She handed him the Astroglide and spoke to him like a reprimanding schoolteacher.
“There are hundreds of different ways to stimulate the tumescent male member. Hammering away with your fist is just one of them.”
He blinked up at her, ever hopeful.
“Can you show me?”
Maura picked up a plastic dildo and demonstrated.
“Most men find this one unbelievable.”
Larga tried. God bless him. He tried his best. But he couldn’t relax and, in the end, went back to whacking away with his fist. Maura sighed. It was so predictable. Some people could relax and benefit from her advice, others just wanted to jerk off in front of a woman. A grunt burst from Larga’s mouth. Maura saw that he was nearing orgasm.
“Don’t tense. Relax. Start taking deep breaths.”
But Larga couldn’t relax, and with a loud exhalation ejaculated on his belly. Maura handed him a box of tissues.
“Well, it’s a start.”
Larga wiped up quickly and started pulling on his clothes.
“You can wash your hands right over there.”
He buckled up and went over to the sink. He was in a hurry, like he’d just done something he should be ashamed of. Maura made small talk to ease his guilt.
“So what do you do for a living, Mr. Larga?”
“I write cookbooks.”
“That must be fun.”
“It’s okay.”
Larga nodded and ran his fingers through his thinning hair.
“How long have you been a… you know… a coach?”
“I’ve been in practice about three years.”
Maura watched as Larga looked at her. Or, more accurately, as he looked at her breasts. She was used to this. Ever since she was fourteen she’d watched men look at her face and then slowly drag their eyes down to her chest. Then they would converse with her breasts. It annoyed Maura, but she couldn’t really blame them. Her breasts were her most prominent feature. They were large for her thin frame; she looked like a model, a “creepy stick” as her girlfriend said. People always assumed she’d had her tits done, but in truth if she was going to have anything done, she’d have them reduced. They stuck out, called attention to themselves, and caused men to come up to her and say the stupidest things. For example, what Larga was about to say.
“You must be pretty good at it yourself.”
“At what?”
“This, you know… autoerotica.”
Maura smiled and lit some incense.
“Next week. Same time?”
Larga nodded and started out the door.
“Practice what I showed you. Every day.”
The door closed and Larga was gone. Maura carefully stripped the sheet off the chair and tossed it in a hamper. She bent down and took a new sheet out of a small cupboard and put it on the chair. She thought about Larga and smiled to herself.
Some people just naturally know how to jerk off.
He wasn’t one of them.
Three
IT WAS A hectic day at the shop. A Toyota RAV was being eviscerated. Sparks flew everywhere as three men, masked by heavy clothes and protective face shields, butchered the car with arc welders. Gleaming metal entrails fell away as the car quickly became skeletal. The guts were gathered by a teenage boy who picked them up and carted them off. The men worked together calmly and efficiently. They were experts.
The carcass of another car, possibly a Camaro, lay off to the side. Stripped bare, like the leftovers of a piranha attack. Other cars, covered with oil-stained tarps, were parked at the far end of the dilapidated garage waiting to be slaughtered.
The rhythm of the butchery was interrupted when a brand-new Mercedes sedan pulled into the garage and parked right in the middle. The work stopped. The torches clicking off as soon as the workers recognized the man in the Mercedes.
Like a bad hombre in an old western, he climbed out of the car and surveyed the shop like he owned the place. He did. He was Esteban Sola, El Jefe from the tough border town of Juárez, where he oversaw a major drug-smuggling and DEA-agent-murdering operation. Esteban was so successful and so ruthless that he eventually muscled his way into La Eme, the Mexican mafia, in Los Angeles. Now he was one of the top lieutenants. A man with his own crew. A man people feared. A man who commanded respect.
The workmen eagerly turned to give Esteban their undivided attention. That or he’d kick the living shit out of them.
“Hola, compañeros.”
Esteban spoke with a gravelly voice and an authority that caused most men to feel a vibration in their scrotum.
“Hola, Señor Sola.”
Although he was not a handsome man by any stretch — his brown skin was oily and pocked and he wore a bushy black mustache to hide his thin lips — women were strangely attracted to him. They didn’t seem to notice that his hair was matted down and slathered with some kind of product from Switzerland that made it appear thick and lustrous when it was actually thin and limp or that his eyes were soft and sensual, betraying a kind of artistic sensibility behind the hard-ass Ray-Bans that he wore day and night. To look at him, without the trappings of power, the fear of violence, and the allure of cash money, you might think he was a busboy. But, getting out of his immaculate Mercedes, accompanied by a slender young gringo named Martin, wearing what can only be described as vaquero Armani, he was an ice-cold blast of cool.
It was calculated. Esteban didn’t allow anyone in his crew to shave their heads Pelón style or wear the long socks and short pants so popular with the other Latino gangsters. It was a prison thing. Esteban figured that if you looked like you were from prison, that’s where you’d end up. It was much better to look like a movie producer.
“¿Que onda?”
One of the workers stepped forward and extended his hand. Esteban shook it, grabbing the man’s hand in a viselike grip. The workman couldn’t help but notice the sharp and glittery rings encircling Esteban’s fingers. The workman wasn’t merely admiring Esteban’s fine jewelry. All he could think was, Those must really hurt when they hit you.
“We got a couple of new cars we’re cuttin’ up.”
“You steal ’em?”
“No. Some cholos from Long Beach.”
Esteban laughed.
“I don’t trust those pendejos, they’d steal my car if they could.”
The men laughed. They had to.
Esteban continued, warming to his audience.
“If one of them ever tries to steal mi coche…” He paused for effect.
“Muerte.”
Martin, the dapper gringo, his hair heavy with some kind of gel, wearing an old leather jacket over a bright, big-collared shirt and tight pants that made him look like a wayward rock star, played the sidekick.
“You should give them a demonstration.”
The workmen nodded. Esteban, like a magician about to perform his greatest trick, spoke solemnly.
“El Ladrón esta como un culero.”
The mention of a culero, someone who smuggled drugs by shoving them up his rectum, confused the workmen. This element of mystery helped Esteban’s performance.
“Mira.”
Esteban led the workman around to the driver’s seat to demonstrate.
“If I push this button. It is safe to drive. But if I don’t… and you trigger these pressure plates…”
Esteban looked around and found a heavy plastic box on the floor. He placed the box on the driver’s seat of the car and pressed the remote on his key chain.
Bam.
A sharpened stainless steel fleschette burst from under the seat and tore through the plastic. A would-be car thief would get two feet of stainless steel right up his ass.