I SPENT THE morning chain-smoking – my whole flat reeked of nicotine, and so did my hair, but I did not feel like taking a shower. I was simply filling in time until I met Felipe. I could have brought our meeting forward, but I wasn’t in the mood to give explanations. He was the one who had to talk. I wanted to know everything about his precious ‘slices of life’, but if I told him I had just lost my job, he might be tempted not to say a word.
An hour before I was due to meet him, I jumped into the shower. I let the water cascade all over my face, just like I do on rainy days as I jump over puddles. Now it was goodbye puddles on the way to work; goodbye Marta, goodbye Andres. I’ll miss you all.
I had to snap out of it. The first thing was to go and see Felipe. After that, I decided I would call Sonia and organize a hen party this weekend. And last but not least, I would try to find Cristian and spend the night with him.
After taking all these decisions, I felt more like my old self. I went down to Office A, and Felipe was obviously pleased to see me. He showed me in, then left me standing in the middle of the room.
‘I think the best thing to do would be to show you the place first, then explain. Come on, follow me.’
His office was on three floors, linked by a spiral staircase. On the ground floor where we were, there was a computer, a fax, and loads of shelves filled with box files. Felipe took me up to the first floor, which was where he received his clients. It was very tasteful: all the furniture was wickerwork, and on the walls were hung several exotic paintings and photographs of people tied up on chairs, and of cemeteries and zombies . . . I could see a poster advertising a film starring Michael Douglas: The Game.
‘I really like Michael Douglas,’ I exclaimed.
‘Did you like the film?’ Felipe asked, with a smile.
‘I didn’t get to see it,’ I had to confess.
‘You should. Eight years before it came out, I was already designing “slices of life”. But now, people think I must have copied the film to start my business, but in fact it’s the opposite,’ Felipe said, obviously put out. ‘The film shows exactly what I do. The Game is the story of a multi-millionaire who is bored because he has everything. For his birthday, his brother has no idea what to offer him. So he decides to hire a company for a role play, in which Michael Douglas will play the central character. He has no idea of this. But then the game becomes dangerous . . . I do exactly the same for my clients, though I never let it become dangerous, get it?’
I nodded. His story fascinated me. We went down to the basement, which was a huge, gloomy place with no windows, like a sort of bunker where unspeakable things might happen. The only furniture in the room was an enormous table with twenty chairs round it, and a plastic dummy dressed in a military uniform and wearing a gas mask. It was a truly scary place, with bare brick and cement walls. It looked like a hole in the floor that could collapse on top of us at any moment.
‘This is where I bring my actors to rehearse all the scenes. That’s why it’s so big. We need space . . . space,’ the echo of his voice repeated.
‘Of course, of course,’ I replied, realizing as I said it that I had adopted his own stock phrase.
Felipe did not notice, but went on with his explanations.
‘I invent all kinds of stories: spy thrillers, horror, love stories . . . with varying degrees of danger, suspense and fear. My clients choose what kind of story they want, then they become the main character in it for a certain length of time: twenty-four hours, forty-eight, or whatever. All my actors wear a label with the name of the company on it, so that if the situation becomes intolerable the client can somehow get back to reality. They can see the label and realize that it is only a game. If they want to call a halt, they have a password they can use whenever they like. And before they start, they have to visit our psychologist to determine their state of mind. I also recommend they see a doctor for a health check. Anyone with heart problems is barred. I don’t want to run any risks. We’re a serious leisure company. As you see, I’ve thought of everything.’
‘I understand,’ I replied, intrigued. ‘Tell me a bit more about the people who want this kind of service, the prices, the stories themselves . . .’
‘Of course, of course! My clients are all well off. The prices depend on how complicated the story is and how long it lasts, but in any case, it doesn’t come cheap. This is a cutting-edge leisure pursuit. And as for the stories, they’re of all kinds. I even have clients who ask me to make one up just for them.’
‘Aha?’
‘Of course, of course. My last client for example was a lawyer who wanted to be kidnapped for forty-eight hours by two women, and to be put into a hole in the ground. I invented the story especially for him. He loved it.’
‘In a hole? People really are off their heads. As if there weren’t enough kidnappings these days, you get a guy asking for it. I can’t believe it!’ I said, indignantly.
‘What I didn’t tell you was that the guy wanted two lesbians to make love in front of him down the hole he was being kidnapped in. I had to hire two prostitutes, because none of my actresses would do it.’
All of a sudden there was a strangely perverse, diabolic glint in his eye, which I found tremendously attractive. Felipe no longer looked like the fragile, shy fellow I had met the previous evening.
‘Oh, he wanted two lesbians did he?’ was all I could think of saying.
He stared at me for a few moments, then went on with his explanations as though nothing had happened.
‘We once organized a medieval weekend for four people in a castle where Count Dracula appeared each night. They nearly died of fright,’ Felipe said, bursting out laughing.
‘I must say, I’d really love to be involved in a story like that. It must be great. But it would be far too expensive for me,’ I said reluctantly.
‘Would you really like to?’
He was staring at me again, with that perverse smile on his lips. He looked as attractive as before.
‘Yes of course, of course. It must be really exciting!’
‘Don’t worry. You shall have your slice of life, and for you I’ll put it on for free. But just remember this: once the client has agreed, he or she never knows at what moment the story is going to start. Are you up for it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, not taking him particularly seriously.
What on earth was I doing? I didn’t know him at all, and here I was saying yes without the slightest idea of what I was getting myself into. Although I suspected it would be the typical kind of soap opera that has such an impact on people.
‘Fine, but remember: when you least expect it . . .’ Felipe said again, accompanying me to the door.
‘OK! Good night, Felipe,’ I said quickly, running back upstairs to my flat. Our conversation had really excited me, and I was amazed how a guy as apparently dull as him could suddenly become so attractive to me.
My body was on fire, and I needed the fire brigade. I called Cristian’s number, but there was no reply so I left a message explaining why I hadn’t been in touch for ten days. Twenty minutes later he called back, and we agreed to meet at his place.
As soon as I got there, we went straight to bed, without exchanging a word. Cristian took my head in his hands and started to lick my mouth, nose, eyes and neck. The sense of pleasure it gave me was like heartbeats pounding gently all over my face. Every so often he disappeared lower down my body, then brought back my own nectar for me to taste on my lips.
‘Do you like it?’ he asked, aroused to the limit.
‘I love it. What about you?’
‘Me too. It has a slightly sweet taste. It’s like summer rain.’
I fell back, sated with pleasure, and took his moist penis in my hand. I started moving up and down, while he began exploring my secret cavern with his finger. I was enjoying myself, and so was he: we both came at the same moment, exhausted from the exotic positions we had got into, as if the intensity of our lovemaking depended on them.
A few hours later – I still don’t know whether it was real or a dream – I suddenly found Cristian’s buttocks thrust into my face. I lay there without moving as a previously undiscovered hole opened in front of me, and a lascivious voice begged, ‘You penetrate me now.’
I was so surprised I couldn’t do a thing. Cristian turned round to face me and apologized.
‘Male hormones sometimes make swine out of those who aren’t really animals.’
I found myself remembering what Felipe had been telling me, and thinking this was some kind of bad joke.
Bidugi is going round and round the flat, exploring her new home. Granny has died. She suffered a heart attack, and at her age there was no way to save her. I feel as though I have lost a part of myself, just when we were beginning to have a great relationship. And she never got the card I sent her from Peru. Life seems very unfair to me at the moment, and I could not think of what I had done to deserve such a hard time. Death is terrible not so much for those who go through it, but for those left behind.
‘They’re all useless in your office!’ Hassan shouted over the phone, as if there was interference and he was calling from China. ‘A young lady who must have been on work experience insisted there was no Val working there.’
I had forgotten how authoritarian Hassan could be. He wants to have everything at once, like a spoilt child. That’s why he’s still in touch with me. Basically, I gave him all that he wants from a woman: sex, youth and no questions asked.
When I first met him, I immediately felt a lot of respect and tenderness for him, as well as sexual curiosity to experiment with a much older man. He was sitting on a sofa in the Hyatt hotel bar, while I was dining with a client in the restaurant. I was uncomfortable because I kept having to avoid the ogling of Luca, the Italian chef, who seemed to have taken a liking to me. Luca looked like a drug-addicted sailor who had just got out of jail. His arms were covered in tattoos with the names of all the women he had been with. Every night after he had finished work he would come up to my bedroom door and beg me to let him in, or send me poems written in a bastard French full of spelling mistakes, which he must have learnt from his Gallic cellmates. I could not stand him.
That night, Hassan was quick to understand what was going on and came to my rescue by inviting me to have a drink with him. In those days he went around like a government minister, and wore extremely elegant Yves Saint Laurent suits. He had about half the hotel staff in his pocket. Every time a waiter came by they would bow to him or greet him as though he owned the entire country. I was on cloud nine with him beside me, and it was then I understood what the phrase ‘power is an aphrodisiac’ means. I wanted to try out something that drives a lot of women crazy: being with a rich and powerful man. His looks are nothing to write home about, but that to me is not the important thing. I fell for Hassan straight away, because he has a lantern jaw just like Klaus Kinski, and that little physical detail was enough to make him charismatic. This and his natural eloquence were enough to seduce me right from the start.
I was attracted by his calm assurance, disturbed only on those occasions when he was giving orders to his subordinates, who could do nothing but obey him. It wasn’t even any problem for us to go up to my room, in a country where it was forbidden for a man to accompany a woman upstairs if she was not married. In fact, our relationship had started one night when he had hidden in my bedroom with a huge bunch of roses to offer me. He had overcome all kinds of obstacles to be with me, and he was taking giant strides towards becoming subconsciously dependent on me.
‘Well, Hassan, I’m surprised that they didn’t explain what happened. I was sacked last April,’ I told him brusquely, annoyed at the way he had spoken and by the fact of being unemployed.
‘What did you do to make them throw you out so suddenly?’ he barked.
‘Nothing at all,’ I said, hurt and upset. ‘They were laying people off, and I happened to be the first in line. What are you suggesting? That I set it up to give myself problems, just when my life was more or less organized and peaceful?’
Hassan, who is always so proud of being a liberal, Western-educated Moslem, will not admit it, but being a woman is a problem in itself.
‘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.
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.