The Aztec Love God - Excerpt

Under this mental regime, I thought, like everyone else, that there were only two types of people on earth: You were either a willing participant of the "Real World" on MTV or a sucker on "Candid Camera." It was under that king that my energy was channeled into constructed ways, and my life slipped into a Mexican version of "Leave it to Beaver." "Leave It to Burro" my life could have been called, starring me, Tiofilio Duarte, as The Burro.

You see, my family actually lived in The Cleaver's old house.

In a fit of Sombrero Hysteria, years after the show went off the air, my dad cashed in the CD that was supposed to be my college fund and outbid other people for the house used for the set. Then he paid to have it moved to Chicago. Papa never mentioned college to me again, but I still had to help clean out all the beaver droppings from our new house. And it was my chore to every week paint over the graffiti on our white picket fence.

Every night, I prayed and prayed and prayed for the cancellation of "Leave It to Burro," until an episode just after my 17th birthday when I met my first girlfriend. Her name was Rosa Hernandez. Our families informed us that we were boyfriend and girlfriend during a banquet for the feast of La Virgen De Guadalupe. She was muy caliente - smooth - West-Side-Story-Rita-Moreno-caramel-pretty face with dark-Heathers-Winona-eating pastries shaped like the Virgin Mary. The second I bit into her halo, I had MTV visions of me and Rosa under a bingo table, her shaking my maracas. I said to her, in a cool Ricardo Montalban voice, "Let me take you out to dinner."

As a male, as my father's unwilling heir, I had a later curfew than Rosie which thereby extended her official leave. After dinner at The Olive Garden and a public screening of La Bamba, I used my extra hour and a half to get brave enough to put my arm around her. We kiss, then realize it's ten minutes to midnight, and my Chebby is about to turn into a pumpkin. The show closes with Mrs. Hernandez on the doorstep, welcoming me into the family, presenting me with a Young Man's Bilingual Bible

One week later, Rosie and I make love behind a trucking warehouse. Real love. The most real love of its kind, with groping, fumbling, blushing. Real love, no body doubling, no black bars over body parts, no cosmetic surgery.

And REAL sex was not rated X!

There were more positions, more close-ups. Scents erupted. There was more than one point of contact, there were all those places where skin touched skin, all those points of contact, touch.

And there were all the plots leading into, through, and beyond the act.

It took a dick by the name of Jester to convince me to leave that love scene on the cutting room floor.