I take a long drag on a half-smoked cigarette and toss it to the pavement, watching the rain put it out for me. I look up at the window, but I don't see anything except for light shining out through gauzy pink curtains. If they're having sex up there, it's away from the window at least. There's a little voice inside my head telling me that I'm doing the worst possible thing I can do right now, but I get it under control.
I walk up to the door and give it a hard rap. There's an art to knocking like a scary motherfucker, a quick 'pound the knuckles three times fast and wait' rhythm that gets people jumping to attention. I don't expect an immediate answer, but that's fine. I spend the pause composing my face into a mask of cool, calm, and collected in that order. Whoever opens that door is going to see the face of an alpha bitch. I plan to take charge of the situation from Second One.
The pause is long. I figure Constance is standing on the other side by now. She's probably trying to make me nervous, get me out of my own head and worry about whether she's home or not. She's trying to make me second-guess myself so that she can worm her way inside my head and play on that insecurity the way she did with Martina. But that's not going to happen. I've got this. Constance, Martina, the whole situation. I'm on top of it. I'm not nervous at all.
The door opens. It's Constance. She's wearing the kind of silk robe you don't wear after a bath. The sort of thing you put on to take off. She has a little smile on her face, just a quirk right at the corner of her mouth. When she sees me, she tilts her hip just a little, enough to show off her cleavage where the robe is coming apart a tiny bit. "You must be a friend of Martina," she says. Her voice is husky and rough, and it's hard not to notice that her hair is tousled like she's been grinding it against a pillow. "We haven't--"
I can tell what she's trying to do. I don't let her. I brush past her and head for the stairs. I don't knock her over or anything, but I put enough force into it to make it clear that she's better off if this doesn't get physical. She looks like she works out, but probably some shit like yoga or Pilates or spinning or something that works on 'tone'. Probably never thrown a punch in her life.
I don't really want it to get physical either. She's too rich and I'm too Latina to get into a fight in this neighborhood. But I want to keep her thinking about it that way, because it keeps her off balance. The longer she worries about what I'm going to do to her, the easier it is to keep the situation under control. "Martina!" I shout, as I take the steps two at a time. "Martina, it's me, Del!"
Constance hustles up the stairs after me. "I'm not sure what you think gives you this kind of license," she says, "but if you'd like me to call the police, I can certainly--"
"Go ahead," I say dismissively. I don't even bother looking down at her. Partly because I don't want her to see my eyes when she says that, but she doesn't have to know that. "We can all march right the fuck up to your bedroom together."
That shuts her up. She must know she fucked up somewhere, because she doesn't say a word while I open up doors one by one. She looks a little nervous now. Probably wondering what I know and how I know it. People like her always think they're so sneaky, but when you spend all day every day knocking on doors and talking to people, it's not hard to hear about someone who stops coming home for days at a time. I think of Martina's mother, worried fucking sick about her daughter's grades slipping and her scholarships drying up, and Miss Constance Danforth, making all sorts of big shiny promises she'll probably forget about in a year or two when she gets bored of her exotic dark meat. And I think maybe I won't mind throwing a punch or two after all.
I find the right door on the third try. Martina's lying on the bed, naked and spread-eagled. She's drugged or something. Her eyes are rolled all the way back in her head until only the whites are showing, and her jaw is slack. She's drooling a little out of the corner of her mouth. I don't see her clothes anywhere. I head over to the bed and try to help her sit up, but...
Grabbing her arm is like yanking on an iron bar. I mean, I work out. I spend all my free time in an old-school gym, the kind of place that stinks like years of sweat and has punching bags that are always fraying at the seams from hours of use. But when I pull on Martina, she doesn't move at all. Her whole body is rigid. Her muscles are like rocks. She doesn't respond to me calling her name at all. It's like I'm not even there.
I tell myself this is just part of Constance's weird trust fund bitch games. She probably told Martina that this was cool rich-person shit, the good stuff you get prescribed by your personal physician. Maybe she said it would make the sex better. Maybe she said it would help Martina study, and the sex came once she was out of her head. It's just one more reason to get her out of here and away from Constance. Everything's still cool. I've still got the situation under control.
From behind me, Constance says, "Come back, pretty girl." And suddenly Martina opens her eyes the rest of the way. She looks at me, and I can tell it's the first time she's noticed I'm even there. She kind of squirms a little for a second, covering herself up...but she's looking right past me the whole time she's doing it, and after a couple of seconds she sees something that makes her relax a little. Her arms drop to their sides, her legs relax a little. She just sits there on the bed, looking like any college kid except for the nudity.
"Oh, um...hi, Delfina," she says. She doesn't sound drugged. A little confused, maybe, but not drugged. "What are you doing here?" She's naked on the bed, her hair plastered to her skin, her whole body drenched with sweat, smelling like crazy hot pornstar sex, and she acts like the weird thing is that one of the women from her neighborhood dropped by.
"Looking for you," I tell her. "Your mama's worried sick about you." I put a little scold into my voice when I say it, but it's hard to look stern when you're trying real hard to stare anywhere but at the naked girl on the bed. Why can't she hide under the covers or something? Jesus fuck. What a fucking time to finally notice that Guadalupe Rivera's little girl grew up in all the right places.
"There's nothing to worry about," Constance says from behind me. I try not to flinch. I almost forgot she was there, I was so busy not looking at Martina. Or not not looking at Martina is more like it. Hard to stop staring when her pussy is right there and I can smell it from where I'm standing.
I get my libido under control and turn on Constance. "Nothing to worry about?" I say. "I talked to her school, she's missed practically a week of classes already. Maybe you can blow off a year or two of college doing drugs and fucking your girlfriends, but Martina's on scholarship. She can't afford to let her grades slip."
