“So what,
you’ll be messing with someone this time, too?” Karen said to me, almost
marking my faith five days before my trip to Huatulco. Certainly, I liked to
use get-aways to get-off sometimes, being known for a small get-off
one-vacation-stand with a Dutch I’ve never heard from ever since.
I think
this phrase was what shaped my destiny and my trip, not only as some kind of
prediction (like someone who looks up the weather online only to find out that
this person will be spending plenty of time in his room, away from the rain),
but also as some kind of unconscious challenge that I would try to fulfill on
those 5 sunny days I spent on the bay.
Walking
with his three friends, with a tank-top, shorts and sandals (typical beach
attire), I can’t remember why exactly I began to be interested on him. It
happen casually, between gazes and a set of random events. He was one of the
many different guests at the hotel I was staying, he wasn’t the most attractive
one, neither he was the most interesting, nor the hottest, hungest or any other
typical –est that I would fixate with, he was only the one who I would find
myself looking for, and the one I would find when I wasn’t looking– he was
without a doubt interesting, smart and had a dash of beauty that kept my
interest after seeing him this first time without puzzling or attracting me.
As I was
about to say, I found him at first near the pool of the hotel we both shared,
if w, at first exchanged a glance, it was just with the glimpse of the eye, for
no more than a heartbeat— we just both watched each other's body and then met
each other in the eye, without defining interest, like a painting that's too
modern to catch your attention or aesthetical sense.
He was back
then in his mid-forties, with salt and pepper goatee and a shaved head, an
inked body not to skinny but not to big either. The next time I saw him, reading
in the beach, I began to look at this painting thoroughness, finding the
pattern and what linked it with the actual word, which is not only a matter of
speaking, but also the fact that his face looked like a skinny version of the
actor Jonathan Banks (who played Mike in Breaking Bad).
That was
the feature that called me into the canvas, into discovering more and more
about all the details of this painting. That was the feature that dragged me
into and unleashed a spiral of desire and a certain "neediness"
towards him and the flirting moves he would passively direct to me, sometimes
without realizing it, sometimes them being only detected by me, only made for
me and my pleasure.
I didn't
want to have him on an intimate way, I didn't want to own that painting either,
all I wanted to see it, to gaze upon him and enjoy him and the act for as much
as I could— it was seduction seen as a result, not as a process to get to be
with someone, a condition we both shared, I learned after a few days.
Even today
I don’t really know that much about him. I only know what his body shows, I
know that he wears “whities”, that he speaks Spanish-spanish (Spain Spanish?)
very gently, he likes to read on the beach, sunbaths and waking up and starting
the day early, apart from being a man of precision when it came to time. I knew
he had a boyfriend who would also look at me (and only the last of my 5 days
mental affair I realized it was with jealously). Even today I know that I
desired him, that I wanted him to notice me and to share with me a few talks of
complicity. And I also know that desire can sometimes hurt more than love. This
one being one of those times.
He never said
hi or smiled to me, he only stared as I stared, he only saw my body the way I
saw him, he only in a way mirrored what I did which was only mirror what I
thought he was doing, his play, his dance, his game, his movements, which was
hopeful when it happened, when we waltzed for hours on the beach, when he would
direct his eyes towards me and just get lost in the moment, in imagining the
possibilities, but that coin quickly flipped when he would leave the beach, making
me helpless, hopeless, bitter.
The worst
part became evident after the third day. Not knowing when it would all be over,
not being ready for when it would al end. For as long as it lasted, I would
still be able to see him on the beach and two or three times more during the
day, but if he was to leave one morning and for me to just find his empty chair
on the beach, then I wouldn’t had have closure, I would regret every day on my
life (up until the moment where I’d find someone else to mess with, as Karen
would say) not talking to him, not taking the chance of starting a
conversation, of smiling, waving, even the unlikely polite RSVP to a threesome
with him and his boyfriend (one never knows) what would work.
I was,
then, left with the uncertainty of our no-relationship, I knew the painting was
bought, and that it was going to be taken out of the gallery at some point. I
didn’t know if it was going to be after I was gone or if I was just going to walk
to its absence, or to see the moment when it’s being taken out, to reveal a
wall that seems more white on the place where it stand.
I had to
find a moment to act (if I was going to), or just resign myself to the idea of
him just being a fine memory that would eventually vanished or be replaced.
Neither of those seemed fit for one reason or another, I was being left choice-less,
with only the spiral that wrapped us together (or him) to lead the way and for
me to follow blindly, not knowing where I was going through the night.
But,
surprisingly, on the fourth and last night, as I was leaning on the dark, about
to have a smoke, I heard asked in Spanish for a cigarette. So, there were four
different options here, but it wasn’t because of them that I was petrified, it
was only because of the sound of Spanish-spanish that I felt that way. It could
be his Spanish friend, or his Spanish boyfriend about to break my face, or some
other random Spanish speaker from Spain, but, instead, to the sound of “please?”
I actually get to see him, the object of my affections, standing right next to
me, grinning, with his tank-top and his shorts and sandals and all the things
he provoked in me (being one nervousness with this short distance).
At that
point, my brain stopped thinking and only acted based on instinct. My
primitive-self took a cigarette out of the package, trembling and trembling put
it on his hands. Then (trembling), I lighted the cigarette he has taken up to
his mouth. His hand covered mine, in more of a teasing and flirting gesture
than to actually cover help me the non-existing wind while the lighter was
giving birth to a flame.
We
exchanged a few phrases as we smoke (“Cold night, uh?”, “It’s been a while
since I had one of these”, “Are you liking it here so far?” and a few others
that could actually be found in every book that features small talk). At one
moment, only the sound of the crickets and the cicadas were heard. He then
grabbed my hand with his hand and looked directly to me. For that small second
I knew what the painting was about, why I had ignored it but why I had become
obsessed with it so easily and for so long. He looked at me sincerely, and it
all felt worth it. He then leaned his mouth to my face and kissed me, for just
a few seconds. And my primitive-self seemed to know that it wasn’t one of those
kisses that begin something that ends in bed the next morning, but it was
actually the kind of kiss that seals letter and put an end on things.
And I just
let him talk. And I just heard how glad he was to have known me, and how he was
sure things would’ve been different in other circumstances, how he was sure I
was a nice, loving person. “I understand, thanks” I muttered, after he thanked
me himself and said to me he was leaving tomorrow.
The next
thing I know, I’m taking a cold shower in my bathroom. After that I just wake
up, feeling somehow satisfied about it, not about the ending but to have ended
it.
I saw him
on the hotel lobby that morning, before we boarded the bus that would take us
to the airport. He was talking with his boyfriend and his friends, for the
first time, I wasn’t sure if he was looking at me through his dark glasses. For
the first time, I only cared for the answer, not for his attention.
He boarded
the bus first, on one of the last rows of seats. I saw him again on the
checking board, where he didn’t look at me.
His flight
was 15 minutes earlier than mine, I saw him one last time on airport security.
I didn’t
saw him on the airport when I arrived. I’m sure I’ll never see him again.
But closure
is what I wanted, even if it wasn’t of the kind I was expecting. Life goes on,
even if it still hurts now I’m sure someone else will fill the void and he will
be gone just as fast. It doesn’t change, it just start hurting less.
