Chapter 2

The transit bus ground to a stop at the curb, and Lissa Tilo hoisted her book bag over her shoulder, pushed open the front door of the District 7 Public Library, and walked out into the sticky summer heat. Almost immediately, she could feel her polyester school uniform start to stick to her skin. Lissa was a strikingly beautiful girl with smooth skin the color of honey and sensual features that reflected her Latina heritage. A little shorter than average, she had a ripe, womanly body that made her look older than her seventeen years. Although the school uniform was designed to be conservative and proper, it clung to her curves in a way that men couldn't help noticing.

She climbed onto the waiting bus, which was air conditioned but still uncomfortably warm, and plopped down in an empty seat near the front.

The female driver closed the door and pulled away from the curb. "How you doin', today?" she asked Lissa, who was a regular passenger.

"Only four weeks of school, and I'm already burned out. Don't know if I can take another year of that place."

"I hear you," said the driver. "You hang in there, honey. At least it's Friday, right?"

"Yeah, thank God for that."

Lissa was starting her senior year at Our Lady of Peace, a strict all-girls high school run by nuns. Every day after school she went to the library and spent a few hours doing homework before going home, a grueling regimen enforced by her mother. All she had to do was survive one more year, keeping her grades up and staying out of trouble, and her mother's dream would finally come true. Lissa, the youngest of five children, would be the first person in her family to go to college.

There were nine stops between the library and the corner of Idlewood Avenue and Cesar Chavez Drive, a little over five miles, but in socioeconomic terms the distance was a lot farther. The houses got smaller and shabbier, the businesses became less and less prosperous, and the cars got older and rustier. By the time Lissa got off the bus, deep in the barrio, most of the storefronts were boarded up and the street corners were covered with spray- painted graffiti - deceptively cheerful scribblings that carved up the neighborhood into fiercely guarded enclaves.

To Lissa the neighborhood was neither good nor bad. It was where she had grown up, where she belonged, and as she walked home from the bus stop it never would have occurred to her to be afraid.

At one point a shiny black car with custom, low-ride wheels slowed down to match her pace, and the three grim young men inside eyed her knowingly, their heads bobbing to the traditional Mexican music of El Tigres del Norte. The song was one of Lissa's favorites, a romantic ballad about a man who will fight any odds to win the heart of the woman he loves. Without slowing down or looking at them, she sang along with the chorus, tossing back her long hair and letting her expressive face take on a harrowed, soulful look. The boys laughed in appreciation, white teeth flashing in their dark faces, and the driver gave her a thumbs-up. Then the car sped up and out of sight.

Lissa went around to the back of her small stucco house. Her mother was in the kitchen, standing over the stove in an apron, and she opened the back door when Lissa rapped on the glass.

"Hi Mama." Lissa gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Hello my baby," said her mother in her heavily accented English. "How was the school today?"

"Boring. I mean, it was OK, I guess. No tests at least."

She went upstairs to her bedroom, tossed her bookbag in the corner with a thud, and then shut and locked the door. As usual, the first thing she did was take off her uniform. The uncomfortable black shoes, the white socks, the dowdy knee-length plaid skirt, and the white button-down blouse with the stupid little Peter Pan collar all ended up in a pile on the floor. Then she took off her plain white bra, releasing her full, round breasts, and stretched her arms up over head, enjoying the sudden feeling of freedom. Wearing just her panties, she lay down on her bed with a sigh.

Later tonight she was going out to the beach to see her half- brother Chico fight, and she was planning to change into something casual and sexy. But first she would take a nice, cool shower. She smiled up at the ceiling. But before *that*...

She pushed down her panties and took them off, and spread her legs, enjoying the feel of the cool slippery sheets against her bare skin. Humming the romantic Tigres song to herself, she put her hand between her legs and closed her eyes, thinking about the three boys in the car.

Lissa had started masturbating a little over a year ago. At first it was something she did once in a while in the shower, and it always made her feel guilty and unclean. But the guilt faded with time, and she started doing it more and more often. Now it was a necessity - she couldn't stop doing it even if she wanted to.

Rubbing the palm of her hand over her pussy in a circular motion, she moved her hips up and down, pretending that one of the boys from the car was making love to her. What would it feel like to have a man's cock inside her? Would it feel better than this? Probably. She wondered what a man's face would look like when he was doing it to her... would he smile? Or would he grunt and strain, like he was lifting weights?

She slid her middle finger into her pussy, feeling all the slippery moisture down there. Sometimes she would daydream about sex in class, and she would feel a warm tingling in her pussy, and her panties would develop a damp spot from all the moisture - her body preparing itself for something that never happened.

Rubbing her finger up and down her slit, she imagined the driver of the shiny black car lying on top of her, making love to her. He was smiling, his face a few inches from hers, and his stiff cock felt so good as it moved in and out of her tight hole. "Lissa, you're so beautiful," he said. "So sexy..." Then he clenched his white teeth and wrinkled his handsome forehead and pumped even harder, and she felt his hot semen coming out, way up inside her belly.

Her expert finger found the magic spot at the top of her pussy and rubbed around it with just the right pressure, and her orgasm started to build - a tingling in her thighs and then a delicious contraction in her pussy, like a sneeze that teases and teases and then finally comes.

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Out of habit, she put her fingers under her nose and sniffed. Not much smell. Boys were always talking about fishy smells and tuna, but it smelled more like a faint whiff of the ocean to Lissa. As she stood up and reached for her robe, she made a decision. It was time to lose her virginity.

She mulled it over while she stood in the shower, standing there with her eyes closed letting the cool water hit her face and stream down her body. She knew that by keeping her virginity until the ripe old age of seventeen, she was an oddity. That, combined with her beauty, meant that all the boys from her neighborhood were gunning for her. Whoever succeeded would be guaranteed to blab. Her mother would eventually find out, and that was a scenario too horrible to contemplate. What she needed was someone from outside her neighborhood.

Marcella Gomez picked up Lissa in front of her house at seven thirty. Marcella was twenty, three years older than Lissa, but Lissa had always been mature for her age and they had been best friends since before high school. Last year Marcella had gotten pregnant, and she had dropped out of high school and taken a job at the big Coca-Cola bottling plant. Lissa's mother was fond of Marcella and had taken the news pretty hard, even to the extent of crying at Marcella's baby shower. Lissa wasn't sure what the big deal was: Marcella had a cute baby girl, a decent job, and her own car.

"Hi Marce," said Lissa, getting into the passenger side. "You look great. How's little Rita?" Marcella was wearing a one-piece pink spandex outfit that fit her body like a second skin.

"Hey Lissa. Never underestimate the squeezing power of spandex." She patted her round tummy, which hadn't quite recovered from the baby yet. "Rita is fine, just dropped her off with my aunt." She accelerated down the street with a roar. "Is that what you're wearing?" she asked, looking at Lissa's jeans and loose t-shirt.

"What do you think?" said Lissa. She arched her back and lifted up her shirt, revealing a black bra top that cupped her breasts tightly, maximizing her cleavage. "My Mom thinks this is underwear, you know? I can't just walk out the front door wearing this."

"Poor baby," laughed Marcella. "Still living with Mama."

Lissa took off the t-shirt and put it in the plastic bag she had brought with her. "Yeah, for one more year. Don't drive next to no trucks for a minute, OK?" She kicked off her sandals and then unbuttoned her jeans and slid them off. Then she opened the bag and took out a short black skirt.

"That's more like it," said Marcella as Lissa put the skirt on, lifting her butt up off the seat to pull it up past her hips. "If you got it, you should flaunt it. And girl, you got it. You're fucking gorgeous, you know that?"

"Uhmmm," said Lissa, carefully applying dark red lipstick to her generous mouth. People were telling her that a lot lately, and she hadn't quite figured out how to respond.

They parked on the street and followed the crowd of people along the path that led down to the beach. Most of them were young Latinos, and there was as much Spanish being spoken as English.

"So when are you going to introduce me to Chico?" asked Marcella. "I think he'd make a perfect boyfriend for me," she added, only half-joking. "Think how safe I'd feel."

"I told you, I hardly know him," said Lissa. "He's eleven years older than me, and he don't live at my house." Chico Hernandez was a feared and respected figure in her neighborhood, something that was only marginally related to his fighting ability. Chico was a high-ranking member of the Latin Kings, and he was rumored to have killed three people.

"Come on Lissa, he's your brother, for God's sake."

"Half-brother. And you know my mother don't allow me to talk to him." The truth was, Lissa wished she knew Chico better, but he ignored Lissa almost completely, never giving her more than just a nod when they passed in the street. Although it was probably for the best, Lissa still felt vaguely hurt.

"I guess I'll just have to introduce myself," sighed Marcella.

There was a big crowd of people on the beach, bigger than Lissa had ever seen for a fight. "Let's hurry," she said. "Looks like they're about to start."

They paid their ten dollars each and pushed their way into the crowd, and the predominantly male spectators cheerfully allowed the two attractive, provocatively-dressed girls to reach the front.

"There's Chico," said Marcella, pointing to the other side of the open circle of sand. Chico Hernandez was a powerfully built man of average height, with closely-cropped black hair and hard, deeply-set eyes. Colorful tattoos on his arms and chest proclaimed his gang status. The girls stared at him for a few seconds in silence as he shuffled in place on the sand, throwing punches and bobbing his head. "He's gonna win, you think?" asked Marcella.

"The other guy is supposed to be good too," said Lissa. "That's why there's so many people here. But Chico always wins." She looked around for the other fighter, then realized he was standing just a few feet away with his back to them. He was a tall, well-proportioned white guy with blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and he was also throwing punches and weaving from side to side. He was covered with a glistening sheen of sweat, and Lissa could see the muscles in his broad back rippling smoothly as he shadowboxed. A skinny black guy was standing behind him, rubbing his shoulders.

"Remember, this guy knows how to fight," said the black guy. "So don't get cocky, you hear me?"

"Have you ever seen me cocky, Mickey?" asked the blond guy. Something about the way he said it, sort of amused and exasperated, made Lissa smile.

"Always a first time," said Mickey. "Keep him off with the jab, use your reach. Keep separated, don't start mixing it up with him."

"Right," said the blond fighter. He turned around and gave Mickey a playful jab in the chest, and Lissa noticed that he was very handsome, with chiseled masculine features. His blue eyes met hers for just a second, and he smiled at her. She smiled back, then instantly felt guilty. The guy was fighting her brother, after all.

An older guy Lissa recognized from other fights walked out into the middle of the ring with a megaphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen..."

The crowd cheered, and people behind Chico started chanting "Chico, Chico..." Lissa noticed that the crowd on the other side of the ring was made up mostly of Latin Kings, and she was glad she and Marcella had ended up on this side.

With a little smile on his face, Chico motioned them to quiet down.

"Ladies and gentlemen... We have a special bout for you this evening, between two undefeated fighters. In the red trunks with the gold trim, from Anaheim, with a record of five wins and no losses... Fabian 'El Toro' Barnes!"

Lissa wondered if maybe the blond guy was Latino after all, with a nickname like "El Toro," although he sure looked white. Fabian walked out to the middle of the ring and acknowledged the cheers, which seemed to come mostly from the white college kids. A blond girl standing next to Lissa was screaming like she was at a rock concert, and a long-haired guy with a roach hanging from his lip yelled "Kick his ass, Fabian, kick his ass!"

"In the blue trunks, from Los Angeles, with a record of six wins and no losses... Carlos 'Chico' Hernandez."

The chant started up again as Chico walked out to face Fabian, and it was clear that most of the crowd was on his side. The fighters tapped their gloves together and nodded, and the organizer blew his whistle and started the fight.

Nothing much happened for a while, the two fighters seemed to just be feeling each other out. In his other fights Chico usually just ran up to his opponent and started hammering away at close range, so Lissa figured he must be worried about this Fabian guy. Finally Chico started moving in and throwing more punches, but Fabian just moved back out of the way. The skinny black guy, Mickey, was yelling out a constant stream of encouragement and instructions. Since Fabian's arms were longer, Lissa could see that Chico was going to be at a disadvantage in this style of fight, and she figured that Mickey had come up with the right strategy.

The fighters were way over by the other side of the ring, and the LKs over there started insulting Fabian, calling him a chicken for running away.

"Chicken!" shouted Marcella, picking up on it. "Stay in one place and fight like a man!"

Finally Fabian held his ground, and the fighters traded a wild flurry of punches at close range, causing the crowd to go wild. Suddenly Fabian staggered back and sat down in a heap.

"Yes!" screamed Marcella.

"Fuck!" screamed Mickey.

Lissa didn't say anything. She was a little bit sad that that Fabian had lost - he seemed like a cool guy. Then she noticed that he was getting to his feet and was nodding his head to the promoter guy, who was holding up two fingers in his face.

"Look, it's not over yet," said Lissa.

"Hah!" said Marcella. "It will be soon."

The organizer motioned for the fighters to continue. Chico came right back at Fabian, but this time Fabian circled and kept his distance. Then a whistle blew and Fabian walked over toward them.

"Are you OK?" asked Mickey.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Fabian was hanging his head, like a dog that knows he's about to be yelled at.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing? What the fuck did I tell you?"

"I know, I know." He took a drink of water while Mickey toweled him off.

"Bring the fight this way, away from those gangsters over there," said Mickey. Lissa got the impression Mickey had a lot more he wanted to say, but the whistle blew again and the fighters went back to the middle of the ring.

The fight started again, and sure enough, Fabian started luring Chico to their side of the ring. He would throw a couple of quick punches and then move back, never letting Chico get close to him. When Lissa got a closer look at Chico, she was surprised to see that his face was blotched and swollen and that he had a cut over his right eye.

"Oh my God," said Marcella. "Look at Chico, he's all beat up."

"I know," said Lissa. "And the other guy looks fine." In more ways than one, she couldn't help thinking. Fabian threw a quick jab that went home, and from the closer range Lissa and Marcella saw Chico's head rock back with the force. Chico tried to retaliate, but his roundhouse right found nothing but air.

"Damn," said Marcella.

The whistle blew again, and this time Lissa could see some LKs yelling at Chico while they toweled him off. On their side, things were calmer.

"Perfect round, Fabes, perfect," said Mickey. "Keep jabbing, keep moving, work the left eye if you can, it looks like it might open up."

Fabian just nodded. He was breathing heavily and sweat was pouring down face. His blond hair was soaked like he'd been swimming.

"Gonna have to see about getting you in condition," said Mickey. "It's only round three and you look like you been running wind sprints in the jungle."

"Ain't gonna be no round four," said Fabian.

"Don't get cocky on me, now."

The whistle blew, and now Chico became even more aggressive, trying to move in quickly before Fabian could hit him with the jab. At first it seemed to be working - Fabian kept having to back up and protect his head with his gloves, and Chico was able to pound away at his body. The LKs started chanting again.

"You right, blondie - there ain't gonna be no round four!" shouted Marcella. "Cause you goin' down in three!" Lissa just watched, feeling oddly ambivalent about the fight. She didn't really want to see either one of them lose.

Suddenly there was a gasp, and a groan from the crowd on the other side. After waiting patiently for Chico to lower his guard, Fabian had thrown a sharp right hook. Expecting the left jab, Chico had ducked right into it, and now blood was flowing freely from a nasty gash over his left eye. He pawed at it ineffectively with his glove, cursing in Spanish.

As Lissa and Marcella watched in horror, Fabian landed punch after punch, staggering Chico and driving him backwards. Blood continued to pour out of the cut, covering Chico's face and neck, and every time a punch landed more blood sprayed out onto the sand. Chico wasn't even fighting back, and Fabian stopped punching and seemed to be asking him if he wanted to continue.

"He can't see!" shouted Mickey, jumping up and down. "Jimmy, you gotta stop the fight, the Mex can't see shit!"