A dozen or so travelers had stopped near a maguey field to prepare their dinner fires and lay their bedding out. I stopped too. I had nothing to eat, nothing to unpack, and no tools for fire making. There was a good stream, however, so I would at least have water. After a long, thirsty drink, I lay down to rest under a dense conifer that might offer protection against a night rain, which seemed likely.
A pleasant river flowed lazily through a maguey field. It was no doubt part of some great hacienda, perhaps even one of the great holdings in which everything from sugar to cattle was raised.
As I walked along the river, I picked up a stick and swung it like a cane as boys do. I was about to turn back when I heard the giggle of girls. I froze and listened. It came again, laughing and splashing. Creeping half bent over, I made my way to the source of the sound. Through bushes at the edge of the river, I saw two young women splashing and swimming. They tossed a coconut between them as if it was a ball. One girl had the tawny color of a mulatta, the other the glistening ebony of a pure africana. They were in water about to their breast line and as they leaped, their entire upper bodies came out of the water, filling my young eyes.
They babbled back and forth in a language I did not understand but took to be one of the many africano tongues heard on the streets. After a moment the mulatta swam away, disappearing from my sight. I kept my eyes on the ebony girl. She had her back to me and seemed to be dealing with her hair, turning in the water so I would catch sight of her bare breasts and then turning back again.
A twig snapped behind me, and I turned as the mulatta rushed me and gave me a shove. Stumbling backward, I fell into the river. I sloshed in the water until I got my feet and came up spitting out river to the laughter of the two girls. The mulatta dove in and swam to where her friend was. They kept themselves up to their necks in the water.
I grinned at them. "Buenos dias."
"Buenos dias," the mulatta said.
"I am on my way to Jalapa. I am a merchant," I lied.
The mulatta returned my grin. "You look more like a boy than a merchant."
The girls were probably both about my own age, but they seemed older. The mulatta said words to the pure africana girl, and I took it that she was interpreting what we had said. If she was a field worker, she may know little or no Spanish.
"My father is a rich merchant. I work with his goods."
The mulatta laughed and shook her head. "You are dressed as a peón."
"I am in disguise so banditos do not try to rob me."
I found both women sensually appealing. The mulatta girl was not the stuff of grande mistresses—she was not the Thoroughbred race horse demanded by rich caballeros, but was young and spirited. The darker-skinned girl was more attractive. She glistened like a precious black stone, statuesque and perfectly proportioned, her breasts young melons that were just becoming ripe.
Even though I had touched—and been touched—by Snake Flower and the alcalde's wife, I had never lain with a woman. Looking at the two girls, I wondered what it would be like to make love with them.
They must have read my thoughts. They looked at each other and broke out laughing.
My grin got wider and I felt my cheeks warm with embarrassment.
After more chatter in the strange tongue, the mulatta asked me, "Have you made love to many women?"
I shrugged and tried to look modest. "Many women seek my favors."
After more translation and laughter from the girls, the mulatta asked, "Have you made love to women whose roots go back to Africa?"
"No," I admitted, "but I would like to."
"Before you make love to an africana, you should know what gives us pleasure."
The ebony girl pulled herself onto a large rock and sat facing me. She kept an arm across her breasts and a hand covering the hair at the crevice between her legs.
"Love is upendo in our language," the mulatta said. "But fulfillment comes not just from the mind, but from mwili, the body." She waved her hand up and down at the other girl's nakedness. "The body is bustani, a garden; a garden of pleasure and delight. Each person, man and woman, have tools to work the garden." She pointed at the girl's lips. "They have mdomos, lips, and ulimi, the tongue. These permit one to taste the fruit of the garden."
The mulatta girl leaned over and brushed the lips of the other girl.
I had never seen two girls so physically intimate before. It stunned me.
"There are melons, tikiti, in the garden." She pushed aside the arm hiding the young melon breasts. "You can taste the whole melon," she kissed a breast, running her lips around its full curvature, "or you can taste just the namna ya tunda, the strawberries." She gently ran her tongue around the girl's nipples.
My virile part swelled and began throbbing. I stood perfectly still in the water, entranced by the performance the girl was putting on.
She caressed the girl's stomach with her hand, running her hand slowly down from the breast to where her legs split.
"This bush covers the marufuku bustani, the forbidden garden." She took the girl's dark hand away and placed her own hand on the pubis. "There is an ekundu eupe kipepeo in the garden." The ebony girl slowly spread her legs, exposing her vulva. "A pink butterfly."
The mulatta touched the pink area with her finger. "There is a secret mushroom, a kiyoga, that grows in the garden. When it is pressed, it helps to water the garden."
I could not see what her finger was doing, but the ebony girl reacted by writhing with pleasure. Surely it must be the same as the little pene I'd discovered on the alcalde's wife.
"There is a flower, ua, in the garden. It has an opening in the stem so that the honey, asali, can be obtained by the bee. The bee, nyuki, is the man. He is attracted to the nectar of the flower and desires to taste the honey."
She stopped and gave me a seductive smile. "Are you attracted to the flower?"
I felt a terrible urgency in my virile parts. My mouth was dry. I muttered yes as if I had a mouthful of cotton.
The mulatta girl looked sad for a moment. "But you see, a girl cannot let the bee taste the honey anytime he likes because the bee has a sting. Do you know what happens when the bee stings a woman?"
I shook my head numbly.
"She gets pregnant!"
The two girls splashed out of the water. I started for them but slipped on the muddy bottom and came up with another mouthful of water. By the time I got onto dry land, they had disappeared into the bushes.
Wet and chagrined, I made my way back to where the travelers camped. Women were a great mystery to me. While I could easily read men, I realized that I had not even begun the first chapter on the Book of Women.
EIGHTEEN
As dusk fell I could not resist exploring. I disappeared into the maguey field out of sight of the travelers and any indio defending the field against thieves.
Maguey were enormous plants with leaves wider than my legs and taller than a grown man. To my boyish imagination, the plants were the gigantic crowns of Aztec gods. Some plants, like the maize that gave us life, had power stored within them. The maguey was a warrior of the plant world, not only because its tall, slender leaves rose like a bunch of spears, but because of the power of its nectar and the uses of its flesh.