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| Boca de Iguana with friends. |
Boca de Iguana with friends, Manzanilla with crocodiles, and finally in Rincon de Guayabitos in a destination campground we stopped for a longer sojourn. Let us just say that travel is a good way to know somebody and fissures that had been revealing themselves had just become a crack. I was needing to cool off. Quickly.
I set out onto the beach. I was walking quickly seeking the calming affect of the ocean when some boys came by and began to speak to me in Spanish. I say boys, they seemed like boys, but they were closer to twenty. I just spoke quickly in Spanish that I did not want to talk and kept moving without paying much attention. I began to feel better. By now it was dark, I had covered the breadth of a sandy bay and the stars were out. I may not have had resolution to what I was feeling but clearly it was time to return whether I was looking forward to it or not.
I made my way along the shore glad for the starlight gleaming on the waves. It was hard to see. Suddenly the same boys parted from the shadows on a wall. There were three. They surrounded me. I backed up with the ocean behind me and like wolves they closed in. A cold fear coagulated as I realized I was cornered. "Oooh miss you are so beautiful," I hear one say. One stepped forward, grabbed a breast and retreated. With difficulty I focused on a feeling of incredulity. I was old enough to be their mother, maybe their grandmother. Did they need glasses? The slightly bigger one reached forward and grabbed my crotch and then he stepped back. The world immediately slowed. Frame by frame my mind reached for a quiet puff of thought as I remembered words from long ago. It was of a tea cup reader I had seen. She told me I would be sexually assaulted against a wall. Her words had frightened me at the time. Eventually I had forgotten her words. Until now.
Something in me turned over. Not a chance. I swiftly take in their height. I am bigger. This is not going to happen. Not these punks. Not on my life. With that thought I felt myself puff up. It was as if some primal force inside of me was tapped into. I grew and I grew. Instinctively I knew I needed to make a sound. Screaming wasn't big enough for I felt huge. I seemed to bump my head against the stars. I threw back my head and opened my lips. I reared and I roared, a surging torrent of carnal rage. It overflowed from gaping hairy jaws and the roaring seemed endless. A red ferocity of the she-grizzly possessed me and I knew in this savagery I could easily tear them limb from limb. Then I did what grizzlies do. I charged. I charged roaring with claws outstretched and I went for the throat of the boy who had gone for me. But he was not there.
They had vanished. The night was quiet once again. I was alone. Was I? Was I really?