Rule

by CD Reiss

  Except now, behind a filthy hostel as we waited for our fake passports.

  Now he seemed desperate as he whispered, “Come home with me. Be a part of me.”

  I could have just said yes, but there was no lying between us, not even to make the other happy for a second’s breath. “They’ll never accept me.”

  He nodded and stepped back, his hand dropping off me. His white shirt and linen pants clung to one side of his body when the desert breeze picked up, and they fell in a graceful drape when it died.

  “You have one more bottle, and two bullets,” he said. “You’re a little to the left, so when you aim, you have to compensate.”

  I aimed carefully, holding the gun at the sharpest point of the triangle of my arms. Squeezed. I had no idea how far off I was, but the bottle was unimpressed.

  “Little right,” he said, putting his fingers together.

  I tried again. Another fail. I shrugged.

  “Missing bothers you,” Antonio said, taking the gun. “I see it in your face.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I have you.”

  “You do. And if you never destroy another bottle, you’re still perfect.” His eyes grazed my body, running over it in a zigzag, as if imprinting the details into his mind. I felt brazen and desired, the center of a vital universe.

  “Do we have time to go back to the hotel room?” I asked, imagining his body twisted around mine, his rough hands on my ass, his mouth on my...

  “No,” he said, popping the empty mag and sliding in a new one. “Because… don’t look. Don’t change anything, but… take this.” He handed the gun to me, sliding his fingers over my wrist. “There’s a man behind the water heater at the back of the hostel, and one behind the big rock to my right, back there. If they kill me in front of the right witnesses, they get my title. My territory. My crew. So I can’t reclaim it when I return.”

  “What?” I didn’t move, but the conversation had turned so casually, I felt like a purse someone had turned upside down and shaken.

  “They’re going to try to take me alive.”

  I had to take a second to absorb what he said. “How did they find us?”

  “The forger, maybe. There might not be any passports.” Nothing about him indicated panic. He looked as if he were about to stroll in the park.

  “Don’t leave me.” I choked on the words.

  “Are you ready?”

  I barely took a breath when I nodded. I was ready.

  The whole of my vision went as far as the light that surrounded him, and the hard metal of the pistol between us became a world. I didn’t see either of the men he spoke of, only a light patch of dust behind the shed.

  “One behind the water heater,” he said, tipping his head to the hostel behind him. “One behind the big rock to your right.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked as if considering where to go for dinner.

  “As soon as I raise my arm, drop to the ground.”

  “Then why the gun? If you’re putting me in a defensive position?”

  “Only shoot to survive.”

  “I’ll shoot anyone who tries to hurt you.”

  “Don’t. Trust me.”

  I trusted him. I did. The salt of the entire visible world was at my command with him. I feared nothing. Not death, not pain, not my own sin. God was my ally, and evil was my slave inside the quiet torrent of his eyes.

  I trusted him to protect me, but not to protect himself for my sake.

  He squeezed my hand, then he walked away, his own gun sticking out of the back of his waistband.

  What happened then happened so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to think about the feeling that he was shrinking in my vision, or the way the landscape seemed to squeeze him into a smaller space. He was ten steps to shelter. I still didn’t see anyone. My gun weighted seventy pounds or more, and the Sicilians, who wanted him alive more than they wanted me dead, were waiting until he was close enough to get a clear shot.

  That, I knew.

  And I knew he walked slowly to draw them out.

  And I knew the pain in my chest that grew with every step. The twisting feeling, as if my lungs were being played like an accordion.

  I was afraid. Desperately afraid.

  And my patience ran out like a broken hourglass.

  I raised my arm and pointed the gun at Antonio’s back as if I could ever shoot him. “Capo!”

  He didn’t spin toward me but pulled the gun from his waist, and shots, everywhere, pinged, popped, cracked against the mountains. I dropped, but not like a child in an earthquake drill. I dropped with intention and pointed the gun in the direction of the shots behind the boulder, while Antonio dropped and rolled to aim behind the water heater.

  A rough scrape to my right left a divot in the dirt, missing me by inches. I’d never felt so vulnerable. So distant from my sun, like Mercury cast into Pluto’s orbit. Like a child in an earthquake drill that turned out to not be a drill at all.

  I exhausted my bullets and froze. Antonio rolled. Alive? With no more forward movement to take and the center of my orbit down, I was out of ideas, out of thoughts, only knee-deep in a fog of fear that I hadn’t kept pressure on the guy behind the boulder long enough to keep Antonio from getting shot in the back. Oh god, he was out there, alone, and I was light years away.

  He rolled onto his stomach and took another shot at the water heater.

  One thousand years passed in a split second.

  Then the explosion.

  I screamed as water poured from the water heater, bathing the sand in a miniature ocean that grew and flattened while the noise and light of the pilot light hitting the broken gas line sent flames everywhere. Cracked masonry. Smoke. Steam. If I had been confused and afraid before, I was wrecked when I tried to stand.

  Until he came to me. Through the dense air, he came and yanked me up. As if slapped back into reality, I felt safe again. My guts stopped twisting, and the world slipped back onto its axis.

  “What the hell were you doing?” he growled.

  “If they thought I was going to kill you, they’d shoot at me, not you!”

  He squeezed my arms so hard, I thought he was going to cut off my circulation. His jaw was tight against his skull and his lips were parted. I wanted to kiss the snarl right out of him, but he pulled me into the smoke and steam. I ran with him, step for step, in complete synch like the winners of a three-legged race. If gunshots still rang out, their sound was muffled by the roar of the flames we headed right into.

  Heat. My skin didn’t have time for sweat, just hair-curling heat. I didn’t ask what he was doing by pulling me into it. I just did what he asked, and I feared nothing.

  “Get to the street!” he shouted, pointing left while keening his body right.

  “No!”

  “Theresa!” He said my name like a command.

  We had no time for words. Under the thunder of the flames came another gunshot. I felt nothing, but Antonio looked at my arm. Following his gaze, I saw where a bullet had torn my sleeve. The edges smoked from the heat of the projectile, or the fire from the water heater. It didn’t matter. The calm in his face was gone.

  He dropped to a crouch, pulling me with him. “The street.”

  He had soot across one cheek, and his face glistened with sweat. I couldn’t change his mind about sending me away from danger, I knew that. I also knew I couldn’t stand being away from him for a second.

  He curled his fist and held it up as if keeping his patience inside him. His voice held a tension between uncontrollable rage and forced peace. “I’ll be right out. I swear it.”

  I nodded. Took one step backward. The hostel was five steps away. The water heater was set away from it by ten feet, so the building hadn’t caught fire, but it was only a matter of time before that escape route was closed off.

  “Go!” He pointed at the hostel then took off at a run in the other direction.

  The flames and the space around him squeezed him tight as he
got smaller, and I couldn’t stand it. I followed him.

  Antonio stood by the boulder, looking down. A man crawled from the other side in a dark zip-up jacket and jeans, leaving a trail of blood in the sand. I knew him but couldn’t place him. Young. Goatee. With the way the desert sun lit his face, I almost lost the memory, but the goatee jogged it. I remembered a night on Mulholland[→6] when I brandished an outdated car security device. I’d been ready to kill this man, and Antonio dragged me away, promising to do it himself. Antonio had obviously let him live so I wouldn’t have his death on my conscience. And there he was, armed and ready to return the favor with murder.

  “Bruno Uvoli,” I whispered.

  Antonio made a tsk sound and shook his head. “His brother. Domenico.”

  Domenico pointed his gun at Antonio, and my spine turned to ice, but I didn’t hear any shots. Out of bullets? Maybe. Antonio took three steps toward him and pulled the gun away, standing over Domenico with his own gun pointed.

  “Antonio,” I said.

  He looked at me then at my ripped sleeve where the bullet had almost hit me. “Go back.”

  Domenico had his hand up to fend off death. His leg was bleeding where he’d been shot. Had I done that? I hadn’t seen Antonio shoot at the man behind the boulder. It could have only been me.

  “You fucking bitch,” he said.

  Antonio cocked the hammer.

  “Don’t,” I said. I had followed him intending to do no more than close the space between us. I hadn’t intended to stop him from killing the second man. “It doesn’t do us any good. And we’re on foreign soil.”

  He was going to shoot, or so I thought. Instead he lowered his gun and licked his lower lip. He took a single step back as he put the weapon away. “You’re right.”

  My eyes met his with an emotional click. He’d heard me and acted accordingly, as if I’d had the thought for him. Everything in that moment was right.

  He took my hand and guided me toward the hostel, which had already cleared out, and through to the street. We ran across. Traffic had stopped, and dozens of people watched the flames.

  I slowed. I didn’t see anyone hurt but wanted to check, just to be sure. Antonio yanked me down the block toward our white Toyota. A Cadillac with the size and paint wear of a cruise ship pulled out from behind our car. Antonio ran to it and leaned into the driver’s side window, where a straw-hatted man in his fifties turned the wheel.

  “I’ll trade you this car for mine,” Antonio said as sirens got louder in the distance. He pointed the Toyota’s key fob at the nondescript car we’d come in. He pressed a button, and the car squeaked. “Title’s in the glove compartment.”

  Smoke rose from the desert behind the hostel, lighting the evening sky orange. A woman cried out behind me, bolting across the street. Two teenagers brought out a man with a bloodied shoulder, and she kneeled in front of him.

  Guilt. There it was. I felt it for the innocent people I’d hurt. No more explosions. That guy was in pain because of me, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  Caddy Man shifted his hat, looked at Antonio, then past him at me. I smiled coyly, as if this was no more than the act of a crazy-ass boyfriend.

  “Transmission’s no good,” the man said in a thick accent. “Bad.” He laid his hands flat and wiped the air with them.

  “It’s okay.”

  The exchange of titles and keys was made in fifteen seconds, and our bags were removed from the Toyota in another five. Antonio drove away in a beat-up boat of a Cadillac with me in the passenger seat. An ancient fire engine pulled up behind us, and four police cars passed us coming from the other direction, sirens blaring and lights flashing red and blue.

  Antonio put real weight on the gas pedal when the police cars passed. He pulled onto a scraggly highway, going in a direction I couldn’t figure out. The car went into fourth gear and stayed there no matter what speed we went, lurching and jerking.

  He looked ahead with an intensity that couldn’t be attributed to the dark of night, one hand tight on the top of the steering wheel and the other draped out the window. The highway was mostly empty.

  “Antonio?” I said.

  No answer. Nothing moved but the small adjustments of the steering wheel.

  “Antonio. Are you all right?”

  Nothing.

  “Antonio!”

  He jerked the wheel, swerving to the side of the road in a crunch of sand and rock. The car pitched, flopping gears as the sheer length of the thing kept inertia from throwing us overboard. He slammed it in park and, in the same motion, reached for me. I didn’t like the look in his eye. It looked like murder.

  When his hand went around my throat, I liked it less.

  “You did what?” He was stuck on some old conversation, as if rewinding a tape and playing it randomly.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, grabbing his wrist with my hands. He was holding me still, not choking me, but it was uncomfortable.

  He thrust himself across the seat. Nothing stopped him. No armrest. No brake. Just a leather surface he put his knee on to get leverage. He was livid. Spitting mad. Hair in front of his face, beautiful mouth curved into a snarl.

  “You drew fire to yourself?”

  “It was—”

  “Basta!” He put his face an inch from mine until I smelled bullets on his breath. “You do this again, and I’ll…” He gritted his teeth so hard he couldn’t speak.

  “What?” I croaked. “What will you do?”

  He pulled me toward him, fingertips digging into the space behind my jaw. I leaned into him, taking my hands off his wrist so I could push closer. I wasn’t afraid.

  “You do not—”

  “What are you going to do, Capo?”

  He didn’t soften. Not a millimeter. He did not waver. He pushed me back against the door, and with his other hand, he twisted me around until I lay sprawled across the front seat.

  “This is a fact, and it’s a threat. You get killed, and I am as good as dead. Kill me first. If you die, you should just kill me.”

  I put my hands on the sides of his face. “It was the right thing.”

  His thumb stroked under my chin, and he lowered his head to put his lips to my cheek. “No. Don’t… ever… do that again.”

  “I’ll do what I have to.”

  He let me go and got as far up on his knees as possible under the car ceiling. I gasped as he reached for his waistband.

  “There is one thing you have to do.” He popped his button and held up a finger. “Stay still while I fuck you. That’s your job. Spread your legs. That’s all.”

  “You’re so fucking backward.” I tried to get up, but it was cramped in the car, and Antonio pushed me down. “Get off me.”

  He didn’t get off me. He yanked my pants down with one hand and pressed on my breast with the other. He ripped off my jeans, stripping me of my shoes. “I’m going to fuck sense into you.”

  I had arguments on top of wisdom. I had logic and strategy on my side, but he pinned me like an animal and pulled my leg up until my knee was at my ear.

  He slapped my ass and paused.

  I groaned. “I’ll do it again if I want.”

  “And I’ll spank you for it if I want.”

  He slapped my bottom three more times. God, I should have been humiliated, but it woke my skin, sending a fire of pleasure through me. I couldn’t move. Bone to skin, I was made viscous from the intimacy of indignity.

  He pulled my legs farther apart, and I let him. He was hard with me. Merciless. His roughness silenced me into short breaths.

  “Who’s backward?” he growled. “Who has her legs open? It took me nothing to get you naked with your pussy out.” He jerked up my shirt. “Now your tits. I can do anything to you. You’re going to take my cock, and when you do, I want you to know I’m never letting you alone again. I own you, and you’ll do what I tell you.”

  Before I had a chance to erase the thought, he rammed into me. My head was bent into the
door handle, and one leg leaned on the dashboard as he took me without regard to my pleasure or pain. Outside, cars blew by so fast, I felt the air pressure change. I reached for him.

  He swatted my hands away and pressed them to the window. “Look at me.”

  And I did, because he was still the most beautiful man I’d ever met.

  “Never again. Say it.” He pressed into me, deeper than deep, rubbing my clit with his body. “Look at me.”

  “Always, always.”

  “Never look away again.”

  He thrust into me again and again, and the fullness between my legs grew like a balloon ready to burst. I could have looked at the intensity in his eyes forever. There, I could believe he’d always be by my side, that I’d never be afraid again, that the safety he promised was real not just for me, but for us.

  I believed it. In my heart I did, for just a moment, and the orgasm that came in that moment became tangible, with its own weight and mass. He let my wrists go and leaned on me. For those few moments, his roughness was gone, and he made love to me while I came, clawing his back as if that would get me inside him.

  He buried his face in my neck and stiffened, releasing into me. He groaned again and again, then he was done.

  He whispered my name. “Drawing fire can get you killed. There is no world without you in it. Nothing. I’m not talking about despair. I’ve lost people. This isn’t me being a child. There is one universe. Just one. And it’s between us. If you destroy that universe, you destroy me. Do you understand what I’m saying? You cannot do that again. Ever. For me.”

  “I was scared,” I whispered. I could barely hear myself over the cicadas.

  “I know.” He dragged his lips over my cheek and to my throat.

  “I was scared you were gone. That you’d be hit while I couldn’t reach you.”

  “I know.” He picked his head up and looked me in the eye. “I don’t want you to be scared ever again. I’m going to teach you how to survive without me.”