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i.
The first time Paloma sees her, she thinks: I will be devoured.
Her stare makes Paloma’s heart seize up in her throat, thudding like an animal caught, like the rabbit she saw once out behind her house, when she was small and playing by herself in the wide open space, struggling in a coyote’s jaws.
Her smile softens her gaze, reminding Paloma of moonlight, shining down and ethereal, sloe-eyed and mysterious. For a moment, she's caught by a frisson of pure desire, scared and awestruck, coursing through her like a hot flash.
Her touch makes Paloma shiver, pull away—instinct of the rabbit to jerk away from the coyote; it's a cold night, and her hands are colder still. She meets her eyes though, unable to look away, transfixed by her beauty and her primal fear, merging together as one and—
—then the bag comes over her head, and darkness.
ii.
Paloma wanted to be touched, but not like this.
There's something humiliating about performing for the group of other woman, for their quiet audience of pity filled eyes. The way Santanico makes her move her hips, makes her arch into her body, leans in and breathes in the scent of her skin— if Paloma closes her eyes, it is almost like she is her lover, but then Santanico speaks, voicing stinging in her ear, cheeks burning like she landed a slap, reminding Paloma where she is and who they are.
Santanico says, it's not for you, It's never for you.
Santanico says, pay attention, I won't say this again.
Santanico says, dance.
It's only her that receives the lessons, singled out, the only one with Santanico’s hands all over her skin, the memory of them crawling all over her body long after she locks Paloma back away, her voice never leaving her head.
The other women, they learn by watching Paloma, from practicing with each other. Santanico watches and advises, but it’s only Paloma that takes any punishment, only Paloma that is the example, Santanico’s star pupil.
It's only Paloma that's special, Santanico’s voice purring in her ear at night.
Santanico tells her, strip, as she sets up a camera on a tripod.
Paloma doesn't move. Her heart pounds heavy in her chest like a weight.
Santanico has a man who aids her, but he stays away when Santanico is training them, scuttles and hides away, only comes to bring them food when Santanico is not around, looks at them with an apology in his eyes. He won’t stop this.
The other women in the cage watch in silence.
No one comes for her.
Santanico’s face is cold and merciless. “Shall I do it for you?”
Paloma shakes her head, finding some kind of strength, trembling as she moves to remove her shirt, unzip her pants, until she's clad in just her underwear. She sucks in a breath, guts twisting as Santanico regards her, eyes raking over her body, assessing her. She has a way of making Paloma feel like she is already stripped open, laid bare, muscle and sinew, her eyes that sharp, enough to carve down to bone.
Fear fills her chest as she thinks Santanico wants more, that she misread her, that she was waiting for her to remove her bra and underwear, but Paloma exhales as she seems satisfied with that decision, turning back to the tripod, turning the camera on, Paloma looking at the red light.
“Dance,” she commands; Her voice is like iron, her eyes leave no room for argument.
Paloma does as she's told. Her movements feel awkward to her, too slow, more of a pantomime, paling in comparison—but the longer she does it, the more naturally it comes. Santanico's voice echoing in her head, feel the music, the ghost of Santanico’s lips on her neck as Paloma makes her hips sway.
Santanico reminding her, it's not for you as her diosa’s pendant burns against her chest.
Tears form at the edges of Paloma’s eyes, pricking, stinging, but she holds them back. Santanico watches and smiles—a tiny, imperceptible thing, across her lips, turning her into the woman in the woods again, the one Paloma could have stared at forever.
Paloma wonders if she has pleased with her.
She hates that she hopes she did.
iii.
There is a hunger growing in Paloma—the same kind of vicious hunger that drove her to swim across the border with only her clothes and a small backpack, a throbbing violent need to survive under her skin.
Paloma offers her captor her throat.
If you want me so badly, take me—here is my flesh and blood for you.
When she offers her throat for a taste, what she really means give me a taste, let me have a little bit of you in exchange for everything you’ve taken.
Santanico refuses, every time, pushing her back in the cage with a hand on her throat, moving brutally, gracefully, like a snake striking out. Her fingers never squeeze hard enough to leave bruises, preserving her for the auction.
Every time, Paloma sees the hot flash of desire fly across her face, a melting of her features, a flicker of something softer, almost human.
She escorts them all to the bathroom, one by one, once a day. Santanico watches Paloma relieve herself, keeps her hard eyes on Paloma while she pulls up her pants and washes her hands, the hot flush of humiliation in her cheeks. It's been only a week and she's not used to it yet, even as the day draws near.
Paloma swallows up her courage, wills herself to still the throbbing of her heart. Against her chest, her goddess burns.
She leans in and puts her mouth on Santanico’s lips. She tastes like blood and death, iron and something cloyingly sweet. It's unexpectedly intoxicating, like a poison that hits slow, circling around her guts.
It lasts a moment and nothing more. Once more, Santanico grabs her by the throat and shoves her away from her. Her grip is softer this time; she can breathe now. Santanico’s nails are fine points against her skin.
Her eyes are a golden yellow, slitted like a snake. Paloma wants to claw and tear at her skin, rip away the facade and see Santanico for real, the one under the cold stares and her hard hands. Paloma wants more more more.
“I know what you're doing,” she tells her. “I've done it many times before. It won't work, querida.”
Paloma smiles at her, her teeth shiny and blunt. It hurts when it stretches across her mouth. It hurts, with her airway not quite constricting, the threat of it fluttering against her rib cage.
She nods.
“Please,” she concedes. She leans in, on her toes, pushing against Santanico’s palm as she whispers in her ear, Santanico still like a statue. “I want what you have.”
Santanico rears back and releases her. There's an ache around her throat, painful to swallow, and Paloma knows there will be a mark left this time, a brand, Santanico’s fingerprints on her.
Santanico’s gaze is a glare, burning hot, but her eyes won't meet hers, like she can't stand to look at her.
“You don't know what you're talking about,” she hisses. It sounds almost like a real snake. “You don't want this. You're just a naive little girl.”
Paloma laughs at her. The sound is harsh in her ears.“What do you know? You've never asked me what I wanted.”
Later, Paloma prays to her god, for salvation. For refuge. For her own lost soul.
iv.
Santanico is molding her into something else.
Paloma feels different, a new shape to her bones now; harder, more brittle, even as Santanico does her best to make her look like a doll.
She combs her fingers through her hair. “You're going to be beautiful,” she tells her.
“For him, you mean,” Paloma reminds her.
“If you do what I say, you'll never have to see him,” Santanico reminds her, a promise that feels more like a threat.
Paloma is silent while Santanico teases curls out of her hair, turning it wavy and heavy for the show. Her hands are careful and gentle in her hair; she could almost be her mother, tending to her, her grandmother, showing her how a proper woman dresses and Paloma feels a wave of longing so strong she almost cries out.
When Santanico is done she turns her around in the chair, examining her handiwork with a stare devoid of warmth, except for the embers of something Paloma can see, if she looks hard enough—or maybe she only hopes she sees.
One hand caresses her cheek, careful and deliberate, a sort of hesitant restraint.
“You're going to be wonderful,” she says, voice soft, almost sweet, wistful.
Paloma sighs and tilts her head back. Santanico’s gaze is heavy, a physical pressure she always feels like it's closing in on her. Even in private, it still feels like it's stripping her open, tearing her apart, but she doesn't mind so much, like this, remade and reformed in this new image.
“What will you give me?” she asks, jutting out her chin in defiance, meeting Santanico’s eyes.
Santanico chuckles, cups her chin. Tilts her head back so their eyes meet. “Your life,” she says. “That's good enough.”
She is shutting her down. She is putting her away. She is a chess piece, to be used and discarded. There will be no reward for her good work.
Paloma grabs her wrist. Her grip is much softer, not enough strength in her body, but Paloma makes it as tight as she can.
“I want more,” she says.
For a long second, Paloma can't breathe, the sounds of her body thunderously loud, and Santanico silent as the grave, her eyebrow arched in disdain. But she isn't scared, the only thing she fears is going up on that stage. Hurt me, choke me, strip me, rape me—she can endure all of that.
As long as it's her.
Paloma drags Santanico’s hand down her body, until she reaches the apex of her thighs. The air goes out of lungs; she didn't know she'd do that until she did it, let her body move before her head could stop her--more bold than kissing her in front of all the others--but she meets Santanico’s eyes head on.
Santanico chuckles, the sound heady and throaty.
With another hand, she traces the veins of her neck—carotid, jugular, capillary—down her throat and past her collarbone. Her nails are sharp as knives, hard points that dig in like a promise, but they don't break skin.
Her fingers brush her necklace; her face softens as her fingers trace over the goddess on Paloma’s neck. Paloma thinks she's going to ask about it, but instead she says, “I thought you wanted a taste?”
“I want everything,” she says.
“Don't be greedy,” Santanico hisses, her mouth, soft and lush, curved in a cruel smirk. With a quick, sharp gesture, she shoves her fingers in her jeans, roughly digging into her underwear until two fingers are pressed up against her clit.
Paloma gasps, arches her back, trying for more, more pressure, more pleasant, moving her hips on some primal instinct. Santanico’s fingers slide in easy between her legs, despite their position, and are practiced, knowing how to make her moan. Paloma flushes with embarrassment and arousal.
“Is this what you want? I can smell how wet you are,” she says. Her touch isn't particularly gentle, rubbing her sensitive folds almost too roughly, but it's good, one finger teasing her hole, on the verge of penetration, two more on her clit and drawing gasps and soft moans from Paloma. Santanico's expression remains difficult to read. She cocks her head at Paloma, like she was a pet that did something particularly interesting.
“Is this what you wanted from me?”
Paloma hungers. “I want you,” she rasps out raggedly but what she really means, I want to be you.
(When she sees her teeth, the demonstration of her power, it all comes together, the knowledge of who she is.
Somehow, that's almost worse.)
v.
After, Santanico takes her to a hotel. She even walks her up to the door and hands her a wad of American dollars.
Like a whore, Paloma thinks, her cheeks flushing, standing there in that childish quinceañera dress, a dress for someone far younger than her. She still has bruises on her throat from Carlos’ attack.
A week of nearly being sold into slavery and all she gets is payment.
“You're free now,” Santanico says, soft, almost ashamed, regretful; Paloma hates it. “Go.”
“Diosa,” she pleads, reaching out to grab her. She can't believe herself, the audacity, to reach out and touch and kiss and fuck the goddess her grandmother taught her to pray to, but it's far too late to worry about any of that now.
“Don't call me that,” she says.
“Kisa,” Paloma says, remembering what the ancients called her, and Santanico flinches away from her like she cursed her.
“Don't,” she says.
Her goddess is shaking.
“Let me come with you,” she says. “You wanted me to help you, didn't you? Let me keep helping.”
Santanico—diosa—Kisa, whatever she would like to be called—backs away from her, her eyes widening. For a wild moment, Paloma thinks she's afraid of her and wants to laugh.
“Why didn't you tell me who you were?” Paloma asks, staring into her dark eyes. Why did you put me through this?
The Catholic god and saints her neighbors worshipped liked to test their followers, but Kisa was a different type of goddess, a sin eater, one who was there for the lonely and lost ones. Not one who'd needed to humiliate and hurt her.
She can't quite voice those thoughts. Her face aches with unshed tears.
Santanico doesn't hear her prayers. “I got what I wanted,” she hisses. “And I am not your diosa. Go.”
She doesn't give Paloma a chance to reply. She just disappears.
vi.
Perhaps it was foolish of her to attack her. Perhaps, she was drunk on her own new power pulsing under her skin, her own claws and teeth sharpened to needle points.
Perhaps it was sacrilegious of her, but Paloma finds she likes the taste of blasphemy.
For a moment, the stake dug into her skin above her heart, pressing in, her blood in the air, and Paloma knows she's going to die, here in her goddess’ arms. The thought makes her scream, her voice twisted and snarled as it comes out, dipped in pitch with her new inhumanity.
She's not ready to die like this, not after everything she endured for her.
Then she's thrown to the ground. She braces herself, nearly landing face first, but her palms hit the ground instead. It hurts, but the pain fades away quickly, her body already fixing itself up.
Her necklace lies beside her, falling with a clatter to the stone ground. It got ripped off in the battle.
Paloma turns around, looks up at Santanico standing over her. Her clothing is ripped from the fight, hair out of place: a tear runs down her cheek.
“Go,” she tells her. She sounds tired. She doesn't seem like a goddess, too wrung out, too sad. “Or I'll kill you.”
Paloma grabs her pendant and runs.
Outside the truck stop, a blood geyser goes off, but Paloma resists temptation until the truck stop is just a set of twinkling lights in the distance. She stares at the image of the goddess in her hands. She's going to toss it, far away, but instead it glints in the night air, beckoning her regardless.
She strokes the figure and shudders with her new power.
All of her gods are dead now.
vii.
Years later, Kisa finds herself wandering the border again and her body makes its way back to her familiar prison.
She expects it to be ruins. She expects monsters from Xibalba, still crawling out.
She doesn't expect to find bright flashing neon lights, a marquee with a silhouette of a naked woman all lit up in red.
It's no longer called The Titty Twister. The dark red neon light advertises itself as Pandemonium now, the naked woman more tastefully rendered, the colors less garish and more like a neon beacon, flickering in the desert night.
Kisa feels a chill in her spine.
She makes her way in.
Inside, the decor is different. Cleaner. Modern. Less like an ancient temple pretending to be a truck stop bar, more like a traditional strip club you'd find in the city—still neon washed, but shades of red and blue and pink, lights dimmed like a romantic fantasy. Someone else's club. Someone else's fantasy. Fog covered the room—the main stage highlighted a women in a pink, glittery bikini, of course—but the bar, the private alcoves, all not quite hidden but obscured. The gauzy illusion of privacy.
It smelled like jasmine and vanilla, soft perfumed women luring in men. It smelled like freshly spilled blood, and sharp musky arousal and a thousand throbbing heartbeats.
When she looks closely, she can make out culebras, feeding on whoever foolish enough to pay for a private lap dance, through the disorienting fog. She wonders if they agreed to this. She wonders if there's something in the atmosphere making everyone pliant. Culebras can have many gifts and certain minds were always more susceptible to its charms, back when she was trapped here.
“I was wondering when you'd walk in,” says a voice; it comes from behind her.
Paloma regards her with sharp, intelligent eyes. She's dressed more conservatively than the other women, a short black crop top that could easily be removed, and dark jeans that didn't fit the setting. Her feet are bare. There's a smile on her lips, predatory and dangerous, and a confidence she always had but had blossomed entirely.
Kisa stares while Paloma’s smile grows wider. She's often wondered what became of her, but she didn't want to go looking for her—perhaps that was cowardly of her. Staring at her now made her heart ache in her chest with a sorrow she didn't want to think about, and Manola's face comes to mind suddenly, unbidden and clear as day.
Monsters tended to devour the girls she liked, one way or another, whether that monster was her or not.
“I didn't want this for you,” she manages.
“I did,” Paloma says. “This is my club. It's my name on it.”
Kisa is startled. “Your name?”
Paloma does a bit of twirl, showy, sensual. Kisa taught her that.
“I'm Santanico Pandemonium,” she says. Her eyes narrow. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Kisa holds in laughter threatening to bubble up inside her. It's almost perfect. She shakes her head. “If you want the name, you can keep it. I never asked for it.”
Santanico Pandemonium has been with her for so long; people still call her that, even when she tries to extricate herself from it. But if Paloma wants it, she can have it. She did this to her after all.
“I'm sorry,” she says. It sounds hollow, even to her, even if she means it.
“Shush,” Paloma tells her, placing a hand to her lips. “I don't care about your apologies.”
She grabs her by the hand, leading her away. Her grip is bruising. “Come,” she orders.
Kisa follows. “Where to?”
Paloma doesn't answer. Kisa remembers this area, but the layout was different, the curtain that sectioned it off from the rest of the club was dark deep red; now they are pink and violet beads, playfully glinting.
“I want a dance,” she says, turning back around, settling in on a pink loveseat.
“No,” Kisa says.
“I thought you were sorry,” she spits out.
“Doesn't mean I'm going to degrade myself for you,” she says. “I've danced enough.”
Maybe, Kisa thinks, she'll dance for Paloma one day, when enough years have gone by, when time bleeds the past into blinking memories. But not now.
Paloma considers her, crosses her legs, tilts her head. “Then I want a taste,” she says. “You owe me at least that, don't you think?”
Kisa considers it. She could walk out. Santanico or no, Paloma can't stop her.
She nods.
Paloma leans back and smiles, wide and hungry. “Come here, then.”
She walks over to where Paloma sits, getting ready to sit down next to her, when Paloma pulls her into her lap suddenly, dragging her off her feet.
Kisa gasps. Paloma wraps her arms around her, pulling them close, like lovers. She presses their foreheads together and cups Kisa’s chin.
“Did you miss me?” She asks her, breathing into her mouth. Paloma’s breasts press into her. It's suffocatingly intimate.
“Yes,” she admits. And I'm sorry you're not a human girl anymore.
Paloma smiles and her face changes into that of a monster, like that of her own, before diving her fangs into her throat.
Kisa draws a sharp breath. She squirms in her lap, but Paloma's embrace is tight, clutching, nails tearing into her clothes and digging into her back. She is not gentle. It hurts, being torn open.
A familiar hurt.
Kisa’s hand finds herself into Paloma’s hair, curled into heavy waves, intertwining her fingers. She reaches for her wrist with her other hand, thumb on the veins. She brings it to her mouth and bites just enough to break skin, suckle the wound before it closes up.
Just a taste.
Paloma pulls away, her eyes wide, and hazy, far away. Kisa wonders what her blood showed her. It's different every time, for everyone.
She doesn't let her move out of her lap. She holds her there, arms sliding lower, wrapped around her hips now.
She watches her handiwork close itself up.
“Stay,” she whispers.
Kisa doesn't want to deny her.
“Satisfied?” Kisa asks, licking her lips. She already knows the answer.
“I don't forgive you,” Paloma says with a bloodied mouth, and gives her a bruising kiss.
Kisa expects nothing less.