To say that he enjoyed the Rio de Janeiro trips was an understatement. He had enough seniority to pick his flights for the most part anymore, and occasionally he would change it up with places like Santiago, Lima and Buenos Aires. Rio was it for him though and it would always be his favorite. It never disappointed and always scratched his itch.
It was perfect for him really, wild, uninhibited and damn near anything goes. Just enough hard edge, risk and thrill. The women there were simply the best and they never failed to push all the right buttons for him.
Captain Luis Garza had it made. Get in, get out. In town for one or two days, then leave. There simply wasn’t a better job in the world to have to do what he did best. Love them and leave them.
After touching down at Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, he taxied the big Triple Seven up to the gate and eased it in place while his first officer gave the perfunctory announcement to the passengers. Slipping off the headset, he worked his neck around and sighed. It had been a normal noneventful long flight, over nine hours in the air. He always handled the take-off, the approach and landing but at some point in mid-flight he would hand it over to his co-pilot for a while.
Moments later, Garza leaned casually against the cockpit door and thanked the passengers as they filed out. It was a sincere gesture that he had done and enjoyed since he started flying. True, he usually only smiled and nodded to the male passengers, while the charm was turned way up for the young women and female passengers as they passed by. He just couldn’t help it. Yes, he was tall, dark and kept himself in great shape. Many of the women, some discreetly and some not so discreetly, would take notice but there was no doubt that he was equally drawn to them.
“Have a wonderful stay.” His trademark smile would flash with impossibly white teeth. Then it might be “Thanks for flying National” or “Don’t have too much fun now” and another gleaming smile. On and on it went. He never tired of it, although his mind was on tonight already.
A half-hour later he stood with the crew at the curb, waiting for the hotel shuttle to drop them at the Grand Hyatt, where National had an account. It was still one of the best hotels in town and where National crews had been laying over for years. It was just another benefit of the nonstop JFK to Rio leg.
Garza took note of the two younger female attendants in their crew who were in South America for the first time. They had quickly freshened up a little in the terminal restroom and even changed into high heels already. He and the co-pilot had their dark blue National suit jackets on with bars and wings, white shirts, ties and braided caps. An everyday sight at airports and no big deal, but he loved it anyway. Loved the looks he got.
“Well, El Capi-tan, how about a few Coca-Colas before you head over to your mother’s place?” his first officer drawled.
Billy McCord was a native Texan, a former Navy pilot with combat experience and had flown with Luis before. He knew the routine and knew Garza’s mom actually did live here. But he also was acutely aware of what a ladies’ man Garza was. Tomorrow morning before the midafternoon flight back would be the time he would visit his mom. Not tonight. So, he had asked anyway, just to play along.
“Can’t do it Billy-boy, wish I could. Gotta go see my mother. These layovers are just too damn short.”
McCord smiled at him as he lit his first cigarette in more than eleven hours and inhaled deeply. “Right. Absolutely. Got it.”
“Luis, c’mon now, how long does one drink at the hotel take?” Maria Navarro chimed in. She had fallen head over heels for Luis the first time they had flown together back in April. Try as she might, she had not gotten anywhere with him.
Garza put his arm around Maria’s waist and smiled. She was a natural beauty in her mid-twenties and had a warm pleasant personality, paired with an effortless allure. She was every male passenger’s dream girl.
“One drink with you?...Impossible.” He looked down at her, then scanned the rest of them with a mischievous look. “And besides, Maria, you know I can’t help myself around you.”
Garza put on an exaggerated wide-eyed look and cleared his throat. He stuck his chin out and straightened his tie and cap. She playfully shoved him away, and everyone laughed.
On the hotel shuttle, he stared out the window and realized he had always been a lone hunter. Even back when he was younger, he never went barhopping with a group of guys. The chances of success were just not as good and it was always too complicated trying to ditch a friend. Besides, as he got older, this had become a very serious business.
He didn’t like upscale nightclubs or traditional hotel bars. Too clean, and they didn’t have what he was looking for. Garza could have had luck there too, of course, but he wanted the back-alley bars and shanty cantinas. Right on the edge of the Rio slums was the sweet spot for him.
The Favela had its own special kind of hidden jewels and that’s where he always headed. There were plenty to pick from, you just had to be selective. He tried to never go to the same places. It was a strict rule for whatever city he was in, but especially here.
At the hotel, Garza showered and changed, then caught a cab from the Hyatt. The driver looked back at him twice when he heard the destination, but Garza smiled and nodded reassuringly, waving him to just drive.
The streets started getting rougher and darker as the cab weaved slowly through roads that got more narrow with each block. They snaked farther into the slums. The bars became smoky caves and most were shotgun style, long and narrow. The Brazilian music blaring in the street got louder, and everything got a little more frenzied.
The taxi slowed to a crawl because of all the cars and people in the street, and Garza’s eyes reflected his growing excitement as he watched everything going on around him. Finally, he stopped the cab in front of a gaudy strip bar with no name, lit with sagging strings of little Christmas lights. He hopped out and tipped the driver generously.
It didn’t take him long, only a few blocks. She had started following him at a corner fruit juice stand, no doubt drawn by his looks and casual clean clothes. It worked like this often, they would actually come to him. They always told him that he had walked with such purpose, a certain confident stride, or that he carried himself differently than the normal men of the Favela.
He kept reeling her in slowly, stopping casually to look at something or someplace and then walking again, just to make sure she’d follow. Five minutes later, he approached her and asked for directions to a restaurant he knew of nearby. She pointed and told him how to get there. He said thanks and handed her two twenties, American. She looked at the money with big eyes and thanked him.
When he walked off, she followed again like he knew she would – tentatively and maybe twenty feet behind him, but she kept shadowing. At an outside cantina with old plastic chairs and wobbly tables, he turned her way and acted surprised. Waving and motioning her over.
She looked behind her to make sure he was looking at her and stood still for another long pause, then slowly walked toward him. He smiled that smile. She looked down, embarrassed and nervous. Finally, he got her seated next to him. Garza held her eyes and took her soft hand in his. He leaned in close, speaking fluently, low and sweet.
Tonight it would be her, it would be this girl named Yara. She told him shyly that her name meant Water Lady. Like so many others in this city, she was a young girl of the streets and entirely on her own. She was beautiful and young, probably not too innocent, but not a pro for sure. She was perfect.
He wasn’t ever sure what the attraction was on these kinds of nights. It wasn’t some dark lure to prostitution. It wasn’t just the younger girls—some of his conquests were in their late twenties and it certainly wasn’t the challenge, he could usually get whomever he wanted. It was probably just the fact that he loved the power and maybe, no not maybe, it was how desperate they were.
The two of them sat for a while in the Cantina on the rundown plaza square, drinking Brahma beers. After their third beer, he had casually patted his hand on her knee, taken it away but then soon after, rested it there again.
He told her that he was here for two months to set up a new office for his company but had never been to Rio and he was very lonely. He said he had plenty of money and that he would like her to show him around, spend time with him and they could just have fun. Not too long after, Garza leaned in and kissed her slowly. She kissed him back and did not pull away. As they talked some more, he inched his hand farther up her leg. He pressed on but with patience and persuasion.
After some thirty minutes of this, he knew it was time. When he paid the bill he made sure she saw the inside of his wallet. While they walked he saw a partially burned-out sign for a dive hotel up ahead named The Capricho. He whispered to her that he wanted to be with her more than anything in the world and maybe they could go there. He then shrugged his shoulders and shyly looked down, kicking at the sidewalk.
She said they charged very high room prices, and he grinned at her, opening his wallet to show his money again. When she smiled back at him, her whole face lit up, and he thought how maybe that was part of this thing too. Giving them false hope and dreams.
The clerk at the desk of the hotel had his head down, muttering to himself and was clearly very drunk. He was stumbling around, weaving back and forth. The old man seemed to be confused and he dropped Garza’s room key twice, making several unsuccessful stabs at it on the floor, almost falling over the second time.
“Date Prisa! Date prisa el anciano! Barracho anciano” Another customer waiting behind them shouted at the clerk impatiently. He was a young stud and angrily telling the clerk he was a drunk and to hurry. He yelled that he needed a room before morning, if that would be possible.
“Llave, dos…cien” the old man slurred to Garza, pointed at the stairs and slid the key to room 202 across the counter. As Garza and Yara started up the steps, they could hear the clerk and the customer arguing about the room rate.
At the top of the landing, they walked down a short, dim hallway to room 202. There was a loud argument going on in the room across from them, but Garza whispered to her not to worry. He opened the battered door and walked in first, holding her back with one hand. It always paid to be cautious in places like this. You never knew who or what you might walk into.
Garza looked around and liked what he saw; old and cheap. That somehow made this all the better for him. He peered out the single grime-streaked window and then raised it, letting in what little humid breeze there was. A dog barked somewhere down on the street.
Looking back at Yara now, he smiled warmly and told her to lock the door with the key. She turned to shut it and Garza watched her move those hips, his eyes hungrily drifting over her. She was trembling and nervous, trying several times to work the slide latch and the key. He almost moved to help her, but finally she was successful and turned to face him again.
He sat at a small, scarred table by the window and opened the two beers he had been carrying. A single bare lightbulb was hanging over him from a thick cord coming out of the ceiling.
It was stifling in the room and they were both sweating. He softly asked her to come to him and to take her clothes off. He cooed to her that she was beautiful, so beautiful, and she was.
Yara unbuttoned her simple white blouse and slipped out of her tight jean shorts. The girl was everything Garza had expected and more. She came to him slowly, modestly trying to cover herself.
“Have you done this before?” His whisper was deceptively tender.
She hesitated, then nodded yes.
When they were almost done, she smiled up at him passionately and kept smiling, even as his large hands slowly tightened around her neck. He never used anything else, only his hands, and he knew how to control things. Make it last as long as possible.
Yara wasn’t even struggling, and she just kept that sweet smile on her face. Huge brown eyes stared up at him, with dark eyebrows raised in mistaken anticipation. She clearly didn’t understand what was really happening.
It was interesting to him how differently they responded. Eleven of them over the years as a matter of fact, an even dozen including Yara here. He had experienced all sorts of reactions. Some were thrashers and kickers, some tried to scratch him or gouge out his eyes, while others were so terrified they just surrendered and waited for the end.
There had only been a few like Yara here. Sweet and hopeful to the very end, convincing themselves that being choked a little was just one more kinky thing to deal with, something to get through and get past. That maybe he would buy her something nice afterward. That maybe he’d make her feel special and treat her well, for just a little while longer.
As he stared down at her he realized the importance of innocence, and his deception of that innocence. More important though, oh yes, so very important, was their ultimate submission to him. That’s what it really was.
He loosened his grip on her slightly at just the right time. She still smiled up at him but blinked once, then again as if there was a little fear creeping in. She would go down as one the best ever, no doubt about it, he thought. He once again tightened his large hands around her neck and squeezed harder.
Yara’s eyes rolled up a little and her eyelids fluttered. He eased off the pressure once more because she was having trouble focusing, and her eyes were off of his, staring at the wall behind him. He needed those eyes on him.
His mind was swimming in excitement now. He was in that familiar vacuum, no sound, no real thought. Just the rush of it all and his pounding pulse. His mouth was open slightly, his breathing was rapid and on the verge of panting. Finally, he could wait no more for the release, and he began the last horrible squeeze.
There was something wrong, though. He was still very excited but he also felt a deep, searing pain in his back. He pushed himself up off of Yara, sat on his haunches and tried to reach his behind his back. The butcher boning knife was so sharp that for a moment Garza didn’t realize what was happening. He certainly knew now, as things inside him gave way, deflated and collapsed, like a balloon steadily losing its air.
Behind him was a tall skinny boy of sixteen. He had quietly slipped through the door that she had left unlocked. The boy gave the knife one more small push, all the way up to the hilt, then moved the sunken blade in a stirring motion. When he withdrew the long razor-sharp blade from Garza’s punctured heart with a smooth and precise motion, It was with the skill of a surgeon.
Garza made a hissing sound and gasped for air. He was still trying to reach behind his back when the boy grabbed a handful of the pilot’s dark hair from behind. Garza felt his hammering chest seizing up and then saw a gleaming knife flash under his chin. The cut was quick and almost ear to ear.
For a long second, Garza gazed with confusion at the blood jetting out from his slit carotid arteries. It slathered the scarred concrete wall above the headboard of the bed. He couldn’t take his eyes off that ragged red curtain dripping down the wall. He didn’t really have a last thought. He was already gone and everything simply went black.
His lifeless body flopped back down on top of Yara.
The boy was sweating and breathing hard. He shook his head back and forth slowly. He had almost been too late. The old fool downstairs had come close to ruining everything. Then he had to wait for the right moment to slip into the room and get in close. This man would have easily taken him in a real fight.
He looked at his sister. The same innocent smile that had so enchanted Garza was still on her face as she gently wedged herself out from under the dead weight. As she did, one of Garza’s legs slipped off the edge of the bed and she carefully lifted it back up.
She was a mess, but it had happened like this before, and she would get cleaned up somehow. Walking over to the man’s jeans on the chair, she fished out his wallet, then used his pants as a towel to wipe herself off a little. Her brother took Garza’s watch and a nice ring. He made out one word and a date, Colgate 2002, which meant nothing to him but the red jewel was Qué bien.
Yara dressed quickly and a minute later, they left the room, locked it and walked quietly down the deserted hallway. Downstairs they passed by the snoring desk clerk and stepped out into the warm night. It was very late, but some street kids were still hanging around.
It started to rain, just a light shower at first, then it grew to almost a downpour. Yara didn’t take cover, she stood in it and smiled at this gift from God. She lifted her face and hands to the sky, spreading her arms and legs to the cleansing shower.
As the rain soaked her thin top and short jeans, the water streamed down her sleek brown body. She thought about the man she had been with and enjoyed until the game had to end. He had been one of the very best ever. No doubt about it. He was one of the few she would bother remembering. She shook her head and took her brother by the hand as they headed in the direction of the shack they called home.
As they walked, She wondered what the attraction was on these kinds of nights. It wasn’t all about the money, although she and her brother always needed that. It wasn’t just the physical attraction to older men that she had always felt, because there had been young rich boys too. It certainly wasn’t the challenge - she could get whoever she wanted, whenever she wanted. It was probably just the fact that she loved the power, and she supposed it was because she liked how desperate most men were.
Wild and deeply satisfying. I knew we were going on a trip but the destination remained a mystery until the end. Great build up and effective twists all around. 🎉
Another fantastic story. Luis grossed me out from the git-go, and the surprise ending pulled everything together. Disturbing and heinous as promised!