Freelander

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When I was between my twenties and my thirties I had a great love. Back then, I promised to myself that some day I’d write her story; a story that would astonish – if not shock – any reader who wouldn’t simply opt for disbelief. But what! Wasn’t she the most exceptional, the most overthrowing, fiendish and maddening woman that any man could possibly have? Now, half as many years later as I was in that time, and soundly healed from all the grief that I underwent thereafter, I’m offering this story to you.
She brought to my life as much misery and affliction as a man can endure; yet, one hour by her side was worth a week of woe, and I was granted many more of the former than of the latter during our twelve full bittersweet moons together.

She was a girl in a thousand.

Lewd as a cat in heat she was, sporting a red lipstick wound for a mouth that, when widened to a broad bright smile, underlined the gaiety of two dark-brown piercing eyes upon an oval face, contoured by a long copious black mane cascading both sides over the shoulders as low as the tip of her swollen, preternatural firm teats that pointed up to heaven in a silent and continual thanksgiving to the divine powers that forged them.

On our amatory strivings she made a total and blind offering of her anatomy, not scrimping a single inch of flesh, a cleft in her body or a twist of her flexible figure. There were no prohibitions or unfulfilled fantasies with her, no refusals or lame procrastinations. Magnanimous, obliging and grateful, she would promptly get aroused; and often, the touch of a passionate kiss or a caress, the tickling stimulus of an ardent word whisperd by the ear, or simply the heat of my intense, kindled stare, sufficed for her to accomplish one more of those countless orgasms that, like beads in a rosary, she would thread into a longlasting ecstasy that lingered on until eventually she almost lost her conscience, her sense of place and time, and fainted; an ecstasy that would finally drive me as well to a devastating paroxysm of pleasure.

Oh, was she nymphomaniac? Not exactly; rather, she was the sex just because. Always ready for it, but not ruled by it.

Nothing and nobody could actually rule her. Such was her almighty will. Generous and unsatiable, but free above everything. She wouldn’t take any bounds to the flesh or to the heart, though she would willingly give you her soul on an only condition: no questions and no reasons. Questions annoyed her and she would only answer you with lies; smart lies whose secret was only hers, but that you would believe; lies that overlapped each other, subtly dragging you with them one more step towards an abyss of madness. And reasons? There was no other reason than her own sovereign will; and if her will was yours, what else could you ask?

But don’t try to deceit her! She would quickly uncover the sham no matter where this lay, and whatever you could do, she could always do better. If you wanted to fool her, she fooled you twice. Victorious in any battle, her brain could rival with the most outstanding ones: witty, sharp, funny, invincible. She could scan your thoughts and read into your mind, and all the passion and ardor that used in bed would turn into cold steel at the least suspicion of her freedom being hampered; then her look and words would cut like a chisel.
Was she insane? Demented and paranoid? Of course she was! Totally unsound. But hers was a godly disorder, the very source of her conspicuity and strength.
For twelve moons she was my god and my priestess, offering me her whole self; and though she was alien to pain I swear – I swear that I once saw her weep.
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Mockba was the most celebrated nightclub in town; though certainly not the best one: its long admission queue finally led to a costly local densely permeated by cigarette smoke, sticky puddled with beer and partially carpeted in broken glasses, featuring a limited and stifling dance floor and an invariably bad-tempered staff. However, out of one of those inexplicable whims of people, it was the favourite chicks’ pick, and therefore also mine. And, after all, its reputation might not have been altogether unjustified: I used to be lucky there, and my expectations were seldom disappointed.
That was my last night in the club. A few days later I was bound to leave the town for good.
Posted in one of the strategic corners, liquor glass in hand, I kept watch on the newcoming concave-gendered elements and the transit of the already present ones.
Having overlooked her before, the woman appeared suddenly in the focal point of my retine. She wasn’t neither the prettiest nor the youngest, but she was good looking and, her eyes beaming with a natural smile of their own, surely she was one of those rare persons who have an ineffable something around their countenance or their bearing, the quintessence of sympathy, an inborn elegance in demeanour, the ultimate sparkle of intelligence, a something that lends them an unmistakable and irresistible allure and makes them conspicuously outstand the others.
Nonetheless, as she was in the company of a man, I quickly consigned her to oblivion.
However, after a while, when passing this couple on my way to the dance floor, I heard my own voice unexpectedly saying to her: ‘you’ve got something special’.
‘Thank you! So you do!’ was the inmediate reply. And a broad smile on her mouth underlined the one that her eyes already denoted.
Later on, we came across again. She was now by herself, and this time it was she who, checking her pace, endowed me with a resplendent expression of gratitude:
‘I wanted to thank you for what  you told me before’ she said.
‘Oh! I wasn’t flattering you in vain’ answered I, ‘but just loudly set forth what my mind was thinking. I believe you have this exceptional something, this natural radiance, this charismatic glamour onto your visage; a kind of luster that outstands. Besides, you look straight into the people’s eyes, instead of dodging their stares…’
‘One thousand heartfelt thanks’ she almost shouted. ‘Yes, it’s true that our nation suffers from an excess of bashfulness. But please don’t ever stop doing what you’ve done. Please don’t stop asserting those thoughts!’
I had never met a lady so indebted by a compliment, and I wondered, had she never been told something similar before?
We still talked for a little while, enough for learning our names, and at last we heartily shook hands, longer than necessary, until the end of our conversation, thus prolonging a contact that had already turned into a caress.
‘May you have a beautiful life’, she bade me farewell; and, before parting, she sent me on her fingers a warm kiss that I couldn’t trap in time: it got lost among the smoke, the music and the clamor of Mockba.
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If we keep our sexual life passably diversified and assorted, there comes a moment when we meet a very special partner; a partner whose combination of mind and body is such that unbeatably matches our tastes; a partner whose visage or figure, flesh or skin, hue or touch, or whose mating behaviour are of such nature that mean an epiphany to our senses; a partner with whom we experience the utmost mental and corporal satisfaction, driving us to the brim of madness.
However, paradoxically, contrary to what we might at first think, and in contrast with the glory we’re briefly enjoying, we find out quite soon that this encounter only dooms us to unhappiness, because, representing the summit of our sexual history, means also a challenge to any future love. After we lose this person (and we will, because these matches are seldom reciprocal, being merely coincidental if such a lover experienced the same with respect to us), from then on we’ll only perceive, in our future partners, decline and mediocrity: we’ll search and search, but rather hopelessly, because we know we won‘t find the twin.
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It was one of the saddest evenings of my life, I believe.

We were walking in silence along the stale Berdnardskiego park and -as who bleeds to death- with every new step we took a stronger affliction overcame us.

In the orangey eventide, we came to sit on an old stoney stands half in ruins, eaten up by the grass. Down, at the other end of the field, some men played ball and their scattered voices, indistinct, emphasized the silence and isolated us even from ourselves. It was our farewell walk, though we hadn’t confessed it to each other.

The gaiety of the eve rendered, by contrast, more despondent the failure of that day. We had agreed on spending a few ones together and giving us a last chance for working it out. But, as usual, after the mirth and glee of the first hours, we had been quarrelling that morning and a mute and persistent silence, filled with gloom, settled down between us and left us helpless. Let’s go for a walk, proposed she for running away from that agony of dead feelings.

Sheltered by the player’s voices, our stares lost in the nothingness, we watched the minutes fall, and strike, like mourn chimes. I told her you move away from the people that loves you because you believe you don’t deserve being happy. I told her but you don’t have to atone for any sin, you have the same right to happiness as any other. She looked at me with a smile full of tenderness but as sad as life, and I, desolate, could see how her love, like the setting sun in the twilight which embraced us, died away behind her big blue eyes, second after second… and I couldn’t but sit there and watch.

The silence spoke to ourselves yet for a while, waiting for the twilight to die. Then, she slowly turned to me and kissed me on the cheeks, while onto hers, two heavy tears -breaming over her long eyelashes- trickled down, leaving the bright and salty trace of sorrow.

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Fue una de las tardes más tristes de mi vida, creo.
Paseábamos en silencio por el caduco parque Bernardskiego y, como quien se desangra, con cada paso que dábamos una mayor lasitud nos vaciaba. Era como un tácito adiós.
En la tarde anaranjada que moría, fuimos a sentarnos sobre las gradas de piedra, medio en ruinas e invadidas por la hierba, de un centenario campo deportivo. Allá, al otro extremo, unos hombres jugaban al balón y sus voces dispersas, indistintas, acentuaban el silencio y nos aislaban incluso de nosotros mismos.
La alegría de la víspera subrayaba aún más el aciago fracaso de aquella jornada: habíamos acordado pasar unos días juntos para volver a intentarlo por última vez; pero, como siempre, pasada la excitación y el entusiasmo de las primeras horas, aquella mañana habíamos discutido y durante todo el día un vacío elocuente y pertinaz, cargado de nostalgia e impotencia, se instaló entre nosotros dejándonos indefensos. Demos un paseo, había propuesto ella para escapar de aquel infierno de sentimientos muertos.
Amparados por las voces de los jugadores, perdidas en la nada nuestras miradas, veíamos caer los minutos como campanadas de duelo. Le dije te alejas de las personas que te quieren porque crees que no mereces ser feliz. Le dije pero no has de expiar ningún pecado, tienes tanto derecho a la felicidad como cualquiera. Ella me miró con una sonrisa llena de ternura pero tan triste como la vida, y entonces vi, con total desolación, cómo su amor se iba ocultando segundo a segundo -el sol poniente de la tarde que nos amparaba- tras aquellos grandes ojos claros; cómo su cariño se me escapaba, cual gorrión huye de la mano, sin sin poder hacer nada para detenerlo.
El silencio habló por nosotros aún algunos momentos, hasta el final del crepúsculo. Entonces, ella se inclinó para besarme en la mejilla: por las suyas, dos gruesas lágrimas, derramándose desde sus largas pestañas, dejaban el rastro brillante y salado del desamor.
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