Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  I screamed again against his mouth, my lips locked tight. It was no use, though. I could still hear the ruckus in the living room and the television was too loud.

  Nevertheless, Yago pulled back and, with one quick, brutal motion, slapped me across the face.

  My head jerked on my neck as black and blue stars bloomed in my vision. My ears rang in the sudden silence, and for a moment I didn’t know what had happened. I had barely felt the blow. It was just something that had happened to me. Not something that required any other action from me. My face was going to hurt, but right now I was numb inside and out as Yago Reyes turned me around roughly and pushed me up against the wall.

  A curious calm stole over me. I’d read about this, how people would just freeze up during a rape. A natural physical defense mechanism. My hands had found the wall, as behind me Yago was hooking his hands into the waist of my Daisy Dukes. He tugged on them once, twice, then again and again, clearly frustrated that they would not slide off, and inside, where I was safe, I thought: Wow, that giant ass is actually coming in handy.

  My fingers curled and there were tears in my eyes, even though I was fine. This was just a thing that was happening to me. I couldn’t fight someone this strong, so my best bet was to take it and hope I lived through it...right?

  Thick, calloused fingers stole around my front, under my shirt and swept up to my bra. There they wormed their way under the fabric and onto my bare breasts. My tiny breasts that Manny loved so much.

  That he loved to touch. To suckle. To nip and caress and...

  Yago pinched my nipples and I jerked like a corpse in its death throes.

  He grunted. “Too small,” he said. Then his hands pressed down my belly to the waistband of my tight little cut-offs where they fumbled against my stomach, undoing the clasps there.

  Yell, I told myself. Scream. Maybe they will hear you. Maybe they won’t come barging into the room and...and join in...

  All my fears of Manny’s family came rushing back in on me, and the tears that had gathered in my eyes suddenly spilled over onto my face. They felt curiously cool against my cheeks, while the wall was cold and rough on my forehead and palms. Beneath my feet the carpet twisted, old polyester nearly shredded to a complete mockery of its former self.

  The button of my shorts popped.

  You need to do something.

  But what?

  Yago yanked me away from the wall again and I screamed as he threw me face-down on the bed. The gaudy necklace I’d bought to show off what little cleavage I had dug into my chest and the gritty, worn sheets scraped over my skin. My arms sprawled, my purse slipped from my shoulder down my arm, wrapping around my wrist, and my face landed inches away from Arturo’s legs.

  Arturo.

  I looked at his body right in front of me, lying listless beneath the sheets, wondering how to communicate with him. He was the only other person in this room besides Yago and me, and now my blood was roaring so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear the television, let alone the real live men out in the living room.

  I wanted to believe they would help me. I wanted to believe they wouldn’t do this to me...Had I been naive in thinking they wanted to protect me from Yago? Were they just coming into the house for the show?

  Oh god. Don’t think about that.

  Blunt fingers hooked over the waistband of my jean shorts and yanked them down, and the sudden blast of cool air on my ass jolted me out of my stupor.

  “No!” I screamed. Yago’s heavy body was covering mine, and I bucked and twisted, struggling to get him off of me. “Fuck you!” I screeched at him. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

  My purse was at the end of my arm and I tried to twist it around my wrist to use it as a weapon, but it wasn’t heavy enough to be anything but a nuisance. Shit! Why hadn’t I packed a knife? Or needles? A fucking nail file? I’d known I was getting into the shit and yet here I was, defenseless.

  You idiot, I thought. You plan but you never anticipate.

  I grit my teeth and bucked again, this time dislodging Yago enough to lash out with a foot. Luck was with me—it connected with something hard on his body and I heard a pained grunt. Dragging my arms beneath me I pushed myself up, meaning to turn around—

  A blow to the back of the head sent me nose-first into the mattress. My brain felt as though it had just been hit with a hammer and I gasped, blinking.

  “You’ll stay there if you know what’s good for you,” Yago said, just like a villain in a movie.

  Struggling to regain my momentum, I turned my head.

  To my shock, I found myself watching Arturo Reyes rising.

  The old man was feebly pushing himself up, as though to bring himself into a sitting position. The desiccated muscles under his papery skin moved and sagged, and his lips worked around soundless words. But it wasn’t the fact that he seemed to be lucid and knowing what was going on that shocked me.

  It was the way he was staring into my eyes.

  I’ve seen eyes like that before, I thought distantly. In the dim light, they gleamed golden. Just like Manny’s eyes.

  Manny, I thought, and it was like a prayer. Manny, Manny, please please please...

  Yago ripped my thong from my hips, and I shrieked again, again dragging my hands under me to twist where I was so that I could get a hand in his face, fingernails in his eyes, in his nose, so I could slap his ears or smash his throat, or anything at all that might slow him down just enough for me to escape.

  But it was no use. A heavy hand landed between my shoulder blades and shoved me back down onto the bed.

  “Don’t try that again,” I heard Yago say, “or I’ll do more than fuck you.”

  Jesus, no, no, Jesus no...

  His disgusting hands reached under me and pulled my arms out from beneath my chest. I shuddered and writhed with revulsion at his touch, but he ignored me. With a great wrench he yanked my hands up over my head and then back behind my neck. My purse, still caught on my wrist, banged against my backbone. One huge hand wrapped around my wrists and held me so fast that the bones ground together and I cried out. Then he pressed down, and pain shot through my shoulders as he easily pinned me to the bed.

  Now I was at his mercy, completely and utterly. My ass was exposed to him, hanging over the side of the bed, and I was unable to move.

  Horror flooded through me. All my thoughts, everything that was me, was swept away by its powerful tide.

  No, I thought. Oh god, please no...

  With great effort I turned my head, thinking perhaps to bury my face beneath my arm, so I could hide and pretend that this wasn’t happening, so I could imagine that all of this was happening to someone else. Behind me there was movement as Yago struggled to remove his own clothes with only one hand. I tried to kick, but my foot met only air.

  Then at the crown of my head, I felt Arturo’s legs move. Without quite meaning to, my eyes flicked up to his.

  He was still staring at me, and the look on his face was so heartbroken it stole my breath.

  “Tiana!” he shouted suddenly, his hoarse voice full of anguish. “Tiana, no!”

  Then it dawned on me: he thought I was Tiana.

  Tiana, mi amor.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I said his name.

  “Arturo,” I begged. If there was anything good in him, anything left of a man who could raise the good sons I had met today, then that would come to the fore.

  Behind me Yago paused for a fraction of a second, no doubt startled by the sudden exchange, and in that moment Arturo’s eyes narrowed with hatred as he turned them toward his son.

  He shrieked a word that I couldn’t quite catch, and then launched himself across the bed. Suddenly the pressure on my wrists was easing as Arturo attacked Yago. I heard Yago bellow, a sound like an enraged bull, and the hand on my wrists slackened further. With a twist, I was free of his grip.

  His body still trapped me against the bed, however, and despite the fact that Arturo was attacki
ng, I knew I didn’t have much time. Thrashing my whole body, I managed to slip to the side, but the movement threw me off balance. I scrabbled for purchase on the sheets, but they merely lay on the mattress in a limp heap, and I lost my footing and fell to the floor next to the bed.

  From there I saw the two men: the ancient, wizened Arturo, his thin hands gripping his son’s clothes, and the burly Yago, his face a picture of cruelty. With a casual swipe of his arm, he dislodged his father’s hold.

  The gritty carpet clung to my sweating hands, and I knew I only had a moment to buy another moment, and another.

  I didn’t have a weapon. All I had was my purse, still tangled around my wrist. But while I didn’t have anything in my purse that was sharp, it wasn’t empty, and that was what counted. It was full of drugs.

  Fine, powdery drugs.

  As though in slow motion I watched Yago slap his father, but in that tiny sliver of time, I yanked my purse open, stabbed my fingernails into the plastic baggie full of heroin and ripped it apart.

  Yago turned to me.

  My fingers closed around as much heroin as I could get.

  He leaned down, those huge, terrifying hands reaching for me.

  No, I thought, and threw my handful of heroin in his face.

  The white powder flew from my hand, straight into Yago’s eyes.

  He screamed and reeled backwards.

  I yanked up my shorts, dragged myself up to all fours, and ran.

  It was like running through glue, like wading through jello. My limbs were heavy, clumsy, my flip-flops catching on the piles of dirty clothing and musty blankets. Halfway to the door I stumbled and fell to one knee, my heart in my throat, certain that now it was over, now he would be on me, and there was no way to escape it—

  I scrambled to my feet anyway, and as I did so I failed to feel Yago’s heavy hand on my shoulder, his sick, hot breath on my neck. Against my better judgment I risked a glance behind me.

  I gasped with horror. Yago’s fingers were wrapped around Arturo’s throat. The old man was gagging, his breath rattling so loud I could hear it over Yago’s yells. He cursed in Spanish, shaking his father back and forth, a rage like I had never seen on another human being plastered across his features. His eyes were bright red and streaming with tears.

  Stay and help Arturo! I thought, but no. I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. I had to get the others. I had to get out of this room.

  My veins running with ice and adrenaline, I turned darted for the door, just as a great bellow sounded from behind it and, as if in a movie, the wood groaned, cracked and ripped from its hinges.

  And there stood Manny, his fists clenched, his face a mask of rage, his golden eyes afire.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There are moments in which your life changes forever, in which you feel the world around you alter irretrievably. I felt a moment like that just then, seeing Manny standing so tall and strong in the bedroom door. His face was so angry, so hurt and destroyed, that for a moment I wondered if he thought I’d betrayed him somehow, if I’d slept with his cousin, just like his old girlfriend.

  No! I wanted to scream. It’s not what it looks like...

  My heart stopped beating as his golden eyes flicked over the scene before him—just a fraction of a second, not even enough time for me to complete a full step—and then he turned his fierce gaze back to me and opened his arms.

  Oh.

  Something in me broke. I launched myself across the floor, miraculously avoiding a stumble, and collided with Manny’s chest. The scent of him, so masculine, so familiar, stole into my head like a drug, and all I wanted was for him to hold me for eternity.

  Fortunately Manny was still firing on all cylinders. His big, warm arms folded around my body and snatched me out of the room, whirling around, shielding me from Yago with his broad shoulders and muscular body. Tucking me close, he buried his face in my hair, and from the tips of my toes up to the top of my head a warmth and contentment like I had never known suffused me. My heart, racing too fast, picked up even more in his presence.

  “Rosa, Rosa, Rosa,” he said over and over. His broad strong hands ran over my body as though he were checking me for injuries, or as though he couldn’t quite believe I were real, and I felt with every touch he erased a little bit of what his cousin had tried to do. He’ll have to touch me all over. Twice.

  But that was fine. Everything was okay now.

  “Manny!” I cried, my words a sob, and chaos descended around us as bodies jostled us aside, Manny’s cousins spilling into the room behind us. Shouting in Spanish and English bombarded us as Manny move me down the hall. For a second I had no idea what was going on, but then I realized where we were headed: the antique-curtained door leading to the outside world.

  No! No, I couldn’t let him leave without telling him everything that had happened. “Stop!” I cried.

  Manny stopped. The voices in Arturo’s room were now a din of rage. I could barely make out Yago’s curses, and something crashed to the floor. I wanted to go back in there, to help, but...

  Manny’s hands found my hair and began to stroke it, his long fingers curling against my scalp, dragging shivers behind them. I wiggled and buried closer into his chest, my cold body seeking his warmth. My stomach turned suddenly, and I swallowed hard around my shallow breaths.

  The rumble of Manny’s voice against my head jolted me slightly, but it was just a curse in Spanish I didn’t recognize. “You are going into shock,” he said to me in English. “I have to get you warm.”

  “I’m n-not going int-to shock,” I said distantly, but even to my anesthetized brain I heard my teeth chattering.

  Without a word, Manny swept me up into his arms, and the gesture was so reminiscent of the first night we’d met that my racing heart ached, so fiercely that I thought it might give out on me.

  Dying in his arms, I thought crazily from far away. That’s pretty dramatic.

  I turned my face to his shoulder and hid from the world. The next thing I knew I was lying down, covered in blankets, my feet propped up on some pillows and Miguel kneeling next to me, rubbing my hands as though I were an old lady.

  I frowned, confused at the skip of time. “Manny?” I managed to mumble.

  Miguel’s sweet surfer face beamed down at me. “Don’t worry, he’s being restrained at the moment,” he said.

  I went from lying down to bolt upright in a nanosecond. “No!” I cried. “Yago! It was Yago who tried to—who was going to—” I couldn’t finish. Something in my chest cracked wide open and my breath came shallow and fast, panic and fear welling up in me. I tried to rise, but Miguel put his hands on my shoulders.

  I shrieked and twisted away, and he immediately let go. Tears were on my face. I found myself clinging to the cushion of a couch—the living room, I realized. Miguel was on his feet, backing away, his hands up in a gesture of surrender. There were others in the room, too—Nando and Luis, but of the other three, Manny, and Yago, there was no sign.

  Except for the yelling. Angry yelling. Mixed Spanish and English out in the front yard.

  Panting, I transferred my gaze back to Miguel and he was giving me a slight smile. “We know,” he said softly. “It’s okay Rose. Yago won’t touch you again. It’s okay, we know...”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth as a sob escaped, and then somehow Manny’s cousins, the people I had come here to destroy, were around me, their strong arms holding me, rocking me. I couldn’t understand what had happened, but for once in my life I didn’t try to figure it out—I just let them hold me up until I was able to stuff the tears down into shuddering breaths.

  “What happened?” I finally managed to say, and they drew back. Nando retreated to the kitchen, Miguel sat down next to me and rubbed my back, and Luis—the storyteller, of course—plopped himself down on the coffee table and looked me straight in the eye.

  “We’ve all been lied to,” he said.

  I blinked, drew another shuddering breath, and then
let it out between my teeth. “A little context, please?” I asked

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not even sure where to start,” he said. “We thought Manny has been refusing to help our father for years, but he didn’t even know he was sick.” He shook his head. “Yago was lying to us. I thought—we all thought—Manny was just being an asshole, but after he put you on the couch he ran back to Papi’s room and saw him he just flipped out...” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t know what Yago’s been telling him for years, but he didn’t know shit about it.”

  For a moment he chewed his lip and looked away, then met my eyes again. “Manny is our only cousin. He never had a brother or sister but we were his family...Do you know what Yago has been telling him?” he asked. “Can you help us understand what’s been going on?”

  I put a shaking hand to my forehead. “I can try,” I said after a moment. “I can definitely try to tell you the story. But I need to know where Manny is...” I was almost certain that one of the shouting voices in the front yard was his, but I couldn’t be quite sure. There were a lot of people. It had to be way more than Manny, Yago, and the other three brothers; apparently they were attracting quite a crowd. Someone hollered something that sounded almost like English, but was what I could only assume was some sort of pidgin that I was not up to translating at the moment.

  Nando came back into the living room holding a tall, cold glass of water. He handed it to me and I accepted gratefully, taking a long gulp. The coolness spread through me, calming me, and finally I felt more grounded. When I’d finished I was breathing steadier and cast Nando a grateful look as I handed the glass back. “Thank you,” I said. “Please, though, tell me where Manny is.”

  Luis gave me a wide grin. “He dragged Yago out to the front yard and tried to beat the shit out of him.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  “For touching you,” Luis clarified. “And for the lies. That’s what Miguel meant when he said he was being restrained. We only want one person to end up in jail. If Manny got charged for assault...” He spread his hands as though to say it couldn’t be helped. “Yago deserves it, so it’s a great sacrifice on our part to keep him from getting ground into mincemeat,” he added with a dramatic sigh. Then he turned to me, his expression sobering. “So do you know the story?”