What Entered the Party That Night Was Not Human

Mara wore Bruno’s body the way one wears a stolen suit: comfortable on the outside, restless underneath. The skinny, quiet boy he had been that morning no longer existed in full; what remained was his flesh, his name, and little else. The essence Mara had ripped from him hours earlier still tingled beneath the skin, a hot current that kept his groin hard and alert, as if desire were now his only way of breathing.

At his side, invisible to everyone, floated the real Bruno. He was a pale, translucent specter, a shadow of himself condemned to follow his own body like a dog behind its master. He had no mouth to scream with nor solid hands to reclaim what was his. He could only watch, and watching hurt.

The party roared in an apartment in central Valencia, music spilling out through the windows and the air thick with alcohol, perfume, and sweat. Mara shoved the door open without having been invited. He walked in chin high, sweeping those borrowed eyes over the room full of drunk college students, until he found what he was looking for.

Daniela.

The blonde was dancing in the middle of the living room, in a white corset that barely contained her firm breasts and with a sway of the hips that drew every gaze. Her wavy hair fell to her waist and swayed with every turn. Mara smiled. That body is going to suit me beautifully.

—Hi —he said, planting himself in front of her with Bruno’s voice tinted with a roughness that was not his own—. Miss me?

Daniela blinked, laughing as she recognized him.

—Bruno? The quiet guy from class. Fuck, what have you done to yourself? You’re… different.

—Different enough not to let you go all night —Mara replied, moving closer until his breath brushed her neck—. I’ve been thinking about you all semester.

***

Daniela blushed, but she didn’t pull away. Alcohol and surprise had her rooted in place, and there was something in that new gaze that unsettled and attracted her in equal measure. Mara brushed her waist with one hand, slowly, measuring how much she allowed.

—Since when are you so bold? —she murmured, biting her lip.

—Since I stopped being afraid.

He led her to a dim corner, where the music swallowed words. Daniela’s back hit the wall and Mara kissed her: a kiss that started slow, almost tender, and then turned voracious until it left her breathless. When he pulled back, the girl’s blue eyes shone hazily.

—This is insane —she gasped.

—The best things always are.

Floating a meter away, Bruno’s specter clenched ghostly fists. He watched his own face kissing the woman he had desired in silence for months, and he could do nothing but feel the hollow echo of a pleasure that no longer belonged to him. That was my dream, he thought. And he’s stealing it with my own mouth.

***

Mara dragged her into the bathroom and shut the door with his foot. The bolt sounded like a sentence. Daniela laughed, nervous, as she leaned on the sink.

—Here? There are people waiting to piss.

—Let them wait.

He kissed her again, one hand sliding up her thigh, slipping under the short skirt until he found the wet fabric of her panties. Daniela held her breath. Mara’s fingers pressed over the cotton, tracing slow circles, and the girl gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles went white.

—Fuck… —she murmured, dropping her head back.

—Want me to stop? —Mara asked, already knowing the answer.

—No. Don’t even think about it.

He moved the fabric aside and sank his fingers into her, slowly at first, then with a steady rhythm that drew a long moan from Daniela. The girl bit the back of her hand to keep from crying out, her hips moving on their own toward that caress, while the mirror behind her fogged with her own breath.

—Look at you —Mara said, with that чужой smile—. The whole party behind you and you’re here, with me.

—Shut up and keep going.

Mara obeyed only halfway. He withdrew his shining fingers, lowered Bruno’s zipper, and guided Daniela’s hand toward him. She understood without being told. She knelt on the cold tiles, took him in her mouth, and began to move, slowly, looking up with glazed eyes.

Bruno’s specter groaned soundlessly, pressed against the ceiling. It was at once his fantasy and his torture: watching his body receive what he had imagined so many times, while feeling nothing of his own save a distant tingling that evaporated before it could take shape.

Mara tangled fingers in the blonde hair and set the pace, holding back so as not to finish yet. He wanted her awake, burning, begging. He needed her on the edge so the final moment would be perfect.

—Get up —he ordered, tugging gently—. I want more than your mouth.

***

He turned her against the sink. The mirror gave back the image of the two of them: the boy who was no longer a boy and the blonde with her skirt hiked up, panties halfway down one leg, breathing in ragged bursts. Mara kissed the back of her neck, lowered the corset until her breasts were free, and pinched one nipple while he entered her in a single slow thrust.

Daniela muffled a scream against the glass.

—God… so good…

—You haven’t felt anything yet.

He started moving, each thrust firm and measured, setting a rhythm that made the girl tremble from head to toe. Daniela’s breasts grazed the icy mirror, leaving trails of fog; her fingers searched for something to hold on to and found only porcelain. Mara held her by the hips and sped up, watching his own reflection with a calm no human would have had in that moment.

—Ask me —he whispered—. Tell me it’s yours, that I’m yours.

—It’s mine —she panted, lost—. Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.

Bruno’s specter floated above them, caught between desire and terror. Every movement of his stolen body was a silent lash. He wanted to look away and could not; that scene held him fast like a hook sunk into his chest.

Daniela was nearing the end. Mara could feel it in the tremble of her thighs, in the way she closed around him, in the way her voice broke into syllables. Now, the creature thought. Right when you think you’re touching the sky.

—Look at me —he ordered, turning her face toward the mirror.

Bruno’s eyes, the ones Mara was wearing, flared for an instant with a red gleam no one would have known how to explain. Daniela came with a muffled cry, her whole body convulsing against the sink… and in that same second, as pleasure blinded her, something detached from her like smoke ripped away by the wind.

Her soul.

***

Daniela’s body went still, resting against the mirror, still breathing but hollow, like a house whose inhabitants have just left. Beside it rose a third specter: Daniela herself, translucent and bewildered, looking down at her transparent hands.

—What… what have you done to me? —she asked in a voice that made no sound anymore.

—I’ve freed you from having to choose —Mara replied, stepping away from the inert body—. From now on you’ll only have to watch. Like your friend Bruno.

Bruno’s specter drew near Daniela’s, and for an instant the two ghosts recognized themselves in their shared condemnation. They had desired different things and ended up in the same place: floating, bodiless, eternal spectators of a hunger that could never be sated.

Mara, meanwhile, closed his eyes. Bruno’s flesh began to dissolve and recompose, folding over itself like hot wax. In a matter of seconds, the skinny boy had disappeared. In his place was Daniela: the same wavy mane, the same firm breasts, the same angelic face. Mara looked at himself in the fogged mirror, ran a hand over his neck, and smiled with lips that were no longer anyone’s.

—I can be whoever I want —he said softly—. And tonight, Valencia is going to meet its new queen.

***

He returned to the party with Daniela’s body and the gait of a predator. The music was still thundering, bodies still brushing against one another, oblivious to the fact that the girl crossing the dance floor was no longer the one who had come in. The boys stared at her with their mouths open; the girls with a mixture of envy and desire that Mara savored like liquor.

Three college students intercepted her by the sofa, emboldened by alcohol.

—Daniela, fuck, you’re incredible tonight —one said.

—And if you prove it to me? —she replied, licking her lips—. The three of you. At once.

It didn’t need repeating. Mara sat between them, stripped them with deft fingers, and distributed them between her mouth and her hands, alternating, setting rhythms, keeping them on the edge without letting them fall. The boys thought they were using her; they were the ones being used. With every moan she dragged out of them, with every thrust she allowed, she left them a little emptier, a little more hers.

Above them all, the specters of Bruno and Daniela floated pressed to the ceiling, watching that creature harvest the entire room. One after another, the bodies around her went still as they reached climax, glassy-eyed, while new translucent shadows joined the silent swarm overhead.

By the time the sky began to lighten over Valencia’s rooftops, the party had become a field of sleeping bodies that would never quite wake, and a chorus of specters condemned to watch.

Bruno, with a voice no one could hear, whispered to the ghost floating beside him:

—I only wanted to get close to you.

—And now —Daniela replied— we’re going to watch her forever.

Down below, in the entrance hall, Mara stepped out into the street with the blonde’s perfect body and the fresh air of dawn on his face. He stretched out his arms, drew a deep breath, and smiled. The city was waking without knowing it beneath a new skin.

And for him, the night had only just begun.