MISSING YOU

my dear I have so missed
your smile, your gentle
kindness your wit

my dear I have so missed
the me that used to be
so very happy with you

MC

Mamas stop telling your babies those lies

Mamas stop telling your babies
About boogie men and vampires and lies
Tell them about the bad love man,
With the kind smiling eyes.

Oh, he's the sweet man
The friendly man who lives next door
Uncle Bernie who likes to wrestle
Grandpa who show's them they're special

Mamas tell your babies to run till they drop
To scream and push and tell them to stop
Tell your babies to trust no one with
Bedtime stories and solemn secrets

Mamas tell your babies the truth
The way you wish someone had told you
Rather they lose that blind trust
Then be victims of the bad love man's lust

Better they be afraid, better they be safe
Than told to hush up,
or the family's disgraced

MC

Thursday, 20 June 2024

The Dictator's Slut Chapter V

He moved even closer, and I don't know what might have happened next if my father hadn't arrived. He came in, and stopped dead when he saw the Generalissimo sitting on his couch, holding his daughter's hand.

My father stood stock-still, then his hand went to his hair, pushing it back. I believe he was giving himself time to think. His eyes were on me, then they flickered.

He stepped forward, wiped his hands on his pants and I saw they left smears on the dusty fabric. He stepped forward respectfully.

"Generalissimo," he said. "You honor my house."

"Papa Juan," he said, grinning and bouncing up from the couch. "Papa Juan for an old comrade-at-arms!"

The Generalissimo was up and pumping my father's hand enthusiastically. My father looked frightened. He knew Papa Juan from the old days before he polished himself into a benevolent ogre, when he was an honest monster.

Mama came in. "Dinner is ready," she said. Her smile was too wide, her voice too loud, but later, when we sat at the table eating, the silence was absolute. I could hear the spoons scraping the bottom of the plates and the Generalissimo's enthusiastic slurping.

"You have a son, yes?" he suddenly asked my mother. I saw the color drain from her face as she nodded dumbly. "Where is he?"

My father licked his lips. "My son, he's in Miami, with my mother's family..." he said awkwardly. "Studying."

"That's good!" the Generalissimo smiled. approvingly. "Oh, that's very good!" You'd never think he'd been ranting about Americans trafficking children just minutes before. 

He raised another spoon of chupe to his mouth. "He comes home, yes," unbelievably he winked at my mother. "To eat mama's wonderful chupe!"

"He's busy," mama said. "And the plane, it is so expensive..."

"But he must come!" the Generalissimo exclaimed. "His little sister is growing up, mama and papa are getting older! Yes, Carlos must come home for a holiday, maybe for Christmas, he?"

I saw my mother and father quickly glance at each other. No one had mentioned Carlos' name, but the Generalissimo knew it. It stood to reason he also knew about Carlos' activities.

"I have friends in Miami," the Generallimo said, sticking his fingers in the chupe and tearing off a shrimp's head. He sucked the juices from the head and wiped his lips with his napkin. "I can ask them to look out for Carlos, and make sure he is safe."

Mama looked away, but papa looked him in the eyes. "I'm very grateful, Generalissimo," he said. "For your concern, and for my son's safety."

"Ah," the generalissimo smiled. "A son is a man's pride and joy, yes? They take our blood and our name into the future!"

"Yes," my father said. He lowered his head. I had just been traded, and I didn't even know it. Bartered at the dinner table, for my brother's life.

The Dictator's Slut Chapter IV

He was too close, I could smell him. He wore a musky perfume, thick, oriental. I could taste it in the back of my throat, and under it, he smelled of sweat.

I cleared my throat and edged away from him slightly, carefully pulling my hand away. "I want to be a dancer," I told him, "Or a choreographer if I'm not good enough..."

"A dancer!" His eyebrows rose. Was he amused or scornful? He sounded like an adult reacting to a five-year-old admitting his ambition to be an astronaut.

"Yes," I said. "I'm studying at the university, under Madame Roselle. She's brilliant! She was a prima ballerina at the National Ballet..."

He smiled and slid his hand down my arm, recaptured my hand. "I've made culture and education a priority of my administration," he said.

"It is one of the triumphs of the revolution that every young man and woman in Belvaria can attend university, no matter how rich or poor their families are."

His tongue came out and touched the exact center of his upper lip, then retreated like some animal scuttling into its den.

His mouth widened into a smile. "This is what you and those young ones at the protest don't understand, little Dita If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be protesting, you wouldn't be students. You'd be working the fields, scrubbing floors, sweeping streets."

He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. His mouth was wet from his tongue, slimy. "My little Dita wouldn't be a dancer!"

"But," I whispered. I was afraid, but I remembered Carlos' eyes, his pretty pouty lips, and said what he would have said. "But so many students disappear..."

The Generalissimo -- Papa Juan -- looked sorrowful and nodded. "There is an epidemic spreading across our country because of the Americanos, Dita. They are stealing our young ones, our future from us, and selling them, trafficking them."

"Trafficking?" I asked, dazed. "But surely... The army..."

He shook his head sadly. "The army has failed to protect the children, and it is my greatest shame. We are even now implementing changes. We will be concentrating our forces in the streets of our cities, not on the borders. What is the use of protecting the borders against invasion if they are stealing the young from their homes?"

"I... I see," I whispered. "Am I safe? Here? Will I... Be trafficked?" Would I be going back to the gray room, is what I meant.

He laughed again, throwing back his head on his thick neck, flashing big teeth. "No, no!" he cried. "My little Dita is safe, she is my special friend, is that not so?"

I smiled back, but I remembered the gray room, and the meaty man's hand pushing up my skirt, fumbling for my panties. I wondered if I would be back there if I didn't prove to be a satisfactorily devoted little friend.

I raised my head and looked him in the eye and gave him my best smile. "I am honored to be your friend, Papa Juan."

I squeezed his sweaty hand, and inhaled deeply, drawing the smell of him into my lungs. I remembered my grandmother's stories.

Oh, the boys who rode the tiger could never get off, never, never. Because then the tiger would see he was fresh meat, and devour him.

I was fresh meat, so I smiled widely, admiringly, and giggled childishly. That was another mistake, but I wasn't to know that for many years.


MC

The Dictator's Slut Chapter III

Before we go any further I need to explain that I really was a very pretty girl. I'm not being vain, any vanity I had was scoured from me that year.


I was tiny, small-boned like my mestizo mother, and with her dark eyes and feathery brows, but with a tumble of silver-blond curls.


My father always said I got my blond curls from my grandmother and as a child, I believed she'd died so I could have her hair. Isn't it strange, the things we believe as children, almost as fantastical as what we believe as adults?


He was touching my hair and smiling, and there was something like greed in his eyes. I could sense my mother's distress.


She said: "Generalissimo, can I offer you something to eat?"


He turned and smiled charmingly at her if you could imagine his heavy-jawed face lightened by charm. "What is that I smell, my dear?" he asked. "Chupe?"


My mother nodded and pressed her hands together. "Yes," she smiled nervously. "Chupe de camarones. It's Friday..."


The Generalissimo sighed. "I haven't eaten a bowl of honest chupe in years. They insist on French cooks at the Presidential Palace, and they can't make chupe...Not like my mother's..."


"I'll get you a bowl, Generalissimo," my mother said immediately, but he held up a hand. I noticed it was even bigger than the meaty-handed man's.


"No, no!" he cried. "I will dine with your family, we will wait for your husband. He was one of my warriors. I want to see him, talk about old times."


His smile widened and he added: "But I don't want to add to a good housewife's troubles!"


"No," my mother said. "It will be no trouble and a great honor!" I saw her cast me a nervous glance and wipe her palms on her dress. "If you will excuse Dita, she will set the table."


I hurried to obey, but he caught my hand as I was passing. "No, no!" he cried. "Please, Mrs. Hernandez, allow Dita to remain here with me. If you'll excuse her from her chores of course. It's not often I have a chance to speak to the young ones, to hear their views. After all, they are the citizens of the future!"


"Of course, Generalissimo," my mother said, but I could see that it wasn't alright, and that made me even more uneasy.


"Please don't call me Generalissimo, Mrs. Hernandez," he said. "My friends, my family call me Papa Juan."


"Papa Juan," mama said, and looked horrified. The bloodiest dictator in South American's bloody history wanted my mother to call him Papa Juan.


He laughed delightedly and raised my hand which he was still holding to his lips. "You too, precious angel!" he cried.


Obediently I chimed in like a little parrot: "Papa Juan." He kissed my hand again. He didn't let it go and I didn't dare pull it away even though it was getting sticky with sweat.


My mother stood in the doorway to the kitchen looking uncertain, and he waved her away. "Don't worry, Mrs. Hernandez, Dita will entertain me."


He pulled me to our thread-bare sofa and sat me beside him, so close I could feel the heat of his body. He was still holding my hand.


"Tell me, Dita," he said in a quiet, gentle voice. "Tell me your dreams."

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