Chapter V. A Mouse in a Trap #2
“I would never allow it.” Quaint looked at the invitation that had been given to every gul at the entrance, scanning the lines of the dress code that instructed members to wear black tie only in the permitted colors.
“Augusto is also rather fond of you, which surprised me, because he only ever felt contempt for Erik.”
“So they won’t eat me, but they might eat other humans.”
Quaint sighed. “Yes, if there are other humans there, you can assume they will be eaten. Not in public; Cabaré has specific rooms for that. At the parties I have attended, it was considered distasteful to bring unwilling humans, but still. No. We won’t go.”
“I can convince Rafaela. I know I can.” Ariadne sat on his leg, and looked at the invitation.
There was a mention of a plus-one, and an additional note: Bring your own meal.
Again, she thought of the club as a digestive tract: the window teeth, the hard palate ceiling, the carpet tongue, the imperial staircase uvula.
Then, ascending through the pharynx half-landings, crossing the fibromuscular walls of the esophagus, was the stomach, lined with fine decorative tissue and bathed in acid, all arranged in perfect menace.
She held him by the cheeks. “I want them to know who I am.”
“Ariadne…”
“I trust you. Against my better judgment, against my instincts, I trust you. Can you trust me, too?”
“Then we’ll have to get some clothes.”
The ball was scheduled to start on Friday, but they only planned to attend the opening night, as guls, in their strange atemporality, could spend days partying like the world had stopped for their pleasure.
In the morning, she woke up alone in the suite.
Ariadne knew that Quaint hardly slept, but he had been gracious enough to spend the entire evening with her in bed during the past few nights.
According to him, outside of his hibernation period, which could take a few years or even a decade, he only took a few sporadic naps.
He wasn’t in the living room either, but he’d left a garment bag with his ironed suit, and a red box with her name on it.
For the few hours he was out, Ariadne prepared herself.
At the drugstore, she bought painkillers and candy bars, and her eyes wandered to the condoms in the aisle across from the clerk.
Maybe I should … The thought left as soon as it came; she wasn’t even sure if it would make any difference, as Erik had never mentioned hybrid children, and Minotauro lied more often than he told the truth.
Back at the hotel, she charged both her phone and her limbs, and packed everything she would need in her purse: a pill organizer, a wallet, snacks, carfentanil.
I’m not scared of them, she told herself, hoping that, if she repeated the words enough times, they would become true.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” said Quaint when he arrived.
He began undressing after he closed the door, kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt.
“I had to get the clothes, talk to Augusto, leave our names on the guest list, discuss certain safety terms … It doesn’t matter. I need to take a shower.”
“Go ahead.” Ariadne helped him with his tie and belt, and followed him into the bathroom. Quaint entered the shower almost right away, leaving his glasses on the sink. “Why are you nervous?”
“At the last ball I attended, my behavior was less than stellar.”
The flash of an unknown memory crossed her mind.
Quaint, curled lips revealing potent fangs; Erik, rushing to stop him to no avail; Minotauro, squirming free of the people trying to contain him.
Ariadne played with the old-fashioned straight razor inside the toiletry bag, opening it and closing it with her fingers.
“You should take it,” said Quaint, his voice muffled by the sound of water. “We’re most sensitive in the eyes.”
“I won’t stab anyone, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Just as a precaution.”
Ariadne smirked, standing in front of the door of the shower.
“You really are nervous.”
“Are you enjoying my pain, miss?”
“I’m amused that you’re more concerned than I am.”
Quaint got out of the shower, drying his hair with a towel. Water pooled on the floor under his feet, and she stepped aside.
“Speaking of which … Have you tried on the dress I bought?”
“Just to see if it would fit,” answered Ariadne. “I’m surprised you knew my size.”
“I have an excellent tactile memory, it seems.” Quaint wiggled his fingers in the air before finding the hair dryer, the pomade, and the comb. “At least I’ll have something to look forward to tonight.”
Ariadne went to her own room to bathe. She was glad that Quaint had chosen simple clothes: a little black cocktail dress with T-bar flats of the same color, a detail that made her smile, as she could hardly take the discomfort of wearing heels.
In another woman, a form-fitting outfit would have looked fine, beautiful even, but there was not much to save in her case.
Not with that face, not with that figure.
Ariadne looked in the mirror. The thin straps of her dress showed her bionic limbs, and the fabric ended just above her knees, exposing the prosthesis without the synthetic skin. Indeed, there was nothing she could do about her features, but there was something to be done about the rest.
The car dropped them in front of Cabaré at eight thirty.
Quaint had already made a deal with a human driver hired by the club to take them back to the hotel after curfew, a privilege that guls had acquired in a discreet deal with the government.
They just needed to be quiet about it, and identify themselves as club members if they were stopped by the police.
The exterior lights illuminated the garden, and a distant melody could be heard from outside.
“I must admit I’m glad to have you with me,” said Quaint, taking her hand and entwining their fingers together. “Pathetic, isn’t it? You’re the human, and I’m the one searching for the comfort of your presence.”
“What are you scared of?” Ariadne asked. There were shadows dancing on the grass and muffled laughter from the upper floors.
“Of being unreasonable again.” Quaint touched the back of her hand as delicately as he would have if there’d been frail skin to break, not the black and metallic lines of the limbs. “Of being alone in a place where they would accept the unacceptable than act against it.”
Ariadne straightened the peak lapel of his wine-colored tuxedo, and looked up to see his face.
“I’d rather see you angry at the right thing than laughing at it.”
“Let’s pray that won’t be necessary tonight.” Quaint opened the door. “I was hoping you would dance with me.”
“You should find a partner your size. I’ll make you look ridiculous.”
“Nonsense!” Quaint laughed, heading upstairs. He greeted a human butler with a bow of the head, but the eyes of the man were fixed on Ariadne’s limbs. “I always had a soft spot for petite frames. Took after my father, I guess!”
Two waiters descended the other flights of the staircase, and Ariadne couldn’t help but feel the warm mouth of a beast around them, the mucosal tissue of the gingiva wallpaper, rosy and smooth, the lit chandeliers blinking like the enamel of teeth.
“Quaint.” She squeezed Quaint’s fingers with one hand and the chain of her clutch bag with the other. “I’m scared.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Ariadne hid her face in his arm. In her mind, she could still feel Minotauro over her, fangs sprouting from his lower lips, dense hair covering his arms, chest, and face, a low growl coming from the bottom of his throat. He’s dead, she told herself, and if he wasn’t, Quaint …
“Quaint, Ariadne!” a third voice called them. Ariadne lifted her head to see the short and brawny gul who had just opened the door of the ballroom. “I was starting to think you would leave me alone here.”
“Of course we wouldn’t,” replied Ariadne, smoothing her voice to a neutral tone. “Good evening, Augusto.”
Augusto kissed the back of her prosthesis.
“Good evening to you, too, my lady. I see that you are dressed to impress, or may I say undressed?” Augusto looked at her robotic parts, and his expression became stiffer than before.
Despite his polite smile, she could see there was something in the sight of her limbs that unnerved him; maybe he had expected her amputation to have been just the arm he had seen, not such an extensive part of her body.
Augusto patted Quaint’s shoulder before she could overthink it.
“Rafaela is here, but Dami?o is nowhere to be seen.”
“Perfect.”
The ballroom felt familiar, like she had seen it a long time ago, or in a half-forgotten dream.
The walls were taller than the rest of the mansion, the room spacious, and a small band played music next to the window.
If she just focused on the clothes, the jazz, and the dancing, she would have thought the place was trapped in the thirties or forties, but if she looked closely, she found some smartphones on the round tables, together with a few modern garments here and there.
Ubirajara, the slender singer who was often downstairs, wore a long evening gown with glittering sequins, and sang slow songs with a husky voice.
If she wished hard enough, Ariadne could have thought it was a party like any other, but she couldn’t, and it wasn’t.
All the tables had crystal bowls with raw meat ribs organized like refined appetizers, as well as mortars with crushed bone.
Friedrich sometimes dipped his thumb in the bone dust and licked it, laughing as he talked to a quiet Anzol.