Sweetish

Chapter 10

After picking up the batch Dulce was ready to go back, but Sammy, in her endless curiosity, had a different idea.

"Hey," she inquired, "what's further down?"

As Dulce lifted up a bunch of full, having baskets, ten in each arm all heavy like bricks of gold, he looked puzzled at this question, and could only respond with a "Huh?" On the first take.

Sammy asks again. "What's further down in the cave? Is it just more crystals?"

"Oh uh," he desperately tried to find the right words for this. He hadn't been prepared for this. What is he supposed to say? That it's a crypt? That there's dead bodies and ghosts? Underwater cave ghosts?

If he told her, she would want to go see, take pictures and ultimately disturb his ancestors. If she did that she would post pictures and would unknowingly feed into the racist conspiracies that he and his people are just cannibalistic savages, who only care for greed and gluttony. Is it possible to be banished twice? After what he did, they may end up just beheading him.  His culture is, unfortunately, not shy about what they do to "pariahs". It's how they kept the peace all this time. Or more so, kept things under the rug.

Then again if he didn't tell her, she would know it's important. He could lie and say it was nothing, but to her even 'nothing' could be transformed into a portrait of beauty and elegance. She would find it eventually, and again, underwater cave ghost conspiracy.

Or, knowing how she is when unfocused, she could simply get lost and die. Or get lost and get diabetes and die. Or be killed by some rogue soldier who didn't know the war had ended, if there are any left. Or get kidnapped by some theorist who decided to take things too far. Or be eaten by cannibalistic underwater cave ghosts.

Mabye that last one is a stretch, but there are a LOT of his ancestors down in those depths. Or maybe Sammy's cartoon obsession is just rubbing off on him.

When he finally came up with a good half truth, he felt like a con artist. "It's holy land. We aren't allowed any deeper." Good, good. That's technically not a lie. It certainly didn't feel good, but it was the best choice he had.

"Aww, darn." She sighed with dismay, before lifting only two half full bags only to drop one from the sheer weight of it. When Dulce realized how easy it was for her to believe it, his stomach dropped with the same amount of weight.

For once, her slender frame seemed to be keeping her from achieving her goal instead of being a shortcut. "How are you doing that?"

"Doing what? This?" He starts to flex, posing and stretching, lifting the baskets as if they weighed nothing at all. Sammy can't help but laugh at this ridiculous, tiny little Mr. Universe in front of her, causing her to drop the second basket. "Yes, that. How did you get so bi- I mean strong?" Her cheeks turned pink at her own mistake. She certainly didn't mean he was fat. She likes fat. Or no, he looks good fat. Or he's not fat. Unless that's a good thing? Is it? Is that racist? Is she racist?

Dulce takes a deep breath to ignore the slip, and answers with conviction. "My body," he started "is the body that was given to me by my people, my ancestors and by my Gods. It's strong and warm and full. I look like my Gods and I am sculpted like the sand by the very ocean itself, my ocean, therefore I am already perfect. I know around here 'beauty standards' may be a little different than what I grew up with," he continues as he steps back toward the entrance, "but back home aside from this outfit, you probably wouldnt be able to tell me apart from most guys. I'm actually considered quite pretty back home."

As they exit the cave and are nearly blinded by the bright and full moonlight, one question rung in Sammy's head.

Only back home, huh?

Her eyes, either in attempt to escape the moons rays or as yet another slip, slid down from his mighty arms, to is full and wide back, down to the star stickers on his well filled back pockets she so tenderly hand sewn onto her old school uniform slacks. They seemed to fit him much better than they fit her.

Her hands are free now, save for her folded coat and blouse, as the baskets were too heavy for her to hold. If only... He's so close, if she could just...

"OW!!!"