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Part 1
It could be hotter than holy blue hell in my shithole apartment-it usually is, as far out in the desert as we are-and the shoddy hardwood floors would still be cold to the touch. It damn near freezes my feet to walk around without shoes on, and socks are a luxury...I'm living on chump change as things currently are, and a couple hundred dollars a month don't get you very far in Badford.
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Badford gets a lot of rain for a central Nevada city. It's nothing to write home about for the most part, just spit-warm showers that spoil the six hours we get (if we're lucky) when the heat doesn't envelop everything within its reach in a stuffy, suffocating blanket. Occasionally, not often but a few times a year, the heavens'll get sick of listening to all the bitching about the rain and deliver upon our city the same sprinkles of lukewarm rain that we're accustomed to, but heat the air so everything's nice and muggy and sticky and any possible enjoyment that could've come from that evening just dries right up. Other times it'll be the usual cool, breezy night with an even rarer torrential icy downpour, and before you know it, it's colder than the inside of a witch's britches and it's too damn wet and chilly to go anywhere.

Now you're probably wondering two things by now, the first being what the hell any of this talk about the weather has to do with the story. Well, it was on one of these beforementioned types of nights that this little tale began, and it ended on the other in spectacular fashion.
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July is the worst month of the year to live in Badford, or Nevada in general. It's damned hot even without the rain, and every prick in the city with a spot of cash burning a hole in their pocket thinks up a new lie for their old lady and then hits the strip club, while all of us regular folks have to settle for a spluttering, barely working air conditioner and the good ol' little black book. Ain't a lot of guys who can afford to be expensive dates living in the Mission, myself included, but I do alright.

It was one of those warm rain and even warmer air kind of nights when I decided to give her a call, this gal by the name of Isabel. She was a neighbor girl-she didn't live in my building but rather a few blocks away, which I still considered close enough to be my neighbor-who I had talked to for the first time a few weeks earlier in my favorite diner, the one off Route 7. I figured that she was new to the area, mostly because I would've had to have been blind or drunk to miss her for too long (my best guess would be the latter, if that were the case). She was a good-looking girl-pretty face, nice curves, a set of stems to kill for-and we'd fooled around a few times before, but we'd never gone too far, as she was a virgin and rather apprehensive about that sort of thing. I didn't see anything wrong with that-she was fairly young, probably not even out of her twenties, likely with a million other things on her mind besides popping her cherry-and I guess at some point between those nights and that one she had changed her mind.

I was sitting at home around 10:30, trying to will a lightning bolt into setting my car ablaze (or just something interesting and/or unordinary to happen in general) when Isabel called and asked me to break her in. It took me a minute to figure out what she meant, but as soon as I had I was out the door like greased lightning. One fifteen-minute car ride to her place and another back to mine later, the hours were passing by in a euphoric blur.
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"What's on your mind, Vic?"
It's still too damned hot for much besides pants, boots, and boxers by the time 2:30 rolls around, and the cigarette dangling between my teeth remains unlit as I stand by the window, watching the rain fall steadily and listening to the soft taps of individual drops impacting the glass. A few seconds of silence go by before I realize Isabel's talking to me.
"Nothing worth much of anything." I had always suspected I couldn't have more than a few marbles rattling around upstairs. "At least, that's what I'd suppose."
Her reflection in the dew-streaked glass, faded and half-formed, grins sheepishly as she rises from the bed. The smell of Camel smoke permeates the air-there's one between her fingers, its tip smoldering-and the sweat-damp sheet covers her form like a shroud, falling away to reveal every gorgeous inch of her.

"It never quits, does it?" She's a good couple of inches shorter than me, and she rests her head in the crook where my shoulder meets my neck. Her skin is soft, cool and goosebumped, and I can feel her breasts smashed up against my back. "The rain, I mean."
"No. Not often." Metal crunches against metal, and a quivering flame atop a silver lighter appears in front of my face. I lean my head forward, placing the tip in the center of the orange heat, and take a long drag.

"How did I do?"
I notice that she's staring up at me and meet her gaze, her big brown eyes swelled up to twice their usual size. They're full of anticipation, anticipation of my expert opinion, and desire that what I have to say will be positive. I shrug, brushing off the question nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean."
Another silvery cloud of smoke permeates the air as I take another drag, considering the experience. She was a fairly good lover despite her inexperience-hell, maybe it was her inexperience that made her so appealing. She tried hard to please, yes, but there was an honesty and openness about her that seemed to vanish with the growth of experience in this sort of thing. Smoke pours from my nostrils, held captive in my lungs from the latest puff, and I allow myself a small, wan smile.
"You did great. A lot better, no doubt, than you believe you did." Her face betrays nothing, but in the instant that her gaze leaves me and focuses upon the window, a flicker of internal pleasure at my words of praise gleams in her eyes, quickly buried in the icy calm she believes is expected of her.

"It's getting late...I ought to head home soon. You up for another go-around before I hit the road?"
I pull one last tug of smoke from my cigarette and crack the window, flicking the butt through the opening and watching it tumble through the air towards the rain-soaked pavement.
"No. It's been fun, but I'm ready to call it a night."
I plant a gentle kiss on Isabel's forehead and ease her chin off of my shoulder, turning away from the window and towards the kitchen. "I'm grabbing a beer. You want one?"
"Sure. Cerveza, if you've got it."
I grin as I step into the kitchen, and it instantly vanishes as I realize all the magic, everything that's transpired over the past few hours, is gone, that all of it was meaningless and that I'll be doing the same thing a few nights from now with some other girl. I glance back over my shoulder at Isabel and all of her beauty, gathering her clothes into a loose bundle as she heads for the bathroom, and pull on my discarded long-sleeved shirt. It's a damn shame-hell, it ought to be a crime-that she hides away beauty like that. It's a damn shame.
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I honestly can't remember the last time that my refridgerator was stocked more than a quarter of the way. To the outsider looking in, the contents would appear rather pathetic-a handful of frozen TV dinners, takeout leftovers, and six packs of Guinness and Heineken-and also indicative of a man who either doesn't try or doesn't care. They'd be correct on the "no concern" front, but I don't think it's fair that they judge my lack of effort-I'm a single man, living alone aside from the occasional visitor, and I don't need much more than that.

I mentioned that I stock Guinnesses, but for the most part I don't drink 'em. I buy them for the sole reason of having them around for the inevitable visit from a Mick buddy. There are a lot of Micks living in the Mission, myself included, and they all knock back that Dublin-brewed piss water as fast as they can make it, but I don't usually go for it unless I'm really on a bender and looking for something to keep my buzz going. The Heinekens are, in my opinion, smoother and crisper than their Irish cousins, and lots of gals around here like 'em, so I've always got a few on hand at any given moment. This is the first time I've had anyone request a Cerveza-it's more of a Paco brand in my opinion, and hardly anyone drinks them outside of the La Puerta district's Mexican population. That, if she had lived there, would explain why I had never crossed paths with Isabel before-rarely (if ever) do I make my way that far south, as my work keeps me close to the northern tip of the city-and would also explain her inexperience with the sights and sounds of the Mission. I had been correct that she was new with an incorrect assumption that she was new to town-the Pacos like to stick close to home, and for those who have never ventured outside of La Puerta, Badford is a strange place indeed.

I'm standing in the kitchen staring blankly into the open refridgerator, a quickly-warming longneck in each hand, when a crash souns from the bedroom that pulls me out of la-la land and back into the real world. Isabel most likely knocked over the lamp on the nightstand by accident, I think-it's not her fault, but those damn things aren't getting any cheaper-and I set the beers down on the counter and move to assess the damage.

"Don't move." This voice is new, too deep to belong to Isabel, and a metallic click halts me in my tracks just past the doorframe. A tall, wire-thin man steps out of the bathroom with Isabel held in front of him like a shield, the business end of a massive revolver grinding against her temple. I raise my hands slowly, keeping my palms up and open as I step around the bed to stand in front of them.
"There's no need for this to get violent. Take whatever you want, just don't hurt her."
"It's not her I want..." he growls in his gravelly voice, leveling the gun at my chest. "It's you."
The bang is deafening in the confined space of the bedroom, and the speeding projectile hits me like a hard punch, throwing me back with such force that I smash through the glass of the window and, not unlike my cigarette butt, tumble out into the night.