Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig Read Free Book Online

thinking about one you liked a lot, and meanwhile I’ll think about what I have to think about, it’s a deal?
    —Don’t lose that thread.
    —Right.
    —But if you drop the ball of yarn, I’ll give you zero in housekeeping, Miss Valentina.
    —You just don’t worry yourself about me.
    —All right, I won’t meddle anymore.
    —And don’t call me Valentina, I’m no woman.
    —How can I tell?
    —Sorry, Molina, but I don’t give demonstrations.
    —Don’t worry, I’m not asking for any.
    —Good night, have a good sleep.
    —Night, you too.
    —I’m listening.
    —Well, as I was telling you yesterday, I don’t remember this last part so well. That very night the husband calls her psychiatrist to get him to come to the house. They’re there waiting for her, for Irena, who hasn’t arrived yet.
    —At whose house?
    —The architect’s. But then the assistant calls up the architect to get him to go to the women’s hotel and from there to the police station, because the incident in the pool just happened, so the architect leaves the psychiatrist by himself for just a little while, no more, and, zap! Irena comes home, and finds herself face to face with the psychiatrist. It’s nighttime, obviously; the room’s lit with only a table lamp. The psychiatrist, who’s been reading, takes off his glasses, looks at her. Irena feels that same mixture of repulsion and desire for him, because he’s good-looking, like I told you, a sexy guy. And here something strange happens. She throws herself into his arms, because she feels so abandoned, nobody wants her, her husband’s forsaken her. And the psychiatrist interprets this as a sign that she’s interested in him sexually, and to top it off he thinks if he kisses her and even manages to go all the way, he’ll be able to rid her of those strange ideas about being a panther woman. And he kisses her, and they press up against each other, embracing and kissing, until all of a sudden she . . . she kind of slips out of his arms, looking at him through half-closed eyes, green eyes glittering with something like desire and hatred at the same time. And she breaks away from him and goes to the other end of that room filled with lovely turn-of-the-century furniture, all beautiful velvet armchairs and tables with crochet doilies on them. But she goes into that corner because the light from the table lamp doesn’t reach there. And she drops down to the floor, and the psychiatrist tries to defend himself, but it’s too late, because now over in that dark corner everything turns blurry for an instant, and before you know it she’s transformed into a panther, and he just manages to grab the poker from the fireplace to defend himself, but the panther’s already pounced on him, and he tries to strike with the poker, but she’s already ripped his throat open with her claws and the man’s already fallen to the floor with his blood gushing out. The panther snarls and bares a set of perfect white fangs and sinks her claws in again, this time into his face, to tear it to pieces, those cheeks and mouth she’d kissed a few moments ago. By then the assistant’s already with Irena’s husband who’d gone to meet her at the hotel and there at the front desk they try to call the psychiatrist to warn him he’s in danger, because now there’s no way around it, it’s not just Irena’s imagination, she really is a panther woman.
    —No, she’s a psychopathic killer.
    —Okay, but the telephone rings and rings and no one answers; the psychiatrist is lying dead, all his blood drained. Then the husband, the assistant and the police who’d already been called to the house, climb the stairs slowly, find the door open and inside the guy’s dead. Irena, she’s not there.
    —And then?
    —The husband knows where to find her, it’s the only place she’d go, and even though it’s midnight already, they go over to the park . . . more specifically, to the zoo. Oh, but I forgot to tell you