Javier Marias - Your Face Tomorrow 3 - Poison, Shadow and Farewell

Genitalia, women's that is, are also like entrances with no doors, I mean that if they're unobstructed by clothes there's no need to open them in order to enter. I let her get into bed first, alone, I waited in the living room for a while so that she could get ready and get undressed as she wished, and so when I eventually went into the bedroom, after those few minutes, young Pérez Nuix was already in bed and I had no way of knowing which clothes or how many she had removed before lying down. I had lent her a clean T-shirt, short-sleeved, because that's what I wear when it looks like it might be cold, I don't own any proper pajamas. 'That'll do fine, thank you,' she had said, which meant that this was probably all she was wearing and that her legs were bare, although I was almost sure she would have kept her panties on out of modesty, or out of consideration, or out of cleanliness, so as not to stain someone else's sheets, just as I kept on my boxer shorts and also donned a T-shirt, less because it was cold that night than to avoid any chance contact with her, skin on skin, flesh on flesh, such contact would happen only with our legs, my hairy ones against her smooth ones, for she was one hundred per cent Spanish as regards waxing her legs. However, before turning out the light-the bedside lamp-which she had left on so that I wouldn't have to enter the room in the dark, I pretended I was making sure my clothes weren't mixed up with hers, for we had both placed them on the same armchair, and then I could see and count the items of clothing she had taken off, and I counted not only her bra, as I had imagined, but also her other underwear, as I hadn't imagined at all, for there, neatly folded, were her white panties, they were tiny, which is to say normal, and I thought at once: 'I'm taller than she is, so the T-shirt will probably be long enough for her to feel covered.' This thought, though, was of no use to me, and from the moment the room was in darkness and I had slipped in between the sheets, I realized that I would spend the whole night unable to forget that strange and unexpected fact and that it would be almost impossible for me to go to sleep, as I lay agonizing over it and looking for some meaning: what did she mean by taking off her panties and leaving her genitalia-how can I put it-exposed, so close to me and to mine, we were separated by only a few inches and two bits of flimsy cloth or not even that, by the cloth of my boxer shorts with their ready-made opening and that of her borrowed T-shirt, if, of course, it hadn't ridden up when she was getting into bed and she hadn't bothered to pull it down, for then it was possible that her bottom-she had lain down on the other side of the bed and so had her back to me-was bare and very close to my irremediably aroused member, it was hopeless, I wouldn't get a wink of sleep in that state of physical alertness and repetitive mental activity, thinking and thinking about the singular fact, about my member, about her buttocks and below, about the nearness of everything and the absence of doors and of any barrier, even a barrier of cloth, wondering whether to approach surreptitiously and alight tentatively, making it look as if it were unconscious, something done in dreams, something merely instinctive, involuntary, animal almost, all the time waiting tensely, wide awake, to see if she would escape at once, if she would shy away at the first contact or accept it and stay where she was and not flee, neither surrender nor let me fall into the air, into the void, into emptiness; I didn't dare expect any pressure or stimulus from her, all of this was going on in my mind, which, in such circumstances, immediately becomes obsessed, it's the kind of doubt or idea which, once started, won't dissolve or withdraw, still less if the blood has gathered and impedes all abatement and all breathing, all appeasement or distraction or truce, and the temptation then becomes fixed. After a while spent listening to her breathing-it didn't sound to me like that of someone sleeping-and holding in, almost stopping my own, it occurred to me that I should get up and go and sleep on the sofa, with a blanket, but the truth was I didn't want to leave the bed or lose the unlikely proximity thus far achieved, it was a kind of promise that was its own satisfaction and which allowed me to remain in that state of mortifying, hopeful ignorance, to fantasize about what might happen at any moment if we did touch and neither of us avoided it or started away, we were only a little way apart and it's all a question of time and space and of coinciding in those two dimensions, we had the time and, very nearly, the space as well, all that was needed was a slight slippage, a minimal shift, for things to be completely in our favor, it was so easy that it seemed impossible it would not occur, one first tentative caress perhaps and my member would slip inside her and then both would be in the same place, one inside the other almost without our realizing, we could even pretend not to know and to be asleep even though we were both fully awake, I knew I was and thought the same was true of her; I was pretty convinced but not certain, of course, and that was what held me back or one of the things.

This situation of sexual imminence was not new to me, that is, it was new with young Pérez Nuix, but not in my previous existence, it had happened more than once with Luisa, silently and peacefully at first, after the initial tentative caress and the minimal shift that had caused us to coincide in both space and time, that's what matters, that's what determines important events, which is why it's so vital sometimes not to linger or delay, although it can also be what saves us, we never know what would be for the best and what is the right thing to do; if bullet and head or knife and chest or sword-blade and neck do not coincide in the same place and moment, no one dies, and that's why De la Garza was still alive, because his neck and Reresby's Landsknecht sword, or his Katsbalger, had not coincided exactly, despite having been on the point of doing so several times. However, with Luisa, her acquiescence was almost certain, and from her I could expect both pressure and stimulus, after all, we got into the same bed each night, she earlier and I later, as if I were coming to visit her in her dreams and I were her ghost, and the rest formed part of the foreseeable and the probable, or at least the possible. And if one of us said 'No,' either her or even me, it was a chance rejection, reasoned and momentary ('I'm exhausted,' or 'I'm too preoccupied today, my mind's on other things' or even more trivial 'I have to get up really early tomorrow'), not essential either to the totality or to the act itself, as young Pérez Nuix's refusal might be, expressed in unequivocal and crushing terms: 'What the hell are you are up to? Who do you think you are?' or perhaps gentler and more diplomatic, 'I wouldn't continue down that road if I were you, you won't get anywhere,' or more humiliating: 'Huh, I thought you'd have more self-control, more maturity, I didn't have you down as your average Spanish sex maniac, or an old-fashioned Spanish macho-man.'

None of these wounding words were spoken, indeed no words of any sort were uttered when I finally dared to make that tentative approach and lightly rested my member against her buttocks and was immediately aware that I was touching not T-shirt but firm, warm flesh, she was probably one of those women who are really sensitive to the cold, but who give off the heat they themselves don't feel, they're like a warm oven to the person who touches them, even though they themselves may be shivering, like someone with a fever. Nothing was said, there was no reaction, no movement either towards me or away, no discouragement and no encouragement, it really was as if she were deep asleep, I wondered if she really could be sleeping so profoundly that she wouldn't notice the touch of skin on skin with nothing in between, I thought not and that she must be pretending, but when it comes to other people, and possibly even when it comes to yourself, you can never be absolutely sure about anything, or almost anything. I got a little closer, pressed a little harder, but so very little that I wasn't even sure of having done so, sometimes you think you've moved or shifted, or pushed or caressed, but your approach is so timid and terrified that you can sometimes deceive yourself, and your advance or even your touch may prove imperceptible to the other person. And that was where I was, caught between a yes and a no, between irresistible desire and fearful or perhaps civilized restraint, applying such minute pressure that it might not have been pressure at all, when a thought suddenly, ridiculously, occurred to me: A condom,' I thought. 'I can't do anything without a condom on, and for that I need a minimum of consent, permission, agreement. If I get up now and fetch one and then come back to bed with it, I'll have lost my position, lost this closeness, I'd have to start all over again, she might move away or perhaps prove less accessible. And with a condom on I would no longer have an alibi, I would no longer be able to say to her, if she told me off or pulled me up short: "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to, I was fast asleep and didn't realize I was touching you. It wasn't intentional, I'm sorry, I'll keep to my side of the bed," because the ridiculous sheath would be irrefutable proof that it was intentional and premeditated as well.'