I woke up next to Sonia, a woman whom I would never have wanted to hear for more than one cigarette. Dreaming of what accountants dream of, she squirmed on my poor left arm. I reached over to the bedside table for the cell phone, and set an alarm to go off five minutes later. She knew that I had had to come back from Barcelona after losing my job because of a client who was too busy with his efebo in Chinatown to rectify the scandal that he had made me in front of my boss. The night before, I was careful to show myself hurt and resilient at the same time, because that worked better for me with girls her age and, above all, her social class. Do not show off, do not display knowledge, or even seduce; just be the reflection of your ambitions. Living proof that her lost hours in the office will reward you with a bright future. Before putting the phone back on the bedside table and closing my eyes, I scanned the bedroom for my underwear. Morning light poured through the drawn blinds, revealing a collection of bobbleheads on the shelves and a rug too thick for what this dollhouse room was asking for, but no sign of my Calvin Kleins. However, I did notice a small painting next to the built-in closet. It represented a Goyesque fight between two naked young men, thrown onto the canvas with violent brushstrokes, fierce and vulnerable.
- Calculating an escape plan?
I turned to Sonia, who was waiting for an answer with one eye open.
-Of course not. I was looking at your collection of dolls.
She stretched with a long yawn. Someone more vulgar than I would say was better off without makeup. It looked like the sketch of the woman I had slept with to me. A girl.
-You are so cute. But you wouldn't be the first to get off the hook without telling me anything. And I wouldn't have minded. I have better things to think about -she said with a smug smile.
-You're a girl with priorities, huh?
Sonia shook her head and jumped up. As she slowly raised the blinds, I reached over and wrapped my arms around her waist. She smiled. I ran my fingers over the symmetries of her tattoo, feeling the contour of her breasts until I reached her abdomen. The working woman so eager to be bourgeois that she engraved a lace bra on her skin. Upon arriving the vicinity of her belly button, she released the rope and reached up so that my hands were level with her pubis. I grabbed her neck firmly and she stuck her tongue out of it. I didn't look at her for a second. No. My attention belonged to the fighters next to the closet, at last properly lit. Now the painting looked like a meeting of two wild lovers, about to collide with each other and bite to pieces. I wanted to roll on the ground with them and nail us all the pebbles of the wasteland. Suddenly, my cell phone alarm went off and I felt something sharp pinching my fingers.
-Ah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! -Sonia yelled.
Looking like she had stepped on the cat, she grabbed my wrist and showed me my own hand. The knuckles were soaked in blood.
-God! I was scared with the alarm and ...!
-Quiet. Look, it's not deep, -I lied to him.
-Good thing it was on the fingers and not on ...
-I'm going to wash this off, okay?
With my hand open under the stream of cold water, I remembered Claudia. During the brief time that she lived with me in the student flat, she insisted on scratching me. She said she got hot watching them from her class seat, a few chairs away. I offered him my chest and my neck. And her wrists to tie to the radiator. Since she invited the boy who was sitting in one of those chairs to the flat, I reserve the power to hurt me to art and nothing else. I dried myself with a fluffy towel and began to rub the stains on the sink. There was something clogging the drain. They were tiny stones. Sonia knocked on the door.
- I'm going to prepare coffee. Then I want to show you a painting that I painted last week. Let's see what your opinion is as a dealer.
I opened the door. She still kept the childish smile with which she must have framed the previous sentence.
- It's a task I could only do after coffee -I replied.
Sonia went to the kitchen. Could someone like her really be the author of such a work? Not even Mala Delta, the artist I discovered at a rave and earned me a top spot on the flimsy podium of the art market, she managed to shake me with such impunity. I went back to the room to get dressed. Considering what the panorama offered, this time I would need any remnant of charisma that was inside me. It would occur to me later with what objective.
The kitchen looked larger than when her ass was on the counter and not two full cups of cheap coffee. Sonia cast her eyes against every seam of my suit. They shone a lot.
-I had forgotten your pints from last night -she teased.
- I bought it in a tailor shop here with my first salary, you know.
- And did you wear it to go on a date with me? -she asked, and was silent for a momento-. No, of course not. If you didn't even know me I rectify: would you choose that suit for a second date with me?
I covered my mouth with the cup.
- Would you like me not to wash it until then?
Sonia twisted her nose and laughed.
- We're going to do something. Tell me, what size are you?
I replied.
- I knew it! Listen to me. You're going to leave here with a suit that I have in my closet. When we meet again, I will bring your suit and you, the one that I am going to lend you -She held out her hand.
I shook it.
- Sonia.
- Xxxxx Xxxx.
- Let's look at that painting.
She patted the table and disappeared down the hall. The clatter of clutter lasted for five minutes. It took me a while to process that he might also want to surprise me with the damn suit. Although the sharks that cheered my tank despise the inability of people to engage in dialogue with a work of art, what unnerves me is their ineptitude at identifying golden opportunities. They see them fall around them and cover everything and their best effort is to stick the tongue in the air and wait. Sonia appeared with the painting under her arm. She made a French waiter grimace and, with her chin raised, she turned it towards me. I held back my disgust.
- I warn you that in this I did not use the pigments that I usually use. Is there business? -she asked.
- I already have an offer for you.
-Shoot -she said.
- When you were little, did the rich kid in class ever invite you to his house to do your homework?
- The rich girl. Adriana. She would whistle at each ‘s’.
- You were probably amazed at the decor. Modern furniture, appliances you didn't even know about and… did you notice the paintings?
- Yes! -she bounced-. They were by super famous painters and I wondered if they really had so much money. There was a Degas, a Matisse and… what was the name of the one with the apple on his face?
- Rockwell. Norman Rockwell. Well, those reproductions remain discolored on the walls of thousands of upper-middle-class families. In Spain and in most of the West. However, the trend of the new batch is the pictures that convey elegance, but at the same time, calm. The wave of money that moves the domestic market is terrifying. And, Sonia, I want to help you on that wave.
She was silent.
- Just let me add a couple of spurs to the agreement: the picture of the boys fighting that you have hanging in your bedroom and an original one in two months.
The abomination I'd been holding before me returned to her armpit, where it couldn't hurt anyone. It seemed that her brain would have collapsed with the mere integration of a "good afternoon."
- Wow ... You take your job very seriously. Hey, I'll hit mine in about twenty minutes. You will not have time to fulfill your part of the other deal.
That. Damn. Ineptitude.
- Give me ten -I replied.
It only took seven to slip into the shirt and gray jacket she left me on the bed. I didn't notice when I got off her flat, but it stank of sweat and had drips of acrylic paint on its lapels.
Two months have passed and I am still in contact with Sonia. She sends me photos of the evolution of her new work from time to time and her eyes shine like that morning. I have been losing the tan from the Catalan beaches, in addition to a few kilos. The suit is a little too big for me by now. If I appeal to my sincerity, the ocher of my skin and the green of my eyes suit the fields that Sonia paints much better.
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