us.’
I wondered what else my mother had said. I had tried to stay in the room with them whenever possible, so that Anne couldn’t carry out any more terrorist attacks on my reputation. I gave him a reassuring smile, and we continued with our inventory of the house.
I wanted to tell Mateo everything, but even then I was afraid of losing him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Project
A FTER WE HAD worked our way through most of the rooms, I went up to our bedroom, intending to put away the rest of my clothes. The car journey had unsettled my stomach, and I had eaten too much just to prove to Senora Delgadillo that I was willing, so I lay down on the bed for a few minutes.
The mattress was immense and marshmallowy, the room thick-bricked and cool, with eggshell blue walls and a polished parquet floor. Everywhere were paintings of bombazine-clad women and stern-looking men with luxuriant moustaches, so overlaid with sepia tobacco residue that they were rendered almost invisible within their frames, like phantoms. Presumably they had been left behind because they belonged in the house, and would mean nothing to anyone else.
I sank down into the pillow but there was something lumpy beneath it. When I looked, I found a small wooden crucifix with a hook on the top. It had clearly been taken down from the wall, so I put it back up.
I had been expecting to feel at least a little disoriented and odd here, but the only sensation I felt was a soothing calm, a happy sense of homecoming, and I quickly fell asleep. I’m becoming Spanish already, I thought , taking an afternoon siesta.
At five he came to me. It felt as if I was still dreaming. From the corner of my eye I saw him unbutton his blue shirt and let it fall to the floor. I heard the rattle of his belt opening. The black trapezoid of his chest hair ended abruptly below his pectoral muscles, narrowing to a stripe of fur arrowing to his navel and below. If his body was toned by the natural forces of hard work, his hands were too smooth. They could only have known the touch of keypad, a phone, a steering wheel. He pressed them lightly against the side of my body to turn me, and lowered his lips to mine.
He was unlike anyone else I had made love with. My past sexual experience was a spontaneous, chaotic blur of late night fumbles and hungover mornings, after which I usually hated myself. Mateo was slow and deliberate, and if he was more intent on his own pleasure, it was because he knew it would please me. When he touched my breasts, my throat, the almost-flat of my stomach, it was with a sense of entitlement, but there was also discovery and wonder.
He took his time. I could hear birdsong, clocks ticking distantly, the rustle of bedclothes. When he finally entered me, it was as if he was starting a ritual of possession, a process in which I was complicit. The steady pressure of his body drove gently and steadily into me, filling me with a warm completion. I thought, let it always be like this, don’t let us ever become indifferent or lost to each other.
After, we lay in each other’s arms until I noticed the change.
At first it was so subtle that I couldn’t be sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks. I sat up, moving so as not to wake him, and carefully disentangled myself from the white sheets. Stepping naked to the window and looking down, I could see that the sun was lower in the sky now, but was still before the windows. Outside, there was not a breath of air. The boles of the gnarled cork trees were partly in shadow, but the room was squarely flooded with light. It felt as if the sun was present inside me and without. Everything was warm to the touch. I thought then that the house liked us, that it wanted us to be here and to be happy.
I walked to the right-side pane, set further toward the ridge of the cliff, but found it also washed in sun-dust. The reason why became apparent. All of the foliage that might have blocked the path of the light had been
I wondered what else my mother had said. I had tried to stay in the room with them whenever possible, so that Anne couldn’t carry out any more terrorist attacks on my reputation. I gave him a reassuring smile, and we continued with our inventory of the house.
I wanted to tell Mateo everything, but even then I was afraid of losing him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Project
A FTER WE HAD worked our way through most of the rooms, I went up to our bedroom, intending to put away the rest of my clothes. The car journey had unsettled my stomach, and I had eaten too much just to prove to Senora Delgadillo that I was willing, so I lay down on the bed for a few minutes.
The mattress was immense and marshmallowy, the room thick-bricked and cool, with eggshell blue walls and a polished parquet floor. Everywhere were paintings of bombazine-clad women and stern-looking men with luxuriant moustaches, so overlaid with sepia tobacco residue that they were rendered almost invisible within their frames, like phantoms. Presumably they had been left behind because they belonged in the house, and would mean nothing to anyone else.
I sank down into the pillow but there was something lumpy beneath it. When I looked, I found a small wooden crucifix with a hook on the top. It had clearly been taken down from the wall, so I put it back up.
I had been expecting to feel at least a little disoriented and odd here, but the only sensation I felt was a soothing calm, a happy sense of homecoming, and I quickly fell asleep. I’m becoming Spanish already, I thought , taking an afternoon siesta.
At five he came to me. It felt as if I was still dreaming. From the corner of my eye I saw him unbutton his blue shirt and let it fall to the floor. I heard the rattle of his belt opening. The black trapezoid of his chest hair ended abruptly below his pectoral muscles, narrowing to a stripe of fur arrowing to his navel and below. If his body was toned by the natural forces of hard work, his hands were too smooth. They could only have known the touch of keypad, a phone, a steering wheel. He pressed them lightly against the side of my body to turn me, and lowered his lips to mine.
He was unlike anyone else I had made love with. My past sexual experience was a spontaneous, chaotic blur of late night fumbles and hungover mornings, after which I usually hated myself. Mateo was slow and deliberate, and if he was more intent on his own pleasure, it was because he knew it would please me. When he touched my breasts, my throat, the almost-flat of my stomach, it was with a sense of entitlement, but there was also discovery and wonder.
He took his time. I could hear birdsong, clocks ticking distantly, the rustle of bedclothes. When he finally entered me, it was as if he was starting a ritual of possession, a process in which I was complicit. The steady pressure of his body drove gently and steadily into me, filling me with a warm completion. I thought, let it always be like this, don’t let us ever become indifferent or lost to each other.
After, we lay in each other’s arms until I noticed the change.
At first it was so subtle that I couldn’t be sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks. I sat up, moving so as not to wake him, and carefully disentangled myself from the white sheets. Stepping naked to the window and looking down, I could see that the sun was lower in the sky now, but was still before the windows. Outside, there was not a breath of air. The boles of the gnarled cork trees were partly in shadow, but the room was squarely flooded with light. It felt as if the sun was present inside me and without. Everything was warm to the touch. I thought then that the house liked us, that it wanted us to be here and to be happy.
I walked to the right-side pane, set further toward the ridge of the cliff, but found it also washed in sun-dust. The reason why became apparent. All of the foliage that might have blocked the path of the light had been
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