Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
We drove into Barcelona about seven o'clock in the afternoon. The streets were crowded with soldiers and civilians in what appeared to be a festive mood.
'We seem to have hit town during a festival of some kind,' I said.
'I think they have fairs or festivals on a year round basis in most of the towns and cities down here,' Tor said. Khaki-clad army conscripts in groups of four or five walked along the promenades pushing and shoving and clowning with the girls. The long red tassels of their wedge hats danced and swayed in front of their noses in time with the surge of their bodies. Back and forth they strolled, busily going nowhere, the señoritas arm in arm in groups as large as six, sailing in convoy down the walk, dressed in severe black to set off their dark skins. Tortoise shell combs in their hair supported the exquisite black lace mantillas that rose like tiny pirate sails above them. There was a definite Latin beauty to these slight, fine-featured women, with their physical charms enhanced vividly by the lush, red roses they wore so smartly above their dainty ears. So obviously, flirtatiously desirable but so coolly and maddeningly unavailable.
Tor drove slowly along the Avenida de Jose Antonio as far as the Plaza de Toros 'Arenas' and we heard the groans and roars of the aficionados. What superb 'veronica' or classically sculpted 'chicuelino' had merited that last pistol-like 'Ole!' from the throats of the cruelly critical audience inside the massive brown stone circle squatting above us? We were just too late to see the corrida, which was a disappointment, since there would be no more fights until the following Sunday and we were anxious to push on to Palma in a day or so.
With a sense of annoyance, which can be just as acute in the chronic loafer as in the busily employed, Tor turned the car around and circled back toward the centre of the city. We followed the Avenida de Mistral as far as the Plaza del Teatro then parked the car and walked down to the great column on the waterfront which supports the statue of Christopher Columbus. He stood alone at the top of his pillar, just as he had stood alone against the doubters and the skeptics so many years before, holding a map in one hand, pointing with the other to the west where the New World lies.
'We seem to be running into a plethora of cities implying that they are responsible for Christopher Columbus,' I said, '..one has to assume that there's at least one in Portugal, after all, that's where he was born!'
'Maybe he's communicating with Scotland Yard about Lady Hamilton's one-eyed lover, saying "no mea culpa" in order to avoid any misunderstanding,' Dick said.
'Very romantic,' I mused, 'also very unlikely; nice try, though!'
We checked into a modestly-priced hotel then wandered down the street until we came to the Calle Major. We 'window-shopped' slowly along, gazing at the exquisitely woven lace, the wrought silver, the delicate cut glassware, and marvelling at the cheap prices. We fingered the goatskin bags, 'botas' the tradesmen called them, but resisted the feverish efforts of the shopkeepers to induce us to buy.
We entered a bar jammed with people, mostly men, laughing and talking loudly. A number of painted women sat with the men or moved amongst the ones crowded around the bar, laughing and joking uninhibitedly. After a good deal of jostling and shoving we reached the bar and caught the waiter's eye.
'Tres cognac, por favor; Fundador!'
'Si,' smiled the barman.
The cognac was smooth and had a full-bodied flavour of smoked wood that lingered in the mouth after the potent liquor had blazed its way down our throats to kindle slow fires in our stomachs.
'Tastes like another,' Dick said, motioning to the waiter.
'Very nice,' said Torstein, 'Yes, I'll have another, if you please.' The barman refilled our glasses and they were in due course drained. On the street again we threaded our way through the crowds in the fading light. We seemed to be on an incipient pub crawl. We turned in at a bar called 'Los Caballos' and ordered a round. Standing at the bar, which ran up one side of the long narrow room, I admired the old bullfight posters plastered along behind it. In one of them a swarthy, heavy-jawed matador stood gazing out over our shoulders at an imaginary señorita. In his right hand he held his black hat, proferring his art and his devotion together in a superb dedicatory gesture that symbolized all the passion and violence and mystic beauty of the bullfight. The scarlet folds of the muleta were visible in his left hand, matching the bright red sash of silk that bound his waist and set off the resplendent beauty of the gold embroidered 'traje de luces', the 'suit of lights'. Sharing this perpetually frozen moment of drama was the massive savage figure of a black Miura bull, standing in the background in baffled contemplation of its foe; this delicate, dancing, devilishly elusive 'man-thing' that taunted him to madness with the soft, unresisting distractions of the 'muleta', then turned, so flagrantly disdainful of his brutal power, to gaze with pensive unconcern at his lover amongst the screaming mob of faces beyond the barrera.
Across the room, on the opposite wall, sharing the dedication of the poster fellow to the imaginary lover, was mounted the massive head and shoulders of a fighting bull, black and threatening, its polished horns hooking around to needle-sharp points above its eyes. The cruel fishhooks of the red and yellow banderillas were still buried deep in the chemically-preserved muscles of its massive withers, lending an inappropriately festive air to its otherwise tragic mien.
Pictures of the great and the near great, posed and in action, covered the wall, Gallito, Chicuelo, Belmonte, Dominguin, Arruza and Gaona stood shoulder to shoulder as they never could in real life, and performed the classic movements of the corrida for the price of a glass of brandy. We ordered another round.
'Ten cents for a double cognac,' exclaimed Torstein. 'My God, at this rate we can go blind for a dollar!'
'You will, my friend, you will,' observed Dick, raising his glass, 'just give it a little time!'
Precisely at what time in the evening's proceedings Juanita arrived I was not sure; I was obviously incipiently pissed, but suddenly she was there, smiling and laughing and squeezing my thighs. She spoke no English; we spoke virtually no Spanish. 'No chance to screw things up with conversation,' drawled Dick. Basic was the way Dick liked things; real basic!
We bought her a drink and christened her 'Dimples'. She had dimples all right, nice little indentations that appeared and disappeared like timid squirrels. She laughed almost constantly, as if to afford us the full benefit of this attractive aberration in the exercise of her orbicularis oris muscles. She was small and well-built and wore a close fitting black skirt and low-cut green woollen jersey that exposed the deep cleft between her firm brown breasts.
'Exceptional mammary development there,' I said, pulling her in close with my free arm. 'Note, if you will, gentlemen, the pleasing effect afforded by the influence of the well-toned pectoralis major muscles.' I cupped one smooth, well-rounded breast in my hand. Juanita made no attempt to remove it but leaned over and bit me gently on the lobe of my left ear.
'Chaps, I think I could learn to love this little girl,' I opined, pulling her down onto my knee, spilling my drink on my pantleg at the same time.
'I believe I'll have another glass of Big Orange,' Dick shouted, pounding the bar and waving his hand at the barman.
'Poor chap's obviously drunk!' I said to Tor. The barman arrived with the bottle and poured. I could feel a pleasant pressure building up in the region of my sinus as each succeeding drink nudged the alcohol content of my blood a little higher. I also noted the heightened feeling of objectivity I always experienced at this stage of my drinking. My horizon seemed to shrink and shrink until it had compressed itself into one small focal point of interest which stood out with remarkable briliance and clarity...'slight anaesthesia evident in the patient's cortical cells of the cerebrum...consequent incipient collapse of the primary cerebral inhibitions..'
I was roused from my reverie by the sudden spasmodic clutch of one of Juanita's fastidiously manicured hands on the inside of my right thigh. Gradually the real world with attendant distractions swam once again into my blurred, alcoholic vsion. Torstein was trying to drag Juanita to one side. Juanita, bless her little Catholic soul, was adamant, and clung tightly to me. I disengaged her slowly, octopus-like, remarking 'Gotta share it around, honey! Keep peace in the family and all that crap.'
'How much, Juanita?' Torstein asked suddenly. Her smooth, polished mahogany shoulders and the subtle alcoholic caress of the Fundador had obviously proven too much for his thick Scandinavian blood. His huge fingers pressed firmly but gently into the voluptuous brown flesh of her upper arm. I stared at the golden hairs that marched in disorder over the corded veins of the Swede's huge sunburnt hand.
Juanita's linguistic capabilities seemed suddenly to improve. 'Cien pesetas,' she replied, adopting a serious look.
'What'd she say, Tor?' I asked.
'Damned if I know for sure; I think she said one hundred.'
'Two and a half bucks,' I calculated. 'H'mmm; better ask her if she's got a couple of buddies.' Torstein pointed to us and said 'Amigos, senoritas?' Her reaction to this query was immediate and she nodded her head vigorously, smiling with obvious pleasure and at the same time taking her coat from the bar rail. She disappeared out the front door. The cognac had continued to disappear with astonishing rapidity but the barman was always on hand to refill the glasses as quickly as they were emptied.
A spare man with a wispy mustache and unusually fair skin for a Spaniard appeared at my side and suggested that a charcoal sketch either 'naturale' or 'humoroso' would be appropriate. Fifteen pesetas. The man worked wth great speed and accuracy and in a few minutes had completed amazingly skillful caricatures of each of us. As we were paying him for his work Juanita reappeared, bringing with her two companions who were giggling excitedly and talking with great animation and volatility while looking from one to the other of us with appraising glances.
Juanita, as self-appointed mistress of ceremonies, handled the introductions, to the accompaniment of another round of cheek pinchings and buttock slappings. The barman continued to do his job. The girls were involved in a noisy huddle which apparently concluded with a decision to visit another bar of their choosing. There was some opposition to this proposal but the inertia was eventually overcome and we trailed gradually from the bar. I threw an extra note on the sticky bar as we left and was rewarded by an effusive display of thanks from the reliable person behind it.
The evening traffic had thinned considerably on the promenade. After walking a couple of blocks in the direction of the docks we swung into a side street. Following it to its end we made an abrupt left turn into a blind alley and entered a dimly lit tavern set down at a lower level than the alley. Two or three women sat alone at the bar drinking anise, staring boredly at their reflections in the fly-specked mirror beyond. The mournful, strangely haunting strains of an Andalusian song came from an unseen record player behind a curtain at the back of the room.
'Well, let's go, I've seen all I want to!' Dick stated flatly, turning back toward the entrance.
'Oh, hell. we may as well stay for one drink,' I said. 'It seems to be what the girls want, so if it'll make 'em any happier...'. I went over to one of the small, circular, marble-topped tables and seated myself on a chair made of the heavy, twisted wire one used to see in the ice cream parlours of the thirties. The cognac we ordered was of poor quality and in spite of the urgings of our female companions to linger, we soon made our desire for more definite action manifest. We paid and left and once more the procession threaded its way through the tortuous side streets until we arrived at a second-rate hotel near the bar we had originally left.
We mounted the steps in silence and the girls held a brief conversation with a stout, grey-haired matron sitting at a desk in a small anteroom leading off the corridor. She handed each of them a large white towel and a small bar of soap. I was oblivious to any sense whatever of involvement in the proceedings as Juanita took my hand and led me to one of the rooms. I sat down on the edge of the bed and started undoing my shoelaces. My movements were slow and deliberate, somnambulistic. I was aware of the utter impassivity of my attitude, rather, would have been but for the weird effect of the mesmeric mood I had fallen into. I believe I was pissed.
I watched dumbly as Juanita pulled the soft green wool jersey over her head and hung it carefully from a hanger in the closet. Her glossy black hair fell in smooth jet waves to her bare shoulders where it broke like surf against the satiny skin. When she reached up her hands to fluff out her tresses her perfect breasts strained against the confines of the sheer white nylon of her brassiere and I was pleased to notice the first urgent shock of desire that started up in my loins in response to the sight of her magnificent neck and bosom. There was a smooth ripple of muscles in her upper arm as she made this simple, unstudied gesture. There was a svelte animalistic fluidity to her movements of which I became acutely conscious only when she had begun to disrobe; or maybe I had been remotely conscious of it all along and only the sudden imminence of contact had emphasized the awareness. At any rate, the casual voluptuousness of her movements was arousing my erotic senses from their former dormancy in a slow relentless surge. I felt like a surfer who is picked up and propelled forward with ever-increasing force far in excess of his own feeble power to resist. But there was an undeniable exhilaration to it; a feeling of reckless abandonment that titillated some atavistic chord in my nature and filled me with a wild, choking exultancy that brought colour to my face and I leapt suddenly to my feet and seized her in an impetuous embrace. The firm, warm, separate pressures of her breasts through the thin cotton of my T-shirt and the rich softness of the perfumed skin where my lips pressed her neck convulsed me with a sudden spasmodic thrill of anticipation that forced my breath from me in a deep, trembling sigh.
'Momentito, senor, momentito,' she protested, pushing me gently away, a look of surprised amusement flicking across her mobile features. I sat down on the edge of the bed, as much surprised by my sudden outburst as she. I pulled off the light cotton shirt and balled it up in my hand and threw it against the back of the chair in one smooth continuous gesture. I kicked off my shoes then stood up and fumbled with my zipper. My pants slid down my legs and gathered themselves into a shapeless heap around my ankles. Without disturbing their folds I stepped cleanly out of them, over to the head of the bed, and grasping the coverlet and top sheet in one hand I stripped back the bedclothing in a single sweeping gesture and sprawled myself full length on the white sheet.
The well-tanned legs and torso of my body effected a sharp contrast to the white skin of my buttocks and groin that had been shielded from the sun by my swim trunks. I propped myself up on one elbow and watched as Juanita wriggled out of her smartly tailored skirt and folded it in turn over the back of the chair. The sheer nylon stockings she wore had been rolled at the top to avoid any fuss with garters, I concluded. She sat on the edge of the bed and rolled them down, then, kicking off her pumps, she plucked the stockings off simultaneously by the toes and they joined the skirt across the back of the chair.
I wound my fingers in the thick hair at the nape of her neck and pulled her slowly backward until I felt the taut lacing at the back of her brassiere cutting into the bare skin of my abdomen, then bent my head over her upturned face and pressed my mouth against her waiting lips. She lay passive for a moment, then, as the passionate urgency of my embrace stirred the banked fires of her womanhood, her hands slid slowly along the tensed muscles of my arms, across my shoulders and, finally meeting, twined themselves together in the curly hair at the base of my neck and pulled my head down, over her smooth cheeks and the soft silkiness of her throat, until my mouth was against the small, glistening aromatic hollow at the base of her neck. I drew back a moment and looked at the dreamy, lust-drugged expression in her deep expressive eyes, heavy-lidded now, closed almost to the point where the long, coal-black lashes touched together at the outer edges.
'Si, senor,' she whispered, 'Muy apasionado!' and drew back her lips like a snarling dog and drew a deep breath which she exhaled slowly through the sides of her clenched white teeth. I put my hands in the moist warmth of her armpits and pulled her around until she lay next to me on the cool white covering and I could feel the warm elastic pressure of her small, compact body against my own. I slipped my arm under her head and she let it rest heavy against the relaxed curve of my biceps. Her eyes closed and I studied the delicate blue tracery of the capillary veins in the lids. I leaned close to one and touched the tip of my tongue against it. It fluttered but did not open. I allowed it to linger a moment then drew it slowly across her cheek, the roving tip now barely making contact with the skin, now not touching it at all, moving now slowly and deliberately, now hesitating, like a lazy bumblebee gorged with nectar, bungling along a sun-splashed garden wall.
It found her ear and browsed maddeningly along its outer edge. Reaching the lobe, it paused, then, as if sure at last of its course, slipped down into its dark inner shadow. I let my stored breath force itself down around my my tongue into her ear in a long slow exhalation. She writhed wildly. frenziedly in my arms as the excruciating thrill lashed through her body, then with a sharp gasp hurled herself against me. Her mouth sought mine and pressed against it with cruel force, her tongue stabbing between my teeth like an angered cobra. A quick tug with my free hand released the knot at the front of her brassiere and I worked the nylon cords loose with slow deliberation where they crisscrossed her back. As the smooth fabric came loose I slid my hand around to the front, conscious of the ribs buried beneath their soft carpet of flesh, until it was filled with the ripe fullness of her breast. I let the little finger and the edge of my palm lie along the curving junction at the base of the breast where it broke away from the chest and soared in a perfect parabolic arc to the dark aureola above.
My thumb moved back and forth across the soft, spongy bud in its centre and I experienced my usual sense of pleased amazement as the erogenous tissue swelled and became rigidly tumescent with the caress. A wave of hot, tingling sensuality passed over me as I bent suddenly to press my mouth against her breast and was vaguely conscious of the tensing and untensing of the muscles in her flat belly. I passed my hand quickly along the deep centre groove of her back till I felt the full flare of her buttocks beneath the smooth sheath of her nylon panties, then slipped my fingers under the elastic top and rested the butt of my palm against the flat depression at the point of her pelvis.
She arced her body in a sudden practiced movement and slipped her panties down onto her thighs. My foot came up and looped over the top of the flimsy nylon garment and forced it down over her raised knee until her foot passed through, then, satyr-like, I brought my leg up between her naked legs and pressed the muscles of my thigh into the hot, moist surface of her loins. After a moment I pushed her down and back, rotating her body on the lower side of her pelvis till she lay prostrate and I was over her and the warm, consummate ecstasy of fulfilment suspended me in an acute fervour that surged up and up to the final almost unbearable torture of suspense, then released at last, swept my strength and my desire from me like the tumbling floodwaters from a great collapsing dam; but the flood passed and the waters ran cool and still again.
Afterward, I lay with my fingers curled in her hair and watched the ghostly dancing of the lace curtains as they billowed in the warm breeze that carried the street sounds in from below. Later, walking down the corridor, I heard a shout.
'Ron?'
'Present!
'Come here, you old fart... in here!' It was Dick's voice, fuzzy with drink. 'Rosie, open the door, dammit! Porto, porto! Vamos! Corriente!' I assumed he'd learned a few more Spanish words--partly, at least.
The sudden sharp metallic rasp of a steel bolt sliding back came from the far side of the heavy door. I pushed through it and found myself in a room that was a mirror image of the one I had just left. I entered just in time to see a pair of brown legs disappear beneath the coverlet as Rosita completed a frantic dive for the protection of the bed. I thought it a strange inconsistency. Dick lay with the sheet pulled up tightly to his naked shoulders, a ludicrous sight with his beret cocked over one eye and a huge unlighted cigar jammed between his lips.
'Gotta match, you hairy bastard?' he gurgled, grasping the cigar between a thumb and forefinger and brandishing it wildly. I lighted a match and held it as Dick sucked noisily to get it started, talking betwen gasps like a dying movie cowpoke.
'Bloody disappointed...this senorita,,,poor piece a' tail...claims she's pregnant...always worryin' 'bout her 'bambino'...I'd a bone a dog couldn't chew...poor piece!' the end of the cigar suddenly reached the flash point and Dick lay back gasping as a long pillar of flame torched up from the overheated tobacco.
'This is livin' a little, eh buddy?' he chuckled, blowing a thick blue doughnut of smoke toward the ceiling.' I smiled and made a move toward the door to leave.
'Stay, wretch!' Dick shouted, his eyes shining drunkenly, 'the floor show is just about to begin. Rosita here has a little feat in store for you that is well calculated to boggle your imagination.' As he pronounced 'boggle' he forced the word through his lips with a sound like an exploding champagne cork.
'Rosie, honey, show the gentleman your hidden ability, there's a good little tart!' Rosita smiled back at him uncomprehendingly, then smiled as though sharing a great joke.
'Not too well trained just yet.' Dick said with mock apology. 'She'll improve, c'mon honey, 'leche, leche'!' A sudden look of understanding appeared on her plump face and she smiled even more broadly than before, nodding her head up and down in approval. Dropping the sheet from her shoulders she exposed her enormous breasts and supporting one in her hand like an oversized bean bag she pressed the index and middle fingers of the other hand on either side of the nipple and forced a swift white stream from it. I stepped back quickly but too late to avoid having the flying droplets stitch a dark path across my pant leg.
'Son of a bitch!' I flared angrily, flushing from anger and embarrassment but my anger died quickly as I heard Dick's hysterical roar of laughter and saw the frenzied convulsions of merriment that gripped the two on the bed as they enjoyed their little joke.
'I'll meet you outside, pal,' I said, going to the door. 'Buenas noches, señorita Rosita,' I added, smiling at the merry brown girl at Dick's side.
'Hasta luego, señor !' she cried, with a happy giggle.
Dick joined me in a few minutes down on the street. 'I wonder if we should wait for Tor?' he said.
'Maybe he's gone already,' I asserted. 'No sense in waiting around, he's a big boy now, he can look after himself; we'll see him on the boat tomorrow anyway. Let's go!' We went off down the street---and we never saw Torstein again.
— The End —