“Enthralled by a splendid fantasy she could not entirely understand, Gina let herself fall into the chair offered by the queen. It was then that she felt the sovereign’s heavy breathing. Gina put up with the smoky, alcohol breath; viewed up close the bleached, ghostly skin; the metallic glitter that decorated the eyelids; the scarlet worm which—without pronouncing a word—slithered provocatively under the nose; the crude and bony shoulders; the tense arms struggling to arrange a cushion on the chair so that Gina would feel completely comfortable.”
From ‘The Queen and her Secret‘ by Dominican writer José Alcántara Almánzar, translated from the Spanish by Luis Guzmán Valerio in B O D Y.
It’s a chilling, beautiful and surprising story. Read it!
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