A Price to Pay
Luisa was fifteen when Carlos kissed her the first time. She was sixteen when he kissed her the last time, when he started kissing Bonita.
“How could he do this to me, Abuela?” Luisa sobbed that night.
“Love is never free; there is always a price to pay. You must decide what the cost will be, and who will pay it.”
Luisa thought about her grandmother’s words as she said her evening prayers. “Por favor, Dios mío, make the price Carlos pays steep.”
The next day, she saw him walking around the village, hand-in-hand with Bonita. He had never walked that way with her.
“I prayed to God that Carlos would pay a heavy price, but nothing happened, Abuela.”
“The Christian god is a god of love, of forgiveness. You must pray to the old gods, mija. Pray for guidance.”
Shocked, Luisa did as her grandmother instructed. “Por favor, make the price Carlos pays steep.”
That night, as she slept, Luisa dreamed of the old gods.
“We have heard your pleas, nuestra hija. What can you offer us in return for our help?”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You must pay a price for our help,” the old gods told her as she faded back into sleep. “Only you know what that price will be.”
When Luisa awoke that morning, the words of the old gods echoed in her mind. What price could she pay? What did they want from her?
“I prayed to the old gods, Abuela. They said I must pay a price for their help, but I do not know what they want.”
“The old gods are gods of nature, mija. Gods of passion, of sacrifice. If you are willing to pay their price, they will guide you and protect you.”
As Luisa reflected on her grandmother’s words, Carlos walked by their house, again hand-in-hand with Bonita. Her vision went red with fury. How dare he mock what they had shared, what she had given him! And with that, Luisa had her answer.
She walked to the market plaza that day with more wiggle in her hips than usual. When she passed Felipe, a good friend of Carlos, his head whipped around. She winked at him, pressed a note into his hand, and continued on her way.
That night, she waited in her room. Would her plan work? A tap came on the window. She opened the shutters. Felipe stood before her, his face bright with anticipation. She leaned over, kissed his lips, then offered her hand to help him into the small room. She led him to her bed, dropping her robe as she walked.
As he thrust his body against hers, she whispered, “I will pay the price with you.”
Felipe nodded, but Luisa was unsure as to whether he had heard, whether he had understood what she meant.
She drifted off to sleep, and the old gods found her.
“I paid the price,” she told them.
“It is a start,” the old gods said. “We will tell you when the price is paid.”
The next morning, on her way to the market plaza, Luisa pressed a note into Tomas’ hand. Then it was Alejandro, and Ramon, and a dozen other village boys.
Finally, as she lay sleeping under Víctor, the old gods told her, “Your obedience has paid the price. Give your note to Carlos, and he will pay as well.”
Luisa did as she was instructed. That night, it was Carlos who tapped on her window. She pulled him in.
“Luisa, mi amor,” he said as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “I was a fool to choose Bonita over you.”
She nodded. “And you will pay the price for it.”
“I already have!” He nuzzled at her neck, pulled her robe off her shoulders. “When my friends talked of you, I realized just what I was missing: your mind, your body. Especially your body.”
The old gods woke Luisa in the middle of the night. She wrapped her robe around herself and slipped outside, into the woods bordering the village. She carefully dug up the plants they’d described to her, then returned home.
When she woke in the morning Carlos was gone. She brewed a bitter tea from the plants, then ground what was left into a paste that she rubbed into her body to soothe the painful burning inside her.
As she walked in the market plaza that day and saw Carlos again with Bonita, she found she was cool inside, all hints of her previous anguish gone, the sickness transferred.
She laughed to herself. Carlos’ price would be steep indeed.
E.D. Martin is a writer with a knack for finding new jobs in new places. Born and raised in Illinois, her past incarnations have included bookstore barista in Indiana, college student in southern France, statistician in North Carolina, economic development analyst in North Dakota, and high school teacher in Iowa. She draws on her experiences to tell the stories of those around her, with a generous heaping of “what if” thrown in.
She currently lives in Illinois where she job hops while attending grad school and working on her novels. Read more of her stories at her website.
“A Price to Pay” will be included in her upcoming short story collection, Unkept Women.
