Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

“That’s dumb.”

Scanning the room, I see another familiar face. “Dios mío!That one,” I say, pointing to a full table where a man is being fondled by foxy mulatas.“He’s an actor. Last year he signed a prenup that was huge news.” But it’s all chatter to Camila, who understands little of what I’m saying. In Cuba, there are no prenups, and a divorce costs $5 and takes twenty minutes.

“Where’s the paparazzi?” I ask, half kidding, before realizing the stupidity of my remark. The U.S. embargo and its twin, the travel ban, keeps American culture at bay, and makes it unlikely cubanoswill recognize boldface names, much less understand how valuable a photograph of them at this moment would be worth to the National Enquirer.At once, I’m reminded how so very isolated I am from the rest of the world, from the comfort of knowing how things work ninety miles to the north.

Reinaldo’s hands bring me back to the moment, as he peruses my knees and explores my thighs under the table. Camila sends me a subtle wink of approval.

“You’re so caliente,” proclaims Reinaldo as I impishly accept a puff on his cigar. As he pays his compliment, I nearly gag on the smoke and cough so hard I’m forced to suck down a glass of rum. Camila’s face goes from approval to incredulous head shake.

Her protégé is a jockey who can barely stay in the saddle.

A shivering male dancer is acting the guaguancóof sexual games between man and woman—seduction, surrender, and then rejection—and the cycle repeats again and again with different partners. Drumming seizes the crowd. It’s a frenzied orgy of models and performers and saints and orishas.The final costumes are on display as models make a last turn down the runway. Modesta is clearly the most sensual in her saffron ruffled dress, and few in the audience can keep their eyes off the perfection of her face. Then she sets her sights on our table, first at me and, moments later, with a haughty smile and as the lights go down, on my new boyfriend, Reinaldo. As the dancers and models make their way through the crowd, sugaring up to the foreigners, the Cuban brass looking on approvingly despite the crackdown, I find a face between Reinaldo’s and mine. It’s Modesta, and she’s practically straddling my yuma,delivering her own deadly version of The Look from atop his lap.

It’s only when Camila signals for her to leave that Modesta moves on to a neighboring table. But not before a parting shot in Camila’s ear.

“Tell her to stay away from Rafael,” she warns. “Or la jinetera norteamericanahas had her last yuma.”

La jinetera norteamericanafinds herself on her side, on the floor of a bedroom in a private house, a casa particular,while Reinaldo slams into her hard, and an acrid smell emanates from the stink of hundred-year-old tiles, propane in rusted pipes, chloroform in hyper decay. My revulsion is propelled by each thrust, and as he gets deeper, I realize we’re experiencing messianic sex. Doomsday is all but guaranteed as I finger his tattoo of Christ on a cross and, as if in didactic response, he flips me on my stomach. There are apertures he’s found that I hadn’t known existed for sexual pleasure, and as he explores orifice after orifice, digging and pushing and consuming me whole, upon reaching his untrammeled goal, Reinaldo screams the name of his savior, and the louder he petitions the stronger his devotion, and on the floor his disciple is wishing for a prophetic end to all the madness.

When it’s over, Reinaldo showers alone. I hear chanting from under the rush of water, and so I press my ear to the bathroom door in time to hear him plead forgiveness, and when he emerges, he’s swathed in white clean towels and it’s in this purity that he asks me to join him on his knees beside the bed of unholiness, to beg for enlightenment, and while I suffer his platitudes, I find my own prayer. One that enables me to survive, to find my father, and restore my faith.

SUNRISE, AND I still can’t sleep, though Reinaldo has hardly stirred all night.

I sneak out of his room and join the fishermen on the rocks, hoping the morning’s first heat will cool my nerves.

Somewhere in the distance, I later learn, shots rang out, and the bodies of three cocoa-skinned men crumple before a firing squad. Days before, they’d been convicted of hijacking a ferry, of trying to escape.

T he neoclassical, nineteenth-centurymansion sits behind royal palm trees and purple jacaranda in ritzy Cubanacán, near the former Havana Country Club. Andalusian tiles in blue and orange carpet the floors. Sunlight and salty air dance through the open shutters leading to a courtyard filled with hummingbirds and rare Cuban parrots.

Camila is inspecting each room and planning décor in excited stream of consciousness, her feet not once touching the ground. But her happiness would soon be supplanted.

The home is a gift from Ignacio, whose company has leased it indefinitely. Foreigners aren’t allowed to own property in Havana, and Cubans who own their homes aren’t allowed to sell them, either, although technically they may swap properties with other Cubans, a transaction that usually includes an illegal exchange of cash. I’m impressed with Camila’s gift. Ignacio’s permission to lease long-term demonstrates the massive investment he’s making in the country.

Camila explains that her family will keep their Vedado apartment, but when Ignacio is in town, she’ll live in the mansion with him. When he’s gone, Camila will be in charge of looking after the house, and may live there as she pleases, although the home won’t be remodeled and ready for months, long after my return to the U.S. I’m free, in fact, to leave in just fourteen weeks.

Camila confers with a gardener about the landscape plans and turns to me. “So what did Reinaldo leave you?”

“Pens,” I say with a pout.

“Pens?”

“And hotel soap. Four bars.”

She laughs. “He’s coming back in two weeks. Don’t worry, he’s probably just testing to see if you’ll be around when he returns. He wants to think he’s in love. Have you been convincing?”

I shrug. My sexuality, I’ve realized, has become about the playing of roles. When I’m successful, and my yumais happy, I experience an unanticipated surge of pride in my work. Foretelling the divine role required to please my yuma,without him having to explicate his desires, is the raison d’être of a jinetera,and the precise distinction between us and prostitutes. My playing the bad girl tempting the virtuous Reinaldo, as I did last night, as he expected of me, only proved my ability to intuit his fantasy. When I think of sex back home, I sense it’s hardly different. Didn’t my few boyfriends in the U.S. expect me to play a role as well? The one I projected in daily life, that of a somewhat wholesome Southern daughter, preppily dressed and attractive but not overly intimidating? This revelation emboldens me in my jineteando,as I realize there’s an art to sexuality for any reason, for pay or pleasure or both.

“How’s the sex,” asks Camila, “with Reinaldo?”

“He’s, um, very exploratory,” I say, wincing. “I could barely walk yesterday. And he’s got a Jesus thing going.”

“What luck, chica.Religious types are the most fun. They let loose and get crazy during sex, the forbidden fruit, knowing they’ll have to repent afterward,” she says with an incorrigible gleam. “Listen to Camila on this one, okay? It’s all about binge sinning.”

I’m not as enthusiastic about guilt, but there’s no time to counter, as construction workers deliver Sheetrock and plaster through a back door. Like most materials, these have been stolen from government factories and stores and sold on the sly. Thievery is widespread in Havana, and I’m convinced by the rampant justifications of its practitioners that many are not happy with having to steal to get what they need.