WHEN SUSANA CALLED I was in the gym. Fortunately as ever I had my mobile with me. The ringing tone echoed round the walls of the huge room I go to several times a week. I had to answer in a whisper so as not to draw attention to myself: the other members already looked annoyed that their exercise had been interrupted by the noise.
‘You have to come at once. There are no girls here, and the client has chosen you from your photo.’
‘Susana, I’m in the gym. I’ll get ready, but it’s going to take time.’
‘Hurry up then!’
I always take a change of clothes with me in case something like this happens, and today I was glad I had thought ahead, because it meant I didn’t have to go home first. I got dressed in the changing room, found a taxi, and went straight to the agency.
It had rained a little in the morning and it was a grey day, so I wasn’t feeling too bright, but work is work.
Susana was waiting impatiently for me. She always gets nervous: she takes her work so seriously she could never accept that a client had slipped through her fingers because a girl had taken too long to get to the agency. So she lives on her nerves, and as a result suffers badly from psoriasis. She’s also permanently frightened they’re going to throw her out, and so she never helps us feel relaxed. This attitude of hers was partly responsible for my feeling much closer to Angelika, who is capable of being much more flexible than her.
‘Come on, go in and meet him before he disappears . . .’
‘All right, Susana. I was at the other end of Barcelona; I couldn’t get here any faster.’
I tidied my hair in the mirror, then went into the living room. The client was watching TV, with a glass of rum and Coke in his hand. He gave the impression of having already drunk several of the same. When he saw me, he smiled, but said nothing, so I had to start the conversation. It turned out he was an aeronautical engineer, married with a family (they all are), but he felt very lonely. He was not in the least good-looking, in fact he was positively repulsive in appearance, and yet there was something charismatic about him.
When I sat down next to him, I was amazed at the effect I produced: he started literally to tremble. He confessed he felt very scared, which I found endearing, so I did my best to help him relax, and we went into the suite. He took off his clothes shyly, then got into bed and covered himself completely so that I wouldn’t see him naked. Not exactly promising! I thought this was bound to be another sexual disaster, but . . . in fact it was fantastic! I came without even having to fake it. I loved the way he caressed my whole body. He was such an expert in female anatomy I could hardly believe this was the same gauche man I had met a few minutes earlier in the living room.
When it was over and he had gone off for a shower, I took my purse out of my bag, and offered him fifty thousand pesetas.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked, rubbing his body briskly with the towel.
‘I’m giving you back what you paid Susana to be with me,’ I said in a whisper, to make sure the microphones did not pick up my voice.
‘What . . .?
‘You heard me . . . please, take it!’
‘But why?’
‘To thank you for what you gave me. Today, it’s my turn to pay. But don’t expect the same every time . . . and don’t say a word to Susana,’ I said, smiling at him.
I had to insist to get him to take the money, but he finally accepted it, saying, ‘I understand women less and less.’
As he was leaving, I murmured to him, ‘There’s nothing to understand.’
In reality I was telling myself that, because he wasn’t even my type.