“Sometimes the virus doesn’t start killing you till you reach adulthood. I guess that makes me lucky, huh?”
With an effort of will, Estela quelled her anger. She said, “How long have you got?”
Deborah stood up. “I’m twenty-four.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “It doesn’t matter.”
Knowing Cledilce was with Griffiths at the hotel, they went to the apartment on Rua Toneleiros. Estela poured drinks and lit a macohna joint. Deborah took a glass and said, “They spent billions of dollars finding a vaccine for AIDS, took them twenty-five years. They haven’t spent one-tenth of that on HDV. You know why?”
Estela shook her head and sat beside Deborah on the sofa.
“There’s an institute in New York,” Deborah continued, “where they’re transplanting wombs into young boys. That’s where the future is, not in women.” She struggled to maintain her poise. “It’s cheaper now to alter people like you, people with so few alternatives you allow yourselves to be reconstructed so you can service those who want a risk-free screw. These sanctuaries are for them, not you. You call yourself a Bird, as if it means freedom. But in Berlin they’ll cage you like some damned nightingale.”
Estela stubbed out the joint and said, “You feel that way, how come you got mixed up with Griffiths?”
Deborah leaned her head on Estela’s shoulder. “I was a call girl in L.A. Guy I worked for ran an agency serving Hollywood big shots. I was doing well, enjoying the life. Then the symptoms started to show.” She paused, to sip her cachaca. “First, it just blew me away—the heightened sex drive—God, screwing johns was suddenly something I enjoyed, some of them anyway. Then the bleeding started. Guys don’t want to fuck a woman who’s always on the rag, y’know what I’m saying? I knew as soon as Tony found out he’d dump me—bad for business. I also knew he’d been over to Europe a couple of times, where the clubs were recruiting transsexuals. Tony was an asshole but he had a good nose for business. He’d made some contacts there, where there was like forty guys to every woman. He planned to find them new flesh, send boys—preop transsexuals like you and Cledilce—to this gender reassignment clinic in Paris for surgery and hormonal treatments and contract them to the Sanctuaries. I took his list of contacts and flew down to Mexico City. I needed someone who knew their way around the continent, someone who’d know where to find what I needed. That’s where I met Juan.”
Deborah stroked Estela’s face. Estela was certain the Yanqui was attracted to her but she was confused as to whether these overtures were directed at the Bird or at the man. It had been a long time since she had fucked a woman and the vibes coming from Deborah were hard to ignore. She felt a moment of doubt, thinking of Cledilce, but the truth was, she was no longer sure what she felt for her. She said, “So this is more your deal than Juan’s?”
“I don’t give a shit who gets the credit,” Deborah said. “All I care about is the money.”
“You sure that’s all?” Estela said, lightly kissing Deborah’s lips. “You’re still beautiful, Sugar.”
Deborah’s eyes searched her face. “Do you know what I want?”
Estela grinned, lasciviously. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Deborah’s voice was low and husky. “Maybe I can do that.”
In the bedroom, when Estela pulled down her satin skirt and Deborah reached for her cock, she realized exactly what the Yanqui woman wanted.
When it stiffened in her grasp, Deborah said, “I wasn’t sure you could still…”
“Get hard?” Estela said. “It still works, Sugar, at least till I get to Paris.”
Deborah stood back then, and stripped slowly down to her panties. She saw Estela’s gaze and said, “I’m bleeding. If you don’t want to—”
“It’s okay,” Estela said, letting her gaze wander up from the wet padding, over the smooth stomach and the small, pale breasts, to the bruises lurking beneath the powdered flesh of her limbs. “Take them off.”
Deborah removed the panties and the sodden towel. Blood oozed slowly down her legs. She did something to her hair then, and detached the ash-blond wig from her head. Her real hair was grey and cropped short on her skull. Somehow, this failed to detract from her beauty. “I’ve done many things, Estela,” she said. “In many different ways. But it’s been a long time since anyone touched me, any man. That’s all I want. It’s not so weird.”
Estela led her to the bed. She watched rivulets of blood trickle on to the sheets as Deborah stroked her cock. It was no longer a question of desiring this woman: she wanted to be her, to be a beautiful, elegant white woman, a product of Hollywood, instead of a young, black male Carioca with a good pair of tits and a fine round ass.
Lubricated by blood, she slid into Deborah and began to fuck her slowly. Deborah rolled and thrashed beneath her, as if she had come to the realization that this might be her final coupling. The strangeness of the act made it more precious for them both.
“Ah, Jesus,” Deborah cried, grinding herself against Estela, who imagined that she was fucking a reconstructed image of herself, a white-skinned, blond-haired Estela, a Hollywood star that people might envy and wish that they could become.
Estela pounded against the fragile bones, gasping for breath. Deborah shuddered, then came in a frenzied rush, wrapping her brittle limbs about Estela’s body in a wretched configuration of death.
Afterward, Estela listened to the batucadas that seemed more distant than they had all night, and found herself hoping that Deborah would somehow beat the disease. She imagined herself responding to sex the way Deborah had responded to her: in Berlin, cunt-equipped. Would she have the same strength of will? She wondered if she’d taken too much from the dying woman; maybe it was okay. Despite all the warnings about Berlin, she imagined that Deborah needed to feel that some small part of herself would live on in the Bird.
Griffiths picked the two Birds up from the apartment at eight that evening to take them to the Flamengo club. A thunderstorm had left the city steaming and tense. Estela wore a short, red satin skirt over a black leotard, and Cledilce was squeezed into a blue, Lycra one-piece that stretched from her neck to her ankles.
“How come Deborah ain’t with you?” Estela asked Griffiths.
“She’s fucked up,” he said. “Besides, I got things under control, so don’t worry your ass.”
After what Deborah had told her, Estela’s loathing for Griffiths had intensified. “She was okay last time I seen her.”
“Jeez, Estel,” Cledilce said, annoyed. “Who fucking cares? Let Juan deal with it.”
“Right,” Griffiths said, patting Cledilce on the thigh. “Let’s concentrate on Thessinger, put on a good show for him.”
“Honey,” Cledilce said, “I’ll do whatever I have to.”
The taxi slid through a crowded street where a wizened Babe in a red dress was reeling drunkenly in the road. She was balding and one strap of her dress had slipped from her shoulder, revealing a dry, shriveled breast. She glared at them as the taxi passed by.
Shortly afterward, they pulled up outside the Flamengo club, which was hosting the Vermehlo & Preto Ball. They forced their way through the crush of bodies on the stairwell, up to the second level balcony, where Griffiths had booked a table. On the dance floor below, more than two thousand people heaved and swayed to hectic samba rhythms. Birds and Babes draped themselves from the balconies, posing and taunting the men in the crowd down below.
A dark-haired man in jeans and a black, polo neck shirt sat waiting for them. He was wiping steam from his wire-rim glasses and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.