Chapter 11

I tried to undress, leaving the sneakers filthy on the polished white stone floor, and soon my intimate clothes also went to the floor before I let the water massage my body like wet and skillful fingers. I would not doubt that they were ghost fingers, considering that every muscle in my body moaned with thanks.

I took a liquid soap with the smell of musk and sandalwood that spread on my body with a fragrance that referred to cleanliness and freshness, and only stopped rubbing myself when all the dirt, sweat and drool had been a sad and distant memory.

The camera was covered with white smoke when I finished the shower, and I got a little fright when I bothered to look in the mirror. But it wasn't my naked and rung-haired image that scared me. It was that, through the dense smoke of the hot bath, I saw in my reflection the unmistakable silhouette of a man. It was made by a darkness unlike anything I could have seen in my life, a purplish darkness, like an entire galaxy. N