Chapter 4
Violet opens her eyes, her heart racing. She knows it's seven in the morning because she set an alarm on her phone when she arrived at the hostel to avoid oversleeping. She reaches out and turns it off without noticing any movement beside her. She stays still for a few more seconds, listening for breathing, until she realizes that the rapid breathing she hears belongs only to her. Finally, she decides to stretch her arm to the left side of the bed. It's empty and cold; her companion left a while ago, maybe hours, she has no idea.
She remains motionless, and a wave of pleasure courses through her body, taking her breath away. Violet remembers every moment since they left the bar where they met. By chance, they were both registered at the same hostel, and when they arrived, Violet told her, surprised, that she also had her room there.
"Do you prefer to go to yours?" the woman asked, turning to her.
Violet shrugged, and they both began to climb the wooden stairs with the urgency of teenagers. She's not quite sure when they entered or when they lost all their clothes, but she does remember the moment they fell onto the bed amid eager kisses. Violet had never behaved that way before, uninhibited, giving herself with unknown abandon. Now she thinks about everything she did and everything she let be done to her, and a shy smile escapes her, making her entire body burn. Perhaps her behavior was due to knowing they wouldn't see each other again, that whatever happened in that room would be something she wouldn't have to face the next day, at most a farewell glance and little else.
"Oh my God," she smiles, overflowing with excitement between the sheets.
Violet remembers the moment she positioned herself between the unknown woman's legs, the sweet aroma of her sex becoming a kind of narcotic she couldn't get rid of. Never had a smell excited her so much or provoked such a need to drink. Violet buried her mouth in her sex, which was dripping, soaking her face, the woman's own thighs, and the sheets, driving Violet crazy, who couldn't stop licking and drinking from her. And the woman must have loved how she did it, because she chained up to three orgasms in a row.
She turns on the light and sits up startled. She looks at the empty side of the bed and pulls back the sheets with the temptation to bury her face in them to inhale that scent one last time. Violet shakes her head and gets out of bed, heading straight for the bathroom. When she's under the shower streams, she can't stop smiling, she doesn't regret at all what happened, although she still thinks she needs feelings involved to do something like what she did yesterday. This woman is a one-time case that she knows won't be repeated, an anecdote, something she undoubtedly enjoyed like crazy, but she doubts she'll find more like her. It's very difficult to find a person who meets all those physical traits that can please and attract you, so finding two seems unthinkable to her.
After a quick breakfast in the hostel's bar, Violet says goodbye to the innkeeper and goes out into the street. As he told her, there's no trace left of the previous day's snow.
When she's close to reaching Alquézar, Violet decides to call Teresa, not only because she feels a bit bad for not telling her the truth, but because she needs to tell someone what happened to her yesterday.
"I told you so, but you never listen to me," her friend huffs when Violet tells her that the snow forced her to stay overnight in Huesca.
"It wasn't that bad, but I preferred to stop as a precaution."
"Something could have happened to you, Violet."
"Actually, something did happen, and it wasn't bad at all," Violet's voice has changed, it's a mix between enigmatic and amused.
"What happened?" Teresa asks in her most gossipy tone.
Violet decides not to beat around the bush, she's about to arrive and needs to let it out and share it with her friend, who she knows will be happy for her.
"I met a woman when I went out for dinner and we ended up in my room."
On the other end of the line, there's a hollow silence that makes Violet smile, amused, imagining Teresa's bewildered face at that moment.
"In your room? You mean..."
"That I slept with her," Violet completes, satisfied and proud.
She has to squeeze her legs as she says it, because every time she remembers it, she gets excited without being able to help it, and she likes that.
"Really? You? Violet, the one who needs to be in love to have relationships."
"Exactly, me," she responds smiling as she takes the turn that leads to her mother's village.
"I can't believe it," Teresa applauds sitting on her home's couch. "Tell me right now how it was, what she said to seduce you like that."
"That's the best part," Violet says, "she didn't need to say anything. It was all an exchange of glances, she attracted me a lot, well, we attracted each other," she clarifies.
"She didn't say anything to you?"
"No, she just asked me if I was from there, I told her no, and then we only exchanged a few phrases to decide where to go. It was all very intense," Violet gets excited again and notices her mouth dry.
"And what's the name of the only woman capable of achieving such a wild act on your part?"
"No idea," Violet laughs and Teresa puts a hand to her forehead while stretching her lips, "and I don't care either. I enjoyed the moment and I don't regret it."
"Well done, girl, sometimes you have to let your hair down."
"Well, I don't think this will happen again, Teresa. It's just that this woman was exactly how I imagine my ideal woman, you know? But well, I only saw the physical part, I'm sure her character is incompatible with mine, although I'm not going to find out either. I'll leave you now, I'm arriving at my mother's house."
"Alright, enjoy the little time you have with her and be careful on your way back."
Violet hangs up the phone while coming to the conclusion that the encounter with that woman is exactly what she needed to finally shake off Marina's shadow. Now she's clear that her relationship with her is definitively dead and that she has to talk to her to make it clear and get her to stop calling once and for all.
When Violet hugs her mother, she breaks down and cries inconsolably in her daughter's arms with a mix of joy for her visit and that sadness that has flooded her since her husband left. Violet lets her vent and comforts her until she gradually calms down and they can both sit for a while in the kitchen to chat.
"Have you had breakfast? I brought some of those sweets you like so much yesterday," her mother places a tray covered with a cloth on the table.
Violet's mouth waters at the smell. Although she has had breakfast, she's hungry again and can't refuse to eat those pastries she likes so much along with another cafe con leche. As she savors it, her mother explains that the bakery has been opened by the manager, but Violet knows she won't be at ease until she goes there and sees that everything is under control, especially on a Sunday, when the place is bustling with people.
"Why don't you tell me how you're doing while we take a walk to the bakery?" she suggests when she finishes her second breakfast.
"To the bakery? No," Maite is horrified, "come on, for the few hours I'm going to have you here, we're not going to waste them there."
"Come on, mom. It's been a long time since I've been there and I'm excited, and by the way, you can check that everything is in order."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course."
On the way, Maite explains to her daughter in detail what happened on the day her father told her he was leaving her. She listens with half of her attention on her and the other half thinking that she should call her father and give him a piece of her mind, but the truth is she still doesn't know what to say to him. Her father has made a decision without consulting them, he has left knowing the consequences, so she understands that he is very sure of what he has done.
"Luckily I have the bakery, with so much work I can hardly think about anything," her mother continues to relate.
"Who's in charge of the purchases now and making trips to Huesca to deliver the weekly orders?" Violet asks.
Some of the products from her parents' bakery are so famous that they make them to order to sell also in bakeries in Huesca. Her father was the one who took care of making a trip one day a week to distribute the orders and also to buy some products taking advantage of the trip.
"Last week Antonio's son went to do me the favor, but the man can't, he has a lot of work here. This week I'm going to have to pay for a special transport service that will take away a large part of the profits."
"You have to hire someone, mom."
"I know, I know, I'm working on it. Don't worry, I already started spreading the word on Friday and you wouldn't believe it, on Saturday people came interested, but they were just kids from the village who want to make some money during these holidays, and I have to think long term."
"Well, mom, but until you find someone you could hire one of those kids."
"No way, Violet," Maite refuses, "right now it's counterproductive. I lose too much time teaching them and by the time I have them ready, they leave."
Her daughter has to agree with her on that.
"If only my boss would give me vacation earlier," she laments.
"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll find someone soon."
When they enter the bakery, Violet feels a nostalgia she no longer remembered. Thousands of memories from her childhood come back to her memory and suddenly she feels like she's going back in time. She greets Antonio with an effusive hug and then goes out to the sales area, where a married couple Violet has known all her life is serving non-stop.
"Well, Violet," the woman greets her, making her husband turn around.
Violet greets them with her hand and as if she had never forgotten the afternoons of her adolescence she spent helping her parents, she washes her hands and starts serving people while her mother gives orders like a sergeant in the back room. This is how they spend almost two hours without noticing, until Maite grabs her by the arm and pulls her.
"Come on, let's go eat, Antonio will take care of closing."
"Are you sure? I don't mind if we continue."
Maite smiles looking at her daughter surprised. She still remembers the arguments they had and that hatred Violet seemed to feel towards the work she could inherit from her parents. She supposes the change in attitude is due to the fact that she has only spent a few hours there and that, deep down, all of that brings back good memories.
Mother and daughter eat a stew that Maite prepared the day before. Violet continues to regret not being able to stay longer, but her mother assures her that she's fine, that they can talk on the phone and that Christmas vacation is only a couple of weeks away.
"I'm fine, honey, really. I just need to assimilate it. It was a hard blow and being alone makes the walls feel like they're closing in on me, but I'll get used to it."
Violet feels an unknown rage towards her father and is glad he has gone far away, so she doesn't have the temptation to go looking for him to tell him what she thinks.
She says goodbye to her mother with the tranquility of finding her much more composed than she expected, now she just has to let the days pass and not worry, soon she will return to the village and will be able to help her in those festive days when they have the most work during the whole year. After that, she will simply have to make do with calling her and escaping some weekend, but by then, she hopes her mother will be better.