“Rudy, my man,” Griffiths called. The dark-haired man looked up and smiled as Griffiths clapped him on the back. “Ladies,” Griffiths said, “say hi to Rudy Thessinger. Rudy, meet Cledilce and Estela.”
Thessinger rose and kissed their hands. “I’m pleased to meet you both. The pictures Juan sent don’t do you justice,” he said.
“He got a habit of selling us short,” Cledilce said, sitting down next to the German. Estela sat opposite him. Griffiths lit one of his awful cigars and pawed at her incessantly while he gave Rudy his Carnaval spiel, promising him a good time. First chance she got, Cledilce hauled Thessinger away to the dance floor.
Estela said, “Keep your fucking hands off me, Juan.”
“Hey, you had a different attitude when I first came down here.”
“Only ’cos you doing this thing for me and Cledilce.”
Griffiths grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. “You were sweet on me then, remember?”
“I sucked your cock a coupla times—that doesn’t mean I was sweet on you. Next time you pay like everyone else.”
“You got a bad attitude. I can blow you right out of this deal.”
“Maybe the deal’s not all down to you.”
“What you talking about?”
“Maybe Deborah’s got something to say about this.”
He released her arm and drained his glass. “What’s that Yanqui bitch been saying? Giving you ideas? Don’t cross me, Estela. I say when the deal goes through, not that cunt.”
When Rudy and Cledilce returned, the German asked Estela to dance. The crush of seminaked bodies on the main dance floor pinned them together. When she saw him staring at her breasts beneath the leotard, she shouted in his ear, “You wanna feel?”
Thessinger laughed. “How real?”
She placed one of his hands across her breasts. “No silicone in there, Sugar,” she said, smiling. “Hormones.”
“You work hard on your bodies, you and your friend.”
“She’s more than a friend,” Estela said.
“Yeah?” said Thessinger. “And Juan is your friend, too?”
Estela wondered what he meant, but for the moment she let it pass. He wasn’t so bad, nice eyes, and he moved well, not slobbish like Griffiths. A drunken Cuban staggered into them and propositioned Estela. She shook her head but he groped clumsily at her crotch. Thessinger caught his arm and did something to it. The Cuban fell to the floor, howling.
“Jeez, Sugar,” Estela said, surprised at what she considered an overreaction. “What you do to him?”
Thessinger smiled and guided her up the stairwell, where sweating couples made frenzied love. “You’re a temptation, Estela, a beautiful one. Too much for a john like that.”
“I thought you were gonna call me an investment.”
Thessinger laughed and said, “Maybe that, too.”
Later on, Griffiths told Thessinger about the parade of samba schools, about how Cledilce and Estela would be dancing at the head of Salgueiro. The German winked at the two Birds, told them he was looking forward to seeing it. Despite giving the appearance of getting into the swing of things, Estela noticed that he drank little. She imagined what it would be like to feel him inside her, and wondered if that would happen in Berlin.
They left the ball after four, a taxi dropping the two birds at their apartment while Griffiths insisted on accompanying Thessinger back to his hotel. Cledilce ran a bath while Estela sat on the toilet bowl, skinning a joint. She remembered what Deborah had said about the Sanctuaries, about being caged, and tried to dismiss it as simply the envy of a dying woman. She said, “What you think of Thessinger?”
“Why, Honey?” Cledilce said. “You wanna fuck him?” She laughed and tested the water with her elbow.
“You know Deborah got the disease?”
“So,” Cledilce said, losing her smile. “That ain’t my problem.”
“You don’t feel sorry for her?”
“Sure, I feel sorry for all them bitches. But I’d feel a lot more sorry if it didn’t give us this chance to do something for ourselves.”
“You ain’t worried ’bout the operation?”
“I explained that a dozen times, Estel, over there they do it right. It ain’t just cutting a gash between your legs.”
Estela’s fears were not placated. She said, “You think we’ll still feel the same way about each other?”
Cledilce smiled and hugged her. “Count on it, Honey.” Then she peeled the Lycra suit from her body, planted a kiss on Estela’s lips, and took the joint from her. She lit it and stepped into the bath.
A sigh escaped Estela. Lately she had been wondering what exactly it was she felt for Cledilce. Was it love? Or had she simply mistaken gratitude and friendship for love? She said, “I fucked Deborah.”
Stretched out in the water with one hand held up to keep the joint dry, Cledilce said, “Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“That all?”
“You jealous?”
Cledilce shook her head. “Soon,” she said, “you won’t be able to do that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Cledilce reached out and squeezed Estela’s cock through the satin skirt. “Remember, Honey, when this is gone, I’ll still be with you.”
Estela stood and undressed. She climbed into the bath and slid down between Cledilce’s legs, leaning back against her breasts. She felt wet kisses on her shoulders and neck, and hard flesh prodding against her back. She turned round, kneeling in the water and took Cledilce’s cock in her mouth. In her mind she was already dreaming of Berlin.
Deborah came by to help them prepare for the parade. They sat drinking bottles of Pará beer as they made alterations to their gowns of feathers and silk. Tonight, bedecked in these extravagant costumes, Estela and Cledilce would lead the Salgueiro school down to the asphalt at the Sambódromo.
Cledilce said, “Estela’s worried ’bout the operation.”
“It’ll be okay,” Deborah said. “They’re investing a lot of money in you both.”
“Will I be able to feel anything when I’m fucking?” Estela said.
“You should ask Thessinger.”
“Would you do this, if you had the choice?” Estela asked her.
“She don’t have that choice,” Cledilce said, bluntly.
“Cledilce is right,” Deborah said, draining her bottle. “I could never be a Bird like you.”
Estela gave her a puzzled stare. She sensed a muted hostility and wondered if Deborah regretted sleeping with her. “I didn’t mean—”
Cledilce cut her off. “You spent all this time fucking with your mouth; now you gonna have a chance to try the real thing.”
“Well, I gotta go,” Deborah said. “I told Griffiths I’d pick Thessinger up and get him something to eat before the parade.” She stood up. “Now, lemme have a look at you.” She draped the scarlet gown over Estela. Tall, black feathers sprouted from the back and shoulders, creating a panoply of star-flecked night. She helped Cledilce into a black gown adorned with scarlet feathers, then stood back, staring at them. “You’re like two creatures from a dream.”
Estela leaned forward self-consciously and embraced her. “I’ll be watching for your face in the crowd, Sugar,” she said.
“Sure,” Deborah said, then she nodded to Cledilce and left.
Ninety thousand people had crowded into the seventeen-hundred-meter-long Sambódromo to watch the competition. The Beija Flor had already completed their routine, as had the pink and black of the Mangueira school. Now it was the turn of the Salgueiro; fueled by Aktives and amyl nitrate, they had worked themselves up into a state of feverish excitement and could hardly wait. When the signal came, the baterias began pounding out a relentless beat. Estela and Cledilce, leading a dozen or so magnificently arrayed performers, began to move slowly from the assembly area into the cauldron of the stadium itself. They were assaulted by a deafening roar and by waves of clammy heat; fireworks exploded in the sky overhead like a portent of some imagined apocalypse. Estela felt the blood begin to boil in her veins as the routines she had been practicing for the best part of a year took hold of her limbs and set her cutting a sinuous swath through the rainbowed night. Around her, Cledilce and the others flowed with liquid speed, intoxicated by complex rhythms as if they had freed themselves from invisible bonds. She, too, was aware of the sense of release, and as she danced she found it impossible to stick to the set routine. Alien maneuvers were imposed on her body and brain as she instinctively moved ahead of her companions and abandoned herself to a display of raucous sexuality, a primitive, vital, and threatening explosion of angry desire that exposed the sham hypocrisy of what Carnaval had become. Aktives exploded in her skull as heat consumed and transformed her into a creature of the air.