Act One - City of the Damned — Chapter 3

David Martín arrives at El Ensueño on Calle Nou de la Rambla, climbing to a velvet-draped salon where a white-haired hostess receives him with unusual deference. Left waiting with champagne amid hushed music and opulent decor, David grows anxious until a young girl with a false hand silently leads him to a locked, darkened room.

Inside, David discovers a chamber that perfectly mirrors the bedroom he invented for his serial’s femme fatale, Chloé. Through a screen, a pale, stylized woman appears—Chloé made flesh—moving with calculated grace and commanding the encounter. David, overwhelmed and inexperienced, follows her guidance as she undresses him, then asks him to undress her slowly.

They make love with Chloé directing and reassuring David, transforming his clumsiness into intimacy. For an hour, he loses himself in her presence, memorizing her body and surrendering to the fantasy he once authored. Exhausted, he falls asleep with his head on her breast.

When David wakes, Chloé is gone. In his hand he finds a card bearing an angel emblem and the name Andreas Corelli, with a handwritten note inviting contact when David is ready to fulfill his expectations. The door now unlocked, David returns to the empty salon and descends to the street as the building seems to darken behind him.

Crossing the misty Ramblas, David feels Chloé’s perfume fade and wonders whether Cristina Sagnier’s lips might taste the same, signaling his conflicted desires and the lingering spell of the night—and of Corelli’s invitation.