Lucia |
Issue 5
|
|
I
Jonathan was as inexperienced in all aspects of love, as he was curious about them. Being merely 21 years old, this had, of course, begun to bother him enough to the point of causing an unescapable and ever-growing inner turmoil which only inexperience and curiosity can cause. That feeling played a large role in his decision to finally sleep with Lucia.
At the church he frequents with his mother (his father had died of a heart attack when he was eight, and she never remarried) ever since he was six years old, he had met someone. For the past five months, he counted himself as having a girlfriend. She was a shy girl, two years younger, and the daughter of a respected deacon in the small community of around two-hundred members. Her name was Lucia, and she played the keyboards at the church band, which is how they started talking, as he played the drums. They, although not necessarily in love, had grown slowly and surely, accustomed to each other’s company, up to the point that they started to appreciate it, and occasionally, they, not only preferred it to the boredom of loneliness, but actually enjoyed it. As a young man raised as a church-going believer, he knew that there were certain things that were within the domain of a married couple. Sex was the most obvious one, but certain liberties and certain practices were also frowned upon before matrimony. He hardly ever had the opportunity to be alone in a single room with Lucia for a long period of time. In the few times that they had, there was not a strong enough spark that would make them sin against their faith. They believed themselves to be exemplary Christians, and no one who knew them would doubt that. Neither of them, however, considered that the main reason they had not taken more advantages with each other, was simply because neither of them truly desired the other. There had been a subtle yet constant push for Jonathan and Lucia to date for the last three or four years. Jonathan’s mom would never lose an opportunity to compliment Lucia and mention how she was turning into a remarkable woman at the service of the Lord. Lucia’s mom, on the other hand, would often invite Jonathan and his mother to eat lunch after service at her home. She would always send the two on errands; there was always ice cream, a cake or soda to be bought at the supermarket across the street. More important than all that, however, was pastor Robson’s nudges and remarks to the young ones. Covered by both divine intervention and good intentions, he would inflate both parties’ egos saying that one was giving the other, long and lingering looks. Had it begun as a lie or as a mere overstatement, Robson could not say, for he himself started to truly believe in what had been steadily and surreptitiously planted inside his head by both mothers. Moreover, he was convinced that this was one of God’s many plans for them, and that after several exhaustive hours of praying, God Himself, revealed that He had chosen to unite the two with Robson being the first one to know. A day later, Robson called both Jonathan and Lucia to tell them that God had a plan for their lives, leading to matrimony and children. He had seen them exchanging looks for months now, and a relationship hidden from the elders of the Church could lead to temptation and consequently sin. Jonathan and Lucia were not sure if they had ever exchanged looks that were so obviously noticeable by others. There were looks, of course, but they have always considered themselves to have been discrete with everything concerning their heads, including their eyes. Pastor Robson, of course, began with a stern tone, but then talked for half an hour on the blessings of a relationship consecrated to God. As a man who also worked as a used car salesman in Madureira, one of Rio de Janeiro’s suburbs, he could be very convincing in his arguments. Jonathan and Lucia really started believing that they were made for each other at the end. Furthermore, they were eager to have a new status in front of the other church members. Not yet adults, but no longer teenagers. They had begun a rite of passage and more than anything else, yearned for the new status to come in their community. Yet Jonathan felt like there was something amiss with his relationship. He had but the faintest fantasies on having sex with Lucia before they would’ve been married. She was not the type of woman that would give in so easily, and he was not the type of man to seduce her into either. Moreover, he never truly pictured himself with her. He saw her as a great wife, perhaps even a good friend, but never as a lover. His friends from college would eventually discuss the topic of sex in a way that was equally crass and enticing. He knew that a believer should not sit and break bread with sinners, but curiosity is a devious feeling… He would sit with his colleagues, drinking diet coke, while they drank beer at the cheapest bar in front of the shopping mall that housed the campus they studied. While the topics always began with football, often swerving into politics, they would always and inevitably talk about women. Jonathan was not that interested in football, being a Vasco da Gama fan only nominally; he was not very comfortable talking about politics either. This was good, as he could, for the most part, merely be a listener, as his mates did not notice his silence. It was during one of those get-togethers that Deivid mentioned a great night he had had with a prostitute, who also went by the name of Lucia. André sardonically commented: “Fuck, she’d be perfect for Jonathan. Same name as his girl. He won’t have to worry about saying the wrong name at home.” All the others laughed, while he continued: “Not that Jonathan is getting laid. He chose to wait, being a believer and shit” Felipe interjected and said: “Deivid, post her number on our WhatsApp group, so he can call her if he wants to.” And he did it. He posted her number amongst the flow of memes, questions regarding Civil Law, political discussions in a chat group with eighteen young men called the ‘Wolf Pack of Campo Grande’. There they were the nine digits that Jonathan could not stop thinking about. For the first time he felt a sexual desire for Lucia. He looked at her profile picture and it was just the body of a voluptuous woman with lingerie. The same type of body that he would see in the porn films he watched with a frequency he would never confess to anyone. The same type of body that he imagined himself with, when his mind wondered while sitting on a 75-minute train trip to his internship in the central area of Rio de Janeiro. He had saved her number in his phone and named the contact ‘Lucia ESC’. ESC standing from escort, but it also allowed him the possibility of saying it was a client from the law firm he interned at, in the off chance somebody looked at his phone. What would ESC stand for? Perhaps a company. What would ESC produce? Rubber, latex, wheat, meat, milk, microprocessors, pulp, paper, plastic, porcelain, petroleum, plutonium? Anything and everything, really… He texted her asking if he would have time next Tuesday. He had accumulated enough extra-hours at his job that he could take a day off and visit her. She lived at Recreio, one of the swanky neighbourhoods built to cater to the expanding middle-class in Rio, in the 1990s. From his house, it would take around fifty minutes by bus. She said she could see him at 10 a.m. and that she required a wire transfer of 50% of her hourly rate, which was 300 reais for an hour. He sent her the money and booked the time. He had no experience on how those affairs were conducted, but he trusted her because of the flying recommendations that his colleague had presented from her, and more importantly than that, Lucia was a name that evoked trustworthiness. He knew however, that he would not take a bus there, rather, he would take an Uber instead. He would leave home as usual, and instead of taking a bus then the train, he would walk a distance and then take a car to her place. At first, he thought about not telling anyone, and keep this a secret between Lucia and himself. However, if anything were to happen to him? He considered the topic for a minute and decided to inform someone. He could not, for obvious reasons, tell anyone from his church, where his true friends were. He wondered a little, and then thought of Deivid. Could he keep a secret? Most likely not, but it was still worth the shot. Deivid was raised in church but according to himself he had deviated from the ways of the Lord, so he could understand the seriousness of what was about to take place. He had no assurances that he would keep it to himself, but at worse, only his college friends would know about it. His social circle from church and his social circle from his college and from his work, (mostly from wealthy families from the South area of Rio) never mingled. This is the magic of living in a city such as Rio. It is composed of millions of small groups, which go on with their lives, completely ignorant of each another. On Friday, before their first class, he called Deivid up to a corner. Stuttering and not truly able to look him in the eye, he confessed his plans about sleeping with Lucia on Tuesday and that he needed someone to know, in case, things went bad. Deivid laughed. “No fucking way, bro! You?! The Christian dude? Fucking a whore?! – he said while, not only barely controlling his laughter, but rather entertained by it. “Shhh”, said Jonathan, now looking at him directly. “Quiet, please. I know it’s odd, but I am curious, and you know…” “Yeah, I know, you are a virgin and you wanna get rid of it. I get it. My first time was also with a whore. Except I was 13 when it happened. My old man took me there and paid it.”, said Deivid with a smile on his voice, while he fondly remembered that night and, how thankful he was for his father’s gesture of appreciation and generosity towards him. “All right”, Deivid continued, “just let me know when it’s all done. Do you want me to go with you or something?” “No, no, you don’t need to. I will send you a message when I am finished.” |
TIAGO DUARTE DIAS has published poems and short stories both in English and in Portuguese at literary journals such as TERSE. Journal, Dyst and 7Letras. He is also the leader of a musical project Warmest Winter. Currently seeking an academic career in anthropology, while struggling to change diapers of his first child, born in December of this year.
|
II
It was a grey and warm Tuesday in the suburbs of Rio. Humidity impregnated the air and together with the dust from the streets; it was as if the atmosphere was made of clay. The lack of natural shadows and trees made things even more unbearable. It was a normal day in Campo Grande. Jonathan had barely slept during the night. He was both anxious and repentant; afraid and excited; decided and full of guilt. For the last couple of days, he had managed to stay away from pornography and masturbation, a struggle for him. The few times he managed to control his desire and not fall into temptation, he had God in his mind; now it was Lucia who he couldn’t stop thinking... Her picture on her WhatsApp profile, her faceless body and the red lingerie. Revealing and mysterious. Above all, he was feeling horny the entire week and saving himself for her.
He left home early in the morning after showering, eating breakfast, kissing his mother on the cheek, and asking her to bless him as he would always do. He walked for three blocks, and instead of going right, to the bus stop, he went further and further, looking over his shoulder so no familiar faces would see him getting into the Uber. No one could possibly know where he was going to, nor what he was about to do, and that much he knew, but he could not afford to take any chances. God knew. Deivid knew. Both were, however, much more understanding than the people at his church. Should they find out, the shame from it would have been unbearable, and just the thought of it was almost enough to want to make him turn back around and cancel his plans. He would not be able to look Lucia, his pastor, his friends, and his mother in the eyes for a long time. The drive there took twenty-five minutes more than he had expected. The driver had a little trouble finding his location. Besides, there were some road repairs on the way there. However, he hardly felt it. His stomach swirled and he felt slightly nauseated. He thought of Lucia and it instantly helped him calm his nerves. He became a bit more rational; no one could, nor would find out. No one had seen him, that much he was sure, or any case, was as sure as he could be. Lucia was the final destination, and now it was too late to change plans.
He had a good margin on time. He had planned on arriving at the place some fifty minutes before, in order to account for any misfortunes on the way. Even with the delays, he was there twenty minutes too early. He asked the Uber driver if he could wait around for those twenty minutes for 30 bucks, which the driver promptly accepted. While sitting in the backseat of the black Ford Fiesta, he texted Deivid.
“I’m here, bro. That’s it”
“Cool”, he answered, followed by a sequence of lewd emojis.
Five minutes have passed. He called her. It rang once, then again, and a third time. She picked up.
“Hello, gorgeous”
“Hey, hmm, it’s me, I am just calling, hmm, to tell you that I am in front of your place now actually.”
“Ok! Just come over, stallion”
He paid the driver, which left without saying any word, but thought to himself that it must have been the third or fourth time that he had taken someone to that building, where the prostitute lived. She must be quite the impressive whore. He looked at golden finger in his left hand and started to wonder if he should message his last client and ask for her number, or if he should just come and ask around. In the midst of all these thoughts, another client had called, some 500m from where he left Jonathan, and he drove, eager to see where the day would take him, in this warm and cloudy day in the Wonderful City.
Jonathan climbed up the stairs and finally saw Lucia in the flesh. Her face was a bit rounder than he had expected, and yet her nose a bit too big for her face. There was also something rather uncanny on it, which he immediately noticed, but would never, no matter how much he would think of it (and he would think of this day and its events often) until the day he died, be able to understand, let alone describe. It was, dear reader, a conjunction of excessive make-up (which was not very well applied, besides being rather cheap), the baggy eyes behind that said make-up, which it could neither totally hide nor obfuscate, on the contrary, it called its attention to it. Her green eyes, eyes which Jonathan would never forget, (they were actually lensing, and they made so that her sclera was slightly reddened due to the irritation) hid, and not that well, must I add, if Jonathan had been a more experienced or a more intelligent man, he would have noticed it quite obviously, a sense of melancholia and regret about the decisions she had taken in her life up to that point. A trajectory that led her to leave her family, her hometown and their relative poverty in a small village in the countryside of the state of Minas Gerais, to try and be a model in Rio de Janeiro, a place that is quite enough to provide you with a sliver of a dream and then turn it into an illusion; an ever-distant and never-coming mirage. Rio de Janeiro easily destroys people like her from the inside, as if all your inner liquids would boil, slowly but surely. She had begun to suspect this much, but in part due to naivety, in part due to shame, and in part due to hope; a hope that this city is also able to provide on every beautiful sunrise and sunset, on every corner, on every bus, train, metro, van, motorcycle and pair of shoes, she would hang on. Lucia had thought of quitting her life and going back, without telling anyone what she did, then getting married, having children and living a quiet life in her hometown, but she would never, seriously, entertain that thought, until the bitter end, twenty-three years from now, when she quickly died of an undiagnosed cancer in her bones, while occupying a narrow bed, in sweaty sheets, in an infirmary with twenty-five other patients in the Souza Aguiar hospital. Her younger brother would be contacted about her death but could not be able to afford the 17-hour bus trip to Rio de Janeiro. A part of her unclaimed body would serve the unexperienced youth at the medical school at Rio de Janeiro Federal University, while the other would be interred as an indigent somewhere in a cemetery that as this story happens was not yet built. Her eyes carried her past as a poor girl sexually abused at the age of thirteen, her nearer past as a failed model turned into prostitute, her present facing the young, scrawny man, whose face was scarred by a bad case of acne, that she had just opened her door to, and whose nervousness was, strangely enough, slightly appealing to her; her eyes would also carry two more decades of sexual work, disillusion, betrayed friendships, violence, and men with repulsive body smells and appalling hygiene. All of this was, is and will remain unnoticed by Jonathan, whose cock was already starting to feel slightly discomfortable due to having had an erection for the past 15 minutes, in a pair of underwear that was slightly too small and in pants that were slightly too tight. She smiled at him and it made her look slightly uglier and slightly more attractive at the same time. Jonathan, however, paid no mind to those contrasting feelings. She came to him and took him by the hand to a dimly lit room in the back of the house. In there, a plastic bag housed a towel, preservative and lubricant. She sat him in bed and asked him if he would prefer to pay the one hundred and fifty reais with cash or by transferring the money to her account. He paid her in cash. One one-hundred bill, two twenty-bills and one ten-bill. He took the money, left, stored it in a safe, and the went back to the room. This only took 45 seconds. Enough for Jonathan to undress himself. “Quick aren’t we”, she said. She opened one of the condoms and put it on him while kissing his neck, she straddled him. After 45 more seconds, he ejaculated and was no longer a virgin. He had paid for the whole hour and had spent mere four minutes inside her house. He did not know what to say after it. It was not like he needed to impress her, but he felt like he should have had. He went quickly through joy, relief and disappointment and chose the first one. He was no longer a virgin, after all. Lucia said, “honey we can do this again when you’re ready, we can just cuddle for a while, then I can suck you off again when you’re ready”. After 10 minutes, he managed to get hard again, and they fucked again. He lasted one minute and thirty-three seconds. After the second one, he decided to just shower and leave. He did not leave a tip. He called for another Uber and went to a shopping mall nearby where he watched Black Panther Two and had lunch at McDonald’s. He felt like the day deserved a celebration.
He left home early in the morning after showering, eating breakfast, kissing his mother on the cheek, and asking her to bless him as he would always do. He walked for three blocks, and instead of going right, to the bus stop, he went further and further, looking over his shoulder so no familiar faces would see him getting into the Uber. No one could possibly know where he was going to, nor what he was about to do, and that much he knew, but he could not afford to take any chances. God knew. Deivid knew. Both were, however, much more understanding than the people at his church. Should they find out, the shame from it would have been unbearable, and just the thought of it was almost enough to want to make him turn back around and cancel his plans. He would not be able to look Lucia, his pastor, his friends, and his mother in the eyes for a long time. The drive there took twenty-five minutes more than he had expected. The driver had a little trouble finding his location. Besides, there were some road repairs on the way there. However, he hardly felt it. His stomach swirled and he felt slightly nauseated. He thought of Lucia and it instantly helped him calm his nerves. He became a bit more rational; no one could, nor would find out. No one had seen him, that much he was sure, or any case, was as sure as he could be. Lucia was the final destination, and now it was too late to change plans.
He had a good margin on time. He had planned on arriving at the place some fifty minutes before, in order to account for any misfortunes on the way. Even with the delays, he was there twenty minutes too early. He asked the Uber driver if he could wait around for those twenty minutes for 30 bucks, which the driver promptly accepted. While sitting in the backseat of the black Ford Fiesta, he texted Deivid.
“I’m here, bro. That’s it”
“Cool”, he answered, followed by a sequence of lewd emojis.
Five minutes have passed. He called her. It rang once, then again, and a third time. She picked up.
“Hello, gorgeous”
“Hey, hmm, it’s me, I am just calling, hmm, to tell you that I am in front of your place now actually.”
“Ok! Just come over, stallion”
He paid the driver, which left without saying any word, but thought to himself that it must have been the third or fourth time that he had taken someone to that building, where the prostitute lived. She must be quite the impressive whore. He looked at golden finger in his left hand and started to wonder if he should message his last client and ask for her number, or if he should just come and ask around. In the midst of all these thoughts, another client had called, some 500m from where he left Jonathan, and he drove, eager to see where the day would take him, in this warm and cloudy day in the Wonderful City.
Jonathan climbed up the stairs and finally saw Lucia in the flesh. Her face was a bit rounder than he had expected, and yet her nose a bit too big for her face. There was also something rather uncanny on it, which he immediately noticed, but would never, no matter how much he would think of it (and he would think of this day and its events often) until the day he died, be able to understand, let alone describe. It was, dear reader, a conjunction of excessive make-up (which was not very well applied, besides being rather cheap), the baggy eyes behind that said make-up, which it could neither totally hide nor obfuscate, on the contrary, it called its attention to it. Her green eyes, eyes which Jonathan would never forget, (they were actually lensing, and they made so that her sclera was slightly reddened due to the irritation) hid, and not that well, must I add, if Jonathan had been a more experienced or a more intelligent man, he would have noticed it quite obviously, a sense of melancholia and regret about the decisions she had taken in her life up to that point. A trajectory that led her to leave her family, her hometown and their relative poverty in a small village in the countryside of the state of Minas Gerais, to try and be a model in Rio de Janeiro, a place that is quite enough to provide you with a sliver of a dream and then turn it into an illusion; an ever-distant and never-coming mirage. Rio de Janeiro easily destroys people like her from the inside, as if all your inner liquids would boil, slowly but surely. She had begun to suspect this much, but in part due to naivety, in part due to shame, and in part due to hope; a hope that this city is also able to provide on every beautiful sunrise and sunset, on every corner, on every bus, train, metro, van, motorcycle and pair of shoes, she would hang on. Lucia had thought of quitting her life and going back, without telling anyone what she did, then getting married, having children and living a quiet life in her hometown, but she would never, seriously, entertain that thought, until the bitter end, twenty-three years from now, when she quickly died of an undiagnosed cancer in her bones, while occupying a narrow bed, in sweaty sheets, in an infirmary with twenty-five other patients in the Souza Aguiar hospital. Her younger brother would be contacted about her death but could not be able to afford the 17-hour bus trip to Rio de Janeiro. A part of her unclaimed body would serve the unexperienced youth at the medical school at Rio de Janeiro Federal University, while the other would be interred as an indigent somewhere in a cemetery that as this story happens was not yet built. Her eyes carried her past as a poor girl sexually abused at the age of thirteen, her nearer past as a failed model turned into prostitute, her present facing the young, scrawny man, whose face was scarred by a bad case of acne, that she had just opened her door to, and whose nervousness was, strangely enough, slightly appealing to her; her eyes would also carry two more decades of sexual work, disillusion, betrayed friendships, violence, and men with repulsive body smells and appalling hygiene. All of this was, is and will remain unnoticed by Jonathan, whose cock was already starting to feel slightly discomfortable due to having had an erection for the past 15 minutes, in a pair of underwear that was slightly too small and in pants that were slightly too tight. She smiled at him and it made her look slightly uglier and slightly more attractive at the same time. Jonathan, however, paid no mind to those contrasting feelings. She came to him and took him by the hand to a dimly lit room in the back of the house. In there, a plastic bag housed a towel, preservative and lubricant. She sat him in bed and asked him if he would prefer to pay the one hundred and fifty reais with cash or by transferring the money to her account. He paid her in cash. One one-hundred bill, two twenty-bills and one ten-bill. He took the money, left, stored it in a safe, and the went back to the room. This only took 45 seconds. Enough for Jonathan to undress himself. “Quick aren’t we”, she said. She opened one of the condoms and put it on him while kissing his neck, she straddled him. After 45 more seconds, he ejaculated and was no longer a virgin. He had paid for the whole hour and had spent mere four minutes inside her house. He did not know what to say after it. It was not like he needed to impress her, but he felt like he should have had. He went quickly through joy, relief and disappointment and chose the first one. He was no longer a virgin, after all. Lucia said, “honey we can do this again when you’re ready, we can just cuddle for a while, then I can suck you off again when you’re ready”. After 10 minutes, he managed to get hard again, and they fucked again. He lasted one minute and thirty-three seconds. After the second one, he decided to just shower and leave. He did not leave a tip. He called for another Uber and went to a shopping mall nearby where he watched Black Panther Two and had lunch at McDonald’s. He felt like the day deserved a celebration.
III
Three years later Jonathan would marry Lucia. Deivid was one of the guests. He would remain married to Lucia for fifty-three long years, years in which he would be a loyal husband, and only twice unfaithful to Lucia. Both times with prostitutes, during two of his business trips to another state. However, Jonathan would always think of Lucia when he was having any erotic experience, either they were alone or with Lucia, Lucia would be in his mind; never would he forget Lucia, Lucia, always and forever, yes, and until the day he died, Lucia.