Carlos Fuentes: Vlad

“At your service, monsieur ,” said the servant, in French, with a distant accent.

I hurried my goodbyes, trying not to be rude but without success: “I believe everything is in order. I suppose we won’t be seeing each other again. Enjoy your stay. Thank you. . I mean, goodnight.” I regretted, in an instant, having offended my client.

I could not parse, beyond so many layers of disguises, his look of disdain, scorn, and glee. I could superimpose onto Count Vlad any expression that I chose. He wore a mask. Borgo the servant, on the contrary, had nothing to hide, and I admit that his transparency frightened me more than the truculence of the Count, who bade me good-bye as though I had not said a word.

“Don’t forget. Tell your wife — Asunción, right? — that your little girl is always welcome.”

Borgo brought a candle near his master’s face and added, “We could play together, the three of us.”

He cackled and slammed the door in my face.

On a storm-filled night like this, the boundary between dream and life becomes porous. Asunción sleeps beside me after a round of intense sex, that I urged, all but imposed, aware that I needed to compensate for the mournful mood of my visit to the Count.

I do not intend to repeat what I already said about my love life with Asunción, and in any case discretion restrains my descriptions. But tonight, as if my will — to say nothing of my words — did not belong to me, I surrendered to such intense erotic pleasure that, as the afterglow fades, I find myself wondering if I’ve forgotten anything.

The tried-and-false question that a man puts to a woman—“Was it good for you, baby?”—soon becomes ridiculous. She will always say yes, first with words, and later with a nod, but if, after a while, we still insist on an answer, the yes will be tinged with the hiss of irritation. I now ask myself the same question. Did I satisfy her? Did I give her all the pleasure that she deserves? I know that I was satisfied, sure, but to be so selfish as to consider only my own pleasure would degrade me and would degrade my wife. They say that a woman can fake an orgasm, but that a man cannot. I believe that a man only obtains as much pleasure as he gives to a woman. Asunción, I wonder, does the pleasure that I have and that I give to you, which satisfies me, also fulfill you? Because I cannot ask her again, I must deduce the answer, take the temperature of her skin, detect the rhythm of her moans, gauge the force of her orgasms. I must contemplate her, take reckless pleasure in rediscovering her sex, the depth of the occluded spring of her navel, the maypoles that are her erect nipples in the midst of the sweet, pillowy, maternal softness of her breasts, her long neck out of a Modigliani, her face covered by the bend of her arm, the suggestive angle of her open legs, her pale thighs, her ugly feet, the delicious quivering of her rear-end. . I see and I feel all these things, my beloved Asunción, and since I can no longer ask if it was good for you, I am left with the certainty of my own pleasure and the profound, inexplicable uncertainty of yours. Did she like it? Was it as good for you as it was for me, my one and only? Is there something you desire that you’re not asking me for? Is there a final trace of modesty that prevents you from asking for something kinkier than we’ve done so far, a dirtier word?

Then I think of the palpitating sensation of Asunción’s body. I notice the contrast between her long, black, lustrous, straight hair and the grimace of her genitals, the wild tangle of her short hair, crouched like a panther, indomitable like a bat, that forces me to flee, to penetrate her if only to save myself from her, to lose myself in her in order to conceal with my own pubic hair the wild jungle that grows in between Asunción’s legs, ascending through the mound of Venus and then climbing the ivy along the womb, longing to graze the navel, that fountain of life. .

I get out of bed tonight with the feeling that I forgot to say or to do something. How can I know what Asunción won’t tell me? And how is she going to tell me if she closes her eyes when we finish and is silent? She doesn’t even allow me to get a glimpse of whether she’s really satisfied, or if she desires more — whether for the sake of our shared life, she’s keeping a predilection to herself merely because she knows my shortcomings all too well?

I kiss her again, as if expecting that, from our joined lips, the truth of who we are and what we want might be given voice.

I watch her sleep for a long time in the early morning.

Then, extending my hand under the bed, I feel around for my slippers.

I always leave them there, but now I can’t find them.

I stretch my arm further under the bed. I pat around then retract my hand in horror.

I touch, my hand touches, another hand, a hand under the bed.

The cold hand has long, smooth, and glassy fingernails.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

I sit up on the edge of the bed, and put my feet on the carpet.

I steel myself to begin my daily routine.

Then I feel that frozen hand grab me tight by the ankle, dig the glass fingernails into the soles of my feet. I hear a whisper in a deep voice:

“Sleep. Sleep. It’s still too early. Go back to bed. There’s no rush. Sleep, sleep.”

Then I have the feeling that someone has left the room.

In my dream someone had been in my bedroom but then that someone walked out of it. From then on, the bedroom was no longer mine. It became a strange room because someone had walked out.

I woke with a start from the nightmare. I looked at the clock with disbelief. It was noon. I touched my temples. I rubbed my eyes. I was overcome by a feeling of guilt. I was late for work. I had failed in my duty. I hadn’t even called in with an excuse.

I grabbed the phone and instead called Asunción at her office.

When I explained, she laughed in a singsong way and said, “Darling, I totally understand why you’re tired.”

“Aren’t you tired, too?” I said, trying to match her levity.

“Hmmm, you were the one who did all the heavy lifting last night. What on earth got into you? For now just take it easy. Try to get some rest. You deserve it, my love,” she said. “Oh and thanks for everything.”

“You want to know something?”

“What?”

“Last night, when we were making love, I had this feeling like someone was watching us.”

“Excellent,” she said, then explained. “It was so good, I hope they’re jealous.”

I asked about our daughter. Asunción told me that today was a holiday at the Catholic school. “The Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, her ascent to heaven just as she was in life: not a legal holiday. And since it’s the same day as Chepina’s birthday — you remember Chepina, Josefina Alcayaga, the daughter of Alcayaga the engineer and his wife María de Lourdes? — there’s a party for the kids, and I took Magdalena there early, so while I was there I collected the engineer’s invoices for the tunnel that he custom built at your client’s house, the Count. .”

Guilt had my tongue until I made the connection and announced, “ Asunción . If today’s the Feast of the Assumption , then it’s your Saint’s Day.”

“Well, you and I don’t follow the religious calendar. .”

“Asunción, today’s your Saint’s Day.”

“Of course it is. Knock it off.”

“Sorry, love.”

“Yves, sorry for what?”

“I didn’t congratulate you in time.”

“Don’t be silly. Think about last night’s celebration. Listen, I was sure that that was your way of celebrating with me. And it was. And I thank you.”