II

It took Fernando the better part of a week to reach his mother’s hometown from Bogotá. Part of the reason for this delay was that on his first night away from the hacienda, Juan Francisco caught up with him in the town of Granada.

Flush with this small victory against his wife María Luisa—and flush already with drink—the senator proceeded to take Fernando out on the town in a whirlwind approximation of the revels he’d had planned for them. Only narrowly did Fernando avoid being cornered by a pair of burly whores his father had sicced on him. What he couldn’t prevent was getting so shitfaced from caroming around with Juan Francisco from bar to bar that he could barely lift his head from the floor the next day, let alone take a hot, bumpy bus ride to the next waypoint in his travels.

In the hammock next to where he lay sprawled snored Juan Francisco, who hadn’t fared much better from their night of drunken revelry. In fact he was still quite drunk when Fernando shook him awake. Lumbering out into the courtyard of the inn to take a piss, Juan Fransisco came swaggering back in with a lecherous, lopsided grin on his face and his pants held loose in his hands.

“Eh, Fernando?” he said with a wink, showing Fernando the smears of red lipstick ringing the base of his flaccid cock. “One swallowed the worm, didn’t she?”

Fernando spent the rest of the day trying to soothe the splitting headache between his eyes and to persuade Juan Fransisco to return to Bogotá. It was difficult to say which of the two was more antagonizing. As afternoon wore into evening, Juan Francisco became increasingly petulant. He was determined to accompany Fernando to his destination. Any mention of María Luisa only impassioned his resolve. Taking a different tack, as he plied his father with black coffee and arepas, Fernando reasoned with him that he might enjoy something of the journey for its piquancy but that Carmencita’s hometown was bound to be a rathole and a bore.

“After a few hours there, you’ll be wishing you were back in Bogotá. But you’ll still have a days’ long return trip through all the other pissant towns you already saw along the way.”

His father sulked as he chewed, but Fernando could see that something of his reasoning had reached him. Fernando backed off and said nothing more. After a few galvanizing shots of aguardiente, Juan Francisco had appropriated Fernando’s line of logic as if it were of his own devising. In his own roundabout way he had convinced himself.

“I’ve made my point to the tyrant.” Belching with gusto, the senator lifted his glass to the image of the Virgin plastered to the wall of the food stand. “I return to her a rebel slave.”

And so the next morning, Fernando and his father went their separate ways—the latter back to Bogotá and the former onward, toward the town that lay in the shadow of the Amazon.

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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy