The stylish devil leans over and says something. His voice is dry and reptilian, yet familiar, and she nods in approval at everything he says. They leave the bar — and the terrible heavy metal music — and head to her room just a few blocks from there, making a quick stop along the way.
She leads him into the dark lobby and up an even darker staircase to her room. The building is without power, she tells him, but they can take a cold shower to freshen up from the humid night.
He remains silent and enters after her. She lights candles for atmosphere, romance — so they can see one another — and excuses herself to the bathroom to wash up for several anxious and jittery minutes, before emerging anew.
Glowing.
Naked.
He’s sitting in the corner, still dressed, and she wonders how she could’ve mistaken him for an ugly old monster. He won’t take his clothes off, he says, because he’s not staying. He works nights and has a lot to do. Another freak, she thinks, but at least he smells nice. And he looks strong. Maybe he’ll even hold me.
She wonders what’ll turn him on as she leads him to her bed. She lies on her back in the storm of her intoxication and he falls on top of her, crashing down and spreading her legs apart. A wooden bedpost creaks and splinters and he hushes her with a finger to her lips when she tries to say something.
He unbuckles his belt, unzips his suit pants, pulls it out, and guides it into her. Their desire ignites and launches her to strange and wonderful worlds — to new realms where everything is fantastic and wondrous. She lets out long, throaty animal sounds that mean many prophetic things in the moment, but he says nothing.
Our young lady of the night rocks her head left and right in ecstasy: there’s a handsome man on top of her, dressed exquisitely and smelling of expensive cologne; no foul body odors, or sore spots, or careful maneuvering around broken bones and bandages.
He moans into her ear and she spreads wider for him, his prong swelling wider inside her. It hurts, because it has a sharp curve and is thicker than her wrists, so she shifts her hips to makes it easier, to take him all the way in.
He grinds into her, burying his snout into the space just below her ear. She feels teeth push against her neck, harder each time. Something overcomes him and he sinks his teeth into her shoulder, piercing her skin. He thrusts harder at the taste of her blood.
Our young lady screams in protest, but his hand is over her mouth. His charming cologne becomes foul and cadaverous, and each of his movements chips away at her strength. His fingers become sharp claws that tear her flesh off the bone, and her eyes light up with the screams that are silenced in her throat. In tandem with his cruel teeth, they rip her body to shreds.
She screams one final plea and loses consciousness. Deafening hurricane winds shatter the windows, and the dissonant groans of the resurrected dead rush in on the trade winds.
The curtains become still.
The nervous hotel manager explains that the power hasn’t been restored yet as he puts his heavy key ring back in his pocket and opens the door. The first officer enters, pinches his nose. The second follows with instinctive hesitation. The dirty manager, a chubby and religious middle-aged man, lingers behind and says a prayer.
It’s been days since anyone’s heard from her. A young woman who disguised her voice and lied about her identity was the one to alert the police that something was wrong. The hotel manager explains to the cops that she’s five months behind on her rent. “Always has money for everything else, if you know what I mean.”
The officers ignore him. They’ve heard it all and they know what they’re doing. It’s as humid as it gets in San Juan and they’re dressed in their black uniforms. The stench in the room doesn’t help much, but it solves the mystery.
She’s faceup in bed; legs spread wide; an angelic and peaceful expression on her darkening face. Her left arm is tossed aside, punctured with agony and guilt. Skin spotting over. Her makeup’s smeared and streaked, as if she’d been crying.
“Everything else looks fine,” the officers say to one another. The only unusual detail is her eyes, which are open wide with wonder, as if the last thing she’d seen had been astonishing and beautiful.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” the younger cop asks.
The older cop curtly tells him to cover her body with the blanket, as if insulted by his stupid question, and issues a report over his radio. He tells the manager he can start cleaning the place up, that she doesn’t have much and what’s there is worthless. As if she were still alive.
He goes through her purse and finds two photos of a little boy that resembles her. He wedges them into the corners of a framed image of the Virgin Mary that hangs next to the locked window. Shakes his head.
“No sign of a break-in or any other disturbance,” he says to the dispatcher. “No need to send Detective Guerrero since there’s nothing to investigate. Overdose.”
The hotel manager steps back and the officers continue. The older cop hands her purse to the younger one to look through (no money, no credit cards) and checks the locked window one last time. Then he goes into the bathroom and comes out with a curled-over tablespoon and syringe and throws them onto the bed next to her.
He shoots a small plastic baggie into the air with a flick of his middle finger and says, “Another satisfied customer.”
“She probably scored on Fernández Juncos, overestimated the dose, and well...” the younger officer says with a hint of sadness in his voice.
“You know everything already, don’t you?” the older one says.
The electricity comes on and the television whines back to life. A weak lightbulb flickers on overhead and an old movie brightens to life on the screen. The younger officer crosses the room to switch it off. This nasty old hotel actually has cable, he thinks, and takes in the moving image of a pretty woman jumping into an elegant man’s arms for a brief moment.
“At least she had good enough taste to watch old black-and-white movies,” he says to the grumpy senior officer. The image darkens with a metallic ringing sound when he turns the TV off. “Because the new ones suck.”
Originally written in English
About the contributors
Janette Becerra is a fiction, poetry, and essay writer. She has published two volumes of short stories (Ciencia imperfecta and Doce versiones de soledad), two poetry books (La casa que soy and Elusiones), and a children's novel (Antrópolis). Her creative and critical work has been published in Venezuela, Cuba, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and Tunisia. She holds a PhD in Spanish literature from the University of Puerto Rico, where she has taught since 2000.
Wilfredo J. Burgos Matos is a singer, journalist, and writer from Puerto Rico living in New York. He has been published in the main newspapers on the island and is the president of Proyecto Educativo y Cultural Unidad Insular (PECUI), an initiative that offers creative writing workshops in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. He's currently completing a PhD at the Graduate Center, CUNY, where he is researching Caribbean music in its transnational context.
Edmaris Carazo has maintained a blog, siemprejueves.blogspot.com, since 2008. Her short story "En Temporada" was published in the Cuentos de Oficio: Anthology of Emerging Storytellers in Puerto Rico, and she won an honorable mention in the 2013 Novel Contest of the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico with her manuscript El Día que me venció el olvido. Currently, Carazo works as a digital communications manager at an advertising agency.