Free Mona and Other Tales by Reinaldo Arenas

five hundred years old who had transformed himself into a woman and also existed as a painting. The situation would have been truly hilarious were it not for the fact that, at that point, Elisa drew from her bodice an ancient dagger, sharp and glimmering nonetheless.
    I tried to disarm her, but in vain. With only one hand she overpowered me, and in an instant I was on the ground, the dagger before my eyes. Crouching, and imprisoned under Elisa’s legs, I still was able to identify the landscape around us. It was exactly the same as in the famous (and now, for me, accursed) painting at the museum. Something sinister was indeed going on, though I could not determine its extent. Elisa—I will keep calling her Elisa until the end of this report—made me move along in my crouched position until we reached the lakeshore. Once there, I saw it was not a lake but a swamp. This was obviously the place, I thought, where she sacrificed her surely numerous indiscreet lovers.
    The alternatives Elisa seemed to be offering me were equally frightful: to die either drowned in that swamp or pierced by the dagger. Or perhaps she had both in mind. Again she fixed her gaze on me, and I understood that my end was near. I started to cry. Elisa took off her clothes. I continued crying. It was not my family in Cuba that I remembered at that moment but the enormous salad bar at Wendy’s. To me it was like a vision of my life these last few years (fresh, pleasant, surrounded by people, and problem-free), before Elisa came into it. Meanwhile she lay naked in the mud.
    â€œLet it not be said,” she muttered, barely moving her lips, “that we are not parting on the best of terms.”
    And beckoning me to join her, she kept smiling in her peculiar way, lips almost closed.
    I couldn’t stop crying, but I came closer. Still holding the dagger, she placed her hand behind my head, quickly aligning her naked body with mine. She did this with such speed, professionalism, and violence that I realized it would be very difficult for me to come out of that embrace alive. I am sure that in all my long erotic experience, never has my performance been so lustful and tender, so skillful and passionate, because in all truth, even knowing she intended to kill me, I still lusted for her. By her third orgasm, while she was still panting and uttering the most obscene words, Elisa had not only forgotten the dagger but become oblivious of herself. I noticed she apparently was losing the concentration and energy that, as she said, enabled her to become a real woman. Her eyes were becoming opaque, her face was losing its color, her cheekbones were melting away. Suddenly her luscious hair dropped from her head, and I found myself in the arms of a very old, bald man, toothless and foul-smelling, who kept whimpering while slobbering on my penis. Quickly he sat on it, riding it as if he were a true demon. I quickly put him on all fours and, in spite of my revulsion, tried to give him as much pleasure as I could, hoping he would be so exhausted he would let me go. Since I had never practiced sodomy, I wanted to keep the illusion, even remotely, that this horrible thing, this sack of bones with the ugliest of beards, was still Elisa. So while I possessed him, I kept calling him by that name. But he, in the middle of his paroxysm, turned and looked at me; his eyes were two empty reddish sockets.
    â€œCall me Leonardo, damn it! Call me Leonardo!” he shouted, while writhing and groaning with such pleasure as I have never seen in a human being.
    â€œLeonardo!” I began repeating, then, while I possessed him. “Leonardo!” I repeated as I kept penetrating that pestiferous mound. “Leonardo,” I kept whispering tenderly, while with a quick jump I got hold of the dagger; then, flailing my arms, I escaped as fast as I could through the yellow esplanade. “Leonardo! Leonardo!” I was still shouting when I jumped onto my