Mantequero Read Free Page A

had brought none of those things because she hadn’t expected to go very far. Now she realised she had come quite a way and the little village was completely out of sight. With a slight shiver, she turned back to the young man and offered him her arm.
    This couldn’t actually be happening. She felt she must have conjured him up somehow out of her fantasies. As they walked down the mountain, she kept glancing sideways at him.
    He was dressed in a very old-fashioned style, even for a mountain villager, in knee britches and a waistcoat, with a wide-brimmed hat shading his eyes, and carrying a large leather bag.  He was a very handsome man, as many Spaniards were, with fine-chiselled features and the typical dark hair and eyes. Only his skin was paler than most, and she didn’t find that unattractive. No, not unattractive at all.
    When they reached the little house at the top of the village, she turned to him and said, “This is where I live, Ignacio.”
    He bowed his head courteously, letting go of her arm.
    She felt a terrible disappointment at the loss of his touch, and she thought, This is it, my one chance. 
    She smiled up at him. “Would you like to come in, Ignacio?”
    His face lit up in a broad smile. “You mean it? You are inviting me in?”
    She nodded, and turned her back on him to insert the key in the lock, her heart thudding so loud she thought he must surely hear it.
    As they stepped through the door, he took her into his arms, and, pushing the door closed with his foot, began to kiss her passionately. “Oh, my beautiful goddess,” he murmured between kisses. “You are SO beautiful, SO beautiful.” And then, without quite knowing how it had happened, she found herself in bed with him, her clothes abandoned, and he was kissing her all over with that strange, exciting, sucking kiss. And she felt an ecstasy she had never known before.
     
    ****
     
    The next morning, when she woke up, he had gone.
    She lay in the aftermath of bliss, reliving the memory and relishing it. She knew she would never see him again, of course. It was a one-off, never to be repeated experience. And how she had loved it. She felt exhausted, fulfilled and husked-out, lighter somehow. She rolled over and went back to sleep. She didn’t have to get up. She was on holiday.
    When she finally did get up, in the late afternoon, and drifted off to get a shower, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she went past and thought, I actually LOOK lighter . Must be the heat and the continental diet, and maybe the unwonted exercise of last night. With a blissful sigh, she stepped into the shower stall.
    Later, she decided to go for a walk to the same spot. She strolled along the goat-tracks until she got to the place where she had been the previous day. There she sat in a reverie and waited for the sun to go down.
    He appeared at dusk, just as he had the previous day, and said, “Hello, Beautiful.” 
    As he bowed, his leather bag slipped off his shoulder and he caught it skilfully as he straightened up.
    Without a word, she proffered her arm and they walked slowly back down the mountain to the village, gazing into each other's eyes as they went.
    A dream, she thought. It's all a dream. I shall wake up in the morning and none of this will have happened.
     
    ****
     
    The next day she slept till early evening and woke exhausted, but ecstatic. She scarcely glanced at herself as she passed the mirror and so did not notice how much thinner she had become.
    He came to her the next night and the night after and she lost track of the days, only aware of how happy she was in this extraordinary new relationship. She never spoke to him, just lay and received his attentions and listened to his words of love... Beautiful, SO beautiful...
     
    ****
     
    One afternoon she woke up ravenous and realised she had hardly eaten anything for days. Everything in the fridge was several days old and none of it looked very appetizing. She went to get