Opaque

Chapter 9

"Now can you please tell me why I am married to you?" I ask Ares, crossing my arms. He took a quick look at me, focusing back on making the coffee. The smell of coffee is heavenly to me. I grew addicted to smelling it when I was a little girl. I practically grew up, dipping Cuban bread into my cup of coffee. I love coffee. I cannot imagine for me to deal without coffee for one day. I would die.

He is still shirtless, pouring coffee into two white cups for him and I. He put something red, that I took a double take to see what it was. He set my cup on small plate on the white table for me. It was a red rose for me. He brought creamer and sugar cubes for us to use to the table too. I did marveled at his body but now I see. Gunshots wounds, old scars and new scars are all over. Whips, too. Dios mio. I thought, What happened? What is going on with him?

He sits down across me, drinking his steaming black coffee. After he set it down, he looks at me and says, "I am your husband for your own safety reasons. I know you want the truth but I will eventually tell you the truth. For now, I want to keep you safe..." "Why not just call the police if I'm not safe or in a harm's way?" I intend to ask again. "For the police in America or here, they won't help you because I'm in a secret organization. In this secret organization, nobody ever heard of them, nobody." Ares says, he radiates intensity from his body. "Perhaps the president of this country, but not even, he would want this group to be gone. He would know this organization would kill him." "What kind of shit you are in?" I inquire. "Deep shit." He says, now he is in sorta trance. "Don't question that anymore." He is back to his intense way.

I am sipping my hot coffee, it needs more cream and sugar. I miss my International Delight Hazelnut creamer. I sigh heavily for that last batch of it to be gone in my mom's stomach. I miss my mother too much. I prayed every night for her. I prayed for God to give my mom the message that I'm okay, healthy. I miss Ava, Michael. Shit, I even miss Mr. Lawson.

"But this, I can tell you. You are free to go anywhere within this house and the backyard. You are not to go anywhere without me unless I say so to attend somewhere or I feel I can trust you." Ares says quietly. "I do have friends who will come by to check on you. You will meet all of them at some point. This I can guarantee you, the red roses may look like it is nothing but behind the leaves, the fence has electricity. It is 1,000 volts." He casually drinks his coffee as he says this.

"Are they going to hurt me?" I blurt out. "Hell, no." He spats out. "I will kill them if they ever thought of that. They are my co-workers if you want to think of them that way. I simply call them my brothers... Some of them have his own wife, some of them have girlfriends and some of them doesn't have one." I tend to change the subject to keep the conversation going. "Ares, does you think that I'm a virgin?" I intend to ask him if he knew. "No, I can pretty much tell." He stares at me with the coffee in his hands on the table. "But how do you know? Maybe I am a virgin." "I know you are not. I'm okay with it. I had made love to plenty of women before. I should have the best experience." He grins wickedly as he is taking another sip. I blushes furiously. "But how do you know I am not?" I stammers as I am debilitating behind my cup of coffee. "Because I am married to you."

Jesus.