by Alisa Valdes
Mira, I know it’s retro, the way I’m thinking and so on and so forth. But I, like George Washington and esa animal con pistola Lolita Lebron, cannot tell a mentirita. Okay? It’s that simple. It’s like this: With the way my family goes on about it, like when my mami clicks her tongue like a chicken and says how disappointed she is I couldn’t do better than some masculine moocher, I feel like he’s taken my womanhood from me, like he done gone and taken my uterus out with pinking shears.
Marcus, when I invited him up at the end of the golf lesson, lifted his big mirrored aviator sunglasses and watched me walk all the way across the putting green to the clubhouse in the bright white sunshine, a smile of scandal and surprise in his wide-set, honey-colored eyes. I was all, swish-to-the-left, swish-to-the-right, and I wore me a pretty pink golf skirt, okay? Not wide-ass khaki shorts like all the other women with their flat butts. Those women look like they’re about to wrestle a crocodile down or something, girl. Not me. I wore me a sexy little skirt, and he watched my nalgas like they was one of them golden pocket watches German hypnotists pendulum around when they say “You’re getting sleepy.” My body is mad hypnotic, right? Five four, a size twenty curved up in all the right places, thirty-three years old, and men still be begging me for a piece, okay? You know I got it like that, girl. You know I do. I take good care of myself, that’s all.
Five minutes ago, at two in the afternoon on the dot, Marcus knocked on the door to my mountain-view suite and I, wearing only my black lace bodystocking, shiny black dome pumps, a three-strand pearl choker, and the hotel-issue robe, answered. I don’t wear a body stocking because I’m embarrassed of my size or anything like that. It’s just nice to have something holding me all in place. After having a baby, things jiggle wiggle a little more than a girl is used to, and this way I have the support. Anyway, it took less than twelve seconds of his nervous small talk for the thick white robe to slip off.
Whoops.
So, like, there I was, all curves and soft brown skin. I have to tell you, I have gotten sexually bold in my thirties. If you’re a modern Latina, I swear it’s like you spend your whole twenties working like loca to get over your Catholic guilt at being sexual at all, just so you can be a vixen in your thirties. Marcus whispered, “Whoa,” and stuttered after that, wanted to ask me what I did for a living, what brought me to the resort, what city I lived in, and all that kind of nonsense, but I shut him up quick. “I don’t know you, Marcus,” I said, handing him a cherry-flavored condom as I draped myself across the big bed with its earth-tones southwestern bedspread, “and you don’t know me. Let’s keep it that way for now, nene, ‘ta bien?”
When he heard the Spanish, he was all, “What’s a fine African American woman doing talking Mexican?”, and it was all I could do not to turn him around and drop-kick his ass back to the club house, okay?
“For your information, I am Puerto Rican,” I told him, pointing to my luscious neck with my French acrylic tips. “And the language you heard was Spanish. Ain’t nobody in the world speak no Mexican, okay? Mexican? That’s not a language, now shut your mouth before you start to look ugly to me, and let’s do this thing.”
I had to pull him to me after that, not because he didn’t want none of mama’s island papaya pie, but rather because he was all human Popsicle in shock, like he couldn’t move. Men dream about women doing this kind of thing to them all the time, but there aren’t many mujeres who can pull it off, you know what I mean? So, when it happens, they get stiff as uncooked pasta. A practiced campesina like my girly husband has become coulda broke that boy in half with her bare hands.
Now, here we are, ten minutes into it, and Marcus has apologized for his ignorance about Spanish. “I am sorry. That was very uncouth of me. You wouldn’t know I went to Yale talking like that, I suppose,” he said, and I was all “Yale?” and he said, “Yeah, I have a law degree that I don’t use anymore,” and that’s when he told me he was a widower whose wife used to be an attorney, and that he’s actually quite welloff and only does the golf pro thing because he loves golf and needs to be around people so he doesn’t go crazy.
That last made me have to respect him, m’ija, and even though I don’t want to, I am now seeing him as more than a piece of ass. Now he looks like a potential friend, which is no good. I mean, my husband Juan? Soon as that boy sees we’ve got enough money, he quits his job and stays home. But not Marcus. Marcus has enough to retire on and live comfortably, but he would rather work because he takes pride in work and likes it. Why didn’t I marry me a man like this, girl? That’s what I want to know. Why did I think Juan would shape up just because I bought him some nice shirts? Life doesn’t work like that, and now it’s too late. Or not. I don’t know. You make your own life, and it ain’t over until it’s over.
I push the possibility of falling for Marcus out of my mind and focus on the task at hand, even though if I’m honest, I’d say he looks a lot better now that I know he’s a man of means and substance. He’s gotten over his stage fright nicely now, too, and there’s a passion to him that pleases me. I was worried he’d be wooden about this, but he isn’t. He’s all down on his knees at the edge of the bed, his oval face all up in my coco-puff, nosing around like a pig in truffles. And if you were to bottle it, I bet it’d cost like truffles, too. I’m that good.
He’s making satisfied sniffles and there’s the sloppy wet sound I haven’t heard in a while. It has been. Too long. Okay? Something happens when you have a baby, nena, and it has nothing to do with your body. It’s all flat psychological. You and your husband? You get so tired from the whole thing, all the up and down all night with the baby, all the fights over whose turn it is to change the diapers or warm up the bottle, all the arguments about the best way to do this or that, that you just lose interest in each other like that. I didn’t lose interest in sex, okay? I just lost interest in sex with my husband. It’s been three months since Juan and I knocked the booties, and I wouldn’t care if we went another three years, I really wouldn’t.
“A little more to the front,” I tell Marcus. He follows instructions and, oh my goodness, girl, gets a bullseye. Juan, though? Please, girl. The one time I tried to suggest he do it differently, three months ago on a night when I worked late and got home in need of loving, he sighed and looked all beleaguered, wiped his mouth on the back of his soggy gorilla hand like I made him tired, and whined, “Do I have to?”
What is that shit, m’ija? “Do I have to?” Please, psh. How can you get busy with a man who asks you something nonsensical like that? I was all, “If there’s something you’d rather be doing, then by all means, nene, go do it.” I closed my legs to him then, and I haven’t had the urge to open them to him again. It’s not entirely my fault that I’ve wandered down the path to Marcus. It’s Juan’s fault, too, for not trying harder to keep me interested.
“Asi, papito,” I call to Marcus as I run my hands over his short, kinky hair.
“I’ll assume that means, Yes, Daddy, in Puerto Rican Spanish,” he mumbles.
“Yes it does,” I say. He smiles up at me as he tweaks my nipple with one hand, and I feel like I’m on fire.
I read one time that some marriages need affairs, because they reignite the flames that went out between husband and wife. Honestly? I love my husband because he’s the only fool who completely understands where I come from. I don’t have to explain anything about being a Puerto Rican New Englander to him, because he’s one, too. I’m hoping that’s what happens here, okay? That I can take these flames that this golf pro man has fired up in me and keep them lit up like the Olympic torch until I get home.
“I want to be inside you,” he mumbles, twisting out of his polo shirt, coming up toward me all sculpted muscle. He’s removing the golf-pro shorts, and mama is pleased to see his club’s nothing less than a seven-iron.
“What a boy wants, a boy gets.” I arrange myself for easy access. “Gimme that putter, baby. Sink it in the hole.”
“More like a driver, but who’s goi
ng to quibble over semantics at a moment like this?” he asks as he slides in with a groan, and tells me how warm and soft it is. Like I didn’t know. I’m pure melted butter, nena. Okay? He begins to rock me, gently, with a sweet smile on his face. I don’t mean to, but I start to make some little noises. Before I know it, my eyes have rolled back in my head, and I’ve begun to suck my own damn finger. For Catholic girls, it’s easier to be kinky with a man we don’t know.
Don’t think less of me, okay? I have never been a one-man woman any more than my daddy was a one-woman man. It’s in my genes. I didn’t sleep around, exactly. But you know how I did. I had multiple possibilities to get me through my day. My girlfriends can confirm this for you when they get here. Just ask them, any of them. All my adult life, until I got married, I juggled men, at least two at a time, as a form of insurance. If one left me, the way my daddy did, or didn’t pay enough attention to me, the way my daddy did, or got his ass shot dead by hoodlums, like my brother did, there was always the other one to step in. I been like that since high school, when I first started dating Juan and realized my love for him was so big it might crush me if he ever lost interest. I kept them all at a distance after understanding that. None of them have been close to my heart except him, and now he’s breaking it with his Santa Madre act. I am a sound investor—never put in more than you can afford to lose. The safest bets involve a diversified portfolio. I’m all about biology and financial planning.
The pumping gets faster. Marcus goes to work, okay? Something about athletes. They know their bodies. Ay, m’ija. Why does chingando have to feel so good? Wouldn’t the world’s problems be solved if sex felt more like plunging up a clogged toilet? You don’t like to think God screwed up, but with the whole sex-drive thing, He just might have. Without pleasurable sex, there’d be no risk of overpopulation, no AIDS, no unwanted pregnancies, and no cheating wives.
“Harder, baby,” I tell Marcus as I press my eyes closed and flex my calf muscles. I could get used to this man. Yes, I could. If I weren’t married, I mean. Which I am. I am married. Have to remember. That. Oh. God. “I’m almost there.”
He says nothing, and, like the husband I wish I had married instead of the one I got, does exactly what I ordered.
When we finish, he leans up on his elbow, all sweet-looking, kisses me gently on the lips, and says, with a tear in his eye, “It has been a long time since I did that, Usnavys Rivera.”
“Pssh. You’re lying.”
“No, no, I’m not lying.” He closes his eyes, flops onto his back with a satisfied, melancholy smile, mouthing numbers as he counts on his fingers. His eyes open and he regards me seriously. “Three years. It has been three years since I made love to a woman.”
“What? Why? You scared of girls, Marcus?”
The tears brim a little more, and one of them traces a line down his cheek. He wipes it away with a strong, solid hand. I’m sure doesn’t do dishes all day. “No, I’m not scared of girls. Three years ago. That’s when my wife died. I haven’t met anyone who interested me, and, frankly, did not think I ever would. Until now.”
I balk. “I’m the first? Since your wife died?”
Marcus nods, and smiles with a hint of sadness that is quickly replaced by something that looks like love. “You remind me of her. You two. You look alike. She was a firecracker, just like you.”
“A firecracker,” I say. I don’t know what else to tell him. I remind the man of his dead wife, and he loved her, and I know he’s transferring that onto me and I don’t deserve it, but still. Transfers can feel real, m’ija. They can. You shouldn’t be jealous of a dead woman, but for some reason, I am. I imagine the house they lived in, the wine they shared on the terrace, the elegance of her husband a sharp contrast to the ordinariness of mine.
“So, I hope this won’t be the last time we see one another,” he says. “I’d love to get a number for you in Boston. I travel out that way quite a bit. And now that I’ve met you, I have more reason to go more often.”
I should know better, girl, I should. I realize that. This is the part where a nice person would tell the truth about her husband and child. Denial is a wonderful thing though, when you need it. So it is that I get up and walk to the desk, and I write my cell number down on the little hotel pad of paper. I rip off the sheet, hand it to him, wondering how on earth I’m going to keep Juan from finding this shit out. I’m going to have to start policing my phone like a guard. I’m going to have to sneak and lie my ass off. What is wrong with me, m’ija? I shouldn’t have opened this door, but what the hell else am I supposed to do?
The man, Marcus, this beautiful man who pleased me, is crying, and he plays golf, and I remind him of a woman he loved. And you know what that all means, don’t you? It means that even with my size and attitude and my current moral relativism, even with my head all screwed up like this and my heart flying in a thousand different directions, he just might be able to love me the way I have deserved to be loved all my life.
