For as long as I can remember, I have had a crush on Catalina Lovato.
She wasn’t the prettiest or most popular girl but wasn’t unattractive or unpopular either. She was a mousey bookish redhead with green eyes, her hair cut just under her shoulders. She kept to herself for the most part but was usually picked first for sports. Whenever anyone spoke to her, she gave them a smile so warm it could melt a popsicle and was always so kind and genuine. It was hard not to develop a thing for her.
I did talk with her a few times, but I knew it wasn’t the time yet. So I waited.
I never took my shot. I always thought we would make a good couple, but the universe had different plans. Little did I know those plans would bring horrors I wish I never saw into my life.
I met Audrey, who I married nearly two years after college. We worked in the same office building and quickly bonded over our love of sweets and coffee. We ended up talking in the mornings and evenings when she eventually asked me on a date, and the rest is history. I proposed we honeymooned in Japan and eventually bought a house in a great neighborhood. But not everything was perfect.
Audrey was a great person who even reminded me of Catalina a bit. She was soft-spoken and something of a nervous wreck, but in a cute way. So when I say this, I don’t think I didn’t love Audrey if I didn’t, we wouldn’t have started a family together. It just came down to one issue. She wasn’t interested in sex. This came from her childhood when her great-uncle abused her. I understood, and we decided to stay away from any intimacy as there is more to a relationship than sex.
We adopted our boys, Mike and Will, when they were five and did our best to be great parents. Audrey got a promotion at work, so I worked longer hours, meaning I spent more time with the kids after their after-school karate classes. All was good for about six years until Audrey, and I hit a rough patch in our relationship.
It started small with a few minor fights about household expenses and eventually grew to yelling matches whenever one of us did anything the other didn’t like. It was juvenile and what happened next was worse. I messaged Nate, an old friend who knew more about this kind of thing than me and gave me some of the worst advice in my life. He said it was probably stress from her job, and I should try and relieve that stress. I didn’t fully think it would work, but I gave it a try the next night by taking her to a massage parlor, but I didn’t read the website right, finding it was actually a couples parlor and extremely sexual in nature. I apologized profusely, but even I knew that hurt her, and that was the last thing I wanted.
The worst part was a part of me wanted her to like it. I don’t know why I did what I did next, but I went onto social media the following afternoon and messaged Catalina. We added each other years ago, along with most of our senior class but hadn’t spoken since graduation. The message I sent was innocent enough, being a simple “Hey.” I didn’t even expect her to respond. But just twenty minutes later, she responded with, “Hey, stranger.”
It was these words that would ruin everything.
That simple exchange started a nearly two-hour text chat of us just catching up when she offered to meet up at a coffee place in the mall once she found out we lived just ten minutes from each other. I agreed since the boys wouldn’t be back for another three hours.
God, she was even more beautiful than I’d remembered.
Time had been good to Catalina. That cute, youthful, bookish girl I’d fallen for so long ago had grown into a beautiful bookish woman. Her red hair seemed to shine in the sunlight, not to mention her black and purple dress with silver wolf earrings. She seemed to recognize me the moment I walked in and greeted me with a coy, almost-knowing smile.
“Hey, there, stranger. Long time no see.” Her voice was regal yet still held a sense of modesty.
“Hey” was the only thing I could manage to get out. I sat down across from her and tried to compose myself. She laughed and leaned in a little.
“Well, you look awfully flustered!”
“Sorry, does it show?” I asked sheepishly.
“A little.”
She crossed her legs under the table, and I could smell her strawberry perfume.
“It’s just… You look great.” I said.
“Thank you! You don’t look so bad yourself.”
I felt like I was in high school again. She asked if I wanted anything. I considered saying no but decided to get banana bread. At the same time, she ordered a red velvet cheesecake along with a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and sugar.
We began talking; most of it was some of the same old boring stuff we’d discussed online. She told me a little about how she started her own business selling memberships to a group that deals in fine dining experiences., I was gonna question if it was some kind of scam, but she just seemed so proud of it, so who was I to judge? She also mentioned how she collected occult items as a hobby, mostly for decoration around her house.
Eventually, we landed on the subject of marriage. She hadn’t gotten married and was focusing on her career. I told her about Audrey.
She just raised an eyebrow skeptically and gave me a look that was hard to read.
“Does your wife know you’re here right now?”
I said no and began spilling the beans on how our relationship was going through a rough patch. She just watched me, and I kept saying more and more, ultimately ending when I said everything was fine and she didn’t need to worry.
“If you say so.” She said, “And hey, since I’m being upfront here, you don’t mind me saying that it’s a little… Interesting, you reached out to me while things aren’t going so great at home.”
“Just trying to reignite some old friendships,” I said. Her wry smile grew wider.
“Old friendships…” She repeated in a playful tone, “My memory of high school is a little hazy, But I don’t remember us being particularly close friends. What I do remember is you trying not to stare at me during class and always trying to join my team during P.E.”
I caught myself flushing a little red, and she chuckled. She reassured me, saying she always found it kinda cute before calling over a server asking for another cheesecake.
My heart was thudding in my chest in a way that I hadn’t felt since the early days of my relationship with Audrey. I was suddenly that teenage boy all over again, trying not to stare at Catalina Lovato too hard.
I regret what I did next. Somehow, in my mind, I saw this as the chance I had missed twelve years ago. With all the courage I had, I leaned over the table and kissed Catalina. She pulled away after a few seconds with a smile on her face. Catalina said it would be best to wait until she could get her cheesecake.
With that, she stood up and looked back at me, inviting me to come along with her. She collected her cheesecake, getting it inside a small to-go box before taking me to her car.
Catalina’s house was a lot bigger than what I’d expected, being three stores, a little over 5,000 square feet, surrounded by a large gate, and it was made mostly out of brick. Stepping out of my car, I walked past her outdoor garden of exclusively strawberries and made it to her ebony double-wide front door. I barely even made it through the front door before noticing all the strange items in glass cases around the house. They were all in glass cases with an electronic locks. They ranged from jewelry from Egypt to skulls labeled as vampires to broken items like an axe head found in Russia.
One that caught my eye was a jade mask with flowers carved into it. On the display case was a label “Jade mask, Pachuca, Mexico.” From behind me, I heard the door shut.
Catalina put her purse down before noticing me staring at the mask. She smiled and said she got that one from a friend two years back. I then felt her toned arm wrap around my neck as she said, “It was made by a woman who wanted the man her sister married, and it is said Xochiquetzal, the god of lust, gave part of her jade horns to her to build this mask.”
Catalina then kissed me, and before I knew it, we were in her bedroom, both of our clothes on the floor as I cheated on Audrey. God, I hadn’t felt passion like that before in my life. It’s funny back in high school, I dreamed of losing my virginity to Catalina Lovato, and I did just a little later than I expected.
“How long have you been thinking about this Bunny?” She whispered to me as I was lying next to her. I responded with, “since freshman year.” I checked the time on her wall clock, seeing I had to be home to make dinner soon. But I couldn’t leave Catalina, yet my body had wanted this for so long that I stayed another hour. I knew deep down this would probably be my only chance to live out my fantasy, and I lived it like a rabbit in deep frenzied passion.
Leaving Catalina’s house, I couldn’t help but feel the guilt of what I’d just done weighing on me like a boulder. I made it home just before the kids came back from school, and in a quiet haze of guilt, I went through the motions of making dinner and entertaining the kids. Every time my mind wandered, it flashed back to what I’d done with Catalina. Vivid memories of her loud moans and the feeling of her legs wrapped around me filled my mind, turning me on and filling me with guilt at the same time. And all the while, I just kept trying to talk myself through it.
‘Plenty of guys cheat. You and Audrey aren’t even happy. You were probably going to get divorced in a few years once the boys are grown anyways. This was inevitable.’
All of the excuses I made sounded like just that, excuses. I could only be honest with her; that’s the only way I could treat her with the dignity she deserved.
Audrey got home at around ten that evening, dragging her feet and exhausted. Just the sight of her made the guilt in my chest all the worse. The kids were upstairs sleeping. I was in the kitchen, watching the clock and feeling every second drag past like it was counting down to my execution.
I didn’t know what to say. So I spoke from my heart, not sugarcoating what I did. At first, Audrey thought it was a joke that fell flat, but when she found out it was serious, she began tearing up. I knew her too well and instantly knew those were tears of anger. She didn’t say a word, just pointed at the door as she made her way up the stairs. I walked out that night, not wanting to hurt her any more than I already did.
I began living in motels for the next few weeks. Audrey hadn’t let what I did affect my job despite my coworkers looking down at me. I didn’t blame anyone; this was my fault entirely.
It was a Saturday evening I got the divorce papers. I didn’t defend myself in court. I was in the wrong. I did ask to still be in Mike and Will’s lives. She allowed that, knowing I truly cared for them.
Later that night, I got a text from Catalina.
“If you ever wanna talk, my door is always open, Bunny.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I knew I had to see her. I drove to her house and walked up to the front door, finding it unlocked. I stepped in, passing the mask’s case, and took a left, spotting Catalina.
She was waiting in her living room watching a murder mystery, drinking a steaming mug of hot chocolate with gummy bears in the whipped cream; in front of her was a small red velvet cake. She was dressed in a fiery red dress with cute little ruby earrings.
Her living room had all sorts of items mounted on its walls, from swords and axes to paintings and framed pages of some old book. I took a look and saw the pages were written in French but had pictures of stars and a crescent moon.
She smiled, seeing me, then patted the couch cushion next to her. I sat down and watched the movie with her.
“The maid is the killer.” Catalina proclaimed in a semi-dazed state. I questioned her, and she repeated herself. “The maid killed the grandfather; she lusted after him, and he didn’t feel the same way,” I asked how she knew, and she pointed to the screen when a murder took place; there was a silhouette of a person with a knife stabbing down. “Crimes done in passion tend to have the killer holding the blade wrong or reversed gripped.”
By the end of the film, she had been right; the maid was the killer. I called her out, saying she had watched this before, but she declined, saying, “I am an awful liar. You’ll be able to tell when I am, trust me.” She then got up and looked at me and said, “before the greatest pleasures first comes the greatest pains. I think you have suffered enough, my little Bunny. Do you want some pleasure?”
My first instinct was to say no, but I ended up saying yes I didn’t know what to do; I just wanted the pain to stop. Needless to say, we both slept on the couch.
In the morning, I saw she was baking danishes while she cooked pancakes, even chopping up strawberries to add on top of them. Next to her was a glass thing of dark maple syrup and two bags of candy.
I decided to hug her from behind, and she began petting my head. She asked if I wanted coffee or hot chocolate, and to my surprise, I felt like hot chocolate would be better for me.
Two months passed when I wasn’t dealing with the divorce; I was with Catalina eating sweets or homemade meals and watching murder mysteries. On the weekends, we would play video games and go out bowling. I was happy. Fourteen-year-old me would be proud.
Then things took a turn for the worse.
The last time I saw Audrey was during a meeting with our lawyers. She seemed fine. I offered for her to keep the house so the boys would have it later in life. She seemed to like that and agreed, even cracking a small smile.
Looking back at that last moment, when the news that she’d taken her own life came a few weeks later, it should have been more surprising. And yet I felt like I knew this was coming days before she hung herself.
Mike and Will weren’t at school that day as they were at their friend’s house. But they weren’t found, only a note in Will’s handwriting. I drove over to the police station, and they reluctantly let me read it.
It read
“Dad, you failed me, you failed Mike, and you failed mom. I hope your happy sleeping with some slut. I hate you, and Mike hates you. Burn in hell.”
When I made it back to Catalina’s house, I could hear her singing I don’t want to set the world on fire in the kitchen. She didn’t seem to hear me coming in, and she didn’t even seem to notice me until I actually wandered into the kitchen with her.
She was half naked, wearing only underwear, an apron, and a pair of extra fluffy panda socks. Her back was to me when I walked in, and looking at her, the only thing I felt was a mild pang of impassive frustration at the fact that she was dressed like that when the last thing on my mind was sex. She turned to look at me, cracking a warm smile as she looked at me.
“Hey there, stranger.” She said, “Long day, huh?”
I only nodded, but that didn’t stop her smile as she wrapped her arms around me.
“It’s ok; it’s a lover’s job to make their special one feel better. Maybe dinner will fill your tummy, and after, you can have a sweet treat.” She said with a wink.
I wasn’t exactly hungry, but I let her take me to the table and sit me down anyways. Once I was seated, she lit two scented candles making the air smell of pumpkin.
I asked what she made and got my answer after a second of thought from Catalina.
“Oh, one of my favorites. I actually learned this recipe from one of the restaurants my fine dining club works with. It’s called ‘Lovers Point. Very upscale and very exclusive!”
I asked if she enjoyed it as she mostly eats sweets.
“Oh, it’s fantastic. There’s really nowhere quite like it, and the recipes are amazing! Although it’s the quality of the meat that really makes it special. They actually have an in-house process to rear their own meat. I really love their stuff!”
She stepped out of the kitchen, carrying a platter with what looked like an admittedly tasty pork loin on it.
“Brown sugar and honey glazed pork loin with lemon juice. Sure to lift your spirits after the day you’ve had Bunny.” She said as she set the platter down in front of me. She made a couple more trips, bringing in two glasses of wine mixed with cranberry juice, a bowl of mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts glazed with black garlic, bread rolls, a large salad, and six large vanilla cupcakes with big marshmallows shaped like pandas on them.
“Dig in, Bunny; today is a feast just for you and me.” She said, flashing her pearly whites. I did as she asked, spooning meat and potatoes onto my plate. The first few bites were delicious, somewhat soothing my nerves.
“How’s it taste?” She asked, “Feeling any better?”
“It’s good.” I said before looking over at her, “Hey, I do appreciate you cheering me up.” I said before taking the wine from her and taking a sip. It tasted like a sweet rosé, although there was a certain bitterness underneath it all.
“Well, I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now.” She said, “But really, we should be celebrating. No more divorce to worry about, right?”
I looked at her, and I spoke.
“Of course, I’m not glad she’s dead!” I said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oh, come on.” She said, “Don’t be so angry. She’s not even your wife anymore.”
“Maybe she isn’t, but I still loved her! Not to mention my kids.”
She just laughed.
Catalina’s knowing smile grew, and her eyes darted down to the few morsels of pork roast still on my plate.
“Yeah, I know you loved your kids. Look how much you ate.” She took another bite of the pork.
I just stared at her.
“What did you just say to me?” I asked quietly. Her eyes locked with mine, and she giggled like a child.
“Oops… said too much?”
I looked down at the pork roast, then back at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry… this was my first time doing something like this, and I put so much work into it.”
I asked what she meant, as I got a sick feeling in my stomach. My mind was suddenly filled with questions, and yet I couldn’t voice a single one of them. They all struggled to get out at once. But before I could form a coherent question, Catalina spoke again.
“It’s ok, Bunny; it was all my fault. I just wasn’t ready for kids yet.”
“What did you do!” I stammered, but Catalina held up a finger to her lips, and my mouth shut like a dog who was told to yield.
She began eating a cupcake leaving me to my thoughts as I slowly pieced it together; then, like clockwork, my mouth opened, and I spoke.
“You. No. No, you didn’t. You didn’t. You’re lying!” That was all I could scamper out.
“I’ve done a lot of things in my life, Bunny. But I told you I’m a really bad liar.”
My attention returned to the large half-eaten pork roast, and the sick feeling in my stomach grew more intense.
“As I said, I don’t lie.” She said, “Technically, they call that long pork, specifically.” She chuckled, “And it’s true. One of the restaurants I work with does actually use this recipe, and I do really adore it. I mean, I think you just tasted for yourself why.”
I stared at her shaking in my chair, my legs asleep and my heart pounding as she continued.
“You really should have paid more attention in science class. Pigs and humans have very similar skin and meat, but I disagree with the second part. I hate pork, but I do love some fresh third-grader.” She took another bite and swirled some of the sugar around her tongue.
I managed to stand up only to sit back down as my body went against my wishes.
“Oh, I forgot to mention you can’t harm or leave me. That mask over there refuses to let that happen,” Catalina said with a warm smile.
I asked if I was going to die too, which made her laugh.
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you, Bunny. I did this because I love you. Let’s stay together for a long time. Trust me, you and I are perfect for each other.”
She stood up before continuing.
“It’s a shame we got together so late in life. The timing is just awful but don’t worry, no matter what, you will always be my number one Bunny.”
Catalina then walked over to the jade mask’s case, entered the code and opened it, and placed it on her face. Instantly my eyes began to grow heavy, and I felt drool run down my face.
“Now rest up, Bunny.” She said softly, her eyes turning a bright, almost glowing blue. “You’ll need your strength.”
When I awoke, My genitals felt like it was burning. My mind was hazy with only one thought breed. Catalina was sitting on a stone table in a featureless gray room, wearing nothing but the mask. She was taller now, nearly double her original height, had green hair that seemed to dance, and seemed more beautiful than anything I had ever seen. I was on top of her in my haze for what felt like ages until another man appeared seemingly out of thin air and joined in. Not too long later, another appeared, and I instantly recognized him as Nate, but I couldn’t say a word, only continued the act. More and more men appeared all in the same haze, their eyes glowing a light blue.
I don’t know how much time passed, but I eventually got out of the haze and awoke outside on the street in the nude. I was covered in cuts and burns. I am currently writing this on an old newspaper with a piece of charcoal. I don’t know what I experienced, but I fear ever returning to Catalina, even if every fiber of my being wants to. I’ll leave this note to someone who I hope I can trust to spread it around.
I pray whoever I give this to takes it seriously. I know I will return to her soon; she can’t live long without her Bunny.