25 Stroking my face
25
Stroking my face
Tristan
I miss smoking. At least when I smoked, I had an excuse to get out of the office for ten minutes every hour and a half. Well…it’s not really an office. It’s one of those huge, old apartments that has been converted into a law firm. It looks like a fancy notary, which makes sense because I guess we’re a fancy firm.
The bedrooms have been turned meeting rooms and offices. The kitchen is big, and we have an office kitchen with a coffee machine and some tables where we eat lunch when we bring food from home. The ceilings are high. We have three bathrooms. The walls are white and smooth, and the decor is classic and elegant. There’s only the occasional landscape painting in the halls, and the furniture is made of good wood. You could say it’s a good place to work, even if I find it stifling. I guess, at least as far as comfort is concerned, I’m lucky. There’s a balcony off my shared office, and when we open the door, voices from the street, the smell of the season, and a thin thread of connection to real life (as in the life that takes place outside the walls of this office) waft in on the breeze. I’ve never really gotten the concept of living to work.
It’s not a terrible environment. I just don’t like what I do. It’s taken me a few years longer than it should have to realize that I’m good at it, but I don’t enjoy it. The only saving grace is the fact that I have no idea what else I could do.
The balcony door is open today. It’s my birthday. And it’s turning out to be a pretty gloomy one.
Last year, I could go home to Vigo because it fell on a weekend. The year before, I don’t remember. But this year…well, Miranda is closing today, so I don’t even have much faith she’ll be able to come grab a beer with my colleagues later; she’ll get home really late and exhausted. And I don’t have many other friends in Madrid. Plus, I have barely any work today, but I can’t leave the office. I’m a little down. I feel homesick.
“Tristan.”
I look up from the computer and see the firm’s receptionist. He doesn’t usually talk to me much, only if the partners leave some note to share with me or if a document comes in addressed to me. But this seems different… He’s wearing kind of a sneaky smile.
“Can you come out here for a second?”
“Why?”
“Is it your birthday?”
Oh God…
“Um…” I can feel my cheeks reddening under my beard. “Yes. Why?”
“There’s a girl here…”
Before I can run out there to make sure Miranda hasn’t shown up at my office with some crazy idea, a little blond girl, who’s pretty cute, by the way, sticks her head out behind him, smiling. She has a box with two helium balloons in the shape of “35” attached to it.
“I’m gonna kill her,” I say very seriously before breaking into a mortified laugh.
The girl comes over without asking permission, and I sit in my chair again, although I guess saying I collapsed into my chair would be more faithful to reality.
“Hi, Tristan. Happy birthday.”
She resolutely pushes aside some papers and carefully puts the box down. The balloons bob over my desk to the delight of all my colleagues, who burst into applause, laughter, and cheers. I don’t like most of them very much (too much ego, too much nonsense, too much competitiveness), but their laughter is contagious.
“Thanks,” I say to her. “She sent you?”
“It’s closing day, Tristan. It’s like if you were all in the middle of an important trial.” She smiles like a saint. “We can’t lose our best Amazon at the height of the battle. Plus…she sent me because I’m wearing flats.”
That Miranda. I cover my face, rub it, and then laugh again mid-sigh.
“Okay. Thanks so much…”
“Almudena.”
“Thank you, Almudena.”
“For you, Tristan.” She holds an envelope out to me. “Have a happy day.”
“Sounds like a threat.”
She answers with a giggle as she heads to the door. I catch a glimpse of her flirting with the receptionist on her way out. I love the spark of people in their twenties, when you think the world is yours and…it probably is. I open the box and find a beautiful, tempting spread, including coffee, a juice, a cinnamon roll, and a slice of tortilla de patata. I get the giggles.
“What’d you get, Galicia boy?” one of my colleagues asks.
“Breakfast.”
“What about the card?”
“It’s probably just a happy birthday card.”
I open the envelope and take out a white card that just has a few words written on it and Miranda’s signature.
A happy birthday breakfast.
I love you.
You probably won’t feel the same about me tonight.
Miranda
I raise my eyebrows. Jeez. That does sound like a threat. I’m scared of her. I’m really scared of her, but in a smiling way.
“You sharing?” A colleague sticks her head over to see if she can snag something. It’s 11:30, and everyone’s getting peckish.
“No fucking way.”
Miranda knows me, everything about me, and she knows I can be easily seduced by food.
At 12:15, a shaft of light cuts across the room, leaving a trail of golden dust mites dancing in its path. We’re all slightly entranced by it because it looks so peaceful, like the plastic bag floating in the wind in American Beauty . We’re joking about what would happen if a client saw us looking like this when the receptionist comes back in.
“Tristan…”
“Oh God. In person or a delivery?”
“In person.”
I jump to my feet.
“Okay, I’m coming.”
“You don’t need to come out.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. I’ll grab it by reception.” I’m trying to prevent the ceremonial entry of the messenger or chosen intern coming to my desk, whatever Miranda might have thought of sending me now, but I see him shake his head, enjoying himself.
“It’s easier if the messenger wheels the cart in.”
“What cart?”
A messenger dressed in midnight blue comes in whistling and pushing a cart holding three boxes. Three boxes and an envelope.
“Tristan Castro?”
“That’s me.”
“I need your signature here.”
I’m in disbelief.
When the messenger leaves, I gesture for scissors from my desk mate, who takes the chance to jump up and crane her neck over to see what the boxes are hiding.
“Your girl sent those too?” my colleague from the back of the office pipes up.
“Who else?”
“Your girlfriend is…enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiastic? She’s a hurricane.”
When I lift the flaps of the first box, I take a step back and put my hands on my hips, chewing my bottom lip. I can’t believe it. She’s nuts.
“What is it?”
I don’t answer. I push the box aside and open the other one. Identical. The content of the bottom one must be the same. I grab the envelope and tear it open.
Dear Tristan,
I’d tell you to store them in a dry place out of direct sunlight, but first you have to find the clue.
You’ve always had a big sweet tooth, right?
Happy egg birthday.
I love you,
Miranda
“What are they?”
When I look up, my colleagues have gathered around me.
“Kinder eggs.”
The laughter must have been loud enough to reach the other side of the office, because another handful of colleagues suddenly appear. And that’s a good thing, because I’m going to need help.
We count 210 Kinder eggs in total. There are seventy in each box. We split up into groups to inspect each one carefully to find “the clue.” Whoever finds it is supposed to raise the alarm so the rest can stop searching. We thank our lucky stars that the bosses are insanely busy today and there are no fires to put out.
“Your girlfriend is the shit,” one of my colleagues murmurs as she pushes aside the chocolates that have already been checked.
“Don’t get your dirty mitts all over them. I plan on eating all of them,” I say, holding up the one I’ve already bitten into.
“You could have chocolate every day until you turn thirty-six.”
More like forty.
“Here it is!”
The shout comes from the next room, so dozens of footsteps ring out on the parquet as everyone stampedes in there at the same time. I have to jostle through the crowd to get to the colleague who found the clue and has probably already read it.
I don’t know if I’m dying of embarrassment or laughter.
“Ooooh,” howl a couple of the morons who already managed to catch a glimpse of it.
“Argh, you’re all so gross. Give it to me.”
I hear several mouths chewing as I read it.
Don’t eat too many…
You don’t wanna ruin your appetite.
Happy and hot thirty-five, my love.
Miranda
Come the fuck on.
“But that isn’t a clue!”
“That’s a declaration of intentions.”
My colleagues don’t hold back. An elbow digs into my side, and I roll my eyes as I fold the slip of paper and tuck it into my pocket. When I get back to my desk, I’ll put it in my wallet, next to the other notes.
“Okay, okay, thanks everyone. You can take a few eggs each. Who says this firm doesn’t have perks?”
“Or ovaries, right?”
“True, true.” I bow subtly to a few colleagues, who take the chance to give me a deserved slap on the back of the neck.
I spend the next half an hour organizing boxes of Kinder eggs. This has been the most bizarre birthday of my life. But there’s no rest for the wicked, so just when I finish and go back to my seat, the receptionist sticks his head in again.
“Tristan…”
“No way!” I exclaim.
They all burst into laughter and applause.
“Messenger or intern?”
“Interns…”
Three girls in outfits so trendy they look like they’ve come from the future appear, each holding a little box and giggling uncontrollably. They’re the modern version of the Three Kings, except it’s not Christmas.
“Hi, Tristan,” they greet me in unison.
“Hi, girls.” I sigh.
“He’s so cute,” they murmur through their giggles.
“Happy birthday.”
All three hand me their boxes, but I hesitate.
“Do I need to open them in a specific order?”
“Miranda says it doesn’t matter, that…what was it again?”
They look at each other until finally one widens her eyes with a clear “Eureka!” look.
“You never seemed that into protocol when it comes to this.”
“Oh, Lord…” I murmur to myself.
By the time the girls are heading for the door, my desk is surrounded by expectant colleagues. I can see where this is going, but I don’t know how to get out of it. Curiosity killed the cat.
“It’d probably be better if I open this one by myself.”
The jeering doesn’t intimidate me, but they’re not going anywhere.
“Come on, don’t any of you have work to do or something?”
“Open it!”
“Go eat a Kinder.”
There’s no way out of it. I pray that Miranda wasn’t being herself too much when she chose this gift.
I open a tiny corner. It’s definitely small, so I don’t think it can get me in too much trouble or make me blush. I’m not quick enough on the uptake to see how wrong I am.
It’s two dice. Two red dice, each about the size of a nut, but instead of numbers, there’s something written on each face. Actions on one of them, body parts on the other.
“No fucking way…” I mutter through clenched teeth, trying to shove them out of view at the same time.
But it’s too late. My colleagues caught a glimpse of the words “lick” and “nipples” too.
There’s another round of applause, and I want to dig a hole down to the first floor and run out to the street below to catch a bus. But it’s all in good fun, because it’s impossible not to laugh. The crowd keeps growing unstoppably, and they’re cheering and clapping out a beat. Miranda, I’m gonna kill you.
“Open them! Open them!”
“The partners are going to come out, for God’s sake. Quiet down!” I beg, but the partners are either blasting Vivaldi or they’re not here. I figure it’s probably the latter.
I put the boxes under my desk and try to use reason to dissuade the mob, but finally I have to jab at them with the umbrella printed with the firm’s logo that we all keep under our desks for rainy days to get them to leave. When I think there are no prying eyes around, I duck under my desk to open the other two boxes. First the medium one: handcuffs…but not the regular kind. I have to study them for a while before I figure out they must be for the headboard. Or who knows, they’d probably work on any piece of furniture. There must be steam coming out of my ears. I don’t know if I have the balls to open the big one. Please don’t let it be what my friends call a “strap-on,” because I’m not saying I wouldn’t like it if I tried it, but I don’t feel like parading it around here… It’d provide fodder for the office banter for years to come. Not that I really care what other people think about my sex life, but…I’d rather they didn’t think anything at all.
Inside the box, there’s another very pretty black box, adorned with a ribbon that curls all the way down to the floor. I have to push aside some scented tissue paper to see what’s inside, and I discover…
I slam the box shut, push everything back down next to my feet, and rest my forehead on the desk. Fuck. The golden whore.
There are so many straps and buckles on this lingerie I have no idea how she’ll even get it on. But I get the impression that it’s…a lot more out there than what she normally wears. It’s not the kind of getup she would wear under her clothes to work. She’d put it on to go out to dinner and whisper, in a very sultry voice in the middle of dinner, that she’s wearing something underneath that I’m going to like. Like that one time. I slid my hand under the table stealthily while she was leaning forward to talk to me, feigning interest in her coffee, until I reached her left breast and fondled it. We almost fucked in the doorway after. And today, just like that time, I can’t stand up, because I’m hard. She knows this stuff really turns me on.
I look up from my computer and realize that my colleagues I share a room with are all smirking at me.
“Lingerie?” one of them ventures a guess.
“Yup.”
The chuckle is contagious. Damn Miranda. She drives me crazy.
At two, when I normally go out to eat lunch, my colleagues suggest going to a burger place nearby to “celebrate.” I feel like telling them we’re already going to “celebrate” with a few beers at the end of the day, but I don’t know how to pull that off without seeming like an asshole, so I agree. I don’t feel like sitting and eating a greasy burger. Look, any other day, it wouldn’t gross me out, but today, I’m just not really craving it, with this huge crowd of acquaintances. I like some of them, but I have to be honest and admit that I haven’t deepened my relationship with any of them. I have colleagues here, but I don’t think I would call any of them a friend. That’s just how it is sometimes. It’s not like I’m an idiot; I tried, but…we just don’t click. They think anyone who isn’t obsessed with learning to play golf to impress clients and climb the ladder fast is a total loser. There are a couple of guys and girls I like well enough, but they have very different lives, family lives.
I walk down the stairs with a few of them; normally they’d be talking about work, soccer, theater, or some TV show, but today, my birthday is monopolizing the conversation, much to my utter discomfort. I smile and shove my hands as deep as I can into my pockets, trying desperately to come up with a topic that will distract them. But…
When I step onto the street, Madrid’s yellow spring light blasts me in the face, and I squint. I guess that’s why I don’t spot her right away. At first, I can only make out a silhouette dressed in black leaning against the car parked in front of the awning. But that red-painted smile can only belong to one person. My stomach leaps, and I smile. She makes me tingle. She makes my palms, my stomach, my cock, my lips tingle. My whole being yearns to be close to her, to smell her, to kiss her, to caress her.
A brief, amused murmur slips out from behind her huge sunglasses. I like them…sophisticated without trying too hard. And like so many other things I love about us, it also kind of scares me. I’m scared I’ll get tired of it. I’m scared she’ll want me to be like that too and… I won’t be able to keep up for long. Or at all.
“You’re crazy.”
I mouth the words silently, but she can read my lips.
“You guys go ahead without me, okay? We’ll celebrate tonight.”
They slap me on the back like I’m a bullfighter heading off to face the big one, like they suspect, as I do, that under her trench coat…Miranda’s wearing nothing at all.
“Tell me you’re not naked under there,” I whisper, pressing my nose into hers.
“Are you crazy? Of course not. I came to eat lunch with you, not to eat you.”
“No idea what part of your last three gifts could’ve confused me.”
“Kiss me.”
I put a hand on the hood of the car and look around to make sure my colleagues have turned the corner. Then I press myself into her, trapping her between the vehicle and my body, moving my hips so she notices how I always react when I smell her. I kiss her. I kiss her passionately, really passionately, but I keep it brief. I want to leave her as hungry as I was after getting all her little gifts.
“Bastard,” she moans when I pull away from her and dodge her trying to kiss me again.
“They say relationships need a little mystery to make them healthy and sustainable.” I give her a roguish smile. “What are you doing here? You must be really stressed with closing the issue.”
“I am, but I still have to eat, right? Everything’s going wrong today. If Godzilla shows up in the newsroom demanding right of pardon, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“He couldn’t do much there. I don’t think there are any virgins to sacrifice.”
“Depends what orifice we’re talking.”
A snort escapes through my nose.
“I’ll never get used to it.” I linger near her mouth again, enjoying teasing her.
“To what?”
“To you.”
“That’s good. Then you’ll never get bored.”
Sometimes I think Miranda can read my mind. There are days when it seems like nothing about me could be foreign or strange or indecipherable. Like I’m an open book. Or a white page she’s writing on herself.
“I’m really sorry,” she says remorsefully. “I only have forty-five minutes. An hour tops. I would have loved to set up a picnic for you in Oeste Park…near that little stream you like, but it’s impossible. And it’s not because I don’t love you or I love the magazine more. It’s just that I have a responsibility.”
“It’s fine,” I say sincerely.
“So…I booked us a table at Nagoya. It’s near both of us, and I know, even though sushi’s not your fave, you do like their food.”
I want to tell her it’s perfect, exactly what I was craving even if I didn’t know it yet, but I just take her hand and tug her a little in the direction of the restaurant.
Lunch flies by. Or that’s how it feels at least. I’m aware of the effort Miranda is making to not check her phone every five minutes. It makes me sick that she’s doing this, because this is childish, but it makes me feel invisible, unimportant, in the way. Like she’s going to say: “Just gimme a second. This is grown-up stuff.” And I want to be her grown-up stuff, although I want to have my own stuff too, but I don’t. We say goodbye at the door of the restaurant, where she hails the first cab that goes by. She has to go harass I don’t know who owes her I don’t know what photos.
“I’m worried they forgot to edit them and now they’re rushing to get it done. I can’t publish a bunch of bullshit.”
I don’t really know what she’s talking about, but like so many other times, there’s no time to explain. She’s like a fashion superhero. She has her obligations to the world.
Once the taxi she’s in disappears around the corner, I start heading back to the office, but I’ve only gotten a few meters when a message from Miranda sounds:
Miranda:
Check your right pocket.
I bury both my hands in my jacket pockets, even though her instructions were very specific, and I discover a little slip of paper that I read immediately. It’s just an address:
Calle de Modesto Lafuente, 31.
I open Google Maps, which tells me it will take seventeen minutes to walk there. If I pick up the pace, it won’t be more than fifteen. I’m a little sweaty when I get there, but there’s a nice breeze that makes it more bearable. The address is for a small bookstore that is a play on the street name: Modesta Librería. And it fits because the space is so tiny and modest. I don’t know what I’m doing here. Does she want me to buy a book? Is this a hint to get me to read more? Does she want me to buy something for her? I hesitate, but curiosity wins out, and I go in. A boy is reading behind the counter, sitting on a stool.
“Hello,” I say to him.
“Hi…”
He doesn’t just look at me. He scrutinizes me. His brow furrows under his floppy bangs.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” he asks me.
“No.” I can’t help but smile, a little embarrassed. “The truth is…”
He takes a book out from under the counter and hands it to me. It’s a small book; on the cover, on a green background, there’s a black-and-white photo of a girl who looks like she could be the protagonist of a silent film, holding a heart with flowers growing out of it. Primero de Poeta by Patricia Benito.
“I think this belongs to you.”
“Um…” I hesitate.
“Because you’re Tristan, right?”
I smile. Yes, yes, I am, especially when she’s the one saying my name.
I should already be back at my desk, getting back to work after my lunch break, but I decide not to rush. It’s just one day. I sit on a bench in a little plaza near the office with my book in my hand. I notice it has an inscription, simple and perfect, which she scribbled as fast as she could with the blue pen she always has in her bag and left a tiny smudge when she started writing:
I just wanted to give you something that would last a long time.
I don’t think there’s anything more lasting than printed words, especially when they’re about love.
The one who loves you,
Miranda
I flip through the pages in search of a note, a clue, something, but the only thing I find (which is a lot actually) is a dog-eared page. I figure she wanted me to read this poem.
For so long I’ve only known
one-night stands
under Monday moons full of darkness
I can’t imagine any other way.
For so long I’ve only known
treating my pain with lime,
healing myself with salt,
erasing with tequila.
For so long I’ve only known
weekend permissions,
loveless orgasms,
spaces without warmth.
For so long I’ve only known
treading slowly,
entering noiselessly,
fleeing without an embrace.
By myself for so long,
so many nights without you,
I can’t imagine any other way.
Then you come along,
and I understand why spring
comes after the cold
and it seems impossible
for winter to return.
Now any old groundhog day
sounds just perfect with you.
Miranda…how much effort did it take to create you?
I don’t want to bore you with the rest. Just…
At five in the afternoon, a huge bouquet of flowers arrives for me with a note that says:
Flowers don’t have a gender.
They’re just beautiful.
I love you.
At six, a messenger with a box of colorful, elaborate filled donuts.
At five past six, an email with a link to a song by Zahara…“Tú me llevas.”
At six thirty, when almost everyone from the office is heading to the bar on the corner to toast with a few beers, the bartender pulls me aside to tell me that half an hour earlier, a girl came in, paid him a hundred euros, and told him this was for my celebration. He asks me if I want to order any food.
“We have bacon from Soria…”
At ten, when I get home, a trail of LED candles guides me to the bathroom, where there’s music playing (for God knows how long) and there are little fairy lights hanging from everything and a note stuck to the mirror:
You’re right that every house should have a bathtub. I wanted to run you a bath so you can relax, but all I can offer you is a shower.
If you’re still hungry, there’s dinner waiting in the oven. The iPad is on the bed, all set up so you can watch that really boring show you love.
I can’t tell you I’ll be home soon, but I can promise you I’ll be home. Always and wherever you are. It doesn’t matter how late. I’ll be there.
I love you,
Miranda
P.S. When I come in, if I find the lingerie I sent you hanging from the bedroom doorknob, I’ll know it’s okay to wake you up so you can tie me to the bed.
Maybe better to save it for Saturday, when you’ll be well rested and have more time to enjoy (me) (us).
My pajamas are laid out on the bed, next to the iPad, and they smell like fabric softener.
I fall asleep watching the show, and I forget to hang the lingerie on the door, but I wake up when she’s pulling the tablet out of my lap and slipping stealthily into bed. Right now, I don’t have enough energy to fuck her in a way that would be worth remembering, so I put it on my to-do list for tomorrow.
Miranda snuggles into my back, putting her arm around my waist; I notice how she smells me through the cotton of my shirt. She sighs, like my scent soothes her, but softly, because she thinks I’m asleep.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“Thank you for the best birthday of my life.”
I roll over to face her, and we kiss. She seems like a mixture between sad and relieved, but it’s very dark, and this is just a fleeting impression.
I fall back to sleep with her fingertips stroking my face.