Adios Muchachos Read online

  With this, Alicia disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable,” Margarita said, indicating the great easy chair facing the table with the nude photograph. “What would you like to drink? Something soft? Something hard?”

  Victor was undecided.

  Margarita looked toward the bar shelf, saying, as if it were the most natural thing on earth, “Rum, cognac, whiskey, vodka, gin, beer?”

  She didn’t know if their guest was aware of the fact that there were very few homes in Cuba with young ladies who ride Chinese bicycles and such a broad selection of spirits.

  “Well, I’ll have a beer, too. Thank you, ma’am.”

  While the two women were in the kitchen, Victor took in the details of the living room: period furniture, original oils by fine Cuban painters, elegant curtains, ornaments in good taste.

  Alicia returned with a tray carrying two bottles of beer and an equal number of glasses.

  At that moment, Victor noticed the photograph he was predestined to discover; he wrinkled his brow for a moment and then smiled. “Well, damned if it isn’t you.” Holding the picture at arm’s length, he studied it more closely.

  “Yes. It was done from a painting,” Alicia laughed, twisting the caps off the two bottles and preparing to fill the glasses.

  “The bottle is good enough for me, thanks. So, taken from a painting, you say?”

  Alicia downed a long draft of beer, sighed with satisfaction, placed the glass carefully on the table, and reached her hand out to Victor. “The painting is upstairs. If you like, you can come along and I’ll show it to you.”

  Victor took his bottle and let himself be led up the stairs. He kept wondering who this strange young woman might be. She had such a down-to-earth manner (kicking the “rat-shit” bicycle, “shut the hell up, Mother,” etc.), but with an air of distinction. The mother, too … a bit wacky, but definitely with class.

  During the trip home, Alicia had been going on about the state of urban transportation in Havana, how tired she was of having to get around by bumming rides (“the creeps you meet”), and the ongoing tragedy of her continuous bicycle breakdowns.

  Lining the wall along the stairs was a number of canvases, among them a gamecock in a myriad of colors, reminiscent of Mariano. Could it be an original?

  Entering the unkempt room—bed all messed up, drawing table covered with papers and instruments—he was struck by the great nude of Alicia he had seen in the photo.

  “Hmmm, excellent,” Victor said, touching the canvas and running the tips of his fingers over one of the nipples.

  Alicia let out a giggle of complicity.

  “Um, I was just trying to feel the texture,” he protested, feigning an apology. “Was it done in Cuba?”

  “Yes,” she said absentmindedly, searching through one of the desk drawers.

  Half an hour later, having seen the other painting in the adjoining room with the mirrors; learned that Alicia did not specialize in painters, but in beautiful men; felt that devastating breast on his arm; cautiously pet the cross-eyed hound-from-hell; learned that Leonor had returned the guitar; heard Alicia’s rendition of the Marta Valdes number and Margarita’s bolero, “Dos gardenias para ti”; tasted the shrimp enchilada; smiled at the inevitable comments about his resemblance to Mel Gibson and his Cisco Kid accent; explained his Canadian birth, twenty-five years in Mexico, and studies in the United States; downed another beer; bid farewell to Margarita who, “goodness gracious!”, was going to be late for her dentist appointment; and learned that he should make himself at home—Victor received his first kiss, a long, wet, burning kiss.

  Alicia felt his immediate turgescence and, without interrupting the kiss, lightly verified its urgency with her hand. She signaled her approval with her eyes and the slightest reset of her body, and began to undo her blouse. But Victor gently stopped her hands and slowly buttoned it up again.

  “Not now. The crayfish have made me very hungry. I discovered a new restaurant yesterday …”

  “I’m sorry,” she said in English, “I can’t do that. I have to find a mechanic to fix my bicycle this very evening so I can get to class tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll have to thumb my way there and back.”

  Victor pulled a few twenties from his wallet and tried to put them on the table.

  Alicia glowered at him. “Would you please have the common decency to put that away? I don’t take money from anyone! Just what do you take me for?”

  Victor appeared very confused. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to … I just wanted you to be able to get a new bicycle … so we could go out to dinner tonight.”

  “Now you listen and listen good: In this country, the only thing we have left is our dignity …”

  And while Alicia recited the mnemonic exordium to her ethical-sentimental-revolutionary harangue, Victor threw his hands up in defeat, slipped his wallet back into his pocket, and delicately pressed his fingertips to her lips.

  “OK, I agree. I admire your position, but at least let me take you to dinner.”

  “I won’t go to a restaurant either. It’d make me sad and ashamed of myself.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “Of course you don’t. You live on the moon …” And with the pleading eyes of a lachrymose kitten, “Can’t you see that the money you would spend buying dinner for me would be enough to feed a Cuban family for two months? It would stick in my throat … immoral …”

  “So, then, come to my place and let me cook something up for you. Later we can pick up the bicycle and I’ll take you over to the mechanic’s place myself.”

  Alicia looked at him, thinking, biting her lip.

  “Come on, take the plunge. I really do cook rather well. I know you’ll have a good time.”

  Obeying the subconscious demands of her destiny, that afternoon Alicia broke one of her cardinal rules: never sleep away from home.

  Since devoting herself to her new vocation, she had never slept away from home. But then, no thirty-seven-year-old Mel Gibson had ever offered to cook for her.

  Chapter

  Eight

  Van Dongen’s great nose quivered as he painted. He was painting furiously, leaning over the easel, filling in the colors on a charcoal sketch of the rear view of a blond woman on a bicycle. The woman was wearing a pair of shorts that were a little too short and a little too tight. The sketch highlighted the strenuous pedaling on the much-too-high seat. The childlike charm of those efforts contrasted, however, with the obscene gyrations—too obscene to be used in advertising and not obscene enough for a pornographic poster, although the swing of the hip and the consequent slant of that splendid ass might attract a lot of people to one of those movie houses that show exciting films.

  But the sketch was not lacking in poetry. Around his subject, the artist had placed a garland of triumphal laurels and Aphrodisian myrtle in the manner of a halo crowned at its highest point by a lyre that served as a clasp. And there were little cupids flitting around her heart-shaped butt.

  Van Dongen’s musing was interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the lock, and he turned toward the front door, smiling. His visitor was Carmen, a special blend of European, African, and Asian that Cubans call mulata china. Her features were noble, and as she turned to close the door, the line of her well-sculptured legs suggested that five years and five pounds ago she might have resembled physical perfection. Carmen was about thirty years old—she was no longer perfect, but her imperfection was more than compensated for by her telluric magnetism.

  Van Dongen covered his nose with both hands as she circled around and kissed him on the back of his neck.

  “What was it that couldn’t wait for another couple of hours? I had to tell them that my mother was sick and ask one of the other nurses to keep an eye on my ward until the end of my shift.”

  He stood up, fetched an old exercise bicycle from the far end of the room, and set it up in front of the painting.

  “Take your clothes off an
d get on.”

  She looked at him for a moment and smiled. She removed her nurse’s cap and took a few steps back to look him in the eye. He sat down again and covered his nose. The starched white uniform fell away like a mother-ofpearl shell. Her white underclothes were almost phosphorescent against the golden brown of her skin.

  “So, lover, what’s this new kink?”

  “I had a dream that I saw you naked on a bicycle, just like that.”

  Carmen stepped closer. She was stroking her hair as she examined the painting with more than a little suspicion. “Hmmm, that ass is much too white to be mine. You sure it was me you were dreaming about?”

  “Yes, it was you, but in the dream the light was so intense it even inspired me to write a tune. Now get on the bike and start pedaling.”

  “No, I don’t like to do things cold turkey. Play me your melody to see if it warms me up a little.”

  Jan stood and walked over to an armoire. He opened a drawer and took out a black mask that covered everything but his mouth and eyes. With the mask securely covering his face, Jan began to play.

  And as he played, he swayed his shoulders and his torso with unsuspected grace.

  Chapter

  Nine

  Without even slowing the car down, Victor zapped the remote at the long chainlink gate that opened with surprising speed. The Chevrolet cruised by a garden-cum-terrace, a raised lanai, tropical trees, a manicured lawn, and planters full of expertly tended flowers. They followed a paved driveway for another fifty yards.

  As they approached the garage, Victor again pointed the remote.

  “Open, Sesame,” Alicia commented.

  Inside the garage, while the door descended, they had another long kiss.

  At Victor’s request, Alicia had not changed her pedaling shorts, and during the trip out to the country house, she had left her torso completely bare. As they navigated the rotunda with the statues that the locals called Las Muñecas, she got up on her knees and began stroking his forearm with her erect nipples.

  He could feel his hair standing on end and pressed his fingers to her lips.

  She knew what he wanted and began to lick his fingertips.

  When his fingers were well moistened, he began sliding them over her nipples. Amid these games, they arrived at the house.

  “You see,” Victor said as they crossed the little hall leading from the garage to the kitchen, “no one saw us come in and no one will see us leave.”

  When they entered the living room, they were met by a green shining that seemed to be emanating from the floor. Victor pressed a button and the blinds opened, revealing, to Alicia’s wonderment, that the shine did in fact come from the floor, from a miniature pond with three steps leading into it, right in the middle of a great room sumptuously decorated with modern furniture. In one corner of the pond there was a fountain that sprang from natural rocks lining the pond. The overflow drained into a sinuous rill that cut diagonally across the living room. The limpid green water ran under transparent floor tiles through a row of bonsai trees growing in wells of light and finally disappeared out the opposite end of the room.

  Alicia was transfixed. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  The bottom six feet of a very high wall were covered with mirrors. The opposing wall was all bookcase, crammed with volumes from floor to ceiling. The room was also adorned with abstract paintings, a couple of asymmetrical vases, an enormous black and white photograph, a large jade sculpture, and a smaller marble statue.

  Other than the vases, everything was abstract. The photograph and the statues did not have any figurative content, although they suggested the shapes and tribulations of active love-making.

  “Come, let me show you the house.”

  There were three bedrooms on the second floor, each with its own bath and sauna, plus a small salon and terrace. Downstairs, in addition to the room with the pond, there was a dining room adjoining the vast kitchen (with every conceivable appliance), a studio off to the right, and another bedroom—all with separate bathrooms.

  “Wow! You could give a party for fifty here!”

  When they returned to the living room, Victor opened an array of windows looking out onto another manicured lawn, dotted with ancient trees and with a swimming pool at the far end. As Alicia leaned out of the windows to take in the beauty of the garden, Victor adjusted something on one of the upper shelves of the bookcase, and the music started.

  A guaracha filled the room.

  Alicia stood before the mirror and started to perform a provocative interpretation of the music. Victor came up behind her, taking her by the waist.

  She turned and forced him to dance with her, which he did with a lot more fluidity than most people born in the frozen north.

  “Well,” she said, “you’ve got the rhythm down pretty well, but you’re still a little stiff and you haven’t the faintest idea of how to dance a guaracha. Watch me.”

  Five minutes later he dragged her, urgently, to a broad couch in one of the corners. She preferred the rug-covered floor. She insisted on riding him, to teach him how to dance the guaracha.

  Flat on his back, driven by an expert rider, Victor immediately lost his rigidity and began to sway his hips.

  By the time he reached his first orgasm of the evening, Victor had assimilated the soul and the folklore of the guaracha as if he had been born in one of the barrios of Old Havana.

  To Alicia’s great surprise, Victor projected a video he had filmed with a hidden camera. The tape captured the very essence of the rhythmic dressage in the corner of the great room.

  “No, you don’t, you bastard! I won’t allow it!” Alicia protested.

  “Take it easy. If my intentions were anything but straight-up, I wouldn’t have shown you the tape. The thing is that seeing sex is almost as important to me as having sex, and I really want to make love to you again while I drink in your dancing ass on top of me quaking to the beat of the music.”

  She could understand that. She was not quite convinced, but yeah, that sounded logical.

  He promised to give her the cassette or destroy it as soon as they were finished with it.

  Soon, as he was enjoying the Kiss of the Boa(written and directed by Alicia), Victor began to gently dilate her posterior channel with expert digital manipulations.

  Knowing what was coming, Alicia stopped what she was doing and worked her mouth into a childish pout. “You assivorous animal, you!”

  When she was sufficiently dilated, he slipped on a ribbed condom and did, in fact, take the narrow route (as the Romans used to say), with his eyes fixed on the video.

  Thanks to his expert ministrations, she felt no pain at all, and watching the video of her own ass and waist in action, she felt a hot river flowing in her vagina. She was more excited than ever before, and for the first time in her life, she had an orgasm in that position, which she normally shied away from and only complied with as a last resort.

  Narcissism? Maybe. But it was definitely a new experience for her!

  Perversity? Possibly! But an exquisite kind of perversity.

  She had finally found a man who had something to teach her instead of just showing off.

  And when Victor whipped off the condom and thrust home in her vagina without missing a beat or changing positions, Alicia burst into a sustained, convulsive orgasm with soft broken screams. Then as he flowed, oh so warmly, into her uterus, she let go completely and synchronized with him in a crescendo of thrusts and groans in perfect unison with the dancing flesh on the video screen.

  When Alicia recovered her wits, Victor was lying on his back smoking a cigarette. He reached out to the VCR, ejected the cassette, and handed it over to her.

  She smiled languidly, satisfied. “You know, with your natural sense of rhythm and a couple more lessons, you’re going to drive a lot of Cuban women crazy.”

  “I’m not interested in rhythm or in driving Cuban women crazy. I’m interested in you.”

  She l
ooked at him, flattered.

  She was on the verge of flying into his arms, though she forced herself to contain that unprecedented impulse. She felt afraid.

  But she did have enough good sense to take the cassette and put it safely away in her purse.

  Chapter

  Ten

  “You mean right now? Nothing! Except talking to you and cutting my nails. No, my toenails. Shit, Mother, will you stop asking dumb questions? Yes! It’s a goddamn mansion. Everything. Even a pond in the living room. How should I know? No way! Everything is ultramodern. Just buttons and switches. Yes, it’s all his. No, the other house is a duplex with two independent living areas—one for Victor’s boss and the other company guests. Victor also moves in when his wife comes. Yes, he did mention her, but only in passing, as if it were completely natural. No problem, Mom; you know I’m not the jealous type. No, she’s in Europe now, but she’ll be coming back soon. Uhum, a maid comes around a couple of times a week to keep both the houses clean. Victor? Well, he either eats out or cooks for himself. He’s a real first-class gourmet. Yep, he speaks it perfectly, but with a strange accent. What do I know? He says that’s the way they talk in Quebec. Yeah, he spent about five years in Montreal. No, I haven’t been to the other house, but Victor’s told me that it has its own squash court and a family sauna. Alberto? Oh shit, I completely forgot that he was coming … No, wait, if he calls again, tell him I’m in the middle of exams at the university and that I’m at a friend’s house in the country and I can’t see him until Saturday … No, no, no, all my friends know that I get furious when people interrupt my studies. That’s it, have him over for dinner on Saturday. And you can tell Otto the same thing, and have him call me on Sunday, in the afternoon. Don’t be silly, Mom; you have nothing to worry about; I know how to handle these guys. The less time you give them the hotter they get … This one? Well, as long as I’m with him I don’t want to see anyone else. Of course, Mother, he’s the best one I’ve ever had, and the best lover, powerful, creative. Yes, by a mile. He’s good-looking, he’s nice, and he cooks marvelously … No, he just went over to the other house … What? Mother! Ha, ha, ha. Now, what’s that to you? Well, OK, normal, ha, ha, ha. Damn, Mother, you’re worse than I am. Yes, he loves my dancing classes and he says he wants to take me to the Palacio de la Salsa tonight. No! No one is going to recognize me. Besides, Alberto and Otto don’t go to those places. No way! His wife has a whole collection of wigs here. Victor? I told you he went next door to get some firewood for a roast he wants to make out in the barbecue pit. Oh, Mother, how many times do you want me to repeat it? No! I have never had anyone better. But there is one thing that worries me. Well, the problem is I like him too much. What do I mean? What I mean is that I like him too much. That I’ve always dreamed of spending my life with a man like him and I’m panic stricken that I might fall in love. I would be completely defenseless.”