Chapter 3—Destrucción
Description: Raised on the street, Leon thinks he’s tough. But can he survive being the paypig…er, boyfriend of materialistic, shopping-obsessed Sydney Sweeney?
Tags: Sydney Sweeney, financial domination, orgasm denial, big tits, big ass, mf, oral, anal, titfuck, femdom, feet
A/N:
Events from the lives of Leon Balthasar and his friends over the next month, not necessarily in order…
Three Cholo guys swagger down Van Nuys. Walking slow, shoulder to shoulder—taking up maximal space, giving minimal fucks. Whistling at hynas, bantering in Spanglish, radiating high-wattage machismo. The oldest has a battery-powered speaker in a fannypack. Daddy Yankee goes rattle-bang-boom. Under his eye, there’s a crossed-sword tattoo. The younger two have no tattoos yet and stare at his with envy.
They stroll down a side street, where a line of men are waiting to kill them.
The firing squad reaches into leather jackets. They have half a second to react, then guns are spitting death.
Two playas drop fast. They hit the blacktop, bullets sizzling overhead. They scramble beneath a car and out the other side, running for Raymer Street, which is friendly territory. Bullets scream past them. One has a flower of blood unraveling down his arm. He doesn’t realize he’s been shot for three blocks.
The third playa freezes at the worst time a playa has ever frozen.
He catches three bullets. Bang-bang-bang. Chest shot. Gut shot. Shoulder shot. He ragdolls under the impacts, spins sideways, tumbles, regains his feet, then staggers after his friends at a drunken lope. They are far ahead, running into the distance. Neither looks back. His legs keep moving slower and slower, like they’re slogging through fast-drying cement. More gunshots kick echoes against the brownstones. He falls a second time. This time, he doesn’t get back up.
Javier Landrón Rodríguez is seventeen years old. He is the third to die in the Ley Orgánica/Espardes de Muerta gang war.
His body is discovered fastened upright to a utility pole, ziptied at ankle and chest. His face is calm and curiously wise. Like he’s staring right out of this shit-rotten city and into the wide blue bay, where some part of him might now be swimming.
His killers have spraypainted a red eye over his head. There is a blood-sodden warning in his pocket that comes to pieces as the LAPD’s forensics unit pulls it out.
VAMOS POR TI ESPARDES DE MUERTA!
WE ARE COMING FOR YOU DEATH SWORDS!
Leon tried to be brave as he approached his father in the living room.
“Dad, can I borrow some more money?”
Jose scowled. His eyes were exhaustion-red.
“You’ve already borrowed money from me, kid.”
“Yeah Dad, I know…” Leon wilted.
“You’ve borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. And now you want more?”
“This is the last time, I promise.”
Jose counted on his fingers until his fingers ran out. “I gave you five thousand two weeks ago. Another five the day after that. And two thousand last week. Diego says you’ve been hustling him for feria, too. And this is after the boss gave you ten thousand. What’s going on, boy? You got a habit now or something?”
Leon cringed. “I’m not on drugs, dad.”
“I believe you. You’d be dead if you smoked twenty-five g’s of crystal that fast with no experience. Whatever you’re doing, it’s worse than a habit. So what are you doing with my money? Tell me the truth, kid. May it set you free.”
“I’m not spending,” Leon said emphatically. “I’m investing. My insider at Sweeney Financial Services heard another tip on the trading floor. There’s this smartphone app, and it’s gonna go to the moon, but…”
“…but you have to act now.” Jose sighed. Anger warred against greed in his expression. Lost. He reached for his wallet. “How much?”
“Only a grand this time,” Leon clasped his hands, feeling ridiculous. “Please, Dad! That’s like, nothing! I’ll pay you back real soon!”
“For everything?”
“For everything! I promise!”
Jose groaned, opened his wallet, and peeled off five hundo-bills with the delicate disgust of a man ripping leeches off his ballsack. The $500 went slap in Leon’s hand, where it looked crinkled and sad.
“Dad…I really need a thousand…” The kid looked crestfallen.
He got a raised and empty hand.
“You get five hundred, and it’s the last money you fuckin’ get from me. Ask for more and I’ll kick your face back through your asshole so hard you’ll look like a donut. Take it and stay out of my hair. Jesus, like I ain’t got enough problems…I hope those fuckin Ley Organica pricks shoot me dead at this point…”
It had been a helluva week for Jose. One part shit; nine parts spinning fans.
Three all-nighters with the boss, and probably another tonight. A few days ago, a lowrider of scary looking motherfuckers had cruised past his casa while he was out watering the roses. One had grinned and made a throat-slashing gesture at Jose. We know where you live, ese. Jose had dropped the hose, sprinted inside, yelled at his son to run, grabbed the forty stashed under the spice rack, and snapped a mag into the receiver—the lowrider was gone by the time he came back outside, of course.
The next morning, he’d woken up to the sound of two guys in LAPD uniforms going through his trash. Jose had wanted to march outside and demand a show of search warrants, but he was pretty sure the LAPD actually had them at this point.
His son had picked a bad time to annoy him.
Leon shuffled away down the hall, dad roaring at him. “And I know damn well there ain’t any such thing as Sweeney Financial Services. I ain’t got time to check your story, kid, but don’t think I don’t know you’re lying!”
Leon handed the salesgirl his debit card. Beep. She put another charge on it—he didn’t have the courage to see how much—and returned it with a smile.
“Men are like coffee beans,” Sydney Sweeney stretched and preened on the beautician’s lounge, barefoot and towel-wrapped and with her perfect face under a moisturizing facemask. “I only swallow the ones that are rich! Just kidding, Leon! You know I don’t mean that!”
He chuckled, standing beside his goddess like a good little boy. “I know, baby. I just love seeing my princess get spoiled.”
Sydney’s eyes did everything except fill with love-hearts. Her voice became a Val-girl squeal. “Oh Leon, I love you SO DAMN MUCH!”
Some part of him, buried six feet deep in the soul, was screaming at how he was acting right now. Like…fuck. Some tough guy he’d turned out to be, swooning over this chick. All he knew was the smile. Its lips. Its teeth. When Sydney smiled as she was smiling now, the rush carried him through the whole day and part of the week. Dad had speculated that he was a drug addict. Dad hadn’t known the half of it.
“I love you too, Sydney!” He blushed, feeling lighter than air. She’s my girlfriend, and she loves me, and everything is fine. Suddenly, the world was Mary Poppins perfect, and nothing bad was happening.
“Not as much as I love you!” He basked in the glow of the mouth-dimples distorting the facemask.
The Singaporean beautician hovered at his shoulder. She’d sussed out the relationship’s dynamic and had spent hours upselling. “Handsome young man! Pretty girlfriend need hot stone massage, lah! Relax muscles in back! Is only hundred-sixty dollah! Is bargain, lah!”
“Oooh…” Sydney’s eyes seemed to suck forward. “A hot stone massage! I’ve heard of those! Leon?”
“Um.” Leon’s face went sheet-white. $160…and that’s without the tip.. Wow.
He’d spent a lot of money at the beauty parlor already. More than he’d planned to spend. More than he’d hoped to spend.
In the past four hours, Sydney had demanded (and received) an oxygen facial, a round of dermaplaning, an eyelash lift, a contouring massage, and a Triple Crown Facial. She’d then received UV light therapy, and a waterless medical pedicure. This had been followed by shots of vitamins, antioxidants, biotin, and glutathione, and Paraffin skin remoisturization therapy.
Leon had kinda hoped that this would be the end. He hadn’t checked his account balance, but knew it was close to overdraft. After weeks of being Sydney’s paypig, he recognized the shit-I’m-broke feeling festering in his gut. It predicted financial oblivion the way an old man’s knee predicts rain. Shameful, sick pleasure, like he’d eaten too much of something bad.
“Sydney, I don’t know…” he glanced around the beautician spa, seeking an escape.
“Er, Leon? You can afford the charge, can’t you?” Sydney was looking at him, the beautician was looking at him, and he realized he had no choice.
“Yes,” he lowered his eyes, skin flushed and sweaty. “Of course I do.”
“Then what’s this ‘I don’t know’ shit?” Sydney raised a freshly-plucked eyebrow. Her smile became a blade ready to eviscerate. “It’s not your job to know. It’s your job to ram that AmEx under scanners.”
Leon got an erection under her steely dermaplaned gaze. Financial domination always made him hard. The further into debt Sydney pulled him, the more aroused he became. He shuffled in place, trying to disguise the bulge.
“I’m just worried that I’ll wear out your skin, princess!” He felt precum trickle down a thigh from his pulsing cock. “There’s such thing as too much pampering, right?”
“No. There’s not.” Sydney Sweeney shook her head.
You’re a rich gangster with millions of dollars. Her face said. C’mon, paypiggy. Squeal for Mommy!.
He sighed. Shrugged. “You know what? We ball.”
Oh man, if the card declines, I’m so fucked…
Convulsing with lust, nearly catatonic with fear, he handed over his credit card once again. The salesgirl charged it. Through some miracle, it didn’t decline. He couldn’t believe his luck.
“Is best boyfriend, lah!” the beautician said as she returned his battlescarred debit card, giggling behind a cupped hand.
“I knoooowww!” Sydney crooned, and he melted again. “Leon’s the coolest guy in the world!”
And just like that, the hurt faded. Only happiness remained—sweet and delusive. Wow. I love her so much.
Using tongs, the beautician plucked some heated stones from an oven, and laid them in a glowing line on a towel. Sydney flipped over on the beauty spa bench, her breasts going flip-flop on her chest. Leon just came to pieces with joy at the face she was making.
This was what he wanted in life. To date the baddest of baddies, and have the means to make her happy.
When Sydney called him the coolest guy in the world, a miracle happened: it sounded true.
“Fuck you, you worthless piece of shit.”
Her bare foot stomped on his face.
“You are such a worthless retarded cocksucker, Leon. I’ve NEVER been so insulted. EVER.”
She ground her foot into his face. Sandpaper-rough foot callouses scraped his nose. Her bare toes filled his vision. Her soles pressed stink onto his face.
He was cuffed at hand and wrist in her mansion’s bondage room. A ball gag swallowed his grunts and gasps of delight.
Snarling with rage, Sydney dragged Leon’s trussed body up into a standing position. He wobbled unsteadily, trying not to fall. His legs were hobbled with restraints. She grabbed a pair of steel upright bars steel-bolted to the padded wall, vaulted upward, and launched herself into the air. Her flawless body exploded into motion like a spring released from its coils, flexing and twisting in mid-air. Her blonde hair detonated in a glowing spray.
Like a heartless ninja barbie, she backflipped off the wall, crashing into him. Her huge titted body folded around him, suplexing him back to the floor.
BANG!
He hit the rubber mats hard enough to blast air from his lungs. Not much air, because Sydney had landed on top of him, and her flashing golden legs had scissored around his neck.
“What you did to me at dinner yesterday makes me actually want to kill you,” she whispered behind his head as she choked him. “I don’t even know what my next action will be. I want to snap your worthless neck and throw you in the garbage with the rest of my trash.”
Her voice came snarling from somewhere behind the sweat and crush of her brutally muscular thigh. Choking him, she slithered eel-like around until their eyes faced. Somehow, he had both of her feet wedged up under his face.
She’d learned wrestling for an acting role. She knew leg lariats, ankle locks, inverted facelocks, Indian deathlocks, gogoplatas, and all kinds of other moves, all of which she was glad to demonstrate on her new Latino boyfriend. Legs that kill was no longer just a metaphor where Sydney was concerned.
Choked out by her beefy quads and hamstrings, his vision just bled color and brightness. Darkness rolled across him, from the edges working in. Just when Leon thought he was going to die, she unlooped her muscular thighs, and let him slump in a broken heap to the floor and unbuckled the ball gag.
“I’m sorry, Sydney!” he wailed. “I didn’t mean to insult you!”
She stood, and pressed her disgusting foot to his face again. He gagged at the stench. She had not washed her feet since yesterday, and had worn three extra pairs of socks while she put two extra miles on her Fitbit that morning, just to make her feet extra stinky for today’s paypiggy punishing session.
“You tried to steer me toward the cheap option on the menu, didn’t you?” She sneered. “DIDN’T YOU?”
“NO!”
“Bullshit! You held out the wine menu, asked what I wanted, and covered up the expensive one with your finger. Bet you thought that was really slick of you, huh? Too bad I go to that restaurant every week with Gigi Hadid and know their wine menu back to front. Idiot.”
“Sydney, it was an ack-accident!”
She put her hands on her hips and sneered down at her paypiggy.
“If it was an accident why did you say sorry?” “You meant to skimp out on me. Cheap wine for a cheap girlfriend. Right, Leon?”
She snatched a flogger from the wall, and traced it maddeningly over his exposed cock and balls.
He moaned as she toyed with his cock. His body bent and thrashes like a worm tortured with a cigarette lighter.
He was lying in his own cum. She’d already jerked two loads from his shrivelled balls with her feet, forcing him to ejaculate all over her rubber floor mats. But now a third erection was chubbing as he smelled her stinky toes.
She saw his hard cock, and waggled her toes in his face.
“I can’t believe feet make you hard. Ew. You fucking loser! You’re pathetic!”
The aroma of her soles kicking him in the face was overwhelming. His cock throbbed with machine-gun force as the braided leather slithered across it.
Sydney leaned over him. The flogger began to smack rhythmically against his crotch. He felt her rage mounting with each stroke.
Thwap. thwap. thwap…
It started gently; gained force. The sound rose: the sibilance gained punch and force until it became a staccato crack. He writhed as the smacks on his genitals increased. He shivered, quivering, teeth locking up tighter, each scream harder to hole. Sydney wound up her arm above his body. It tensed into a brutal roadmap of muscle..
Then she roared, and swung the flogger with testicle-exploding force—
—it stopped a few millimeters from his crotch.
“Sydney…pleaaasseee…” he moaned, desperately to please her. “I’m sorry! I’ll never do it agaiiin! I’ll take you out to dinner every night! I’ll buy you the most expensive wine on the menu!!”
“Even if I take one sip and throw it away?” Sydney leered.
“Yes!”
“Even if I spit it in your face?”
“Yes!” Especially then. His heart was sick with shame and desire. Especially if you spit it in my face!
“Nice.” She flung the flogger away, and traced a finger along her lips. “I still don’t think you’ve learned your lesson, payslut. You’re gonna need to be punished more. In your ass.”
“But I’ll never do it agaaaaiiinn…” Trying to keep excitement out of his voice, but it was impossible.
Her feet left him. The bound eighteen year old lost sight of the blonde actress. He heard her doing something behind his back. A rustling sound.
When she returned to view, she had an enormous rubber strap-on buckled to her waist.
He goggled at the fucking size of the prosthetic cock flopping and slapping from her hips. It was twice as long and thick as his own cock—which he could judge firsthand, because another erection was already rising pitifully from his own thighs. The fucking thing looked like a pool noodle!
She’d trained her paypiggy’s butt before. But never so…expansively…
An enormous strap on approached. The shadow fell across his face like the black 2001 monolith. This must be a joke. She’s not putting that in my ass!
She flipped him around, exposing his quivering white butt.
She mounted. Sank the tip of the strap-on into his puckered asshole. Then stopped as he quivered around plastic.
Suddenly, it was like a demon had gone from her. She was Sydney Sweeney again—the one the public knew. Her voice was tender and warm. Concerned fingers caressed his sweaty hair.
“Oh, Leon!” She whispered “I let me temper get away on me again! I’m sorry! Of course I’m not going to do that to you!”
He smiled.
She grabbed a jar of KY. “…I have to lube it before it goes up your ass! Tee-hee, silly me!”
Then she slung herself on top of him. He felt legs straddling him. They were divinely strong. Legs from heaven. The cold tip of the strap-on touched his ass. He felt the mind-exploding force coiled up behind it, thigh muscles snaking into position around his midsection.
“Brace for pain, bitch.” She said in a flat voice.
Her hips tore forward.
Leon sat in an empty room. humming “CREAM” by Wu-Tang.
He was reading a text from Sydney Sweeney.
hi leon!!! hope ur doing great! just fyi, this dress is making me flip rn!
buy it for me? please?? i would love u forever and ever.
He clicked the attached Poshmark link, and whistled. A sexy Bottega Veneta corset, bruised violet edged to black, with runs of taffeta silk stitched down one side. It flared in a dramatic hourglass. It was a nice fuckin’ dress. Maybe if he bought it, she’d model it for him.
He saw the price. His smile faded.
$499. For a fucking dress?
Bro…
Sweating, he flipped from Poshmark to the auction site where he’d just listed his prized Nintendo Switch for sale—$250, ONO. Someone had made him an offer. $150.
“C’mon, man!” he murmured. “It’s worth more than that. I reset it and cleaned it and everything! That shit’s, like, factory!”
He was running out of time. He had a date with Sweeney tonight, and he badly needed money.
He gazed around his room, seeing empty spaces and vacancies and rings of dust. Not much left. Except for him, and he wouldn’t fetch much at auction, heaven knows.
He’d sold pretty much his entire life for Sydney, and wouldn’t have had it any other way.
He was beyond obsessed with the beautiful, sadistic blonde. He loved giving her money, and being humiliated by her. Sometimes it was even more fun when he fell short.
What makes financial domination fun? He sometimes wondered.
Was it a chili pepper type response? Pain becomes pleasure, or something? All he knew was that it was surprisingly fun to wreck your own life. A hell of a rush.
Too bad you could only do it once.
On his desk were letters, lying like crippled birds. No-approval-needed credit cards, with exorbitant interest rates. He had opened half a dozen accounts, and maxed them all out. All for Sydney. A woman with millions.
On his phone, an email popped up from the auction site. Hey power seller! You’ve listed 30 items! You can now…
He clicked on it, just in case they were offering free money. They weren’t. He got to have a golden star beside his name. I’d rather have real gold.
Leon stared. Sighed. Wu-Tang might be forever, he wouldn’t be if he failed to buy Sydney that dress.
He gulped, and texted back the guy who’d offered to buy his Nintendo Switch.
$150 is fine.
Sydney Sweeney laughed at a text. She was in a group chat with Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Sabrina Carpenter, and two of the three chicks from Haim.
She leaned forward, and blew a hot, loud fart onto Leon’s face.
BRRRAAAAAA-AAAAAAAPPPPP!
“Comfy down there, payslut?” She giggled to the human chair twisted painfully beneath her.
“MMMMFFFFF!” Hands cuffed to his ankles, face swallowed by her huge ass, Leon made a sound that could have been yes, could have been no, or could have been the cure for cancer. Nobody could tell.
She farted on his face again. “Oops! Oh my God, why did I let you buy me that second acai berry shake at Giorgio Baldi? It’s giving me terrible gas.”
Leon had spent half an hour smothered under her thick butt. He was wedged under a special seat with the seat cut out, to allow his face to poke through. Her flesh hung over his face, cupping it like the palm of a lover’s intimate hand.
“This is what you deserve, Leon,” she spoke coldly over one shoulder, grinding her ass onto him. “Your weekly tribute to your goddess is a thousand cash. And you bring me a lousy five hundred? Can’t you count, you shithead loser?”
“MMMFFFFGHH!” Leon made a sound that could have been yes, could have been no, or could have been the full lyrics to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Sydney’s eyebrows lifted savagely. “Or maybe you can count,” she said coolly, staring down at her face-slave. “Maybe you’re just a cheap fuck who isn’t serious about me. Is that it, Leon?”
“MMMFFFFFF!” It could have been yes, could have been no, could have been sorry, Sydney. My dad only gave me five hundred.
Sydney riffled cash that had been in Jose’s wallet that morning.
“That’s okay, paypiggy. We’ll add it to the debt you owe mommy. Fifteen hundred dollars. I want it next week. And you better not be light.” She paused. Reconsidered. “Actually, I forgot to add interest. We’ll call it sixteen hundred. Sound good? You’re a millionaire, Leon. You’re good for sixteen hundred dollars, right?”
Her fingers flew on the touchscreen, drilling out texts. A reply made her cruelly laugh. “Taylor’s quite taken with the fact that I’ve got a facesitting slave. She’s asking if I’ll rent you out. What do you think, Leon? Wanna be sold to Taylor to cover your debt to me? I don’t think she’ll be as nice to you as I am.”
“MMMMFFFFF!” Could have been yes, could have been no, could have been the lyrics to “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground.
She hiked up her dress, and wriggled her asshole directly against his nose. A noise gurgled inside her bowels.
Pressed to her butt, Leon heard gas bubbling apocalyptically.
She winced as she felt cramps. “Ooh, this is a bad one, Leon. It’s gonna fucking vaporize your face like in Terminator 2!”
Pressed to her butt, he heard the monstrous fart rumbling through her tubes like an approaching freight train. Her wrinkled rectum began to pucker.
“Put your lips on my asshole, bitch!” Sydney laughed, spreading her buttcheeks with both hands. “I want this one to go into your mouth.”
“MMMMMMFFFFFFF!!!!”
At 2:00am one night, Leon staggered out of Sydney’s mansion.
He was exhausted, his balls and prostache ached from orgasming so many times, but he had a smile on his face.
It had been quite a date night. Some ups, some downs.
Overall, a cool end to a fairly shitty day.
He’d rung the bell on her door at six. She’d opened it, wearing a tulle petticoat and ruched corset. Her hair was bobbed like a housewife from hell. She’d been sweet at first. She’d said hello, had kissed him, had flung arms around him in thrilling coils. As he’d basked in her perfume, she’d asked him about his day. Sydney was the rarest and most dangerous kind of person: when you told her about your daily life, she listened.
He’d come here from a funeral.
Javier Landrón Rodríguez. Hard to believe he was gone. Shot dead. Like…fuck.
“Javier hero worshipped me,” Leon said. “He had a tough upbringing and I kinda…helped him with some stuff. A few months ago, he actually got himself appointed as my guardian. Can you believe that?”
Aww, that’s horrible, you must be so sad, did they catch the guys who did it. Were you close? Sydney had been all over him; cooing and caressing and touching him with the gentleness you’d reserve for a baby bird.
So sad. So sweet.
Particularly since it couldn’t last.
He sensed a tension starting to wind up in her muscles, a violence rising in her eyes. He’d sensed a Jekyll and Hyde transformation into Bad Sydney coming, so he just tried to enjoy it while it lasted.
“Let’s go to the next room.” She suggested, smirking brattishly.
He’d hesitated, so she’d tugged him through the doorway from the landing to the living room.
The crossing rooms had a ritualistic quality. It was how she changed personas, in a way he could understand. The second her big ass rolled across the parquet flooring, another personality took over. Another woman was staring out behind her eyes.
Nice Sydney was gone. A brutal findomme was snarling at him.
“Good evening, payslut! Why are you standing? Get on your knees. You don’t get to stand until Mommy gets tributed.”
He’d knelt to his goddess. He’d earned himself a kick. licked her bare toes, and presented her with this week’s tribute. Or some of it. He sweated as she counted the money, knowing he was light.
“Aww, only thirteen hundred and twenty dollars. Poor little millionaire gangster. No, don’t apologise. It’s okay. You got most of it. I’ll consider our account closed. I’ll still punish you, though. Come to the couch. Lick my twat.”
He’d performed oral sex on Sydney Sweeney on the couch. Her pussy was hot and sweaty and slippery. He smashing his head into her crotch, feeling her thick thighs waving on each side of his face like butterfly wings. She firehosed squirt over the couch and made him clean up her mess with his mouth. If there’s a stain when it dries, you’re buying me a new couch. Then he ate her out again, this time from behind, with a finger blasting away at her asshole.
Then he asked what she wanted to do tonight, praying that the answer wouldn’t be shopping.
Clubbing was fine. El Zapetero basically owned the Smoking Skull and a bunch of other clubs this side of the East Los Angeles Interchange , so he never had to pay cover. Maybe he could even talk his way into the bottle service lounge.
But shopping? That would fucking nuke him. He had $31.93 in his bank account. There was some cash trickling his way—his white friend Drew had hit him up for a bag of “dank nugs” (which he’d obligingly bagged up from his father’s lawn trimmings) but the money wouldn’t be there tonight.
But he lucked out. Sydney said she just wanted to chill at her mansion.
They crossed to a room dominated by a huge surround-sound entertainment unit. This triggered another transformation. She became soft and gentle and doe-like. They watched a movie. Sydney made popcorn. He uncorked a bottle of wine. They giggled.
They chatted. Sydney was able to discuss.
“Keira Knightly still has a scar below her left nipple from when they did that stunt. She showed me at Met Gala last year.”
“This dude sucks. He made. I know because we had the same agent once and she still calls me with stories.”
Then she got bored. She transforming back into pure venom-spitting evil beneath peroxide hair.
She snatched the remote, turned off the TV mid-movie, then dragged him into the bedroom where all sorts of delights and horrors transpired around her thick, thick body.
Facesitting. Fucking in her bed. Fucking on the floor.
Brutally kicked him in the face, yelling and screaming. Forcing him to stuff her dirtiest socks.
Making him bend over, while she did things to his asshole.
Then they’d returned to the entertainment unit to watch a completely different movie, while she big-spooned him and tugged his dick hard again until they’d fucked again, screwing like polecats until the couch was messy and wet. Sydney orgasmed so hard as he fucked that her sharp toenail tore the upholstery as they butterflied wide open.
And now it was all over.
He staggered out, empty in every way a man could be: emotionally, spiritually, testicularly. But fuck, he’d lived today.
He stumbled across a trashcan with a dent in the corner. The lid sat askew, granting a view into darkness.
The light glittered on a corset. Bottega Veneta, bruised violet edged with black
It was the dress he had bought.
Maybe she’d worn it once. Maybe she’d worn it never. Either way, she’d thrown it in the trash. She treated it like she treats me.
He felt butterflies. Butterflies made of shame and pain, yes, but oh, the lightness he felt as they fluttered…
He ran his fingers over it with entrepeneurial consideration.
Maybe I can sell it. Get a perpetual motion machine.
It was stained, but that’s what Dawn is for.
Then he glanced up at the upper windows of the mansion. Sydney stood watching from her bedroom. Her eyes were on him. She had a daiquari in her hand. She took a sip: the straw had the tactical precision of a sniper scope as she tracked him.
He smiled. She didn’t smile back. He waved. She didn’t wave back.
Her eyes stayed on him until he dropped the dress back into the trash with a sigh, and then she nodded: a quick there-and-gone smirk flowing across her face. Good boy!
Leon slunk from her estate, hoping he wouldn’t be punished for this on their next date. If there was one.
Oh God, I need money. He felt the hole she’d ripped in his wallet.
Financially, he was screwed.
But I have to make this happen again.
He couldn’t believe he was considering this, but there was a way he could get money. A lot of money.
But it would involve crossing a major moral line.
But it would be fine, he thought.
Nobody would find out.
Sydney would never doubt him again. Because soon he really would be rich.
Jose watched late night TV. Two talking heads were yapping about the gang war.
“…so tell us, Chief. Between Ley Organica and the Death Swords, who has the upper hand in the war?”
The subject of the interview was identified by chyron as DEPUTY CHIEF CHRIS DEMPNEY, LAPD ANTI-GANG ACTIVITY UNIT. His starched LAPD uniform sagged with badges and medals. How small’s your dick, ese? Jose thought with contempt. The guy was plated in more metal than Tony Stark.
“That’s easy,” Deputy Chief Dempney said. “They have more money, more men, and the backing of the cartels. The Death-Swords are ruthless, but they overplayed their hand and now they’re getting run over. They’d better hope we bust their whole operation and send them to Twin Towers. Ley Organica’s just gonna pick them off one by one. Gun them down in the street, like that Javier Landrón Rodríguez kid.”
Rage frosted Jose’s contempt. He’d known Javier. Nice kid.
“So what endgame are the Death Swords playing toward?”
“I don’t think they really have one. They’ll have to sue for peace, accept whatever terms Ley Organica will accept, and pray those terms don’t include ‘full of bullets at the LA county morgue.’ In fact, even then—”
Blah blah blah. Jose stabbed a button on the remote.
What did you have to do to get Telemundo out here? Or porn? He channel surfed until he found something close: that jugged up white actress, Sydney Sweetmeats or whoever, spilling out of her shirt as she sat on the couch of a talk show.
“Sydney!” Oprah Winfrey asked from the opposite couch. “Those muscles have muscles! What’s your secret! You’re looking incredible!”
She grinned, her beautiful face dimpling. Jose felt himself fall in love with a girl twenty years younger than him, and shame curdled in his gut.
She extended a thigh, and flexed. Muscles slashed against skin. “I’ve been in training! There’s this guy who lets me practice wrestling moves on him, free of charge!”
Oprah laughed, and Sydney laughed, and Jose was about to change the channel when he heard a car drive past.
Eyes narrowing, he reached for the snub-nosed .22 he kept under the sofa. But it just kept on driving, and eventually he let go of the gun.
The next day, Leon walked up to his dad.
“I gotta talk to you about money.”
Jose glowered. “I told you kid, I’m not loaning you any more money. Now beat it.”
…He would have said more, but the wad of cash his son shoved in his face silenced him.
“I cashed in my investments,” Leon said casually. “Here’s what I borrowed. The principle on all your loans. We’ll work out your share of the profits later.”
Jose counted, breathing in that almost narcotic street-money stink. Plastic and skin oil and sweat and fear. He counted again, expecting it to turn into Monopoly money in his hands. It didn’t.
Incredibly, Leon had repaid every last penny that he’d borrowed. Twelve and a half thousand dollars!
“Damn,” Jose said, blown away. “How did you do it, kid?”
Leon smiled. Cool. In control. “These were investments dad. I wasn’t throwing your money down a sewer. My investments have paid dividends.”
“Damn, boy. You rich now?”
“I’m never gonna have to thrift at Melrose’s again, put it that way” Leon smirked. “I just gotta repay Diego for the money I borrowed, and then we’ll start talking about your profits. There’s lots more coming. Thanks, Dad. I won’t forget your generosity.”
Jose felt white-out shock after his son left. It hadn’t all been bullshit.
But as he handled the rolls, he noticed something odd about how they were tied. They were fastened weird—very different to how gansta rolls were usually bundled on the street.
They reminded him of empanadas.
Leon buzzed Sydney Sweeney’s door. His shoulder ached, bent beneath an army surplus duffel bag loaded with cash.
He couldn’t get the smile off his face as he heard the door unlatch. Oh, just wait until she sees the size of my latest tribute.
Sydney opened the door. She surprised him by being normal.
She wore a T-shirt, and civilian makeup. He knew and loved the edgy is-it-ice-is-it-fire turbowhore clubbing look. He loved her posh retail therapy guise. He knew and hated (and…loved?) her brutal muscle-mommy domme aspect. But this was a fourth Sydney. One that he’d never seen before.
Before him stood Sydney-next-door.
He wondered if this was how she’d dressed before fame.
“Hey,” she said, without warmth. She looked sad. Worried.
He’d meant to throw the bag of cash at her feet and unzip it just a little so she could see the green, but suddenly this didn’t seem…appropriate.
“Hi baby,” he said awkwardly, reaching for cool and hoping he’d find it mid-sentence. “I’ve got something to show you, and—”
Sydney snapped her fingers. The flick of her nails cut the end off his words.
“Come in,” she tossed her head at the open door. A 90s Britney ponytail went flick. “We have to talk.”
They sat on opposing couches. His was blue. Hers was black. Suddenly, there seemed to be distance between them.
“We need to quit this.” Sydney laced her fingers together in her lap—odd to see them naked, without his baubles frosting them. “It’s not a good thing for either of us.”
“Huh?” Leon gaped. “Quit what?”
She gestured at both of them. “This. It’s not real. It never was real. And it’s going somewhere unhealthy.”
“Sydney,” he murmured. “It absolutely was real to me. I love you. I’d do anything for you.”
She smiled ruefully. “Yeah, yeah, Leon. I know. Sort of the problem. You’re lying about being rich. Figured it out a long time ago—wasn’t hard. Your dad’s someone. You have pocket money at best. Rich people and poor people act different, walk different, talk different. No matter what you say, you have poor person smell all over you. I’m sorry, but it’s that simple.”
He balled up his fists, tried to protest. “Syd, I’ve given you tens of thousands of dollars!”
“And I’m giving it back.” Sydney sighed. “We’ll work out the details, but let’s be truthful—none of it was your money. You borrowed it or stole it or something. Probably borrowed it. You’re too nice to steal anything. And that’s the other reason why we have to break up: it’s a relationship founded on me being a huge bitch. And I hate being a bitch to an undeserving person.”
“Huh?” She was ten steps ahead, no matter what he did.
She laughed. The light hit her a bit different, making her look cruel. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I totally hated it. But I prefer domming guys who are assholes and deserve to suffer. That’s why I rolled with you at first. I thought you were some low-level thug, and the money I was scamming from you came from violent crime or whatever. That’s how I justified it to myself. Now I know that this isn’t true, well…I just feel terrible.”
Leon balled up his fist. She doesn’t believe in me. Maybe she never will.
But he had one.
“Sydney, look…yeah, maybe I wasn’t quite honest who I was. But now I’m that guy. I have my own money.”
He unzipped the duffel bag, and raked his hand through green. It rustled, a sea of thick plastic leaves. “There? That real enough for you?”
Sydney shook her head. “Well, I don’t know where that came from. If it came from crime, I don’t want it.”
“It didn’t,” he said. “Or not my crime.”
She looked him up and down suspiciously.
“Leon…there’s another reason we need to break up. I haven’t been entirely truthful. There’s a secret I need to tell you…”
He leaned into the space between them, and heard it.
The war between the Ley Orgánica and Espardes de Muerta gangs ended soon after.
El Zapatero and Don Toño Ojeda Aguilar met on neutral ground, accompanied by their falcons. The crime lords shook hands.
Don Toño claimed to be taking the high road. War was bad for business, and with la jura hovering closer by the day, the LA barrio sets needed to be united, not at war.
And they were making LA an ugly place with their blood feud. Seventeen year old kids getting shot in the street—who wanted to see that? (Jose noticed that Don Toño elided any mention of which side had murdered Javier Landrón Rodríguez). El Zapatero had worked for Pablo Escobar once, had he not? There had been a man who understood that the true war happens in the hearts and minds of the common man.
“With that in mind,” the kingpin said expansively. “Here are my terms…”
The Death Swords would retain their territory. There would be no recriminations or reprisals. Don Toño would pass the word throughout his organization that no street-level dealers and runners would be bothered.
Shockingly generous peace terms, considering El Zapatero had incited the death of Don Toño’s son-in-law.
There was one small consideration, however. Don Toño required the return of his money. Three point five two million dollars.
“You have twenty-four hours to return what’s mine.” The Ley Orgánica cartel lord smiled satanically. “I would not let moss grow under your feet on this matter, senor, lest peace prove…precarious.”
El Zapatero stepped aside, calling Diego on a burner farm.
Go to their Alameda St hideout, count the money, and bring it to secure the peace deal. You’ll need the code to the combination lock, it’s…
“Boss,” Diego whispered down the phone line. “We got a problem here.”
He’d just entered the eight digit code and opened the safe.
The interior was bare. His shocked face echoed distorted reflections on every surface. Looked like a metal-lined coffin.
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The money’s gone, boss. All of it.”
All of it.
Someone had stolen it from the safe.
El Zapatero let a chilly silence extend over the connection.
“There is a thief inside my organization, then.”
Unhappily for Leon, this was not a question that El Zapatero was slow in answering.
Who had been present on the raid? Who had heard the number?
Jose. A twenty-year veterano who had proved himself to be loyal and trustworthy countless times.
Oh, but hadn’t his son been skulking by the car? Listening while Jose had foolishly spoken aloud the eight digit number?
Leon had not proved himself trustworthy or loyal.
It had not escaped El Zapatero’s notice that Jose’s son had acquired had a taste for the high life. He’d been sighted at the Smoking Skull nightclub several times, and his romantic attachment to Sydney Sweeney had been a topic of rumor on the internet for some time. And dating a celebrity of that caliber tended to burn a lot of capital.
El Zapatero hung up, and explained the situation to Don Toño.
“You let an eighteen-year-old boy steal my money?” the kingpin rumbled. “What kind of organization are you running? Me cago en tu puta estirpe!”
El Zapatero raised his hands. “Be calm, senor. I can give you the thief. I can give you the man who has your money.”
“You damned well better, idiot pendejo!”
The Death-Sword boss slid a skeletal hand around Jose’s shoulders, and pulled him away.
“Come, Jose. We must discuss what to do with your son.”
They held a quick whispered conversation, with Don Toño glowering in the background. His men flanked him, chewing cigarillos, hands on their hip holsters. Waiting for the order to shoot.
“The boy has stolen our money.” El Zapatero murmured, eyes flicking back to the kingpin and his guns. “Stolen our peace. So he could buy jewellery for that pretty white güera, most likely. Do you dispute this?”
Jose clearly wanted to. His face coiled and avulsed, shuddering with horror. Sweat slimed his cheeks. Primal parts of his character were at war—his love for one family, his loyalty to another. His throat clicked as he swallowed.
“Yes…I mean, no. Of course not. I…understand, boss.”
“Good.” El Zapatero star-sixty-nined Diego, snarling desperate orders. “Find the kid. Bring him to the casa. I will be there as soon as I can. We will make him tell us what became of the money. If he is lucky, he will still have it.”
Jose knew what that meant. His son was simply going to die—either at El Zapatero’s hands, or at Don Toño’s. Lucky meant he died quick.
There is no way out for him. Knowledge felt like a poison that was killing him. None.
El Zapatero watched Jose closely. Watched him shake and quiver, watched his brown complexion transmute to corpse-gray.
“He is your son. I know how difficult this is.” El Zapatero’s voice was comforting, but his eyes bit like drill bits. Jose knew he was being tested. Would he crack? Show weakness, as his son had? The apple never falls far from the tree…but also, tree never grows far from the apple.
El Zapatero needed this peace. He would happily dig two graves if he had to, instead of just one.
“I…I understand…” Jose found his eyes blinking faster and faster. The front of his face had contorted into a squint that he couldn’t seem to shake. He wondered if this was his machismo-crippled body’s attempt at crying tears. “Do what you need to do with him, boss.”
“I will show you mercy,” El Zapatero whispered, laying a hand. “I will not make you watch, when justice comes for your son.”
“I didn’t take the money, man!” Leon protested, taped to a chair in the basement of the hideout.
Diego and El Zapatero stood and smoked cigarettes over him. They tapped ash over his head, his shoulders. Behind them, Jose paced anxious circles on the dirt-scabbed concrete, face turned away. He hadn’t been able to look at his son. Hadn’t said one word to the boy.
“Then why do you have nearly a million dollars in cash in your bedroom?”
Diego had searched Leon’s bedroom, and—with Jose’s grudging approval—the whole house.
They had found a substantial amount of money. About $950,000 in bills wrapped in rubber bands. Presumably the rest was stashed somewhere else.
“Because of Javier!” Leon’s voice didn’t crack. Sydney had put him through worse. “Remember how he ran away from home because of his shitty Dad or whatever, and I became his guardian so he wouldn’t get made a ward of the state? Well, it turns out his grandma took out a life insurance policy on him! I don’t think he even knew about it! Since I was his guardian, it went to me!”
“Kid, that’s the biggest load of shit I ever heard.” Diego said. “Take some of that money you stole. Buy a better lie.”
“Ask La Rata!” Leon said. “He helped me turn it to cash! He’ll back me up!”
Jose stuffed his hands in his pockets, now avoiding eye-contact with everyone in the room.
He’d already spoken to La Rata—the gang’s accountant. He’d confirmed that Leon had indeed approached him, seeking advice on a life insurance policy. The paperwork had all looked legit. But that made no sense. Why would Leon need to steal money from the gang, if a life insurance payout had just made him a million dollars cool?
Was La Rata a party to Leon’s theft? Had he agreed to cover for the boy? Why, though? La Rata had been Espardes de Muerta’s accountant for decades. It wasn’t like him to do something like that.
“I swear to God,” Leon was on the verge of crying. Shudders gripped and relaxed his voice, his posture. “I did not steal your money.”
“Then who did?” Diego asked.
Leon’s eyes flicked sideways, onto El Zapatero. “The boss! He took the money from the safe! He’s trying to frame me, and I can prove it!”
Diego pistol-whipped Leon. Jose winced as the butt of the gun connected. “Show some respect, you sack of shit!”
“Diego, that’s enough.” A .44 appeared in El Zapatero’s twisted-apple hands. Click. A bullet entered the gun’s chamber.
“Tell us where the money is hidden,” El Zapatero loomed over him like a gas-blower’s flame, the gun bore rising to obscure his face like a lunar eclipse. “And this ends now. If you continue to lie and play games, I will give you to Don Toño, and he will extract an excruciatingly painful confession from you.”
Leon lifted his face.
His hair was plastered wetly to his scalp, where bruises had burst the skin. A split lip had bled red onto his shirt. As a prelude to his interrogation and execution, he’d been given a ‘nickel ride’ by Diego: thrown in the back of a van with no seatbelt, then driven at high speeds around LA’s roughest bends.
The eyes in that battered face did not flinch or fall from the gun’s powdered steel bore.
“I simply couldn’t have stolen it.” Leon said. “And the reason why is simple. I don’t know the number to the safe.”
Diego pistol-whipped Leon again. “Fuckin’ shitass liar! I saw you standing by the car, listening! You do know the code!”
Leon spat out blood and laughed. “Yeah, ese, I heard a code. It doesn’t work. The boss must have changed it.”
A flicker of uncertainty effaced El Zapatero’s ghost-white features. “What did you just say?”
“Okay,” Leon said. “I confess. I did try to open the safe. I wasn’t gonna take all the money, just a few hundred bucks to give to my girlfriend. If you wanna shoot me for that, I can’t stop you. But I couldn’t get in. The safe wouldn’t accept the code.”
Jose cleared his throat. “Boss, if I may check the safe…”
El Zapatero snarled, watching his falcon take hesitant strides to the safe. He entered the eight-digit combination he’d heard in the Ley Organica hideout, which was easy to remember. Penelope Cruz’s birthday.
He checked Wikipedia just to be sure, then cranked numbers into the rolling mechanism—28041974.
No click. Open sesame no longer opened the treasure vault.
Incredibly, Leon was telling the truth.
Diego glanced at El Zapatero. “Boss, did you change the number? Why?”
“It’s none of your business what I do with my property,” El Zapatero barked. “Don’t listen to the kid. He’s confusing the issue to save his own skin!”
Diego shook his head. “Well, he has a point, doesn’t he? Hard to steal money when you don’t know the combination to the motherfucking safe.”
Jose was even more direct. “My son is not the thief, boss.”
El Zapatero roared. He picked up a table, and flung it against a wall. Crash!
“You’re both fools, being played by a kid. I’m not explaining shit to either of you. La interrogación is over! Diego, Jose, untie this idiot and get him in travel restraints. We’re giving him to Don Toño.”
But a startling thing happened. Or rather, didn’t happen.
For the first time in forty combined years, neither man obeyed their kingpin’s order.
Leon laughed at the shock tearing open El Zapatero’s face like a scar. A strange shift had occurred in the room. He was tied up in a chair, bruised and bloodied, but none of that mattered. He laughed like he held all the cards.
“Give yourself to Don Toño. You opened the safe. You stole the money. And I know why you did it. Dad, get my phone out of my pocket, and go to my contacts. Dial ‘Sweeney Financial Services’.”
ring…ring…
They all stood around the phone, waiting for the call to connect.
“I am warning you,” El Zapatero said from behind the gun. “If you scream for help or try to get this person to send cops, I am shooting you in the fucking head.”
“Like that’s not what you’re gonna do anyway.” Leon said as Sydney Sweeney picked up.
“Hey, Leon! What’s going on?” Her steel Barbie voice was bright and cheerful. An incongruous sound in the dark, fear-stinking basement.
“Something bad,” he said. “So bad I can’t even tell you, or I die. Don’t ask questions. Just send me the video. The one you told me about at your mansion. I need it to prove my innocence.”
“Um, sure. One sec…sent.”
A video attachment blipped as it landed on Leon’s phone. Jose played it. His mouth slid open in shock.
It was a video of El Zapatero. The middle aged man was naked and kneeling in a place that Jose did not recognize, but which Leon knew was Sydney Sweeney’s bondage dungeon.
“Princess…queen…I’m sorry! Forgive me…!” El Zapatero mewled piteously from his knees, staring up at her with love and adoration. His voice was hardly recognizable.
Sydney sat crosslegged on her throne, coolly unimpressed. Her mascara blazed under the cold blue wattage of the studio lights. Her stare sharpened, limned by slashing blades of eyeliner.
“Forgive you? You’re light, you cheap-ass bitch. Again!”
“Sydney…I need more time. I can pay, but…there…there have been arrests. Business is slow.”
“Blah blah.” She rose from her throne and stood over El Zapatero, cold and regal and naked. Her breasts swung and bounced as she moved, cold alembics of poison moonlight.
“There are you problems and there are me problems. And those are very much you problems.”
He flinched as her shadow landed on him.
“You’ve had so much goddamn time to pay your debts. Honestly? I don’t think you’re serious. Or maybe you’re just too poor to afford me.”
“No! I can pay! Please, just give me another chance!”
She lifted a thick thigh, and planted a foot in the indent of his shoulder. The man—a wealthy and feared crime lord, at least three times her age—quailed with fear under her foot.
Smiling mercilessly, Sydney dragged the plaited braids of a whip over El Zapatero’s shoulders. The middle-aged drug lord shivered as the knots touched old scars.
“You have one week to settle your account with me. I want it all. Two million dollars. Now look at me, and open your mouth.”
He opened his mouth. Sydney hawked and spat inside it.
“Don’t be late again, paypig, or all of Beverly Hills will hear you squeal.”
The video ended.
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