Marisol doesn’t just walk into a room; she idles in neutral, engine purring low, waiting for someone to notice the tremor in the floorboards. Forty-six looks obscene on her, like someone poured thirty-year-old whiskey into a body that still remembers how to be nineteen and reckless. The years haven’t softened her; they’ve just taught her exactly how sharp she wants her edges.

She still lives in the same little house off Whittier, the one with the cracked virgin statue in the front yard and the driveway that’s permanently stained like a crime scene of spilled oil and desire. La Reina sits under a tarp that never quite stays tied down, purple paint glowing through the gaps like a bruise you want to press on just to see how much it can hurt.

You met her at the car wash on Olympic, the one with the busted radio that only plays oldies on Sundays. She was barefoot, of course, sundress clinging everywhere it mattered, feeding quarters into the air freshener machine just so she could lean over the hood of some stranger’s Accord and let the cherry scent blow up her skirt. You were supposed to be rinsing wax off your own boring sedan, but the second her soles hit the wet concrete (high arches flexing, toes spreading to grip the slick ground), you forgot what soap was for.

She caught you staring and smiled like she was charging admission.

Now she’s yours, or at least that’s what she lets you believe when she’s in the mood. Some nights she texts you a single photo: her foot on La Reina’s gas pedal, ankle bracelet glinting, the speedometer needle twitching like it’s nervous. Caption always the same: “Come watch me struggle, bebé.”

You know what it means.

La Reina’s carb is tuned rich on purpose. She likes the fight. Likes when the big 360 stumbles and coughes, when it loads up and threatens to die, when she has to nurse it with soft little pumps of that bare right foot (heel lifted, toes splayed, sole creased deep and shining with sweat). The van rocks on its springs, exhaust popping like gunfire, while she bites her bottom lip raw and whispers filthy encouragement in Spanish too fast for you to follow but slow enough for your dick to understand every syllable.

That’s when she looks over at you in the passenger seat, eyes black and shining, and says, “Touch yourself, but don’t you dare come until she catches.”

You obey because there is no other option.

She’ll let it die on purpose sometimes, just to feel the silence after the roar. Just to make you watch her start it again: key turned, fuel pump whining, her foot stabbing the pedal hard and fast to clear the flood (toes curled tight, calf muscle jumping under smooth skin), until the engine finally catches with a bellow that rattles your teeth and makes her whole body shudder like she’s the one being penetrated.

Those are the nights she lets you kneel on the driveway afterward while she sits on the fender, legs dangling, soles filthy with grease and gravel. She’ll press one foot against your chest (still hot from the pedal, still trembling) and let you lick the taste of La Reina’s rebellion off her skin while she smokes a cigarette down to the filter and watches you with lazy, satisfied eyes.

She keeps Jesse’s old timing light in that velvet box, but she added something new last month: a little silver key on a chain. It’s the spare for La Reina’s ignition. She wore it around her neck the night she firsthed you for the first time, the metal resting cold between her breasts while she rode your face in the back of the van, engine idling rough, her thighs clamped around your ears so tight you could hear her pulse in sync with the camshaft.

After you came so hard you saw stars, she tucked the key between your teeth and said, “Hold this. If you drop it, I stop.”

You didn’t drop it.

Some mornings you wake up to find her already gone, La Reina’s spot empty and warm. Hours later she’ll roll back in at dawn, hair wild, soles black with road dust, smelling like high-octane and someone else’s bad decisions. She’ll crawl into bed still wearing whatever she left in, press her dirty feet against your clean sheets, and fall asleep with one hand down your boxers like she owns the territory.

Because she does.

You’re just another stretch of highway she’s burning rubber on, bebé.

And you’ve never been happier to be used.