Love & Conquests

Chapter 1

Her name was 3-5-2-2. To her left was 4-0-6-7 and to her right was 6-1-5-2. But neither of them was her friend nor family. They were just one of the many scared faces in the long line of Esclavo burning under the unforgiving sun in Fort Esperanza’s square. There were at least fifty of them, women whose names consisted four numbers between the numbers zero to nine, standing in line, letting the sun bake them alive, while they waited for their turn to be inspected and assessed of their health.

The dust and quiet in the square settled down when the bells pealed and the tower doors creaked open for an imposing figure—a man in white marching with his black, heavy boots, and horse crop in his tight, clenched fist, and a gang of guards followed behind him, each sporting a frown and sneering eyes.

“Capitan,” his followers called him, and drawn to this, 3-5-2-2 raised her eyes from this gentleman’s buckled top boots to his white, angular face.

When the Capitan eyed the juvenile Esclavo standing in line, head hanging low, but eyes staring into his, the Capitan contemptuously thought, Defiant. He waved his fingers and pointed his crop at the deviant. His men followed, and there was much arm pulling 

The Esclavo, 3-5-2-2, meant no harm in clapping eyes with the burly Conquistador, but her curiosity, so much like a hungry dog that could not be abated unless fed, ate at her wondering mind if the Capitan meant what he said for many nights. 

The Capitan was tall, with a pleasing face and a fine, smiling mouth that spoke of his plans outside Fort Esperanza with her by his side (but only when they were alone would he speak of this). But, most of all, she liked his eyes—or perhaps, she thought she did until now.

The Capitan’s eyes were the shade of sunlit leaves—a calming green which reminded her there was life outside the gray, brick walls of Fort Esperanza. And he promised her that one day she would see trees again, taller and more imposing than the bell tower. Then, he would stare at her with a dark look in his eyes and kiss her savagely, probe her mouth with his tongue, and sob like a child. He would tell her in a watered-down voice that he was her servant, and she mustn’t leave him for he would rather kill her and himself.

He would look pitiful in her eyes, and she’d pat his head. He’d crush her in his embrace and weep unceasingly; and his eyes were most beautiful when he cried, for they spoke of his gentleness, his vulnerability; and 3-5-2-2 would feel her chest tighten.

But the Capitan’s eyes were neither gentle nor full of love (a word he’d religiously say to her). Rather, they were hard and unforgiving; and the Esclavo's curiosity turned to worry, evident by the trembling of her lower lip. 

The Capitan's hand grabbed her by the chin in a stranglehold, and his lips—the Esclavo heard him say it plenty of times before, "Cortar!"

She had seen the Capitan execute Cortar to more than a handful of women before, and his lips would always be in a sneer, as though he relished for moments when an Esclavo had his bouts of dementia and acted friendly with a Conquistador.

The guards came and grabbed her: one on each of her arm, one held her whole head, and one pried her tongue out with rusty, copper tongs. Her tongue hurt for the tongs clamped hard, and the metallic taste of blood lingered in her mouth. The Capitan grabbed for his knife from his hip with a flourish and smiled at each of his men, who snickered.

The cold touch of the knife on her bleeding tongue caught the Esclavo’s breath and she panted and begged, shaking her head, pulling and pushing the guards to no avail. The Capitan caught her tongue between his thumb and index finger and executed Cortar. 

The first slice of his small blade was slow, but as the Capitan progressed into his chore, cutting the Esclavo's tongue in even slower slashes, 3-5-2-2 winced and kicked and screamed.

The pain—it was explosive, a moment stretched into hours, a hot eruption within her that made her toes and fingers curl and her eyes water. Worst of all, it wouldn't go away.

The Capitan grinned and threw the discarded flesh right at her feet. The guards released her, and she sagged and crumpled into a ball, holding her tongue and bleeding mouth with trembling hands.

"Know your place," the Capitan hissed in her ear, and the Esclavo hid her face behind a curtain of black hair.

It was only his eyes, 3-5-2-2 remembered, she tolerated—green like the leaves of trees, a vivid color that blinded her from what he truly was—a vile, disgusting r****t.

How could she have forgotten that the Capitan was a pig? Did she already forget that he had taken her night after night behind closed doors, in big, windowless rooms? Taken her forcefully with the same hands he used to cut her tongue off or probed the very delicate part of her body?

3-5-2-2 raised her fist and punched at her belly. Smacked and hit it so hard, she wished the child growing inside her would die and would be saved of a future comforting Conquistadors in their beds or mucking mud and mining for coal and gold in the mines. She punched and slapped her burgeoning stomach and screamed.

From a distance, she heard the Capitan bark orders again. The guards came and held her arms. She screamed louder and squeezed her dismembered tongue tight in her fist.

The Capitan stood in front of her, looked at her hard, and slapped the side of her head with his riding crop. “She’s being a menace,” he seethed, and he slapped her again and again. “Take her to a den.”

The guards dragged her into somewhere within the Fort’s walls, chained her arms and legs to the wall, and left her for days without food or water in the dark, in a windowless cell, which spoke volumes of the creeping darkness in her heart.