about was revenge and the thought of that didn’t sit well with me at all.

As I stepped out onto the boardwalk the remembered imagery of the girl assailed me. What a pair of curved hips she’d had to go with that tiny indented little waist of hers.

Instantly upon the remembrance of how she’d looked my shaft hardened and became a thing of discomfort for me even as the idea of what it would be like to be positioned behind that girl’s upturned rear as my hands held her wide hips steady for my shaft’s invasion of her completely overwhelmed my senses. The desire to live out the fantasy was heady, but with a groan I forsook it as like it or not my time in this town was pretty much up due to me penciling out one of its members on the account of the senorita with a black mane of hair that a man could wrap his fist into twice as he held her steady for his mount of her from behind.

No, like it or not I’d done the wrong thing in the eyes of the town’s majority ruling populace. They were a bunch of bigoted fools anyway.

As it was I never ended up staying in one place for too long, but my stay here was going to be shorter than most. What a shame.

For the first time in a very long time I’d had a real encounter with a woman that I’d bed in a heartbeat. The only thing was I didn’t bed any woman all that easily.

In fact, I had only ever had one woman in my life and that girl I had made my wife. Life had never been so fine as when I’d had her to come home to.

I’d had her up until a society of similarly bigoted people such as these had come one night when I was away and made an example of her. I’d made those people pay and yet revenge had got me nowhere in terms of replacing all that I had lost.

In the six years since then I had remained alone an entirely celibate. I’d had the urge to mate as any man would, but always it was my wife’s face I would see instead of the girl in the moment and so I had stayed away from women.

The girl tonight though had been different. I hadn’t even had a thought for Macy in my mind, as I had fantasized about what it would be like to sink my shaft into the fiery little Senorita whose very eyes seemed to omit smoky passion.

In a way I almost felt guilty. Reaching my hand down I adjusted the front of my pants.

Guilt ridden or not for my errant thoughts of another woman my shaft was just as hard as could be. Yes, it was most definitely time to move on.

I would start packing up my gear in the morning. That decision made I reached my rented apartment and bedded down for the night.

As I lay back on the pillows the imagery of the girl turning to look at me in surprise as I had fired the shot that had saved her life came back to me as if it was replaying all over again in lifelike slow-motion. Her long hair whipping about as her face full of the hot passion of revenge was now coupled with the surprised look of an “oh!” escaping her full lips at my intervention.

The open question of me in her smoky gaze half fogged over by the desires of retribution she had just been enacting and now something else had truly been a vision to see. The something else had seemed to border almost on gratefulness.

The girl didn’t want to die. She wanted to live and the only way she saw that being a possibility was to be so tough as to make any man think twice about attacking her, her brother, and her father.

Unfortunately, though her passion in pursuit of independence would provoke the opposite in most men. Her situation truly was dire no matter how you looked at it.

It should have been her father who had come to the bar this night and not her. Now there would be hell to pay and she stood to suffer the brunt of it.

As my mind’s eye gazed over the remembered moment I took note of the fact that her beautiful hair hadn’t been the only thing swinging. The girl was young, but already God had endowed her with a beautiful set of breasts.

A pair of breasts that still had time to get even larger as she progressed in life and became a mother. The only problem though was that her chances of surviving to be a mother were decidedly slim.

The likely reality of what would occur would see those beautiful breasts of hers being torn free of their covering in a sunbaked arroyo somewhere by a group of men that would put them to the worst of tortures along with the rest of the girl, before granting her the reprieve of a bullet between the eyes. I shifted uncomfortably in the bed as the torment of that reality after I left became only too clear to me.

The other truth of the moment to be gleaned was that I didn’t want anybody else uncovering the girl’s perfect chest, but me and the sweet milk those breasts would make one day would be mine along with however many children I would sire by her.

Closing my eyes, I fought a silent war against both truths. I tried to imagine Macy, but all I saw was the girl from the bar and what it would be like to take a hold of her blouse and rip it open and bare her chest to my gaze.

Groaning, I twisted about on the bed, but the possibility of getting any sleep was gone from me. With uncertain reluctance I made a fateful decision.

I would stay. It was without a doubt the dumbest thing I’d done in a very long time, but if there was one mistake I never wanted to make in life again, it was to leave a woman I cared about behind, when instead I should’ve stayed.