by David Wood
Craig tossed some euros on the bar and asked Amy if she were ready to leave. She was.
They said their goodbyes and Amy turned toward the door. As she did, she felt a hand pinch the left cheek of her ass.
It wasn’t Craig; he was in front of her.
Amy spun on her heels and grabbed Gilberto’s hand by the wrist. He stared back at her with jet black eyes, his look lecherous yet calm.
The tavern fell silent.
She yanked his arm up and leaned into his face. “If you’re not careful,” she hissed, “you’re going to leave here with eight fingers instead of nine.”
She was drunk, she realized, as Craig took her in his arms and hurried her away. Not just drunk but shitfaced. And that was okay. She needed it. Deserved it. And to hell with Craig’s sobriety. Maybe this was just the cure for his three-year funk. Maybe this was the cure for everything. Maybe this would make their tiny decrepit flat look like a goddmamn penthouse suite at the Taj Mahal.
Not that they were going back there, of course.
Chapter 5
A thick fog hung low over the street, disguising the archaic edifices surrounding them. This wasn’t the Portugal Craig remembered. He had been to the country before, that much was true. But he hadn’t stayed in Lisbon as he’d let on. He had stayed not far off in Estoril, a lovely resort town on the coast. In a luxurious hotel along the beach. In a magnificent three-room suite with a king-sized bed and a stunning view of the azure sea. And he had never once set foot in the city itself, let alone in the Alfama.
Okay, so he’d lied. What good would it do to confess now? Would it help them find a taxi any faster? Would it get them safely to a hotel?
“Do you know where we are?” Amy asked.
“I’m a little turned around by the fog.”
He had spent most of those two weeks in the hotel, holed up with a young woman from Poland, a law student from the University of Warsaw, who had applied to his law firm for an internship. They had corresponded for months following her application. When she was ultimately denied her visa to the States, Craig offered as a consolation to treat her to two weeks anywhere in Western Europe. Choose someplace warm, he’d said. And Anastasia chose Estoril.
For fourteen days they got drunk and smoked hash, spending an hour a day sunning on the beach and the rest in their room making love. Amy would have known all about it had she read chapter nine of Libations. But no, she hadn’t bothered to read a single word. And insisted she never would.
Craig heard soft voices a short way off. He hurried his steps, pulling Amy along. These voices were the first sign of life they had come across since leaving the tavern. And just in time: Amy was beginning to grow a tad irritated.
She had seemed fine when they first stepped outside. In fact, it was easily her best mood in months. But booze takes a bad turn once the supply is cut off. No one knew that better than him.
Through the fog he saw them and instinctively dropped Amy’s hand. Two girls no more than twenty, dancing circles in the middle of a cobblestone road. They were dressed provocatively in sheer brightly colored clothes, waving scarves and laughing, buoyant and quite possibly drunk.
Craig left Amy on the sidewalk and approached them eagerly through the mist.
“Ola,” he said. He was instantly mesmerized by their movements, his eyes tracing the contours of their breasts and exposed bellies. Inebriated and somewhat dazed by the fog, he tried to focus. “Fala ingles?” he said. “I’m looking for a taxi.”
They giggled in unison, an enticing little titter that drew him closer. Absently, he glanced over his shoulder. Amy was completely hidden by the fog.
He leaned in toward the girls, listening for a response.
The darker of the two said something softly, as she ran her fingers up the inside of his arm.
Craig shivered and looked into her face. Her sharp black eyes were hypnotizing. Her breath smelled faintly of wine. He remained silent and entirely still. As inanimate as a wax statue.
“Encantado,” she whispered. Her lips were a half-inch from his ear, such that he could feel the warmth of her breath.
The hair on his forearms rose to attention. He took slow deep breaths, inhaling the sweet scent of jasmine from her scarf, the alluring aroma of her shampoo.
She ran the fabric lightly across his lips and around his neck. Down the small of his back. She teased him with it, tracing his inseam, wrapping the scarf around his legs and arms as though she were tying him up.
Then the other’s hands were on his chest. Pawing along the muscle.
Teasing a nipple. Again he searched the mist behind him.
The fog formed a curtain. Amy had to be lost somewhere behind the mist, feeling her way like the blind.
And then one of their hands was fondling his crotch, slowly stroking him through his pants. A scarf slithered across his eyes; a warm tongue caressed the length of his lips. Whispers in the ear, followed by sensuous licks. A gentle hand cupped the curve of his buttocks, ascended the length of his spine. Fingers flitted along his waist, across his taut stomach, beginning their descent into his khaki pants.
Amy’s voice cut through the thickening mist. “Craig?”
Not now, he thought.
The hand tugging at his crotch quickened and he almost came. He stifled a guttural moan.
Her voice again. “Craig?”
Suddenly the scarf slipped from around his neck. All lips departed his face.
One hand shot out of his waistband. Another released his crotch. “Boa-noite,” said the darker girl.
“Ate logo,” said the other.
Then both girls vanished into the fog. “Craig?!”
“I’m here,” he said finally. Breathlessly. Rubbing at his face and straightening his pants. Trying to keep the exasperation from his voice.
“I couldn’t find you,” she said. Her heels emanated a foul sound— clop clop, clop clop—on the cobblestones as she approached. “You left
me there alone in the fog. I couldn’t see a thing!”
She sounded nervous and frightened. And suddenly Craig felt sick to his stomach.
It’s the drink, he thought. I’ve had too much to drink and now I’m acting like my old self. Like a fucking asshole.
He straightened up and took her in his arms.
At twenty-four he had traded in an Italian for a Russian. At twenty- five he left the Russian for a Dutch au pair. At twenty-seven he stranded an American girlfriend in Paris when he met a young waitress at a pizza parlor in the Bastille. But he was older now. And sober. He wasn’t that cad any longer.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying to get directions but they wandered away.”
She hugged him tightly. He couldn’t remember when she last gripped him in such an embrace. Not in months, he was sure. She had never been affectionate, but recently it had been a lot worse. Ever since she moved back in with him after Hawaii. No unasked-for kisses, no hugs. Nothing without his initiating it.
Sometimes he felt as though she were repulsed by him. Yet here she was in Portugal with him. He couldn’t explain it; he could only surmise. Those initial feelings, he figured, were simply indelible. They couldn’t be erased. Or painted over, like that bright red wall they had painted in their first apartment. No matter how many coats of ivory they later covered it with, the goddamn wall remained red. And of course, they had lost their security deposit.
As for Craig, he knew that girl—that dancing, twirling angel with the brilliant smile and the goofy laugh—was still in there somewhere. And he was convinced that a year in Europe, in a lax city by the sea, would bring her out.
They trekked on, cautiously navigating the cobblestones, peering through the fog for some lights. And finally, they found some—two burning orbs watching them through the fog.
The driver was a lanky native in disheveled clothes. He leaned against the cab like an open coffin, staring into nothingness, puffing a cigarette. And ignoring Craig and Amy completely as they approached.<
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“Onde é o hotel mais proximo?” Craig said slowly.
“Not far,” said the driver in slaughtered English. His voice was low and throaty. Scratched like an old vinyl record.
“Can you take us?”
The driver nodded. He motioned to the rear door without opening it.
Craig and Amy exchanged quick glances, opened the door and silently climbed in.
The taxi navigated a few side roads, each one narrower than the last. The ancient buildings seemed to be closing in on them the closer they came to leaving the Alfama.
Then finally the cab broke free, crawling up a steep hill as they exited the quarter.
Craig reached behind him for his wallet. “Shit,” he muttered. Amy turned to face him but didn’t speak.
“We have to go back to the flat,” he said.
And before Amy could mouth her objection, he leaned forward and told the driver there was a change in plans. Craig gave him their address in the Alfama.
“What’s going on?” she said, her words laced with urgency.
“I don’t have my wallet,” he said, pulling a handful of euros from his pocket. “I’ve got enough to pay the driver but I don’t have anything for the hotel.”
“Where’s your wallet?” There was an unmistakable tone of accusation in her voice.
Craig shrugged. “I assume it’s back at the flat.” He stopped counting his euros and glared at her. “And I see you didn’t bring your purse.”
“Why should I?” she said. “I supported you for three years. You assured me everything in Lisbon was your treat.”
“But my wallet’s missing,” he said. More fiercely than he’d intended. Amy held out her arms as far as she could in the cramped cab. She wore an exaggerated look of bewilderment on her face. “Well, where did it go? You had it at the tavern.”
Craig thought back. He did have his wallet at the tavern. He had been paying with cash from his pocket but he had felt the billfold in his pants when he sat. It was the new wallet Amy bought him for his birthday. The hard leather case from Banana Republic that was literally a pain in his ass. He had spent most of the evening leaning on his left cheek to avoid the discomfort.
He took a deep breath. “The gypsies,” he finally said. “Gypsies? What gypsies?”
In the front of the cab the driver laughed. The driver’s laugh was a cruel-sounding chortle that emerged from his throat, that sounded as though it were belched up in a cloud of thick black lingering smoke.
Craig ignored him. “The two girls I asked for directions. I think they were gypsies. They must have pick-pocketed me.”
The driver snickered again. “Did they grab your cock?” With his thick brash accent it sounded more like, “Deed dey grub yer cuck?”
“No,” Craig said curtly, keeping his eyes on Amy.
The driver smirked. “I bet they grabbed your cock,” he said. “That’s what they do, these gypsy girls.”
Craig was flooded with a sudden rage, a powerful urge to rip his belt from his pants and strangle the son of a bitch behind the wheel. He breathed in and out slowly while he contemplated the back of the driver’s neck.
It’s just the drink, he thought. It’s gotten me into trouble before.
His temper had cost him plenty. Clients, relationships, an expulsion during his junior year in college. But his temper had been on a tight leash the last thirty or so months.
Because I’ve been sober, he thought. And it only comes out when I drink.
(That’s not completely true.)
“What gypsies?” cried Amy. “You said you couldn’t ask for directions because whoever you heard out there wandered away.”
“They must have grabbed his cock,” said the driver.
“They were only there for a second...” Craig started.
“You know what I think?” she cried. “I think you left your credit cards at the flat on purpose. You had no intention of going to a hotel. We didn’t even bring a change of clothes. You left your credit cards back at that filthy flat and then you finally ditched that wallet I gave you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I don’t want to go back to that damn flat any more than you do.”
But that was exactly where they were headed, the fog lifting like magic before the taxi’s headlights, as though the Alfama had been waiting for them.
Soon they rumbled once again along the broken streets, staring silently at the peeling facades of ancient buildings, peering down narrow alleys, where crumbling walls and cobblestone walks were swallowed by blackness.
Casting its shadow over it all was the castle highlighted in Craig’s travel guide. Castelo de Sao Jorge watched over the quarter like a sentinel, minding its labyrinth of falling structures and narrow streets from its ra mparts.
And then their ramshackle orange building showed its face. Welcoming them like the gates of an asylum. If possible, the structure looked even uglier at night. With its front door opened wide, its windows all blacked, the building too appeared as though it had been waiting.
As the taxi rolled to a stop, Craig fixed on the building and thought. He knew Amy couldn’t spend the night. Not here. So he twisted his neck, ready to say, “Fuck it. Let’s find a nice hotel and hang out in the lobby all night.”
But Amy was already out the door and hustling up the walk.
Muttering under her breath.
Something about going home in the morning.
Chapter 6
Amy headed straight for the bedroom, her buzz replaced by a dull headache and an upset stomach. She flipped on a lamp. In the bleak light, she studied the double bed, trying to determine whether she could sleep on it. She pulled down the blanket, exposing the sheets. Cream-colored, though they might once have been white. No glaring stains, no pungent odors. The bed would have to do for tonight.
She pulled her luggage through the doorway and set it on top of the antique wood dresser. She unzipped the suitcase (slowly, so that the fabric wouldn’t catch), and ruffled through her items for bedclothes. She caught her reflection in the cloudy mirror above the dresser mimicking her every move. She paused for a moment and stared at herself, her pale green eyes appearing darker than ever before.
Truth was, she hated who she saw. She hadn’t called her mother, who was probably worried sick. It was too late to call now even with the time difference. She was angry at herself for not calling from the airport. For letting Craig hurry her out as though the atrium were on fire. He truly hated her mother. Still blamed her for Amy’s abandoning him in Hawaii.
And Amy had let him believe that that was the case. That her leaving him in Honolulu was all her mother’s fault. That her mother had left her no choice.
She loved Craig, she really did. He made her feel comfortable and they had shared some wonderful times together. He was a good guy deep down, and she knew he loved her very much. He was incredibly intelligent, a genius really, so attractive and so creative. But they were just so different now.
She wasn’t a free spirit, a dreamer. Someone who could live without a steady job or the promise of a pension. She needed health insurance and a 401K. She needed some sort of security. She didn’t want to end up like her mother.
Her poor mother. Amy turned away from the mirror and removed her shirt and bra. She thought, Just because his mother’s a cunt doesn’t mean mine is, too.
But then, Amy had aided in widening the rift between Craig and her parents, and she had to accept some of the blame. She had facilitated one of their very first fights by crying to her mother that he had struck her.
The fact was she didn’t remember what happened that night. She had woken with bruises and knew she had been upset. When her mother returned her drunken call that morning and repeated what Amy had said in her message, Amy stuck to the story she apparently told the previous night. Yeah, Mom, he hit me.
But Craig’s version made more sense. She remembered being livid with him for checking her email. Not for checking it really, but for finding a message she didn’t
want him to find. She had attacked him, he said. He merely pushed her off. And drunk, she had lost her balance and fell hard to the floor.
Amy changed into a tee shirt and pajama bottoms and stepped into the bathroom in bare feet. It was a tight fit. The bathroom was a dreary blue and smelled of the mold creeping along the tiled walls of the miniscule shower. The room possessed a mirrored medicine cabinet, its door askew, clinging to its hinges for dear life; a toilet that would make public toilets ill; and (welcome to Europe) a bidet.
Amy peed, brushed her teeth and got out of there as quickly as possible.
Craig was puttering around the bedroom.
“It works,” he said, pointing to the plastic yellow phone on the night table. “I’ll give you some privacy if you want to call your mom.”
“That’s all right,” she mumbled, taking one last look at the bed. “I’ll wait until morning.”
“Afternoon,” he reminded her, removing his shirt. “Don’t forget the time difference.”
He waited for her to crawl into bed, then he killed the lamp and climbed in beside her.
They settled in, Amy on her side, Craig on his. Once they were comfortable, they craned their necks and leaned toward one another, each searching the darkness for the other’s lips. They exchanged their obligatory closed-mouthed kiss.
She felt sorry for him. For what she was about to do to him. Again.
Five minutes passed in utter silence. It rarely took Amy more than seven to fall asleep. But before she was able to drift off tonight, they heard it. Muffled music fighting its way through the wall just behind their headboard.
Craig sighed. “Of all the goddamn luck.”
Amy sat up. The room was windowless and pitch dark. “Maybe it’ll stop,” she said.
Ordinarily she could sleep through an earthquake. The headache and upset stomach would never allow that tonight.
She felt Craig push himself up onto his knees, knew he had placed his right ear against the wall.
“What are you doing?” she said.