The Devil You Don’t

Marisol carefully washed herself in the basin. She used the perfumed soap Olán had given her for her birthday. The lavender scent was strong, but did little to mask the  odor of the businessman’s cologne that seemed to hang about her room.

She went to the dresser and counted the money for a third time. She did not like to touch it.

She wished Olán would come home so she could be shut of it.

Perhaps when he returned he would have good news, maybe even a job. He told her every day that he would find work soon, that their fortunes would turn around. That she could stop with these visits from the businessman.

“It is not a choice we make willingly,” he often said. He was careful to always say “we.”

He liked to say that their necessity would negate the sin of all this, that God would understand.