Andres Neuman - Talking to Ourselves

The motel is full of old junk. There’s a smell of fish coming from the back. The guy at reception has gaps in his teeth. He wears his shirt half open. His chest is all sunburned. He looks like a thug. Dad gives him some money. The thug hands us the key. Not a card. A proper key with a key ring and all. A round, heavy key ring. Like a golf ball. Do you have Internet? I ask. The thug’s gums go even pinker. What do you think, kid? he replies. Come along, son, come along, Dad puts an arm round me. The dining room’s at the back. Sure. At the back. Where the fish are rotting.

I make bread pellets. I roll them on the tablecloth. I flick them with my middle finger. I try to aim them between the water jug and the breadbasket. The pellets slide fast because the tablecloth is oilskin. So far I’ve scored nine goals and had six misses. Could be better. Don’t you like the soup? Dad asks. He looks sad as he says this. So I tell a lie. Dad cheers up a bit. I put another spoonful in my mouth. This soup should be used in chemical warfare. They could fire it from tubes out of light aircraft. And everyone would die. I shoot two more pellets. One goes in, one goes out. I play one more to make it the best of three. Good shot. Dad puts a white pill on the tip of his tongue. Then he smiles. I get a bit carsick on those mountain roads, he explains, too many bends. I saw him take the exact same pill yesterday. And there weren’t as many bends as today. I look at the man at the opposite table. The dining-room light is far away, so it looks as if he only has half a face. Maybe the other half is missing. Maybe he ate up all his soup and it’s disintegrated. Suddenly the man with half a face sees I’m looking at him. And he stares straight at me. But his face doesn’t move. Not even an inch.

There’s a rusty fan on the ceiling. The fan makes me a bit nervous. It goes round and round. It wobbles a lot. And it’s nearer to my side. I ask Dad if he’ll swap beds with me. Dad says no. Then he tickles me and we swap. I turn on the TV. It’s teeny. I channel surf. On one Stallone is twisting the arm of a big fat man. I’ve seen that film before. It’s awesome. On another there’s the president with a gaggle of microphones. On another the police are firing tear gas. On another there are naked women. Dad tells me to change the channel. On another there’s a football match I don’t know where. The players’ names are really weird. On another there’s a woman skater bouncing off the ice in slo-mo. He switches the light off. I don’t feel sleepy yet. I ask if I can go on watching TV for a bit. He says yes but with the sound off. I tell him it’s no fun watching TV with the sound off. He says it’s no fun with it on either. Then he gives a big yawn. And he takes a sleeping pill. I turn the TV off. Dad says: Goodnight speedy chelonian. Wasn’t I an arthropod today? I ask. That was yesterday, he replies, it’s after midnight.

I was going to say he drives me wild. But besides being cheesy, that would be inaccurate. It’s more like, with Ezequiel as a pretext, through his body, I had allowed myself to go wild. His healthy young body. Distant from death.

As I write this I despise myself, but sometimes Mario’s body disgusts me. Touching it is as difficult for me as it is for him to look at himself in the mirror. His scaly skin. His bony frame. His flaccid muscles. His sudden baldness. I was prepared for us to grow old together, not for this. Not to go to sleep next to a man my age and wake up next to someone prematurely old. Whom I continue to love. Whom I no longer desire.

I know what I’m doing is wretched. I suppose I am going to feel extreme remorse. Good. Everything is extreme. Because now, tonight, all I could feel was bestial, unforgivable pleasure. Tomorrow I don’t know. And the day after tomorrow I’ll be dead.

Ezequiel’s power can’t be appreciated when you see him naked. He has to be seen in movement. Gesticulating, approaching, assaulting. His physique is a refutation of the platonic. He is Elena audacious, not muscular. Intense, not athletic. What is irresistible is his conviction. Which encourages me to overlook my own defects. This is essential when in bed with a man. Not what I see in his body: what he can make me see in mine. When I am with Ezequiel, I adore myself. I concentrate on our actions. And our actions are all, my God .

I remember early on, when we were very young, feeling intimidated by Mario. His robustness. His symmetry. I had never been confronted by such a beautiful nude. But, in bed, I couldn’t give myself fully. I didn’t find disorder. It was like embracing the treasure chest and being unable to open it. I hoped that things would improve by living together. And they did improve, but not very much. Now I think that deep down, because it seemed to me his body was more admirable than mine, I was constantly wriggling away, choosing my best side, half-posing. With Ezequiel I allow myself to be plain. Vulgar. Ugly. Excitingly ugly.

I need to touch myself. Or I will keep going round in circles, without ever getting to the point.

Good. Okay. The point.

Ezequiel doesn’t fit any of the categories catered by the porn industry. His tastes are different. He likes zits. Dirty heels. Rippling flab. Hairs sprouting everywhere. Like the ones that resemble pinheads embedded in the groin. He even likes farts. It’s quite extraordinary. Anything that can be smelled, sucked, squeezed or bitten hard, he considers worthy of the greatest admiration. He chews my armpits. He licks my unshaven legs. He sucks my feet where my sandals have rubbed the skin raw. He smells my anus. He rubs his cock against the roughness on my elbows. He comes on my stretch marks. He says that all this, my wealth of imperfections, comes from health itself.

Today, at his place, he explained that every day he sees so many bodies shrivelling up, losing their glow, degenerating pore by pore, that he has started to be excited by what is most alive, everything that flows with eagerness out of the body. To him, beauty is exactly that.

While we were talking I stood up, naked, in front of the wardrobe mirror. Still sweating slightly, Ezequiel, remained lying down, hands clasped behind his head. His feet were crossed, and he was looking at me looking at myself. I examined everything I most hate about my body. My lopsided nipples. The scar from my caesarean. That sagging flesh on my inner thigh. That loathsome puffiness above my knees. My too-broad calves. The perennial corns on my little toes. Then I observed myself from the side. I focused on the folds of my stomach. On my diminished buttocks, which look as if the muscles have been absorbed to the sides. On the dwindling roundness of my breasts as they become more elongated and hollow. Sock boobs, my sister and I used to call them when we made fun of old women. I thought I looked rather repulsive. And for once I didn’t care.

I confessed to Ezequiel that for a couple of years now, I have had a penchant for looking at myself in the mirror too much. I spend the same amount of time looking in it as when I was a teenager. I often find myself scrutinizing my naked body, reflecting on whether it might still be considered desirable. I asked him whether he thought that was wrong. On the contrary, he said. We ought to look at ourselves every day. See how we are in decline, losing our shape, how our skin is starting to grow rougher. And that only in this way can we understand and accept the passage of time.

His response seemed to me a little too unpleasant. And not very seductive. And that what he was actually saying, playing the scientist, was that I am old. I was offended. I insulted him. I became aroused. Then he insulted me. Then he penetrated me up against the wardrobe mirror. Then I wept. Then I thanked him.