“You are right, I haven’t been,” he replies, relieved. His eyes are closed and he would like nothing better now than to fall asleep. He hears Maryam shifting.
“Beirut is an international city, like Paris or London, but by the sea.” He opens his eyes to see her straddling a pillow. “Would you like me to tell you what’s wrong with Samir’s lovemaking?”
Guillermo doesn’t want to know anything. He wishes she would just be quiet, but without thinking, he says to her: “This is between the two of you.”
He sees her green eyes sparkling. She touches her chin and says, “I thought it might have something to do with the thickness of my pubic hair, which is normally dense as a hedge. I shaved it just for you.”
She pauses, waiting for Guillermo to say something. All he can think is that five hours ago he had no idea they would be sleeping together.
“So once I gave it a really good trim and I showed him my vagina. He looked at it as if it were the ugliest thing he had ever seen. He insisted that I cover myself up, that I lacked modesty. He swore that he was too old to try something new and that he had never seen anything so repulsive. He made me swear never to shave it again. But there, I’ve done it.”
“I guess you disobeyed him,” he says awkwardly.
She shakes her head, laughs, and says, “I knew you would like it. You have the face of a man who will do anything to satisfy a woman. You’ve been raised on Playboy magazine and Esquire.”
He laughs a fake complicit laugh and then says nervously, “And I thought you read the Economist.”
“I do! But I also like Playgirl. I have a stash of them in my closet!”
Guillermo is not amused. “Well, I should be going,” he says. He remembers that he had earlier called Sofia to meet him at this very same hotel, in this very same room, at six. He needs to find a way to call her.
Maryam sticks her hand under the sheets, grabs his dormant pecker, and begins to softly squeeze his testicles. “Can’t you stay a bit longer?”
“My kids will be waiting for me,” he says, moving away from her, very much aware that his penis, sore as it is, is growing hard again in her hand.
“I don’t know, my love, but it seems to me that you wouldn’t mind it if they waited a bit longer.” She is stroking him gently.
“We’re supposed to go for pizza at Tre Fratelli and see a movie at the Oakland Mall. They will be awfully disappointed if I’m late.”
“I don’t know anything about children. Are yours house-trained?” she asks, licking the tip of his penis.
“Very funny. Ilán is nineteen and Andrea is seventeen. They are both at the Colegio Americano.”
“Sweet,” she says. He is not sure if she is referring to the taste of his penis or his children’s education.
He tries to pull away from her, not out of displeasure, but fear. She refuses to let him go. “Maryam, this isn’t the time to tell you about them. I must go. Really.”
She continues looking up at him and licking as if hasn’t said anything. “I bet you’re afraid of your wife. That must be it.” As she says this, she pushes his penis away and recedes from him.
Maryam cannot possibly be jealous of his wife. “This is her bridge night, with les girls—her girlfriends — I swear. I am meeting my children.” He leans over and kisses her on her right ear — he notices again that it is flat — before getting out of bed.
It has begun raining again and the droplets are smacking the window in the room, slipping into the ledge from a crack in the glass. The hotel clerks can’t understand why he always selects the same ugly room without a view. “We do need to go, Maryam.”
She smiles at him like a vixen. “Well, if we are going, I need to shower, my handsome man. It’ll take me a minute.”
While Maryam is in the bathroom, Guillermo grabs his BlackBerry. He quickly texts Sofia to tell her that an emergency has come up and he cannot meet her tonight. Don’t come to the hotel. He wants her to text him back to confirm. Then he lies back down.
What is wrong with him? He realizes he’s still a bit drunk, spent. He feels that he and Maryam actually fit together, sexually and otherwise. There is a sense of compatibility which he never experienced — not with Chichi or Araceli. And it scares him because it reminds him of what he felt in New York with Meme.
He hears the water from the shower spraying full force. Maryam is singing loudly in what is probably Arabic. Guillermo feels untethered. His wife is becoming more impatient over his excuses for getting home late, for acting bored with her and disinterested in their kids. Maybe they should make a clean break of it. The only ones who might suffer would be the children, but Guillermo is convinced that since they have their own lives, their own group of friends and activities, they would hardly care. It’s not as if they are still six or eight years old. And he is sure they will do whatever their mother asks of them—
His phone chimes; Sofia has texted back.
Fine!!!! You are a prick!!! You’ve ruined my Friday night.
He will have to deal with her anger some other time, maybe give her an extra five hundred quetzales.
* * *
Before they leave the room, Maryam asks: “Guillermo, what are we getting ourselves into?”
He answers frankly, “I don’t know.”
She hugs him as if they have just seen each other following a ten-year absence. She does not want to let go. “I needed this, to feel this animal pleasure. I’ve been lonely for so long. But I also know that tonight I’m going to feel ashamed. I fear that what we’ve just done will ruin lives, our lives as well as others.” It comes out like a sudden uncontrollable confession. “But I don’t regret it, no matter what happens next.”
“Neither do I,” he responds, surprised to hear himself speaking honestly. He realizes he cannot undo what has just happened. It can’t be taken back.
Maryam pushes away from him and touches his nose. “And look at you. Who would’ve thought you could give me such pleasure?”
He smiles.
“Do you love me?”
“Maryam, we just—”
“I know that my legs could be longer, my tummy flatter.”
“You’re delicious,” he says, meaning it, remembering the taste of mango.
“You make me feel like a beautiful woman, you know, and all of a sudden I don’t really care about my defects. Toes that are too long, the big mole just above the small of my back. Making love with you this afternoon has made me forget any doubts I might have about myself. .”
He is feeling grateful, but cornered at the same time. It has been an incredibly intense afternoon. And suddenly he is hungry. “We must go, Maryam,” he says tenderly.
“Samir never made me feel that I was more than a vessel.”
Guillermo feels the stirrings of another erection. Almost to shut her up, he begins kissing her again. They kiss for a few minutes before she pulls down her leggings. She is not wearing her underwear, and so pulls down his zipper and puts him inside of her. She is already so wet, there against the wall. She pulls his shoulders into her, and then grabs his butt. She is breathing heavily, panting, and then she moans and begins talking: “You know that my father is very fond of you, but if he knew — oh God — this were happening — no, no, no, no, no — he would be extremely, extremely — there, there, there, just like that, oh God, please put your finger in there — oh my God. No, no, Guillermo, there, there, there!!”
She throws her head back and Guillermo has to hold her body up, otherwise the two of them will collapse onto the floor.