I see myself in the half-light, my heart pounding as my tongue explores his strong muscles. He wasn’t what he seemed to be, either. No one is. That’s why that house existed, hidden away on a plot of land in Malloco. And I can skip over details and imagine the situation all over again for you. I don’t even know anymore. They left me irremediably broken and disguised. You know? I can’t stop thinking, as I talk to you, about what you’ll do with what I tell you. Maybe your book will be a barely disguised report. I see a problem with that: the weight of the real could suffocate your novel. And this story, as you’ve seen, is plenty unpleasant. It couldn’t be any other way. A novel should be constructed as the dream of a poet, don’t you think? Maybe no one will know. But in any case, what happened, happened. You can be sure of that. I’m not talking just to talk. My story continues to be a testimony — of course, it’s a testimony without innocence. I shape myself in words for you, I lift myself up on my own air, and that’s what I am, then, a flow of sound that emanates from the chords in my throat and that I put within your reach, nothing more. For you, there’s nothing external with which you can contrast me. I’m Narcissus, constructing my mirror of water and looking at myself, and you watch me do it.
With an old-fashioned flourish of his arm, Flaco introduces me to Jerónimo, a tall guy, very young, younger than me, with sleepy eyes. We’re in the club in Malloco. WILD CAT, I managed to read on a discreet neon sign over the entrance. Jerónimo is wearing a purple shirt, untucked and unbuttoned, over a white T-shirt. He looks me in the eyes, he looks at my breasts, he looks me in the eyes, he looks at my lips, he looks at my breasts. He can’t stop looking at me. He smiles, timid, or intimidated, maybe. I like that. He offers me a sip of his drink and starts to laugh. I don’t like it at all. That vulgar mixture of red wine and Coca-Cola makes me choke. He tastes my pisco sour and praises it, amusement in his eyes. I like him already. He hands me his joint, which is almost out. I draw in deeply. It’s strong. Flaco’s turn. It goes around again. On the dance floor there are people dancing in pairs, in threes and fours. Jerónimo tells me that the fat guy dancing with the pretty dark-skinned girl is a fag, that the pretty, dark girl is jealous, she’s trying to seduce him but nothing happens. He laughs with his sleepy eyes. I take another hit on his joint.
I want to dance. The three of us are already laughing a lot. And laughing, Flaco introduces me to Rabbit, who has a long face and a laugh that shows his cheerful rabbit’s teeth. Jerónimo’s joint goes out and I say I’m going to cry and he lights another one. His hand with its short, thick fingers. He passes it to me. It’s Colombian herb, he tells me. We’re dancing pressed close together. I rest my head trustingly on his shoulder. Jerónimo takes the spliff from me, takes a hit, and puts it in my mouth again. Rabbit is shorter than me. Flaco runs his index finger along my lips, taking his time, as if he wanted his finger to memorize them. And I’m dancing with three men, Jerónimo’s rough beard sometimes scratching against my chin.
You know what? If I had been a man, I would have wanted to visit whorehouses, lots of whorehouses. I would have been a whoring motherfucker. . That kind of woman has always intrigued me. Flaco hands me a piscola and leaves me dancing with Jerónimo and Rabbit. But I grab his arm as he passes, I’m afraid of him leaving, and I’m with three men again. We dance in an embrace. A slow song comes on and I kiss Flaco and I stay with him, almost not dancing, and we kiss. I stand on tiptoe to kiss him. A hand on my back that isn’t his. I feel different hands touching me, but I go on kissing Flaco. He takes my arm and leads me away.
We cross the gallery, go up a staircase, and Flaco takes out the key they gave him at the entrance. He opens the door of a private room, a small salon with a vulgar and decadent elegance. At the back, a canopied bed and a bathroom. All four of us are there. The music doesn’t pound as much here, but it’s the same music as downstairs and it doesn’t lose its hypnotizing power. We go on kissing, barely dancing, pressed tight, and Flaco’s hand unclasps my bra. Jerónimo and Rabbit are watching us now, sitting — sprawled, more like it — on frayed embroidered armchairs that could have been Louis XV — cheap copies, of course. Between them, a black table, lacquered, and a faded black velvet sofa. Flaco takes a blue bag and an oval mirror from his pocket. He makes lines using his MasterCard Gold. I see the enormous orifices of my powdery nose in the mirror. Flaco tells me to take off my blouse. I tell him OK, as long as he takes his shirt off first. He snorts a line and complies. Knowing I’m being watched is tantalizing. Those red-rimmed eyes. Will I do it? I bite one of Flaco’s nipples. I have my eyes closed. We move as if to a lullaby.
I open my eyes. Who are these men looking at me? Am I still the same person if I like that they want me? But I do like it. That’s why I’m looking back at them. I look at them without shame. Like you look over a new car or a purebred bull. I’m excited by the imminence of a dangerous threshold. I’m excited by a magnetic force pulling me in an unknown direction. Flaco takes my blouse off. My bra is held up only by the lift of my firm breasts. Flaco bites it and lets it fall to the ground. We go on dancing like that, so close, skin against skin. I’m not hearing with my ears, now. It’s something inside me. The strings of the bass run through me, and I vibrate as if my body’s depths were a guitar. I sink my hands into the back pockets of Flaco’s jeans.
“You have to do something for them,” he whispers in my ear. “Look at them, they’re going crazy, you’ve got them hypnotized,” and he laughs.
Jerónimo looks back at me with such languid eyes. The rest of his body is completely in shadow.
“Tell them to come over here,” Flaco says to me. “Tell them.”
I waver. I hesitate.
“Tell them,” Flaco gently insists.
I hesitate. I reach out an uncertain hand toward them.
“Tell them: come and dance.”
I obey. And when I do, a levee breaks. It was a matter of beginning, of crossing the threshold. I’m breathing hard from nervousness, agitation, from damned and wretched pleasure: their desire drives me crazy. Look, I think to myself, I’m trembling.
“Come and dance,” I repeat in a muted little voice. I’m looking at them without daring to take my arms from over my breasts. “Come.”
They surround me, they embrace me, men’s skin on my back. The four of us dance slowly and the anticipation of I don’t know what suffocates me. Am I still myself?
“Show yourself,” Flaco tells me with a hard exhale. “Let them see you. It’s what I want, for them to see you.”
It’s what I want, too, though I didn’t know it before. It’s exactly what I want. Then I get on the sofa and stand up and my breasts fulminate them. I see it in their faltering eyes, in their suddenly dry lips that their tongues cannot moisten. Flaco undoes my belt with his mouth. I help him. My skirt falls to the floor.
“Make them happy, girl,” he tells me. “Yes, make them happy. Now,” he orders me with an excitement rooted in pain.