by Chrissy

Kelli's mood was low. She had driven around this crumbling region of Mexico for two whole weeks and nothing inspired her. Inspiration - so elusive and yet so necessary to her existence.

Kelli was a renowned photographer. At the tender age of 10 she had received a camera as a Christmas gift and, from that moment on, she recorded life through the magic of the camera lens. A unique talent was revealed. Her photographs were original, daring and exciting. At age 18 the first gallery exhibit of her work drew highest praise and honours for one so young. She became the toast of New York and LA, and entered the heady world of TV appearances, magazine covers and world tours. Her next two shows only solidified her obvious talent. However, at age 26 following a brief, troubled marriage she discovered her knack for taking just the right shot, at just the right angle, with just the right light, to be gone. Her last gallery show proved a disaster. The critics crucified her. She had to reclaim herself.

So here she was in Mexico seeking inspiration. And it was about to arrive in a very unusual form.

As she sped along the dusty Mexican rural road, she cranked up the air-conditioning in the rented Ford sedan. It was high noon and the heat outside stifling. She adjusted her sunglasses and peered through the insect spattered windshield into the distance. In the shimmering distorted heat she thought she saw the figure of a man striding along the side of the road. She put a hand beneath the sunglasses to rub her dazzled eyes. What kind of a man walked with such purpose in this terrible heat? And he appeared to be wearing a dusty, black worsted matador suit emblazoned with the emblem of a scorpion, and holding a large black bag As she came closer she recognized it was a guitar case he held. Silver chains adorned his pants and swayed with every strong stride. As her car came alongside he turned and raised his thumb in the typical hitchhiker gesture.

Kelli.s breath caught in her throat. She had heard the expression .breathtaking. before, but she had never actually experienced the sensation. Yet here unexpectedly in the wild Mexican outback she had encountered an extraordinary man and he truly was breathtakingly gorgeous.

She braked hard and hit the button lowering the window on the passenger side. Surrounded by a haze of dust churned up by the car, he leaned in and regarded her with a smile. His long straight hair was caught back in a ponytail but much of it had become loose and clung to his perspiring handsome face. He had wide-spaced, tawny eyes and full sensuous lips.

"Where are you headed?" she asked catching her breath. Kelli had been raised with Spanish nannies and possessed a natural affinity for languages. She was totally fluent in Spanish.

He said the name of a town. "But that.s a good 15 miles away" she exclaimed. "Surely you.re not going to walk all that way in this heat?"

"Not if you give me a ride" he grinned, his teeth glistening white against the amber, sun-burnished skin.

"Jump in" she said, ignoring all the warning signals that went off in her brain. She had a great deal of expensive camera equipment in the car, not to mention a couple of thousand American dollars in her purse. This man could rape and murder her and no one would know. The road was hardly well travelled. She.d seen few other cars. But her years behind the camera had granted her a sixth sense about people. There was something tantalizingly wild and unrestrained about him, violence and disorder were part of his world, yet she felt confident she would be safe. He would not harm her.

He tossed the guitar case into the back seat and jumped into the car. She raised the window and hit the Hi switch on the air-conditioning. They were immediately blasted with icy cold air which she thought he would appreciate, for he must have been dying in all that heat. She jerked the car into gear and started off down the road.

They drove in silence for a few miles. Kelli could not help sneaking sideways glances at his profile. Clean this guy up, she thought, dress him in an Armani suit and you.ve got a world class super model ready for the runways of New York and Madrid. He had the exceptional good looks of a model. But as quickly as this thought flashed through her mind, she realized this man embodied more substance than the average empty-eyed runway model.

"Are you a musician?" she asked, nodding toward the guitar case.

"You could say that" he replied evasively.

"Do you live in ?"

"No, I.ve never been there before." He reached into his pocked and took out a cigarette and lit it with a match. Kelli felt she would never get used to the fact that in Mexico no one ever asked if she minded if they smoked

"Oh, are you visiting someone then?"

He hesitated. "I have a score to settle".

"Revenge?" she grinned "How romantic."

"There.s nothing romantic about vengeance" he returned, his handsome features deadly serious, "It must be accomplished, that is all"

"But revenge for what?" asked Kelli. "A broken heart?"

He dragged hard on the cigarette holding it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Smoke streamed from his nose and mouth. "My heart is ripped, my soul is torn" was his curious reply.

A heavy silence fell between them.

"Wow! Somebody really rocked your world" Kelli finally muttered in English. She assumed it was a broken love affair that had hurt him so and experienced a bizarre feeling of envy for the woman who possessed the power to wound him this deeply.

Now he fascinated her even more. Here was a man with a past. A romantic man with a story to tell. An unusual man. A man brimming with pain and passion. A man who had done some time in hell.

All at once she tasted creative juices and excitement coursed through her. She HAD to photograph him. She knew she could capture his essence, his pain, his torment. But what could she say? What was her best approach? He obviously was a man who had been hurt so badly he didn.t just put up fences, he put up brick walls. Their destination was fast approaching and she eased off the accelerator. She didn.t want to arrive too quickly. She needed time with her fellow nomad - to persuade him.

The car quickly filled with his cigarette smoke and Kelli lowered her window a fraction. He shifted in his seat " You can open all the windows," he said, his tawny eyes flashing amber in the bright sunlight " I like to feel the wind" .

"Oh - I thought you would have appreciated the air conditioning - being so hot and all. Listen, I.ll turn if off". She hit the switch and lowered the windows. The car instantly filled with humid air and dust. But she had to admit, he had a point, it was pleasant to feel the scented desert breeze alive with the aroma of sweet grasses brush against her skin.

"It.s going to storm" he said, smoke trailing from his mouth with every word. He pointed to some ominous black clouds on the horizon.

Kelli was about to reply when, without warning, the front tire blew and the car skidded wildly out of control finally coming to a halt in a cloud of dust.

Kelli switched off the engine. "Oh my God" she cried in English. Yet inwardly she was elated. She had wanted more time with this exciting man and providence had provided it in the form of a blown tire.

"I hope there.s a spare" she said, watching as he took two quick drags on his cigarette and flicked the butt out of the window. "Let.s see" he replied.

They climbed from the car and together opened the trunk. It was filled with cameras, tripods, and a suitcase of clothes, but he shoved these aside to reveal the spare. He reached in and pulled the tire out rolling it toward the front of the car. "See if there.s a jack" he directed.

She poked around and found the jack and when she returned to him she was startled to see that he had removed the matador jacket and grimy cotton shirt. Her eyes ran over his glistening bronzed torso and followed the thin line of smooth hairs that led the way down inside his pants. His long wild mane had finally escaped the confines of the pony tail and hung in disarray around broad muscular shoulders. As he worked she watched the muscles of his tanned back expand and contract. She wanted to run her hands over that smooth skin but, more importantly, she experienced an overwhelming compulsion to photograph him. Returning to the open trunk she took up her camera. With expert fingers she focused and took six quick photos.

He stood up in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"I hope you don.t mind" she breathed anxiously, "I.m a professional photographer. I won.t have them printed without your permission of course. Do you mind?"

He shrugged "I don.t care, but I.d better remove these" To her surprise he took two small guns from the waistband of his pants and threw them into the back seat. Kelli.s heart began to pound.

"Are they loaded" she asked, her eyes wide with excitement. What a man this was!

"Yeah - don.t touch them" he warned, and returned to changing the tire.

It didn.t take him long. Kelli snapped a whole roll of film.

"Would you mind posing for me" she asked as he rolled the blown tire to the side of the road. The wind was rising from the oncoming storm and the backdrop of desert sky became alive with glorious shades of peach and lilac. In the increasing breeze the long wild grasses waved with growing speed. Kelli.s film medium was normally black and white. But this man deserved color. He was infused with color - from the black hair to the amber eyes to the white teeth to the burnished skin to the bright silver of the chains on the dusty black pants. She MUST shoot him in colour.

He looked at her in confusion. "Pose for you?"

" It won.t take long" she assured eagerly.

She began taking photos. God! The camera loved this beautiful, untamed man. And he was as professional as any model she had known. He quickly developed a relationship with the lens. He interacted with the camera as if it were a live entity. She knew the photos would be a sensation. One shot in particular would be the pivotal piece of this Mexican collection - he stood clutching a gun in each hand, his arms crossed over a bare chest, his head thrown back toward a blinding sun, his eyes closed; whatever torment he carried in his hard to reach .torn. soul laid bare for all to see.

The storm was fast approaching and she caught some quick final shots of him as the rain arrived and spattered them both before jumping into the car. She quickly raised the windows and the heavy storm descended upon them, plunging a bright sunny day into darkness.

"Whew, we just finished in time. Want a coke?" she asked, twisting to the back seat of the car and pulling two cans of soda from a cooler. He also reached back to his jacket and pulled his cigarettes from the pocket.

"No. I don.t mind if you smoke" she smiled handing him the coke, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

He appeared surprised at her words but lit the cigarette anyway and popped open the can of soda. He drank half the can in one gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He must have been terribly thirsty.

The ferocious wind buffeted the car, rocking it wildly. It was as if they were in their own little world inside the humid, smoky compartment.

"Don.t worry" he said with a smile, "These storms come and go quickly. The rain is needed". Kelli did not tell him she was far from being worried. In fact, she wanted the storm to last forever.

"Well, we can.t drive anywhere in this, so why don.t you play your guitar for me?" she reached behind the seat to grab his guitar case.

To her surprise he roughly caught her wrist stopping her hand. "Don.t touch it" he cried, his eyes narrowing. She looked at him in amazement. They stared at each other for a moment, then, with a sheepish grin, he relaxed, releasing his grip, "I can.t play anymore" he mumbled, "Look at my hand."

She rubbed her tender wrist. "Wow, what happened?". An ugly scar was evident in the centre of his left hand. She.d not noticed it before, and he.d had no problem changing the tire.

"Nothing to worry about" he answered bluntly. They sat in awkward silence for a while. Kelli wondered why he lugged the guitar around with him if he could not play. He was such a mysterious man. He finished the soda, smoked the cigarette and dropped the butt into the empty can. Above them the storm raged, rain lashed against the windows of the car. A sudden earsplitting crack of thunder caused them both to visibly jump. He turned and gave her a lopsided grin and the cold atmosphere between them disappeared in an instant. The car had a front bench seat and she slid from her position behind the wheel over to the passenger side and into his arms.

"I.m sorry" he murmured. "For what?" she asked. Both his arms were around her now, holding her tightly. She could smell the sweat of him, the musky aroma was not a turn off, in fact it filled her with hot desire. Kelli was a highly sexed woman and endorphins flooded her brain. She wanted him desperately. Wanted to lick and taste his moist skin, wanted to feel the heavy weight of his naked body on top of hers, to feel him moving inside her - deliciously big and hard.

For a moment he looked into her face then his lips found hers. They gently nuzzled at first, before both opening their mouths for a wonderful deep kiss. Their tongues played, sometimes in his mouth, sometimes in hers. It was absolutely the greatest kiss she had ever received. Breathing heavily he transferred his mouth from her lips to her neck and his fingers tugged at the edge of her cotton T-shirt. She lifted her arms to allow him to remove the T-shirt over her head and closed her eyes in passionate abandon as his soft lips found her bare breasts. Quickly moving her legs astride him she sat in his lap. With both hands cupping her buttocks, his head buried in her breasts, he crushed her down against a growing penis.

The rain continued to lash against the windows, wind buffeted the car, condensation dripped and ran down the glass.

"Come back to LA with me" she gasped as his strong fingers pulled at her denim shorts. She lifted her hips and he tugged down her shorts and panties leaving her bare. With fumbling fingers she frantically yanked at his belt.

"I said come back to LA with me." she repeated, her breath ragged. "Leave Mexico and come back to the States with me. Forget about revenge"

It was as if she had thrown cold water into his face for, to her dismay, he stopped kissing her breasts and pulled back to regard her with dazed eyes. He shook his head in confusion as if returning to his senses.

"I cannot" he mumbled, his arms no longer surrounding her. He pushed the wild hair from his face. "I cannot stop what it is I must do. I cannot". Everything had changed. He was wary again, closing himself off. She was losing him.

"Shit!" Kelli swore bitterly under her breath in English. He lifted her from his lap and turned to the back seat to claim his cotton shirt and jacket. She could have cried aloud with frustration. Why had she said anything? Why hadn.t she kept her big stupid mouth closed?

"I have to get going" he said firmly. Their brief encounter was obviously over. Frustrated and unfulfilled, Kelli reluctantly pulled on her clothes.

As erotic passion dissolved so, too, did the raging storm. The sun found its way from behind black clouds and the drenched landscape glistened under sudden hot orange sunlight. Reluctantly Kelli started the car and opened the dripping car windows. The storm had not cleared the air, for it remained hot and muggy.

"You can drop me anywhere around here" he said a ten minutes later as they entered the crumbling Mexican town teeming with people and traffic. She stopped on a busy street and he climbed from the car.

He started to move off, but then turned back. He looked through the open window at her.

"Did I thank you?" he asked with a smile that crinkled his eyes. She shook her head and smiled back, how could anyone stay annoyed with this man?

"I will" he said with a lift of an eyebrow. Without a word he leaned in and brushed her lips softly with his own.

She watched as he wove his way through the congested Mexican street traffic. He had lit a cigarette and, with it still in his mouth, he sat down on the curb opposite and regarded a piece of paper in his hand. She was surprised to see a young boy join him at the curb and strike up a conversation. It looked as if he began to strum on a guitar for the boy to watch.

Kelli tried to see more, but the heavy traffic blocked her view and a greasy looking man dressed in black leather and twirling a small lethal knife in one hand was observing her with interest. Anyway she wanted to get home to California and develop the spectacular shots she had taken. This would be her greatest photo exhibit ever. She started the car and had pulled away before she realized she didn.t even know his name. Still, it didn.t matter. She already knew the focus for this series of photos - "Desperado".

One day she would come back and find her lonely Mexican desperado. For he must thank her as promised.

If you wish to use the images you find here in your own home page, please make sure to provide your visitors with our link: http://miguapo.com/