by Laura Marney
I turned it up and was practising my Shakira dancing in the mirror when my phone rang.
‘Alison?’
‘Hello Ewan.’
‘Is everything okay? I just phoned to make sure you were okay.’
‘Yes, I’m okay.’
‘You sure? You sound a bit breathless.’
‘No, I’m good, thank you.’
‘What’s that music I can hear? Are you in a bar?’
‘No, it’s a CD. I’m in Barri Gotic, I’m still in the flat!’ I laughed.
‘The American didn’t put you out then?’
‘No, God no. I’m staying here. Me and Chloe are going to be sharing.’
‘Really? But is it not a one-bedroom apartment?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, that’ll be cosy.’
‘Yep.’
Ewan went quiet. I waited; I wasn’t going to help him out.
‘So, how’s your toe?’
‘My what?’
‘Your toe. You cut it this morning, d’you not remember?’
‘Oh yeah!’ I laughed. ‘It’s fine. Chloe cleaned it and put a plaster on it. I’ll live.’
‘I spoke to your big brother today. Charlie sends his love.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘He says you’ve to phone your mum, they’re worried about you.’ He hesitated before he brought up the next subject. ‘They mentioned you might not have enough money. I told Charlie I could lend you some, if that would help. It would have to be short term; I’m not exactly loaded myself.’
‘Nope. I’m fine. I’ve got tons of money.’
‘Okay, good. Sorry about having to rush off like that this morning.’ Ewan gave a laugh that was so obviously faked it was embarrassing, ‘I was late for work,’ he added lamely.
‘Forget it.’
There was another silence.
‘So, would you like to meet up tonight? I’m finished now. The night man has just come in.’
‘Sorry. I’ve made other arrangements. Chloe and I are off out salsa dancing. We’re going to Club Cubana. We’ve had a few lines and Chloe’s given me a makeover, she says I look hot.’
‘Lines?’
‘Of coke.’
‘Right.’
‘I could meet you in the bar downstairs for a quick one, I suppose.’ I wanted him to see my makeover. ‘We won’t be going out for a while, Chloe’s still in the shower.’
‘No, you’re all right, thanks,’ said Ewan.
Why had I given him the chance to knock me back?
‘And Alison? Be careful in that Club Cubana. These places can be a bit sleazy. Does your American mate know her way around? Will she look after you?’
‘Well, my American mate’s been pretty good to me so far. She’s never ran off and left me in the street.’
‘Come on Alison, I said I’m sorry about that. You’ve only just met this girl. How d’you know you can trust her?’
‘I do trust her, if it’s any of your business, which it isn’t.’
I could hear the bathroom door opening.
‘Look, I have to go, Ewan. Nice talking to you, ciao.’
I barely let him get his ‘ciao’ in before I put the phone down.
Chloe emerged from the bathroom with Juegita running around her feet. She lifted the dog’s front paws and danced with her to the salsa music.
‘Should we take Juegita out for her walk now before we leave for the evening?’ I asked.
‘Oh, she’ll be fine. She might have a shit on the terrace later but that’s okay.’
‘But didn’t you say she needs some exercise?’
‘Nope. Old Juegita’s exhausted with looking after the pups. She needs rest.’
She didn’t look exhausted to me. I was impressed with just how well Juegita could dance the merengue. She was enjoying it, her tail wagging happily, her teats swinging freely as she and Chloe danced around.
Chloe went and got dressed. She was gone less than five minutes. She had on a simple pink top and a white short skirt. For make-up she was only wearing lipstick and a little mascara. She looked fantastic.
‘I’m not overdressed for this place, am I?’ I asked her.
Chapter 19
‘Alison honey, you’re gonna knock ‘em dead,’ said Chloe and then chopped another two lines of coke. I inhaled this next one up my other nostril but this time it wasn’t a clean sweep. I left traces of the white powder on the mirror. I copied what Chloe had done and licked my finger and brushed my gums with what was left. It felt amazing and I couldn’t wait to get to the club.
We got down the stairs without incident. On the last flight Chloe asked me if I was okay without the lights on and I was, I felt great. We crossed through a tight little plaza where everyone was smoking joints in the street. Kids with dreadlocks and dogs on rope leads lay around the ground, as relaxed as though they were on sofas. A girl with long greasy hair was leaning forward at a strange angle. An ugly noise came down her nose and out of her mouth that sounded like terrible longing or terrible pain.
‘Plaza Trippy,’ said Chloe, ‘junkies, they come here to trip out.’
I was glad to be out of that plaza. The streets were crowded and it took time to negotiate corners with so many people moving through. Chloe swerved and sidestepped; not wanting to lose her, I had to trot to keep up. But we were going too fast, everything was going too fast, the noise and the crowds and the traffic. Stimulation overload.
‘Chloe, can we stop please?’
My heart was pounding and my whole body was quivering.
‘Got the fear, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I don’t feel like myself. Maybe it’s these clothes. I’m scared and I don’t know why.’
‘Hey, don’t worry, it’s the coke, it happens, it’ll pass. You’re with me, you’ll be okay. If you’re scared, you can hold my hand.’
I immediately took her hand. ‘Thanks.’
‘Feel better?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You will.’
‘Perdona!’ Chloe yelled at an Asian woman, and then hauled me towards her.
The woman was a flower seller and she seemed amazed to have a customer voluntarily approach her. In the hubbub of the street Chloe ask her in Spanish for a carnation for my hair. The vendor quickly realised her bargaining position and insisted that it wasn’t possible to buy just one carnation. They were not sold as separates. They only came in twenty-euro bunches. She was so emphatic I didn’t need a translation.
‘I don’t have time for this haggling shit, just gimme the bunch. Dame las flores,’ said Chloe. ‘Alison, give her the money.’
‘Twenty euros!’ I cried, ‘For one flower?’
I really wasn’t keen to spend that kind of money on a flower for my hairdo but Chloe wouldn’t let it go.
‘Honestly Chloe, she’s ripping us off,’ I complained.
‘Duh! I know she is, but we gotta have a carnation!’
The words us and we had been used but Chloe was asking me to pay. It wasn’t Chloe who was being ripped off. But a madly expensive hair decoration, even at twenty euros, was a lot cheaper than paying rent so, reluctantly, I handed over the money. The woman gave me the bunch. Chloe used her nails to snip a large white flower head and place it carefully in my hair above my ear.
In the flat she had spent ages doing and redoing my eye make-up. She had curled my hair and pinned it up and used half a ton of hairspray to hold each ringlet in place. The carnation was the crowning glory to her artistry.
‘There,’ she sighed, satisfied. ‘My work is done.’
‘Que guapa!’ agreed the flower lady.
Chloe handed the woman back the rest of the bunch of flowers.
‘Here you go,’ said Chloe cheerfully. ‘Puedes venderlos otra vez.’
The woman was as astounded as I was.
The club was free to get in, which calmed me down, but every drink at the bar was nine euros. This sent me into another flap.
She ordered us both vodkas and Diet Coke but we hardly got the chance to drink them.
‘Incoming,’ said Chloe sniggering, ‘dos guapos at three o’clock.’
I turned to see two boys approaching us. They were guapo: dark, Latino, long-legged with small tight bums. It was difficult to decide which was the best looking, they were both gorgeous.
‘Hola, chicas.’
They didn’t speak any English and were amazed when Chloe told them that I wasn’t an Espanola but an Escocesa.
‘Tienes papeles?’ one of them asked me.
I smiled and turned to Chloe for translation. She laughed.
‘He wants to know if you have papers. They’re from Ecuador. He’s looking for a wife.’
‘I don’t think I do.’
‘Sure you do, you’re European, right?’
From what I could make out Chloe seemed to be apologising for the fact that she was an Americana. They had a brief but intense discussion, apparently to do with politics. They were serious boys, anxious to be taken seriously.
‘Ecuador’s currency changed from sucre to dollars years ago. The economy was devastated,’ Chloe filled me in. I smiled and nodded sympathetically in their direction. ‘They don’t like the US, but hey,’ she shrugged, ‘who does?’
Chloe did all the talking, which was a relief. She introduced everybody, telling the boys our names. She told me they were both called Juan. The one that had attached himself to Chloe was Juan Jose, Juan Jo for short, pronounced ‘Wanho’. Mine was Juan Carlos, Juan Ca for short, pronounced ‘Wanca’.
‘Como el rey!’ said Wanca proudly.
Both Juans laughed as though this was a great joke. ‘Like the king!’ said Chloe, digging me in the ribs.
We laughed politely and then they asked us to dance. Was it really as easy as this to pull men? It seemed to be. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. What would Ewan make of Charlie’s little sister if he could see her now? Other boys wanted me. To these boys I was an Espanola, a ‘guapa’.
Chloe, unsurprisingly, was an excellent dancer. She and Wanho slithered around like greased-up snakes. People watched them dance and then, when Wanca and I took the floor, everyone looked at us. Our audience probably had high expectations: me in my Spanish dancer get-up and Wanca so handsome. I was a terrible dancer. It looked easy when other people did it but although I tried my best, I clearly wasn’t feeling the same rhythms as Wanca, or as anyone else on the dance floor. Uncoordinated, we were a misfiring engine. Eventually I worked out that we got on better if I didn’t move. While Wanca jerked his hips in my direction I shifted my weight from one leg to the other and back again. It was boring and hard work, my thigh muscles, unused to the exercise, quickly tired. People were still looking.
I was relieved when he led me off the floor and into a dark corner. He showed me to my seat. I said, gracias and smiled. Wanca spoke to me in Spanish and I smiled, my only means of communication. He put his lips to my ear so that I could hear him over the music. He spoke slowly, hypnotically while he stroked my cheek. I smiled, the stroking was very nice. He kissed my cheek; I smiled again and offered him my lips.
He held my face in his hand, gently as though he enjoyed the softness of my skin. He kissed my lips, light as a feather and then pressing down. His tongue brushed the inside of my lip as if knocking at the door. I was hungry to receive him and felt the thrill of his tongue in my mouth. When we stopped for a breather he held my face in his hand again and chuckled softly. I felt my cheek blush. He whispered again in my ear and I concentrated on listening to the Spanish words and pretended not to notice his hand was directly under my right breast. We kissed again, full on snogging now and he was touching me. I leaned into him, giving him the green light to put his hand inside my blouse. Through the kiss I moaned. There were people at a nearby table but they seemed busy talking amongst themselves.
After a few minutes Wanca stopped kissing me and removed his hand. I didn’t want to stop and he smiled at my reluctance. He was teasing me. I pushed my breasts against him, mashing myself into him as he slid his hand along my thigh. I shivered and my legs parted. He could pull my knickers down and fuck me right here and I would moan with pleasure.
Except that people were looking.
My eyes flickered with the ecstasy of what he was doing and I saw that the table nearby were watching us. They weren’t even pretending not to. They were openly staring. I tried to discreetly direct his attention to this. While kissing I repeatedly rolled my eyes in their direction. Mid-snog Wanca gave them a cursory glance and then a dismissive shrug, all the while creeping his hand up my skirt.
I pulled away, gasping.
He tried to re-engage mouths but I managed to resist. What the hell was I thinking? I was nearly doing it, in public, with a guy I’d just met. A guy called Wanca. Had I really gotten so carried away?
Wanca returned to whispering in my ear. I felt my lips and my thighs ache for it, but I had to get a grip. As I batted his hand from my breast his whispering became louder and more insistent. This was pathetic; I didn’t even know what he was saying. He could’ve been banging on about Ecuadorian currency for all I knew and I’d been ready to whip my pants off. I was pathetic. He tried to kiss me again. I stood up. I was starting to feel the fear again, I had to find Chloe but I couldn’t see her on the dance floor.
‘I want to dance now.’
Wanca seemed confused; he must have wondered why his sexy Spanish murmuring was no longer working.
‘Shall we dance?’ I shrieked.
Before he had a chance to answer I smoothed my skirt down and strode off. Chloe was nowhere to be seen so I was forced to endure more Wanca dance moves while I scanned the floor for her. Wanca dance moves consisted of him putting his hands all over my body while he dry-humped my thigh. The people from the table were still sniggering.
At last I saw her emerge with Wanho from what seemed to be the toilets.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, I’m okay. That table over there have been giving me a hard time though.’
She looked them over and dismissed it.
‘Oh, they’re Catalan. It’s not you; it’s what you’re wearing’ she said. ‘They’re hispanophobes. They hate everything Spanish.’
As I looked around the club I noticed that all the other women were very informally dressed, much like Chloe, in short skirts and tops. I began to feel faintly ridiculous in my flamenco get-up, as though, like some old South American movie star, I should have a pile of fruit stacked on my head.
‘I was looking for you for ages, were you in the toilet?’
‘Yeah, I know it’s nasty but there was nowhere else,’ she said. ‘He offered to go down and I can never resist. It’s totally mellowed me out. Anyhoo, I saw you over there in the corner with Juan Ca so I figured you were enjoying yourself.’
‘Oh, I lost it a bit there but…’
‘Hey, never apologise, never explain.’
Chloe had just coolly admitted to accepting oral sex in a toilet from a stranger.
‘Alison, we’re in Barcelona, there’s nobody here to judge us, only me and you, and I won’t tell if you won’t.
‘I won’t tell.’
‘In that case, we can do anything we like, with anybody, any time and all the time. Didn’t we make a deal about that?’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘Well all right.’
Chloe pulled me in and hugged me. I clung tight to her.
Wanca and Wanho laughed when they saw our girly hug and wanted in on the action but it was exclusive. They stood with their arms around our waists but as we were speaking English we could safely ignore them.
‘I’ve had enough Latino fun for one night,’ said Chloe, ‘have you?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘Okay, wanna lose these guys and get out of here?’
‘Yeah,’ I said casually, as if I was used to los
ing guys, ‘let’s lose them.’
The boys’ smiles were becoming tighter by the minute.
‘I wanna phone my mom before she goes out for the evening,’ said Chloe ‘What d’you say we go back to the apartment, smoke a joint, I’ll make my call and then we can go out somewhere else?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
I was dying to get my silly outfit off.
‘Oh, I like you Alison! You think the same way as me,’ said Chloe, reaching in for another hug.
I knew at that moment how lucky I was to have Chloe; that she was the perfect friend.
Chapter 20
Back in the flat I got us glasses of water while Chloe tried to phone her mum.
‘The line’s busy,’ said Chloe with a tired resignation. ‘D’you want to call your mom while I’m waiting?
‘Oh that’s really kind of you, Chloe, but it’ll cost a fortune.’
‘No it doesn’t, I have a deal for international calls. You should call your mom.’
I dialled the big long number to phone home and was surprised when there was no answer. Mum was rarely out in the evenings. She was usually in front of the telly. When she finally picked up Mum sounded terrible, as if she was ill.
‘Hello?’
‘Mum, what’s wrong, are you okay?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s me, Alison.’
‘D’you know what time it is, Alison?’
‘No. What time is it? It’s a bit late, isn’t it?’
‘It’s bloody two o’clock in the morning.’
‘Oh God, sorry Mum. I didn’t realise. Ewan said Charlie said that you wanted me to phone.’
‘Yeah, but not in the middle of the night! I’ve got to get up for my work in the morning.’
‘Okay, night night, Mum.’
‘Night night, and don’t bloody do that again. You frightened the life out of me.’
I put the phone down.
‘Everything okay back home?’ asked Chloe.
‘Yeah thanks, Chloe, but it’s really late. It’s two o’clock in the morning in Scotland.’
‘Whoa! I didn’t think of that. It’s six in the evening in California. I always phone my mom at this time. It’s the only time I can guarantee reaching her.’