Open Door Read Free

so hard that I spilt what was left of my wine down my blouse. I also took a little bite out of the glass. A strange sensation, rather unpleasant. Aída whipped round quickly, appalled, slightly drunk, and I think she spilt some of her drink on my trousers too. From that moment on, Aída didn’t stop talking. How awful, was the first thing she said. She grabbed my hand and led me to the toilets, barging her way though the crowd. She took a cotton bud from her handbag, wet it with alcohol, and brushed it several times across my lower lip, which was only bleeding slightly. It’s nothing, just a tiny cut, she was saying. She offered me a cigarette and we smoked in front of the mirror. Me, sitting on the edge of the toilet with my legs swinging; her, leaning against the wall. She asked me everything at once and I replied to some of her questions.
    Aída tells me that she doesn’t know why she comes to these parties, that they’re always the same in the end, people crushed up against each other, barely able to move. I didn’t know, I say, that it was a party. When we left the toilets, Aída brushed her fingers over my lips again. She didn’t need to. Come on, let me buy a round and we’ll forget the whole silly incident. The silly drink, she corrects herself and laughs.
    Aída repeats three times that she’s a photographer and works freelance for a couple of fashion and decorating magazines.
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘I was going to be a vet, but now I just work for one,’ I say and she immediately takes an interest. She tells me that she has a twelve-year-old dog called Diki whose paw had to be amputated last November because it got caught in the spokes of a bike.
    ‘I’m going to catch a taxi, can I take you anywhere?’ Aída asks after a pause. I tell her no, thanks anyway, I still don’t know where I’m going. She insists.
    ‘Why don’t you come for a drink at my place while you decide?’
    I let her lead me. The rain, which has come back with renewed enthusiasm, convinces me.
     
    Aída’s place was a two-room affair in Calle Montevideo, half a block from Avenida Córdoba. An old building with a very tall door of black iron, two or three stairs covered with a red carpet and a traditional lift with a rectangular mirror at the back.
    When she opened the flat door, Diki jumped up at her, pawing at her legs. Aída bent down to cuddle him and Diki responded by licking her cheeks. I had seen many dogs in my time, but never one like this, ugly as well as lame.
    ‘Do you like anisette?’ Aída asked. ‘I love it,’ she answered herself and filled two small glasses decorated with gold crescent moons. Two Turkish glasses. Anisette seemed like an old-fashioned drink to me, and now that I could see her clearly, under lamplight, it felt appropriate: Aída had something old-fashioned about her too.
    She raised her glass, I raised mine and we clinked them. I don’t quite know how Aída ended up massaging my neck, and my back, her hands like pincers. She did it very well, like a professional. She poured me another glass, and, as she unbuttoned my blouse, she asked:
    ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
    We spent a long time on the sofa, listening to music, talking nonsense, initially without touching each other, then later, on her initiative, playfully intertwining our legs. Aída’s were long and slim. Another glass of anisette and Aída leant her head against my shoulder. She asked me to stroke her. To the touch, Aída’s skin confirmed something that had caught my attention when she was near me in the lift. Her cheeks were covered in little transparent flakes, like puff pastry. Aída suggested we lie down on her bed. We’ll be comfier there, she said.
    Clothes always lie. Or rather, if they don’t lie, at the very least they conceal. Aída undressed. And if she had seemed a fairly normal girl before, well formed but normal, when I saw her naked, straight on, I was surprised by how small her tits were, like toys, as if