The Murdered World 9 (Patreon)

The charity was one of those where Christina didn’t see how it could ever turn a profit. There was a small army of waiters, all of whom looked like they doubled as models and all of them dressed to the nines. The food was a feast of plenty, the wine flowed like waterfalls, and the live band Christina thought had some music videos under their belt.

And, of course, all the guests seemed to have spent vastly more on jewelry, high fashion, and plastic surgery than they would ever donate.

She knew it was her dissatisfaction with Angel writ large, but she found herself gravitating out to the balcony, watching the setting sun instead of hiding from the chill it brought with it. It suddenly struck her that, after years of struggle and strain to get where she was, now here she was: surrendering the high society she had aspired to without a fight.

Christina turned around, to at least look at the festivities, and saw Emma like she was under a spotlight. Her frock didn’t look any less like negligee with a bolero jacket on top of it, but no one seemed to care. Or rather, they cared, but they didn’t disapprove.

Men and women, they fawned over Emma like moths around a naked light. Her limbs were tawny, her ass was small and tight, and her expression was darling—a fresh-faced smile that you could just tell everyone would love to have turned on them.

Angel was at her side, guiding her around by the arm as he made his rounds. Introducing her to all the palms he greased and all the sycophants who kissed his ring. A spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Emma was the velvet glove and Angel, the iron fist.

“I can’t believe he’s going to replace you, mami,” a familiar voice said, so American it was practically Anglo despite the perfect Spanish pronunciation. “It’s like seeing someone throw out a steak hot off the grill. Even if you’re not hungry… you’re never that not hungry.”

Julio Torres was Angel’s son from his first marriage. His white mother had given him fairer skin than his father, almost a pallor, but perversely he looked darker, with eyes such a deep shade of brown that the light seemed to glint off them and hair that seemed like black ink spilling from some diseased font in his jagged skull. A full beard and Roman nose furthered the matter.

At six foot seven, he had a tendency to look down his large nose at others, bringing his wide nostrils to bare on them like the twin muzzles of a double-barrel shotgun. His ears were pierced with shiny studs that reminded Christina of the sights on a gun. And when he spoke, it was always unexpectedly, his mouth breaking open like a sundering iceberg to deliver a whipcrack of a first word.

Facing him was like being held at gunpoint—all the silver finish of a gun and the dead of night blackness at the bottom of a gunbarrel. When he opened his mouth, she never seemed to see a tongue or palate, only black between the paired constellations of his shining teeth.

“Your father isn’t replacing me,” she told him. “And even if he was, I wouldn’t get passed down to you like some old car.”

“¡Qué pena! I bet you’re one smooth ride. Just not as smooth as this year’s model.”

“That’s my sister. Familia,” Christina emphasized, pronouncing the unfamiliar word slow but perfectly.

“You got more experience with his hard-on than me. You think it has that much of a conscience?”

The lights dimmed. The house band started up: jazz both smooth and sticky, like warm honey. Angel didn’t leave Emma’s side. He guided her to the dance floor, a paternal hand on the small of her back like he wanted to be sure she didn’t get lost.

Christina stared after that oh-so-innocent hand until she could see the liver spots on it, wondering where it had all gone wrong. What misstep had she made on her climb that’d sent her on such a sharp descent?

She was still beautiful. Hadn’t ruined her looks with too much plastic surgery, too much food, too much anything.

She’d been faithful, mostly—who was there that would dare lay a finger on Angel Mercador’s woman anyway?

Sure, she was thickly proportioned, but she always had been. Angel’d said he liked her curves, her hourglass figure, the voluptuous breasts and thick ass that couldn’t come with a stick-figure physique like Emma had.

He was the one who’d withdrawn from her, letting himself get fat and lazy, not wanting sex anymore, at least from her. Christina still dressed up nice, still made passes at him—he never responded! And he complained about her not being aggressive enough, not appreciative enough. What did he want her to do, just start blowing him in the middle of dinner?

She’d thought he was a traditionalist, the big machismo man… now he couldn’t make an advance on her to save his life. But her sister, oh, her sister, she was fair game. The flabby, sadistic prick could only get it up if he were hurting her in the bargain, that was it. For no reason, he’d come to see his wife as the ball and chain she’d never been. He wanted an affair just to have an affair!

“Ooh, canela!” Julio snickered. “Careful, now papi’s got two fiery redheads. If he wants less heat, I think it’s you he’ll cool down… Con calma.”

She didn’t want to calm down. Christina felt like a rockslide and every last rock was the one that had tipped the scale.

Julio telling her to calm down. Angel abandoning her and for her sister and her still as pretty as ever, as sexual as ever. It was unfair and it was humiliating and it was aggravating. Rage was so much better than despair; it burned hot as sex.

How much had she given this man? How much had she missed out on by devoting herself to him? How little did she ask for besides loyalty and some small amount of affection? Even Julio, the little psychopath, could pretend to care about her; that was too much to ask from her husband. He was lathering more attention onto Emma than he’d given her in years—

When she burst into motion, it felt like she’d begun to touch herself after being horny all day. She rolled supplely with each step, her breasts jostling, her hips swaying, autoerotic zeal bringing her closer and closer to completion as Angel and Emma grew large in her sight. Without looking, she snatched a champagne flute from a waiter she passed.

Years of caution and concern and carefulness tried to bar the gates against her rage, but it was an addictive thing, a thing to be gorged on. When she reached her husband and her sister and she shoved them apart and she flung the champagne in Angel’s face, it was like an orgasm swelling up inside her and being born and leaving her nothing to be but ash.

“Have you lost your maldita mind!?” Angel roared, eyes bright with fury, but it was just another rush to Christina.

“I just thought I’d spare my dear sister the disappointment. If you can’t get it up with me, why should you be able to with her?”

Angel seized her by the arm, his fingers iron claws sharp enough to draw blood. “You’ve had enough!” he grunted, pulling her along with such force that Christina had no choice but to pedal her legs under her, keeping up unless she wanted to be dragged. “We’ll talk about this at home!”

And, unable to bear the scrutiny that the party-goers directed at her, Emma could only follow after them.