Los Angeles, California – Sunday, October 26, 2014 – 10:15 am.

((Aching. Every muscle in Roxy Cotton’s body is aching. She doesn’t wake up gradually like the usual blooming of a flower she’s accustomed to. The light doesn’t slowly brighten behind the shields of her eyelids until her inner circadian rhythms beckon her back to the world of waking. No, this time consciousness hits her like a bullet, drilling into her skull with a panic she doesn’t understand. Without opening her eyes, Roxy assesses her thoughts. Fighting through a fog of confusion, she tries to get her bearings. The sheets feel too stiff, too scratchy. The sunlight is coming from the wrong direction. The noise isn’t right. There’s too much. No sound insulation from the cacophony of the 405 somewhere below and to the side of her. The highway is like an old friend to her, she knows its voice, but it sounds different. In an instant, Roxy knows she is waking up somewhere she doesn’t live, somewhere she hasn’t woken up before.))

I Wanna Rock…

((Her cell phone wails from somewhere nearby, but too far for Roxy to convince her stiff arms and legs to move towards. Roxy opens her eyes, finally, and sees the unfamiliar décor of a cheap hotel room looking back at her blankly. Not a touch of home, here. Just vacant, sterile, empty anonymity. As her eyes begin to water, she sees her clothing lying in a sloppy pile across the room, as if tossed there without a single thought to their importance. The cell phone sings to her again, Vinnie’s ringer, and she wants nothing more but for it to be him in person with her in this strange place. She listens again as the phone beeps its message to her, letting her know he’s left a voice mail. She still can’t bring herself to move, fearing the pain she knows deep in her subconscious awaits. She musters the strength to play Loverboy’s message to her.))

Hey Roxy! How’s my sweet thing today, girl?

I hope you had fun with Brit out at the club last night. I wish I was there with you two to make all the other dudes in LA jealous! You had me so hot and bothered just listening to your sexy voice yesterday that I got confused what show I was gonna be on this week baby, can you believe that? I bet one of those knuckle dragging fucks is gonna bring it up, too. Typical bullshit from the special bus kids they keep making me deal with here.

I can’t wait for you to bring that hot ass out Dallas, babe. I hope you’ll be getting there tomorrow night, like me. Tonight I’m heading down to Mexico, dude! I’m gonna fuck around in Juarez for a little while just to see what’s up, man, they say it’s always a party down there. I really wanted to hear your voice for a few minutes before I head on out to some XWF shit I’ve gotta do downtown, but I know you’re probably still sleeping off last night’s good times, man. I would be too if I didn’t have to be at this fuckin’ autograph session soon.

Well… hope you have a fuckin’ awesome day, babe. Call me later tonight and let me know about the flight okay?

Love you baby.

Muah.

((The phone beeps again, letting Roxy know that she’s reached the end of the messages, but she doesn’t hear anything over the sounds of her own sobs. The pang she felt between her legs as she shifted her body into a sitting position told her everything she’d been terrified to know but had assumed from the moment she’d awoken in this dirty hotel room.))

((Roxy stands, naked, and feels the sting from her crotch and backside. The pain makes her wince as she slowly walks around the room to gather her clothes, picking them up from the floor and pulling them on gingerly, paying special care as she drags the silk panties over her knees and up her reddened inner thighs. There is no mirror in the room, thankfully, and Roxy decides to eschew the added discomfort of wearing her extra high stilettos as she leaves the room, choosing instead to carry them along with her bag. The daylight washes over her in waves as she opens the hotel room door. She sees nothing but sparkling macadam from a half empty parking lot and, over a rusted chain link fence, the source of the song which roused her – the constant moan of the highway 405. She closes the door behind her and walks in rapid, short steps across the burning pavement towards the building marked “office.” The look on the face of the Korean man behind the glass tell her she looks worse than she thought as she approaches him and tries to gather a voice.))

Excuse me? I’m sorry, excuse me? Sir?

((He’s ignoring her. Pretending she isn’t standing there, crying, holding her shoes and bleeding from somewhere deep inside. Maybe she isn’t there. Maybe she never was there. Maybe she’s just dreaming. There’s always hope, even if it is foolish hope.))

Please, sir, I need your help!

You go away! Go now, before I call the police! We know want your kind in hotel! We get in trouble! Stupid hooker!

((The words slap her across the face like a blistering winter wind. She closes her eyes against another flood of tears and somehow finds the strength to force the words she needs out of her mouth before the sobs come again.))

I’m not a hooker… please, I need to know how I got here. Who booked the room? Number seven? Please, he hurt me, I need to get help and get to the cops…

I tell you nothing. You stupid sluts all come to my hotel and make money sucking the dicks. No one suck Yang’s dick. You want to know who got the room, you suck Yang’s dick. Otherwise you go before I call cops!

((Roxy gives up. She didn’t blame the manager for thinking she was a prostitute, she knew what she must look like stumbling out of a cheap motel halfway through the morning with last night’s wrinkled clothes and makeup on. She looked across the road and saw the sign of the cross street. Sepulveda. She was in Culver. Too far to walk, and she couldn’t dare to get on a bus or a cab looking like such fresh hell. Catching more sobs in her throat, Roxy walked back to the hotel room and entered, having left the door propped open by the dead bolt. She was alone. She found her phone again and typed in a text to Brit, hoping she wasn’t in bed with the latino she’d seen her dancing with the night before.))

Brit. I need help. Please come and get me.

((Roxy hesitates, unsure of whether not she should finish the thought. Ultimately, desperation for a friend and a ride home overtook her ration ale, and she punched in the letters.))

I think I was raped.

((She sends the message and slams the door, finally allowing the dam to burst behind her eyes. She chokes and coughs through racking cries, feeling her cheeks burn from the tears streaking across her skin. Roxy Cotton never cries. Roxy Cotton only ever smiles. Roxy Cotton doesn’t get raped. Roxy Cotton doesn’t get hurt.))

((In the bathroom of the cheap hotel room, Roxy turns the handle of the shower and peels the sticky dress from her body as the pipes stutter to life. Slowly, she moves under the steaming water and then, feeling the tiles warm against the skin of her back, she slides down to the floor of the stall. There, Roxy hides her tears in the shower and watches a trail of red as it ribbons across the shower floor from between her legs to the drain, arcing and turning like the 405 itself.))

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Juarez, Mexico – Sunday, October 25, 2014 – 10:15 pm.

((“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane checks his cell phone one last time, though he was never sure if it worked properly outside of the country. Either way, still nothing. He hadn’t heard from Roxy all day and, for once, it was bothering him. Something didn’t feel right. He missed her, and he’d never missed anyone. Not since Nikki. He typed a quick message to her, trying to assuage his rising sense of dread.))

Baby – where have you been? I called you earlier. I’m in Mexico, watching a cockfight. It reminds me of Morbid and Peter. I’ll try and send you some pics.

Call me later? I’m worried.

XOXO – TMOYD

((Loverboy presses send and shoves the phone into his pants’ vinyl pocket. He turns just as Jacuinde, the short Mexican man who’s hosting the night’s chicken derby, walks up to him.))

Jacuinde: Senor, the betting is on for the fight, maing. You want to bet on the big, fat black one, or the shorter one who keeps trying to fuck the other roosters?

((Loverboy looks over at the pit, the two roosters being held back by handlers wearing heavy leather gloves to protect against the inch-long metal blades wired to the left foot of each bird. The larger one, easily twice as much around as the smaller, has its wings extended at full length and its head arched back, beak wide open, as if screaming “Victory Forever!” into the dusty Mexico night. The smaller one, though obviously equipped as a male, what with the large comb and thick waddle, responds by laying an egg. The Mexican handlers are starstruck, some of them crossing themselves and others gripping to rosary beads tightly.))

Loverboy: Yo, dude, what’s up with the sudden “come to Jesus” moment going on in here? Or hay-zoos. Whatever his Spanish name is.

Jacuinde: That man’s cock just laid an egg, senor. It is a message from god. Peter Gilmour is laying eggs!

Loverboy: Whoa, Peter Gilmour?

Jacuinde: Si, senor. Cuauhtemoc named his cock after a transsexual wrestler he saw on TV one night after we snuck into Texas to sell his seester. The wrestler becamse the patron saint of lady-boys here in Juarez, and now the prophecy has come true! Dios mio! Peter Gilmour is a hen-cock!

((Jacuinde runs toward the rooster pit, snapping pictures on a cell phone and crossing himself as he prays in loud Spanish. Loverboy pulls his phone out again and takes a few pictures as well, before walking out of the arena and leaving the fighting cocks to their own devices.))