Marisol moved out of faculty housing and into my place. We were living like a couple, doing everything couples do from shopping to cuddling while watching a rented flick. Everything, except sex. We couldn’t understand how before we had literally torn each other’s clothes off, now we seemed like two asexual beings inhabiting the same space. We loved and desired each other, but that wasn’t enough to make things spark when it came to sexual coupling.
The semester was ending, closing a difficult year for me as a rookie prof. I was happy to see it finish, excited to have time to spend with Marisol during the summer. But she was going to teach summer session, as most professors in the college did, just to help ends meet. Summer classes paid time and a half. They were so coveted that a point system, including all kinds of factors, was devised to determine who would receive these summer plums. At the bottom of the list, I had no chance this time around, but I wasn’t keen on working the summer anyway. Marisol, on the other hand, at the number two spot, was receiving a regular class.
The others weren’t left empty-handed. There were always the remedial summer classes. The majority of students entering the college had to take remedial English classes during the entire month of July. The need was so great to cover these that almost the entire department was involved, and Micco begged me. I agreed and found myself signed up for a month of intensive, week-long, four-hour sessions. After agreeing, I wanted to cry.
But first, I had to teach tedious final review classes, read and evaluate stacks of papers, tabulate and submit grades, with those pesky borderline cases driving you crazy and attend all the wonderful meetings Micco had lined up for us and the time-consuming committees on which we had to serve.
The calm after the storm did not come. Marisol and I came home tired, exhausted, mentally drained. Add the everyday routine that absorbs so many precious minutes of your life, and it is not hard to imagine how sex gets pushed back to the lower part of your to-do list.
It wasn’t all about time, though. Our break-up had shattered an emotional, sexual connection that had flowed, that had been electric and spontaneous. After many disappointing relationships with Puerto Rican men who thought cubiches, a negative term for Cubans, were only good for a good time and ran to marry the first decent Boricua girl they met, she had found someone promising in me. But my foot-dragging made her think I was like the rest, and the break-up deepened her feelings of being unloved and unwanted. She went through a severe sense of loss. I, too, experienced it, not unlike when someone you love dies, but perhaps worse because with death you resign yourself to never seeing the person again and emotionally you make amends. Without Marisol, my world had sunk into a deep crevice, dark and loveless, and just now I felt myself creeping out of it and seeing light.
We carried emotional scars that needed healing as we tried to build our new relationship on trust and a stronger sense of direction. And it wasn’t like there weren’t sparks, moments that bordered on rekindling the passion. That’s what made it more frustrating. Marisol and I joked that fate had determined we would never make love again. One time we had planned to soak in the Jacuzzi and linger into lovemaking. We set up aromatic candles, played soft jazz, popped a bottle of wine, and Marisol scattered the bathroom floor with rose petals. We entered that fragrant bathroom, kissing, undressing each other and then we turned the water on, and nothing.
We had experienced yet another of the typical unannounced, unplanned water stoppages. After we both cursed, we had to dress and gather our water containers and fetch water at a friend’s house for cooking and bathing, but not to soak in leisurely, because we knew it would be a few days before the water was restored. A few times, the lights went out, and similarly we had to get ice for the items in the refrigerator, get candles and flashlights, and suddenly being in the dark didn’t seem all that romantic. Living in a developing country is hazardous to your lovemaking.
Urgent phone calls interrupted our tender moments, or things needed immediate attention, and with every one of these setbacks the awkwardness grew, as did the tension between us. Not having consistent sex is something any bachelor gets used to; you’re not happy about it. It gets you depressed, nasty and bitter, but at least you can attribute it to not having anyone special in your life, and that gives you hope. But here I shared the same roof with this wonderful, charming woman, sexy and loving, and nada. It’s an unusual situation that can lead to anger and other ill feelings. When we had minor spats, initiated by one or the other of us, for the stupidest things, I would think: “Man, we both really need to get laid.”
And it’s important to get it at home, because outside there are temptations. I’m not saying I condone that. I had been faithful to Marisol during our sexual famine. But that doesn’t mean the temptations weren’t there, or that I had superhuman emotional control. Marisol didn’t fall in love with a stick figure, but a young man made of flesh and bones. And shit happens, or can.
Like what happened at a department function. At the end of the academic year, the department likes to throw the few graduating seniors and honor students a party at one of the professor’s homes, usually someone living in Baná or the outskirts. This year Cari Rosas volunteered to have it at her place in Cidra, a spacious, airy house with an expansive backyard ideal for an outside party. Someone had set up a volleyball net and there was a spirited game going on when Marisol and I arrived. One of the students had brought his deejay equipment and was spinning music to the pleasure of the growing numbers grinding and bumping on the grass. The drinking age is eighteen on the island, while it is twenty-one everywhere else in the United States. So, there was liquor at this party, although we restricted it to beer and wine.
We arrived late, and the party was in full swing. Marisol and I made the rounds congratulating the seniors and honor students, saying our hellos to colleagues and attacking the buffet that had been catered. We sat down to eat, sometimes waving to a student or colleague coming in, chatting with Juan Cedeño and his wife and trying to get more than a grunt from Stiegler, all of whom sat on folding chairs near us. I looked up and saw Pedro Roque walk in with Carmela López, who surely had convinced him to come. Roque had been out of mind since his announced leave, staying in the shadows, where he belonged. But he had taught some of these students, shepherded them through their four or five years of studies, so who was I to expect his continued absence. Seeing him, though, upset me, filled me with anger and disgust. Marisol looked at me and whispered if I wanted to leave. He and Carmela made their rounds, skipping our table, and stood to watch the activity. Occasionally, a student approached and greeted him.
“Definitely, in a few minutes,” I responded, “but let me go to the little boys’ room.” I needed to take a leak, throw some water on my face and then leave.
Granted, I didn’t knock but the door wasn’t locked. I opened the door and bumped into the Green-Eyed Girl brushing up her lip gloss. She was bending toward a little round mirror, her butt sticking out. She stayed in that position and smiled as I walked in. I should have walked out. But that terrific smile of hers and those big sparkling emerald eyes froze me, not to mention the awkwardness of the encounter. She continued applying lip gloss, slowly, running her index finger across her shiny lips. I scoped her curving body, her firm butt snug in tight jeans.
“Hi, professor,” she said, again smiling, this time with glittering lips. Her eyes glassy, she had the silly look of someone entertaining a comfortable buzz on a warm tropical day.
“You need to use the bathroom?”
The question was immaterial because her flashing eyes fixed on mine. We stood there just staring at each other for a few seconds.
“Why do you run away from me?” she asked. She took my hands and like an idiot I let her, and she placed them on her breasts.
“Don’t you like me?” she asked, as I stood there dumbfounded, flat-footed, looking into those eyes, my hands palming her generous breasts.
I stared in wonder, studying her face in its earnest desire. She tiptoed to kiss me and her newly glossed lips, fruity and waxy, found mine and broke me from the trance. I pushed her and her breasts away.
“No, please, this isn’t appropriate,” I said, turning my now flushed face away.
The slight shove shook her into embarrassment and reality.
She grinned and whispered, “I’m sorry,” and burst out of the bathroom.
I threw myself on the toilet seat, shaking my head, knowing that I was aroused, wondering what had happened.
After throwing cold water on my face, I went out ready to leave. The party was becoming livelier. The entire department, except for Foley, was in attendance. Freddie Rivas was cackling along with Iglesias for some reason. Cedeño and his wife talked. Rosas cleaned up some of the piling garbage. Micco kept asking if there was any rum in the house. The new Department Chair, I noticed, avoided looking in Roque’s direction. Roque had taken a seat and sat regally and immovable as ever. The Green-Eyed Girl spotted me and turned to her friend, one of the English majors, who probably had invited her.
“Let’s roll,” I whispered to Marisol.
We tossed our goodbyes to colleagues and students alike, most of them not acknowledging or noticing our departure.
I wanted to tell Marisol that same day, but couldn’t. The sex thing wasn’t going well for us. And I couldn’t figure out how it got to the point it did. Was I to blame? Did I encourage her? Was I so in dire need of getting laid that my penis took over my better judgment? I felt terrible, and after a few days I sat down with Marisol and confessed.
“What took you so long to take your hands off her tits?”
I looked flustered, because honestly I did not know. Then Mari roughly grabbed my face in her hands.
“Honey, you did the right thing. A little slow,” she laughed, rolling her eyes, “but you did. It’s obvious she has a crush on you, and she’s sexy.”
“Nowhere as sexy as you,” I said, nuzzling her neck.
She slapped my thigh. “Not now, Romeo, I have papers to grade. And so do you.”
And so it went until the end of the semester. Cold turkey. We both knew we had to do something. Having submitted grades and waiting for summer classes to start, we decided it was a good time to take up Julia’s offer to borrow the Luquillo condo for a weekend.
We walked the beach during sunset, had a fantastic seafood meal, shared some animated, lighthearted conversation and a bottle of wine nudged us into the mood. We felt giddy, carefree and sexy. We groped and kissed as we bounced around the elevator. I slammed open the door to the condo and carried her to the bedroom in the dark, her legs wrapped around my waist.
Outside the waves slapped the beach, the bright moonlight spread through the window and shrouded our nude bodies. Mari’s perfume filled my nostrils with every deep breath I took. The food and wine lingered on our tongues and lips as we kissed.
Naked, exposed to each other, our bodies had not touched like this in months. It was electric, like our skin would pop with sparks at any moment. My hand ran up Mari’s curving thighs, her back, as I kissed her navel, lost inside her skin.
The tactile journey ended as my fingertips alighted on her left breast and the lump. She shot up as soon as I stopped, pulling up the bed sheet to cover herself.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
I sprung from the bed, stumbling, and turned on the table lamp to see her better. “Let me feel it again.”
“You just want to cop another feel,” she joked.
I looked at her, angry now. “Fuck, Mari. This is no joke.”
“What do you know about it?”
I looked at her, my arms crossed now. “Have you had that checked by a doctor?”
“Not yet.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” I yelled, looking at her open-mouth and wide-eyed.
“Don’t get hysterical on me, okay?”
I slid myself by her side on the bed. “How long have you known this?”
The pause infuriated me.
“Tell me!”
She started crying. “A few weeks. Oh, Rennie, I’m so scared.”
I hugged her, kissed her head, her brow.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said in between sobs. “You’ve had so much on your mind.”
We held each other, rocking ourselves for a long time. Her sobs ended, and we continued embracing in silence.
“Tomorrow we’ll go see a specialist.”
She nodded her wet face into my naked chest.