What My Grandmother and I Did to Stay Alive

Note: this is a work of fiction set during the exodus of civilians along the coastal road during the Spanish Civil War. The characters are invented; the historical background serves only as setting.

How did we end up here? Remedios thought as she pulled up her dirty panties and straightened her skirt over her trembling thighs. A bitter numbness ran through her veins. She felt no pain, not even disgust: only the sticky wetness of the militiaman cooling between her legs, a thick thread of semen sliding down the inside of her thigh and into the fold of her groin, and the rage of not having a finger’s width of clean water to wipe that trail away. She ran two fingers through her swollen cunt and pulled them out greasy, white, stinking of man. She wiped them on the dirt in disgust. It had been so quick she hadn’t even really felt it: four clumsy thrusts against an olive tree, the militiaman panting against her neck like a dog, the skinny cock jerking in and out in dry, abrupt strokes until he came with a grunt and left inside her everything he’d been saving up for weeks in the trenches. He hadn’t even taken her panties off properly: he’d pushed them aside with a dirty finger, spit on her cunt to lubricate it, and shoved into her without further ceremony.

She was forty-four, and the last four days had aged her by ten years. She skimmed over the memory of her husband dying in her arms, his head blown apart, nearly two nights ago now. She passed just as quickly over the threats of that general who spat through the radio amid static that devoured everything. This had not been prostitution, she told herself: it had been a trade. A handful of potatoes in exchange for a while with a militiaman who barely came up to the threshold of adolescence, a snot-nosed kid with a cock hard with fear and war who had come inside her before he even knew what his name was.

She took refuge in memories from less than a year ago, when all this still seemed impossible. The Almendros house, chocolate at afternoon snack time, the smell of church wax on Sundays. Then neighbors began disappearing one by one, and nobody asked, and nobody spoke. Whole houses were confiscated by committees and unions, the same union in which Eduardo, her Lalo, the foundry chemist who was now rotting in a roadside ditch, had belonged.

Beneath the weight of the improvised shelter made of blankets that smelled of damp and fear, Remedios held Pilar close. The girl was shaking. Don’t think about what they’ll do if they find a little red and her daughter, she ordered herself. Tomás, the eldest, nineteen, had gone out at midday hiding among the rocks, as he had so many times before, and still hadn’t come back. But he always came back.

Dolores, her mother-in-law, had lived almost her whole life in the Almendros, but she dragged behind her a past that darkened her skin. At parties people whispered that she was Calé, a Gypsy from one of the shantytowns around the city, or at least some cast-off mixed-blood. Nobody knew for sure and nobody dared ask. Remedios knew only one thing: that she could count on her even in the worst hell.

The old woman was silently preparing the potatoes her daughter-in-law had brought. She had not cried for her son’s death; she had tucked the pain under that brown skin and thrown herself into keeping the rest alive. Now and then she looked at Rafael’s broad back as he kept watch in a deep patch of shadow. That one isn’t a child anymore, she thought. She guessed where the potatoes had come from—she could smell her daughter-in-law’s militiaman’s semen from three meters away—but God would forgive her, because if He didn’t, then He was the one who deserved condemnation.

Rafael had been named after the dead grandfather, and he looked so much like him that Dolores, at sixty-four, sometimes stared at him in a daze. He was twenty, taller than Tomás and strong as a fighting bull. He liked swimming; whenever he could, he slipped off to the sea, even in the dead of winter. That afternoon he thought of nothing: he only watched the caravan of refugees creeping eastward, a hundred meters away, beneath the vertical shadow of a carob tree.

Far from there, retracing the caravan’s path, Tomás advanced. He moved fast, crouching among the rocks, clumsier than he thought. A group of soldiers passed a few meters away without seeing him, and he laughed inwardly at those beasts. Two hundred paces away he made out familiar uniforms: a dozen men walking in a chaotic formation, laughing and humiliating the refugees they crossed paths with.

—Long live Spain! —he shouted when he recognized the face of the Falange boss—. Aren’t you going to greet a comrade, Ezequiel?

The blue shirts pointed their rifles toward the voice with a slowness that would have made any real soldier laugh. Tomás raised his hands over the rocks before standing up.

—Don’t shoot! —Ezequiel ordered, then smiled—. That son of a bitch is one of ours.

Tomás approached without lowering his hands all the way. They had shared clandestine meetings in the city, but they knew almost nothing about each other: it was safer that way, in case torture came. Ezequiel knew Tomás came from a good family and held firm ideas; Tomás knew Ezequiel headed the local Falange even though he was from a southern village. Nothing more.

—Glad to see you, boss —Tomás said, hugging him, recognizing more familiar faces among the rest—. And you too.

—You’re in a sorry state, comrade —one of them told him.

—War does that —he replied, thinking of his father’s mangled corpse the way one remembers collateral damage—. War does that.

The column kept moving and Tomás guided them back, now no longer hiding, drunk on this new power. They ran into some stragglers and mocked them before Ezequiel finished them off with a shot. Corpses everywhere.

—Look! —said Cosme, a veteran, pointing to the coast.

So close you could almost read its name, a cruiser advanced noisily following the same line as they did.

—Back to killing reds again —Cosme laughed—. Let’s see if it leaves any for us.

***

It was nearly dusk when, after sharing out the stew, they reached where Tomás’s family was supposed to remain hidden, protected by that broad-shouldered sentry. He was burning to introduce them to his comrades; that way his mother would eventually forgive him for what she would consider a betrayal.

But as he neared the shelter, what he saw shattered his mind in a single blow. A mustachioed mercenary was walking away, laughing, toward three others, finishing buttoning his trousers, leaving behind a bundle of clothes on the ground. The clothes were moving by themselves. Someone was inside.

It was Rafael. Covered in blood, with a deep bayonet wound in his belly. His brother—no, his stronger brother—tried to give him a smile that was only a red grimace. And when Tomás thought he could not break anymore, a dry shot wiped his mind clean again. Rafael lay motionless at his feet.

—At last I’ve caught me a red! —Cosme shouted, and they all laughed.

Tomás laughed too. It was a reflex that swept over his consciousness, because his mind was elsewhere, scanning the scrub for the rest of his own. Among some bushes he caught a dark glint. A face. There was no doubt: it was Dolores, his grandmother. He swallowed and held back a shiver.

All at once he was back in his childhood, in the stories she used to tell him: his grandfather in the Cuban War, the wagon caravans, the nighttime escapes, the Calé spells. That black gaze spoke to him without words, putting his mind back together in a strange way. Above ideas, above the war, you have to protect your own. Rafael was already dead; they would mourn him later, avenge him later. All that came through clearly from his grandmother’s eyes.

The contact lasted only a few seconds. Dolores felt the message had been received, that her grandson would keep quiet, that he would hide them the way he had hidden the old beliefs she taught him as a child. “Blood that doesn’t flow rots,” her own grandmother used to say. She shot a quick glance at the other grandson, flesh already rotting in the sun, and put the thought aside.

Remedios and Pilar hid behind her, faces twisted with panic, out of sight. But mercenaries were not easy to fool.

—Mnin kayn hna? —the mustachioed one shouted, alerting the other two.

The three raised their rifles before any Falangist understood what was happening. Before they could pull the trigger, Dolores came out of hiding with her arms raised, just above her head. Her gray hair was tied in a messy bun, her filthy clothes concealing her former dignity: she looked like a beggar. She looked like something else.

The Moroccans held back their fingers. The laughter vanished from their faces. They had already run into Gypsy women in the mountains and knew what was said in the camps: fortune-tellers, sorceresses, curses that followed you beyond death. That woman was the living image of a witch, and her mere presence made them take a step back without lowering their aim.

Cosme parted the bushes with his bayonet fixed, trying to see where the apparition had come from, while the old woman, eyes fixed forward, begged the Shadows to protect her own.

—There’s nobody else here —he finally said.

The Falangists, her grandson among them, approached with their guns trained on her. Before Ezequiel could speak, Tomás did it first.

—Who are you and what are you doing here? —he said, holding his own grandmother’s gaze.

—Dolores. Dolores Amaya —she answered, and that tone sent a shiver through the dozen men—. I’m heading east. With the others.

—Careful, Tomás! —Ezequiel snapped—. Those people never travel alone.

—Where’s your people, Gypsy? —Tomás asked, and the Falangists and mercenaries looked everywhere, nervously aiming at the shadows.

That’s it, boy: confuse them. Dolores remained silent.

—I asked where your people are! —Ezequiel shouted, stepping closer with his pistol in hand.

She didn’t even look at the weapon. If she had to die, she would die meeting that little boss’s eyes. With her hands still raised, she began to move her thumbs, placing them slowly between her fingers.

—Hands still or I’ll cut them off! —He pressed the pistol to her temple, without managing to make her gaze falter.

—Easy —Tomás cut in, buying time, looking at the scrub that nearly surrounded them—. Do you want to die here today?

—This people are shit! —Ezequiel spat.

—Yes, they are… but shit can still kill you —he contradicted himself, stepping back—. We need to get out of here, we’re exposed. We take her with us, she might be useful.

***

Nobody lowered their weapon until Dolores had been tied up, and the nerves didn’t ease until they thought the trap was behind them. But the trap was going with them. When the men’s noise had almost died away, Remedios and Pilar crawled out of the hiding place, knelt beside Rafael’s body, and prayed for him through their tears. And then something broke inside Remedios. Rage devoured her whole. She did not resist: she let that feeling take command, let it ease her pain. If we have to die, we’ll die. And if we have to go down to hell, we’ll go down laughing, after savage revenge.

Falangists and mercenaries walked until dusk. They had to camp; they seemed to have been cut off. They didn’t even light a fire: the Gypsies might locate them, or worse, the cruiser might mistake them for reds. They dragged the prisoner along, useful only as a shield, and on that both sides agreed.

Ezequiel was in a difficult position with his men and with his superiors. He had ordered that advance without permission so his comrades would feel brave; coming back with a prisoner did not guarantee him medals. His Falangists were on the verge of collapse, exhausted, hauling a woman who caused them unnecessary unease. The mercenaries weren’t feeling much more secure either.

—I have to put an end to this —Ezequiel murmured, only to Tomás, seated beside him.

Tomás guessed his intentions at once: under the thin light of the waning moon, he saw him draw his pistol. That cut off his thoughts about his brother’s agony in midstream.

Dolores saw the boss’s shadow rise and knew she had minutes left if nobody did something extreme. She had let her face, almost erased by the night, relax into a sadness nobody would see.

—Wait… —Tomás said, buying time—. No… not before I have a little fun with her. Not before I fuck this witch until I blow her cunt apart.

Ezequiel stopped, thinking he had misheard.

—What…? —the disbelief in his voice nearly drew a smile from Tomás.

—You heard the general, didn’t you? —he said, feigning a sadistic grimace the other could barely make out in the dark—. Every red whore ends up grateful when someone shoves a cock all the way in, hard. And old Gypsies even more so.

A hundred and fifty meters away, Remedios hid her daughter to leeward. Her father, a sergeant in Cuba, had told her how the mambises detected the enemy by any strange smell; Pilar’s clothes, wet with fear, would be a beacon for the mercenaries. When she leaned against the ground she felt the black, damp mud among the bushes. That might work. She took off her worn coat and began to undress: though torn and dirty, her blouse was still white, too white. She needed to get very close. She needed to become invisible.

Dolores mastered the shiver provoked by her grandson’s words and rebuilt her mask. She knew the boy was trying to buy time, but she was going to be fucked for real or for pretend, and pretend was no less traumatic. And there were a thousand ways for it all to go wrong: that she might accidentally hurt the boy, that he might not be able to get it up for it. She returned to her grandmother’s teachings, to that animal attraction any woman could awaken in any man if she set her mind to it. She remembered how she had tamed her husband on their wedding night, riding him like a wolf, and the many times that, already a widow, she had masturbated in the dark of her room thinking of young, hard cocks. Her cunt moistened with the memory, and she thanked the Shadows for that old gift of the body that doesn’t fade with age.

Remedios was already close, on some rocks a dozen meters away, half-naked, her body smeared with mud. Pilar, as if hypnotized, had rubbed her back and her hanging breasts with that filth and then hidden herself without looking. Remedios saw her eldest son among the Falangists. Kill him, her mind screamed, though she knew it wasn’t the moment.

—No… I don’t know… —Ezequiel took a while to get over the shock—. How can you get it up for an old Gypsy woman like that?

—Shhh —Tomás hushed him—. The troop, boss! This will lift their morale. And their cocks.

And Ezequiel understood: that would be the catalyst. His men would stop being prey to a nonexistent spell, they would subdue the witch, the grandmother, and they would be the brave men he was used to again. When they saw her with her legs open, tongue hanging out, and a cock inside, she would no longer be any more frightening than any other woman.

—Hey, soldiers! —Ezequiel called out, forgetting all prudence, driven to recover his men—. Looks like someone wants to fuck the witch! Let’s see if you learn something!

A rough little laugh escaped Dolores’s throat, just enough not to seem offensive.

—What’s the matter, payo? —she said, mastering her fear, going back to her Calé roots—. Am I too much woman for your cock? Or can’t you get it up for a real woman?

—No, Gypsy —Ezequiel answered, grinding his teeth—. It’s just that my comrade has taken a liking to you. He likes old women.

Tomás forgot his doubts and hauled her up by the hair, pulling until the old woman’s head was thrown back and her neck was stretched out in full view of everyone.

—Easy, boy —she said with the murkiest smile she could manage, taking the hand that held her and lowering it slowly to her breast, pressing the boy’s fingers over the nipple through the fabric—. No need to get violent. I don’t mind a sweet thing… like you. I know what a young cock needs. I’ll give you everything, my soul. Everything.

Those words thundered through Tomás’s insides, binding body and mind in one jerk. He felt a stab in his groin, a hot lash that swelled his cock against his fly. His grandmother was goading him, and he didn’t understand how. She’s going to be the first one. His virginity was going to end up in the hands of his elderly grandmother, and he was going to like it. If this kept going, they had a remote chance of getting out alive.

—Take your clothes off —he ordered, bringing his mouth to her ear, biting the lobe with more rage than tenderness—. Show these sons of bitches your tits and cunt. Put on a show for us, Gypsy. And if I can’t get hard, I’ll blow your head off myself.

As Dolores began stripping off her clothes, Ezequiel’s men came closer, barely crouched, forming a half-circle around the woman. The blouse fell first, revealing a torso of brown skin crossed by bluish veins, and two sagging but full breasts, with large dark nipples hardened by the night cold. A collective gasp rose. She let the skirt fall, sliding to her ankles, and was left only in wide white cotton panties that the night had turned gray. When she slowly pulled them down, bent at the waist so everyone could see the buttocks still firm on a woman who had walked all her life, a thick cunt of black hair, graying at the edges, came into the moonlight, shining with a wetness that had nothing to do with fear.

When only her skin remained exposed, the old woman made out two points of light in the near-total darkness behind the mercenaries. Eyes. Too close to the men to belong to an animal. She asked the Shadows whose they were, and at once she knew: her daughter-in-law’s.

Remedios allowed herself only a single glance at her mother-in-law’s almost invisible nakedness. The soldiers’ movement, three meters away, forced her to focus on what mattered: two of them were getting up to come closer to the show, and only one was keeping hold of his rifle. To her left, stacked in a pile, there were a dozen guns. They’re almost unarmed, she thought. The youngest mercenary remained half-lying beside her, his rifle to one side, and with his other hand he was clutching the bulge in his trousers, staring at the naked Gypsy like a man looking at a vision. He was jerking off. The cock made a mound beneath the uniform as he stroked it slowly, biting his lip.

Tomás couldn’t contain his excitement. He didn’t understand how that worn-out body, now naked a few inches from him, had given him such a monstrous erection that it hurt. His cock pushed against the fabric as if trying to break free. The same question was being asked by the other Falangists, all in an identical state, including Ezequiel, though with him it was power more than lust that was lighting the fire. Cosme had already pulled out his cock and was openly wanking it, thick and crooked, never taking his eyes off the old woman’s ass.

Completely naked now, Dolores’s shame passed quickly. She had to keep going. She licked her fingers and ran them over her nipples, making them shine and get even harder, drawing a collective moan from the men. Then she slipped the same fingers between her thighs and worked at her cunt so they could all see the lips part, revealing the pink, wet flesh at the center.

—Let’s see what I’m going to eat… —she said, crouching with her legs wide apart while at the same time tugging his pants and underwear down in one yank to his knees.

As she guessed at her grandson’s sex in the half-light, a gasp escaped her. It was an enormous cock, young, with a swollen purple glans throbbing with thick veins, and balls hanging low like a stallion’s. She gripped it firmly. It was so thick she couldn’t span it with her thumb and middle finger. A sigh rose in her throat and set off laughter around them. She squeezed the base with her hand and watched the head turn almost black. A clear drop welled from the tip and hung there on a thread. Dolores caught it with her tongue, very slowly, and licked her lips. She let her mind split in two: the conscious half, which was looking for survival, and the animal half, which told her this could be paradise for a woman her age. She decided to let them work together.

—What a piece! —she murmured—. What a beautiful cock has fallen into my hands today!

And she took it into her mouth without warning. She swallowed it halfway in one go, closing her lips around the shaft, and began sucking it with delayed hunger. She sucked with hollowed cheeks, let the cock slip free with a wet click, licked it from top to bottom running her broad tongue underneath, took his balls into her mouth one by one while continuing to massage the shaft with her hand. Strings of saliva ran down her chin, dangled from her chest, soaked her tits. Tomás threw his head back and swallowed a moan: he had never felt anything like it in his life. His grandmother’s mouth was a hot, skillful well that knew exactly what it was doing. She bit the skin of his glans with soft lips, circled the crown with the tip of her tongue, shoved him down her throat until she gagged and then pulled him out with a guttural moan. The Falangists were gripping themselves in turn. Cosme was wanking so hard you could hear the friction of his hand.

—Suck it, Gypsy, suck it like the whore you are! —Ezequiel panted, never taking his eyes off the darkness—. Take it all, you filthy witch!

Dolores obeyed. She took him all the way down, until her nose sank into the black hair of her grandson’s groin, and stayed there a few seconds, holding back the gag, feeling the cock throb against her uvula. When she pulled back, a long rope of saliva hung from her lips to the glans.

Remedios wasted no time. The young mercenary was keeping watch—or so he thought—but with his back to her, cock out and hand occupied. She picked up a stone she had to lift with both hands and brought it crashing down with all the force of her hatred on that skull. She barely looked at him. She took the two weapons within reach and slipped away, leaving him stretched out in his last bed with the stone still on his legs and his flaccid cock poking out of the open fly.

Dolores sat up, stroking the back of her grandson’s neck and his huge cock, and searched the night for the glint of Remedios’s eyes. She found them a little farther on than where the two men had been, moving quickly and silently.

—You’re going to put it in me right here, boy… —she whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, turning and pushing her hips back toward the boy’s saliva-wet cock, rubbing it between her buttocks—. Put it in my cunt all the way to the balls. Break me open inside.

—I’ll fuck you later, whore! —Cosme snapped, jerking himself angrily, the head dripping—. Later I’ll shove mine up your ass, filthy old bitch!

The old woman sensed something odd in the body language of the two remaining mercenaries. She called it a premonition.

—You? —she said, showing them her ass and parting it with her hands in the half-light, revealing the dark eye of her asshole and the slit of her cunt open and shining amid the black hair—. You’re more into something else… Come here, Moor, look what this old woman has for you.

Everyone laughed except the Moroccans, who narrowed their eyes trying to see in the dark that offer, drooling like rutting animals, forgetting the doubts that had gnawed them only moments before. One of them had already unbuttoned his trousers and was jerking off a brown, curved cock. The other licked his lips.

Remedios had already brought the only loaded weapons over beside Pilar. Now she was taking, three at a time, the rifles stacked in piles. She stopped crouching by the next-to-last one, exhausted. That’s it, señora Dolores, that’s it, show these beasts your ass. She silently collected those weapons and carried them where they could not be found.

Tomás, dragged along by his animal side, grabbed Dolores by the hips and shoved her against a slanted rock, moving her away from the piles of weapons exactly as his logical side advised. He bent her over the stone, her tits flattened against the cold granite and her ass pushed up high, and lay over her, his forehead against her shoulder, his cock hard as iron seeking the entrance. He ran the glans up and down her slit, soaking it in the wetness she had herself spilled. She sighed at the friction and, taking him from behind with one hand, showed him the way, fitting the head of his cock into the mouth of her cunt.

—Push, boy, push —she begged him in a thick voice—. Shove it all in at once.

Tomás thrust. The cock sank halfway, meeting resistance in a cunt that had not been used in years.

—Fuck! —the Gypsy gasped, throwing her head back—. What a piece you’ve got, my soul! Give it to me hard, payo! Give it to me at once, don’t spare me!

Her grandson thrust again, now with no restraint, and the cock went in to the base, pressing his balls against the old woman’s swollen clit. Dolores let out an animal moan. She felt him reach the bottom, push against the cervix, make room where there was none left. Tomás stayed still for a few seconds, trembling, with both minds equally in command of his body. Then he yielded control to that animal demanding power, not before setting the pistol aside, within the old woman’s reach. He began fucking her with long, furious thrusts, drawing his cock almost all the way out and burying it again to the hilt, with an obscene slapping sound that echoed in the night’s silence.

—Yes, yes, yes! —Dolores moaned, clenching her teeth against the rock—. Break me, bastard! Fuck me like you’ve never fucked anyone before! Empty your balls inside me!

Ezequiel had also pulled out his cock and was wanking it as he watched the spectacle, his jaw slack. Cosme came up behind and crouched beside the old woman’s head, offering it to her.

—Here, suck this while he fucks you, whore!

Dolores opened her mouth without hesitation and let Cosme’s cock slip between her lips. Now they were fucking her from both sides: her grandson was tearing her cunt open from behind and the other was fucking her mouth without mercy, grabbing her by the hair, making her swallow until she choked and tears sprang to her eyes. The old woman moaned through the gagging, cheeks full, moving her ass back to receive each of Tomás’s thrusts.

With the night and silence as allies, Remedios went after the last pile of weapons. He’s fucking her, she thought, stunned, making out between the shadows the silhouette of the pair, the brutal roll of her son’s hips, the old woman’s white ass moving against him. My son is fucking señora Dolores. He’s splitting her in half. She felt heat rise to her face and unexpected wetness between her legs. She pressed her cunt with her hand over the mud without meaning to, and felt her lips swollen, throbbing. She felt envy for her mother-in-law and denied it to herself… for the moment.

Cosme came first, without warning. He yanked his cock out of her mouth at the last second and emptied a long, thick load all over her face, over her closed eyes, half-open lips, hanging tits. Dolores stuck out her tongue to catch what fell. The veteran shuddered, growled, and staggered away.

—Old bitch! —he panted—. Dirty Gypsy whore!

—Give it to me hard, darling… —Dolores now begged Tomás in his ear, taking advantage of the opening—. Split me in two. Empty yourself inside me. I want to feel you in me.

Ezequiel was enjoying the moment, watching his men fall into that pit of lust. They were no longer thinking about the Gypsies, or the lack of reinforcements; courage had returned. Even the Moroccans were absorbed, jerking themselves off too, edging closer to put hands on the old woman’s ass, to pinch her semen-covered nipples. Wait a minute… weren’t there three? He could only see two silhouettes. He turned to his left, toward where the youngest one was still lying, watching them. Something was wrong.

Tomás was already nearly surrendered to his animal, hammering the old woman’s cunt with all the power of his twenty years, gripping her tits with both hands, twisting her nipples, biting her neck. He fucked her with a fury he himself didn’t recognize, seeking the bottom, wanting to destroy her. In his grandmother’s eyes he saw the fire of a goddess as old as time, a face at once younger and older than the night could show him. He felt his own climax rising slowly from his balls, burning him from within, climbing up the shaft of his cock like a current. He thrust three, four more times, all the way in, and let out a muffled groan. He emptied himself inside her in long spasms that shook his body, pouring stream after stream of hot semen into his grandmother’s innards, who was no longer his grandmother, nor señora Dolores, nor an old woman: she was the entire earth.

Dolores, transformed into something greater than herself, felt that burning release like lava forging in her guts a savage, forgotten sensation. She felt the spurts hit deep inside her, one after another, filling her with a heat she had not felt in decades. Her cunt closed around the boy’s cock, squeezing him dry, and her clit burst against the stone. A terrible orgasm shook her whole body, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. She let out a long howl into the night, grateful for that old feeling of fullness, shedding years of pain, giving herself back a clean mind. The howl raised gooseflesh on both Moroccans.

Ezequiel understood his mistake when he felt the cold steel sinking into his gut. He saw that semi-naked woman, smeared with mud, tits bare and nipples erect, gripping the rifle whose bayonet she had just driven into him above the belly. He felt his life being torn away by eyes that reflected all the hatred in the world, while that wolf’s howl carried his soul off.

Remedios had not felt like this in months. The general on the radio, the killer of her Eduardo and Rafael, all those Falangists, they were all that man staring at her wide-eyed, cock still hard jutting from his open trousers, his arms hanging like a puppet’s. It’s not an orgasm, but it’s everything I want right now. She savored the sensation for only a few seconds, yanked the weapon free—and a gush of blood and guts came out with it—and ran toward the shadows. Ezequiel reeled, clutching his belly, and fell to his knees, his erect cock still dripping pre-cum onto the ground before he collapsed fully.

The thud of the body hitting the ground sounded like thunder. First the mercenaries shouted in their own language, then the Falangists reacted. Everything turned into chaos: men running toward the two corpses, cocks exposed, stumbling over their own trousers.

Tomás, still half undressed and his cock dripping semen and fluids, rolled over the stone. Dolores didn’t stay where he had left her for even a second: she slid away, her grandson’s semen still running down her thighs, picked up the pistol as she passed, and melted into the Shadows. Her grandson followed her with his eyes, with an absurd smile and immense joy. Run, grandmother, run.

—The guns! —Cosme shouted, still with his cock out, limp and dripping—. Where are our guns!?

—Mine’s got my gun —said the only one who was still armed.

—But who…? —the youngest started, and then nearly screamed—. Gypsies!!

They all crouched down, trying to hide from an invisible enemy that was nothing more than a woman charged with hatred come up from hell. It would take them a couple of minutes to notice that Dolores was missing, and nearly half an hour to realize that Tomás was missing too.

***

Tomás stopped less than a hundred meters away, held back by a hand that seemed to emerge from nowhere. He was not afraid: that firm, rough hand could only be his grandmother’s. By gestures, she led him to a small ridge where Remedios, almost as naked as they were and caked in mud, with Pilar beside her, was adjusting the rifle’s aim over the confused silhouettes of those desperate men.

A hand covered the barrel. Remedios, frightened, could only see her mother-in-law’s dark-firing gaze and, below it, the naked body, tits hanging, smeared with spit and dried semen, thighs shining with fluids. Dolores slowly shook her head. If you shoot, they’ll see us. The mother shook the weapon angrily, but the old woman did not let go and shook her head again. Then Remedios looked at her son, alive, with his trousers still buttoning and his cock still half-hard and protruding, and something changed: she had a family. Reduced, broken, but hers.

She lowered the weapon. The weight of steel was replaced by the dead weight of her own exhaustion. Dolores nodded once and, with an almost imperceptible gesture, pointed inland, toward the deepest part of the mountains. Behind them were the horror, the empty rifles, and the blood. Ahead, only the cold of the mountain and the quiet promise of staying alive.

—The Gypsies are close —the old woman whispered, as so many years before, with her thighs still dripping her own grandson’s semen—. We’re always close.

She would find her people. She would give refuge to her own. Revenge would wait, but not forever.