When she came down the stairs, she wasn’t white. She didn’t look afraid. In fact, her cheeks were rosy and she had something curious in her eyes.

“Baby, I’ve called the police and explained the situation. Are you OK? We have to move though. It’s not safe here anymore.”

She took her time walking over to me, gave Matilda a kiss and then paced the room a little.

“We’re not even unpacked, so the driver can take us somewhere else for now, and a police escort has agreed to meet us there. I’m trying to get hold of the Feds in the states but until I do, you and Matilda need to hide away as soon as possible…”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked up at me with a calm face.

“He doesn’t care about Matilda. It’s us he wants.”

Maria held Matilda and tried to soothe her, but her face was almost as alarmed as the face of the baby she held. Nora went over to stroke Matilda’s bare little feet but looked at me carefully.

“Matilda is safer here, at the villa. We need to leave, but she can’t come with us.”

I laughed out loud. It was preposterous.

“Nora, he’s been here, he knows where we’re hiding, who knows what he’s capable—”

“I know what he’s capable of. That’s why we have to leave. Not with Tilly. Not with the driver. Not with anyone. Just us.”

I had never heard her sound so determined before. I struggled to find words but it seemed futile to argue with the expression she was giving me. There were locks on all the bedrooms and I had several bodyguards and staff watching the place. I turned to look at Maria. She immediately understood the question on my face.

“There’s rain this evening though,” Maria said at last. “They say this area floods. You have to be careful. It’s dangerous out there. It’s a gang area the other side of the river and there have been incidents, Alberto was telling me,” she said and shot Alberto the driver a pleading look.

“Heavy rain and gangs are the least of my concerns,” I said, and caught Nora’s gaze again.

“Are you sure baby? You sure you want to do this?” She smiled weakly at me and nodded.

I had to be crazy. Had to be insane to go adventuring off into the Bolivian countryside right now, leaving my child and all the staff in this stranger’s house when a madman had his eyes on us. But I trusted Nora. I trusted her with more than my life. Something strange in her eyes told me to listen to her. So I nodded slowly and in a few minutes we were preparing to leave again.

In no time we were back in the car, timidly waving goodbye to Maria and little Matilda, everyone somber and quiet as we all tried to erase the bloody memory of that butchered cat we’d seen just a few minutes prior. I cast my eyes upwards and, like a bad omen, the clouds were indeed gathering overhead in heavy looking grey boulders that seemed to be advancing far off from the mountains and right towards us.

I turned on the ignition, and we took off back down that dirt road driveway again, my attempt to keep my family safe lasting all of a few minutes. Nora didn’t speak a word. I decided to head back onto the main road and keep driving till we found a little hole in the wall to hide out at. No more hotels or motels. I had no idea how he had managed to find us out here, when I had taken every precaution, but he wasn’t going to catch me by surprise again. We would hide for real now. The single Bolivian police officer I had found that spoke English over the phone wasn’t convinced of the seriousness of the situation. He knew where we were and he meant to scare us. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew that as long as Nora was here, by my side where I could see her, we were OK. My mind was having trouble thinking much further than that though.

“So, you wanna tell me anything?” I said, once we had driven a little while. The temperature was rapidly dropping as the sun went behind the wall of tall clouds and a grey pall fell over everything. She stared straight ahead. Most couples have happy memories of their first dates, of vacations. My happy memories of Nora were like this: on the open road, nothing behind and god knows what up ahead.

“We just need to keep running. He’s coming after us,” she said simply. The feeling that she was keeping something from me was stronger than ever these days. I hated it.

“Fucking asshole,” I said and slammed my fist against the steering wheel. Everything was just fine until he decided to interfere with our lives again.

We rolled through a narrow section of the road, a funneled bridge skirted with tall scraggly trees on both sides. I nearly swerved when I noticed two men who appeared out of nowhere, walking along the railings. I slowed the car and they walked past us, made eye contact and then walked on. Both were heavily tattooed, wearing loose wife-beater shirts, caps and muddy site-boots, and expressions almost darker than the rolling clouds overhead. I lifted my eyes to follow them in the rearview mirror.

“Gang members?” I said when they had passed.

“They looked so fucking scary,” she said and turned in her seat to stare. But her words didn’t match her face – she was smiling.

“Do you think they…?” I said, but she interrupted.

“Nope. Not their style. Unless the cat had some serious connections in the dark underbelly of the Bolivian drug world,” she said and gave me a naughty smile.

“Very funny,” I said, but I was irritated. How could she joke around at a time like this? She flopped back in her seat and gazed out at the clouds, puffing and rolling before our very eyes.

“My name’s Conchita, and I’ve gotten caught up with the wrong crowd,” she said, tracing her finger over the glass of the window. “They got me hooked on heroin first, and I want to stop now, but they have a hold on me. I have an older boyfriend called Red Dog, and he’s rough with me but I love him, and every time I threaten to leave he gets mad… do you want to know what he does to me, some nights?” she said and slowly brought her gaze to mine.

I squeezed my fists on the steering wheel.

“Now, Nora? Seriously? Can this wait?”

“Are you angry with me too? I like you. You can touch me if you want to. Red Dog will never find out,” she cooed.

“Nora, I’m trying to drive here…”

“If you don’t do what I say, I’ll just tell Red Dog you tried to push yourself on me. Dios mio, what he did to the last guy who made him angry.”

I turned in my seat and gave her a hard look.

“You’re fucking crazy,” I said, unable to stop the edge of softness that creeped in.

“Would you like to be ‘fucking crazy’?” she said and lifted her eyebrows at me.

“Nora, how in the hell did he find us? Someone must have tipped him off. No phones. Nobody knew we were leaving.”

She sighed loudly and stared again out of the window. She was still clutching tightly at a little bag I had watched her guarding since we left California.

“What’s in there?”

“Nothing.”

I put my foot on the pedal and bit down hard on my jaw. Nora was fucking crazy. She was like one of those giant paintings, one that’s big enough to cover a whole room wall. The kind of thing that makes sense from far away, but then you move up close you see how bitty and grainy it all is. You see that it’s not pretty, in its components. That the brush strokes are rough and chaotic and …crazy. Days like this I lost sight of her bigger picture, and could only see the small bits, the jagged edges, the colors that didn’t look like they went together.

The car bumped onto an onramp for a larger road and we picked up speed, now out of the more rundown dirt paths and onto what seemed like the highway. I hadn’t intended to be driving like an idiot at night like this, and hated feeling so unprepared. More than that, I hated how calm she seemed.

“Hey, Conchita… I see some places up ahead, what do you think?” I said. She took her time answering.

“Nah, Red Dog will find us there easily. He knows everyone. Let’s just stay in our car tonight, ok papi?”

“Sure,” I said and sped on.

We went through what was likely a town and were alone on the open road again.

“What would you do, if Red Dog found you out here with his girl like this, huh?” she said as I checked the coast and found a small hollow in the bushes to pull over in from the road. I turned the ignition off and cracked my neck, one side then the other.

“Red Dog is nothing but a little bitch, and he knows it. You think I can’t handle a little shit like him?”

She giggled to herself.

“I don’t know, man, he’s bad. I seen him kill a guy before.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?” I said, and flung the door open.

It was cool and silent outside. What would I do if “Red Dog” came along? Good fucking question. No California police department. No sleepy Bolivian village sheriffs. No FBI. No law and order. Just this road, Nora, and the challenging glint in her eye. I knew what she was pushing for. She wanted violence. She wanted me to say I’d fight him, and kill him. And as irritated as I was with her wanting to play a fucking game right now, I just couldn’t argue with her. Why was I running away from my asshole father yet again? Why had I let him intimidate my family and threaten everything I held dear?

She climbed out the car and came up to me, eyes downcast.

“What would your boy say if he knew you were whoring around like this huh?”

“He doesn’t treat me right anyway,” she said, and bit her lower lip.

“That’s because he’s a fucking kid. A boy. You need a real man to treat you right.” Fuck this was bad. This was cheesy as all hell. But I was getting into it, despite myself.

“Are you a real man, papi?” she said, and batted some Bambi eyes my way.

In a heartbeat I grabbed her wrists and yanked her close to me, close enough to kiss though I only hovered my lips above hers, just the threat of a kiss between us.

“Maybe too much for you,” I said and she smiled arrogantly at me and yanked her hands free. Swishing her hips and tossing her hair like the brat she was, she waltzed over to the hood of the car and leant against it, putting the slightest distance between her feet on the ground.

“Prove it,” she whispered.

I leapt at her and she squealed as I grabbed her again, this time more roughly, and spun her around so her chest came thumping against the bonnet of the car. Even pinned down hard like this she still chuckled, a wry smile on her lips.

“I’m not scared. I’m Red Dog’s girl, and he’s going to kill you for laying a finger on me,” she said teasingly.

It was just a game.

A game like any of the hundreds we had played with one another. And yet… this one felt just a little more real. When she arched her ass back towards me and waggled her hips, something inside me snapped.

“Little bitch,” I growled under my breath and yanked her skirt up high, revealing a plain pair of cotton panties and a pair of soft thighs.

Grabbing the hair at the base of her neck and pinning her to the cold metal of the car’s hood, I pulled my pants open and down with my other hand and grabbed a fistful of her ass, squeezing so hard the white flesh went red under my fingers.

“Spread them,” I barked. “Fucking wider,” and I forced her legs further apart. She groaned and melted onto the hood of the car, her bare ass exposed.

She was mine.

No games.

No bullshit.

Why shouldn’t I pull over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and fuck her just as hard as I pleased? What was I so damn afraid of anyway?

“If you make a goddam peep, chica, I’m going to make you wish you were never born, do you understand?” I said into her ear. She fought me and pushed back, but I was much stronger and, with my knees pressing hard against the metal of the doors, and one hand pinning her head down, she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Just try it,” she hissed, her pink-tipped hair now covering her face. She was no longer Nora Cane, the celebrity face anyone in the world would have recognized. She was no longer Mrs. Cane from the Rainbow foundation, teaching art school in kitten heels and colorful nail polish. She was a dirty gangbanger’s girlfriend who ran her mouth off one too many times and was about to get punished for it.

You have to understand, the fantasy isn’t important. The details don’t matter, the costuming is irrelevant, and the plot line unimportant. It goes deeper. Just the thought that this kind of sick shit got her off at all was enough for me. Just to know that she was so turned on right now I could almost smell it, that she was wet enough to be wet slick on her inner thighs and so desperate for my cock she was literally writhing for it …that’s what I liked. That was our kink.

It was so easy to slip myself into that wet little hole of hers. So easy to start stroking deeply into her, giving her a taste of what she was hungry for, taking my time enjoying the mounds of her sweet little upturned ass and the way her feet were struggling to find balance in the dust below.

“You like that?” I hissed and she moaned, leaning back more fully onto my cock.

“You’re gonna pay for this,” she said, but I could hear the smile on her voice, hear the challenge. It was OK. I knew how much she could take. I knew Nora’s edges, and I knew just how to take her right up close to them… this was my game now.

“You want me to kill you?” I said and thrust hard into her, making her cry out.

I pulled back on her hair to bring her up closer to me, arching so I could admire her perfect breasts as they poked hard through the fabric of her tank top.

“Do your best, Papi” she said in a breathless whimper and sweet god, I tried. I lost myself. A dark, animal sound rolled up from up inside my chest and I clasped both her ass cheeks in my hands, bringing her poor body slapping against mine, over and over again, till she had no breath to protest even if she wanted to. She went limp in my arms, her hair shaking with each thrust, till I felt myself swell and harden inside her.

“I’m Red Dog’s girl, and you can’t do this to me,” she moaned, but with much less conviction now.

“Oh yeah? Looks like you’re my little slut now,” I said and with one last pump I released a massive load of cum inside her, shuddering hard as my orgasm ripped through me, claiming her as my own, both of us trembling hard with that primal contract that only two bodies can make with one another.

My cock slipped wet out of her and a long, thin dribble of cum followed, making a white line all the way from her pussy to the dusty ground beneath us. It was such an insanely hot thing to see I briefly considered fucking her all over again.

“Clean yourself up,” I said, slapped her ass once and then carefully zipped up again. The air smelt fresher, more alive somehow. She turned on the hood of the car and shot me bewildered eyes. Conchita. Or Nora. It didn’t matter. She slowly pulled her knees up high to her chest and let her panties fall to the ground. She looked up at the sky just as a few heavy drops of rain came spattering onto her chest. Distant thunder told us both that a heavy storm was well on its way.

“He’s coming,” she said.

I think I was beginning to understand why she didn’t seem afraid when she said this.