| Autopolaroids
193. THE ONE AND THE OTHER
por © Alfredo Villanueva-Collado/Enkidu
They were rivals for her love and attention. One, the son of her
husband’s mistress; the Other, her beloved sister’s boy. They
were both very lonely, both terrified by the voice booming up from the
downstairs garage, always threatening the One and mocking the Other. They
played together and studied together, at times bitter enemies, bosom
buddies at times. They had introduced each other to pleasure three
years earlier, as they played in the bathtub with their toys under their
vicarious mother’s not too watchful but indulgent eye
The Other remembered. Thus, the very day he arrived to live once
more with his relatives, while the family celebrated in the terrace, he
called the One to the bedroom. “Let me show you what I learned
while I was away,” he said, and there, feet away from parents and
guests, taught him the intoxication of real kissing, sending their senses
into a frenzy of desire.
During the day, even as they quarreled, their bodies betrayed them,
revealing their bonds, made even stronger by hostile competition. Their
bedrooms were joined by an outside balcony. At night, each lay in
his bed, hearts pounding, mouths dry, waiting for the master of the
house and his suffering wife to retire to the noisy comfort of their
air-conditioned room. After what seemed like an eternity, One would get
up, noiselessly cross the balcony to the Other’s room, get into his bed
and surrender to the Other’s tongue, hands, mouth. On Sundays, the
Master of the house went fishing in his Macho yatch with his Macho friends
while his suffering wife stayed ashore, cooking for the crowd. Many times,
in order to allay their boredom, she allowed the boys to take off in a not
so Macho boat. Safe among the mangroves, under the intensely blue sky and
the consuming sunlight, rocked by the gentle lapping of the waves, they
assuaged once more their adolescent yearnings. And so it went
for two years, until the Other went away again. Permanently.
They met once more, One already married, a father, divorced; the Other,
an openly gay academic, with a lover. They made wild love one night
in a chilly room while the Other’s mother lay dying downstairs. The next
day, One announced to the family at breakfast that he would remain in
contact with the Other’s Sister, but that he doubted very much he would
ever see the Other again. Sister called the Other aside and curtly
told him: “ So, it looks like you made it together. Pay no
attention to what he says. He parrots his father’s fantasy: that
one day his son would marry me. But I could tell what he was after ever
since he crossed that door. It was you he came to see, not mother,
not me. He only had eyes for you.”
The Other, feeling that peculiar pain associated with what doctors and
romantics call a damaged heart, acknowledged: “How strange. When
we had already come, el Rubio showed up. I left them alone, let el
Rubio make love to him to make sure his experience had included others.
The first thing he asked me when I entered his room was ‘How did you
know?’ I told him my body carried his inerasable imprint. He
smiled and answered: ‘It’s too cold out there. Come into bed, where
it’s warm. You know quite well how hot I get I am when I’m
horny.’ I never stopped loving him, Sister. He is more my own than
all of the fucking so-called blood relatives. I will love him till
the day I die.”
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Los
Martes de Enkidu
[22.11.2004]: Autopolaroids
