Another Wrong Turn

By Steph

I read the ad again. Virgentrix Corporation needed subjects to test its new creation. They were virtual reality pioneers and they had created a theme park type virtual reality, with a twist, they said, without detailing the difference: Banderas World, based on the movies of Antonio Banderas. The ad was directed to chicas.

Well, I wasn't a chica, but I was familiar with Antonio Banderas.

When I returned from Mexico, after my little adventure in the Sonoran Desert, I became obsessed with the legend of El Mariachi. I told myself that the whole thing was a dream, yet I could not convince myself that the mariachi did not exist, so I did some research and discovered that indeed, he was a legend. There were even a couple of movies made about him and one movie starred Antonio Banderas, who, to my shock, looked very much like my desert hallucination. I watched other Banderas movies but it was Desperado I stared at most nights, wondering if I should seek a therapist to make the dreams go away.

I didn't want the dreams to go away.

And now Virgentrix offered life-like fantasy worlds with the characters of Antonio Banderas.

I sent an email to the listed address.

The month I waited passed like a century. All I could think about was El Mariachi. They wanted to know, in detail, what role I wanted to play going in. Apparently, the program responded to my actions once started, but they needed my initial intentions to create the scenario. The company pushed interaction. It was a test, after all. But I could not choose and decided to go in as a ghost who would only materialize upon direct interaction with El Mariachi.

I never was very good at planning things out.

The day finally arrived. I wore jeans, a loose cotton shirt and black cowboy boots. The Virgentrix attendant gave me a cowboy hat, she said, to keep the sun out of my eyes. I looked at the door I was to enter and wondered why she thought the sun would bother me on a set, but took it without comment. She reminded me that the story had to play through completely and asked if I had any questions. I was too nervous and said nothing.

The door opened. I swallowed and stepped inside the Tarasco Bar. I stood just inside the doors for a moment, studying the dirty place, with groups of rough Mexican men at tables, gambling and drinking. The bartender didn't even glance at me, assuring me that I was unseen.

Then the door swung open and struck me in the back. The skinny fellow, El Mariachi's best friend, said, "Excuse me," and ambled to the bar. The bartender looked at him and glanced at me, and I felt suddenly faint. I thought I wasn't supposed to be noticed. I stood a moment longer until an unwashed heavyset man with days old whiskers came towards me, a leering hunger on his face.

Virgentrix blew it, I thought, and turned to step out of the program to tell them.

Instead, I stepped into the streets of Santa Cecilia. Holy shit. Now what?

I started walking down the street, ignoring the calls of the vendors who wanted me to buy their serapes and camisetas. I stopped at one store and bought a fresca limón. I had about a hundred dollars in my pocket, and wondered where this real money went as I handed it over to the vendor. Standing on the sidewalk in the shade, I could feel the sweat forming at the rim of the hat and decided to just keep in the background. Obviously, the door that struck me was all the contact needed to place me firmly within the program, which wasn't what I had asked for, but, okay, that's why they're testing.

After awhile of indecision I decided to cross the street to the hotel and see if there was a room. I was drenched in sweat from the unbearable Mexican heat by now and needed a cool bath. For sixteen American dollars, the friendly hotel matron showed me a clean enough tiled room with a double bed and a ceramic bath, reminding me why I loved to travel in Mexico. A warm breeze danced through the open second story window, which looked out on the street, and the Tarasco Bar. Before dusk, I went to the bookstore and bought a book from Carolina, a sweet and beautiful young woman who gave me a free cup of coffee just so I would sit and talk to her about America. She wanted to be an actress, she said, and I remembered how my hallucination the year before told me that she had left him for Hollywood. I left after dark with a book about famous Mexican legends. There was no mention of El Mariachi. Of course not, they didn't write about him until after the incidents which were about to take place.

As I prepared for bed, I noticed I still had a hundred dollars. So, I was spending virtual money, good.

The next morning, I went back to the coffee shop/bookstore because it turned out that it was the only place that sold a decent cup of java. I started to shop for a change of clothing when I saw him.

He walked like a big cat, smooth, dangerous, wearing the black Mariachi outfit he wore in the movie and on desert roads. He carried that guitar case to the Tarasco Bar and sat on the curb to light a cigarette. I walked to the other side of the street, leaned against the wall, and waited.

He began showing a kid how to play guitar, then glanced up and saw me watching him. After a moment, he turned his attention back to the kid, leaving me shocked and breathing hard from the encounter. Before I knew it, he was stepping into the bar, guitar case in hand.

No one else on the street seemed to pay attention to the loud noise coming from the bar, the rapid gunfire, the shouts and screams. Though there were signs that they heard because people crossed the street, steering clear of the window and door. I, on the other hand, felt inexplicably drawn to the danger and gripped a post to fight the urge to enter that slaughterhouse.

He came out, his hair wild, his chest rising and falling with each step. I matched his quick pace on the opposite walk, noting when the two fisted gunman began to follow, hearing the crash that Carolina's beauty caused ahead.

"Watch out!" I called, as the gunman raised both barrels to fire.

El Mariachi turned and fired through the serapes. The gunman flew backwards from the impact. People scattered. Carolina froze, still in the street and I stayed in my spot, cursing myself for changing the plot. Now what?

Now, he started walking towards me. I looked for a difference between him and the man I had met in the Sonoran Desert. His face lacked a few small scars. Matter of fact, this face lacked any scar or blemish at all. My mouth opened but no words came out. He grabbed my arm and began pulling me down the street.

"Where are we going?" I asked, practically running to keep up with his pace.

"Away from here," he said, his voice harsh, breathless. He pulled me with one hand and carried his guitar case with the other. It felt so familiar. Then he pushed me into an alleyway, against a dirty adobe wall and said, "Do I know you?" He set his case down, opened it and began loading his guns with ammunition. "I think we have met before."

"I'm just an American tourist," I said, crouching down to examine his weapons. The smaller pistol I had held in the desert seemed to beckon me and I lifted it. He watched me weigh it in my hand, testing the grip. His wary eyes studied me and I smiled. "I've heard of you, though."

"Hmm," he said. "You like that one?"

"Yeah, I like it," I said.

"You don't plan to use it on me?"

"No," I said. I looked up, saw the scar-faced knife throwing man reach for one of his weapons. I aimed and shot him through the hand and chest. The gun kicked back, but not enough to throw me off my crouched position.

My handsome companion's head jerked to the side, his guns at ready. He stood and approached the bloody figure. "Who is this guy?" He pulled the dead man deeper into the alley.

"I don't know, some guy about to kill us," I said, and stood, my adrenaline in overdrive. Okay, Virgentrix, you want me to play, then let's play. I lowered the pistol to my side and approached its owner, who watched me, curiously. I reached and touched his cheek, moist from perspiration, gripped him at the back of the neck and pulled his head toward mine. It took little effort and soon our mouths locked in a kiss that communicated the base excitement we felt from killing. It became our primal release as he pushed me against the wall, our weapons dropping to the ground. We pressed into each other, our mouths connecting our souls, our sweat seeming to melt the clothing between us.

"You think its all a game," he whispered in Spanish. "You think they control this."

"Who?" I whispered back, my hands beneath his jacket.

"Virgentrix," he whispered before running his tongue along my lobe and down my neck.

I stiffened.

"Let's get out of here," he said, forcing himself away from me with a heavy breath. He packed his guns in the case, except those he refit into his sleeves. I shoved the pistol into the back of my jeans and pulled my shirt out to hide it. He took my hand and led me down the alley and through the town in a zigzag pattern.

"What about Bucho?" I asked.

"You know Bucho?" he asked, suddenly tense. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," I said, relieved. I obviously had another hallucination. I really did need a therapist. "Carolina knows."

"Who?"

"The woman who owns the bookstore," I said.

He stopped at the end of one street and pressed against the wall, signaling for me to do the same. He peeked around the corner, grabbed my hand again and pulled me across the street to an old building that I initially thought was abandoned. It turned out to be the back of an old hotel. His room looked like something a cheap whore could afford for an hour or two. He left me in the main room and stepped into the bathroom where he threw water on his face and tied his hair back. When he returned, I still stood in the middle of the room, thinking that I'd never seen this room before, definitely not in the movie.

"Tonight, you go to this bookstore and find out where Bucho is," he said, dropping onto his back on the bed.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to sleep," he said, then switching to Spanish, he said, "after making love to you all afternoon." He closed his eyes. "But if you don't come over here now, I will just sleep. I have had a very trying day."

I removed my boots and started to climb over him onto the other side of the bed. He stopped me as I stretched over him, gripped my hip with one hand and pulled the pistol out of my pants with the other.

"We don't want that going off now, hm?"

"No," I said, "I suppose not." I could see that the adrenaline-induced energy had worn off in him, and felt it wearing off in myself. If not faced with this beautiful man, I would want nothing more than sleep. But I was faced with this beautiful man.

I kissed him and his hand moved to unbutton my shirt. Mine began working at his belt. It was no scene from the movie. There were no candles, but we needed no fire beyond that provided by our passion. There was no music, yet our rhythm followed the beat of our hearts. The contours of his body felt familiar as the memory of each scar came back to me. The touch of his lips against my skin, the way he filled me, I knew this man.

As I sighed in his arms, I said, "I am supposed to be a ghost."

"So am I," he said.

I leaned up and touched his face. Along the right side, near his ear, I felt the scar that had been lacking earlier.

He took my fingers and kissed them. "I told you once, everyone I care for seems to die."

I laughed. "I'm not dead. This is a virtual reality program."

"This is for Writing Chicas only. Are you a writing chica?"

I stared at his dark shadow. He turned his head to face me. "Are you?"

"No."

I lay down in his arms and wondered how to make this program end.