The next morning, I woke up to his cock stiff again. This time there was penetration. But there were other things occupying my attention. The walls with clumps of green moss growing on them, the moisture dripping from the surface, the density of the air, and his tongue bending in my mouth. He fucked me while around us the moss and insects came and went through tiny holes that pierced the walls; I felt the chill of trypophobia: I imagined holes like pores also opening all over his back and swallowing his body. The morbid curiosity growing until it was interrupted by a disturbance somewhere in the house that made him stop and stand up. It’s the cats, he said, a new one’s arrived. I slowly got up behind him, and, following him, discovered a passageway bathed in strips of sunlight falling through a circular skylight. Heaped on the floor were musical instruments and books. Piles of books. Flutes. Drums. Scores. Objects, necklaces, and masks. Coffers. All over the dirt floor. At the end of the hall, a little pile of clothes and my skates, which I approached. As I stepped over the dust, an immense cat appeared and behind it, two smaller ones. They shot through an open window where ferns spilled in. I walked toward my clothes and got dressed, noting a useless red cabinet—pure adornment—and a leather chair that looked as if it had come from an office building. In a corner was a little speaker and on it, a computer that hadn’t stopped playing, even though right now I can’t remember any of the songs it played. Music all night.

This is a cave or a cavern or a chute or a well, I thought, feeling that everything was as real as it was absurd. The man came out of what I assumed was the kitchen and offered me a chirimoya. He split it in two. Two white halves made of a furry, delicate texture. He kept one half in his hand and handed me the other with a spoon that I used to gut the fruit until there was only a cavity full of seeds. Then he passed me the other, extending his pale hand, and that image was one of such beauty it made me think something extraordinary was happening; the gravity of the moment right before the irreversible happens. The two peels of the chirimoya remained, and he put one inside the other and brought them close to his penis and peed a little. Then he laughed, offering it to me to drink. I paused. He laughed again and started walking to his room while saying he had to go out. It’s Sunday, there are unavoidable family things, that’s what I thought I heard, but he could have also said unmissable, or maybe unspeakable. He also said I could wait for him, I’m sure of that. But I’d already put my skates on, feeling that in my stomach a cold blast was slowly forming, rising, and hitting my throat. I started to cry. Immense was the hole I had to cross to leave. The man didn’t understand anything. He hugged me, and I tried to tell him I wanted to stay here to live. Please. And out of embarrassment—for the feeling and for the thought and for the tears—I almost left without saying goodbye, skating awkwardly, and, even more awkwardly, I opened the doors and picked up speed. I reached the main road and took a bus. Getting home with a deathly hangover, with the anguish slashing my throat, with the sun hurting my skin, with my now dry vagina, barely any little red drops, and the ecstasy like an obscene hole in the middle of my body through which everything flees, I peeled and sliced up a mealy apple, which was the only thing I could stomach for breakfast. Watching how the honey fell in a perfect stream, from the spoon held in my shaking hands onto the strips of apple, returned a certain calm, and I was able to sleep.