Free Mai at the Predators' Ball by Marie-Claire Blais

sun-up and flush all those faces from the night before out of my system, it stinks of sweat here Yinn, really it’s pathetic you’re right about that cracked linoleum, oh Daddy sang Robbie, I’ll do it all for you Daddy oh Daddy , then Yinn rocked Petites Cendres and with one swift move took Robbie’s waist, slipped the elastic that smoothed his gut all the way down to his lower back and said look at the words on that standout scorpion tattoo — ROBBIE BELONGS TO DADDY — and I can’t get that thing erased said Robbie, I’m telling you Petites Cendres, don’t but don’t fall in love, Daddy tore me apart, made me his plaything when I moved out on Yinn, Cobra, and the other girls to go live with him, I’m telling you he tore me to shreds body and soul, that’s what happened he said, suddenly filled with melancholy, his punk hairdo falling down over his temples, no no, don’t do it Petites Cendres, don’t fall in love, it’s the total depths of horror, any kind of passion just has to be deliberate martyrdom, yeah but that’s exactly what you’re gonna do all over again said Yinn, I just know it Robbie, that’s how you are, impulsive by nature, compulsive too by the way, oh no said Robbie, don’t you worry about that, no way I’m getting into it with some man who’s gonna own me, make me his plaything, no never he repeated, yeah but I still think you’ll do it all over again said Yinn as he applied a black felt-tip to his arched stick-on eyebrows and Robbie hiked up his belt, because you just won’t learn Robbie he went on, Petites Cendres could not help thinking that he’d love to have those same words raised across a scorpion tattoo on his own backside, except it would be Yinn and Petites Cendres instead — PETITES CENDRES BELONGS TO YINN — property like Robbie, but his idle daydream evaporated into thin air with a whiff of strong delights, the combined perfume of all these bodies around him, their excited yet gorged senses, like Yinn’s or Robbie’s some nights, emanations of these healthy bodies, not like his, probably smelling more of something dreary and sad, maybe even sickly, still the passion that had drawn him here to Yinn in this dressing room, this intimate closet the girls shared, this at least was wholesome and satisfying, their wild costumes and frills all so carefully laid out, a backdrop to the tangle of their bodies, all this gave his soul a sense of rebirth, none of headlong Robbie’s ragged debris, oh no, Petites Cendres had no time to waste now Yinn was up and covered in queenly diamonds, telling them all it’s time people, onstage everyone, and from backstage Petites Cendres could see Robbie, Cobra, Geisha, and all the others join the procession. And Mai told her father it was because he wouldn’t let her use the cellphone when they were together, this wasn’t going to be more than a few hours out together after all, though of course he hadn’t expected the drive along the seashore to be this foggy, cellphones were out, a no-no when Daniel went out with his kids, his rules that’s all, he said, as all the red message lights stayed dark pursuant to paternal orders, boy what a tyrant laying waste to all her freedoms thought Mai, cut off from the entire outside world, her world, not her parents’ or grandparents’, Daniel’s pretext was he didn’t see her that often, none of them in fact, yet he depended on these gadgets as much as they did, still he didn’t want them to get in the way for the few moments of real talk they had together, though maybe he was the only one doing any talking, in any case this despotic device would not always be allowed to come between them like some music box held right up to your ear and that you answered with a narcissistic attitude, yeah it’s me, I’m listening, chit-chat with no resonance at all thought Daniel, though he didn’t yet know who it was that called her so often, what voices did those waves carry, he just knew that this ball