The Blow

They fell on us like night. Half asleep I first heard something in the backyard, which I mistook for raccoons. A minute later they were inside, knives on our throats.

"Who sends you here?" I said under my breath. "Tell Carlo I'll have the money in a week." Gabriela was next to me trembling.

They all wore some strange masks. They didn't like what I said. They were seething through their thick lips.

"Get up." They dragged me out of the bed unto the carpet. They threw me into the armchair, my favorite piece of furniture in the house, finest Italian handcraft. There I suffered some solid punches; I thought I broke a few ribs, maybe half a tooth.

"Stop! You'll kill him!" Gabriela covered her mouth with both her hands and cried.

"It's going to be alright." I tried to console her. "We'll just give them what they want."

Then I realized what they wanted.

"Don't you dare! Don't you fucking dare!" I could hardly keep the rage in my chest. "Touch her and you're dead, you hear? You're dead men walking!"

Gabriela put on a fight as long as she could. In her red nightdress she was like a lone matadoras dodging a stampede of bulls. I had never been so proud of my lover before.

"Dirty pigs! Get off me!" She shouted.

In the end they overcame her; one pinned her wrists down while another climbed on her. Next I heard the most bone-chilling scream in my life.

"No! You cowards, leave her out of this! Whatever deal Carlo gave you, I'll cut you a better one!"

I wanted to launch myself at them but my knees failed me. I remained sitting like a clown while they tortured my Gabriela. It was all too much. I shut my eyes and cried like a child.

"Help... I can't breathe..." I heard her whimper. Her face was turning blue. I realized she was dying.

"She has asthma," I got their attention. "In the restroom, the little blue thing behind the mirror..."

I watched them stuff it in her mouth, Gabriela's chest rising and collapsing, while they continued toying her. The monsters had her at an angle so both could take her at once.

"You watch while we teach her." One grinned at me before thrusting into her. Within three blows she threw up on the pillow.

That was three nights ago.

My nightmare went on. The bed was now full of filth, Gabriela's and theirs. During the time they'd only given me water. I couldn't move an inch. I felt like a skeleton grown into the chair's blue velvet.

I was not good at math but their number kept growing. I once thought had they all taken their turns they'd leave us alone. Now there was a long queue past me, waiting.

I prayed and prayed for Gabriela's life. She was innocent, loyal, fearless. I felt like a piece of shit for dragging her into my mess.

At least they remembered to feed her. Her asthma seemed to have subsided too. I guessed she's more useful to them alive; in desperate times one had to cling to whatever hope he had left.

She didn't leave the bed at all now. They had dragged a pot next to our bed. When the time came they let her free temporarily, and she would squat by the edge of bed with her back to me to do her business.

They were training her like a house pet.

I watched with my dry black eyes. Gabriela was buried behind the multitude of my enemies' ugly corpulent flesh, and only from time to time did parts of her escape the blockade.

Her pale feet perching on their shoulders. Her thigh pressing against their sides. Her fingers clawing deep down the ravines of their backs drawing a trail of dark blood.

Her silken locks of raven spread upon the bedsheet like a wild overgrowth.

"Gabriela... love of my life..." I yelled out, or so I thought.

I just wanted to see her face again.

A drawn-out groan was her response. For a second or two they stopped; it was quiet and mysterious with the sound of trickling water.

I thought she was avoiding me. Maybe she was ashamed of herself; my worst fear was that she had forgotten about me.

The demons still refused to let me know who unleashed them onto us. I no longer existed in the room. I was a pile of grey ash, gone by the merest blow.

Until one finally took pity on me. A young man, half my age, still a boy. He gave me some banana yogurt that I bought for Gabriela the night before everything happened. It all seemed forever ago.

Like a hungry orphan I ate. He nodded with a grievous look.

"You will live."

I begged him to tell me who they were, what they wanted, but he ignored my questions.

Instead he began to tell me all this outlandish stuff about the Amazon -- fertility rites, polygamy, mind-control magics. Orgies, more orgies. He had an intense, dry delivery that was wearing me out. I had no clue why he was telling me any of this.

Then he told me they were taking Gabriela to the Amazon.

"She will fit right in. There are others like her. You will see."

He eyed me suspiciously. He didn't think I believed him. His eyes were red with anger.

Over the bed they had put Gabriela on her head and were dancing, flailing their limbs around her. One held her ankles together, and her toes pointed at the ceiling. I thought I heard her sing. My poor Gabriela must have finally gone mad.

The boy went on, more stuff about rainforests, more about the orgies. Women there don't wear clothes. They grow their hair out between legs and let their breasts dangle about. No, they won't have idle breasts; they will have lots of sex and lots of children.

"Your wife," he said, "will wish she never knew you."

Of course I wasn't believing a word of it. I was angry, sad and full of vengeance against these savages who broke into my house and stole my Gabriela.

Then years later I found out that all of it was true.