The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Volume 3

San Sebastian by Justine Dubois

It is half past five in the morning. The sky is a haze of half grey, curiously illuminated. Under a canopy of wrought iron the fish market is setting up. The street shutters are painted blue and orange. He is tall and she only a little less so. His dark hair is slicked back cruelly from his forehead, above eyes that are cool and grey. His wide mouth, whose smile spells sensuality, is downturned in disappointment. She dances at his heels. They pass another couple quarreling.

There is something familiar in the shape of the argumentative man’s head, distracting him momentarily. “It seems as though the whole world is quarrelling today,” he sighs. “Not just us.”

“Can’t you understand that I am too tired to climb some damned mountain at five in the morning,” she says shrilly, “just in the hope of seeing an exceptional sunrise?”

He looks at her with a frown, shocked, as always, by the philistine in her. But she doesn’t notice.

“You always were impossible, and selfish,” she continues. “Yesterday, we walked all round Madrid in the midday heat, which was your idea; we stood up all night on the train without a seat, and now you want to go for a walk, rather than find our hotel?” The look in her eyes is close to hatred.

“But it is almost dawn and still cool enough to climb,” he pleads gently. “The view of the town and the bay will be spectacular, breathtaking. God knows, we only have one night here. And you can rest as much as you want later on. By this time tomorrow morning we will be back on the train. And it could be years before we return.” He scans the lines of her face for some sign of relenting good humour. “Couldn’t you just make the effort?” But she is closed off.

The Spanish fishermen and traders watch them knowingly, warily, their impassive features hinting part sympathy, part contempt. The fish pass through their flat, bronzed hands in flashes of colour, the turquoise of a fin, the rose pink underside of an octopus. Bouffant heads of carnation form mini hedgerows, dividing the stalls and their produce. This is a different aesthetic, he thinks to himself, this is Lorca country. The land where hatred and beauty and love form an eternal triangle. “Perhaps it is fitting for us to quarrel against such a backdrop of emotion and colour?” he says.

“How pretentious,” she replies.

He glances down at his wife’s tight features. She is almost unrecognizable. He abandons the argument. “I’ll go on my own,” he states baldly, trying to conceal his disappointment; he feels that touristic pleasures ought to be shared. “Which would you prefer,” he asks, resorting to chivalry, “to go and find the hotel now on your own? It is too early to check in. Our room won’t be vacant until midday, but we could leave the luggage there. Or shall we find a cafe where you can wait for me, have some breakfast, a tortilla jamon?”

She looks up at his handsome head, all its normal charm dissipated in strain. His eyes are pale, too pale, no feeling animates them. His formality and politeness are a bad sign. “How long will you be?”

He glances away. He can just make out the distant silhouette of the statue of Christ on Monte Urgull, one arm outstretched in benediction. “Difficult to say exactly.” The early morning heat is still burning off the cool moisture from the night before. There is a haze in the air. Distances are deceptive. “One hour, two at the most,” he hazards.

“You always were a bore,” she says.

He looks at her coolly, assessing her in terms of distances too. “Maybe,” he replies uncertainly. He is hurt by her insult and attempts to explain. “This something I have always dreamed of doing.”

She shrugs. “Very well. Let’s find a cafe. I’ll wait for you there and then go to the hotel if I get fed up.”

“Won’t you change your mind and come with me?” he pleads, his mood softening.

“No chance,” she replies. “I don’t know how you even dare ask after the night we’ve spent.”

He tries to smile. Perhaps she is right? Maybe his demands are too many? His stamina is greater than hers. He frowns, but guilt does not sit easily with him.

They choose a cafe on a street corner midway between the fish market and the near end of the bay. Its chairs are glossy wicker structures, interwoven with strands of bright red and green, the tables fat, menthol-green circles of glass. She sits down, fussily trying to arrange her luggage neatly around her. The waiter appears, his body as flexible as a toreador’s, his features immune to charm.

“Are you going to stay and have a coffee with me first?” she asks hopefully.

“No, I want to catch the dawn light over the bay.” He glances impatiently at his watch and looks towards the statue, just visible now in the distance above the mist. “No time to lose.”

“Very well.” She orders herself coffee and croissants, a tortilla jamon and a small glass of Spanish brandy. He raises his eyebrows. You had better go. she says.

He turns on his heels. It occurs to him to plant a kiss on her face, but her expression forbids it.

As he turns to leave, he again half registers the back view of the man sitting alone at another table, something familiar. Was it he and his girlfriend who had also been quarrelling in the fish market? Perhaps they were on the same train? He glances back once more at his wife and then moves on swiftly. He feels guilty, like a recalcitrant schoolboy who has insisted on his own way. But, as he turns from sight of the cafe, his mood begins to improve. He begins to breathe freely again. Two more turnings and he is on the Paseo Nuevo, the wide promenade that almost encircles Monte Urgull and opens on to the Atlantic and La Concha, a superb long curve of bay, whose elegant Edwardian hotels exist in the dreams of aristocratic Spain and France. His destination is the sculpture of Christ, which stands high above one end of the bay.

He walks at an even pace. The sea is still grey with the remnants of night. The path ahead of him begins to climb, imperceptibly at first. Then suddenly, he is above the bay, higher up than he anticipated. The walk is part woodland, part shrubbery. He climbs further. The path zig-zags from shelf to shelf of terrace, disguised by shrubbery. The land has the luxuriant quality of green, uncultivated gardens. Halfway up, he pauses to catch his breath and look back at the view. Now that he is alone, he begins to feel exhilarated. The quarrel that had flattened his mood now raises and heightens it. He feels intoxicatingly free, as though only this minute and this view and this exquisite feeling count. He senses all the possibilities of freedom, of hope; also the senselessness of shackled love. He begins to feel at one with nature.

He stops briefly to light a Gitanes, its heady perfume mixing with the bougainvillea and the salt from the Atlantic. As he smokes the cigarette, he takes a battered book from his pocket and reads a scrap of poetry by Lorca. By now he has lost all sense of time and regained every sense of himself. His wife, her coffee and her discomfort have disappeared.

Within the dark eyes of the Nun

Two horsemen gallop…

He shuts the book and starts to climb the final stage. Suddenly, towering above his head, one arm outheld in beatitude, is the statue of Christ, welcoming him.

The girl is sitting at the base of the sculpture, as if waiting for him. Her smooth dark hair moves in a single, well-cut shape about the delicate features of her face. She is dressed simply in white skirt and blouse. She looks out greedily over the bay, anxious not to miss the first bright slivers of sunshine. He guesses she is American. She turns her head towards him and smiles. “I have been watching you climb, saw you stop to read. I thought you might get here too late.”

He half apologises. “I expected to be alone.” He laughs thoughtfully. “So, I expect, did you.” He sits down next to her,

“I have seen you before,” she says.

He scans her features. She is beautiful, delicate, with a body as agile as a cat’s. A distant glow in the sky; it is getting lighter. “I am ashamed to say that I don’t remember.”

“You are reading Lorca” she says, surprise in her blue eyes.

Under the blaze of twenty suns

How steep a level plain inclines.

She takes the book from his hand. The first piercing rays of sunshine, pink and gold, appear over the bay. They both fall still, spellbound. As he turns towards her, her features are suffused with the pink light of the sun. They glance at one another, with a cold hard light of recognition, and then look deliberately away. They refocus on their conversation. The book falls from her lap and they both scrabble to retrieve it. In the dust at their feet their hands meet; a quicksilver animal electricity runs between them. They look at one another in surprise. “I was quarrelling too,” she says. They sit back, seeking equilibrium. They both feel sharpened by their respective quarrels, both racked with emotion. The sun is warm on their faces. Around them the light begins to dapple the trees.

The sunshine plays a game of chess

Over her lattice with the trees.

It travels the cold stone of the statue. They look outwards, tension in their buttressed arms. They turn towards one another at the same moment. He does not remember thinking of kissing her. Yet her lips beneath his are soft and sweet. Her body folds and ricochets within its frame, yielding and urgent within the circle of his. As his arms engulf her, he feels the narrow, bird-like cage of her diaphragm, feels her rapid heartbeat. Her skin has the dry, burnt musk perfume of sea and sun. They exchange one last glance of recognition before closing their eyes against the fierce, piercing sun.

His hands slip over her, laying her bare on the stone, teasing and spreading her body in reply to his. His caresses are a torrent of regret and discovery. She picks shyly at the buttons of his shirt, at the buckle of his trousers. It is her last positive act before he invades and devours her. As he enters her, her legs curl around him in welcome. His muffled kisses travel her breasts, her neck, her mouth. He tastes her skin. She judders in his arms; sweet abandon. He still does not ask her name. Beneath the impact of his caresses, she becomes malleable like plasticine. He pulls her upright in his arms to sit on his lap. Her legs tighten enthusiastically around his waist. The figure of Christ looks down on them in blessing. They move in unison, excitement building. Almost. Almost… And then he leaves her, momentarily bereft, to stand her leaning in front of the statue, her back naked to the cool stone. She is now rag doll, propelled only by his passion. His whole body roars at her; a threshold of pain, and then twin cries. A brief moment of recollection shifts and collides in his mind. He falls in love with her. He feels his old life fall from him, like a useless garment. He rocks her in his arms, stroking her hair, kissing her lips and neck, teaching her true ownership. She is pliant, exhausted and joyous. She smiles up at him, a strange familiarity mixed with the unknown.

Hand in hand they walk back to the bay and go, fully dressed, straight into the sea to swim together. By now the sun is hot. As they emerge, their light cotton clothes dry on them. They walk back towards the cafe. They have both decided to be brave, to explain.

His wife is no longer sitting alone. The man at her table rises to greet him. “Hello, my friend, I thought I recognized you earlier. It must be years since we last met, not since I left for America.” He turns to the dark-haired girl at his friend’s side. “Oh, good, I see you have already met my fiancee. How was the view, darling?”

His wife also smiles up at him, no longer ill-tempered. “Was it wonderful…?” she begins enthusiastically. But the question dies in her throat.