You're a savage. In the bedroom, he took off my panties, picked me up still dressed, with tremendous strength he picked me up and took me with my legs wrapped around his waist . . . I've never felt pleasure like that. Except with you.

Thanks.

But not the first time. With you, I had to get used to you. With him, I was afraid so much pleasure right away could only produce a kind of backlash of reduced sensations as time pa.s.sed and we became accustomed to being together.

The law of diminishing returns.

But no. The truth was that the initial excitement lasted a long time. Danger helps, of course. Trysts, places that are nice but of necessity secret, fear of being discovered.

One's companion always viewed as a temptation, not as a habit.

Exactly. Heaven on earth, isn't it? Everything's so unpredictable, so risky, so destructive to everyone if you're discovered, that . . . Well, I admit it all feeds the vanity of a woman who feels herself needed, admired, without the humiliating sensation of just being there like a piece of furniture.

It's the good thing about being the mistress and not the wife.

Why?

The wife makes the bed after love. The mistress has a maid who makes it for her.

Don't kid around, Leo. I'm talking to you seriously.

Like a piece of furniture, you were saying . . .

Waiting for the man to sit on you, eat on you, urinate on you without even looking at you. Cristobal made me feel unique. Queen of a kingdom with only two subjects, he and I, both subject to the desires-all the desires-of the other, which, because it was what the other wanted, belonged to both and to each, to me, to him . . .

Fornication is a universal and inalienable right.

At first he filled me with enthusiasm. He made me ecstatic. He told me things like "You have a fragile beauty and an intense sadness." How could I not love him? It's an ornate sentence, vulgar perhaps, but you're not told that every day, Leo, you're told what time we'll see each other, I'll be back at seven, order me some tacos, where did you leave the keys, you're not told that your beauty is fragile and your sadness profound, no, not that . . . n.o.body but a pa.s.sionate man tells you he doesn't know if you're beautiful because you're proud or proud because you're beautiful, things like that. I would watch him combing his hair and get terribly excited. He combed his hair with his fingernails, you know? I spied on him when he tidied up in front of the mirror alone pushing his hair back alone before returning alone to the bedroom alone with the strength of an animal and with my own secret animality maintaining the very human love of the looks I gave him without his knowing I was looking at him. We made love, and he called me wh.o.r.e b.i.t.c.h in heat shameless tight c.u.n.t with a c.l.i.t as cute as a golf course he told me all that with no shame and finally: "If you deceive me, I want you to be faithful to me. If you're faithful to me, I want you to deceive me."

In everything, almost, you're very frank. And you have a good memory.

What? Do you think something like this can be forgotten?

Not everyone knows how to mix memory and desire. When the second ends, the first goes away.

Leo, the most attractive vanity can become repellent. Habitual surprise can stop surprising one day. No, he's always given me the best. The best hotels, the best restaurants, the most beautiful trips, everything first cla.s.s, always. I have nothing to complain about. But do you know something, Leo? Even the unexpected became routine. I can't reproach him for his desire to pay attention to me, to always take me to the most elegant places. The moment came when I wanted everything except the exceptional. Because I began to antic.i.p.ate the extraordinary, you know? Then the ordinary threatened to come back. With indomitable strength, the strength of the exceptional. Normalcy began to appear in every first-cla.s.s section of Air France, every suite at every Ritz, every table at El Bodegon, truffles began to make me itch, pheasants left me cross-eyed, lobsters grabbed at my hands to pull me back to the ocean floor . . . Love can suffocate us, Leo. It's like eating candy all the time. You have to give tedium its due. You have to be grateful for the boring moments in a relationship. You have to . . . You have to stop antic.i.p.ating the extraordinary. You have to learn to foresee the foreseeable.

It's the best thing about love.

You said it! What happens is that n.o.body foresees the moment when you no longer want to be as happy as you were and you desire a little of that unhappiness called ordinary life. Well, what you give me, Leo.

X kills Y and Z kills X.

You pay attention to me- I'm referring to proofs.

You never talk about yourself. You listen to me.

I pay attention only to you, Lavinia.

Aren't you ever offended?

You and I never had to pretend. Not before, not now.

I admit there are confidences I don't like to hear.

I'm just the opposite, Lavinia, I love hearing yours. Please go on.

Do you know what I began to detest in him?

No.

His laugh. The way he laughed. At first I thought it was part of his charm. You're pretty solemn, if truth be told.

Just serious. A little serious.

He had an elegant laugh. Spontaneous. Joyful. Everything well rehea.r.s.ed.

Have you ever heard sad laughs?

Something worse. There are laughs with significance.

I don't understand.

Of course you do, you know. Those people who never laugh at somebody else's jokes and die laughing at their own, though n.o.body else finds them funny. I mean, Cristobal began to laugh to redeem his defects. I realized he wasn't only laughing at a joke or to lighten a tiresome situation. Not to liven up the conversation and even life itself. He laughed to excuse himself. When he did something wrong. When he said something inopportune. When he forgot an anniversary. When he was late for an appointment. When he fired a servant without consulting me first. When he didn't like my makeup, my dress, the book or magazine I was reading, he laughed. He laughed at me. He excused himself for throwing out my lipstick or giving half my wardrobe to the Red Cross or grabbing away the book by Dan Brown or my copy of Hola!, Hola!, laughing as he said bad taste, trash, I have to educate you. laughing as he said bad taste, trash, I have to educate you.

What did you say?

Hey, don't play Pygmalion with me. That popped out. It was our first disagreement. After that, he enjoyed criticizing me with an eyedropper, always smiling.

Did you say anything to him?

I'm untorturable. That's what I told him. It was a mistake. He began to annoy me more and more. I didn't let him. Your successes bore me, I told him. Don't tell me about them anymore. Stop presenting yourself to me as a man who makes important decisions every half hour. Your decisions bore me. Every night you come into my bedroom shouting "Land ho!" You had a good time colonizing me, Cristobalito. Don't you ever put off a decision? Don't you ever reflect, don't you ever take your time? And not only that, Leo. Slowly I began to realize that behind the boasting about successes, Cristobal wanted to impress me with a very powerful love, bigger than any affection for me. Love of manipulation. Loyalty to lies. That's what was behind his boasting.

How did you find out?

It was incredible, Leo. Priscila Barradas, my best friend, you know, the fat woman, made a date with me at the bar in the lobby of the Camino Real. We were drinking margaritas and gossiping very happily when suddenly, fat Pris very calmly stood up and walked out to the lobby. Cristobal came into the hotel, and she stopped him, holding his arm, whispered something into his ear with her nasty bean breath, and he looked toward the bar nervously, not meeting my eyes-not like the first time, you see?-and hurried away. Shameless Priscila went after him, leaving me flat, sitting in front of a margarita getting warmer and warmer. Oh yes, and leaving me to push up daisies, the old b.i.t.c.h.

Next time order cognac.

That night I reproached Cristobal for his infidelity. He laughed at me. My conclusions were false, he said. Priscila was the wife of our friend Jose Miguel Barradas. She simply came over to give him a message from Jose Miguel. And why didn't the vulgar cow come back to say goodbye to me? Cristobal laughed, as usual. To provoke you, he said, to make you jealous. Yes, I said, you have to have friends who are very married who don't want to trade their husband for yours. This amused Cristobal very much. He made pa.s.sionate love to me again, and again he disarmed me.

And your friend Priscila? Surely you saw each other again.

She's a fat, cynical pig. When I mentioned it to her at a c.o.c.ktail party, she said, "I think being the only woman who can love your husband is a supreme act of egotism."

What did you say?

One husband's as good as another, as far as you're concerned. Be happy with what you already have, fatso.

And then?

We pulled each other's hair. It happens in the best circles.

And Cristobal?

I'm telling you, he made pa.s.sionate love to me and disarmed me. I'm a poor dumb cow.

As the song says, the one you like so much, "Let's fall in love, why shouldn't we fall in love?"

It was at first sight, Leo. Do you have to wait for second sight to take the first step?

"Let our hearts discover-"

Little by little. Condemned to discover the truth a little at a time. What we should have known from the beginning, before we set sail. At least find out if there are lifeboats. Is love fated to be the t.i.tanic t.i.tanic of one's life? of one's life?

Did you see the movie? The only surprise is that the ship sinks. I mean, if you had known then what you know now, would you have given up on love?

Forget it. Okay, novelty is not only exciting, it also blinds. Hah, as if I didn't know, a publicity executive.

"We were not made for each other." A variation on the lyric. Cristobal was exceptional. He's become familiar.

I tell you, his successes bore me. I'd like to see what face he'll put on if he fails. Of course, he'll never admit defeat. Other people fail. He never does. Oh well. I observe him and tell myself I prefer doing something and making a mistake than not doing anything and having pa.s.sive successes, like an oyster on the ocean floor until it's pulled up for someone to eat. Perhaps this is what happened to him, and naturally, he would never admit it. He counted on me, on my complicity or pa.s.sivity or erotic need, who knows. The fact is he acts, knowing he can count on me. Imagine the shame of it. He talks and lets me know I'm the force that sustains him.

Mother Earth, let's say.

A d.a.m.n domestic Coatlicue, the mama G.o.ddess with her skirt of snakes waiting for the macho Mexican adventurer. Bah, this whole game of statues wears me out, Leo, we're always turning into stone idols, household idols, with no adventure, no illusion, not even danger, not even . . . I don't know. I feel imprisoned by the mistaken loyalty of continuing a failed relationship. I'm bored with this.

No, Lavinia. Please go on. Just think that with any man, love is like inspiration. Nothing but hard work.

You talk the way they do in one of your soap operas.

That's what I live on, Lavinia.

And the inheritance from your aunt Lucila Casares.

That's true. My aunt in heaven peeks out to watch me enjoy myself.

What was the lady like, your aunt Lucila?

Watch my soap The Sweethearts. The Sweethearts. She's the protagonist. She's the protagonist.

That vulgar old woman sighing for her adolescent loves?

The same. All I did was transcribe what she said in her diary.

And the little boyfriend from Acapulco, who was he?

I don't know. She calls him Manuel, that's all.

A reject. A guy without will.

Do you even watch my soaps?

I don't. My maids tell me about them. This Manolo is vulgar, he's cursi. cursi.

Well, our Spanish word cursi cursi comes from "courtesy" and from "curtsy." Being well bred. comes from "courtesy" and from "curtsy." Being well bred.

Then I prefer being a savage, Leo.

Just go outside. But never forget that love is hard work.

With any man?

Yes. With him. With Cristobal.

Or with you?

With me, too.

Even though the days go by, one after the other, always the same, an endless procession until one day your life is only a little sand at the bottom of a bottle tossed into the sea?

Yes.

Isn't there anything to do?

Yes. Change the game all the time. It's the only way to hold on to a man.

Is that why I have you?

Yes. Do the same with Cristobal. Constantly change the game. You've let yourself fall into the very routine you reproach him for. You're too faithful, too pa.s.sive, pining for the first moment of love. You have to realize it won't come back. Invent some new first moments.

Ah, are you saying that for yourself?

You have me forever. With me, you don't need any tricks of love or fate. You'll never be able to leave me.

Are you, beside everything else, my best friend?

I think so, Lavinia. As long as you remember this: There's nothing more seductive than a friend. You know all his secrets, what he likes, what he dislikes. That's why you shouldn't tell your friends everything.

What does friendship have to do with happiness? In any case, what does love have to do with happiness?

Don't look for a definitive answer to anything. Don't keep asking yourself where we're going. Let yourself go, Lavinia. We've spent five years loving each other.

It never should have happened.

Our love?

Never.