What's the worst thing I've ever done?
Over all those years and all those women there's one incident that still haunts me.
It was back in the Eighties and before I inherited my family's security company. Dad, full of wind and piss, was still alive then. He was a hard old bastard and hell-bent on making me earn my inheritance by using me as his dog's body. I had to do whatever he wouldn't.
He hated flying so, when he started selling surveillance equipment to questionable regimes around the world, it was me who had to do all the travelling. I'd schmoozed and cajoled and bribed my way around dusty shithole towns across Africa until I was sick to death of red earth and unmentionable smells and cockroach infested hotel rooms.
So, when we were negotiating a huge contract with a military junta in one of those almost unheard of little countries on the north-east shoulder of South America, for once I looked forward to something different. Jungles and smouldering-eyed senoritas had not up to then featured in my life.
True enough, the jade green jungle I saw from the plane made a nice change from red dirt but the smells and hotel rooms were pretty much the same.
My contact was Captain Cordillo, a fat, greasy little man who ran the country's counter-insurgency operation. He'd wanted to buy a shitload of our eaves-dropping products with a view to bugging universities and churches and labour unions. You know, the sorts of places leftie troublemakers might hang out.
Though it was not widely known, in those days right wing juntas in South and Central America were part of a consortium with the CIA to supress left wing activity across the continent. It was called Operation Condor. Dad had been keen to break into this lucrative market and was happy to start with a loss leader. The deal had made Cortillo's piggy little eyes light up as it would put him in high favour with his superiors.
He'd been so pleased he'd taken me out for a night on the town. I was still young then and couldn't hold my drink, at least compared to Cortillo. Pissed out of my brains I told him more about my predilections when it came to women than was wise.
We'd wound up in a bordello where I fucked a pretty little mulatto girl, though I was so drunk I had little recollection the next day. I do recall she was languid and sloe-eyed, though there was moment of anxiety when she saw how well-hung I was. Even well-used whores sometimes have trouble accommodating me, to start with at least.
Being treated with a woman to oil the wheels of commerce was hardly without precedent, but this was just the start of Cortillo's gratitude, as I was to find out the evening before flying back home.
I was packing my suitcase in my hotel room when there was knock at the door.
It was Cortillo and one of his men. Between them was a beautiful Hispanic woman in her late twenties. She looked scared.
"A final gift," said Cortillo, pushing the woman into the room. "Safe journey!"
He stepped back and waved farewell, pulling the door closed behind him and leaving me alone with the woman.
She had waist-length wavy black hair and, yes, she had dark eyes which no doubt could smoulder but right now didn't look happy at all. Only a few inches shorter than my six foot, she was strikingly tall by Latin American standards. Full-breasted as she was, she didn't have the willowy slenderness that was my ideal, but she was still very pleasing on the eye.
She brought her hands up and pressed them together as though in prayer. "Please, Senor, be merciful!"
"What's going on?"
She glanced back at the closed door. "That pig has arrested my husband," she said and then spat.
Women rarely spit back in the Home Counties of England. Somewhat taken aback, I watched the blob of spittle as it bubbled on the carpet.
"Is your husband a criminal?" I asked, for something to say rather than out of genuine interest.
"He is a simple school teacher. He's a good man and innocent of all crime. Our country is not like yours. Here the soldiers are evil. They take money from the poor to pay for their palaces and expensive automobiles and jewellery for their whorish wives. They think everyone is their enemy, because we are."
So, it seems the world was unfair. Who knew?
I was still trying to understand what was happening. "So why are you here? And what's your name by the way?"
"Catalina. And Cortillo made me come. He will only release my husband if I... if I please you."
Good old Cortillo!
"But please, let us just wait a few minutes then tell Cortillo you are satisfied. Please, I beg of you!" And she looked at me with those big dark eyes.
As I thought of what to say, I took the time to take a better look at her. Elegant Hispanic features suggested she might be high-born but she was wearing a khaki man's shirt and a long plain black skirt that came down to her ankles. The clothing wasn't new and I realised that she was a poor woman.
"What's in it for me?"
Her head pulled back, like she'd just found something nasty under a rock. "You get to help free an innocent man, of course. They will be ill-treating him, torturing him."
She gave a sob and those big breasts trembled enticingly.
It was just too tempting for me. "I need something for my trouble."
She shook her head. "I have no money."
"I don't need money." Again I looked her over slowly, making my meaning clear.
"Don't make me do this!" It was almost a whisper.
I stepped closer, put a hand under her chin and lifted it up. She didn't resist. Bending down just a little, I gently touched my lips to hers.
I felt her intake of breath. This opened her lips just enough for me to push my tongue between them. At the same time I placed my other hand on her breast.
She wasn't wearing a bra! Her breasts were naturally full and proud.
But this was too much and too soon. She shoved me roughly away. Turning, she made a dash for the door but, when she opened it, Cortillo and his man were waiting. They must have been listening.
He was shaking his head. "A deal is a deal, Catalina. There is always a penalty for those who break an agreement. This was your easy way out, but I see you need extra persuasion."
With that, he and his soldier grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her out of the room into the corridor. Cortillo winked at me. "Come along, Senor. You will find this very entertaining."
The hotel may have been flea-bitten, but it was a big one and there were quite a few men lounging around reception. They immediately checked out Catalina's striking looks and figure, but then quickly looked away when they saw the soldiers.
Cortillo and his man pulled Catalina out into the street where a sleek black Toyota Landcruiser was waiting. Catalina had been right, the military here denied themselves nothing.
A short drive took us to some barracks. The buildings there had once been white but now their sides had developed dark smears from countless tropical rainstorms. It made the barracks look like a place dripping with evil.
As indeed it was.
