My lover Joey and I decided we wanted to start fucking other people. To be fair we already were fucking other people, but we wanted to do it around the same time in around the same place. So when he moved from Los Angeles to Barcelona, I did what any best-friend-with-benefits would do and bought a ticket to join him there.
Immediately we were having a ball. We fashioned ourselves bohemian writer types recapturing a romantic pre-war era of European leisure and creativity. We stayed in his uncle Pepe’s flat. It was a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three story building, a block away from the beach. Because Barcelona is apparently the kind of place where you can own a two bedroom apartment on the top floor of a three story building a block away from the beach, on the salary of a puppeteer. If that doesn’t make you want to re-examine your life choices, I don’t know what will.
We spent every day on the beach. I loved letting my breasts hang free in the wind. I’m fairly sure the locals didn’t mind either. One day while sunbathing I watched an old leathery woman play cards with a six year old. The woman’s breasts dangled down into her lap, and when she smiled, which was often, I could see the many places where she was missing teeth. Nevertheless, the woman was radiant (and not just because her skin had absorbed so much UV). She looked like she possessed the kind of contentment one gets from spending seventy years playing cards on the beach, topless.
I wanted to be surrounded by people like that. It was a world so removed from my life in LA, where the only topless women were the surgically-enhanced, Hollywood-sanctioned types, and the only leisure is owned by those who try fencing public beaches to exclude the proletariat.
Joey and I were contemplating that woman’s pendulous breasts and jagged smile when I heard a girl’s voice say, “No, no, no. Not ‘fah vahn.’ Eet’s ‘vah, fahn.’”
Recognizing this as a lesson in one of my favorite Italian cusses, I shouted “Vaffanculo!”
The girl whipped her head around and laughed. Her friends laughed too. And then the three girls stood up and dragged their beach chairs to us.
Joey looked and me and whispered, “You are awesome.”
“I know,” I replied.
“Vaffanculo” means, essentially, “fuck off” in Italian. Literally translated, it’s “go fuck the ass.”
Two of the girls were Italian: a brunette named Valeria and a blonde named Sara. The third was an American named Tracy. She pronounced it with the timbre and trill of a piccolo.
The Italians took a shine to me, hopefully for more than my excellent Italian cussing skills. Tracy, meanwhile, set her sights on Joey.
When Joey got up to take a swim, Tracy started asking some innocent questions designed to drill down for details. I decided to save her the effort.
“He’s not my boyfriend. And he’s decent in bed,” I said.
Her jaw dropped. “You are awesome,” she said.
“Yeah…I know,” I replied.
The five of us decided to meet up later that night to go clubbing.
The club was one of those Eurotrash places with three floors of terrible techno music, no good beer, and a twenty euro cover charge. But the hot Italians invited us, so what were we gonna do?
Tracy found me and Joey at the bar. We ordered a round of tequila shots. Before I even finished sucking the juice out of my lime, Tracy dragged Joey to the couches near the dance floor, threw him down, on started grinding on him.
That solved Joey’s problem, I thought. Now Mama’s gotta get laid.
I ordered another tequila shot and took a lap around the club. Downstairs I found the Italians, but they were busy mooning over some Brazilians who wouldn’t give them the time of day, so I went back up to the bar. Tracy’s tongue was down Joey’s throat and her hand was in his pants. I ordered another tequila shot and weighed my options.
As I threw back the shot, the dance floor cleared a bit, and I saw him: an Orlando Bloom look-a-like standing on the dance floor flanked by four male friends.
Well shit, I thought. I know what I’m doing tonight.
I left my empty shot glass on the bar and made a beeline for him. His friends wisely backed away. And Mr. Bloom and I started dancing. The chemistry was immediate. We even started making out a bit before we exchanged one word. Finally he pulled away and said in a thick accent, “My name ees Mateo.”
Now, I don’t know if it was Barcelona or the tequila or my newly discovered non-monogamous lifestyle, but I decided to make up a persona.
“Hola, Mateo, me llamo Anna,” I said, emphasizing the fake name with a Catalan flair.
“Where you are from?” he asks, his “r’s” rolling with a feline purr.
“Aquí,” I lied. I was from here.
Luckily Mateo was not from aquí or else he would have known there was no way in hell I was Catalan. But Mateo was from Milano and spoke zero words of Spanish and not much more of English. My secret identity was secure. And it was on.
We kept dancing and making out, and things got hotter and heavier. I decided we needed to take it onto the beach. Outside, I threw Mateo to the sand, undid his fly, hiked up my skirt, and started riding the boy.
Recalling this bit of the story inspires a question. I’ve never gotten a solid answer to this question, so perhaps it will be a type of Zen koan for you to contemplate later as you admire a sunset.
The question is: “What is the requisite distance that voyeurs should stand away while watching two strangers fuck on a beach?”
The one answer I know to be incorrect is: “Close enough to smoke the cigarettes that fell out of my pocket when I hiked up my skirt.”
But that’s the answer I got.
It wasn’t exactly a turn on.
Mateo and I reassembled our clothes and dignities and headed back to the club.
On our way in, we ran into Joey and Tracy heading out. We all cheered drunkenly at our good timing and decided to head back to the flat.
Upstairs, Joey showed Tracy into our room, I showed Mateo into the guest room, and Joey and I convened in the kitchen to get everyone some water.
Watching Joey pour four glasses of water for us, I was hit with a strong sense of gratitude. I was finally engaging in the ethical non-monogamous relationship that I’d always wanted. I was so grateful to have this awesome lover who wasn’t jealous or angry or judgey. He was happy to be on this adventure with me, and I with him.
Almost to confirm my feelings and make sure I wasn’t making all of this up, I said, “Joey, you know I love you, right?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I love you, too.”
We kissed.
Then we started making out.
We made out in the kitchen for about five minutes before we remembered we had other people waiting for us in our bedrooms.
Back in the bedroom, Mateo and I picked up right where we left off on the beach, sans creepsters.
I tried to communicate what I wanted in the smattering of restaurant Italian that I knew. The word “ecco” came in handy. It means “here.”
I was also delighted to use my favorite Italian cuss word for the second time that day, this time in its more literal, and pleasurable, form.
Right around the time Mateo was obliging my culo request, I started to come. At this point I’d completely forgotten that I was supposed to be Anna from Barcelona instead of Allie from Cleveland. If Mateo had noticed, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
As I started to come, however, I remembered my secret identity. So, in my increasing fervor, I decided to recommit to the character.
Instead of coming “normal style,” you know, the whole, “Oh god, oh god, yes, yes, YES!!!,” I went for something a little bit different.
“Ay! ay! ay! O, dios! Aquí! Aquí! Sí, sí, SÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ!”
I’m not proud.
But it was hilarious.
After, Mateo and I cuddled and shared pillow talk in the style of developmentally disabled six year olds.
“You know,” he said, “I can go to Dublin.”
“Um, what?”
“I can usual go to Dublin.”
I stared at him, wondering if I was about to get ditched in a most international style.
“You know,” he said. “More than one.”
“Oh!” I shouted. “Double! Twice! You can go twice.”
“Twice.” He rolled the word around on his beautiful tongue.
“Twice,” I repeated. “Okay. Let’s go!”
Mateo and I were done going to Dublin around dawn. Afterward, we headed into the living room for a cigarette. Tracy and Joey joined moments later. The four of us shared a sleepy half-conversation. Joey showed Mateo how to get back to his hostel. I talked to Tracy about, I dunno, her shoes or something.
I walked Mateo to the door. We kissed and said our half-cogent goodbyes. As he walked away, Mateo turned over his shoulder and said “Hola,” before walking into the Barcelona sunrise.
While Joey showed Tracy out, I stripped off my clothes and scurried into Joey’s and my bed.
Joey returned and nestled in to spoon to me.
“How was it?” I asked.
“Eh,” he said. “She said she liked me too much to fuck me, so she gave me a blow job.”
“Poor baby,” I said, scooting my ass close to his cock.
“How about you?” he asked.
“Well,” I said. “I got fucked in the ass for the first time and it made me come like a girl from a Reggeton song.”
He laughed. “You’re awesome.”
“I know.”
Joey scooted closer to me and I felt him get hard. We fucked. It was the hottest, most honest fuck we’d ever shared.
Afterward, I rested my head on his chest and said, “Hey Joey, would you like to go to Dublin?”