Page 1 of His Gilded Cage

When I remember my childhood days in Guadalajara, I see my mother’s white doves in cages. I hear the rustle of skirts in our courtyard as girls spin and twirl before my father as if he were a king. I see Carmella climb over the wall to our garden at night. I smell the scent of the stolen oranges she brought for us to share. I taste the bitter and sweet citrus on her lips the very first time we kiss.

I hold these memories in my mind with the same tenderness I would grasp a precious but torn photograph. These fragments are all I have of the boy I was before I learned the truth. These are my treasures, my relics of a life disappeared.

They are also all lies.

Growing up inside our walled garden, I felt as though I were a prince in a secret kingdom. As I grew from a boy into a man, a truth about my past gnawed at my subconscious whispering for me to look closer, daring me to admit what I had known all along.

My father claimed the walls around our home were built to keep us safe, to protect us from the beggars and thieves that roamed a vicious city.

I know now that the walls did more than keep the world out, they kept my mother and me trapped inside.

We lived in a gilded cage.

I threw back a shot of tequila banging the glass on the bar. “Another, amore,” I said, leaning forward and smiling at the bartender. She was a gorgeous woman, small and curvy with the tattoo of a snake wrapping around her upper arm.

I imagined, for a moment, drizzling lime juice on her body and licking salt off her skin. What would she taste like? Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to disappear into the heat of her body. I craved her like an addict.

“What’s your name amore?” I asked, wondering why I’d never seen her behind the bar.

I was no stranger to El Pescado but this seductress was a new addition to the staff, a great improvement over Earl, a grizzled old man with two missing teeth.

“No names,” she said, drying a glass with a towel. “It’s better that way. I think we both know that.” She reached for a bottle and poured me another shot. “Here you go Guapo.” Then she bent over slowly returning the bottle to a lower shelf.

Her perfectly curved ass lifted in the air. She held it there longer than necessary turning her head and winking at me to be sure I’d noticed.

I had more than noticed.

I wanted to bite into her like a peach.

Playing with me, she stood up and leaned in presenting her cleavage to me as if it were a gift.

“Dios Mio, woman,” I said, inhaling slowly as I held the drink in my hand.

She stared me down, arms crossed with a mischievous grin.

I looked around the bar. It was 4:00 a.m. and totally empty with the exception of a man sleeping in a corner booth. Anyone with good sense had stumbled into bed hours ago.

The radio played soft flamenco music. It reminded me of the parties my parents used to throw at the mansion in Guadalajara. People danced and music played until sunrise in those days. Carmella would knock on my bedroom door. I’d take her hand and we’d slip through the darkened halls of the house looking for places to be alone. We were young lovers then and Carmella still looked at me as if I had the power to command the sun and the moon to rise.

I slammed back my tequila shot. The bitter liquor reminded me that this was my present. The past was gone, along with Carmella’s fragile love for me.

This was where I belonged, in this beachside bar with dark corners and empty tables. I came here when I wanted to drink or get lucky and find a beautiful woman to fuck.

I came here to forget my own name.

“I like your ink,” the bartender whispered, tracing a finger along the angel wings that decorated my forearm. This was my latest addition. I’d started the tattoo the year I turned sixteen.

“It’s sexy,” she said, tracing circles across my skin. “You have plans tonight.”

“No plans,” I said, meeting her gaze.

The woman poured me another drink. I reached to pick it up but stopped when she pouted. “Tsk, tsk,” she said wagging her finger at me.

“I think it’s better if the man waits for the woman.” She poured herself a shot of tequila. “Don’t you agree?”

“Always,” I said. “I always wait for the woman.”

“Good,” she said. “You look like a man who understands what a woman needs.”

---