Insatiable

by Val

  ‘OK, calm down!’ he said, his voice softening as he realized he had no reason to be on his high horse with me. ‘What do you intend to do?’

  There was genuine warmth in his voice as he asked this, and I could tell he had something in mind.

  ‘Look for work, what else?’

  ‘Why don’t you come to Morocco for a few days, and we can talk it over? I need a French-speaking woman like you on my newspaper. And you can have a bit of a break from that crazy European life you lead.’

  The thought that Hassan might be able to help me professionally both attracted and repelled me, so in the end I said I wouldn’t go to Morocco, even though I was thoroughly fed up with being at home at a loose end. It was suddenly being inactive rather than any economic pressure that most upset me, because during the years I worked for Andres I earned enough to have saved quite a tidy sum, sufficient to allow me to live comfortably without having to worry for a reasonably long period. I have always been more of an ant than a grasshopper.

  ‘Think it over.’

  ‘I will, Hassan, and thanks.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me,’ he said, before ending the conversation.

  We both put the phone down at the same time.

  25th July 1997

  It was eleven at night, and I was the first to arrive at the bar where I had arranged to meet Sonia for a drink. When she arrived fifteen minutes late, she floated into the bar with her hair flowing loose around her, and her small body apparently weightless. Sonia walks as gracefully as a classical ballet dancer.

  ‘Things have got so bad I’m thinking of advertising for a boyfriend,’ she told me, in tears.

  ‘You, an advert? Isn’t that going a bit far, Sonia? Don’t tell me you can’t find a man without the classified ads. If you were sixty and still single I might understand it, but not at your age!’

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand. But I have to say I’m on the point of throwing in the towel. I’m really depressed again. I have irregular heartbeats and I can’t sleep at night.’

  ‘Oh come on, having a boyfriend isn’t everything. It’ll happen – but only if you stop obsessing about it. And besides, you never go out. How do you expect to find your soulmate if you’re never around?’

  ‘I know, but I’ve never liked to go out hunting for a boyfriend.’

  ‘I’m not saying that’s what you should do; simply go out and have a good time, that’s all.’

  ‘But the way I look, no one’s even going to notice me.’

  ‘Didn’t you just tell me you weren’t looking for anyone? Come on, Sonia, snap out of it. I can’t bear you to be like this when we meet.’

  ‘Anyway, I hate one-night stands,’ Sonia went on.

  ‘Who’s talking about that? You can sleep with the same guy several nights running, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Now you’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I can’t imagine sex without love.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, there you go again! I reckon you have to give things a try before you can fall in love. Don’t be so prejudiced, and don’t feel guilty if you like someone and sleep with them the first time you meet.’

  Sonia and I have very different ideas about sex and love. In fact, I don’t really know what it means to fall in love, and it doesn’t really bother me that much. I consider it a privilege to be able to follow my animal instincts and enjoy myself exactly as I please, without getting involved. I tried explaining this to Sonia, but she shook her head the whole time. She said she couldn’t do it, because she was brought up the old-fashioned way.

  ‘I was, too,’ I told her, trying to make her see that this had nothing to do with it. But her suggestion about placing an advert had stayed in my mind, and given me an idea.

  ‘OK, let’s drop it. The adverts thing is nonsense, I know,’ she said, draining her glass.

  I accompanied her home, and managed to leave her in a more positive frame of mind. She drifted up the stairs like a shadow, lighter than a cotton ball. And I knew what I was going to do: in September, I would put an advert in the paper looking for work. If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.

  The Cop

  28th July 1997

  IN THE AFTERNOON, Cristian called. He wanted to tell me he had a girlfriend.

  ‘What’s the big deal? I’m not jealous.’

  There was such a profound silence after my relaxed response that I even wondered if he was still there.

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I didn’t think that was how you were going to react.’

  ‘Why not? What would you have preferred? For me to start shouting or crying, begging you to leave your girlfriend for me?’

  ‘Something of the sort. Nothing like the way you reacted, anyway.’

  He was disappointed. We all like to feel someone is in love with us, even if we don’t feel the same about them. And my reaction wasn’t exactly that of a woman who was madly in love.

  ‘Well, I’m not jealous at all. I never asked if you were free. It’s your problem, not mine.’

  ‘The thing is, I don’t want to become sexually dependent on someone, and we’re seeing more and more of each other. I’m in love with my girlfriend, and don’t want to lose her.’

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘So you’re in love with her, but fuck someone else.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know! That’s why I feel bad and prefer to put a stop to our relationship. I think that deep down you scare me.’

  In other words, he did not want to see me again. I understood that it was not so much me he was scared of, but his own impulses. He did not want to face up to what he really was, so after his little peccadillo with me, he decided not to risk any further adventures.

  I respect his decision. What I did not like was his way of conveying it to me. Doing it over the phone was a real coward’s way out.

  30th July 1997

  I was not too bothered about Cristian, because I had my eye on a policeman who was on guard outside the station near my place. He has already offered me his broadest smile, and every time I go past I can see him staring at me. He looks so elegant in his uniform, particularly the way his shirt buttons are tight round his neck because it’s too small for him. I think he likes me because I arouse something in him. The cop, who says his name is Toni, is shorter than me, and has cropped black hair. He always stands there very erect, and what I can see of his chest under the uniform appears to promise a powerful, muscular body. Toni’s only visible sign of weakness is a funny big freckle that he has just above his right upper lip.

  When I gave him my phone number, the cop’s freckle bobbed upwards as his mouth lifted in a sincere smile.

  8th August 1997

  Tonight I took the cop to bed with me. We spent the whole night together, and made love several times, in Toni’s tiny room that has no furniture apart from a lovely rug where he keeps his weights. From time to time he closed his eyes to avoid witnessing the sins he was committing, and drew the covers up over his face. At about five in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of water from the bathroom. I turned over in bed, and when I found I was all alone I realized there was a light on in the bathroom, and made out Toni’s shadow under the door. I did not move. He emerged, trying not to make any noise, and as he slipped back into bed beside me I suddenly noticed the smell of the sperm all over the sheets. The persistent smell that I had tasted with the tip of my tongue. I was overcome by a sudden sense of shame which made me dive down under the covers, and when I woke up later that morning I found I was at the bottom of the bed, rolled up like a sausage.

  10th September 1997

  I spent the entire summer with Toni, but our fun came to an end when they transferred him to Malaga. He had put in a request several months earlier because his family is from Andalucia, and it was finally accepted. I’m very pleased for his sake. Thanks to an advert I placed, I have got a rather boring job as a freelance translator, which allows me to sur
vive without touching my savings. It’s better than nothing, but I’d like to find something else. I’m starting to feel restless.

  The Argument

  20th September 1997

  AS I WAS leaving my flat today, I ran into Felipe, who was arriving at his office on a motorbike. I was happy to see him, as we hadn’t bumped into each other for a long while. I must admit I no longer saw what had attracted me to him the first time we met. When I ran into him again, he was just a shy, unremarkable young man.

  ‘Hello there!’ he said, parking his bike. ‘It’s been a long time!’

  ‘Hi there Felipe! Yes, I’ve been rather busy. How are things?’

  ‘Could be better. I’m preparing a press pack to send to foreign magazines. Trying to drum up publicity. I’ve even had a call from one in South Africa.’

  ‘Wow! You’re going to be really famous.’

  ‘All I want is for the company to be successful.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll work out. You’ll see.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ He didn’t seem very sure.

  ‘Of course. And if you need any help, don’t be afraid to ask. Who knows, I might be useful.’

  ‘Of course, of course! Thanks anyway,’ he said.

  We said goodbye, and he went off with his helmet under his arm. While I was trying to cross the road, he suddenly shouted at me.

  ‘Hey, Val! You speak several languages, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Can you speak English?’

  ‘Yes, quite well.’

  ‘I’d like you to help me with my publicity. I have to write it in English, and I don’t know very much. Would you mind having a look at it when you have time?’

  ‘Of course not, count on me. I’ll call in at your office, OK?’

  ‘Fine. And thanks again.’

  I crossed the street.

  25th September 1997

  I stopped by at Felipe’s office to look at his publicity pack. The English was so bad it needed redoing from scratch, and I told him so.

  ‘You’ll have to start again. I can do it, with your help. You can’t send it out as it is. It’s full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.’

  Felipe was downcast, especially as I didn’t beat about the bush when I told him how awful it was.

  Eventually, after Felipe asked me who I took him for, I stormed out. We had such a bad argument I swore to myself I would never get in touch with that asshole ever again.

  In the evening, Sonia rang to tell me she had found her soulmate: a handsome twenty-three-year-old musician she had met completely by chance. In the metro, as she was leaving work. He dropped his violin at her feet, and she helped him pick it up. They started talking about music, and he gave her some free tickets for a concert he was giving.

  ‘See? I told you that you would find someone when you least expected it. The trick is not to be looking desperately for someone to come along. If you go around like a crazy woman begging a man to fall in love with you, they all run off in the opposite direction.’

  She agreed with me. But now I have no lover and I’ve lost my friend too, because she wants to spend all her time with her lovey-dovey. And I’m condemned to be the wise woman who has to rely on casual encounters.

  Sleeping With The Enemy

  Some loves can be lethal . . .

  THE WORST THING that can happen in life is to find you have your fiercest enemy in your home with you, without you realizing it.

  I came to see that deep down I was bored with my hectic sexual life, leaping from one bed to the next and then suddenly finding myself all alone. It wasn’t that I was desperate to meet the love of my life and change overnight, but I wanted to find someone special who could make me feel alive, and who would feel the same way about me. I was beginning to think Sonia was right, and that my moment had come too.

  When Granny died, I went back to France for the funeral and to collect the few things she had left me: a calendar she had hung in the bathroom ever since she had bought it in the Fifties, and the cat Bigudi, which no one else wanted because she was antisocial and did not get on either with people or with other animals.

  Bigudi more or less adopted me: I was the only person who could get close without her growling in a way that sounded more like a dog than a cat.

  Then one fateful day I fell in love.

  I’ll remember that moment all my life. Jaime was built like Imanol Arias. He was tall and thin, with prominent cheekbones and a big nose that had a tiny mole right on its tip. Rather than embarrassing him, this blemish gave him an excuse to make it the main topic of conversation whenever anyone mentioned it.

  But when we first met, it was his hands that caught my attention. They were as long and fine as a virtuoso pianist’s. He was laid-back, with an air of mystery about him, and a way of talking that made both men and women fall enchanted at his feet. In fact, he would boast that he could get any woman he wanted to, and it was when I saw how similar we were in that respect that I fell in love with him. At first I thought Jaime was someone who had been sent my way by Felipe. But eventually I concluded that however much Felipe and I had argued, he could not have been so cruel and vindictive or so vengeful as to create a character as vile and Machiavellian as Jaime.

  Jaime was nothing more than a resentful loser, a piece of human trash. He had never managed to fulfil his dream of being a successful entrepreneur, so instead he gradually invented another personality for himself. I must say, I could never understand why he had not succeeded, because he seemed to be brilliant and to have everything going for him: he was a trained economist and had a lengthy and impressive CV. It must have been that in his case the forces of evil were just too much for the good that every human being possesses somewhere inside them. So Jaime used his power to destroy everything around him, and in particular anyone who was successful. He could never allow anyone to enjoy the success that eluded him.

  The first time I slept with Jaime, I discovered he had a big patch of dead skin on his right heel, which he scraped off with a scalpel to prevent it affecting his walk. The patch was a bright purple colour that frightened me when I first saw it. This blemish, like the mole on his nose, only served to increase his mystery, and to make this monster more attractive. He had the gift of turning what might have repelled other people into something that attracted them.

  There were no two ways about it, it was love at first sight. At least for me it was. For him, it was nothing more than a game, which he had decided to play to the bitter end.

  The Interview

  I RECEIVED SEVERAL replies to the advert I placed looking for work, but none of them seemed interesting enough to get in touch with and arrange to meet. Then one day I got a letter from someone called Jaime Rijas, a business consultant, who needed an office manager. In the letter he gave a mobile phone number to ring to arrange an interview. The first time I called I had no luck. His mobile was permanently switched off. When I did finally manage to get through, the person who answered gave me a very good impression. He sounded very professional and was looking for someone equally serious to work for him. We agreed to meet at his office after lunch.

  6th May 1998

  Jaime’s offices were in the heart of Barcelona, in the Eixample district, in a pale pink building with wide balconies. When I arrived at the agreed time, the door was opened by a man of around fifty, with a lively look in his eye and smoking a pipe. I thought the secretaries must still be at lunch, which meant that this gentleman, who looked more like an executive than an administrative assistant, had been obliged to answer the door himself. We exchanged a few words and then Jaime appeared, limping slightly, from his room at the far end of the corridor. The man with the pipe disappeared almost at once, while Jaime shook my hand vigorously.

  ‘Is there something wrong with your leg?’ I asked him, trying to be friendly.

  ‘No, it’s nothing. I pulled a muscle playing tennis last weekend,’ he replied, in a very cold tone that suggested it was not w
orth talking about.

  He immediately ushered me into his office. It was a rather dark room that gave onto the interior courtyard of the building. He switched on a halogen lamp, and I was surprised to see so little furniture in the office for someone who was supposed to be a company director. For a second time Jaime, who was observing the way I was taking everything in, stressed how unimportant it was.

  ‘Don’t pay any attention to the way the office looks. We are in the process of moving in. Everything still has to arrive,’ he explained.

  The room must have been four metres wide, and the only furniture was a stupendously big President desk, and a black leather chair with wheels. There were two or three books on labour legislation on the desk, and little else. The interview began.

  ‘I am Jaime Rijas, partner and director general of this company. The person who showed you in was the other partner, Joaquin Blanco. We’re looking for a trustworthy person to organize this office and to build up a good relationship with our clients. In other words, a kind of public relations person. Did you bring your CV?’

  Jaime spoke with all the seriousness and solemn air of a university professor. I could see he was someone who commanded respect. He did not seem to be easily approachable.

  I handed him my CV, and he began to read it in silence. When he looked up, I felt even more intimidated.

  ‘I hope the references you supply here are proper ones, because I always telephone to make sure. Do you have any problem with my calling your previous employers to check what they think of your work?’

  ‘No, sir, on the contrary,’ I answered, confident I had nothing to be ashamed of.

  ‘Why did you leave your last job?’

  ‘Because I was fired. I’m not sure if that’s the best way to put it, but they were cutting down on staff, and I was the first to go, Mr . . .’