He got into the Mercedes and sat beside her. She drove to the large Coyoacan plaza and parked in the darkness near a group of ancient pepper trees.
"I like it very much that you find me attractive, Senor Carter. There is nothing furtive about you, certainly nothing like…" She stopped for a moment, biting thoughtfully at her lower lip.
"This is not what you think, Senor Carter. At least not all of it. I am more than a bored housewife who for too long has become an object of possession and display." She ran a finger over her left cheek. "As you can no doubt tell, my husband and I had a disagreement that came to violence." She looked into his eyes. "I am not one of these long-suffering women who allows such insults. This is the first time Robert has ever struck me. If he were not such an inherently corrupt, evil man, I would be content merely to do what I am about to do, and then leave him. Your visit tonight is very symbolic for me." Her eyes played over him, first with sympathy, then with open invitation. She seemed to be taking in Carter's appreciation of her and encouraging it.
"I know who you are," she said. "I don't really know the details, the exact details, but I know you have some large power behind you, that you are a survivor and a fighter. Robert actually thinks you represent the diamond security forces." She laughed. "I know you represent reason and compassion, that you have probably had to kill for those qualities, and that you have had your life in peril on more occasions than you care to remember."
Carter felt himself pulled along by the strength of her presence and convictions. She watched him for a time, then reached for his hand, squeezed it first, then began tracing the back of it with her fingertips. "Does that arouse you, Señor Carter?"
"Everything about you arouses me," Carter admitted.
She made a small humming noise of satisfaction. "That is truly good fortune for me. My husband and his friends, they are aroused by the sight of things, but for them the true excitement is possession. Their imaginations stop with possession. Do you understand the implications of that? Always being looked at as an object, always being possessed but never appreciated?"
Consuela Silver placed Carter's hand on her bare thigh. The warmth of her skin made him catch his breath, and she was obviously pleased by his reaction. "There are many things we can do for one another, Senor Carter, things that go well beyond mere possession. That great fool of a man wanted me because of my family lineage. My family is not wealthy now, although at one time they were. Now it is more the tradition of trying to lead a good life, a life where the tradition and dignity prevail. It was thought that my husband was a decent man and that I would be able to carry on the tradition of doing good things for the benefit of all."
By now she was facing him, and she pulled him toward her.
Carter felt the pleasure of having his face buried against the side of that remarkably graceful neck, his hands moving slightly to cup the swell of her elegant breasts.
She shuddered at his touch. "I did not think it was possible to have such exquisite pleasures from these little explorations. Explore me, Senor Carter. Go wherever your pleasure takes you. Tell me what you enjoy."
She made intimate moves along the sides of Carter's thighs. He responded immediately. Her eyes lit with an animal excitement. The results goaded Carter on. He continued his exploration of her breasts. She hummed in pleasure. "There is this other thing I have spoken of. We must make love right here and that will give me the energy I need to do this other thing."
"Sounds very dramatic," Carter murmured.
Gravely, deliberately, Consuela Silver nodded. She moistened her lips, then straddled Carter's lap. "You must make love to me now and then I shall go home and kill my husband."
Eleven
Carter felt a chill and a surge of passion at the same time. He did not know Consuela Silver, but just as she had felt a kinship with him, so did he know her well enough to know she meant what she'd said.
As if reading his thoughts, she said, "I am quite serious. If it had merely been that he lost control and hit me, you and I would not be here like this now. I am not doing this to get revenge on him or, how do you say it, put the horns on him. I do this to purge myself of a truly evil presence in my life."
She began to make it difficult for him to concentrate on anything but hen The gentleness of her touch and her obvious desire to make this a shared experience overrode any thought Carter might have had at being merely a part of some insensitive individual's personal sexual ritual.
After several moments. Consuela Silver began whispering questions to him, telling him places where she wanted him to touch her, then taking his hands and guiding them to her breasts, her legs, her hips, and beyond. "You know this was what you wanted from the moment you saw me," she said.
Then she kissed him hungrily. "It's true, this is what you wanted, and you made me want it too." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I didn't think you were ever going to get out of there so we could be doing this."
"This is something I want," Carter whispered.
Before he could respond, she nodded and smiled. "Yes," she said, "I know what you want." She pulled two tortoise shell pins from her hair and the long twists and braids of it came tumbling down, splashing over her face and shoulders. Her mocha-colored skin was bathed in the glistening silkiness of that heavy raven hair.
His hands played over her body, enjoying the feel of her waist, her hips, her powerful legs. Soon she whispered a specific request to him. "Please! * she breathed. And Carter unbuttoned her blouse and began to softly caress her breasts, causing her to close her eyes and groan.
All the while Carter was caressing her, she was busy with him, making it possible for their bodies to join. As they did, Carter felt her stiffening momentarily and then, almost immediately, the complete giving of herself to their lovemaking. "You are the first man other than my husband," she said. "He had suggested others — other things, but you are the first. I have chosen well."
As Carter began to control their movements, Consuela cried out several times, her back arching. Then, her hands digging at his neck and shoulders, she said, "I want you, now, then I will be complete."
Although Carter still tried to be in control, her movements and the great sense of being joined to so intense and attractive a person became more than he could endure.
"Please!" she cried. "Now!"
She whispered surprising things in Carter's ear, moving with a frenzy that brought him to the state she wanted. As Carter experienced the pure, driving response of excitement, he was aware of her being raised one more time to that point herself.
For some time she held him tightly, caressing him as the full sensation swept over both of them. Once again it seemed to Carter that Consuela had been with him every moment of their lovemaking, that she was one of the most responsive women he'd ever known.
After a time in the dark car, her voice seemed to come from a distance. "This has been very important to me. I do not know what will happen to me or where I will go after I leave you and do what I must, but no matter what, you have made me understand things that will stay with me and comfort me."
Even when she gently lifted herself from atop him and sat for a moment, she reached for him and touched his face gently, continuing the intimacy.
"Bezeidenhout is a completely amoral man," she said. "He must be stopped. My husband and some of his friends have put up money. I do not know the exact details, but when I was in the room with all of them, I heard this pig of a man speaking of what he called the sensible solution. If a few innocent people are caught by them, it is of no matter, they were most likely the sort of people who were natural victims in any case. He spoke of a natural order of things. He spoke of Charles Darwin, and Malthus, and Friedreich Nietzsche."