“Tu coño es mi hermosa prisión,” he said breathlessly.
I grinned and pulled back, trying to look at him. “What did you say? Something about my pussy?”
“It is a good thing and it is the truth,” he said, lazily returning the grin. He then proceeded to fuck me right there on the counter, my legs wrapped around him, my nails digging into his ass.
It was a good morning.
My first week in Madrid flew past in the blink of an eye. Maybe jet lag had something to do with it, but it felt like one big airy dream filled with nothing but sex and food. If we weren’t in the apartment making up for lost time, we were out exploring Madrid. We ate at a lot of tapas bars in very youthful and vibrant parts of town. It was not at all what I would have expected. I thought once I was with Mateo, he’d be taking me wining and dining to the fancy restaurants, the trendy bars where everything was made of ice and the waiters didn’t smile, the lounges for the elite.
Instead, we were almost slumming it. When I brought it up, he told me that he didn’t care much for those types of places anyway and thought I would be more comfortable in laidback environments. Frankly, I thought he was probably trying to avoid running into his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s crowd and I couldn’t fault him for that. I enjoyed living in the happy bubble that the first week brought me, and I wasn’t looking forward to the reality that would come crashing into us one day.
On a sunny Saturday, the city still sweltering and strangely empty with most of the locals escaping to Mallorca or the coastal beaches, I finally got to meet up with Claudia. She was working longer hours at her job since so many of her colleagues were on vacation, and we hadn’t had a chance to hang out. Ricardo was now living with her in Madrid as well, having been able to get a job transfer.
Mateo and I walked down to Plaza Mayor where we were to meet them at an outdoor café that had an assortment of beers on tap. That’s really all I required when the weather was like this—a patio and beer. Though being sticky was never fun, I always took advantage of the sun and heat whenever I could, thanks to Vancouver’s mild and rainy weather. You’d never hear me complaining about hot weather.
“It will be nice to see them again,” Mateo remarked to me as we waited to cross the street. When the coast was clear, he grabbed my hand and led me across the road. It was the little things like that that made me do an internal squee, that got the butterflies racing. I loved it when he held my hand or put his arm around my waist in public.
It especially meant something to me because I often saw the looks that other people gave us, the sight of the business man with the tattooed girl. The men looked envious and the women looked disgusted. The good thing was that Mateo certainly didn’t look thirty-eight, so really, it wasn’t that scandalous, people just liked any reason to pass judgment. It also helped that Mateo started dressing down a lot more, like he did at Las Palabras—his signature “business” look was jeans and a blazer—and I’d made sure to start dressing up. It wasn’t a stretch for me, especially in the summer—I loved a good sundress.
“Look who it is, the Anglo and the Spaniard!” I heard Claudia yell from across the square. Sure enough, there was Claudia and Ricardo, getting out of their chairs, big smiles on their faces. Claudia looked radiant, her skin deeply tanned, wearing a plain green v-neck and a white skirt. Ricardo was clean-shaven, and in shorts and a soccer jersey.
I hugged her and we exchanged pecks on the cheek. “You look great,” I told her, looking her up and down.
“So do you. Like Marilyn Monroe,” she said. I was wearing a white retro-styled dress with cherries on it. I wasn’t sure if I looked Marilyn or just very Rockabilly. Either way, the boobs were definitely getting some sun.
While she greeted Mateo, I greeted Ricardo. “You must forgive me,” he said, pecking me quickly. “Our English has not been so good since we got back from Las Palabras.”
“Speak for yourself,” Claudia admonished him with a grin. She looked at me, her eyes dancing. “I was promoted the other day to take care of the international accounts.”
“Congrats!” I told her.
“That is fantastic,” Mateo said, casually jamming his hands in his pockets. He was wearing black knee-length shorts, Keds (no socks), and a plain white polo shirt, his face erring on the side of stubbly instead of beardy thanks to the heat. “I could barely put together a sentence before Vera showed up.”
“Oh, that is not true,” I said. I wanted to remind him that we were speaking English and talking on the phone nearly every day until I got here. But even though Claudia already knew that about us, something made me clamp my mouth shut. Maybe because now that I was finally here and we were finally together, all the time leading up to now had been part of an actual relationship. It had been an affair—a short one, a distant one, before he had come clean and filed for divorce—but definitely not harmless.
We sat down with them, and like that time at Acantilado, Mateo and Ricardo went off to get us drinks. I watched as his tall, broad-shouldered form disappeared into the dark of the bar, unable to take my eyes off of him.
“Well, look at you, so in love,” Claudia teased.
I rolled my eyes. “Look at yourself.”
She waved at me in dismissal. “Maybe a month ago, when Ricardo first got here. Now I’m already tired of him pissing on the toilet seat, never closing the lids on things.”
“Then I’m sure that will be me soon, so let me have my googly eyes, mmmkay?”
She smiled and studied me for a few moments while she finished her beer. The she smiled, wider this time, until I could see her canines, and exclaimed, “I am so happy you are here! I never thought you would actually do it, to be honest with you.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted. “Until it seemed like it was the only thing to do.”
“Well,” she said, reaching out and laying her hand on mine for a moment. “I am glad you did. This must be such a change for you though. How are you coping?”
“I honestly can’t complain,” I said with a coy smile.
She wagged her finger at me. “I know that look. You had it on the last day of Las Palabras.”
“I was crying on the last day of Las Palabras.”
“We were all crying. But in between your tears you had this same look. Utterly satisfied. Like you just had a great meal.”
“Satisfied. That’s a good word,” I said, leaning back in the chair. I titled my head to the sun, glad for my shades. Pigeons cooed from below, walking among the cobblestones. I’d been dreaming about exactly this for so long, being in the sun, being where there was life, being with my friends and love again. I needed to soak it up like the rays.
“When does fall come?” I asked her, keeping my eyes closed and face to the sky. “More specifically, when does summer end?”
“Are you tired of the heat?” she asked. “Weak Canadian.”
“Not at all, I love it,” I told her. “But I know that the seasons will change soon. I like to hang on to this—to summer and sunshine—for as long as I can.”
She peered at her arm, as if her tan could tell her. “I say another two weeks. Then it will start to end. October, you will feel the difference.”
I didn’t dare think that far ahead.
Soon Mateo and Ricardo came back with our drinks and we spent the whole afternoon just relaxing under the sun, chasing away the heat with ice cold beers. I was buzzed—summer buzzed, the best kind. And no, not like a bee. We literally sat there for hours and hours, all chatting away like it was old times. Near the end I was starting to feel guilty for having them adapt to my language, so I made them speak Spanish at the end to help me learn. I was lost, but after a while I started to pick up on things here and there.