Fantasy

I prepared breakfast on all fours so I wouldn't wake her. I never imagined that before nightfall she'd explain, smiling, that I was merely her investment.

I woke with annatto-painted skin and unfamiliar lips on my neck, unaware that the jungle would give me a body I never thought possible.

I heard her firm footsteps in the kitchen and lowered my gaze, afraid to meet it. I was no longer the man I had been: I was what she had decided I would be.

When the violet door closed beneath my feet, I knew I was no longer in my city: here, men ruled and women only waited for an order.

I didn’t sleep all night. At dawn she would dress me, make me up, and take me to the place where they would decide what kind of man I would remain… if I remained one at all.

He had spent years delivering boys to the temple while dreaming of possessing the high priestess. On the night of the full moon, his wish came true in the worst possible way.

That night I wasn’t the host, I was the ornament. My wife picked my dress, put me in heels, and ordered me to smile while her bosses appraised me.

At 6:53 p.m., the intercom buzzed. After three weeks of waiting, she was suddenly there—serious and elegant, ready to fulfill every one of her conditions.

That night I stopped being the proper lady I’d always been. I wrote what I truly wanted, hit send, and waited for three strangers to come for me.

Three months became nine, and among waterfalls and orchids I discovered that my different body was no curse, but the heart of a desire the village celebrated.

Every night she touched herself in secret and cried with guilt. That dawn she walked toward the dunes not knowing the desert held a temple, and inside it, a figure that would change everything.

I found a glass of wine, a black blindfold, and a heated text on the screen. I read it slowly and understood that that night my husband had decided to fulfill his greatest desire.

She walked down the carpeted corridor with her heart racing: behind that door waited the man she had spent half her life imagining.

I only peeked through the crack in the door for a second. It was long enough to brand itself into me forever, and ruin every night that came after.

I never told anyone, but the moment he closes the door to leave, one name and one body take over my whole imagination.

I knew it was dangerous to be alone with her in the boiler room, but when she tied my wrists to the wall and brushed my skin with her fangs, I didn’t want her to stop.

When the red collar tightened around my neck, I understood it was the only thing separating me from all the fangs watching me from the warehouse’s gloom.