A few weeks ago, after brooding for days and emptying bottles of American wine, beer, ale and malt liquor down his gut, he suspected that his wife was cheating on him, and he was broken-hearted. His wife had grown cool, if not cold, and cranky, if not impossibly horrible. In bed she moved away from him, and complained about his weight and sweat, and said, she wanted to sleep! This made him almost strike out in frustration and anger, and he was well known among his friends as a mild tempered man who kept his pain within. His wife, had been a passionate woman. She had been always willing and open to him, needing and loving, wanting his constant, close, physical presence. And getting into her bed had been good, but now it had become like getting in bed with a block of ice and sleeping alongside a nothing. Hector could not believe that a woman who had loved the physical pleasures as much as his wife could just stop wanting to share them with him. Hell, could just stop wanting to have them at all! He thought she had to be doing something with somebody else. This thought almost made him crazy. Hector went to the Senora for help.
The Senora was a very important person in the community. She was a good lady and possessed special gifts: powers. Hector begged her to use her powers to make his wife be warm again, to make her smile like she used to, to let him know if his wife had remained true to him. The Senora was glad to help. She listened to Hector, and when he was finished describing his problem with his wife in detail, the Senora told him," A wife's love is like an evergreen, ever fresh and beautiful if cared for, appreciated and given nourishment, but if neglected, the love withers, the leaves of life fall away."
Hector eyes went hard like two little black rocks sat out in two large bulging masses of whiteness rung with red. His face was strained and tired, as if the whole world was bearing down on him. He scratched his head, stuttered and asked, "You mean, she's cheating on me?"
He slumped back in the chair, his head down, nearly touching his elbows.
The Senora said quietly, "You must act now before the temptation comes."
Hector shouted, "Why should she cheat on me!"
His heart seemed ripped from his soul, and his face was about to break loose and drift over the breach. The Senora reached across the small table, took and held his right hand, and examined closely his left palm. Using one finger, she made a small tight circle on his palm, and said she was stripping away a wall to look forward and backwards, and further, to expose his life and his wife's to the clear light of the all-seeing-eye. Then, she said happily, "Your wife is faithful. She is not cheating on you."
Much relief broke onto Hector's face. His free hand went to his eyes to rub back a tear. Embarrassed, he began to rub his cheeks, as if he was smoothing his face, rubbing the lines and the pain out his face. He said sheepishly, "I had a crazy hunch only . . ." He laughed and words began to burst from his mouth like happy, boyishly blown bubbles,--
". . . I am a stupid donkey! She isn't unfaithful! I am loco!"
The Senora said, "Your doubts were only natural. You work hard, for long hours." She moved her fingers down his palm to his wrist, turned his hand over and stared at the veins.
Hector continued to babble, "My wife is a good woman. She always has been good. I must really be real loco. I mean crazy for thinking --"
The Senora said, "Hector!"
Gently, she stopped his babbling with a smile. "Trusting is good when all we have is trust," she said. "But, when we can be sure, there is nothing better than knowing things for sure, don't you agree?" She slowly withdrew her hand from Hector's, leaned back in the chair, closed her eyes and began a low chant that Hector could not understand. He leaned forward in his chair, strained his ears and brain to try to hear and understand the whispered, mumbled, muddled words that he heard the Senora mutter from her marvelous, magical, mouthing lips -- words that went into the muffled mass of street noises that got passed the closed window and drawn drapes of the Senora's house. The street noises and the Senora's secret mutterings gave Hector more than a little head strain. After a few minutes, the Senora spoke clearly, loudly, welcomed words that worked like a soothing, rubbing oil that sent away the annoying strain.
"There is a potion," the Senora said.
Hector leaned closer, as far as he could and remain seated. He was anxious for the marvelous words that he just knew would follow.
"There are magical formulas and spells, physical and spoken, that guarantees marital bliss," the Senora told him.
Hector told the Senora, he would be tied and blinded and set down in Hell if he could not have that potion. There was no stopping his need. Whatever he was, he was in love with his wife. "I've got to have it now!" he shouted.
The Senora took his palm again, touched his forehead with her other hand. She whispered a powerful love incantation, a spell, she told him, that would make any woman his. Hector felt the Senora's magic charge through him like a small electric shock.
"Please, Senora, I must have the potion!" he begged.
The Senora smiled. "Yes, for a small fee."
"Oh?" said Hector. "I don't have much money."
"You may pay in installments. How much do you have on you?"
"Twenty," he said. "Brought only that."
The Senora smiled. "Twenty now; the rest when you get results."
Hector was so happy that he burst out laughing, clapped his hands and grinned.
"But, listen," the Senora said. "You must follow my instructions, exactly, or the magic will not work."
Hector promised, "I shall do it as you say."
The Senora gave him a small pouch full of tiny, grounded up leaves, herbs, skins, hairs and magic. "Keep it tied the way I have tied it," she instructed. "Remember, this is part of an ancient Aztec ritual that must not be broken."
"I shall! I shall!" Hector bobbed up and down in his seat. He could not sit still.
The Senora said, "Young man, every night when you get home, before going to bed, you must bathe yourself using this oil, a drop, only a drop in your bath."
The Senora gave Hector a small green label-less bottle with some liquid in it. "Remember, only a drop. A drop every night and no more than a drop."
"Just that? No soap? " he asked.
"Hmm?" the Senora murmured.
"Is this special soap?" Hector asked.
"It is magic," said the Senora. "Go to the store and buy soap, bathe with bubble bath if you wish."
"Bubble bath helps the magic?" Hector asked.
"Remember the magic oil, only a drop."
"I shall," promised Hector.
The Senora said, "Every night fresh underwear, jockey shorts, what ever suits you . . ."
Hector listened, intently, nodding.
"A drop of this magical medicine from this blue bottle sprinkled on your underwear every night." She gave Hector a small blue bottle of liquid. She continued with the instructions, "You must do the ritual dance before getting into bed. It is the dance for young men to perform, champions of love, strong, devoted, loving men to dance."
"How do you do the dance?" Hector asked.
The Senora answered, "The magic shall show you. Just dance and think of your loving wife and dance."
"For how long?"
"One minute, one minute, not a minute more."
"Good! I've got it!" Hector grinned.
The Senora nodded patiently, and told him, "When dancing say to yourself in thought: I love my wife. I love my wife."
Hector hung onto the Senora's every word. His eyes were as big as a child listening to something wonderful.
"Place the pouch under the mattress on the side of the bed where your wife sleeps," the Senora instructed. "The most important thing before you get into bed is to say to your wife out loud: I love you."
Hector thought for a while, then, he asked, "Is that it?"
The Senora replied, "What do you expect for a couple hundred dollars?"
Hector asked, "Don't I get no magic words to say?"
The Senora said, "Oh, magic words . . . Well, for twenty five dollars more I shall give you magical words so powerful that when spoken will seal your wife's love to you forever."
"Good!" exclaimed Hector. "That's what I want!"
The Senora said, "You'll owe me twenty five dollars more."
"Sure!" Hector nodded.
The Senora's voice dropped into a whisper. "Let me write these words down, " she said. "They are too powerful to be spoken unless spoken at the proper time during the ritual of the dance and they should not be spoken aloud, only spoken in thought."
She scribbled the words on a torn piece of brown paper, writing them in red ink. The writing was hard to read, which was the way it was supposed to be since its magic was meant only for her clients and not for someone who may happen to come across it. She folded the paper and gave it to Hector.
"Remember, this is very powerful magic. Show this to no one, and speak these words only in thought, and only at the proper time."
Hector reverently took the note, and placed it in his shirt pocket.
* * *
A week later, Hector's entrance into the Senora's parlor spoke volumes as to the success of his adventure into magic. He sat at the table, showed his grinning teeth. His grin got wider and wider. He opened his mouth to speak praises of the Senora, and he was so excited that his breath came out in spurts.
"Relax, young man, you're hyperventilating," The Senora spoke sweetly to him.
He took several minutes before he could speak of his joy. When he spoke his praise of her, of his wife, of womanhood was boundless. "My wife is the most beautiful! The most wonderful woman in the world! And you're the wisest! The greatest lady in the world! Women are wonderful! Just wonderful!" He sucked in his breath. His hand slapped his own belly hard.
The Senora asked softly, "Tell me, what happened, please?"
Hector laughed. "What happened? Magic happened, just like you said, just the way you say, you, wonderful lady!"
"Yes, but aren't you going to tell me the details?" the Senora asked.
"Donkey me, yes!" answered Hector. "Yes! Yes . . !"
The Senora listened patiently, to his expressions of delight, and waited for him to settle down to give the details. Several minutes passed before Hector began.
"At first my wife said she thought I was nuts, taking baths at night and dancing around our bedroom in my underwear . . ." Hector began. "She later told me she was about to come see you, to see if I was possessed." He laughed. "That's funny, right?"
The Senora smiled.
Hector continued, "Well, she thought I was crazy, maybe, trying to scare her away. She got scared at first. She told me later. When she was cleaning the room, making the bed, she turned the mattress over on the box spring, the way you are supposed to do, so that the mattress won't wear out on one side. She turns the mattress over every couple of months so we can sleep on both sides and the mattress lasts longer. Well, she found the pouch and she got scared. She was going to take the children and leave. She thought it was a black magic pouch to kill her, curse her or something. She went to the priest and told him about it. She was so scared. Father Reyes told her to talk to me about it. She didn't for two days, she was so scared, then last night she got up out of bed, jumped on me when I was dancing in my underwear. Sweat was dripping down her face and tears were pouring from her eyes. She was banging her fists against my chest, calling herself fighting me, and her throat was hoarse, she was so angry. She scared me. I couldn't understand it. I thought she was going crazy. She was tearing herself inside out. She didn't hurt me. I am strong, my chest is as hard as a rock. It was easy physically for me to push her off, but not emotionally. I was feeling bad and scared, afraid the magic might have gone wrong. I stopped her from hitting me. I held her still until she calmed some and stopped fighting. I told her to stop crying. I hoped to get some sense in her . . ."
The Senora's head lay back on the head rest of her high back chair as she listened.
Hector continued, "My wife's eyes were red and burning, were running tears, and sweat, and her sweat was dripping on me, and her words were choking back. At first I couldn't even ask her what she was afraid of before she would start up crying loudly. After what must have been a half hour, she told me. And do you know what I did? I laughed. Man, was I relieved. I had her just where I wanted her: in love with me. I told her about me coming here, about the magic you gave me and she said: if I went through all that trouble I must love her very much. And I told her that was what I had been telling her all these years."
The Senora smiled, "Hector, now happiness reigns in your home?"
"Yes!" Hector exclaimed and he let out a shout of joy. He looked at the Senora through shining eyes. Straight above her head, he could swear he saw a halo.
(c) Copyrighted 1993. All Rights Reserved
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