34 In Madrid
34
In Madrid
There are so many ways to be woken up. To the sound of birds or rain pattering against a window. With a gentle song you like. With the knowledge that today is your first day of vacation, your birthday, Christmas morning…or with two lips on your neck, right below your earlobe, and two arms wrapped around you. Not just any two arms. No, the two arms of the person you love.
That’s how I wake up. With a gentle nudge that pulls you out of sleep like the hand guiding you through a crowd at a concert. My feet are moving lazily in sheets that are so soft I can immediately tell it’s a hotel bed. The sun is peeking in timidly through the thin gap between the opaque curtains covering the huge window opposite me. The room’s temperature is perfect, but I’m grateful for the warmth of Tristan’s nearly naked body pressed against my back.
Besides my recent rude awakening three months after all this started, I’ve always traveled forward chronologically from one point in our history to another. So I can only be in one place. I don’t even look at my phone to check. We’re in Tenerife, at the end of July, and we’re on vacation.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Shh…”
I turn around to look at him, and he gives me a kiss. There’s a lot of bedhead going on…
“What are you…?”
He quiets me again with his mouth and tugs on me until I turn over and instinctively sling my left leg over his hip. We look at each other, because sometimes looking at each other is a complete action that doesn’t have to imply anything more than how nice it is…or it does. His right hand slips under my panties slowly, giving me time to decide whether I want to stop him, like a declaration of intentions. I bite my lip and arch to make it easier for him. He smiles, his eyes on my tits.
“It’s going to be fast,” he says throatily.
I nod. That’s how I like it in the mornings. No foreplay. Sometimes we like to tease, holding each other’s gazes, testing little by little how and how far he’s entering me. Very slowly at first, making me desperate, rubbing, teasing me, and pulling out when my body has barely opened for him, until I’m completely soaked and then he speeds up. Today it takes a little while. Or we’re moving faster. I don’t know, but our bodies don’t quite line up with each other. Sex isn’t always perfect; it’s worth remembering, or you’ll get frustrated.
“Ah…” I moan, putting my open palm on his chest.
He rubs my clit with the head of his cock, and I nod with a purr.
“Shh…”
He tries again. He pushes in a little farther. He pulls out. When he pushes in again, he thrusts so deep it leaves me breathless, and we hold each other in a kind of sideways embrace.
“I’m not gonna stop until I fill you up,” he growls into my ear.
I throw my head back and moan, loving the way he’s grabbing me, how he braces me with his palms and fingers on my body before he fucks me hard.
“Don’t stop,” I beg.
“I’m not going to,” he groans. “Catch up with me.”
I hope the adjoining rooms are empty and their inhabitants are down by the hotel pool, on the beach, or at the buffet having breakfast, anywhere but listening to this spectacle. It’s a short show, that’s true, but intense. And traumatizing for minors under eighteen. Possibly for those of age too.
The headboard is slamming against the wall, Tristan is gasping, and even though I’m trying to prevent it, I stifle some screams in his neck and bite it because I don’t know how else I can absorb this much pleasure.
In less than ten minutes, at least seven rooms on this floor hear Tristan curse before he keeps his word and fills me up. I lost track a couple of minutes ago, because my orgasm left me half-unconscious after I felt his hand hovering around my neck, on top of how hard he was pounding me.
But he keeps thrusting for a few seconds, eyes closed, until he seems to calm down, nuzzles into me, and collapses, burying me.
“I think I love you,” he says, completely spent.
All I can do is laugh.
“Sitting down kinda hurts,” I whimper as I climb into the rental car.
Tristan lets out a laugh.
“You’re silly.”
“I’m serious. What did we do last night?”
“You’re asking me?” He puts on his seat belt and yawns. “I started worrying you thought I was your sex slave instead of your boyfriend.”
“Seriously, Tristan…everything hurts when I sit.” I put on my seat belt and start the car. “I don’t know how to be any clearer.”
He settles in and rubs an eye.
“Should I sketch it for you? Do you have amnesia all of a sudden?”
I look at him, trying to understand why I’m in so much pain. He raises his eyebrows.
“Listen, girl, I’m just a dude in love. My girlfriend asks me to do things, and I step up to the plate and do them to her.”
“What do you mean, ‘do them to her’?”
“I mean, I do them to her.” He laughs. “You can’t say I wasn’t careful, I was a bundle of nerves, and I kept telling myself ‘slloooooooowwww.’ Still…there’s no lube left.”
I turn back to the wheel 100 percent sure I don’t want to delve any deeper into the subject. This is how Tristan is; he’s not the most communicative guy in the world, but you know that topic that you’re embarrassed to talk about? Well, that very thing will be the topic he treats without a hint of euphemism. Not one. Not even out of mercy.
After a twenty-minute journey with the windows rolled down, we get to the diving port. I’m happy. After all the days I’ve relived, I needed this; he did too. He looks so relaxed it’s easy to forget that not long ago in lockdown, we wanted to battle to the death.
We hired a small boat with a captain to take us to see pilot whales in the open sea and swim near a cove, surrounded by nothing but fish. We could have booked it with a group of people and it would’ve been much cheaper, but when we were organizing the trip, Tristan looked at me, shook his head, and said:
“Better alone. It’s not because I plan on making this a special memory to bring up when life becomes sad and gray. It’s just that after this whole lockdown thing, I’ve developed social anxiety.”
And I understood that it was the most romantic way he knew how to say it. It was a “You’re all I need.”
The captain, accustomed to groups of friends who want a lot of beer, a lot of wine, and reggaeton and are constantly whooping, greets us like we’re godsent. He asks us what kind of music we like, what time we’d like to eat, and if we’re celebrating anything.
“Well…I think just life. This year showed us everything is worth celebrating,” Tristan confesses, putting his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t you think?”
That’s so Tristan. It can take him decades to feel comfortable in a group of friends, but he can immediately open up to strangers he’ll never see again in his life.
We start slathering ourselves head to toe in sunscreen…even though he’s reluctant. He says he doesn’t burn. No. Of course not. The thing is, when he does get burned, there’s no turning back, and he doesn’t complain. But he should’ve found another girl to spend the day on a boat with if he wanted to soak up the August sun.
Putting lotion on his back, spreading lotion and kisses in equal parts, his scent mixing with the floral sunscreen, is one of my favorite memories. When I experienced it, I wasn’t aware it was on clearance. I don’t even think I realized exactly where we were heading as a couple, yet I felt as happy as a little kid.
The wind tousles our hair, and we settle on the bow, sipping cold beers and listening to Tristan’s Spotify playlist called “Get to work, for the love of God” that I love. He Bluetoothed his phone to the speakers before we departed, and now Khalid’s “Better” is playing. And…fuck, it really hits the spot, because I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could be better than this. The sea is darkening to cobalt, and shards of sunlight sparkle on it. Everything is perfect.
As we get closer to where the whale sightings usually happen, the skipper turns the music down until it’s barely more than a faint murmur and slows down to a crawl. He explains that we might not see them, which we know, and as we wait and move almost by inertia, he tells us about the whales that are native to the area.
“They usually travel in pods,” he tells us. “And they’re pretty big. They can measure…I don’t know, easily four or five meters, the biggest ones. They’re actually from the dolphin family.”
“Do they eat humans?”
Tristan covers his face when he hears my question, and the captain bursts out laughing and shakes his head vigorously.
“No, not at all, but unless you have very bad luck and you fall overboard, you’re not going to find out, because this area is very protected and controlled. Very few boats are allowed in the perimeter, and swimming isn’t permitted. For their protection.”
“That’s really good to hear,” I admit.
I remember how I was dying to ask him the first time. Now I’m sure people aren’t in their diet. And it’s a relief, because they’re beautiful but enormous, and it’s scary to think about falling out of the boat with them so close.
Right then, he gives us a signal.
“There. Right there. I think there are two of them.”
When they come closer, it doesn’t take us long to see there are six of them. Enormous, amazing, and incredible. Their skin shines like the sun when they come to the surface, and we can make out the shape of their heads. Just like the first time, it almost brings me to tears. They say nature, as in the entire concept of it, doesn’t interact with us, but I think it does, in the same way the concept of beauty does.
“They’re so beautiful!” I yelp. “Tristan…aren’t they beautiful?”
He beams at me.
“What?”
He laughs.
“They look so soft. I mean…they’re huge, but…”
“You’re the one who’s beautiful.”
He puts his arm around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder. His skin is warm from the sun, and the boat is swaying on the waves, the engine turned off, rocking us like we were in someone’s arms trying to get us to sleep.
“Do you know how much I love you?” I ask him when I see the skipper moving away toward the stern.
“Of course.”
“No. It’s impossible for you to know.”
He leans back to look at me.
“Of course, just like it’s impossible for you to know how much I love you.”
“You never say it.”
“Don’t start,” he begs me with a tired look. “I wish we all spoke the same language about this, but that’s just not how it is. It’s not my style, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you as much as or more than you.”
“How much do you love me?”
He smiles.
“So much…so much…so much…that I’ll volunteer to tell your cousin we’re not going to her wedding.”
“Nooo…” I let out a moan mixed with laughter. “Tristan, for once, just this one time, I’m asking you to say something to me. I’m even asking you explicitly. And you’re on a boat surrounded by whales. There’s no escape. Tell me, how much do you love me?”
He looks at me, and his lips twist into a smile. He strokes the skin between my eyebrows and then runs his finger down my nose and my lips. When he gets to my chin, the smile has turned into a slightly more ambiguous look.
“I love you so much, Miranda, so much, enough to let you go if we get to a point in our lives where I suspect I’m not making you as happy as I can and you deserve.”
“It’s not your responsibility to make me happy,” I reply.
“I know. But I shouldn’t do the opposite either, right?”
“Of course.”
“So we do understand love the same way.”
The kiss is short. We’re interrupted by the skipper, who didn’t notice our intimate moment.
“Hiya, should we head off again? We might be able to spot some dolphins farther that way.” But when he sees how closely we’re sitting… “Sorry.”
“No worries.” We laugh.
“We’ll eat lunch next to a cove, and you can swim. Okay? It’s starting to get hot.”
We didn’t end up seeing dolphins, but I already knew that, just like I knew Tristan was going to have some ups and downs when we leaped into open water. He has slight vertigo, and sometimes he can’t prevent the feeling in really deep water.
“Just concentrate on floating,” I say.
“Jesus,” he splutters. “That sounds easy, but we have a fucking void under us, Miri.”
Still, by the time we get back in the boat again, we’re cracking up. When we get to the port, we feel like we’re coming back from summer camp. One of those special summer camps where you made friends, they showed you how to recognize stars, and someone even kissed you.
On the way back to the hotel, windows down again, the wind ruffles our salty hair, and we’re blasting Foxes. Tristan’s driving, and my fingers are in his hair while I sing along in my terrible English. “Let Go for Tonight” is playing when he says that, if I feel like it, we could go for a walk after dinner tonight.
“A walk?”
“A walk.” He glances over at me. “Don’t you miss smoking sometimes?”
I never used to smoke in the car, but right now, I’d love a smoke…
“Yes.” I nod. “Sometimes. Some moments are made for cigarettes.”
“A walk,” he broaches it again as he downshifts, brakes, looks in the rearview mirror, accelerates, changes lanes, and shifts gears again.
“Go back. I dropped my underwear a hundred meters back.”
“All you dropped is your shame. I can’t with you anymore. My dick is gonna fall off. I swear it’s starting to hurt when I take a piss.”
I get the giggles.
“Focus. You were saying something about a walk.”
“Yes. Fuck.” He gives me a vulgar look. “You don’t want to marry me. You don’t want to have kids with me. We’re still just boyfriend-girlfriend at our age…well, we’re going to do boyfriend-girlfriend things. We’re going to walk on the beach. Actually…”
The tires screech as he suddenly swerves to take the next turn, where there’s a sign advertising a supermarket.
“What are you doing?” I say, hanging on wherever I can.
It’s not that he drives badly…he just drives hard.
“We’re going to buy calimocho.” He cracks himself up. “And we’re going to get wasted on a beach.”
I burst out laughing. I had forgotten all about the calimocho on the beach. We did go on a walk from the hotel, but I don’t know why I thought we had bought the drink somewhere around there…
Another sharp turn.
“Actually, we should probably buy it there. I’m too old to drink it warm, and I don’t wanna lug around a cooler full of ice.”
Just as I was saying.
“Tristan…” I mumble.
“Mm?”
“I never said I didn’t want to marry you.”
The moon is full and beautiful when we walk down the slope at the back of the hotel holding hands. I look at our clasped hands and smile. The hard guy who “isn’t like that” and who dreams of a house with a little land in Vigo, with kids playing in a yard full of bicycles, balls, dolls, a family car, a peaceful life…clinging to my hand.
“What are you looking at?”
“Our hands. Do you remember the whole ‘we’re not that kind of couple’ thing?”
“I’m not. You are. You could see it on your face like you were wearing a sign.” He laughs. “I think the first time I did it was just so you wouldn’t be disappointed, and then I thought…that’s ridiculous? Why shouldn’t I hold her hand if it makes her happy?”
“The other day…” I hesitate.
“The other day what?”
“I was remembering that kiss you gave me in Paris.”
“I’ve given you a lot of kisses in Paris.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Come on. I’m actually pretty mushy.”
“I was talking about the first time we went together, when we were there for fashion week. We weren’t even official yet.”
“Oh yeah. You were a real handful on that trip.” He laughs. “I kissed you, and you smudged lipstick all over my mouth.”
I side-eye him.
“I think it was the best kiss of my life.”
“That doesn’t say much about our relationship.” But he throws it out like it’s nothing, like it actually doesn’t matter to him at all.
“No. But…those kisses in the beginning are the most romantic, right? The most exciting.”
“Kisses are always beautiful when there are more to give.” He looks at me and smiles. “Isn’t that what it’s about?”
I don’t know why. That affirmation should have made me deliriously happy and given me hope, but it makes me sad. There’s something…something, something small, malignant, that has wrapped its tentacles around our words and is staining every letter with a poison that I can’t get rid of.
“Do you want to kiss other women?”
Tristan stops in the middle of the street. He doesn’t seem angry or annoyed by the question. He seems completely disoriented and confused.
“Wow.”
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting that. Not from you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” He starts walking again. “Let me think up an answer.”
“To which question?”
“I find it pretty disturbing that you’re asking me that, I guess. I thought the first question would’ve been answered more than four years ago.”
We don’t talk much; we’re a little tense but not annoyed, maybe the word is uncomfortable, at least until we get to the beach. We find a hut that sells us a few drinks we can take with us in plastic cups, and we venture out onto the sand. I take my shoes off first. He drags sand under the soles of his white shoes until we sit down a good distance away from a group of friends who have gathered with a very similar idea to ours, but slightly more…social.
He takes off his shoes ceremoniously while I hold his drink and take a few small sips of mine. I hear a few girls with a pretty accent saying it’s almost one. We took it easy today during dinner and cocktails at the hotel before we came for this stroll. I’m worried that Tristan is bothered by my question, and that feels weird. I don’t know how to explain it.
“Tristan…are you mad?”
“Nope,” he answers right away. “All done. Hand it over, thanks.”
He takes his cup and gives me a kiss on the lips. I relax until I hear the next thing he says:
“But…”
“Fuck.”
“Listen, Miranda, for God’s sake…” He gets surprised. “I just wanted to say that asking me if I want to kiss other women is the last thing I thought would come out of your mouth. It’s not like you at all.”
“How is it not like me at all?”
“At all.” He stares ahead, out to sea, leaning his forearms on his knees. “Ever since I met you, and not just then but through our whole relationship, you’ve always been a woman with no jealousy. You have your insecurities, like everyone else, but you’re aware that if I’m by your side, it’s because I want to be. We both know the door is open for us to leave, and that’s why what we have is so valuable, right?”
“Yes.”
“Asking me if I want to kiss other women is questioning if I’m where I want to be.”
I blink, surprised, and look out to sea.
“Well, that’s not what I was thinking about when I asked you that.”
“I understand that, but that’s what I heard behind that question.”
“Okay.” I nod.
“Do you have doubts?”
“About what?”
“About me.”
Yes. Because in seven months, you’re going to dump me in a soulless café on Calle de Fuencarral.
“No.”
“You say no, and I hear yes.”
“Maybe that’s because we’re so close to the ocean?” I raise my eyebrows, hoping it sounds gentler filtered through a joke. “I don’t know. Maybe we just have to admit that the last few months have been hard.”
“Yes. They have. But just because our relationship goes through rough patches, that doesn’t mean I want to sleep with other women. Plural, to make it worse. Multiple women. Maybe even all at once.”
“I’m sure you want to sleep with a bunch all at once when you’re jerking off in the shower.” I attempt another joke.
“I’m sure you want to do it with Harry Styles.”
“Duh. Who doesn’t?”
He laughs.
“Miranda…” He sighs. “Things get hard because we both want this to work, not because we want to break up.”
“I don’t know if what you just said makes much sense.”
“Of course it does.” His smile is tinged with bitterness. “I realized a little while ago. And I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion. We’re so different that the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing doesn’t work with us. And when fire and ice dance…oof, Miranda, it’s really complicated. Because you melt me. And I extinguish you. Where’s the balance? Is there one?”
A sigh lodges in the middle of my chest. I don’t want to cry, but I don’t know if I can hold it in.
“Hey,” he says softly. “We’ll keep trying, right? But only because, despite the laws of physics, this ice doesn’t have any intention of kissing other people. So…Miranda…I don’t know. What if we just dance?”
I let him tuck me under his arm. I don’t cry, even though I want to, because right now, more than anything, I want to dance. Dance until the end. And it feels like the music is going to stop playing any minute.
“Can we stay here until dawn?”
“All night?” It’s a question, but he doesn’t seem surprised.
“Please. I want to see what happens.”
“Can I give you a spoiler? In the end, the sun comes up.”
“What I want to know is if I’ll still be here.”
“You’re nuts.” He laughs.
“No way! Listen…do you remember that time you made me steak tartare at your house? In your first apartment in Madrid.”
“Fuck. Of course. You were so weird. I couldn’t decide for a long time whether you were crazy or the most interesting girl I had ever met in my life. Do you know what else I thought? Come here. Let’s get comfy.”
We spend the night talking, remembering together and revisiting details and corners I hadn’t traveled to. Now that something is telling me the music is going to stop playing, I’m scared I’ll end up without a chair when the game ends. And hearing these things come out of his mouth decapitates the shadows that were lying in wait around the corner. And they’re not so scary anymore, but they are sad. Very sad.
About the sunrise, if you want a spoiler, as Tristan says, when tints of pink are streaking the sky, I close my eyes. When I open them again, I’m in my bed. In my apartment. In Madrid.