The skin on its face was as mottled and destroyed as I’d seen on its limbs; webs of damaged tissue ran along the cheeks, forehead, jaw like hot wax had been poured there. Where the nose should’ve been were two sunken slits like the holes in a skull on display in a science classroom. Its long hair was plaited in a strangely elegant braid that rested on one shoulder; I couldn’t tell the color, the candles gave the whole room an alien orange glow, turning everything into a smoldering sort of amber. The tops of its breasts swelled above the murky water in twisted mimicry of a pin-up girl posing in a bubble bath. I was struck by its contradiction, a thing of both revulsion and raw sensuality.

Then it smiled at me.