MEETING GIOVANNI MADE me think a lot about the path I have taken until now. I think fate is always playing with people, and that there are many different paths. I chose one, and, my lesson learnt, I ended up meeting Giovanni in a brothel. If I had never decided to become a prostitute, I would never have met him. We seem to have so little in common that the chances of our meeting were extremely remote . . . Deep down, all I am looking for is love. Blind dates, one-night stands, the brothel, all are simply means to try to find what I’ve always been searching for. Today I felt very pleased at my discovery, and wanted to show the whole world.
So with this wonderful feeling in my body, I went to work as usual, determined to spread a little happiness all around me. Little did I know that my ‘victim’ that night was perhaps the person most in need of it that I had yet to meet.
Sofia woke me at two in the morning, Jordi in her arms. I had a client. A new young man had called and asked for a European girl, someone who was particularly affectionate.
‘You’ll understand why when you get here,’ the client had explained to Sofia.
Isa and I were the only girls working that night, and Sofia knew she could not send her. Instead, she sent me to the client’s flat, which was in the upper part of the city, in a very nice building that had twenty-four-hour security.
When the client opened the door, I was unable to hide the surprise and fear on my face, even though I tried to stay as normal as possible. Iñigo greeted me with a smile, sitting comfortably in his wheelchair. He showed me straight into his living room, ‘because there’d be no point taking you into the bedroom’, as he said with a laugh. It was a large modern apartment, but there was a stale smell I found hard to take. All the doors were specially adapted to let a wheelchair through, and I began to feel very sorry for the boy, who could not have been more than twenty-six.
‘I’m almost completely disabled,’ he said, in the most natural way in the world.
When he said that, I almost collapsed into a corner of the sofa, then asked him if he minded me smoking.
‘I smoke as well,’ he said. ‘Could you light me one, and put it in my mouth?’
I immediately did as he asked, anxious to please him. He took several puffs on the cigarette, then appealed to me with his eyes to remove it. That was enough for him.
‘Thanks!’ he said. ‘And now, do you think you could lift me and put me down on the sofa? I could do it, but it takes such an effort.’
I felt a great deal of respect for him, which made me hesitate for a few moments before I picked him up: I was afraid he might fall and shatter like a glass figurine.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I can’t feel a thing. The only places where I have any sensation are in my neck and a little in my hands.’
He seemed to have read my mind.
When I had settled him on the sofa, he asked me to take his clothes off. He was skinny; all his limbs had atrophied and his legs were no thicker than my arms. I felt very uncomfortable. To my astonishment, his small – tiny – prick was erect.
‘It’s like that all the time since my accident. It’s not that I’m aroused,’ he explained, ‘I don’t feel a thing down there.’
He burst out laughing again. I felt really stupid, and inwardly cursed myself for ever having wished myself dead. What right did I have to feel so miserable when real suffering was right there in front of my eyes, in the shape of this boy, who bore it with such vitality and good humour?
Obviously, nothing happened between us. I spent the hour giving him kisses all over his neck, and he thanked me from time to time with little moans.
I went back to the agency determined never to complain again. I resolved not to say a word about Iñigo to any of the other girls or the managers. Fate had sent me this episode to make me react, to live the present and seize whatever opportunity arises, without thinking twice about it.