Hello all!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a story on here. With school out for the summer, I’ve had a little more time to write for myself.
The following story takes place in the bordering area between Texas and Mexico and details the account of a young man who is trying to come into his own as the hot button issue of immigration festers. This is story is about getting somewhere, and the choices and steps made to get there.
As usual, any feedback is welcome. I do appreciate constructive criticism, and don’t judge me by my photo, I can take a harsh remark.
For fellow fiction writers on here, I’ll do my best to make the rounds and read your fiction too. Thanks!!
A Man of My Word
A Borderlands Story
How one’s life unfolds can be truly interesting, especially if you stop and consider all the things that have to happen in order for certain situations to manifest. Take me for example. The thought of tripping over panties and sports bras had been little more than a fantasy; tying knots to bedposts and tracing circles along a wrinkled foot, a pipe dream. But that’s just life. It’s as unpredictable as a game of Texas Hold Em’. Then again, life’s not all a game of luck, and things, at least in my experience, never just fall in your lap. Making choices and taking steps are two integral parts to living that, for better or worse, we all must learn to do. And I did. For whatever shortcomings I had, and still do, I learned how to play the game. And while some situations do require a touch of convenience, I’d like to think that my choices played the bigger role in landing me a spot at the foot of this bed. And to say I’d turn back the clocks to do things any differently, would be a lie.
***
I was fresh out of high school when I first started working. I’d exchanged my diploma for a washcloth, bussing tables at La Lomita alongside a dish washer named Ricardo. We didn’t particularly enjoy our roles, but our back and forth banter would help the evening roll on. Often, he’d talk about his chica and the ring he planned on getting her. I’d reply with a joke about how suffering was the only ring after marriage; a joke I passed off as my own. His girlfriend aside, Ricardo liked to talk airsoft. For those that don’t know, airsoft is like paintball, but plastic BBs are used instead; and airsoft rifles generally mirror their real-life counterparts to a T.
When Ricardo first asked me to try airsoft, I turned him down. My father was a peacekeeper and his gruesome stories about officers getting shot, made me critical of guns. Ricardo would stress that even though they looked real, airsoft rifles couldn’t be made to shoot actual bullets. On and off for weeks, he’d ask me to reconsider. And each time, I had a different excuse. Then one evening, he brought his rifle to work.
After the parking lot was clear, He rolled out the artillery. He set up a few empty soda cans about sixty feet away, and I watched him pop each one with precision. I grinned, and he let me have a go. I missed all but two cans. Later that night I went online. Those things weren’t cheap, but I found one on sale; and the aesthetics were so, that it didn’t look like a real gun at all. It was even brandished with an orange safety tip. Knowing Ricardo wasn’t going to let up, I made the purchase.
***
The objective of an airsoft match varies based on the type of game you play. Ricardo and the others that would join us on Thursday nights liked force on force. The objective: eliminate the enemy before they eliminate you. Weeks later, the arena started renting flags so that teams could play capture the flag, and it was around that same time that Ophelia started going.
It took me a couple of rounds to notice her, I mean really notice her. She’d been wearing a full facemask and playing in a separate sector of the arena. Her hair was the color of almonds and cropped on one side. Her vest fit loosely. It was faded, and the zipper was missing a few teeth. She was reloading her magazines and suckling some water from a crumpled plastic bottle. Sitting beside her was this tamale of a girl with greasy brown skin. Her gun was in the dirt and she was busy swiping away on her phone.
We were short a player for the next round, so I stepped up and asked the girls if either of them cared to join us. The tamale girl was fanning her face. Her vest still smelled of plastic, and her BBs still hadn’t made it out of her tote.
"I'm down," said the little crop-haired girl.
We stood eye to eye. She grinned and asked if my gun shot Nerf darts. I told her she’d see soon enough.
There were five minutes left in the game and our team had one more flag to sink into enemy territory. Being the shortest, Ophelia and I had managed to stay in the fight by avoiding much of the crossfire that was picking off our taller teammates. In my left hand, I had the flag. In my right hand, I had my gun. Ten yards and two enemies stood between us and the base. We were running out of time. In what was a spirited effort, she drew their fire away from me, sacrificing her body to a volley of BBs. With ease, I charged forward and staked the last flag into its base.
Her right arm had taken a bulk of the hits, and welts had started to form as she was packing up to leave. Her gun, split in two, fit nicely in the duffel bag she wore across her chest. I thanked her for her self-sacrifice and even offered to take her home after seeing she’d rode in on a bicycle.
“We aren’t dare yet.”
The comment left me hopeful, and I could not wait to come back next week and see her again.
***
Looking back on my time at La Lomita, I realize how the place had grown on me, literally. One taco at a time, I’d packed on the pounds. Now, I wasn’t one to be overly self-conscious about my weight, but Ophelia was moderately skinny. Terri, her guardian, kept her on a strict diet. She was a nutritionist and always stressed the importance of eating healthy. It wasn’t hard when their fridge only ever had fruits, veggies, and chicken breasts. I started stocking my fridge similarly.
As I later found out, Terri was hardly ever home. Work kept her away, and Ophelia would be left to her own devices after psych classes at the college. Folks down here called it, “taco tech” because we were so close to Mexico, and a good percentage of students were second-generation immigrants. Ophelia's drive to study psychology stemmed from personal hardships she’d faced on the journey here. It had taken her parents, and the mental anguish of that almost took her. She was determined to help others overcome similar obstacles.
I wasn’t sure if it was hypocrisy, sharing a burger with her as she made this revelation. My dad had spent the better part of a year cursing Obama for giving immigrants taxpayer-financed care, and my mother had recently started a petition to shut down an immigrant center operating in the neighborhood. Yet here we were. The welts on her arm from a week ago were fading away; others had taken their place elsewhere. There was a speck of gristle jammed between her two front teeth, and she was inhaling fries like it was her last meal or something. Her big brown eyes fluttered with every sip of soda that passed her lips; and when she was done, she let out a low belch. Her camouflage leggings were just a little tighter now, and I counted five little welts along her belly as she stood up to stretch. I decided, then and there, that I wasn’t brought into the world to wage my parent’s battles. I wanted to make my own decisions and be my own man, and it started tonight.
***
Boxer was a Labrador about two months old, and he was ever affectionate when I walked into Ophelia's house. Terri thought a dog would teach Ophelia a little responsibility, and for the most part, she enjoyed his company. But as we sat on the couch to watch an episode of Game of Thrones, I discovered what was so irksome about the little turd.
Ophelia was the kind of girl who believed shoes didn’t exist inside the home. In fact, the laces to her boots were undone before she’d even crossed the foyer. She sat on the couch and dangled her feet dangerously close to my hands, but it wasn’t me evoking giggles from her that night. Boxer liked to lick, and her stout toes were perfect morsels for his big tongue. How she couldn’t see it coming by now was beyond me, but he was never going to learn unless he was reprimanded. She argued that something so trivial was hardly worth reprimanding.
“Is a psych ting.”
A part of me, the part that existed behind closed doors, wondered if she was enjoying the sensations. But I knew better than to let that side of me come out and test that theory this early into the game.
The episode ended with Daenerys Targaryen setting her captor ablaze and breaking free of the chains she’d been bound in. Reunited with her dragons, she was free to continue on her quest for the Iron Throne. Nothing more interesting happened that night.
***
I never outright told my parents where I’d slink off to on my off days, but I’m sure they had some idea. I’d started piling on the leafy green veggies and gagging through those tasteless weeds called broccoli. My truck had never looked cleaner, and I had gotten into the habit of flossing after every meal. They never brought it up with me, but our walls were thin. Perhaps I should have been more inconspicuous, but one’s actions can be difficult to keep in check at times like these.
One afternoon, after a fresh haircut, I pulled up to Ophelia’s. As usual, Terri’s Expedition wasn’t there. A faint noise coming from the back yard made me skip the front door; and as I rounded the house, the sound got louder. Ophelia’s bicycle was in a heap by the garage. Its rear rim had more dents in it than I cared to count, and the handlebar had been bent upwards. From a distance, I watched Ophelia dig into a heavy bag that Terri had set up under a tree. I would have announced my presence sooner, but I got a cheap thrill watching her boobs jiggle with each punch. She stopped for a moment to wick sweat away, and then I cleared my throat.
“Hey Floyd Mayweather, everything alright?”
She whipped her head around so fast it was as if she’d been clocked by an invisible punch.
“Aye Juicestone! Some cabrones dun-no what estopa sign is. Dey hit me.”
It was the first time I'd ever heard her speak Spanish. I suppose Mexicans revert to their native tongue when they're provoked. If that's just a vicious stereotype, I do apologize.
“Did you get a look at them at least?”
She shook her glove at me.
“Gueros. Dey was in a big car.”
Her answer stung, but I said nothing about it. Instead, I focused on the blood trickling down her calf. I suppose with all the adrenaline, she hadn’t noticed. On the airsoft field, players sometimes get hit and don’t feel it because adrenaline acts like an anesthetic. After a seesaw battle about letting me clean the nick, she caved and propped her leg on my lap. I patched her up with some antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape that Terri kept in excess; and Ophelia was back on her feet ready to take more swings at the bag.
"If you're going to do it, do it right. Otherwise, you'll end up hurting yourself.”
She wanted to shrug me off, but sometime between meeting her and now I told her I’d been something of a boxing prospect. It was a slanted truth. In reality, I’d paid fifty dollars to attend a boxing gym for a month. In that time, I’d gotten a chance to spar some rounds with local amateurs.
She loosened her limbs as I adjusted her stance. I tapped her knees from behind. They were too rigid and needed a bit of a bend so she could bob and weave. I tucked her chin. After getting the okay, I pressed my hands into her hips and showed her how to twist with each punch.
Boxer and I waited in the living room while Ophelia showered away the blood and sweat. A mix of stereotypical Mexican trappings lining Kerrie’s shelves caught my eye. They came off as a little obsessive for a suburban American, and it got me to wondering if Ophelia wasn’t just the cherry atop some cultural appropriation sundae. I once had a teacher who was similar; more obsessed with the cultures of others than her own.
The sound of Ophelia’s wet soles “smacking” against the floor grew increasingly louder as she emerged. She said my dressing had held up, and I returned the compliment by praising her embrace of American pop culture.
“Dem I dun-no. These shirt, Terri got for me. Thee singer Mexican, I tink.”
“Well, to wear the shirt of a band you don’t know is very American these days.”
We laughed.
Over a bag of Doritos, she opened up about her life in Mexico and what it had been like to live in one of its more dangerous cities, Obregon. She explained that the homicide rate was in no way a reflection of the natural beauty of its landscapes. After seeing some photos, I couldn’t argue otherwise. Her family had lived on the city’s outskirts; grassland dirt where people made the most out of what they had. She shared another photo. This one was of a half-naked toddler covered in mud, wearing a smile all the same.
“It’s me, dat little girl.”
Naturally, my first thought was, I’m seeing nipple. The thought was crass, and I tried my best to distance myself from it by looking down at Boxer. He was surprisingly calm, even as Ophelia’s toes peeked out from under her butt in that curled up position. A few photos later, there was a picture of her in mid-flight that would have impressed Michael Jordan. Apparently, Ophelia had been something of a thrill seeker back in Mexico. Some of the older architecture made for great areas to parkour, and in her hay day she could clear a distance of twelve feet.
“I do some stuff still.”
Her YouTube channel had fifteen videos and around five hundred subscribers. Each little clip was of her performing some stunt, either around the house or at one of the local parks off campus. In her last video, one of her subscribers had requested she do a pushup challenge to see how she ranked among other female YouTubers. She’d managed forty-two, and not on her knees. The thought that she took requests, so long as they were reasonable, gave me an idea.
***
I was a man of my word, most of the time. My dad had an old bicycle out in our garage that hadn’t seen the sun in God knows how long. It would have been nice of him to just let me have it, but he was a, “something for something” kind of man. He went on about how the bike had ten speeds and how its aluminum frame was what NASA used to make shuttles. I was quick to remind him of that eloquent little letter I’d written to the city, detailing mother’s discontent with the immigrant center. We settled on sixty-five dollars. I told him he’d have to wait till Friday; and for three days, he made sure I did too.
I salvaged one of the rims for Ophelia to use. The handlebar was a little wider than what she was used to, so she’d have to adjust to riding with her arms wide open. Sure, it would have been easier to just gift her my dad’s bike, but she was a hands-on type of girl, and she’d get no gratification from simply swapping one bike for another.
After her bike was working again, her hands tainted in grease, we hugged. As our legs rubbed, her dressing peeled, revealing that the nick on her knee had almost completely healed.
“Hey, wit my next challenge, could you be helping me?”
She flashed a sheepish grin as I asked what kind of stunt called for two people. Once she explained, I understood why it couldn’t be a solo act. She’d watched other Youtubers do it to some degree of success and figured that if skinnier girls could get it done so could she.
***
I recommended she flex her muscles before taking a seat on that amber colored chair, but she didn’t oblige. Moments later, I put a roll of duct tape into frame and, doing my best to stay out of the shot, began to peel away at it. I started at her ankles, securing them to each leg of the chair, two layers thick. I wrapped a layer around her waist, careful not to catch her tummy creeping out from beneath her tank top. Her wrists followed. The hair on her arms stood at attention as I ran the tape around each wrist one time.
There was a youthful innocence in her voice as she addressed her subscribers and explained why she was all taped up. The time to beat was a minute and forty-two seconds. She closed with a smile, and I added one last bit of tape across her mouth for good measure. I gave her a countdown, and then the challenge was on. Her head was on a swivel as she analyzed each limb and strategized her next move. I tried to imagine her thoughts. I would have liked to believe they were thoughts of confidence and resiliency, but her eyes told a different story. Her eyes told a story of disjointed thoughts liken to that of an ant colony being displaced by someone flooding their home. After scrunching her feet repeatedly and getting nowhere, her fists began to shake. Finally, at the one-minute mark, as her hips continued to thrust, she managed to slip her left hand past the tape. She let out a triumphant screech and used her free hand to liberate the rest of her body.
“Aye Dios,” she gasped, gripping her chest.
In a matter of days, the clip had eclipsed all her previous content. It seemed that a sub-community within the YouTube population enjoyed watching escape challenges, and it wasn’t long before we were doing them regularly. I built up her confidence slowly, never taping her wrists beyond what I thought she could manage and using excess tape on inconsequential parts of her body. It worked. The more tape I used, the more impressed she was with herself at the end of each challenge.
***
With the semester wrapping up, she took on free weight workout sessions at the gym on campus. She wanted to shave some time off her record and figured some muscle would help. Some days she’d invite me as her plus one. Visiting, seeing all those hopeful faces brush past me and towards their futures, made me wish that I could take a crack at college. It wasn’t that my grades were bad; I’d graduated high school with honors. It was my finances that sucked. My family fell in that grey area where we were making too much for me to qualify for financial aid, but not quite enough to afford tuition out of pocket. The student loan crisis, being what it was, discouraged me from taking that route. Some of my friends had recently graduated and were scrambling to find jobs before the interest on their loans piled up. Ophelia was lucky. Terri had gotten her on this new thing called DACA. It stands for, deferred actions for childhood arrivals. After she qualified, the program covered all her tuition fees and expenses. I guess I should have been fuming about the fact that the country would aid an immigrant over one of its own. But watching her panty lines press against the slippery spandex of her leggings as she stretched, was enough to douse the fire.
***
I’d never been in Ophelia’s room, so the invite was something of a momentous occasion. The walls were neon pink, but with all the posters, you could barely tell. There was a Call of Duty poster in the corner, and by the light switch, there was an artist rendering of the Targaryen sigil that read, “Dracarys” the Valyrian word for dragon fire. By contrast, I had a bikini-clad Selena Gomez poster hiding behind my door. A plain white desk, covered in scattered classroom notes, sat near a queen-sized mattress with disheveled sheets. Curiously, I turned to her closet. It was a busy mess, but something was missing.
“Where do you keep your airsoft stuff?”
Her eyes grew wide, pinging side to side as if she was scoping out the field for enemies. From beneath her bed, she pulled out the little black duffel bag she’d tote to the arena.
“Me playing these game, Terri dun like.”
“Why not?”
“Fuck-ass on school. Das what Terri says. Game is a waste of time.”
“So, she has no idea?”
Ophelia shook her head.
I pulled out her gun. Ordinarily, it's considered a sin, an unwritten rule if you will, for one airsofter to touch another’s weapon without asking, but then I had made it past the boundaries of the living room. The gun was scratched in all the usual places, and the battery compartment had lost its cover. Her BBs were Golden Ball, a pretty elite brand of biodegradable ammo, and it was kind of a shame knowing they were being fed through this sad little gun. I asked if I could give those BBs a try and she gladly poured a generous handful into a Ziploc for me to take. Boxer had just done his business in the front yard, so I played it safe and walked along the driveway as I left.
***
The last time I’d found myself at The Home Depot, I was buying my mom wooden yard stakes for posters she was planning to wave in protest of the immigrant center. Today, however, I was looking at ropes. We didn't need something too flashy or expensive, just something that would get the job done. I settled on a plain white nylon cord.
In the aftermath of the Game of Thrones season finale, a wave of YouTubers had initiated the "breaker of chains" challenge. When Ophelia caught wind of the challenge, to say she was ecstatic would have been putting it lightly.
“De character of Daenerys is some-ting to admire about,” she’d often tell me.
Daenerys’s spirited nature and good intentions were admirable. But the real reason Ophelia looked up to her was because of her undying ambition to take what was and had always been a position held by men. I’d just thought Daenerys looked pretty hot in the first season, but somewhere along the way she started wearing more clothes, and that’s when I started losing interest. Of course, I never told Ophelia that, but it often came to mind when we’d talk about her.
To get a sense of things, we watched a couple of people try the challenge. With a limit of five minutes, several had been successful in escaping the "chains." The secret was in the knot. Each limb was secured with what YouTubers had dubbed a "dragon" knot. It had a short release end. If you could reach it, the knot would come undone in a snap.
***
I’d never seen Ophelia more disgusted than the day Terri found the duffle bag underneath her bed. Prompted by a text she’d sent in all caps; I sped over there after work. The sound of boxing gloves hitting the heavy bag carried me to the back yard. It was late, but by the light of the moon, I could still trace the outline of her body against the backdrop of the wooden fence. Terri was inside sleeping.
“How did she find out?”
“Aye, Dios. I mus have dropped some bolitas on de driveway,” she huffed, “how, I dun-no. I’m real careful always not to spill dem.”
The discovery of BBs had prompted Terri to conduct a full-on shakedown of Ophelia's room. Not a single square inch of space was spared the violence of angry hands rifling through dresser drawers and closet crawl space. A shouting match followed. Ophelia hadn’t told me that, but the hoarseness in her voice indicated as much. The house was off limits, so we sat in my truck; and for the first time, she pressed her body to mine. With her cheek against my chest, she mouthed obscenities. I cradled her head, brushing my fingers against her sweaty scalp. After she stifled the waterworks, I pointed out the Home Depot bag sitting low in the back seat.
“You got it?”
“Well yeah, of course.”
“Bien hecho! When tomorrow Kerri is gone, I text you to come.”
Cuddling hadn’t quite wiped the frown off her face, and she was in such a vulnerable position I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t much; a simple fingertip up the right side of her hip had her yipping.
“Aye Dios-see-hee-hee! Estopa dat!”
A reflexive kick followed as I stroked the small of her back; prompting me to stop before I lost a window.
“I like your laugh.”
She recomposed, situating her head back onto my chest.
“Aye no, is an ugly laugh.”
***
Terri had left Ophelia’s room this tossed salad of socks and sports bras; panties and tank tops. I’d nearly tripped on a bra at the door but pressing my hand against the Targaryen poster broke my fall. It spiraled to the ground shortly after.
I started peeling off every layer to her bedding until all that was left was the fitted sheet clinging loosely to the mattress. With her subscriber base eclipsing one thousand, I’d suggested she go live with the challenge to commemorate the occasion. And while she wasn’t completely on board with the idea, I stressed what an expression of gratitude it would be for her fans; and that on a Tuesday morning, there wouldn’t be many people watching anyway. She agreed.
“I’m ready!”
In what was the shortest pair of shorts I’d ever seen her wear, she crossed the threshold. Her top was this sleeveless number that contoured to the rounded curves of her hips, and I couldn’t stop myself from gawking. Skull printed ankle socks adorned her feet, and I watched tentatively as they daintily brushed past the fluffy white sheets on the ground.
“You look amazing.”
“You tink these shirt blue like dress of Daenerys?”
“It’s better.”
She flashed a perky smile my way and twirled about on the balls of her feet before falling back onto the bed. Trustingly, she spread her legs and waited patiently for me to string them up. I threaded her ankles quickly and anchored them to the bedposts with relative ease.
“Dat was fast.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was a Boy Scout?”
Limbering her arms, she surrendered to my touch. A white residue the smell of lavender coated her armpits, and I was secretly happy she’d touched them up before the video. As you may or may not recall from the first paragraph, life is about making choices and taking steps so that you might find yourself in favorable situations. I’d made a considerable amount of choices to get here, and now I stood before another. The challenge called for a "dragon" knot, the kind, which I explained earlier, has a quick release end. I tied a bowline knot. To the casual observer, they appear identical. Both knots end with a bit of rope dangling just out of reach, only the bowline’s bit of rope wasn’t a quick release end.
Stretched to her limits, Ophelia’s top had left her belly button on full display, and at the right angle you could peer through a gap in her shorts; a little secret I kept to myself. Her breaths were short and steady as she waited anxiously for us to go live. A small trickle of comments started floating in as subscribers started streaming the feed. After waiting a few minutes more, I panned the phone in her direction. She opened with her usual monologue, maintaining a chipper tone despite her predicament. Then she introduced me. It was a first, and it caught me off guard. I hadn’t exactly come prepared to bare my face, but I obliged, flexing away my double chin as best as I knew how. After explaining the particulars of the challenge, she asked for “good vibes”; offering a subdued wave before swallowing hard.
I counted down from three, assuming my position at the left side of the bed. As she had before, she started the challenge by looking around, strategizing. She reached for the rope that tethered her to the bed and gauged its thickness between her fingers. For all her free weight workout sessions, this was still rope, and the stubborn twine wasn’t about to just tear. She’d seen other challengers go directly for the loose end that dangled just out of reach, but it was just that, out of reach. She could feel it with her fingernails, but the more she stretched her hand, the more it pained her other. Three minutes were left, and she was still no closer to getting free than when we’d started. She flashed a nervous smile towards the camera.
“These, you tied too tight!”
“Nah, you’re just not trying hard enough.”
With a minute and a half left, she resorted to frustrated thrashing that turned her hands a lighter shade. A small volley of comments popped up on her page offering words of encouragement like: “Do it for Danny!” and “Dracarys.” She flopped some more, grunting and gasping; reminding me of those hysterical psych patients you see in movies. Her snarky comment, “Is a psych ting,” came to mind, and seeing her so mentally flustered, really got my blood pumping.
I let it be known there were thirty seconds left on the clock. Her smile melted. She grit her teeth and gave one last effort to reach for the loose end dangling off the bed post. To my surprise, with her toes curled, and her face buried into her armpit, she managed to grip the end between her fingers. She let out a triumphant yelp but was instantly deflated went the rope refused to budge. The time wound down on her, and she, in turn, limbered her rigid body; surrendering to defeat.
“Aye Dios. Bueno pos, to everyone, I’m so sorry, next time, maybe?”
A trickle of sympathies rained down on her page, as I sidelined myself to strum through my phone.
“Bueno pos, le me out.”
“Hold up. I’m texting my friend back.”
Just then, a comment popped up on her page. One of her regulars since the first escape challenge, H.R, was inquiring about some sort of punishment, consequences for failing the “mother of dragons.” We both exchanged confused looks, but Ophelia was curious and inquired what all H.R had in mind.
She bit her lip hard as I read the suggestion aloud, and even had me press the phone to her face so she could read it herself. Other subscribers, who were likewise lingering in the aftermath of Ophelia’s failure, reacted positively to the suggestion, thinking it would make for an interesting end.
“It looks like your people have spoken, Khaleesi.”
“Aye pos, I dun tink is dat hard.”
She licked her lips and listed some areas of her body that were off limits. I listened, situating her phone between some textbooks. The lens was focused on her upper body, but I had no intention of starting there. In retrospect, I maybe could have re positioned the phone for different angles throughout. But I only had a ten-minute window, and I was a man of my word, most of the time.
I was so overcome by anticipation that I could barely keep my thoughts straight as I knelt at the foot of the bed. Considering how much time I’d invested, the pair of size five’s, lying still and unawares, was to me the trophy at the end of this journey. I counted down from three, getting a head start by peeling away her socks. She accused me of cheating, but I brushed her off, giving her mind a more pertinent issue to contend with as I touched down on her heels.
As active as she was, Ophelia had surprisingly gentle skin along the soles of her feet, and I took advantage of their tenderness. I started slow, reading her reactions, looking for a niche. Her toes would curl into themselves when I scribbled past them, and her feet would swish when I nipped at her arches.
“AYE DIOS-SEE-HEE-HEE! your nails… you should trim!”
Her comment made me chuckle as I began an ascend up her arches; keeping to constant pitter-patters of fingers against her feet. Again, she swished them, only more feverishly this time as I quickened my pace.
Irate cackles puttered past her mouth as I raked my nails atop the tips of her toes. They were lively, flexing and scrunching, and being inattentive of my desire for them to remain still. Focusing on her left foot, I peeled back her toes. There was a marbling contrast between her pinkish soles and the caramel colored skin that draped the rest of her body. An inconsequential detail, but I took a moment to admire how the two complexions coexisted within the same boundaries of her body.
“You have beautiful feet.”
“Aye no, dare ugly.”
That girls are so critical of their feet, was a perplexing thought, one that lingered as my finger circled the ball of her foot. I could sense the tenseness in her joints as she grappled with this rousing titillation that was undoubtedly swarming up her leg.
“AYEEE-HEE-HEE!”
I pinched her meaty heel and drilled between her toes, alternating sporadically between both areas. Her laughter boomed beyond the room and for a little girl, she could make the bed rock.
“Un minuto, por PLEEEEASE-SEE-HEE-HEE!”
My time was precious, and I just couldn’t spare that minute. Sitting idle on her desk was a bottle of lotion that hadn’t escaped my eye. I’d noticed it when I walked in. In two seconds, it was in my hands.
With generous globs of cream gushing over her feet, she tilted her head in my direction. Her breaths were sharp and choppy, and her eyes looked high strung. She looked unsettled. Not that it mattered. I knew, with absolute certainty, that when I was done coating her feet, she’d be overcome with joy, however involuntary.
“Be n-nice… amigos… friend… Juicestone… Juice-TEEEN-NEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!”
Her body was overwhelmed by sensations; her cognition, scattered beyond reason. She babbled on in her native tongue and flopped about the bed, possessed by a single finger tracing the curve of her arch.
“NOO MAS! NO MAA-HA-HA-HAAAS!”
I played dumb, pretending I didn’t understand her. I even threw out a jab about how Daenerys, “demanded retribution of all who fell short of the challenge.” It was a campy one-liner, and I now kick myself for saying it, but sometimes you just get caught up in the moment.
I couldn’t abandon her feet without taking at least one nibble along them. The phone wasn’t fixated on me, so it was easy to indulge. Clearly, she hadn’t anticipated this because she protested my cold wet tongue almost immediately.
“NO MANCHEEEE-SEE-HEE-HEE! JUICESTONE-NA-HA-HA! POR PLEEEE-HEE-HEEASE!”
They were tender, and despite the lotion giving off a sharp taste, they were salty. Smothering her left foot with my lips, I nibbled cautiously along its soft pink heel. Her muscles tensed, her toes curled, and obscenities seethed past her teeth; an angelic chorus if ever there was one.
Clunkily, I mounted the bed. My chubby body was coming into frame, but I didn’t care. There was a goddess laid out before me, and miles of tender flesh yet to be christened. She braced for my touch, courageously, holding fast to the fitted sheet beneath her as I clamped down on her knees.
“AYYYYEEE DIOSSSSITO! YA PARA YA PA-RA-HA-HA!”
Her biceps were on full display as she flailed her arms; tugging and pulling with the frustrated temperament of a girl on fire. Her face was glowing, starting to glisten, as she continued to exert raw strength against the rope.
My fingers sprawled up her legs like two giant tarantulas till they stopped on her inner thighs. Immediately, she protested their placement, shaking her head and babbling on about me being too close to her concha.
“Ahi no! Ahi no! Juicestone por PLEEE-HEE-HEEASE!”
Her legs shivered, trembling in harmony with my every pinch and prod. And when I touched upon a tendon more delicate than most, she shoved her crotch in my face. It wasn’t deliberate, none of her reactions were, but I took the opportunity to run my hands down the small of her back. Her back was warm, and the hairs along it stood erect making it easy to evoke spirited giggles.
Childlike coos staggered past her lips as I stopped for a moment to fan her face. I’m not a monster; despite what you might think of me.
Violent thrashes had left her top a scrunched-up mess, and the allure of watching her bare belly expand and contract was rousing me South of the border. With five minutes remaining, I touched down on the soft round edges of her midsection.
She moaned and bit her lip as my nails summoned goosebumps across her waist. Faint whispers of vain repetitious pleas caught my ear, but they did nothing to stop my hands from digging into that supple torso.
“WHOOT-TA-HA-HA! YA PARA YA PAA-RA-HA-HA!”
I kneaded her belly, trotting my fingers along her brazen pastures like wild horses roaming across the plains. Her hips shimmied and she started to buck; an involuntary reflex I subdued by straddling her.
“You’re pretty strong.”
“Come, will you please, Juicestone, I can’t no more.”
“Now, now, you agreed.”
Time was winding down, and some encouraging comments had started to trickle in as her subscribers lavished her with praise. Some couldn’t imagine a feat more daring; others were amazed that she hadn’t passed out yet. H.R, the one responsible for initiating the ordeal, hadn’t said word.
With three minutes left, she agreed to see the challenge through. I, in turn, reunited my thumbs with her hips and sank them deep into her pockets. Fast circular motions that made her belly jiggle sent Ophelia thrusting forward like an unresponsive body being shocked back to life.
“WHAAA-HA-HA! AYE YAA-JA-JA-JA-JAAAH!”
I steadily moved up her sides, grazing her ribs for a moment. They weren’t as sensitive, so I moved on. Mirroring her outstretched arms with my own, I delicately slid my fingertips down to her underarms and embraced their velvety smoothness.
“SHEET-SHEET-SHEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEET! AYE DIOS-AYE DIOS-SEE-HEE-HEE!”
I had her whimpering as my hands pinched and prodded her biceps with livid infatuation. By now, her face was this disheveled mess of furrowed brows and gaping pouts as she wallowed in dumbfounded euphoria.
At the thirty second mark, she snorted for air, one last heavy breath before succumbing, once again, to the undying titillations teeming in the depths of her armpits. And there my hands remained, nestled, looped in this unrelenting fervor, burrowing past Ophelia’s delicate flesh and into her bones.
Her phone went off, signaling the end of the challenge. It pained me to have to stop. With puffy cheeks an amber red and sweat glistening off her forehead, she composed herself, delivering a somber goodbye to her fans. She didn’t look enraged, but I made her promise not to hit me once I let her out. She didn’t oblige.
A lazy jab hit my arm, which was less than I deserved, all things considered.
“You forgot to twist with the punch.”
“Oh, shit up.”
I left that day with a spring in my step. Outside, the sun was hiding behind partly cloudy skies just like I like, and as I strolled along the sidewalk; I stopped to appreciate a thick crack that sat a few feet away from an oil blotch discoloring the concrete. As I ran my boot along the crack, I noticed Terri had missed a BB. I shrugged and carried on. They were biodegradable anyway.
A few weeks later my mother got her own win. The city commissioners shut down the immigrant center. They’d agreed that a neighborhood wasn’t the best place for an operation like that. My mom’s victory made the rounds on social media. She credited my letter, and when Ophelia found out, she steadily distanced herself from me. I don’t blame her. I’d kept that part of my life a secret, as it just wasn’t in my best interest to share it.
I read on Facebook that Ophelia had been accepted into Texas State to further her education. Affirmative Action is a hell of a policy. If she ever comes across this, I’ll have some explaining to do. But I doubt she’d even know where to start looking.
I still visit her channel whenever I get notified that she’s dropped new content. Our video is still there; it’s the most watched. Sometimes, in the comforts of solitude, I’ll throw it on and think back on all the decisions that led to its conception; and get lost in the moment when I held the sun and stars between my fingers.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a story on here. With school out for the summer, I’ve had a little more time to write for myself.
The following story takes place in the bordering area between Texas and Mexico and details the account of a young man who is trying to come into his own as the hot button issue of immigration festers. This is story is about getting somewhere, and the choices and steps made to get there.
As usual, any feedback is welcome. I do appreciate constructive criticism, and don’t judge me by my photo, I can take a harsh remark.
For fellow fiction writers on here, I’ll do my best to make the rounds and read your fiction too. Thanks!!
A Man of My Word
A Borderlands Story
How one’s life unfolds can be truly interesting, especially if you stop and consider all the things that have to happen in order for certain situations to manifest. Take me for example. The thought of tripping over panties and sports bras had been little more than a fantasy; tying knots to bedposts and tracing circles along a wrinkled foot, a pipe dream. But that’s just life. It’s as unpredictable as a game of Texas Hold Em’. Then again, life’s not all a game of luck, and things, at least in my experience, never just fall in your lap. Making choices and taking steps are two integral parts to living that, for better or worse, we all must learn to do. And I did. For whatever shortcomings I had, and still do, I learned how to play the game. And while some situations do require a touch of convenience, I’d like to think that my choices played the bigger role in landing me a spot at the foot of this bed. And to say I’d turn back the clocks to do things any differently, would be a lie.
***
I was fresh out of high school when I first started working. I’d exchanged my diploma for a washcloth, bussing tables at La Lomita alongside a dish washer named Ricardo. We didn’t particularly enjoy our roles, but our back and forth banter would help the evening roll on. Often, he’d talk about his chica and the ring he planned on getting her. I’d reply with a joke about how suffering was the only ring after marriage; a joke I passed off as my own. His girlfriend aside, Ricardo liked to talk airsoft. For those that don’t know, airsoft is like paintball, but plastic BBs are used instead; and airsoft rifles generally mirror their real-life counterparts to a T.
When Ricardo first asked me to try airsoft, I turned him down. My father was a peacekeeper and his gruesome stories about officers getting shot, made me critical of guns. Ricardo would stress that even though they looked real, airsoft rifles couldn’t be made to shoot actual bullets. On and off for weeks, he’d ask me to reconsider. And each time, I had a different excuse. Then one evening, he brought his rifle to work.
After the parking lot was clear, He rolled out the artillery. He set up a few empty soda cans about sixty feet away, and I watched him pop each one with precision. I grinned, and he let me have a go. I missed all but two cans. Later that night I went online. Those things weren’t cheap, but I found one on sale; and the aesthetics were so, that it didn’t look like a real gun at all. It was even brandished with an orange safety tip. Knowing Ricardo wasn’t going to let up, I made the purchase.
***
The objective of an airsoft match varies based on the type of game you play. Ricardo and the others that would join us on Thursday nights liked force on force. The objective: eliminate the enemy before they eliminate you. Weeks later, the arena started renting flags so that teams could play capture the flag, and it was around that same time that Ophelia started going.
It took me a couple of rounds to notice her, I mean really notice her. She’d been wearing a full facemask and playing in a separate sector of the arena. Her hair was the color of almonds and cropped on one side. Her vest fit loosely. It was faded, and the zipper was missing a few teeth. She was reloading her magazines and suckling some water from a crumpled plastic bottle. Sitting beside her was this tamale of a girl with greasy brown skin. Her gun was in the dirt and she was busy swiping away on her phone.
We were short a player for the next round, so I stepped up and asked the girls if either of them cared to join us. The tamale girl was fanning her face. Her vest still smelled of plastic, and her BBs still hadn’t made it out of her tote.
"I'm down," said the little crop-haired girl.
We stood eye to eye. She grinned and asked if my gun shot Nerf darts. I told her she’d see soon enough.
There were five minutes left in the game and our team had one more flag to sink into enemy territory. Being the shortest, Ophelia and I had managed to stay in the fight by avoiding much of the crossfire that was picking off our taller teammates. In my left hand, I had the flag. In my right hand, I had my gun. Ten yards and two enemies stood between us and the base. We were running out of time. In what was a spirited effort, she drew their fire away from me, sacrificing her body to a volley of BBs. With ease, I charged forward and staked the last flag into its base.
Her right arm had taken a bulk of the hits, and welts had started to form as she was packing up to leave. Her gun, split in two, fit nicely in the duffel bag she wore across her chest. I thanked her for her self-sacrifice and even offered to take her home after seeing she’d rode in on a bicycle.
“We aren’t dare yet.”
The comment left me hopeful, and I could not wait to come back next week and see her again.
***
Looking back on my time at La Lomita, I realize how the place had grown on me, literally. One taco at a time, I’d packed on the pounds. Now, I wasn’t one to be overly self-conscious about my weight, but Ophelia was moderately skinny. Terri, her guardian, kept her on a strict diet. She was a nutritionist and always stressed the importance of eating healthy. It wasn’t hard when their fridge only ever had fruits, veggies, and chicken breasts. I started stocking my fridge similarly.
As I later found out, Terri was hardly ever home. Work kept her away, and Ophelia would be left to her own devices after psych classes at the college. Folks down here called it, “taco tech” because we were so close to Mexico, and a good percentage of students were second-generation immigrants. Ophelia's drive to study psychology stemmed from personal hardships she’d faced on the journey here. It had taken her parents, and the mental anguish of that almost took her. She was determined to help others overcome similar obstacles.
I wasn’t sure if it was hypocrisy, sharing a burger with her as she made this revelation. My dad had spent the better part of a year cursing Obama for giving immigrants taxpayer-financed care, and my mother had recently started a petition to shut down an immigrant center operating in the neighborhood. Yet here we were. The welts on her arm from a week ago were fading away; others had taken their place elsewhere. There was a speck of gristle jammed between her two front teeth, and she was inhaling fries like it was her last meal or something. Her big brown eyes fluttered with every sip of soda that passed her lips; and when she was done, she let out a low belch. Her camouflage leggings were just a little tighter now, and I counted five little welts along her belly as she stood up to stretch. I decided, then and there, that I wasn’t brought into the world to wage my parent’s battles. I wanted to make my own decisions and be my own man, and it started tonight.
***
Boxer was a Labrador about two months old, and he was ever affectionate when I walked into Ophelia's house. Terri thought a dog would teach Ophelia a little responsibility, and for the most part, she enjoyed his company. But as we sat on the couch to watch an episode of Game of Thrones, I discovered what was so irksome about the little turd.
Ophelia was the kind of girl who believed shoes didn’t exist inside the home. In fact, the laces to her boots were undone before she’d even crossed the foyer. She sat on the couch and dangled her feet dangerously close to my hands, but it wasn’t me evoking giggles from her that night. Boxer liked to lick, and her stout toes were perfect morsels for his big tongue. How she couldn’t see it coming by now was beyond me, but he was never going to learn unless he was reprimanded. She argued that something so trivial was hardly worth reprimanding.
“Is a psych ting.”
A part of me, the part that existed behind closed doors, wondered if she was enjoying the sensations. But I knew better than to let that side of me come out and test that theory this early into the game.
The episode ended with Daenerys Targaryen setting her captor ablaze and breaking free of the chains she’d been bound in. Reunited with her dragons, she was free to continue on her quest for the Iron Throne. Nothing more interesting happened that night.
***
I never outright told my parents where I’d slink off to on my off days, but I’m sure they had some idea. I’d started piling on the leafy green veggies and gagging through those tasteless weeds called broccoli. My truck had never looked cleaner, and I had gotten into the habit of flossing after every meal. They never brought it up with me, but our walls were thin. Perhaps I should have been more inconspicuous, but one’s actions can be difficult to keep in check at times like these.
One afternoon, after a fresh haircut, I pulled up to Ophelia’s. As usual, Terri’s Expedition wasn’t there. A faint noise coming from the back yard made me skip the front door; and as I rounded the house, the sound got louder. Ophelia’s bicycle was in a heap by the garage. Its rear rim had more dents in it than I cared to count, and the handlebar had been bent upwards. From a distance, I watched Ophelia dig into a heavy bag that Terri had set up under a tree. I would have announced my presence sooner, but I got a cheap thrill watching her boobs jiggle with each punch. She stopped for a moment to wick sweat away, and then I cleared my throat.
“Hey Floyd Mayweather, everything alright?”
She whipped her head around so fast it was as if she’d been clocked by an invisible punch.
“Aye Juicestone! Some cabrones dun-no what estopa sign is. Dey hit me.”
It was the first time I'd ever heard her speak Spanish. I suppose Mexicans revert to their native tongue when they're provoked. If that's just a vicious stereotype, I do apologize.
“Did you get a look at them at least?”
She shook her glove at me.
“Gueros. Dey was in a big car.”
Her answer stung, but I said nothing about it. Instead, I focused on the blood trickling down her calf. I suppose with all the adrenaline, she hadn’t noticed. On the airsoft field, players sometimes get hit and don’t feel it because adrenaline acts like an anesthetic. After a seesaw battle about letting me clean the nick, she caved and propped her leg on my lap. I patched her up with some antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape that Terri kept in excess; and Ophelia was back on her feet ready to take more swings at the bag.
"If you're going to do it, do it right. Otherwise, you'll end up hurting yourself.”
She wanted to shrug me off, but sometime between meeting her and now I told her I’d been something of a boxing prospect. It was a slanted truth. In reality, I’d paid fifty dollars to attend a boxing gym for a month. In that time, I’d gotten a chance to spar some rounds with local amateurs.
She loosened her limbs as I adjusted her stance. I tapped her knees from behind. They were too rigid and needed a bit of a bend so she could bob and weave. I tucked her chin. After getting the okay, I pressed my hands into her hips and showed her how to twist with each punch.
Boxer and I waited in the living room while Ophelia showered away the blood and sweat. A mix of stereotypical Mexican trappings lining Kerrie’s shelves caught my eye. They came off as a little obsessive for a suburban American, and it got me to wondering if Ophelia wasn’t just the cherry atop some cultural appropriation sundae. I once had a teacher who was similar; more obsessed with the cultures of others than her own.
The sound of Ophelia’s wet soles “smacking” against the floor grew increasingly louder as she emerged. She said my dressing had held up, and I returned the compliment by praising her embrace of American pop culture.
“Dem I dun-no. These shirt, Terri got for me. Thee singer Mexican, I tink.”
“Well, to wear the shirt of a band you don’t know is very American these days.”
We laughed.
Over a bag of Doritos, she opened up about her life in Mexico and what it had been like to live in one of its more dangerous cities, Obregon. She explained that the homicide rate was in no way a reflection of the natural beauty of its landscapes. After seeing some photos, I couldn’t argue otherwise. Her family had lived on the city’s outskirts; grassland dirt where people made the most out of what they had. She shared another photo. This one was of a half-naked toddler covered in mud, wearing a smile all the same.
“It’s me, dat little girl.”
Naturally, my first thought was, I’m seeing nipple. The thought was crass, and I tried my best to distance myself from it by looking down at Boxer. He was surprisingly calm, even as Ophelia’s toes peeked out from under her butt in that curled up position. A few photos later, there was a picture of her in mid-flight that would have impressed Michael Jordan. Apparently, Ophelia had been something of a thrill seeker back in Mexico. Some of the older architecture made for great areas to parkour, and in her hay day she could clear a distance of twelve feet.
“I do some stuff still.”
Her YouTube channel had fifteen videos and around five hundred subscribers. Each little clip was of her performing some stunt, either around the house or at one of the local parks off campus. In her last video, one of her subscribers had requested she do a pushup challenge to see how she ranked among other female YouTubers. She’d managed forty-two, and not on her knees. The thought that she took requests, so long as they were reasonable, gave me an idea.
***
I was a man of my word, most of the time. My dad had an old bicycle out in our garage that hadn’t seen the sun in God knows how long. It would have been nice of him to just let me have it, but he was a, “something for something” kind of man. He went on about how the bike had ten speeds and how its aluminum frame was what NASA used to make shuttles. I was quick to remind him of that eloquent little letter I’d written to the city, detailing mother’s discontent with the immigrant center. We settled on sixty-five dollars. I told him he’d have to wait till Friday; and for three days, he made sure I did too.
I salvaged one of the rims for Ophelia to use. The handlebar was a little wider than what she was used to, so she’d have to adjust to riding with her arms wide open. Sure, it would have been easier to just gift her my dad’s bike, but she was a hands-on type of girl, and she’d get no gratification from simply swapping one bike for another.
After her bike was working again, her hands tainted in grease, we hugged. As our legs rubbed, her dressing peeled, revealing that the nick on her knee had almost completely healed.
“Hey, wit my next challenge, could you be helping me?”
She flashed a sheepish grin as I asked what kind of stunt called for two people. Once she explained, I understood why it couldn’t be a solo act. She’d watched other Youtubers do it to some degree of success and figured that if skinnier girls could get it done so could she.
***
I recommended she flex her muscles before taking a seat on that amber colored chair, but she didn’t oblige. Moments later, I put a roll of duct tape into frame and, doing my best to stay out of the shot, began to peel away at it. I started at her ankles, securing them to each leg of the chair, two layers thick. I wrapped a layer around her waist, careful not to catch her tummy creeping out from beneath her tank top. Her wrists followed. The hair on her arms stood at attention as I ran the tape around each wrist one time.
There was a youthful innocence in her voice as she addressed her subscribers and explained why she was all taped up. The time to beat was a minute and forty-two seconds. She closed with a smile, and I added one last bit of tape across her mouth for good measure. I gave her a countdown, and then the challenge was on. Her head was on a swivel as she analyzed each limb and strategized her next move. I tried to imagine her thoughts. I would have liked to believe they were thoughts of confidence and resiliency, but her eyes told a different story. Her eyes told a story of disjointed thoughts liken to that of an ant colony being displaced by someone flooding their home. After scrunching her feet repeatedly and getting nowhere, her fists began to shake. Finally, at the one-minute mark, as her hips continued to thrust, she managed to slip her left hand past the tape. She let out a triumphant screech and used her free hand to liberate the rest of her body.
“Aye Dios,” she gasped, gripping her chest.
In a matter of days, the clip had eclipsed all her previous content. It seemed that a sub-community within the YouTube population enjoyed watching escape challenges, and it wasn’t long before we were doing them regularly. I built up her confidence slowly, never taping her wrists beyond what I thought she could manage and using excess tape on inconsequential parts of her body. It worked. The more tape I used, the more impressed she was with herself at the end of each challenge.
***
With the semester wrapping up, she took on free weight workout sessions at the gym on campus. She wanted to shave some time off her record and figured some muscle would help. Some days she’d invite me as her plus one. Visiting, seeing all those hopeful faces brush past me and towards their futures, made me wish that I could take a crack at college. It wasn’t that my grades were bad; I’d graduated high school with honors. It was my finances that sucked. My family fell in that grey area where we were making too much for me to qualify for financial aid, but not quite enough to afford tuition out of pocket. The student loan crisis, being what it was, discouraged me from taking that route. Some of my friends had recently graduated and were scrambling to find jobs before the interest on their loans piled up. Ophelia was lucky. Terri had gotten her on this new thing called DACA. It stands for, deferred actions for childhood arrivals. After she qualified, the program covered all her tuition fees and expenses. I guess I should have been fuming about the fact that the country would aid an immigrant over one of its own. But watching her panty lines press against the slippery spandex of her leggings as she stretched, was enough to douse the fire.
***
I’d never been in Ophelia’s room, so the invite was something of a momentous occasion. The walls were neon pink, but with all the posters, you could barely tell. There was a Call of Duty poster in the corner, and by the light switch, there was an artist rendering of the Targaryen sigil that read, “Dracarys” the Valyrian word for dragon fire. By contrast, I had a bikini-clad Selena Gomez poster hiding behind my door. A plain white desk, covered in scattered classroom notes, sat near a queen-sized mattress with disheveled sheets. Curiously, I turned to her closet. It was a busy mess, but something was missing.
“Where do you keep your airsoft stuff?”
Her eyes grew wide, pinging side to side as if she was scoping out the field for enemies. From beneath her bed, she pulled out the little black duffel bag she’d tote to the arena.
“Me playing these game, Terri dun like.”
“Why not?”
“Fuck-ass on school. Das what Terri says. Game is a waste of time.”
“So, she has no idea?”
Ophelia shook her head.
I pulled out her gun. Ordinarily, it's considered a sin, an unwritten rule if you will, for one airsofter to touch another’s weapon without asking, but then I had made it past the boundaries of the living room. The gun was scratched in all the usual places, and the battery compartment had lost its cover. Her BBs were Golden Ball, a pretty elite brand of biodegradable ammo, and it was kind of a shame knowing they were being fed through this sad little gun. I asked if I could give those BBs a try and she gladly poured a generous handful into a Ziploc for me to take. Boxer had just done his business in the front yard, so I played it safe and walked along the driveway as I left.
***
The last time I’d found myself at The Home Depot, I was buying my mom wooden yard stakes for posters she was planning to wave in protest of the immigrant center. Today, however, I was looking at ropes. We didn't need something too flashy or expensive, just something that would get the job done. I settled on a plain white nylon cord.
In the aftermath of the Game of Thrones season finale, a wave of YouTubers had initiated the "breaker of chains" challenge. When Ophelia caught wind of the challenge, to say she was ecstatic would have been putting it lightly.
“De character of Daenerys is some-ting to admire about,” she’d often tell me.
Daenerys’s spirited nature and good intentions were admirable. But the real reason Ophelia looked up to her was because of her undying ambition to take what was and had always been a position held by men. I’d just thought Daenerys looked pretty hot in the first season, but somewhere along the way she started wearing more clothes, and that’s when I started losing interest. Of course, I never told Ophelia that, but it often came to mind when we’d talk about her.
To get a sense of things, we watched a couple of people try the challenge. With a limit of five minutes, several had been successful in escaping the "chains." The secret was in the knot. Each limb was secured with what YouTubers had dubbed a "dragon" knot. It had a short release end. If you could reach it, the knot would come undone in a snap.
***
I’d never seen Ophelia more disgusted than the day Terri found the duffle bag underneath her bed. Prompted by a text she’d sent in all caps; I sped over there after work. The sound of boxing gloves hitting the heavy bag carried me to the back yard. It was late, but by the light of the moon, I could still trace the outline of her body against the backdrop of the wooden fence. Terri was inside sleeping.
“How did she find out?”
“Aye, Dios. I mus have dropped some bolitas on de driveway,” she huffed, “how, I dun-no. I’m real careful always not to spill dem.”
The discovery of BBs had prompted Terri to conduct a full-on shakedown of Ophelia's room. Not a single square inch of space was spared the violence of angry hands rifling through dresser drawers and closet crawl space. A shouting match followed. Ophelia hadn’t told me that, but the hoarseness in her voice indicated as much. The house was off limits, so we sat in my truck; and for the first time, she pressed her body to mine. With her cheek against my chest, she mouthed obscenities. I cradled her head, brushing my fingers against her sweaty scalp. After she stifled the waterworks, I pointed out the Home Depot bag sitting low in the back seat.
“You got it?”
“Well yeah, of course.”
“Bien hecho! When tomorrow Kerri is gone, I text you to come.”
Cuddling hadn’t quite wiped the frown off her face, and she was in such a vulnerable position I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t much; a simple fingertip up the right side of her hip had her yipping.
“Aye Dios-see-hee-hee! Estopa dat!”
A reflexive kick followed as I stroked the small of her back; prompting me to stop before I lost a window.
“I like your laugh.”
She recomposed, situating her head back onto my chest.
“Aye no, is an ugly laugh.”
***
Terri had left Ophelia’s room this tossed salad of socks and sports bras; panties and tank tops. I’d nearly tripped on a bra at the door but pressing my hand against the Targaryen poster broke my fall. It spiraled to the ground shortly after.
I started peeling off every layer to her bedding until all that was left was the fitted sheet clinging loosely to the mattress. With her subscriber base eclipsing one thousand, I’d suggested she go live with the challenge to commemorate the occasion. And while she wasn’t completely on board with the idea, I stressed what an expression of gratitude it would be for her fans; and that on a Tuesday morning, there wouldn’t be many people watching anyway. She agreed.
“I’m ready!”
In what was the shortest pair of shorts I’d ever seen her wear, she crossed the threshold. Her top was this sleeveless number that contoured to the rounded curves of her hips, and I couldn’t stop myself from gawking. Skull printed ankle socks adorned her feet, and I watched tentatively as they daintily brushed past the fluffy white sheets on the ground.
“You look amazing.”
“You tink these shirt blue like dress of Daenerys?”
“It’s better.”
She flashed a perky smile my way and twirled about on the balls of her feet before falling back onto the bed. Trustingly, she spread her legs and waited patiently for me to string them up. I threaded her ankles quickly and anchored them to the bedposts with relative ease.
“Dat was fast.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was a Boy Scout?”
Limbering her arms, she surrendered to my touch. A white residue the smell of lavender coated her armpits, and I was secretly happy she’d touched them up before the video. As you may or may not recall from the first paragraph, life is about making choices and taking steps so that you might find yourself in favorable situations. I’d made a considerable amount of choices to get here, and now I stood before another. The challenge called for a "dragon" knot, the kind, which I explained earlier, has a quick release end. I tied a bowline knot. To the casual observer, they appear identical. Both knots end with a bit of rope dangling just out of reach, only the bowline’s bit of rope wasn’t a quick release end.
Stretched to her limits, Ophelia’s top had left her belly button on full display, and at the right angle you could peer through a gap in her shorts; a little secret I kept to myself. Her breaths were short and steady as she waited anxiously for us to go live. A small trickle of comments started floating in as subscribers started streaming the feed. After waiting a few minutes more, I panned the phone in her direction. She opened with her usual monologue, maintaining a chipper tone despite her predicament. Then she introduced me. It was a first, and it caught me off guard. I hadn’t exactly come prepared to bare my face, but I obliged, flexing away my double chin as best as I knew how. After explaining the particulars of the challenge, she asked for “good vibes”; offering a subdued wave before swallowing hard.
I counted down from three, assuming my position at the left side of the bed. As she had before, she started the challenge by looking around, strategizing. She reached for the rope that tethered her to the bed and gauged its thickness between her fingers. For all her free weight workout sessions, this was still rope, and the stubborn twine wasn’t about to just tear. She’d seen other challengers go directly for the loose end that dangled just out of reach, but it was just that, out of reach. She could feel it with her fingernails, but the more she stretched her hand, the more it pained her other. Three minutes were left, and she was still no closer to getting free than when we’d started. She flashed a nervous smile towards the camera.
“These, you tied too tight!”
“Nah, you’re just not trying hard enough.”
With a minute and a half left, she resorted to frustrated thrashing that turned her hands a lighter shade. A small volley of comments popped up on her page offering words of encouragement like: “Do it for Danny!” and “Dracarys.” She flopped some more, grunting and gasping; reminding me of those hysterical psych patients you see in movies. Her snarky comment, “Is a psych ting,” came to mind, and seeing her so mentally flustered, really got my blood pumping.
I let it be known there were thirty seconds left on the clock. Her smile melted. She grit her teeth and gave one last effort to reach for the loose end dangling off the bed post. To my surprise, with her toes curled, and her face buried into her armpit, she managed to grip the end between her fingers. She let out a triumphant yelp but was instantly deflated went the rope refused to budge. The time wound down on her, and she, in turn, limbered her rigid body; surrendering to defeat.
“Aye Dios. Bueno pos, to everyone, I’m so sorry, next time, maybe?”
A trickle of sympathies rained down on her page, as I sidelined myself to strum through my phone.
“Bueno pos, le me out.”
“Hold up. I’m texting my friend back.”
Just then, a comment popped up on her page. One of her regulars since the first escape challenge, H.R, was inquiring about some sort of punishment, consequences for failing the “mother of dragons.” We both exchanged confused looks, but Ophelia was curious and inquired what all H.R had in mind.
She bit her lip hard as I read the suggestion aloud, and even had me press the phone to her face so she could read it herself. Other subscribers, who were likewise lingering in the aftermath of Ophelia’s failure, reacted positively to the suggestion, thinking it would make for an interesting end.
“It looks like your people have spoken, Khaleesi.”
“Aye pos, I dun tink is dat hard.”
She licked her lips and listed some areas of her body that were off limits. I listened, situating her phone between some textbooks. The lens was focused on her upper body, but I had no intention of starting there. In retrospect, I maybe could have re positioned the phone for different angles throughout. But I only had a ten-minute window, and I was a man of my word, most of the time.
I was so overcome by anticipation that I could barely keep my thoughts straight as I knelt at the foot of the bed. Considering how much time I’d invested, the pair of size five’s, lying still and unawares, was to me the trophy at the end of this journey. I counted down from three, getting a head start by peeling away her socks. She accused me of cheating, but I brushed her off, giving her mind a more pertinent issue to contend with as I touched down on her heels.
As active as she was, Ophelia had surprisingly gentle skin along the soles of her feet, and I took advantage of their tenderness. I started slow, reading her reactions, looking for a niche. Her toes would curl into themselves when I scribbled past them, and her feet would swish when I nipped at her arches.
“AYE DIOS-SEE-HEE-HEE! your nails… you should trim!”
Her comment made me chuckle as I began an ascend up her arches; keeping to constant pitter-patters of fingers against her feet. Again, she swished them, only more feverishly this time as I quickened my pace.
Irate cackles puttered past her mouth as I raked my nails atop the tips of her toes. They were lively, flexing and scrunching, and being inattentive of my desire for them to remain still. Focusing on her left foot, I peeled back her toes. There was a marbling contrast between her pinkish soles and the caramel colored skin that draped the rest of her body. An inconsequential detail, but I took a moment to admire how the two complexions coexisted within the same boundaries of her body.
“You have beautiful feet.”
“Aye no, dare ugly.”
That girls are so critical of their feet, was a perplexing thought, one that lingered as my finger circled the ball of her foot. I could sense the tenseness in her joints as she grappled with this rousing titillation that was undoubtedly swarming up her leg.
“AYEEE-HEE-HEE!”
I pinched her meaty heel and drilled between her toes, alternating sporadically between both areas. Her laughter boomed beyond the room and for a little girl, she could make the bed rock.
“Un minuto, por PLEEEEASE-SEE-HEE-HEE!”
My time was precious, and I just couldn’t spare that minute. Sitting idle on her desk was a bottle of lotion that hadn’t escaped my eye. I’d noticed it when I walked in. In two seconds, it was in my hands.
With generous globs of cream gushing over her feet, she tilted her head in my direction. Her breaths were sharp and choppy, and her eyes looked high strung. She looked unsettled. Not that it mattered. I knew, with absolute certainty, that when I was done coating her feet, she’d be overcome with joy, however involuntary.
“Be n-nice… amigos… friend… Juicestone… Juice-TEEEN-NEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!”
Her body was overwhelmed by sensations; her cognition, scattered beyond reason. She babbled on in her native tongue and flopped about the bed, possessed by a single finger tracing the curve of her arch.
“NOO MAS! NO MAA-HA-HA-HAAAS!”
I played dumb, pretending I didn’t understand her. I even threw out a jab about how Daenerys, “demanded retribution of all who fell short of the challenge.” It was a campy one-liner, and I now kick myself for saying it, but sometimes you just get caught up in the moment.
I couldn’t abandon her feet without taking at least one nibble along them. The phone wasn’t fixated on me, so it was easy to indulge. Clearly, she hadn’t anticipated this because she protested my cold wet tongue almost immediately.
“NO MANCHEEEE-SEE-HEE-HEE! JUICESTONE-NA-HA-HA! POR PLEEEE-HEE-HEEASE!”
They were tender, and despite the lotion giving off a sharp taste, they were salty. Smothering her left foot with my lips, I nibbled cautiously along its soft pink heel. Her muscles tensed, her toes curled, and obscenities seethed past her teeth; an angelic chorus if ever there was one.
Clunkily, I mounted the bed. My chubby body was coming into frame, but I didn’t care. There was a goddess laid out before me, and miles of tender flesh yet to be christened. She braced for my touch, courageously, holding fast to the fitted sheet beneath her as I clamped down on her knees.
“AYYYYEEE DIOSSSSITO! YA PARA YA PA-RA-HA-HA!”
Her biceps were on full display as she flailed her arms; tugging and pulling with the frustrated temperament of a girl on fire. Her face was glowing, starting to glisten, as she continued to exert raw strength against the rope.
My fingers sprawled up her legs like two giant tarantulas till they stopped on her inner thighs. Immediately, she protested their placement, shaking her head and babbling on about me being too close to her concha.
“Ahi no! Ahi no! Juicestone por PLEEE-HEE-HEEASE!”
Her legs shivered, trembling in harmony with my every pinch and prod. And when I touched upon a tendon more delicate than most, she shoved her crotch in my face. It wasn’t deliberate, none of her reactions were, but I took the opportunity to run my hands down the small of her back. Her back was warm, and the hairs along it stood erect making it easy to evoke spirited giggles.
Childlike coos staggered past her lips as I stopped for a moment to fan her face. I’m not a monster; despite what you might think of me.
Violent thrashes had left her top a scrunched-up mess, and the allure of watching her bare belly expand and contract was rousing me South of the border. With five minutes remaining, I touched down on the soft round edges of her midsection.
She moaned and bit her lip as my nails summoned goosebumps across her waist. Faint whispers of vain repetitious pleas caught my ear, but they did nothing to stop my hands from digging into that supple torso.
“WHOOT-TA-HA-HA! YA PARA YA PAA-RA-HA-HA!”
I kneaded her belly, trotting my fingers along her brazen pastures like wild horses roaming across the plains. Her hips shimmied and she started to buck; an involuntary reflex I subdued by straddling her.
“You’re pretty strong.”
“Come, will you please, Juicestone, I can’t no more.”
“Now, now, you agreed.”
Time was winding down, and some encouraging comments had started to trickle in as her subscribers lavished her with praise. Some couldn’t imagine a feat more daring; others were amazed that she hadn’t passed out yet. H.R, the one responsible for initiating the ordeal, hadn’t said word.
With three minutes left, she agreed to see the challenge through. I, in turn, reunited my thumbs with her hips and sank them deep into her pockets. Fast circular motions that made her belly jiggle sent Ophelia thrusting forward like an unresponsive body being shocked back to life.
“WHAAA-HA-HA! AYE YAA-JA-JA-JA-JAAAH!”
I steadily moved up her sides, grazing her ribs for a moment. They weren’t as sensitive, so I moved on. Mirroring her outstretched arms with my own, I delicately slid my fingertips down to her underarms and embraced their velvety smoothness.
“SHEET-SHEET-SHEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEET! AYE DIOS-AYE DIOS-SEE-HEE-HEE!”
I had her whimpering as my hands pinched and prodded her biceps with livid infatuation. By now, her face was this disheveled mess of furrowed brows and gaping pouts as she wallowed in dumbfounded euphoria.
At the thirty second mark, she snorted for air, one last heavy breath before succumbing, once again, to the undying titillations teeming in the depths of her armpits. And there my hands remained, nestled, looped in this unrelenting fervor, burrowing past Ophelia’s delicate flesh and into her bones.
Her phone went off, signaling the end of the challenge. It pained me to have to stop. With puffy cheeks an amber red and sweat glistening off her forehead, she composed herself, delivering a somber goodbye to her fans. She didn’t look enraged, but I made her promise not to hit me once I let her out. She didn’t oblige.
A lazy jab hit my arm, which was less than I deserved, all things considered.
“You forgot to twist with the punch.”
“Oh, shit up.”
I left that day with a spring in my step. Outside, the sun was hiding behind partly cloudy skies just like I like, and as I strolled along the sidewalk; I stopped to appreciate a thick crack that sat a few feet away from an oil blotch discoloring the concrete. As I ran my boot along the crack, I noticed Terri had missed a BB. I shrugged and carried on. They were biodegradable anyway.
A few weeks later my mother got her own win. The city commissioners shut down the immigrant center. They’d agreed that a neighborhood wasn’t the best place for an operation like that. My mom’s victory made the rounds on social media. She credited my letter, and when Ophelia found out, she steadily distanced herself from me. I don’t blame her. I’d kept that part of my life a secret, as it just wasn’t in my best interest to share it.
I read on Facebook that Ophelia had been accepted into Texas State to further her education. Affirmative Action is a hell of a policy. If she ever comes across this, I’ll have some explaining to do. But I doubt she’d even know where to start looking.
I still visit her channel whenever I get notified that she’s dropped new content. Our video is still there; it’s the most watched. Sometimes, in the comforts of solitude, I’ll throw it on and think back on all the decisions that led to its conception; and get lost in the moment when I held the sun and stars between my fingers.
