When, after eleven o’clock, we got into a taxi that would take us to Pilar’s apartment, I already had indigestion from the two hours I had spent swallowing one song after another of the much-lauded New Cuban Song movement sung by a primate with long curly locks who made Pilar a member of the chorus par excellence, for the Toledan screamed her head off as if by doing so she could recuperate the thousand dollars and her lost boyfriend, while I gulped down my beers, already a bit irritated, though I was very careful not to show it, until finally the primate with long curly locks ended his set, and Pilar looked at her watch with a start and said that she had to work the next day, the look on her face like that of a schoolteacher scolding her young charges, then stood up and asked the waiter to bring us the bill, which favorably impressed me considering the quantity of beer she had inbibed and the unsteadiness of her gaze, for I had assumed I was going to have to remove her feet first from that Bodeguita de Enfrente, which didn’t happen, but instead both of us got into the taxi that would supposedly take us first to her apartment, where she would get out, and then to mine, where I would get out, another event that didn’t happen as expected because when we arrived at her apartment it was suggested that I should take advantage of the opportunity to see it and have one last beer, with her consent, of course, it could not have been otherwise. I forgot to say that Pilar was a typical Spanish girclass="underline" thin, with a big ass, small bust, thick eyebrows, a turned-up nose, a nasal and rapid-fire voice; in her plaid skirt she climbed the stairs to her second-floor apartment, followed by my greedy eyes on her swaying ass I was tempted to grab, but we weren’t on such intimate terms yet, despite our flirtations at La Bodeguita de Enfrente and one or another inadvertent brush against each other, so I deferred my attack until we were in the kitchen and after she had taken a couple of beers out of the refrigerator, God’s will be done, my mouth on her mouth, which was not open enough for my liking, my hands caressing her neck, her back, then tightly squeezing her lovely buttocks, which would soon have to become meat to sink my teeth into, which I longed to do, while I led her, without releasing our mouths nor removing my hand from her buttocks, toward the sofa in the living room on which we fell horizontally, and I proceeded, directed by logic, to suck on her little tits and then, with one audacious move my palm was on her pubis and my middle finger slid into her dampness, something so natural that her subsequent reaction left me utterly crushed, because suddenly she turned into a teenage virgin who’d been warned that the wolf comes disguised as a cock, my God, and she pushed me aside and sat up and said, “I can’t,” with two thousand years of guilt drying out her cunt, repeating “I can’t” to convince even herself, her face twisted in a grimace of pain, because things with Humberto were so fresh for her that she was incapable of making love with another man, that I should forgive her, that I should understand her, that it had nothing to do with me, that until she had gotten over what had happened with Humberto she wouldn’t be capable of being with anybody else, she insisted, even though she liked me and she felt good with me, she just couldn’t. And then all the listlessness in the world fell upon my shoulders — I had gone to the wrong theater, which was showing a boring old movie I could follow with my eyes closed because I’d seen it so many times — a listlessness so overwhelming and paralyzing that I didn’t even have the wherewithal to stand up and get myself a taxi, which I should have done, but instead crawled into an armchair facing her, clutching my beer, and resigned myself to watching Pilarica act out her melodrama about that clever young man and that perfidious colleague, a whole litany about one’s self-esteem blown to bits, the tears and snot de rigueur, until I had no choice but to return to the sofa where she was sobbing, comfort her, allow her to cry on my shoulder while I sniffed at her hair, because she used a shampoo I wasn’t familiar with, one that had a strong scent, to tell the truth, almost unpleasant, and while I comforted her I could feel how soft the skin on her arms was and slowly I again began making maneuvers, with some hope, to see if I could breach her defenses with a second assault. I must admit this kiss lasted longer, I could even make her open her mouth the way I liked, my hand also lifted her plaid skirt and caressed her thighs, with largesse, delighting in her pubic hairs, even though they were a little thick for my taste, but the moment I approached her cunt and began to encircle it, she pulled my hand away, whispered “no” but didn’t push me away, as if I were going to spend the whole night kissing her and getting hornier and hornier, so I decided to make a radical move and I went down on her to eat her out, and once and for all stick my middle finger up her ass, sonofabitch, my balls were about to burst, but suddenly she got up, a modest young lady at the far end of the couch, better to leave things as they are, she said, stern but without any reproach. I’m leaving, I said. Then she softened up, but not in the way I wanted her to, instead she said, “Don’t go, I don’t want to stay here alone,” she needed company, the girl she shared the apartment with was away, another Spanish girl who worked at the offices of the archbishop and was traveling through indigenous regions, and I could sleep in her bed instead of risking going out so late at night, she said, standing up and taking my hand so that I would follow her, to which I acquiesced because if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, and in her bed, all the better, for I still wasn’t intending to give up, by the way, that’s why I barely paused in Fátima’s room, that was her roommate’s name, but rather accompanied Pilar to her quarters, where the bed looked wide enough for us to frolic to our heart’s content, the desk was too small and the titles of the books on her shelves rather horrifying, as I told her when she was on her way toward the bathroom, I presumed to get ready for bed, and while I waited for Pilar to emerge in her short transparent baby doll, as sexy as could be, I set about riffling through her belongings, in the beating of a bird’s wings, but the fact is I was waiting for the Toledan to give me a pleasant surprise, which is why when I saw her come out in one of those Franco-style pajamas worn in the convents of bygone eras so that the novices couldn’t get even their own hands onto their own private parts, my astonishment was absolute, I could only exclaim, And that?! never having seen such a garment, a garment she had surely inherited from her mother, or had been given to her by a strict mother superior, pajamas that really looked like a spacesuit, the only thing missing was the astronaut’s helmet, I thought, still amazed, so much so that I asked her if under that spacesuit she wasn’t also wearing a chastity belt, for I had never seen one in my life and she should let me see it, I begged her, but instead of answering me she crawled under the covers, said she was exhausted, and asked me to please turn off the light.