The She-Devil in the Mirror Read Online Free Page B

Carlos’s studio, but this time she didn’t need me to give
her a ride because she had the perfect excuse: José Carlos was going to take a
series of photographs of her to include in his next exhibit. That’s what she
told Marito, and me, too. But I already knew what she was going for. José Carlos
did take some gorgeous pictures of her—very suggestive—for what it’s worth: in
the pictures Olga María is made up like she’s Oriental, and she’s wearing
nothing but a semi-transparent silk tunic, and she’s carrying exotic-looking
crucifixes of some kind and is surrounded by mirrors. It was hard for me to get
her to tell me what was going on, because during that period, for a number of
reasons, but especially because of her constant visits to José Carlos’s studio,
we barely saw each other. I was afraid Olga María was going to fall in love, get
herself mixed up in some mess she wouldn’t be able to get herself out of. I told
her it was none of my business and I didn’t want to stick my nose in where it
didn’t belong, but she should be careful, calm down, take more precautions, I
reminded her it wasn’t in her best interests for Marito to find out what was
going on or even suspect anything. One afternoon, finally, I found her at the
boutique, and she invited me out for a cup of coffee and told me not to worry,
her relationship with José Carlos wasn’t going to go any further, she was sure
of that. She liked him a lot, but she could never live with someone like him, he
was too unstable, and she told me that even he was aware of that and from the
get-go he’d told her straight out that he loved being with her, making love with
her, but that was all—he would never take his best friend’s wife away nor was he
in any position to live with her and the two girls. Hearing that reassured me,
and that same afternoon Olga María showed me the first photographs José Carlos
had taken of her, and she told me he was very professional—he’d made her pose
for several hours and when he finished shooting, he took her to bed—and he was a
great lover, not like that Julio Iglesias, who shot his wad before the word go.
But you know what men are like, my dear, don’t you? Turns out a month later,
Olga María completely lost interest, and out of the blue she told José Carlos
that enough was enough, she wanted to end their relationship, Marito was getting
suspicious, and she wasn’t willing to take any more chances, it would be better
for them to stop seeing each other, and they should just be friends like before.
And that’s when José Carlos lost his head. It’s like I told you: you can never
trust anybody or predict anything. He started going on about how much he was in
love with her and there wasn’t any reason for them to stop seeing each
other—he’d never had a relationship like that, he’d never fallen in love with a
woman like her or in that way, so intensely, he’d never experienced such
intimacy. Can you believe it, my dear? He was the one who said it was only about
friendship with sex thrown in, and now here he was, singing the same tune as
Julio Iglesias: he was willing to give up everything for her, he even suggested
the stupid idea that they go live in Boston together, the girls would get a
better education there. But she put her foot down, she told him in no uncertain
terms to cut the crap, there was nothing between them anymore, she had no
regrets, she’d had a great time in bed, and she was grateful for the pictures,
but he should get it into his head that their relationship was over, finished.
One thing was different, though, one way he wasn’t at all like Julio Iglesias,
and that was the way they each got over their heartbreak. You know what I mean?
José Carlos, maybe because he’s an artist, I don’t know, or whatever, he
couldn’t get over being in love with