Learning to Lose (27 page)

Did you invite me over because you’re into me? Sylvia’s question brought back the lost heat, her eyes opened like a green sky. I invited you over because I like you … yeah, because I’m into you. But I didn’t you bring you here to get you into bed.

Ariel didn’t move, kept his distance. She smiled, nervous. Her lips puckered as she drank from the bottle and Ariel wanted to kiss her again. Why was that so crazy? He was only four years older than her, but to Ariel the difference seemed
insurmountable. He remembered a teammate telling him that soccer players are like dogs, at thirty we’re ancient.

Ariel established some physical distance as a safety barrier. She managed to break it and run her finger over the scar on his eyebrow. War injury, he said, it happened in practice a couple of years ago. It’s a pretty brutal exercise, to get you to lose your fear of tackling headfirst. They bounce a ball against the ground between two players who are standing very close together and the winner is the one who manages to head the ball first. You know, those kind of tests designed to see who’s got bigger balls.

Can I see your room?

My room?

Sylvia stood up nimbly. She placed herself in front of him and held out a hand. Ariel hesitated for a second, took it, and got up with her. They left the television on, the movie’s music resonating through the living room, and headed upstairs. This way, he said, and she got in front of him. Ariel could make out the bones of her back beneath the wool sweater. The corner of a piece of paper sticking out of the back pocket of her jeans. Ariel bit his lower lip. He pointed to the second door. It was ajar. Sylvia pushed it open, revealing the made bed and the mess of compact discs beside the CD player on the floor. She sat on the bed and chose a CD. He put it on. From the streetlight, an orange glow filtered in, illuminating the room. The walls were bare except for a photograph of the New York skyline in a thin black wood frame. Ariel was embarrassed about that picture, a holdover from the last tenant.

He saw Sylvia take off her sweater and let her hair fall messily over her face. She didn’t fix her curls after tossing the sweater on the floor, just scratched them in an ironic gesture.

To be honest, it would be nice if you held me.

Ariel smiled. She acted in such a cerebral way that it was impossible for him to feel uncomfortable. They drew closer together and he put his arms around her shoulders. She sought out his lips and found them.

Sylvia had three worn bracelets on her wrist.

I don’t know what we’re going to do, but after tonight you don’t have to ever see me again if you don’t want to. Sylvia tried to remain composed as she spoke. She seemed less nervous than he was. They dropped onto the mattress and their kissing extended into a muddled embrace. She took off his shirt first and kissed his shoulders. Ariel lifted up her shirt and after pulling it over her curls he undid her bra. Sylvia’s breasts gushed out, dominating with their bright whiteness and the vivid pink of their nipples. She seemed to retreat. The process was slow, with pauses. Clothing is always a pain in the neck, it’s not designed to look good coming off, thought Ariel.

He unbuttoned the fly of her jeans and she let him do it. He pulled down the fabric that tangled around her thighs. Sylvia drew him up. She didn’t want Ariel’s face right there in front of her crotch like a neighbor on a narrow street. She hugged him tight, as if she wanted to immobilize him, while she managed to kick her jeans off her ankles. Then he watched as she pulled back the sheets and hurried into the bed. Ariel sat on the edge to take off his clothes.

Do you have any condoms?

Ariel nodded and left the room for a second. Sylvia saw, without wanting to stare, Ariel’s supermuscular legs. When they met again beneath the sheets, Sylvia ran her hands over his athletic body. His toasted skin contrasted with Sylvia’s whiteness. Her
hand, after evasive caresses, reached Ariel’s penis. She didn’t go so far as to touch it with her fingers, she backed off and lay down, as if she wanted to be taken without being too aware of what was going to happen.

But Ariel didn’t lie on top of Sylvia. He didn’t want to ask, are you a virgin? He did bring his hand down to her sex. She was wet and receptive. He touched her delicately, using his middle finger to penetrate her. In a instant, Sylvia closed her eyes and started to melt with pleasure. She grabbed his arm and moaned, until she let out a scream followed quickly by another and then another, more contained, one that made her collapse and open her eyes with a smile. Ariel dropped his head down beside her.

Sylvia recovered the feeling of her own body weight. The moments before she seemed to have somehow been levitating. Ariel tried to make himself comfortable next to her. He placed his arm on the pillow and Sylvia let her neck fall onto it. She covered her breasts with her arm.

Do you want me to do something to you? asked Sylvia timidly. That’s okay. Sylvia took on a comic tone. No, no, it’s no problem, while I’m here. Blushing, she covers her face with the sheet. You must think I’m stupid.

I hope it was lovely for you.

She was surprised by the adjective. No Spaniard would use it. She told Ariel that her friend Mai sometimes said that Argentinians dripped sugar from their mouths when they spoke. It’s something about your tone of voice, here everything sounds more aggressive.

Ariel changed the music. It was a female Brazilian voice, that spread gauzily through the room. Music for fucking. He regretted the choice.

Sylvia caressed his stomach with her hand, then confirmed that he was aroused and she forced herself to jerk him off, even though she found the movements ridiculous, grotesque. Ariel placed his hand around hers and helped her finish.

Then, without them realizing, a very long time passed.

Now I really do have to go, announced Sylvia. She sat on the bed and Ariel was turned on by the subtle way she hid her breasts with her forearm and the sheet. Like in old movies. He watched her start to dress with fiendish speed.

Do you want to take a shower?

I don’t want to get home really late.

Sylvia’s sweater had ended up on Ariel’s side, and as he sat up he held it out to her. Your pullover. Pullover? She smiled. She finished her beer in two sips while Ariel dressed standing.

The car flew along the almost deserted highway. Sylvia lowered the window and stuck out her head. There was a fine mist falling that dampened her face, making her feel refreshed. She didn’t tell Ariel that she felt like she had been blushing for three hours and her skin was burning. Her hair flew out behind her, as if it were going to detach from her head. It felt good. The music played between them. They barely spoke.

Sylvia directed him to her neighborhood. What’s this area called? asked Ariel. A charming name, Nuevos Ministerios. I bet you’ve never been with a girl from Nuevos Ministerios before. What about you? Is this your first time with a guy from Floresta?

Ariel was surprised she didn’t lean over to kiss him. A brief brush of the cheeks was the whole good-bye. Sylvia said, thanks, I had a really good time. Me, too. Neither of them dares to say, I’ll give you a call. Ariel watches her walk toward the brick doorway. She looks fragile in the middle of the
well-lit street. He thought perhaps he’d never see her again. He appreciated the effort Sylvia had made to keep herself from getting carried away by her emotions, holding back her desire to open herself up, to let herself go. It made him respect her even more.

He felt closer to Sylvia when he found the vestiges of her visit while changing the sheets. He thought he had been cold, distant, hard with her. Like someone dealing with bureaucracy. The soccer player who fucks the starstruck teenager, hardly making any effort, ignoring anything beyond a new notch on his bedpost. But I didn’t fuck her, he argued in his defense. Maybe it was worse that he let her jack him off for such a long time; he even had to make an effort to come so that it wouldn’t be humiliating. He tossed the sheets into the washing machine. He waited for it to start running. He didn’t want Emilia snooping around and asking for explanations.

In his dream, he saw Sylvia’s hair, placed over her breasts, almost completely covering them. He remembered Sylvia’s total stillness after her orgasm, not daring to take the next step and reveal having rushed things, and being afraid, regretful. In that moment he wanted to see her again and show her the warmth he hadn’t that night.

At practice the ball moves from one teammate to the next and Ariel seems unable to intercept it. At one point the coach approaches the group and in a curt tone says, get with the program, Ariel.

He understands that the coach isn’t referring to that play in particular but to his performance in general. And he feels hurt. He is embarrassed to not be focusing, not be devoting himself completely to the team.

As he leaves the field, he signs some autographs for a group of schoolkids waiting behind the fence. One of the girls shouts, you’re so handsome, and Ariel looks up at her. Her pubescent face is not quite settled, it’s in that somewhat monstrous transitional phase, not yet fully formed. She’s surrounded by a gang of her girlfriends, hysterical and shrieking. He doesn’t like the group. They’ve lost that childish charm that can do no wrong. He again remembers his teammate comparing soccer players’ lives to dogs’. Our masters outlive us, too.

By that point, he had decided not to see Sylvia again. Distance himself. It is her maturity, unthinkable in a sixteen-year-old, even though it seems like an act, that scares him most about her, that makes her even more dangerous.

At six in the evening that Saturday, the sun had yet to shine. It would be one of those rare days where it never appears. Sylvia had arrived at her grandmother’s house a little while earlier. Aurora’s smile beneath her damp eyes made up for the lazy waste of an afternoon. Mai had gone back to León to spend the weekend, determined to save a relationship she said was heading downhill on the fast track. Their three days in Vienna had been as intense as they were grueling. She had gotten hit by one of the riot policemen’s swinging nightsticks and it had fractured her collarbone. Besides a huge bruise, big like a burn, which she proudly displayed, she had spent forty-eight hours in observation in a hospital on the outskirts of the city. She cursed Mateo
because he had barely shown any concern for her. This wasn’t meant to be our honeymoon, he had said.

The hospital was some kind of jail for people with minor injuries. An Italian with a broken arm, a Greek guy poisoned by a smoke grenade, an American girl with her ankle destroyed by a rubber bullet. It was some sort of veiled incarceration. There, more than twenty-five miles from Vienna, there was no way they were getting back to the protest. And I didn’t have my cell phone charger, she whined. That’s why I didn’t write you, to save battery juice in case Mateo called me. Mai recognized that as selfish, and useless because he didn’t even call, and it made her angry at herself. She told Sylvia every last detail of her adventure.

I felt stupid, abandoned. Luckily there was an anarchist from Logroño, really funny and really fat, who had me cracking up the whole time. They had given him fifteen stitches in his head and he wasn’t complaining. We really hit it off. He kept telling me, don’t complain, just imagine, being an anarchist in Logroño is like selling combs on Mars. Once I jumped into the ring at a bullfight during the San Roque festival to protest animal torture and demand they put a stop to bullfighting, I was with three or four more environmentalists and that was an honest to god beatdown, yes sir. Plus we were buck naked and one of my testicles ascended from a swift kick, do you have any idea how much that hurts?

In the hospital, after confessing her doubts to the fat anarchist from Logroño, she had resolved to break up with Mateo, but they reconciled on the trip back. Twenty hours on a bus would bring anybody closer, said Mai. In spite of her exhaustion, Mateo’s hands beneath the blanket had skillfully saved their relationship. Or at least that was what she insinuated with a
crooked smile. Girl, I have the feeling our relationship is purely physical.

Sylvia had wanted to tell her about her night with Ariel, but she never found the right moment. She was afraid of Mai. She talked too much. And if someone at school found out about something like this, they could make her life impossible. In that setting, not doing anything worth talking about was a virtue. Anybody who stood out ran the risk of having rumors made up about them. Like that poor sophmore girl who they swore was charging for blowjobs in the boys’ bathroom, and half the school said she had disappeared because she couldn’t take the lie and the other half because her parents had found out it was true. No, it was better to keep your mouth shut. Every time she got over her reluctance and decided to talk to Mai about it, she luckily found her friend still caught up in her own problems. What do you think, is going to see him this weekend a sign I’m totally whipped, or do you think it’s okay for me to fight to keep the relationship from going to shit?

Sylvia’s reply was laconic. Go.

She missed her first class the day after her night with Ariel. She put up with her father’s anger, his scolding for how late she got home. On her way to class, she checked her cell phone messages, but there was no news from Ariel. Then she remembered his frostiness. She had forced the outcome. He had resisted and she had taken him to the bedroom. He hadn’t done anything to keep her there when she wanted to leave in a hurry. He didn’t even kiss her when they said goodnight on the street. They barely spoke when he drove her home. It was all strange. Icy.

She had felt dirty, stupid, getting dressed quickly in front of him, with his still-warm semen staining the sheets. She was
embarrassed at the absurd swaying of her enormous breasts as she readjusted her bra. And her woman’s scent. Ariel hadn’t even wanted to make love to her, take her virginity, which she was sure was obvious. It may as well have been broadcast by a PA system installed in her face, judging from the way she acted. That clumsy handjob she had tried to satisfy him with must have seemed like a hysterical attempt to hide her adolescent spinelessness. Every once in a while, she thought of a few minor positive signs. She remembered his hands and skin, his defenseless gesture as he brimmed over, the electrical charge that went through his thigh, his tensed muscles. The pleasure of stroking the bones of his back, of feeling his prominent ribs. She, in comparison, seemed all flabby. Any temptation to send him a message, to remind him of the night before, went up in smoke when she assessed how she had acted, half brazen and half prude.