16 “I don’t know. But it makes me throb.”
16
“I don’t know. But it makes me throb.”
You come down from drugs, but not from this endorphin rush.
I don’t understand how I could have been so bitter about these trips in the first place. I mean, fine, this is the closest thing I’ve had in my life to a bad trip, and I needed some time to adjust before I figured out what I’m living through. I don’t know why I’ve been given this opportunity or who thought it was a good idea to send me, but I’m ready to enjoy it. And make the most of it. It’s a gift.
I’m woken up by the soft crooning of Tristan’s alarm clock, which gets louder if it’s not turned off. It never gets very loud, because he slaps it and stops it almost immediately. I look around. We’re in my bedroom, with the forest-green curtains and the bed with soft sheets. I smile. Yesterday, I realized again for the first time that I was in love with him. Uniting the concepts of “again” and “for the first time” is starting to give me chills.
What will today have in store for me?
“What time is it?” I ask when he snuggles into me.
“Six fifteen,” he grumbles.
I push my ass into his crotch, which is awake now too. I feel his serious laughter on my neck.
“You can’t be asking me for a good time…” His voice warms a little as I move.
“He who riseth early…”
“Shut up, you blasphemer. They’re gonna excommunicate you.”
Tristan pulls off his boxers without another word. I tug my underwear off, and we hide under the duvet.
“No messing around.”
“I don’t have time, even if I wanted to.”
“Exactly.”
He pushes in all at once. I’m not that wet yet, but my body takes him in happily. He groans. Tristan is one of those people who has no awareness of what he’s saying when he’s in bed. Saying or groaning. Yes, Tristan groans a lot, and I love it.
He lies on top of me, grabs my flesh wherever he can, and groans into my body, as if this animalistic act is the way he marks his territory. The territory I concede to him for as long as this lasts.
He pushes hard between my legs, lost in it. He moves fast, panting with a rhythm only punctuated by a soft moan every few seconds. I know when that moan comes at shorter intervals, we’re about to come. We, because I’m already touching myself so I come with him. Suddenly, he slams on the brakes and pulls away from me, holding his weight on his palms. He hesitates. A bead of sweat glistens on his temple.
“Should I stop and put one on?”
Ah, the condom.
“No,” I beg him. “Keep going.”
“Keep going all the way?” he seems surprised.
“No. No.” I get scared. I don’t know what day it is or if I’m on the Pill. Although…would a change like this have any consequences in the “future”? “Pull out first.”
For a few minutes, the mattress creaks. We kiss so passionately it feels like an emergency instead of a slow-burning love. Sometimes I like it like that. I think he does too. Plus, it’s healthy for a couple to fuck like a wildlife documentary every once in a while.
“Come…” I say when I can feel he’s close. “Now, please…now.”
Tristan pulls back from me so he can thrust harder; he notices how I’m tightening around him, squeezing him harder, and he speeds up. Harder. Faster. Deeper. I don’t understand how he can control himself and not fill me up…
My head falls back onto the pillow before I’m even aware I had lifted it. Sometimes I fly a little when I orgasm. I levitate above the mattress, above my body, above everything, and he knows it, so it’s a signal for me to release him. Tristan rushes out of me, driving a knee between my thighs and soaking my stomach. And after the last moans, he stays like that, his erection in his hand, his head thrown back slightly and his eyes closed, breathing deeply…and he’s so beautiful. Beautiful. Like this, naked and a little sweaty, shining like they must have done in the Roman circus when they were victorious. He’s so hot. That mouth. That nose. The way his hair flops over his forehead. How thick his black hair is… The alarm clock on his phone punctures the moment, but he smiles as he opens his eyes and looks at me.
“Good morning,” he says.
“Good morning.”
“Good thing I set two alarms.”
“Seems like you were pretty awake for the second one.”
“Yeah, but right now, all I wanna do is curl up next to you and go back to sleep.”
He jumps out of bed. I’m still thinking about his naked body when I hear the shower turn on. We take turns in the bathroom without much poetry. And we’re rushing a little. Well, him more than me, because all I know is that today’s a workday. I’m having fun not worrying, the Russian roulette of the days when I’m not forcing myself to find references that will bring me back to reality.
“Miri, I can’t wait for you,” he says as he looks at me in the mirror, leaning over his contact lens case.
“You’re not even gonna drink coffee? It’s still pretty early.”
“Yeah, I know. But I have to get in early today.”
“How come? Do you have court?”
“I have…stuff.” He blinks. I wish I was even closer to him right now. Sometimes a few drops get stuck in his eyelashes, and I love how they shimmer, how it makes them droop.
He’s already dressed when I come out of the shower wrapped in a soft towel. He’s pulling his coat on over his suit jacket, and I know he hates how it gets bunched up, so I help him straighten everything out.
“Are we seeing each other today? Do we have plans?”
He has a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“Maybe. Let’s leave things in the hands of serendipity.”
He gives me a kiss on the arch of my top lip and winks at me. He doesn’t need to say anything else. Now I know exactly what day it is.
The office is submerged in complete silence. The lights are still off, and nobody’s come in yet. I appreciate these moments of calm, and I stroll toward my office unhurriedly. The wall is already sporting a few colorful layout pages. Spring is blaring, and we’re joining the chorus from our magazine.
A couple of girls arrive at their desks, saying good morning and dropping their bags off before they head to the kitchen, where we have all the usual stuff: fridge, coffee and vending machines, two microwaves, sink, a few tables to sit down to eat…and there are always cookies, cereals, muesli…that kind of stuff. Almost all my coworkers have breakfast there every day, but I hate the coffee from that machine. I’d go for one at Dori’s, but I don’t feel like it. I’m a little nervous. Reliving today is a gift, but…I wish I could relive tomorrow too. This is making me a little greedy. I wonder, a little worried, whether I’ll ever have enough. Maybe the answer is that we can never have enough of the good stuff.
Today is Friday, and we’re still a couple of weeks away from closing, so we’re not up against it yet. It’s going to be a nice day, the kind that doesn’t make you wonder if the job you love might kill you too. I know some people may think it’s frivolous, but we still have the pressure of deadlines: delivery of material, layout, printing…but not today. Today, there will be no fire and no rush. Just a group of women writing about things they care about and like for other women who are interested in the same things.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, the magazine’s receptionist will call me at the office; I’ll be packing up to go home, but she’ll ask me to wait a second for a last-minute visitor. The visitor will be Ivan, who will bring me a small suitcase with clothes to spend the weekend away…with Tristan. Tristan, who’s arranged a surprise “just because.”
“Because we’re tired. Because we deserve it. Just because, for fuck’s sake,” he’ll say, wrapping both arms around my waist at the hotel.
The rest of the day is going to be torture.
“Morning, Miri!”
Rita’s clacking heels wake me from my reverie.
“Good morning, rat.”
“Whoa! You look so pretty today!”
“I don’t know if I should hit you with my bag for sounding so surprised!” I retort.
“No, no.” She laughs. “Idiot. It’s just that…I dunno. Your face looks like…”
“Someone who just got fucked?”
A silence falls over us before we both burst out laughing.
“You’re so dirty…and so lucky.”
“It’s not like you can complain. Your new fling looks pretty good.”
“Shut up, shut up. I don’t want to get my hopes up yet, Miri.”
She should. Within a year, he’s going to ask her to marry her in one of the most romantic proposals in history. And her wedding will be beautiful.
“I’m going to get the Friday churros. It’s my turn. How do you want your coffee?” she says on the way back to her desk, where she left her purse.
“I don’t want any, thank you. I’ll pass on churros today.”
“Are you on a diet or what?” She raises one eyebrow.
“The term ‘diet’ gives me goose bumps even where the sun don’t shine… I don’t know if I’m making myself clear.”
“Yeah, yeah…but you saying no to coffee and churros on Friday…”
“It’s just that Tristan set up a surprise for me, and I’m nervous.”
“A surprise? And you think you know what it is?”
“Yes.” I turn back to the wall again with my arms crossed over my chest.
“If it’s very romantic, don’t say anything to me. I get all sprung about love, and then everything is a letdown.”
“Well, I’m keeping my mouth shut. Even though it sounds like we’re gonna go ho it up.”
“That’s my little slut.”
I furrow my brow, not because of the filthy language but because an idea popped into my head while I was looking at the wall. I don’t say goodbye when I stride toward my office; I need to check the folder with the topics we’re preparing for the publication. When Rita comes back with the churros and coffee for everyone, I’ve already summoned Eva to my office, and between the two of us, we’ve dismantled the whole issue and rebuilt it.
“Girls.” I poke my head in the door. “Could you eat your churros in the meeting room? We have a few changes.”
“Fuck off.”
I don’t know who said it, because it felt like they all said it at the same time. And even if they didn’t, I know they’re thinking it.
Operation Bikini. Instructions: Put on a bikini.
All the reasons you shouldn’t go on a diet or exercise more or detox.
(Basically…you’re already a goddess, girl.)
It’s three years ago, and the body positive movement will be all over this special. I know. Soon, this will be much more common, but you never know whether companies are doing it because they genuinely want change or if they’re just jumping on a bandwagon because they think it’ll improve their bottom line.
The changes keep me busy all morning. I don’t get to write that much anymore, besides product reviews or opinion columns and summer or end-of-year specials. But everyone agrees when I suggest they leave it to me. Deep down, I’m a journalist, and a journalist who loves to write. Writing and giving the world a little seed that maybe, if we’re lucky, can sprout into something good.
So between calls to psychologists and nutritionists who specialize in eating disorders and reviewing brands that have expanded their size ranges and searching for examples of famous women with “bikini bodies” from size zero to thirty, the morning flies by. The two interns lending me a hand are pumped, and so am I. I guess reliving lets you highlight things you missed the first time. Three o’clock sneaks up on me and catches me completely off guard.
“Miranda…can you wait in your office for a minute? You have a visitor. It’s personal. He’s on his way there.”
I smile as I stack papers on my desk and egg the interns on to go home.
“Go on, girls, it’s the end of the week, and trouble won’t make itself.”
I’m so excited I’d be happy to let them raid the beauty closet, but it would be like giving a kid sugar at bedtime. Like putting Mentos in a bottle of Coke. Like locking me in Chanel for the night. Like…
I forget all about the similes when I see Ivan. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t, and neither was anybody else, but everyone here seems to be used to it. That or they’ve gone temporarily blind and they can’t see that he’s wearing leggings. Zebra-print Lycra leggings. A studded belt. A shirt that (thank the gods worshipped in this world and others) covers the bulge of his anaconda. He has a scarf wrapped over his forehead like a turban. His hair looks like he stuck his finger in a socket but even more exaggerated. Like it’s sticking up all over the place…but with bangs. He has bangs… He’s the AliExpress version of one of the members of Europe in the mid-eighties.
“What?” he blurts out as soon as he comes into my office.
“The universe has a terrifying sense of humor.”
“Are you back on that change of look as cosmic readjustment bullshit?”
I cover my mouth and crack up while I nod.
“Miranda, I don’t know how to make this any more clear. I’ve always been like this.”
“Like this” goes along with a sweep of his body from head to chest.
“Okay, okay. But today is just too much. They weren’t even this eighties in the actual eighties.”
He takes my criticism like a champ and shoves my bag at me.
“Take it. I’m not yelling ‘surprise’ or anything because…of course, you already know everything, right?”
“Sometimes I get the feeling that, even though I proved it with the Thalia thing, you still don’t believe me.”
“I believe you, Miranda, it’s just easier to think you’ve got a screw loose in there.” He points at my head. “But…I’m taking a total leap of faith. Because I’m your faithful squire, my queen. If you tell me you’re time traveling…”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that you only remember this whole thing when you see me?”
“I don’t know if I remember or I don’t remember. I have a life, you know? I don’t go around all day thinking about your shit.”
“Okay.” I let it be. I’m too happy to let this bug me. “Tristan booked a bubble hotel this weekend in a village near Toledo.”
Ivan narrows his eyes at me.
“And you really don’t know the numbers for the Christmas lottery?”
“We already talked about that.”
“Well, we talked about the lotto.”
“I’m going to do you another favor, now that I think about it: get your passport renewed. This winter, you’re going to Colombia for work, and you’re gonna end up stranded at the airport on the way back until they sort you out at the embassy. I already told you the thing about buying toilet paper in 2020.”
“If any of this shit actually happens to me, it’s your fault. You’re jinxing me.”
“You’re the one jinxing yourself, you big dumb box of rocks. Actually, rocks are smarter.” I jump back to dodge the punch he tries to land on my arm. “He’s picking me up soon, right?”
“Yes, but we have time to grab a beer. He just messaged me saying that he’s leaving work and he still has to run home to pick up his suitcase and get the rental car.”
“You guys are friends now?”
“You introduced us one afternoon.” He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t remember that? I mean…you should know that, right?”
“Yes. Yes…but sometimes things change.”
“Are you changing things?”
“It’s impossible to live everything exactly the same way I did the first time, but on top of that…let’s just say I insisted on doing it my way a few times.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re asking me, in case you created some awful butterfly effect and now we hate each other.”
“If everything goes well and nothing changes, I’m giving you a heads-up that you’re not exactly going to be besties.”
“Don’t we start getting along better over time?” he asks worriedly.
“I mean…not really. You get along, but you’re not friends. You always tell me that he seems musty, very dry. You use the elegant excuse that ‘he’s very northern and I’m very Mediterranean,’ but the truth is you never quite get the hang of his sense of humor, as much as I keep telling you he’s the love of my life.”
His face twitches… The kind of subtle shift only your best friend, who knows you better than you know yourself, would notice.
“What was that face?”
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing. What was that face?”
“An involuntary tic, probably.”
I bite my lip and hold his gaze. We’re locked in a staring contest.
“Tell me…” I groan.
He sucks his teeth and rests his fists on those hips wrapped in such tight leggings.
“He’s not the love of your life, not even close.”
I open my mouth to answer, but he puts his palm between us to force me to let him keep talking.
“I’m not denying how important Tristan is in your life, but, Miranda…he’s not the love of your life.”
“Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Yes,” he says and nods confidently, going back to his Power Ranger stance. “There’s no single man destined to be in anyone’s lives, and if there were, which there isn’t, yours isn’t Tristan. Period. Let’s go get a beer at Dori’s. I saw her on my way in, and she said they’re putting out torrezno tapas.”
“So I usually let myself be seen with you looking like that?”
“Yes. I just don’t understand how I let myself be seen with an idiot like you.”
Touché.
I don’t think much about what Ivan said. Much or at all, actually. Because we barely have time to chug a beer and bolt down some bacon before Tristan shows up with the car. And of course, like all people dickmatized to an embarrassing level, nothing can rain on that adolescent parade.
I pretend to be surprised, but I guess I wasn’t as believable as in the original version, because Tristan asks me over and over whether Ivan told me or whether he unknowingly gave it away over the last few days. I say no to everything and amp up my happiness a little, which doesn’t really work either, because I’m the kind of person who instinctively responds with suspicion when someone surprises me. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t like surprises that much or because I don’t know how to react. I feel awkward. I feel ungrateful. I don’t know.
But I must have done it right this time, because Tristan is smiling in that way that makes me so crazy, showing off those beautiful teeth. I would sacrifice myself as an offering to be eaten.
The bubble hotel was just a few kilometers from a tiny village in Toledo that took us more than an hour to get to from central Madrid and was made up of a main building, a tiny spa, a lounge and the reception, and a few areas delineated by fences made of reeds and bushes that preserved the privacy between one and the other. In each plot, there’s a “building” in the form of a bubble, translucent (except in some areas, like the shower and the toilet) so we’ll be able to gaze up at an amazingly clear sky full of stars tonight.
See how love and all that romantic stuff make us a little embarrassing sometimes? Why do we like looking at the stars so much when we’re in love? Especially when it’s so hard in big cities, with all the light pollution stuff. Couldn’t we have been obsessed with something simpler? For example, watching the oven cook a tray of cannelloni.
Don’t listen to me. That’s the cynical Miranda talking, the one who’s forgotten the vibration bodies in love emit. It’s the kind that doesn’t give in to external shame, that this “me” is trying to project onto her, but I’m a goner: I don’t care anymore…again.
After we check in and one of the staff members explains how the hotel works, we settle into our bubble, and this, that little sentence, seems like a beautiful metaphor for that time in our relationship.
That year, Tristan and I were (are) in the middle of climbing Everest, and I think the lack of oxygen made us happier than either of us had ever been. I don’t remember ever having been happier, not even in my most innocent childhood, when I believed my dad’s stories about ancient flying carpets or songs that gave you powers if you could memorize them. So this bubble, this little “moon,” as the hotel calls each of its circular and panoramic “rooms,” is like a memory you treasure greedily and go back to when you have doubts or when the floor is too hard to go barefoot. When it becomes obvious that sometimes life is a bedazzled turd.
Tristan catches me off guard, circling his arms around my waist from behind, and I’m caught off guard because he was never that into cuddling. This is the same man who will spoon you in bed, especially before he gets up in the morning, or wrap his arm around your waist walking down the street or grab your hand for a little while, but he still thinks kissing in public is pretty much as bad as graffiti.
I’m exaggerating, but I think you get the idea.
“What are you thinking about? Oof…that’s such a girly thing for me to say,” he murmurs almost to himself.
“I didn’t know questions had a gender.”
He laughs.
“Touché. What are you thinking about?”
I’m thinking about how we’ll make love here tonight, and I can’t imagine a better place. How we’re going to fill the bath, and when we both climb in, we’ll make the water slosh out, but we’ll think it’s hilarious. How you’re going to spend a while going back and forth to the door to make sure it’s closed because they told us that if not, the bubble can deflate, and I’m going to love you a little more every time you do it for that sometimes obsessive-compulsive mania you imbue certain tasks with.
“Nothing. Just wondering what the plan is.”
“Hmm, let’s see…” His nose nuzzles my hair for a few seconds, almost covertly. Tristan is still Tristan…and he still has the same tics. “Tonight, they’re going to bring us some dinner and a bottle of wine and…we can try to see something with the spyglass…”
“Telescope…”
“Telescope. And take a bath.”
“And fuck.”
“Dude…sometimes I can’t help but wonder if you escaped from treatment for sex addiction.”
I crack up. It’s already pretty obvious that I’m a…um…very sexual woman. Or at least I was. It seems normal to me. I mean…I think anything is normal: having a lot of, a little, or no sexual appetite. But somehow, it surprises him. One night, when the only thing that brought us together was meeting up to fuck and drink wine, back at the dawn of our relationship, he told me that he had only met one woman with as voracious an appetite as me. It didn’t seem right or wrong to me, just weird. Now I know that that hunger can fade a little over time, but I still can’t figure out if that’s good or bad. Whether it’s calmness or apathy.
“What about tomorrow?” I ask.
And it’s a masochistic question, because tomorrow will be an incredible day, but I won’t be here, because ever since this started, I always wake up a few jumps away from the night before. And I want to relive these plans.
“Well, the sun will definitely wake us up.” I can’t see him, but I know he’s making a face. He likes to sleep. “They’ll bring us breakfast…at ten. Once we’re done and we freshen up a bit, we can go take a walk. Just a short one…maybe into the village. Have lunch there. Get a few beers on some sunny patio.”
“I like that plan.”
“In the afternoon, we can go to the…what did they call it?”
“Call what?”
“The…the pool you float in.”
How could I not fall in love with him? I’ve always liked men who are a little clumsy romantically.
“The floatarium.”
“So we’ll go float. And you can’t fuck in the floatarium, so don’t get any ideas.”
I stroke his strong hands and his long fingers and laugh.
“I think I can control myself,” I retort.
“But at night, we can do it again, if you let me get enough sustenance.”
I turn around. I don’t have to stand on tiptoes to kiss him; he’s taller than me, but the height difference isn’t that big, and I like that. Even though before him, I loved really tall guys. Even though my dream dude would be like six five. Even though I used to get hung up on dudes who were nothing like him. It’s like nothing I liked before matters anymore. At least not now.
“You know what?” I say to him. “If someone had told me when I met you that you were such a sweet guy…I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“I’m sweet when the time is right, yeah?”
“A guy from the north.”
“Don’t stereotype.” He grabs my ass, drawing me into him. “Our homeland can leave a mark, but…is it really that deep?”
“You keep surprising me with this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know, you’re hugging me. Kissing me. Holding my hand. It still seems weird to me.”
He furrows his brow.
“But is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know. But it makes me throb.”