The Pink Agave Motel by V. Castro

I don’t normally like short story collections, mainly because dislike disjointed narratives, although if the short stories are interconnected, that keeps my interest because I like seeing a main character in one story being part of the background in another. Two books that come to mind are When In Florence by Richard Cortez Day (and the subject of a previous blog post) and Betrayals by Charles Palliser, in which both books feature short tales that interweave back and forth with others. I hadn’t thought I’d ever find another such book, but V. Castro’s The Pink Agave Motel is one. And how!

The title story actually starts up in the middle of the book, which was a bit unsettling but once I got used to this world of vampires, werewolves, witches, mermaids, zombies, and regular mortals, not to mention the vast amounts of blood, gore, and copious amounts of sex, I found myself greatly enjoying the ride. Hunger is the primary theme in each story. Whether it’s hunger for blood, hunger for killing, hunger for fucking, the humans and monsters who inhabit these pages are sexy, weird and disturbing, all at the same time. It also has one of the best lines I’ve read in a book, which is in the short story Full Nude and goes like: “Kiss me like you love me and fuck me like you hate me.” Man, that is a killer line!

The title story features a creature named Valentina, an ancient blood drinker from the days of the ancient Aztecs who runs the Pink Agave Motel as a place for other immortal creatures like her to indulge their appetites for sex and death with human victims who want to experience sex and death with otherworldly creatures. Valentina is confronted by a human male named Sean who is searching for his best friend Craig, who checked into the Pink Agave Motel a few weeks ago and was never seen again. Little does Sean know that Craig was killed and eaten by Monique, one of the Motel’s resident monsters. Whoops!

Valentina becomes obsessed with Sean and gradually draws him into her world of sex, blood, violence and beauty. He resists her, not because she is a vampire and a killer but because he is controlling a darker side of himself and he senses this same darkness and violence and sexuality in Valentina. Their back-and-forth is extremely sexy. Valentina’s backstory is also gradually revealed, along with the stories of the other monster denizens of the Motel, with many of them being immortal creatures found in Mexican folklore and legends.

Castro wonderfully incorporates elements of Mexican and South American culture into the stories, but one of the aspects of this book that I loved so much was the music scattered through the stories. I mean, some of my absolute favorite songs are referred to as background music when many of the characters are feasting, fighting or fucking. Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears. In Your Room by Depeche Mode. Love Bites by Def Leppard. Save a Prayer by Duran Duran. Flesh for Fantasy by Billy Idol. Cocaine by Eric Clapton. Clearly, Castro grew up in the same era as me and was influenced by much of the same music.

This is a very visceral book. The sex is extremely explicit and very steamy. The violence and gore are also extremely explicit and certainly not for the weak-stomached or faint-hearted. But they exist as two opposite sides of the same coin in the world that exists in these pages, and I think anyone who truly has experienced intense physical passion is also capable of experiencing intense physical violence, simply because to feel that level of intensity can translate into many actions, not all necessarily good. I suppose that is what differentiates monsters from humans.

Being that the majority of these monsters are just that, they don’t have the same appetite for food as we mere mortals do. However, the character of The Baker, whose bakery Dark Delights, is where sweet treats are made from flesh, organs, and bones of the victims of the Pink Agave Motel, is very close to my heart because of the fact that she loves to bake and cook and has learned to live below the radar so that the mortals in the world do not know she is a vampire. I mean, a baker who makes delectable, albeit fleshy desserts such as tres leches cakes, delectably described in the passage below, is a goddess in my opinion.

Tres Leches. a cake traditionally made from three milks. Evaporated, condensed, and heavy cream. The recipe they use is slightly different as they make mine with the milk from the veins of lovers, the ones who taste the best. Only high quality will do. The bakers there are also in the delicious business of body disposal. Perfectly good flesh should never go to waste. One bite of their Tres Leches will leave your chin and lips a syrupy red mess as the sponge macerates in your mouth. The cake has sexual fluid’s bitterness from the victim’s arousal as they bled, and the copper tang rushing down your throat is a riptide of ecstasy. Wild with greed, you will be compelled to finish your portion then ask for more.

INGREDIENTS
9 eggs separated
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced lengthwise

METHOD
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 x 13 inch pan and line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.

Pour the egg whites into the bowl of your mixer and beat on medium-high speed for 4 to 5 minutes, or until they hold soft peaks.

Slowly stir in the sugar and continue beating until they hold hard or more stiff peaks, then empty into a large mixing bow.

Rinse your mixer bowl and whisk, then pour in the egg yolks and beat on medium for 5 minutes, until the yolks are a pale cream color and are puffy. Add the vanilla here.

Pour the egg yolk mixture onto the egg white mixture and with a spatula, gently mix to create a batter.

When combined, fold in the flour and stir lightly so that the it is fully incorporated into the egg mixture.

Pour the batter into the buttered and papered cake pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Once the cake is cool, invert it onto a platter and remove the parchment paper. Then invert it once more.

Using a fork, poke holes all over the cake.

In a mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, regular milk, and vanilla extract, and pour this luscious sauce over the cake, focusing on the fork holes so that the milks soak into it.

Rinse your mixer bowl and whisk attachment once more, then add the heavy cream, the powdered sugar and another tablespoon of vanilla, and whisk on medium until stiff peaks form, usually around 3-4 minutes.

Spread the whipped cream all over the cake and decorate with the strawberries. Eat with joy in your heart and be grateful this particular cake doesn’t have flesh, blood and bone mixed into it…….or does it?