Above and Beyond (12 page)

Lena opened her eyes to see Ramon looking back into them. Those big brown eyes. So sweet and soulful. She could have looked into them forever but she knew that he had to leave. She kissed him and watched as he got out of bed and walked around her bedroom picking up scattered pieces of his outfit. He moved like a jungle cat, his muscles flexing, putting on a spectacular show that kept Lena absolutely hypnotized.

She wasn’t sure how, but he had become even more beautiful to her as each day went by. She couldn’t fathom how she’d seem him as a stupid lunk just days before. Not now that she understood the depth of his character and the contents of his soul.

Sadly, he finished dressing himself. It came with with the consolation prize of a kiss goodnight and sweet whispers. He went to the door with a casual stroll, then stopped stiff. He turned around, looked at the balcony door. He ran across the bedroom and struggled with it, but it was locked and he didn’t seem to have the key.

Someone must have been in the hallway. Lena pointed to her closet door. It was packed full, and she wasn’t 100% sure that a man as big as Ramon could fit. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but he couldn’t exactly hide under her bed, and he’d be a little more than inconspicuous behind the curtains.

By some miracle, he managed to get himself in the closet and close the door. Lena tried to fix her hair. She scrambled to kick her own clothes under the bed and put on a nightgown that hung from the corner of her four poster bed, preparing for the worst case scenario that somebody would stop at her door.

Sure enough, there were three short knocks. She got out of bed and started to the door, but realized that it was locked and that she didn’t have the key. As if he was reading her mind, the key slid out from under the closet, halfway across the wooden floor to her feet. Another knock. She went to the door and opened it.

Earlier, when she had thought of the worst case scenario, she had lacked imagination.

“Hello, beautiful.”

“Get the fuck out or I’m calling my dad.”

“Who do you think let me in, sweet thing,” Damien said.

“I’ll call my bodyguard. Remember him?”

The momentary look of panicked fear on Damien’s face suggested that he had not forgotten about his encounter with Ramon the other night.

“You’d do that to your fiance?”

“I’d do it to an asshole home invader who isn’t welcome here.”

“I wouldn’t do that babe. Not if your bodyguard wants to keep his job.”

She bit her tongue. She knew that all she had to do was scream for help. It would mean that she’d have to explain why Ramon had been hiding in her closet, which was bound to go poorly. It would have been worth it to see Damien’s stupid fucking face when his new friend burst out of her closet with blood in his eyes.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

“Your face is looking good. How many stitches did that take?”

She managed to score another sour face from Damien.

“Sixteen,” he lied. In truth, it had only taken four and a series of butterfly bandages. After the fourth stitch Damien had started screaming and flailing so much that the nurse who had the poor luck of tending to him had to result to medical glue and bandages. But for his entire life when he showed off the scar, he’d say it had taken sixteen stitches He’d also say that it was the result of a ‘small cut’ that he’d sustained when rescuing a little girl from a burning building. None of that would have surprised Lena then.

“How are your ribs?”

Damien pretended not to know what she meant, but he was still sporting a giant purple and yellow mark under his expensive clothes.

“How’s your virginity? he came back. It was a poor choice on his part. When Lena talked with her girlfriends about losing her virginity to him, the story was always a comedy, with most of the humor taking part at Damien’s expense.

“Awful,” she sighed. “I gave it to some pathetic boy who played with it for thirty seconds and then threw it away. We all make mistakes, you know.”

Lena knew that it was unwise to push like this. Damien had a temper. But in truth, it did not matter what she did. He’d come here for exactly one thing, and it was going to take drastic measures to stop him.

“You know, I was thinking about letting that slip. I know you must be worked up, pre wedding nerves and all. But my wife has got to know how to respect her man. I’m going to have to teach you, and I might as well give you your first lesson now.”

“It’s really a fucking shame that I don’t have any more glassware to give to you,” Lena said.

She backed towards her desk, to the scissors that she knew were there. Ramon had given her a crash course in using them, and she was beginning to think that those skills might be getting put to the test tonight.

“I don’t appreciate your tone of voice,” Damien said as he began to follow after her. Lena bumped against the desk and fumbled around behind her. Her fingers moved over the shears and she took them up in her hand the way Ramon had showed her and hid them behind her back.

Damien closed in on her. Close enough that when she brought her knee up into his balls, he didn’t have any chance at defending himself. She slipped out to the side and made a break for the door but he grabbed her by the hair and swung her back into the room, shuffling to stand between her and the door.

“You’re going to regret that, bitch.”

“We’ll see.”

Tears were in Damien’s eyes as he tried and failed to stand up straight.

“You know, I honestly didn’t know if that was going to do anything to you or not. I’m surprised, really. I’d guessed not.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’ve got,” he said, regaining his composure. “Or should I reacquaint you with San Pedro and the Banditos.” He actually grabbed his crotch in emphasis, wincing as he did.

Lena laughed and it sparked rage in his eyes. He started to take a step towards her and she held out the shears in a completely functional knife fighter’s grip.

“Do it and I cut them off.”

Damien spat at her and and smirked. “So it’s going to be like that, huh? We’re going to play rough?”

“You have no fucking idea,” she said. “This time, I’ll bite it off.”

“And I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”

“They make dentures. Do they make fake cocks?” She was going to suggest that if they did, he could finally have a big one, but Damien had heard enough. He lunged across the room at her. Lena jabbed with the scissors but the tip caught on his shirt, tearing it open but robbing it of any real stopping power. He grabbed her arms and twisted her wrist. She dropped the shears and cried out. They stood face to face for a moment beside the bed and she saw all of the rage and evil in Damien’s eyes that she’d seen the last time he had been in her bedroom.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he whispered.

              He pushed her to the side, onto the bed, and scrambled on top of her, pinning her arms to the side.

              “Actually, no. We do this the hard way.”

              Lena twisted an arm free and swung up at his face, catching him just under the right eye, not too far from where she’d hit him with the glass. He hit her back, grabbed her by the shoulder, and forced her onto her stomach, holding her down to the bed with one hand while he undid his pants.

              “Damien, you can’t do this. Not again.”

              She heard him laugh, and then felt his breath hot on her cheek.

              “Oh yea? Who’s going to stop me?”

Ramon was getting restless. Every second that passed with that creep in the room with Lena made him sick. She was holding her own, but he didn’t see any way that Damien was going to leave without being shown out. He’d hoped that Lena wouldn’t go for the scissors, but she had. He’d regretted showing her how to hold them to stab. That had given her confidence, when in reality, all she was doing was escalating the fight to more lethal force. Then again, if she managed to stab the bastard, he’d be alright with the outcome.

He held his breath, hoping that someone else would come along and break up the fight. What he would have given to watch Tia come running in with a frying pan and settle things
abuela
style. He told himself that first thing tomorrow, he was going to beg her to start sleeping in the room next to Lena’s.

He gritted his teeth and squeezed his fists. He wanted to kill this slimy bastard. If he showed himself, he’d would have to, or he and Lena would be exposed. By the sounds of it, things had come to a head between Damien and Lena. The bed groaned as the weight of two bodies were added to it. There was no more time. Ramon couldn’t sit here and let this happen. But he couldn’t kill Damien, no matter how much the kid deserved it. For one thing, he’d never be able to return to Miami if he did.

This was it. He went to push himself up and his hand came down on something hard and plastic. It made a beeping noise like a fax machine. Thank God that Lena was the kind of girl to clean her room by pushing shit into the closet. He picked up the voice modulator and felt around above him for the heaviest piece of clothing he could find.

He pushed the closet door open just enough that he could see. Damien was on top of Lena on the bed, facing away from him. He adjusted the skirt in his hands and crept silently to the edge of the bed.

“Damien, you can’t do this. Not again,” Lena said.

He bent down and whispered something into her ear that Ramon could not hear. Damien sat back up.

Ramon jumped over the footboard of the bed and pulled the skirt over Damien’s head, gathering the loose fabric in his fist so that it stretched tight over Damien’s face. One quick jab to his kidneys made Damien go limp. Ramon picked up the voice modulator and dragged Damien backwards off the bed and into the bathroom.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Ramon said in a robot’s voice.

He turned the faucet in the bath on as hot as it would go, and pushed Damien’s head under the running water. In under a second, the scalding water had saturated the heavy fabric of the dress and made it almost impossible for Damien to draw breath. To him, it would have felt like drowning. Ramon had seen Taliban fighters being waterboarded before. It was about the most awful thing that he’d seen a person endure, and he hadn’t wished it on anyone before. Not even the enemy soldiers that had killed his friends. Damien would be lucky if this was the worst that he got from Ramon tonight.

He pulled Damien up to his knees and set the modulator to ‘alien mode’.

“You will call off your wedding with Ms. Buldova. You will never come back here. You will never see her again. Do you understand.”

One of the problems with torture is that a subject under duress will do or say anything to make it stop. Damien would have agreed that he was a French prostitute, or that he would give his entire inheritance to the Miami battered women’s shelter. But he never would have meant it.

Then, Ramon wasn’t exactly counting on Damien keeping any promises. He’d just hoped to make a lasting impression on him.

Ramon pushed his head back towards the water, close enough that Damien could feel splashes of hot water on his cheeks through the dress.

“And if anyone asks, this never happened.”

In this case, Ramon knew that Damien was lying. As soon as he got home, he would run to his father, sobbing, and tell him everything. Well, he would probably omit the part where broke into Lena’s room, threatened her, and tried to rape her. But he would gladly tell all of the ways that
he
had been the victim here. Ramon just wanted to make sure that his story - along with his body - would be colorful.

Ramon hauled him out of the tub, ‘accidentally’ hitting his head on the corner of the shower. Lena had unlocked and opened the bedroom door, and Ramon dragged Damien’s kicking body down the stairs and out the front door. He stood Damien at the threshold of the house, the soaked dress still over his head. Ramon looked at the voice modulator in his hand and pressed the button marked “chipmunk”.

“If you ever return to this house. If you ever tell anyone what happened here tonight. I will kill you.”

He released the skirt and simultaneously kicked Damien’s ass so hard that both of his feet left the ground. It occurred to Ramon later that they probably could have matched the bruise to the sole of his boot.

When Damien turned around, he found the door, closed and locked. By the time he got into his car and drove away, Ramon was back upstairs trying to be of any comfort that he could to Lena.

Lena wasn’t sure how long Ramon had been gone for. From the second that she’d hit Damien, adrenaline had been coursing through her body. Things moved in slow motion. Time was distorted. Everything was a blurry mish mash of events. She could remember most of what happened but couldn’t put all the events in order. When she watched Ramon drag Damien out of her room, she started to come down, and everything started to hurt. She made it back to her bed before she crashed. The next thing she was aware of was a touch on her arm. Although it was as gentle of a touch as Ramon could manage, to her it felt like a fiery stab. She jumped, startled, and whirled around ready to fight.

Ramon took a step back and held his hands up in the air.

“Oh, hey,” Lena said, her pulse racing.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s ok.”

Ramon sat on the floor beside her bed and looked up at her.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Not real good,” Lena said.

“What can I do?”

“Just stay with me.”

Ramon sat with her, saying nothing, doing nothing. Lena appreciated his patience. The last time that Damien had attacked her, at school, all of her friends tried to help. They meant well, that wanted their friend to feel better. But what Lena needed then was just to be left alone. She wanted that now too, but she was afraid to be by herself in this evil house. She wanted to be alone with someone else, and that’s exactly what Ramon gave her.

They would have sat their all night in complicit silence, if Zeus hadn’t come stomping down the hallway. Ramon was on his feet, looking impressively detached by the time Lena’s stepfather filled the doorway.

“What the hell is going on down here?” he growled.

“I heard screaming sir,” Ramon said. “I came to investigate and found Lena. I’ve tried to speak with her but she’s requested to be left alone.”

“Who gives a shit what she requests. Lena, what the fuck is going on?”

“Oh, nothing dad. Just a little tussle with a rapist.”

“Don’t speak about your fiance that way.”

“Who said anything about Damien?” Lena said with feigned innocence.

Zeus began to look very angry. His temper made Damien look tame by comparison, and Lena did not want to push him any further.

“I just got a call from that boy’s father. He says that his son was beaten within an inch of his life. Know anything about that Ramon?”

Ramon shook his head. “No sir. Lena told me that the rape was broken up by robot. I’m a little skeptical of the claim, myself.” He, on the other hand, had no reservations about pissing Zeus off. Lena wondered if he might get a chance to develop some in the very near future.

Zeus was practically steaming from the ears.

“I don’t know what’s going on around here, but on my life, you had better learn to get along with Damien. He’s going to be your husband in six days and you’re going to be the wife I raised you to be, damnit. This family has too much riding on you for you to go around worrying about what you want.”

Lena smiled from ear to ear. It was the kind of smile that someone makes when they’re driven to madness by anger. Ramon had seen it before. Ramon had worn it himself.

“I know father. I’ll be a good girl. I’ll do anything for the family.”

Now it was Zeus’s turn to back off.

“Thats… that’s right. I trust we’ll have no more disturbances tonight.”

“As long as you don’t let any more rapists into the house,” Lena muttered under her breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Zeus for a response. He turned around and for a moment opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Ramon followed him into the hallway and locked the door behind him. He’d left the lights on, which was fine by Lena.

She knew that she would not sleep tonight.