Carlos Fuentes - A Change of Skin

Have you harvested the fruit of your labors?

* * *

Δ A paved road appeared.

“There, you see?” you said, looking at Franz. “It is to the right.”

Franz nodded and swung off to the right and you moved along an avenue of eucalyptus trees. All of you felt the presence of the animals ahead before you saw them, even before you heard their bellowing, smelled them. You sensed some obstacle ahead. The pavement ended and Franz slowed. Dust swirled up and you closed your window.

* * *

Δ You rubbed the back of Javier’s neck and laughed, Pussycat, “You know, you really thought I would be a virgin! It made me laugh. But I laughed with you, Proffy, not at you. What do you think? It was my first act of emancipation, as they say. I don’t even remember his face.” You ran your fingers through Javier’s thinning hair. “No joke, I don’t remember anything, but absolutely nothing, about him. Imagine: I had just shaken free from my family and that nut wanted to tie me down again! You can’t trust anyone, Proffy. ‘Don’t date anyone except me. Don’t leave the house without phoning me. Wait for me after your classes.’ And he was studying veterinary medicine. Good God. He intended to spend the rest of his life nursing lap dogs. Well, that was still part of the nest, and when I found out what I needed to know, I jumped out once and for all and got rid of my new puppy. I didn’t miss him. After all, sex in itself isn’t much. Everything depends on the other person. As long as I didn’t have someone special, no sex was okay with me. I certainly wasn’t going to let it throw me. Nor anything else, for that matter. Now with you, it’s fun. You know how to take me.”

“You women tell us how we should take you,” said Javier. You unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off his body.

“Which women?” You loosened his shoelaces and pulled off his shoes.

“All of you. Don’t you realize that we live in a great matriarchy?”

You rubbed Javier’s feet and then took off your blouse and stretch pants.

“Of course, it doesn’t seem that way,” Javier went on. “Every man tells himself that he is muy macho, all balls, virile…”

Javier pushed the hair back from your eyes so that he could see your face as you leaned over him and kissed him. You gave him a hug.

“These sheets are cold. Well, at least that means they wash them once in a while.”

Javier sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his pants. “Doesn’t it bother you that we always meet in motel rooms?”

“Are you nuts?” you said, tickling him. “My, what a soft tummy.”

Javier covered his stomach with the sheet. “We might go to Acapulco some weekend.”

“No, that’s not secluded enough.”

“Where, then?”

You thought about it for a moment, Isabel, while Javier looked at you, prone, tan, surrounded by the smoke you exhaled through your nostrils. The smoke swirled down as far as your navel. He touched you.

“Oh, Barbados. Trinidad. Jamaica. Bermuda.”

“Mexican women make believe that they are dominated by their men. But in reality…”

“God, what are you talking about?” You rubbed his ear. You turned your back to him and with one arm pulled him down.

“In reality it’s the women who do the dominating. I sometimes think that Mexican women themselves invented the myth of the macho male simply to deceive their men about what was happening, to offer them a kind of compensation for their subjugation to their daughters, their mothers, their wives, all the devouring women who impose their values on us, the only values that really count here.”

“You may be right. Father said he was an atheist, but I was sent to the nuns’ school.”

“An example. Let the men have their fun. Wear your face of martyrdom in public, but in private die laughing.”

You laughed. “Let’s make some fun now.” With your hand you touched him, caressed him, invited him. “Oh, there’s only one Mexico,” you said as he took your breasts. “Our little mother of Guadalupe.” Your legs and his laced together. “There’s nothing so cool as our Mexican music.” You slid down his legs. “Our brave Boy Heroes.” With your buttocks you pushed his legs apart. “We may be poor, but we have heart.” You were tight against him now, back to back. “Go on and laugh, Javier. Don’t I sound just like your precious television? Now I’ll change channels. Captain Jackson of the CIA arrives in Singapore.” Javier chuckled. “A thick net of intrigue envelops this mysterious port, a rendezvous of world espionage.” You turned quickly and rubbed your nose against his. “Jackson is blond, tall, muscular, and he lights his cigarettes staring without blinking into the eyes of the enemy.” Your breasts were becoming hot under his hands. “If we don’t destroy the threat to the free world here, the enemy will soon be at our door, Jackson says. He points to a map of explosive Southeast Asia, the little countries ready to fall like a row of dominoes.” Your thighs were damp from the movement. “And now the commercial. Señora, don’t let your children develop dangerous incestuous complexes. Use the pre-sterilized Baby Suckett. Don’t nurse your infant. Avoid tired tits. Maintain your endowment erect, firm, and fully packed. Your breasts have rights, too. Listen to what Jayne Mansfield advises.”

“Isabel, Isabel.”

“Ayyy, papacito.”

“Is it good, my love?”

“It’s good, good.”

“Listen to me. So it won’t stop. It’s like the first time.”

“Don’t talk. Let me concentrate.”

“Let me do it, Ligeia.”

“Yes, darling. Keep on. Keep on.”

“I don’t want to begin all over each time…”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“In, out, slowly, slowly.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“And now…”

“Yes.”

“Now no more.”

Javier moved off of your body and fell face down on the pillow as if he were hiding. You remained as you were. Javier looked at you from the corner of his eye. You did not turn your head, did not seek him.

“Isabel,” he murmured.

“Not so good, Javier?”

“No, my love. Not so good. This miserable room. We can’t go on this way, Isabel. Now we’ll go back to Mexico City and it will be motel rooms again, the cold sheets and the cold walls. The telephone beside the bed. The taxi waiting for us outside. The window with a curtain of orange stripes. Bah. When I think about the places we’ve met on the road to Toluca, I feel sick. Maybe…”

“I know. Yes, Javier!”

“Yes what?”

“We’ll rent a little apartment!”

“An apartment?”

“Of course, darling, and I have it picked out already! A really cool studio in Coyoacán. You won’t believe it when you see it. We’ll…”

“But Isabel, I didn’t mean…”

“Look, it’s right over a pop-art store. I’ll decorate it.”

“But I…”

“It’s really only a studio. One huge room, a little bath, and a kitchen. Oh, it’s terrific, Javier! I’ll have them wax the floor as soon as we get back.”

“Isabel, I meant…”

“Paint the beams and whitewash the walls. Yellow curtains, good thick ones, for the big window. It looks out on the plaza of Chimalistac.”

“But I was thinking that…”

“I’ll track down some light cedar furniture and have the cushions made of blue Indian-head cotton. We’ll need some tables, wrought-iron and glass. I’ll buy some papier-mâché Judas figures downstairs in the pop-art store and hang them around the walls. A sofa that converts into a bed. You’ll bring your books and I’ll buy an antique writing table I saw in San Angel. It’s a colonial table of marquetry, with drawers and all sorts of things. You can keep your writing there, eh?”