White Wedding

White Wedding

The brothel where Maribel worked had no name, only a flickering red lantern that could be seen from the cobblestone street. The walls were covered in cracked mirrors that distorted bodies and multiplied gestures of desire into an endless labyrinth. There, each night, anxious men crowded in with crumpled bills in their hands and eyes that gleamed like knives.

Maribel received them one by one, charging two coins for sex. The contact was passionate, yet every touch left an invisible scar on her. Sometimes, when she looked at herself in the mirrors, she saw herself doubled, disfigured, as though she had too many arms, too many mouths.

The clients were not always ordinary. Once, a tall, foul-smelling man in a black hat came in; when Maribel undressed him, his decomposed skin was cold and damp, like a rotting fish. She had no choice but to vomit and let herself be penetrated. She spent days sick, but that was no excuse to stop working. On another occasion, an old man who smelled of freshly dug earth penetrated her in absolute silence and, when finished, left on the table ancient coins that turned to dust at dawn. Others, by contrast, vanished into thin air, taking their orgasms with them.

The brothel seemed to breathe. The lamps trembled when a client came with too much hatred, and the mirrors sweated when pleasure turned into a scream. Maribel began to suspect that each orgasm was a pact: the men left in her their guilt, their vices, their fears. And in the early hours, she felt those ghosts crawling beneath her skin, whispering names she did not know.

One night, while satisfying a stranger with a tattoo on his chest that seemed to slither like a living serpent, Maribel felt that it was not he who possessed her, but something behind his eyes—an ancient malice using her body to break into the world.

When it was over, the man did not look at her: he simply said, in a hoarse voice that was not his own:

—You are the key, and you don’t know it yet.

She fell sick again, vomiting constantly, but even so she kept working, feeling over the months something alive inside her.

The horror pursued her outside the brothel as well. One morning, at the remittance office where she sent money to her elderly mother and her small son, the clocks stopped whenever she walked by; at the market, dogs followed her with their fangs bared; at the telephone office, her son answered the call and sobbed without pause. A woman then took the phone and told her that her mother was dead. She found it hard to believe, and not knowing what else to do, with nothing left but work, she returned to the brothel. It was still early, no clients had arrived yet. She locked herself in her room and on the bed thought of her mother and all the lies she had told her—that she worked in a luxurious office with a handsome boss who would one day marry her and give her a big house to welcome them all. Her son had been the result of her naivety and the lies of a truck driver who had harassed her since she was fourteen, gaining her trust through false promises. Once she was pregnant, the indecent fat man disappeared. She sank into memories until she sank into dreams: scenes of burning men, of herself chained to volcanic rock, and crowds of deformed beings touching her skin until it vanished.

Though she grieved for the loss of her young mother, she did not feel guilt for leaving her behind, for it was her mother who had forced her into the truck driver’s arms. Perhaps, she thought, if she sought to reclaim her son someday, it would be only for the boy, who bore no blame for being born. He was her only reason to go on living. That night she dissolved herself again among the flesh, seeming to enjoy those encounters more than ever…

But the most terrible thing was that, amid so much dread, there were moments when casual eroticism wrapped her like a burning mantle: a client with strong hands who lifted her against the wall, a stolen kiss in the shadows, an orgasm that made her forget for seconds her misery. It was as if pleasure itself was contaminated, mingled with horror and despair.

Maribel understood she no longer worked in a common brothel: she worked in a theater of fleshly pacts, where each client left something more than money, and each night hell drew closer.

That year Ramona was born, and she understood then that her clouded mind cleared the darkness to make room for tenderness. Maribel managed to get a small house in the village, continued working nights while her son watched the baby for a few hours.

The years passed with the same slowness and chills of that strange brothel. Several years later she fell in love with a client, and he disillusioned her so deeply that Maribel took her own life. She had previously asked her son, then seventeen, to bury her beneath the wooden floor of the living room.

When Ramona turned fifteen, her eyes carried the exhaustion of someone who had seen too much in too little time. She lived in a gloomy place, in a city of rusted chimneys, where the rotten flesh of slaughterhouses hung in the air like a nauseating veil. Black smoke filled everyone’s lungs, and even the dogs were born deformed. Hers, a crippled creature with three legs and a human mouth, was a mute witness to everything.

Every afternoon, instead of doing homework, Ramona would carry the creaking chair of Don Ricardo, her morbid neighbor, an eighty-four-year-old quadriplegic who had seen the city’s birth and fought against politicians to keep the brothels from closing. Ramona pushed him down sloping streets to a rusted overlook, where the city showed its worst face: factories bleeding soot, chimneys coughing fire, streets reeking of guts and entrails.

Ricardo, with sunken eyes and a wet mouth, leaned toward her to whisper things only a bored and bitter old man could invent. His rancid breath brushed her ear, sometimes leaving a strand of saliva that seemed intent on sinking into her skin. Ramona endured it by imagining that instead of the withered body beside her, it was Timi, the boy from school she loved desperately, who never looked at her.

When standing grew tiring, Ramona would sit on the bony legs of the old man. The chair creaked as though about to break under that strange pact of routine. She gazed at the gray horizon; he, instead, seemed to look only at the youthful curve of her neck.

At home, things were even more twisted. Her stepbrother, a violent and aimless teenager, lived with her and the mutant dog. One night, Ramona stumbled in, smelling of tobacco and cheap rum. She bent over the toilet and vomited on the dog. The creature let out a human bark, a grotesque scream that woke the stepbrother. In fury and drunkenness, he beat her until she lay sprawled on the floor, like a broken doll.

The next day at school, Ramona tried once more to seduce Timi. She followed him into the boys’ bathroom and tried to brush his hand. He shoved her away in disgust, throwing her against the door before walking out without looking back. The laughter of others echoed like a cruel chorus.

The principal, informed of the scandal, punished her: she was to assist the janitor. Nick, a thirty-year-old man with a reputation as a predator, greeted her with a filthy smile. His eyes devoured her. In the deserted hallways, Ramona felt the threat like a cold knife against her back. The man stepped too close, gripping her arm with beastly strength. She struggled, her mind spinning: “If I can endure the whims of an invalid old man, what does it matter with this animal?”

Then, in her confusion, she began to cry and stopped resisting. The janitor treated her as an object, not a person, tearing away her clothes, her dignity, her innocence in a single gesture. When he finally released her, she ran naked, barefoot, begging for help, racing through corridors as the neon lights flickered like the school itself was laughing at her disgrace. Seeing herself exposed and humiliated, she hid.

It was Timi who found her crouched among buckets of paint. Seeing her shiver, he covered her with his jacket.

—“What happened to you?” he asked.

—“The janitor,” she whispered, her voice broken.

He looked at her with a mix of indifference and calculation. He led her to the parking lot, locked her in his car, and demanded a favor in exchange for helping her. Defeated and more confused, she agreed.

When Timi left her at her door, her stepbrother emerged with the mutant dog, which sniffed and licked her stained face.

—“I don’t want you here,” the boy growled.

From the shadows, Ricardo appeared in his metal chair. He couldn’t believe it: the young girl he liked so much, naked before him. His hands trembled, his gaze lit with senile spark.

—“Will you take me for a walk, Ramona?”

—“I would… but I’m naked,” she murmured, covering herself as best she could.

The old man’s cracked lips twisted in a crooked smile.

—“Look what you’ve done to me…” he said, a grotesque shiver shaking his body.

Ramona begged for help. He looked at her with green teeth, inflamed gums, centuries of breath.

—“Marry me,” he demanded.

She stared in horror, but her stepbrother burst into laughter:

—“Better do it, Ramona! I’ve seen you together. You’re made for each other!”

With no escape, she leaned toward her decrepit suitor. The kiss was torment: his halitosis climbed her throat like acid. She tried to pull away, vomited a little at the corner of his mouth, but he persisted desperately until his dentures slipped into her mouth like a grotesque trophy. Gagging, she spat them back and forced a smile.

The old man cried with emotion.

—“Come, help me put on my diaper. I’ll give you my late wife’s wedding dress.”

A week later, the entire city witnessed the spectacle: a miserable wedding officiated by the corrupt mayor. The three-legged dog was ring bearer, the stepbrother grinned mockingly, the janitor licked his lips in silence, and Timi barely deigned to look.

Ramona, clad in the ragged bridal gown, entered on her stepbrother’s arm. The city, with its roaring factories, celebrated that unholy union.

Ramona and Ricardo’s wedding was no ordinary union but a circus-like funeral parody disguised as a ceremony.

The communal patio where it was held —an old slaughterhouse turned into a “social hall”— was decorated with half-melted plastic garlands, moth-eaten paper flowers, and a couple of balloons clinging to rancid air. The city’s stench —that mixture of rotting meat, sewage, and factory smoke— seeped into every corner, turning the place into an extension of the garbage heap the city had become. It was pestilence itself: a sour, suffocating reek that clung to skin, clothes, and memory.

Ramona entered with trembling steps, wrapped in the filthy, tattered wedding dress of Ricardo’s deceased wife. The yellowed fabric, stained with ancient sweat, unraveled at loose seams. Holes in the skirt exposed flashes of her young skin. The corset, hardened by decades of dust and dried urine, squeezed her like a coffin half shut. The threadbare transparency revealed her pale vulva, little tits, and dried blood from the janitor’s defloration. The sleeves shed shreds of lace like cobwebs no one dared clean. The stench of the dress was unbearable: a blend of camphor, mold, and human remains. Yet Ramona wore it like the armor of a fallen queen.

She smiled nervously, aware that everyone stared at her. Though shame boiled inside, outwardly she radiated a strange joy: at last, she was the protagonist.

Ricardo, seated in his wheelchair, awaited her with glassy eyes and a drooling grin of satisfaction, as though he had conquered an impossible trophy. His trousers were damp with anticipation, yet seeing Ramona approach, he straightened proudly to show off his “bride.”

The guests were their own grotesque spectacle:

• The gossiping neighbor in a too-tight red dress, laughing and flashing her green teeth.

• Corporal Lukas, disgraced mechanic, cursing with hands stained in cheap oil.

• Don Eliseo, the town drunk, staggering before the ceremony even began.

• Maribel the hairdresser, whispering curses about Ramona’s dress between mocking giggles.

• Germán the butcher’s apprentice, reeking of fresh blood and fat, as if the ceremony were part of his daily slaughter.

• Patricia, Timi’s ex-girlfriend, feigning comfort while glaring daggers of hate at every gesture of Ramona.

• The three-legged dog, dressed with a filthy blue ribbon, barking whenever anyone coughed.

• Ramona’s stepbrother, in a borrowed suit, smirking as though he’d won a hidden bet.

• Doña Engracia, the baker, handing out stale bread wrapped like luxury candies.

• The school principal, muttering excuses for why he “allowed” the union, though everyone knew he just wanted his share of the roasted meat to come.

The corrupt mayor, father of the janitor who had raped Ramona, officiated. Fat, greasy-mustached, with gold rings on every finger, he droned pompously about “sacred love” while his pockets jingled with coins stolen from the market poor. He was corrupt because he never collected the trash, because he pocketed taxes meant for sanitation, because he let the neighborhoods rot in open sewers while he sipped whiskey in his office. He was corruption incarnate, and the city’s stench was his legacy.

When he declared, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” a chorus of jeers and laughter erupted:

—“At last someone caught the fool girl!” Maribel laughed.

—“And who’ll change the old man’s diapers?” Don Eliseo slurred.

—“That dress is as see-through as her dignity,” Patricia sneered.

Timi, hidden among the crowd, clenched his teeth at the sight of her. He remembered her sobbing, naked in his car, begging for help while he demanded a blowjob as payment. Now, seeing her as a “bride,” he relived the filthy pride of owning that moment forever.

The kiss was the grotesque climax. Ricardo, with fetid breath and trembling tongue, found Ramona’s mouth. She, gagging but resigned, accepted. The hall exploded in applause and hoots as someone shouted:

—“Long live the bride, even if she smells like death!”

The music began: an accordion out of tune, a plastic drum, and a rusty trumpet. Guests danced clumsily, sweating and shouting, while rancid meat sizzled on improvised grills and cheap rum flowed like water.

And so the wedding twisted into a carnival of pestilence. Guests, drunk on sour liquor, stomped and stumbled. The orchestra’s trumpets shrieked like slaughtered cattle, drums thudded like empty bellies, and violins screeched like stretched entrails. Decorations wept dampness, cockroaches scuttled under greasy tablecloths, and bouquets of yellowed flowers stank like excrement.

Ramona walked among laughter and groping hands, her decaying dress revealing glimpses of her body. The guests whispered:

—“She looks both innocent and like a brothel whore.”

—“That dress reeks worse than the sewer.”

—“Cheers to the necrophile bride with her corpse-groom!”

But Ramona did not lower her head. She smiled with ironic defiance, secretly relishing being the center of this grotesque farce.

The banquet descended into obscenity: the butcher’s widow shouting filth, the pharmacist pawing her hips, gossips spreading tales of her disgrace, the undertaker offering coffins as wedding favors. The corrupt mayor toasted:

—“Long live the dead! For in sex lies true power!”

The crowd roared, complicit in the decay.

Timi pulled Ramona into a dance. “Remember?” he whispered. She stared back, unashamed. Their steps turned into writhing under the table, where she spread herself with bold invitation. Timi penetrated her as glasses clattered and wine spilled, while Ricardo toasted above. Soon, others crowded beneath the table: hands, mouths, even the three-legged dog, all clamoring for her body. It became a public spectacle of lust, the whole city feeding on her humiliation and triumph.

When Ricardo finally pulled her out, she convulsed in laughter and ecstasy, lost in trance. “Don’t worry, darling,” he said with yellow-toothed grin. “Our honeymoon awaits.”

The crowd howled. Outside, in the dark park, Ricardo embraced her clumsily; she screamed with a mix of irony, pleasure, and triumph. The city trembled. Lights flickered. The celebration morphed into an orgasmic cataclysm where no one knew if they were dancing, fornicating, or dying.

Time passed. The mayor demolished the neighborhood. Beneath the houses, a clandestine cemetery was uncovered, and on top of it rose towers of glass, neon avenues, and luxury shops. A modern, perfumed city appeared like a dream over a graveyard.

But one evening, a black wind rose from the depths. A bridal shop window cracked, and ashes swirled into human shapes. From them emerged Ricardo and Ramona —spectral, luminous, yet more alive than ever.

“Look, Mommy, living dead!” cried a child.

“Yes, son,” said the mother, though trembling, “this city was built over a cemetery.”

“But they’re dead!” he shouted as the pair walked closer.

Ramona, forever young, wore her rotting gown like translucent skin. Her nipples pressed through lace, her bare sex glistened through torn fabric. Men froze, entranced. Women shuddered, feeling a forbidden heat.

Ricardo was no longer crippled; he strode upright, erection proud. He grinned darkly.

“Can a ghost do this?” he growled before biting the mother’s head off.

The crowd shrieked. Ramona pounced, clawing, biting, licking. The street drowned in blood. Wedding gowns in shop windows turned crimson. Lovers, mothers, children —all became prey to the Bride of Pestilence.

Amid the carnage, Ramona and Ricardo embraced, kissing bloodily, feeding on each other as sirens wailed. The city realized, too late, that clean glass towers and luxury masks could not erase the curse below.

Ramona, the Bride of Pestilence, had returned to reign forever.