It makes me laugh to remember it. It makes me sad to remember. He came to pick me up to go to a bonfire at the beach. As we were leaving he said he’d left his sweater at home, and I went with him to get it. We went inside. The house was empty. His aunt and uncle had gone to Santiago and wouldn’t be back until Friday, he told me, looking at me with his calm, direct gaze. A log cabin, all very rustic. We sat down on a wicker sofa on the second floor deck, overlooking the ocean. He put on music. We drank piscola. I took off my sandals and rested my feet on a little bamboo table. And then, I don’t know how, we were dancing. Diana Ross’s voice mixed with the sound of the nearby ocean. Reach out and touch somebody’s hand.
Over his shoulder I could see the foam shining on the waves as they broke, lit up by the moon. The floorboards of the deck were spaced apart, and they felt rough when my toes went between them. That was annoying. But it was delicious when my toes would accidentally brush against his. When had he taken off his sandals? A big toe slid over my foot and pressed at the base of my toes. I lost the rhythm and missed a step. He held me firm and I felt the muscles in his chest pressing into mine. The image of his torso in his bathing suit flashed into my mind. My stomach tightened. Here. Like this.
That present, that now drains away without us noticing. What that now holds within it is the crash of waves nearby in the night, and a man’s foot that brushes against mine and stays. Accidentally. We’re dancing. That’s all. And the separated boards of a second-floor deck torment our feet and obstruct their movement. We can’t help but dance very slowly. No matter where you are, no matter how far. . His face is pressed against mine. His tenderness makes me melt. No wind, (no wind) no rain, (no rain) / Nor winter’s cold. . I feel a thigh move between my legs. Its invasive touch unsettles me. He’s bringing me to a place I’d rather not go. I sense danger. Do you know where you’re going to? But there’s a hand with immense fingers that moves down my back and comes to rest along my spine with a smooth naturalness.
When that hand pulled me toward him I had no choice but to go. And then I felt the intrusive thigh wasn’t alone, there was something else now, a firm mass. Was that what he was thinking about? My first reaction was repulsion and disgust, almost. But when I felt it so aggressive and firm and persistent, so foreign to the rest of a human being’s body, I don’t know. . I had never imagined the curiosity that insolent, uninvited guest would provoke in me. Suddenly, I was laughing with my eyes closed and my head thrown back. Rodrigo’s lips on my neck. A shiver went down my back. This was serious. I straightened up and my mouth landed precisely on his. We kissed with a calm that we barely maintained.
My first kiss. . Anyone who forgets her first kiss didn’t deserve it. Don’t you think? Even if she has a degree in French literature and she’s read all her Simone de Beauvoir, her Foucault, and her Derrida. Mine was in El Quisco, like I told you. The truth is, I could never forget. I don’t want to, either. Even though Rodrigo turned out to be a bastard. But in that first encounter there was sensitivity, gentleness, tenderness. Nothing that hinted at the cruelty to come. Our heads moved apart, and the first thing I saw were his eyes narrowed in a smile. When I was able to disengage from those tender, kind eyes, my gaze went to his mouth that, also smiling, was waiting for me. No wind, no rain, / can stop me, babe. . My stomach was being wrung like a wet towel. Something in him was escaping. My mouth sought his and I lost myself in it, I did battle with an ardent tongue, rough and formidable. We gasped for air and he held my hips and pulled me toward him calmly, surely. I don’t know: his bare foot moved slowly over mine.
That night, back in my own room, I fell asleep with Diana Ross’s voice in my ears. I thought about Rodrigo’s sweet eyes, and I felt them next to me. It was a hot night, and every so often I woke to the buzz of mosquitoes flying over my sun-browned skin.
The next day I didn’t see him on the beach. I was with his friends, but I didn’t dare ask about him. I searched for him as though sleepwalking. Nothing. He’d disappeared. The next day, same thing. And so on. I was eaten up by longing. I slept badly. Then I would spend the day yawning, and the yawns turned to sighs on my lips. On the fourth day, let’s see. . Yes, I think it was the afternoon of the fourth day, I spotted him playing paddleball. I slowly brought my sun umbrella closer. While I walked over the sand I could look right at him through my dark sunglasses without disguising it. I untied my beach wrap from around my waist and carefully spread it out over the sand; I got my Nivea sunscreen from my bag and began rubbing it over my legs. I took my time. Was he watching me? I lay on my back with my straw hat over my face.
I didn’t wait long. I heard a footstep, very close by; a dusting of sand and someone took off my hat. His chin, his nose, inches from mine, his disconcerting smile. Calmly, I got up, tied the wrap around my waist, and reached out my arm to take the paddle he was offering me, smiling, his face all full of sun. I noticed the white mark left by his sunglasses, his dripping hair, his eyelashes caked with sea salt. His hand. . the paddle was still in his big hand with its big fingers. If it was God who made them, he shaped them with a lot of love, I felt. It was a hand, I felt, that would be able to hold a just-hatched chick and lift it without frightening it. I like men’s hands. Reach out and touch somebody’s hand. . The ball went flying and there I was, awkward, terrible, of course. And him, agile and well timed, stretching and jumping along the shore of wet sand to hit the ball gently within my reach. We played for a long time. When, sweaty and exhausted, we dunked ourselves in El Quisco’s freezing water, the sun was setting. Afterward we shivered with cold, together on my wrap watching the last reflections of light on the horizon, the beach almost empty, and we laughed and kissed with lips that were salty and trembling from the cold.
We went into his house hugging and laughing, and he put on Diana Ross again: You see, my love is alive. . We danced entwined, shivering in our soaked bathing suits, and no embrace was enough to satisfy us.
And it’s the force of that thigh between my legs, I don’t know, shivers going down my spine. His “gluteous” form through the wet bathing suit, I don’t know, my rough breathing and the sighs that escape me and that I try to hide. His kisses on my neck, his hands on my back, pressing me against him, and me sustaining the pressure, and the threat of that insistent mass that was unmistakable to me now. Ain’t no river wide enough / To keep me from you. . I felt a tug at my back, and in no hurry, gently, he unclasped the top of my bikini, which fell to the floorboards like the skin of a lifeless fish. I put my arms around him. I didn’t dare let him look at me. Shame intermingled with desire made my lips tremble. I felt flushed spots burning on my cheeks. He held me tight, my breasts against his firm body, and now I could tell he was breathing hard too, and that disarmed me.
He moved away from me and held me by the waist, he put one knee on the floor and let his eyes move over my breasts. He stayed there a moment, kneeling, motionless, looking at me. For a few seconds I knew what it felt like to be a goddess. His lips moved a little, almost imperceptibly. I sunk my hands into his hair. When I saw that yes, it was true, a tear was sliding down his cheek, I pulled his head closer and he let me, I held it against my stomach. I felt the tip of his tongue in my belly button and we burst out laughing.