The Write Thing

Before I continue with this post, I want to publicly thank for an award, my first, recently given to me. As stipulated in the conditions issued to the winners, I am now in the process of selecting ten blogs that I consider deserving of the same award I received. It is this phase of the aftermath to my honorable gift that has so far stopped me from acknowledging the award as I should have. In view of this, and despite my partial compliance with my share of the deal, I would like to express my gratefulness to my fellow blogger, Miss Fiamma, for including me as one of her choices, and publicly state that I will be paying my dues on this choice in full very soon, on the pages of this blog.

Having relieved myself of a self-conscious feeling of irresponsibility vis-à-vis a gift that I can only marvel at and be thankful for, I now proceed to post my entry of today.

This morning I spoke to my ex-girlfriend, for the first time since we parted ways two years ago, about the person I am deeply in love with. I said it finally, after a couple of months of pondering. As I spoke, part of me poured out in the retelling of my new feelings, while another side exercised a form of restraint, as in an Edith Wharton novel, perhaps in an effort to say just enough.

It is good to tell the truth, when the truth is palpable. It is better to tell the truth with the best possible words, those that do not hurt but communicate. And it is even better to live by the truth we know for a fact, because it may be there for a purpose.

Another cycle has in a way ended now. I have always said that lesbian ex-girlfriends never really become your friend but something else, undefined, oftentimes confused with some form of friendship. There is a certain affection, because something brought you together in the first place, and there is also the sea of differences that set you apart. And then, after a while, if you have remained close in some way, there is that brief instant, before you speak, when the truth still lingers behind the curtain, waiting to go out into the scene and feel itself in motion, as an actor does. You do not know what your audience’s reaction will be, but you certainly hope they will at least understand what you want to communicate. If the reaction is good, it means that they do.

Today my audience understood, and I am glad I told my truth.

I am waiting  for her. This is a peculiar situation, because she is better at waiting than I am, and yet it is my turn to test my skills. This is a business trip for one of us, and a pleasure trip for both. I have never played so much on the verge of risk…or I did, once, when I sneaked into a colleague’s bedroom in the middle of the night, losing the rest of my workmates until dawn came to call.

This time it is more open than that, because she is staying with me in the same room. This time it is not about risk, but about trust. Congress attendees suddenly inspire no fears about how wise it actually is to indulge in this when almost everyone is accompanied by their wives, and those who are not sometimes just walk a thin line between gallantry and the exciting possibility of a one-night stand.

Still, oblivious to the world outside this room in a tiny and dream-like Guanajuato, I am waiting for her. I am trying not to anticipate, for I know that some scripts go wrong when only one actor is rehearsing them. Even though she seems resilient to pre-conceived stories that go amiss, this woman with “no expectations” still carries a veil that suggests to me she should be treated with care. As in a Henry James vignette, even when she shows more than she tells, she does so imperceptibly.

I like her more than I would have ever imagined. She gives me calm, and lets my own little freak side go out to play and quote movies that nobody saw to make a minor point about something. She knows about my stationery fetish, and puts up with the fussy psychologist that resides somewhere in me and needs to find a logic behind almost everything. Because she knows me more than she has, or because she thinks so, and I concur, I am now waiting for her. She has earned my trust and she is slowly winning my heart.

Conversations in a gay bar on the verge of midnight can lead to interesting findings. There we were, my circumstantial Aussie companion and I, sipping Cuba Libres and Tequila Sunrises at the table, and discussing life. I suddenly realized that, in the course of our conversation, I had brought up over four notable of her fellow countrymen/women in the field of arts, each of whom was approved by my partner with exaggerated gestures of joy.

Gradually, she drew her quirkiness near me as the minutes ticked away and we emptied our glasses. Funny enough, there was a solid moment in all that frailty when she said: “I think you should kiss me”.

The foreignness of her lips became a temporary drug, numbing senses in a regulated fashion. Skeptical at first, I went along with it. Before me was an adventurous, fragile woman, with a feminine lightness of being as I had not seen in years, flaky and in the raw. She gently slid her hand along my thigh, traveling upwards in airy lines that traced the contours of my arms, the nape of my neck. I tentatively made my hand familiar with the shape of her shoulders, the protruding bones converging on her chest, the soft milky skin. I found myself looking into cloudy eyes, dawning into her neutral scent, the impersonal fragrance that makes or breaks a new moment. I pressed her hips against my leg, and held her by the ephemeral waist, my fingers feeling the lace of her underwear, absorbing the immediacy of a body that opened up to me.

She buried her face in my neck, pressed her lips and designed playful circles with her tongue on my shoulder. Inadvertently, as if in a game of no consequence, against my will, she was turning me on. We merged in powerful, open kisses. She was half-arched above me, and I could feel the warmth of her sex through her summer trousers. We were ready, and were actually surprised at the clock that showed that we had stopped all attempts at conversation about three hours before.

Australia is a strange land. One would think the country is a hybrid of mystery and circumstance, known for some talents that would only come to one’s mind accidentally. It might be the modesty that pervades its people, or the fast assimilation of foreigners to the land of promise in the North. Take your pick of Cate Blanchett ruling over the likes of Naomi Watts and classic Nicole Kidman, all potential or real candidates for lesbian devotion. And now there was C., right from Brisbane, a few hours away from her plane back home, becoming a pleasant physical memory in an anticipated summer Christmas night.