Innocent Abroad

Posted by Ric delCampo on October 31, 2003 at 05:01:21:

Innocent Abroad

By Ric delCampo

Boy Scout first aid training. I knew how to take a pulse.
She didn’t have one.
The eyes fooled you at first. Wide. Open. Staring.
‘Fixed and non-responsive,’ is the term you hear on the TV medical shows. Look at her eyes close enough and you’d see she wasn’t seeing anything.
Her boyfriend, or pimp, or whatever the hell he was, was more obviously dead. Head smashed into the wall, limbs all askew at odd and uncomfortable angles. And lying in a pool of blood from his toes to his head. He was face down so the slit in his throat wasn’t visible.
She was a different story. The slit in her belly, just below the navel, hadn’t bled much and was small enough to be deceiving. There were bruises on her neck. But it would have taken one of those TV medical examiners tell you which, if either, had been the cause of her death.
I sat down on the bed and took her hand. It was still warm and pliable. I was getting the shakes.
What the hell was I doing in a dingy, crappy, smelly apartment room with two dead bodies? That I would find myself here was inconceivable.
Then things got really weird.
***
Ours was one of those dot.com success stories. Four computer nerds. We actually started the company in a basement, not the proverbial garage.
One year later we were searching the globe for cheap manufacturing labor. We drew straws. One lucky partner drew Mexico. Another drew China.
I drew this place. Out of courtesy to their travel bureau, or so their police won’t find me, I won’t mention where.
It was my first time abroad. Ever hear mention of Mark Twain’s ‘Innocents Abroad?’
Me.
The airport was my first taste of cultural shock. Dozens of soldiers armed with machine guns were posted everywhere, suspiciously eyeing everybody, especially, it seemed, me. I was ushered into what I assumed was Customs. The guy there may have asked permission to search my bags. I don’t know. I didn’t understand a word he said. The tone was distinctly unfriendly. Two soldiers pointed their guns at me while he tore my bags apart. I assumed I passed when they ushered me out onto the street.
Two sensations assaulted me. One was the oppressive heat. The yellow-hot sun beat down as if there were no atmosphere to blunt its radiation.
And the stench. Rotten food, feces, and urine combined and baked in an Easy Bake Oven.
Five or six ragged men assaulted me, tore my luggage from me. And carried it to an awaiting taxi. These guys looked like dirt. Their skin and clothes had the same color. Dirt. They were emancipated, walking skeletons. Their eyes sunken, their skin covered in sores, their calloused feet bare. Their clothes were rags. It took five of them to haul a suitcase and an over-the-shoulder bag to the taxi.
I tipped each of them a dollar and they seemed pleased enough to go away.
The taxi looked like the loser from a demolition derby, spray-painted yellow.
I handed the driver the address of my hotel and learned an important lesson. If you’re traveling to a country which does not use the Roman alphabet, have some one write the address using the alphabet of your destination. The driver called over a few of his buddies, and after much animated discussion, finally deciphered my address.
I hoped.
He stopped in front of my hotel. I had to trust him on that one. It didn’t look like a hotel. It didn’t even seem habitable. Bare in mind, I couldn’t read a single street sign or advertisement.
Another group of walking skeletons took charge of my luggage after the driver unloaded it. I handed him a roll of the local currency, and he counted out a few bills, and returned the rest. I had no idea how much he took, but since he carefully counted it out, I assumed he was honest. I tipped him a US five dollar bill.
(The one smart thing I did was to have my money stashed in various parts of my body, so I never took out my whole roll at once, just a few bills at a time. I had a couple of rolls of the local stuff, plus a few US dollars for tipping.)
The raggedy guys had hauled my stuff into the hotel and I tipped each of them. They scurried off.
The desk clerk didn’t know what to do with me. He didn’t speak a word of English and I had no idea how to communicate that I had a reservation. (Or if I even had one, there was no proof I’d even been taken to the correct hotel.)
I showed him my reservation confirmation, my passport, and three credit cards. He finally called some one else, who called some one else. Again, it was a Chinese fire drill as they discussed me. Finally the original clerk pushed a book at me.
I assumed I was to sign it. I probably signed in the wrong place, judging from the disgusted look on the clerk’s face. But mine was the only signature in English, much less the Roman alphabet.
He hand me a key. It, at least, had the numbers ’24,’ written on it. There were no bellboys; so I carried my bags to the second floor. (No elevator.)
I’ve seen closets bigger than my room. It had a bed, a small table with a water basin and a pitcher of water, and a few hooks on the wall. Nothing else. The bathroom was down the hall—Thank goodness, it smelled like a sewer.
My room, on the other hand, smelled like a smoking room. The stench of cigarettes permeated every thing. I couldn’t stand the smell, and deciding I was hungry, I left to search for a restaurant.
This, other than the actual, entire trip, was my biggest mistake.
It took less than two minutes to get hopelessly lost on the streets.
There were masses of people, most dressed in rags, and all a head shorter than me. And not a one of them spoke English. Imagine that!
There was not a sign I could read.
After about thirty minutes of wandering I looked inside a door and saw people seated at tables, eating, drinking.
A restaurant.
Boy! Was I wrong!
A guy took me by the arm and hustled me up to another guy, who showed me a small table. I pantomimed for a menu, and a few minutes later, a woman who looked as if she’d been beaten with an ugly stick handed me a piece of paper.
You guessed it. I couldn’t read a word.
About that time most of the lights in the place went out. They were replaced by flashing colored lights. A skinny girl in a lacy, white bra and a g-string walked out onto the floor and began masturbating on a steel pole.
A band, I’m generous in that description, began playing music; boy am I generous. It sounded like a cross between beating sheets of tin and torturing a screeching cat to death.
The ugly waitress was demanding my order. I pointed at another table, at what looked like a bowel of chow mein. She gave me a disgusted look and stormed off.
This obviously wasn’t a restaurant; it wasn’t even a good strip club. I wasn’t sure if the waitress, if she were a waitress, had even taken my order.
I was about to leave when a woman sat down at my table.
Now the waitress had been about the ugliest thing I’d seen since my last viewing of the wicked witch in the ‘Wizard of Oz.’ Most of the females on the street had been one of two varieties: young, tiny girls or winkled up, bent over crones.
Even the stripper was as plain as a brown paper bag.
This woman was different. She looked to be in her early thirties, which probably meant she was in her mid-twenties. Her skin was smooth, unblemished, a chocolate brown color. Her black hair was sleek and clean. It hung to her waist. She was slender, a healthy slender, not emancipated skinny like the stripper. Her face was elegant and exotic. Her dark eyes exotic. She had full lips and high cheeks.
She was dressed in a white blouse, unbuttoned at the collar, and a black bra visible under her tight-fitting blouse. And a conservative skirt.
Her breasts were firm round, erect. Her waist was narrow and slender. Her legs long and lean.
“You ‘Merican?” she asked. She had a distinct accent.
“Yes, do you speak English?”
“A rittre.”
“That’s great!”
“What you want drink?” she asked. “You rich ‘Merican buy me drink?”
“I don’t drink,” I explained. “I thought this was a restaurant where I came in here.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “You no drink?”
“I don’t drink alcoholic beverages,” I clarified.
“You no buy me drink?” She seemed to be on the verge of getting up.
I grabbed her arm in a panic. “I’ll buy you whatever you want if you’ll just sit here and talk to me.”
She smiled and sat down when I pulled out a roll of bills. Soon she had her drink and I had my bowl of Chow Mein. Sans meat. They gave me a bottle of soda pop, it was yellow-orange, but I have no idea what flavor it was. Other than possibly sugary urine. At least the carbonation should protect me from the local, nasty microbes.
“I think I get your job,” I told her. “You’re to get me to pay for as many watered-down-drinks as you can in one night.”
She gave me a little innocent stare and I wasn’t sure if she understood me or just was faking innocence.
“How much do you usually scam in one night?”
She didn’t seem to understand, so I explained it again.
“One hun’ert dorrar.” She claimed innocently, once she understood what I was talking about. I counted out one hundred dollars and gave it to her. “Just stay and talk to me, it’ll be worth it.”
She eagerly counted out the money, slipped a few bills to the ugly waitress, a few more to the manager, and having paid off her obligations, said to me, “You wanna come my prace?”
“You got a place near here?” I certainly couldn’t take her back to my hotel room; we both couldn’t fit in it. But I had no desire to stay in the strip joint once I’d eaten.
I left a tip for the ugly girl and followed the bar girl to her apartment.
The apartment was on the third floor. The halls were narrow, low-ceilings, dimly-lit. There was no elevator, just a narrow stair case which smelled of urine and rat feces. The rats themselves were awfully bold and challenged our right to climb the stairs. They scurried off when the girl kicked one.
Her apartment was barely bigger than my hotel room. There was a kitchenette with a hot plate and an ice chest. A small, folding table and two chairs. A few cabinets and a wardrobe. (Again, it was a communal bathroom down the hall.)
Her pride and joy was her bed, it was a real bed, queen size. Sheets. Remarkably clean sheets. Her apartment was tidy, clean, in spite of being aged and time-worn.
She sat down and unbuttoned her blouse. “I make bang-bang with you, one hun’ert dorrar. I ruve you rong time. Rong, rong time.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I just want to talk. I just want some body I can talk to.”
“You no wanna bang-bang me?” she seemed disappointed. She stood up and embraced me, kissed me.
“I good fucky-fuck.” Her hands fumbled at my belt. “You bang-bang me rong time.”
“I’ll pay you the hundred dollars if you’ll just talk to me for a while, then help me get back to my hotel.”
She had knelt down and unzipped me. She reached for me. Her lips pursed.
“Wait! Wait!”
She didn’t wait.
The door to her apartment burst open and a wild man burst in. (And slammed the door shut behind him.)
He was a short guy, almost as short as the girl and a full head shorter than me. He had long, wild hair, a ferocious look on his face, and a nasty looking knife in his hand.
He raised the knife above his head and charged me while the girl dove for her bed.
Wild boy made one awful mistake—besides scaring the piss out of me—he picked the wrong guy to mug.
Granted, I was a computer nerd. But fearfully of my pity-less peers, my father had forced me to take 10 years of Kempo training. I had never been in a real fight in my life, but my training immediately kicked in.
Wild boy’s attack was identical to one I’d practiced a thousand times: An overhead, downward knife attack.
I side-stepped him, while thrusting my arms up. He thought I was blocking his attack and threw all his power into his downward stab. I redirected his stab downward, channeling his power rather than blocking it.
He stabbed himself in the leg.
About that time I hit him three times in the face with elbow strikes and a couple of hand-swords to the neck. And a few eye-pokes to draw his hands away from the knife embedded in his leg. I yanked out the knife.
I was scared shitless. Adrenaline was pumping through my body like never before, and I was running on pure survival instinct and relying on my training.
I slashed his throat, cutting deep. The blade was razor sharp.
Stepping behind him as his blood sprayed across the room, I shoved him into the wall. His head smashed into the plaster and he collapsed. A large pool of blood quickly spread beneath him while his body twitched uncontrollably.
I stood there dumfounded, his blood sprayed all over me, the bloody knife hanging from my hand, my cock hanging limply from my pants.
It was a scene my mind simple could not wrap itself around, or conceive, or accept.
Wild boy died in convulsions and gagging on his own blood.
The girl screamed. A long horrible scream. Fear. Horror. Anger. Hatred. Vengeance. All contained in one terrible scream.
She threw herself at me, leapt upon me.
Her body suddenly stopped as if it had slammed into a brick wall.
Her mouth dropped open,
Her dark, exotic eyes grew wide in astonishment.
“Oh-oh-oh!” She seemed short of breath, unable to speak.
We both looked down at the same time.
She had impaled herself upon the knife in my hand.
We stared at it, thrust into her lower belly, up to the hilt.
Horrified, I pulled it straight out and hurled it to the floor. I reached for her to help her to the bed.
She screeched at me and attacked my face, weakly beating me with her fists.
I batted aside her feeble attacks.
She screamed in hatred at me and tried to scratch out my eyes.
I grabbed her, two-handed, by the throat and lifted her off her feet. I threw her onto the bed and landed on top of her. My clutching hands pressed into her delicate throat, my elbows attempted to pinned her flailing arms to the bed, my body pressed against hers.
I was running on pure animal instinct. Pure survival mode. Rational thought fled.
She screeched and flailed and grew weaker.
Dimly, I noted my cock was pressed against her body and was growing hard.
I reached under her skirt and tore her panties open.
I thrust into her.
Like an animal I raped her. Thrusting mercilessly into her.
She quit fighting. She wrapped her legs around me and pulled me in deeper.
I slowed down and loosed my grip on her neck.
She moaned contently.
She died as I came.
One last moan. One last breath of air escaped her lungs.
I breathed it in lustfully.
Rationality returned as quite a shock.
I sat sitting on a bed, in a foreign land, my wet cock sticking out of my pants, a dead whore lying on the bed beside me.
I checked for her breathing. Took her pulse.
She was dead.
“Oh fuck! I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry!” the dead whore said.
I let out a horrified scream and leapt from the bed.
“That was the most thrilling moment of my life,” the dead whore said. “I loved every moment of it. I loved being raped and murdered. I just wish we could do it again.”
I was trembling uncontrollably. Her eyes were staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Her mouth didn’t move.
But, yet, I heard her voice.
“I love being a dead, murdered slut. This is the most exciting thing ever. You just have to rape me again. Hurry, while I’m still warm.”
I bent over her. She didn’t move.
“Fuck my dead body. Hurry. It won’t feel as good after I’m cold and stiff.”
If I were insane, might as well make the most of it.
I climbed on her and entered her again. I gently made love to her body. Caressing her, kissing her, stimulating her as if she were one of my living lovers.
“Oh, such a man you are!” she gushed. “What a man! I wish I were alive so I could come again and you could kill me again.”
“Use my dead body. Fuck me. I belong to you. My body exists only for your pleasure.”
It wasn’t quite the same as making love to a living woman. Dead flesh is dead.
But I used her dead flesh.
I zipped up when I finished with her.
“Oh, you were wonderful! I’m so thrilled you murdered me and used my dead body for your pleasure.”
“Now you have to cover up your involvement. Pull down my boyfriend’s pants, so it looks like he raped me.”
I rolled him over, pulled down his pants, and rolled him back into his pool of blood. “I don’t think this’ll really work. It’s not his DNA in you,” I said, to humor her.
“Don’t worry about that,” the dead whore said. “Our police won’t even bother with a DNA test for a dead whore. Now, put the knife in my hand so it looks like I killed him.”
I smeared his blood on the knife to obscure my fingerprints and pressed it into her dead hand. Her fingers were already growing stiff. The police would have to break them to get at the knife.
I clean up as best I could. Just before I slipped out, the dead whore, lying deathly still on the bed, said, “Thank you for raping and murdering me.”

***
I somehow found my way back to my hotel, bathed and washed my clothes.
As luck would have it, my meetings the next day fell through and we eventually decided not to do business in that country.
I never heard from their police.
A year later, some time before the dot.com bust, we sold our company for eighty million dollars.
My partners went onto other projects.
I retired at age twenty-five.
I decided I wanted to travel.
Abroad.
Where the whores want you to murder them.
Call it my new, life’s ambition.

The End.