*Previously on "Manny": The time is the 1980's. The place New York. Jessica Abby and Manny Meza were secret admirers in high school back in Arizona but never acted on their feelings for each other. The last night senior year in high school finds them together in a car and an accident occurs, resulting in the death of an innocent pedestrian. Manny is concerned for Jessica's future at New York University and takes the blame for the death, ending up in prison.. Years later, he's released and finds Jessica, enraged and still feeling hot for her.
Jessica braced herself. She knew she should have been scared to death. Manny was big, monstrous, like a pro wrestler on steroids, with dark, heavy eyebrows that she had not remembered he even possessed in high school, strong jaw, muscles to spare, a hard-on that frightened her. He was sure to rip her virgin cunt open.
He threatened her with his very breath, which reeked of alcohol and nicotine and God knows what else. Her heart was pounding like mad. She should feel afraid. He could kill her afterward if he wanted to, he could strangle her to death. He might even be wielding a gun. But she was also feeling aroused. A strong sexual desire took over her, wanting him, wanting to feel his hard cock drilling inside her deeply, wanted him no matter how he looked like or behaved.
Sure. This was not the same Manny from high school. He had been a boy then, really, for all his bigness of body. Now, he was a hardened man, who had experienced hell. She was completely at his mercy. Her life could end that night, right there on the bed in her apartment. She would leave behind no children, only her own parents, and a staff that adored her and fawned over her at the publishers building for her own magazine -"City Woman". She gasped, as if she had just fallen into rapid waters.
"Fuck. Damn you," Manny said, "Damn you. I can't do it."
Jessica opened her eyes. "What did you say?"
"I'm so worked up...I'm so hot, so hard. I want it but...it would be rape. I'd just go to prison again. And there is no fucking way I'm going back to that place again."
She had not expected this sudden change, this calm attitude, this analytical side of him. He had come into her apartment through the window like a crazy rapist or thief. She had been so sure he'd ravish her with cruelty. She was panting but she tried to calm down herself. In the semi-darkness, in the New York City moonlight streaming through the window, she saw him with a clearer distinction. Before, she had just seen him vaguely, for he had been covered in darkness and saw him only through flashes of light - an eye, an eyebrow, his chest, his torso, the fire in his brown eyes. Now, she could see him with sharp clarity. For all his muscular He-Man physique and menacing presence, his eyes and facial expression had softened. He looked lost. He was the jock she remembered. He had a sad, silent, brooding, unreadable look, and for all that had happened, he could have been right there in that car in an Arizona road again, staring into the dark, his life about to change forever.
"I won't do it, you bitch," he said, "besides it looks like you wanted me to do it."
"I - no...I -"
He stared her down. She felt ashamed and lowered her head. Yes, she wanted him to take her, to make her his. She had never really lived a day in her life. She had once foolishly believed being a writer would be glamorous and adventures and excitement would follow. Adventure did not follow every writer and despite having left the sleepy towns of Arizona, and despite having had a degree of adventure in New York City, she had not really ever lived in the fast lane, in the verge of excitement, near death, near danger, as she had always wanted. She had not lost her virginity. She had known only some form of sex, but only slight arousal came out of it and she had never orgasmed. Only in her mind, and fantasies, and in each one of them, Manny was the provider of the orgasm.
Staring into one another silently, sadly, a rain began to fall over the street, making the sidewalk wet, the sound floating like a whisper into the apartment. The wet rain made them both aroused, but they dare not make another move. Manny cursed under his breath. He looked at her now, and there was a look of absolute disgust, as if he wondered why he had ever loved her in the first place, as if she were a dirty, filthy piece of garbage. Jessica stared in astonishment.
"Go to hell," he said to her, " straight to hell. You don't know how lucky you are. I've just saved your life. I could have killed you with one hand. I won't do it. I hate going to jail, and it won't be because of you again. I'm never going to jail. Life's going to be tough even now that I'm out of jail. Thanks to you. You made my life miserable. I do'nt know why I ever cared for you, fantasized about you, protected you, defended you, loved you. You realize my ex-con status is going to exclude me from any really nice job in the city? You realize no woman will ever really want me unless they're insane. You ruined my life. Yet you live here in this apartment and don't know how lucky you are. May not be much to you, an apartment, but it's a hell of a lot better than a fucking jail cell."
"Manny, I - "
"Shut up. You hear me, shut up. I hate you. I'm leaving you now and pray we never run into each other again."
With that, he was gone, through the window again, into the dark, rainy night, turning one last time to look at her through the window. Jessica was overcome with grief and tears began to flow down her cheeks. She covered her head with her hands and wept. New York City was less pleasant for her now. She went to work with caution and with fear. Manny had spared her life, but she had the feeling she was not going to see the last of him. When they had met in high school, for the first time, when they first layed eyes on each other and heard their voices, she felt a seed being planted in her, a seed which would grow into an enormous tree of love. How was it possible to love and yet not really be in a relationship? She had been young and it could be chalked up to a mere crush, but she knew it went beyond that. If she had just been infatuated with Manny, she would have moved on to another and found a real relationship. If not in Arizona, then most certainly in New York, where dozens of available and young professionals were eager to court her. But all she had ever wanted was Manny. And now he was gone. There was no way they could ever be together, to establish a relationship. An ex-con? With the head of a woman's magazine business? It was more than just how it looked. She was certain her career could flounder if people knew about his past. Even more so when they learned about her past - about her indiscretion and how it sent innocent Manny to jail while she got off scot-free. No. It was impossible to really love him. He haunted her dreams, all of them intensely erotic. In them, he would mount her from behind, and there was no way to know whether his cock was pounding into her pussy or her ass. All she could feel was his huge cock buried deep inside her, pumping into her, making her scream out in the intensity of it all. She could see his face contort savagely, see the flash of his teeth, see the flex of his muscular arms as he seized her by the hair, by her buttocks, slapping it. He was a wild, evil thing making her his wet whore. In her dreams, the rape that did not happen happened. And she loved it and thought it lovemaking.
"Miss Abby?" came a young girl's voice, waking her up from her erotic daydream.
Jessica opened her eyes. She put her hand on the desk, almost pounding it. She looked across the black desk and saw her personal assistant staring at her with perplexion.
"Miss Abby is something wrong? You nodded off and you moaned."
"O -I - um...everything's fine Marissa. I just...I haven't....really had much sleep is all. What were you trying to tell me?"
"The newest model for the magazine is here," her assistant Marissa said.
Marissa was twenty, young, a girl fresh out of high school. Jessica had hired her because she reminded her of herself at that age. And she could have been her. Marissa had come from Nevada to New York, also pursuing the goal of becoming a writer. She was slender and thin and wore glasses. But she was very pretty. Blonde, blue eyes, wore mostly skirts.
"The model? O, the one from Brazil. What was her name?"
"Yleana. She wants to see you right away. Should I tell her you're indisposed for now? Tell her to come back later?"
"No. That's wrong. She had an appointment. I can do without sleep for a day. Tell her to come in immediately and we'll discuss her contract."
"Come in, Miss Yleana. Miss Abby's waiting for you."
Marissa walked away and Yleana walked into Jessica's office. She was a tall woman, striking. Jessica was surprised. This one was a real model, not just someone with little experience like the other women she hired. "City Woman" magazine was about real women, not thin, Barbie-like women with glamorous auras. Jessica wrote about down-to-earth women who were into careers, starting families, everyday women, progressive women. It was the 80's after all and "greed is in" did not only apply to men. Jessica could foresee that in the coming decade of the 90's, women would be more assertive and run big businesses. She could already tell that about one particular woman named Martha Stewart.
Yleana was a beautiful woman. Her skin was white but yet, tan, glowing, as if she had been coated with bronze. Her eyes were dark green, mischievious, intelligent. Her body was like a professional female wrestler. Jessica guessed her Amazonian body owed to working out religiously at the gym. Working out at the gym was popular now. It was another place, besides a bar, where men and women could meet. She could see Yleana in some New York City gym, working out, sweating and socializing with admiring men.
"Yleana, do you speak both English and Spanish?"
"Yes, of course I do," she said, with only a hint of an accent.
"Oh, good. I only speak English. I used to know a little....learned from someone..."
Manny. It had been Manny who taught her a few Spanish phrases in high school. Her mind returned to him again, and she saw him as she last saw him - looking sad and mad in moonlight and in rain.
"Do you need me to start today or no? What kind of shoots are you doing?"
