Chapter 10: Revenge

Toronto was a freezer with streets.

Lucas greeted me at the airport with a sign that said “EDILBERTO” in black marker and a toothpaste-commercial smile. Twenty-five years old, six-foot-three, blond, with a jaw that looked hewn with an axe and shoulders that filled out his down jacket as if he’d been born inside it. He shook my hand with just the right amount of strength—the kind of man who knows he could crush your bones but prefers not to—and pointed me toward the parking lot.

“The car’s this way, Ed. Can I call you Ed?”

“As you wish, Don Lucas.”

He laughed. During the drive along the snow-covered highway, he told me he worked in finance, that his father had died two years earlier and left him the mansion in Forest Hill, and that Adrián—“a family friend, a weird guy but trustworthy”—had spoken of me as the perfect servant for the house. He asked me if I knew how to make poutine. I told him I learned fast.

The mansion was impressive: three floors of brick and stone, seven bedrooms, a kitchen that looked like it came out of a magazine, and a basement. Of course there was a basement. My room was down there, next to the boiler and the laundry room. A twin bed, a wardrobe, a tiny bathroom with a plastic shower. Just enough.

Luckily Lucas wasn’t an asshole; he treated me from a position of superiority, but like a person. To him I was someone who kept the house clean, cooked well, and disappeared when he brought home one of his conquests. Girls came and went—blondes, brunettes, tall, cheerful—and I heard their moans from the basement while I ironed his shirts. But I felt human.

One night, around three in the morning, Lucas came down in his underwear. I was awake—I hadn’t been sleeping much lately. He peered into my doorway.

“Ed, are you awake?”

“Yes, Don Lucas.”

“Make something special for breakfast tomorrow. A girl’s staying over tonight and I want to impress her.”

“Of course, Don Lucas.”

He stayed in the doorway a moment, scratching the back of his neck. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then he shrugged and went back upstairs. Soon after, I heard his bed creak and a woman’s moans. I lay on my back, lifted my belly with one arm, wrapped two fingers around my micropenis and jerked off in silence while listening to that male fuck a chick upstairs. I came in five seconds. I wiped myself with a tissue and threw it in the trash. I turned toward the wall.

This is your life now, Edilberto. Forever. It could be worse.

A voice sounded behind me, making me jump in fright.

“Hello, David.”

It was Elías. He had reappeared.

“Don Elías, I… I couldn’t…” I stammered. “I tried to make Marcos remember, but Adrián stopped it and turned me into… into this.”

“I know,” said Elías. “You’re the first one h...