I undressed beside her, aware of her jollying me along. Time, not money, dominated the prostitute’s life. To enjoy sex with them required a special knack of its own. A teenage girl with a cat in her arms was watching me from a balcony thirty feet away. While I drew the curtain Carmen took a spermicide dispenser from the dressing-table drawer. Screwing it into the open tube, she squeezed three inches of jelly into the dispenser. She lifted a leg onto the bed, parted her labia with her fingers, and eased the shaft into her vagina. She pressed the plunger, withdrew the dispenser, and wiped her fingers on the sheet.

Waiting for her, I turned the camera and pointed the lens towards the bed.

“You like for me to make a film?” Carmen asked.

“You’ll film us here?”

“It’s good, for four minutes. Only one hundred dollars. Perhaps you show your girlfriend. Or your wife.”

“My wife?”

“Yes! It’s popular, it’s really good.”

I sat on the bed, staring at my reflection in the camera lens. Beyond the bedroom door I could hear Dick laughing as he chased Fortunata around the workroom and the women in the corridor shouting to the straying child. By comparison, the bedroom was a stage set. This earnest young prostitute, the stained sheets, and the tissues with which she had wiped her clients’ semen from her vulva, an enticing spoor for future customers, together seemed like film props. The presence of the camera transformed and even dignified this seedy bedroom.

As we lay together on the waxy sheets I asked: “Have you been in other films?”

“Sure! Many films…” She screwed up her face, dismissing the bedside camera with a contemptuous wave. She held my limp penis in both hands, tugging lightly at my scrotum. “I make many films—I’m acting for real director.”

“That’s good.” I could guess the kind of studio. “For Señor Pereira, maybe?”

“Señor Pereira … ugh!” She grimaced at the mention of the film critic. “His films … not clean!”

I moved the hair from her fierce forehead, admiring her determination. “You’ll work for other directors. You’ll be a star one day.”

“Yes…” Ignoring the doubts in my voice, she licked her fingers and smoothed her eyebrows, gazing fiercely at the future that lay beyond the walls of this rented bedroom. As she searched her lips for a small sore, the muscles of her arrow-shaped face were set with a touching confidence.