Carioca Sunrise

Chapter One: Where Angels Fear to Tread

“You like it!” Martin Hass shouted from a gaudy hotel bathroom, calling out to the two girls laying supinely on a disorderly bed outside. The television blared offensively bright flashing light across the room, disturbing the purple lightning that he himself had set. Lines of fine white powder adorned every surface, and the steam from the open shower had gone as far as to fog up the exterior windows. The room’s top-of-range air conditioning unit ticked over quietly as it tried to compete with stifling humidity. A consequence of Hass’s antics, that now infested the poorly constructed neo-classical architecture of the temporary dormitory. German techno blasted its high decibel soundwaves across the room. The two girls writhed around on the bed giggling at their own jokes. He raised his phone to capture their ever changing forms, proudly displaying them for his sickening online collection of parasocial vampires. Lurkers who followed his feed, and hid behind a litany of bizarre usernames. To these hunched creatures, the exhibition of Hass’s predations gave life to their seedy corrupted minds. Their viewing, all in the pursuit of short lived hits of screen derived dopamine.

Hass called out to his female companions. “It’s the best stuff from Hamburg, you know the city I’m from! I can bring you there, maybe get you a new life you know. We can live as a three! My parents have space, did I tell you girls I’m fucking rich!” he yelled, half aimed at them, and half aimed at his own live feed. He waved at his observers as he closed his phone. He stepped cautiously into the shower unit, and let the boiling water wash over his bony sunburnt body. He winced as the water’s liquid molecules pittered and pattered onto his radiation damaged skin. His veins popped to the surface, leaving stringy blue lines across his unimpressive form. He slid his soft overprivileged hands into a layer of spikey blonde hair. Red fingertips brushed against a scalp of pearl white skin, blissfully undamaged by the sun’s rays. A bald patch had begun to develop, and he grimaced as he traced its extent. It was a fate which he had not yet learned to embrace. Fuel for the fire of inadequacy that he constantly felt afflict his soul. Resigned to his fate, he bent over and picked up a dull grey bottle of shower gel. The container’s harsh German script seemed out of place among his tropical surroundings. It was a statement that could have summed up the entirety of his brief existence, in this exotic Sodom. Not that he was aware of it, for now all he sought was to grant his thirst addled followers a window into a life they had no chance of obtaining.

Hass danced alone to the permeating beats of pounding techno. The beats wafted through a cloud of muggy dew, that had collected in the room’s stifling air. His body quickly became enmeshed in a thick white foam. Wanting to enjoy the delights of the flesh, he summoned his trophies of neo-colonial excess. “Isabella! Anna! Get in here!” His words echoing slightly against the fake marble wall tiles. Their syllables dripped with desperation for hallow approval. Anything to believe their desire to be around him, was for their own erotic fulfilment rather than their desire to acquire his riches. At the same time these women, for him represented the most visible symbols of his rejection of his dying youth. A rebellion against a life that had brought him nothing. For three years he had been stuck in dreary lecture halls. That had been followed by five years glued to a screen on some bland streetside office in Hamburg. Each day he had enjoyed the life of a German corporate drone, the only thing that was missing was a serial number. The depression laced morning cigarette, under a graffiti scarred bus shelter had been his only respite from the ordinariness of his existence. A year ago he had opted for change, started vlogging and entered into the lifestyle of the travel blogger. Instead of promotion, he now craved attention and social media stardom. These girls, this city and the followers who begged at his feet would bring him all that and more. Of that he was certain.

Ana and Isabella answered his call lackadaisically. Their apathy to his existence was concealed, by the watery haze clouding the bathroom’s interior. Their eyes were glazed over and absent. Their fragile fingertips were adorned with baby pink nail polish, that sparkled in the bathroom light. They brushed their hands over each other’s supple backs as they waited for Hass to open the shower door. Hass quickly invited them in. Isabella slid under the showerhead first, coquettishly slithering her slight frame into Hass’s damp lair. Her dyed blonde hair frizzed outwards as she settled into the shower’s constrained edifice. Ana followed in Isabella’s wake, her ebony locks flowed down to her waist. Isabella’s luscious pili bonded damply with her naturally bronzed skin, forcing her hair to cling to her back. Steam rose from the unit’s turquoise fibreglass floor, covering its occupants in heated water vapour. Martin couldn’t help but stare in fascination as they moved seductively around him. He was wrapped within a web of hedonistic awe that had stripped him of his senses. To him these women were mysterious angels. In his ecstasy, he stood blissfully unaware of the dangers that might lurk behind their exquisite lips.

The city had cast a spell over Hass. His arrival in Rio was the terminal point of a denial of his mediocre fate, which had followed him from country to country for a year. A place to really live loose and live well. The transformation he would undergo here would be painful, of that he was sure. But it would be worth it. His cocaine tinged bloodstream urged him to go to greater extremes of pleasure, as he became inebriated by the shower’s intimate atmosphere. "I imagine you’re happy with your new tour guides no?” Ana said softly, running a tattooed hand over his acne scarred right shoulder. “Imagine if you’d have met up with your friend at the airport instead of us.” Isabella cackled, joining in on Ana’s sensual whispers. “You wouldn’t have been in a shower with him, unless that’s what you’re into.” Isabella seconded, winking at him through a dense layer of running mascara that left an obsidian trail down her cheek. Both girls descended back into a fit of shared giggles. “Let’s just say I’m more than happy with the outcome.” He sniggered in a dense German accent, his Portuguese far from fluent. “So you’ll take me with you tonight? To Red Bull’s party? It sounds like fun.” He said engaging in their chorus of incomprehensible murmurs and titters. “Afterall girls anyone can film poverty, I’m interested in the darker stuff. You want to be on my first video to break a million don’t you!” he said cheerfully, and they laughed in response. He stared into the shallow bright green contact lenses that sat over Isabella’s jet black irises. He waited for a response indicating her true intentions towards him. In that regard she was forthcoming, and shot him a glance brimming with explicit promise. “You want to be a big bad foreigner? To come and teach us your music, stare into our lives and feel alive? Because that’s where you’re asking us to take you.” She whispered, coming close into his spiney neck, and planting duplicitous kisses onto his sodden skin. “You’ll feel more alive than you’ve ever felt Martin. It’s better even than what we’re doing right now.” Ana said as she moved her hand across his chest, whooping a drug fuelled screech of ecstasy as she finished her words. She jumped into the air, her dainty feet slapping against the thin layer of water that had collected at the base of the shower.

Ana danced as she steadied herself. She rubbed her small thigh against his leg, and as she did so he became fixated on the muscles in her back. He watched them move up and down. They flexed and twisted. Ana’s skinny frame left little to the imagination as to what was underneath, and bones rubbed together disturbingly. What attracted his attention the most, in this macabre show of skeletal agility was a vast tattoo that stretched across her back. A solidly drawn bull’s head faced him. The intimidating display was completed with an ugly snout in the centre, which supported a rigid nose ring surrounded by filthy grey smoke, which rose towards Ana’s scapula. A pair of wild bovine eyes appeared to have been branded into her caramel tinted skin. Whoever produced such a realistic burned skin texture in ink alone should be applauded, Hass thought. The skin around the bull’s striking eyes had been rendered tight and scaly, whilst dark carmine lines formed its ocular region. An impressive piece, yet it left him wondering how much it must have cost. “Your tattoo doesn’t look cheap baby.” He said, whispering into her ear. “It cost me everything.” She said, elongating her words whilst flicking her tongue at him seductively. She continued to brush up against him. He closed his eyes and allowed the waves of pleasure to run over him. At the moment their dalliance approached its conclusion, the trio found themselves interrupted by a loud banging at the door. “Shit” he exclaimed in German, and pulled away from Ana. “Damn it!” he reiterated. “Relax girls, it’ll just be security again.” He said quietly, not wanting to ruin the moment. “Tell them to go away, we’ve got another hour before we need to leave. If you still want to see our dark side that is.” Ana said, winking at him again. He opened the shower door, producing whining pleas from his would-be concubines. He grinned with self-satisfaction as he heard their false evocations of desire filled cries.

Hass jumped out of the shower, and hastily wrapped himself in a white Egyptian cotton towel. He shuffled to the door, his wet feet making footprints on the bedroom’s marble tile. He looked through the gold ringed peephole towards the top of the bluey-green door reluctantly. Through the miniscule window, he saw a familiar face. His blue eyes widened as the strong narcotics took effect. Hass opened the door slowly, with a mixture of surprise and reticence. He declined to open it fully, and instead leant outwards. “Freddy, what are you doing here!” Hass asked loudly. “Martin, it’s good to see you. Can I come in, I was worried about you, and you haven’t paid me yet.” Freddy replied bluntly, refusing to join in Martin’s cheer. The door creaked as Hass reluctantly pulled the handle towards himself. Freddy unknowingly stepped into the debauched world Hass had built inside his abode. The humidity immediately pressed in on Freddy. “I thought you’d have forgotten about me by now, I mean I wasn’t at the airport, and I know I should have called or something. But things have been going so well! I met these two angels, absolute angels. I think you’ll like them.” Hass said nervously. “How could I have forgotten about you Marty, you were supposed to pay me quite a lot of money for my tour. Then you just vanish. I even had a little card made up for me so you could find me in the lobby!” Freddy shouted, attempting to feign a humorous demeanour to mask his intense displeasure with Martin.

Hass, not thinking clearly in his current state had forgotten his state of undress and went to hug Freddy. His use of stimulants making him incapable of anything but direct expressions of emotion, Freddy’s disgruntled subtext passed by him, unable to penetrate Hass’s mental malaise. Martin stretched out his arms, but Freddy waved him away. Hass laughed, seeing the man back away. “Since when was nudity a big deal? You must have hung around in swimming pools back home in the summer, you know everyone just chilling in the sun. No inhibitions.” Hass said mockingly. “You’re not in Germany anymore Marty, are you going to pay up or not? None of my business is cheap, you said you couldn’t pay in advance or even the deposit. I said fine, I’m sure we can sort something out. Then you don’t even turn up. I mean come on! That’s not fair.” Freddy said loudly, the mask of faux familiarity beginning to slip. Hass still hadn’t clocked on to the newcomer’s distaste towards him, and replied in a rather nonchalant manner. “I booked your service when I thought I wanted to film out in the slums, get some content whatever. But that’s not necessary anymore, I’ve found new tour guides. They’ve even given me a better route to stardom! When you see them I’m sure you’ll agree my success is basically guaranteed!” Hass shouted, letting his towel drop to the floor. Revealing everything. Freddy anxiously followed his should-be client, anxiously stalking him as he was unwittingly pulled into Rio’s underbelly. “I don’t really care about this seedy business you’re talking about. I run a company, it needs to make money, I take tourists into the slums, and they pay for it. Sound familiar? It’s called a real business, I doubt you’d behave like this back in Hamburg!” Freddy replied his speech becoming louder as he attempted to get Hass’s clearly divided attention.

Hass turned around to face his pursuer. “Not a real business? I’m talking about pornography! Look, I’ll show you my follower count. Ever since I met Ana and Isabella at the airport, my numbers have skyrocketed. You could be in on it man! It could be my way to pay you back. A solution to suit all of us!” Hass said emphatically, grabbing Freddy by the arms tightly. Freddy was visibly confused and struggled to answer. “I thought you were a vlogger man, just filming your walks and things. This is way out of my league. And I don’t know how you think that’ll pay my bills.” He said stuttering in shock. “Bah, vlogging! Who isn’t vlogging these days. No, porno it’s much better for the likes. Look you can film it and I’ll pay you when it starts paying.” Hass said, practically jumping up and down at this point. Freddy cautiously came further into the room. He found the hard techno rhythms of his hometown irresistible, and fought hard to remain angry at Hass. The soundwaves pulsed outwards excreting their way into Freddy’s ears. But that was nothing compared to Freddy’s visceral reaction upon becoming aware of the room around him, his eyes widened as he looked to the bed. Witnessed the various adult objects littered around the room, and the video camera hastily put up opposite the bed. For Freddy, the anger was melting away into lust. Maybe Hass’s proposal wasn’t so bad afterall. He salivated in ugly anticipation, a sleazy smirk growing across his eager maw.

From the steamy cloud cover of the bathroom door came Ana and Isabella, their wet toes treading over the tiny puddles that littered the floor. Their tight curvaceous forms moved slowly towards Freddy. “Who’s this?” Ana said curiously “I hope he’s not a buzzkill like the maid from this morning” Isabella said sinisterly. “This is Freddy, he’ll be joining us tonight.” Hass said, his tone was unmistakably malicious. “Come here, I’ll show you the content from today. We’ll put it up on my private site.” Hass said gleefully, whilst Freddy twitched with anticipation. Ana walked up to Freddy and began undressing him, as the day’s images flashed before his eyes on Hass’s camcorder. He gasped, and she placed a finger against his lips and shushed him. He stood helplessly bewitched by her body and her dark seductive eyes. Then Isabella turned her back to him, whilst Ana walked around him daintily. Freddy’s face turned a deathly white. His cadence was transformed, as his eyes locked with the tattooed bull on Isabella’s back. “Freddy come on man it’s just a girl, what you never seen a goddess undress before.” Hass said, as he came behind Ana and stroked her hair. Freddy turned to Hass, his face filled with genuine concern his words laced with anxiety. He spoke in hushed German. “Martin, forget the money. Go back to Hamburg. Return to you job. Be safe.” With that, Freddy spun around without saying another word and left shutting the door on the way out. He looked back once, to see Ana facing him. Her eyes no longer glazed and detached, but sharp and vicious. She placed a finger to her lips, locked eyes with him and shut the door with a thud.

Hass’s stimulant addled ears refused to hear a refutation of the wonderment of his situation. There was but a mere sense that something might be going wrong. A dull primal call of danger, a dormant survival instinct that he tried to cancel out. The hairs on his arms stood erect, and on some subliminal level Freddy’s words had drifted into his mind. He could simply not accept their implications. Yet it was enough to get him thinking. Could this all be a mistake? Should he have joined up with Freddy when he had the chance? Who could say, all Hass knew was that he was having the time of his life. If he died tomorrow at least he could say he had lived. The festering preoccupation that lingered in his belly was not loud enough to drown out the euphoria burning within him. Even if foul intentions lurked in Ana and Isabella’s hearts, he was sure it would make for an excellent story at least. “You should get dressed baby, it’s nearly eight. And we need to get you into the party. It’s not so simple meeting the big boys, and I assure you there’s plenty of them to meet.” Isabella said, laughing as she kissed Ana gently. “Ok, ok. I’ll get dressed then I want to take some photos first, out on the balcony? With the moon in the background, people will love it. I’ll put it on the video, it could be the intro to our little film!” he said excitedly smirking a ruinous smile. The increasing intensity of his physical manifestations of desire, responses to a mind that was fighting hard to supress an evolving instinct to run. “How do you want us dressed baby, we don’t want to let you down.” Isabella said, stroking Hass’s back running her hands quietly up his spine. “Nothing special just surprise me. I’ll go wait on the balcony. I’m just throwing on a shirt. And I’ll take my backpack. Also, I wouldn’t mind buying some drugs if you know the guys up there!” he said cheerfully. It couldn’t hurt to buy straight from the source, he thought. He could only imagine the purity that their friends could supply him with.

Hass stood in front of the steamed up mirror, and wiped a whole in its murk. He watched himself button up his chosen garment for the evening. A bright yellow shirt crossed with orange turtles. He accompanied this with a pair of tight white denim shorts, and applied various tacky accessories. The spoils of a day already spent in the slumland world he so craved to know better. The crowning item in his wardrobe could now be applied, a front slung man bag covered in Marijuana themed livery. To many such an item would be the source of abyssal embarrassment. To Hass though, it was a joyous symbol of a late rebellious streak. A defining item indicating his separation from his old life and the office cubicles which had tormented him so. He picked up a bucket hat of an equal theme and placed it on his head. The look was now complete, and he could stride triumphantly out to the balcony. He looked outwards onto the beach. He watched the scenes of normality play out in front of him, the ‘standard’ tourists wading into the sea before them. So pedestrian, so mediocre he thought. He unzipped his bag, and withdrew a spliff. He put it to his mouth and puffed away, inhaling its THC enriched fumes. The perfect start to an evening among the degenerate masses of Rio’s slumland, and the perfect end to a day spent cavorting freely with two gorgeous women. He looked towards the immensity of the rising moon as it hung above an endless sea. It’s lunar splendour hung silently above a row of palm trees. Expansive laminas dangled downwards creating the famous palm silhouette. It all made Hass think. He never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would be stood here, staring across equatorial tides, and casting his eyes amidst a meridional firmament. A tapestry was being weaved for him from the strings of fate themselves. It was something he could feel with every fibre of his being.

Hass heard the door swoosh open, and turned around to see the girls trotting out to meet him. Both wore frayed shorts that rode up to their thighs, combined with stringy lace vests in pink and fluorescent violet respectively. The street wear typical of society within the lower rungs of the Brazilian economic system. Their make up was loud and garish, comprising of an over application of blusher, with bright red lipstick that made no attempt to synergise with their dark complexions. Maybe he’d stay in Rio he thought, become the most famous pornographer the city had ever seen. Enjoy its riches every day, live in its life and die a rich hedonist. His silent thoughts were disrupted by Isabella. “You still want those photos baby?” she said, in a sweet tone of mock innocence. “Yes” he said stammering slightly. “If I could get you to stand with your back to the moon then that would be perfect. Just for a first shot, and maybe if Ana could come across and kiss you. Then I think we’ve got the start to an excellent photoset.” He said attempting to come across authoritative but barely making it past the first sentence. “So if we do all this for you, what will you do for us. I mean we took you into the slum like you asked, we fucked all day and now we’re going to a bloc party with you.” Isabella said, slight irritation noticeable in her voice. Ana shot her a look as if to shut her up, but Hass didn’t catch it in time. Maybe he didn’t want to see it. The question took him aback he had to admit. All the time he had spent in their company had led him to believe their interest in him was genuine. He’d offered them the profits from their films had he not? Was that not enough? He thought back to Freddy’s words, maybe a journey into the depths of slumland was not the best idea afterall. “She’s only joking baby, we trust you, you’ll make us stars.” Ana said and winked at him. All he needed was another line of coke, and it would all fall back into place he thought to himself. Afterall who wouldn’t want him? A handsome foreigner, who dresses rich? What a stupid question that was, he thought. “Okay girls, let me just get a line off you and we can take a few more snaps.” He requested.

Ana reached into her bag. Hass’s fingers twitched expectantly, as he waited to be offered another line of cocaine. His disappointment was immeasurable when she instead produced a vibrating flip phone. She answered the call “Hey, we’re just leaving. Yeah the German guy’s coming! Daddy says it’s cool, you coming soon? Ok, bye.” She put her phone away. Hess looked up at her and smiled his lopsided perverted grin, but something unperceivable hung in the air. Waiting to swallow Hess up. “All good?” he said expectantly, his tongue practically hanging out at the plethora of delights surely to come from their voyage into slumland. “Of course baby.” She said nonchalantly, and went back to posing for him flashing her colourful braces in the moonlight. The trio took the elevator to the ground floor. They cavorted within the rich baroque decorations of its interior, until the lift landed with a thump. The brass doors opened onto the lobby which bustled with activity. Scandalised looks greeted them, as their attire caused well to do patrons to clasp their luxury European branded bags tightly. Dressed as their were in the uniform of the criminal and the destitute. A blonde woman clad in a tight black suit and skirt combination, marched towards him. Her high heels clipped and clopped against the polished marble floor. She attempted to prevent his exit from the building, her face distorted into one of fury and disgrace. “Mr. Hass, stop there please.” The woman said through a French accent that exuded Mediterranean excess. Ana cackled at her, and threw up a violent middle finger whilst Isabella pushed her away aggressively. Martin refused to make eye contact with her and before she could act against them, the hotel’s doors swooshed open. Hass walked out into the Rio night and left the security of his hotel behind.