Free Winning the Game and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca

toaster, electric iron, and hair dryer. Betty works too. Both are chaste. The date is set. A friend of Roberto’s, Tiago, asks him, “Are you going to get married still a virgin? You need to be initiated into the mysteries of sex.” Tiago then takes Roberto to the house of the Superwhore Betatron. (Attention Monica Tutsi: the name is a pinch of science fiction.) When Roberto arrives he finds out that the Superwhore is Betty, his dear fiancée. Oh heavens! What a horrible surprise! Someone, perhaps a doorman, will say, “To grow up is to suffer.” End of story.
    â€œOne word is worth a thousand photographs,” Monica Tutsi said. “I always get the short end of things. I’ll be back soon.”
DR. NATHANAEL. I like to cook. I also like to embroider and crochet. And most of all I like to wear a long evening gown and put on crimson lipstick, with lots of rouge and eye shadow. Ah, what a sensation! What a pity that I must stay locked in my room. No one knows that I like to do these things. Am I wrong? PEDRO REDGRAVE. TIJUCA.
    ANSWER: Why should it be wrong? Are you doing anyone harm? I had another reader who, like you, enjoyed dressing as a woman. He carried on a normal, useful, and socially productive life, to the point that he was chosen a model worker. Put on your long gowns, paint your lips scarlet, put some color in your life.
    â€œAll the letters should be from women,” Peçanha reminded.
    â€œBut this one is real,” I said.
    â€œI don’t believe it.”
    I handed the letter to Peçanha. He looked at it with the expression of a cop examining a badly counterfeited bill.
    â€œYou think it’s a joke?” Peçanha asked.
    â€œIt might be,” I said. “And it might not be.”
    Peçanha put on his reflective look. Then: “Add some phrase of encouragement to your letter, like for example, ‘write again’.”
    I sat down at the typewriter: Write again, Pedro, I know that’s not your real name, but it doesn’t matter; write again, count on me. Nathanael Lessa.
    â€œShit,” said Monica Tutsi, “I went to do your great piece of drama and they told me it was stolen from some Italian film.”
    â€œWretches, band of idiots—just because I was a police reporter they’re calling me a plagiarist.”
    â€œTake it easy, Virginia.”
    â€œVirginia? My name is Clarice Simone,” I said. “What idiocy is this of thinking only Italian fiancées are whores? Look here, I once knew an engaged woman, a really serious one, who was even a sister of charity, and they found out she was a whore too.”
    â€œIt’s okay, man, I’m going to shoot the story. Can Betatron be mulatto? What’s a Betatron?”
    â€œShe has to be a redhead, with freckles. Betatron is an apparatus for the production of electrons, possessing great energy potential and high velocity, impelled by the action of a rapidly changing magnetic field,” I said.
    â€œShit! That’s really a name for a whore,” said Monica Tutsi admiringly, on his way out.
UNDERSTANDING NATHANAEL LESSA. I have worn my long gowns gloriously. And my mouth has been as red as tiger’s blood and the break of dawn. I am thinking of putting on a satin gown and going to the Municipal Theater. What do you think? And now I’m going to tell you a great and marvelous confidence, but you must keep my confession the greatest secret. Do you swear? Ah, I don’t know if I should say it or not. All my life I’ve suffered the greatest disillusionment from believing in others. I am basically a person who never lost his innocence. Betrayal, coarseness, shamelessness, and baseness leave me quite shocked. Oh, how I would like to live isolated in a utopian world of love and kindness. My sensitive Nathanael, let me think. Give me time. In the next letter I shall tell more, perhaps everything. PEDRO REDGRAVE.
    ANSWER: Pedro. I await your