“It’s such a beautiful building,” Dídac breathed, more to break the silence and get a hold of his nervousness than anything else.
“Yeah, I feel really privileged to be staying here. Did you say the style was Modernism?”
Dídac nodded.
“Modernisme,” he said, pronouncing the final “-me” as -mey. “It’s the Catalan variant ofArt Nouveau. For many years they denigrated it, tearing down the old buildings. The Francoist regime thought it was a decadent, effeminate style. They saw it as simply decorative. Luckily, back in the late seventies, after the old criminal had died, people began to get together to save these old buildings. Now Catalan Modernisme is what gives Barcelona its distinctive character. People flock here to see it from around the world.”
“Shall we?” Kim was holding out his hand to Dídac.
“Uh, yes.” He pretended not to notice the outstretched hand as he fished his sunglasses from his breast pocket. Kim didn’t force it, and they trotted up the few stairs into the lobby. Dídac walked straight toward the elevator, but Kim paused at the reception desk.
“Could we get a chilled bottle of….” He turned and called: “Dídac, what do you call it? Cavo?”
“Cava,” Dídac said loudly, pursing his lips and staring at the curling metal filigree on the lift cage.
The receptionist seemed discreet, but Dídac preferred not to have it known with whom he was disappearing up into a hotel room to drink a chilled bottle of cava. He didn’t want to scold Kim, but he would have to find some way of communicating his need for discretion. The press here were merciless. Perhaps things were different in Australia, but he suspected rather that Kim, who had spent most of his career in the theater world as opposed to film or television, was simply not used tothe greater public scrutiny that working for the screen involved. When Kim joined him at the elevator, he seemed to sense his change of mood. For a few moments they said nothing. Then the elevator arrived, clanking its way down and landing, slightly worryingly, with a half-hearted crash. The doors were the original turn-of-the-century timber doors with glass panes that you had to open and close manually. They stepped inside and closed them, before pushing the ancient Bakalite button for the seventh floor.
“Every time I take this contraption, I wonder if it will be my last act,” Kim commented.
“Then let’s make your final memory a good one,” murmured Dídac hoarsely, pushing his body against Kim’s. Their lips connected moistly, tongues entwined as their arms snaked around each other, tentative at first, but soon pressing together in a tight hug. Dídac felt his cock go instantly hard in contact with Kim’s muscled body and, being slightly shorter, he could feel Kim’s hard erection throbbing against his stomach. This was it.… Was it really happening? He breathed in through his nose as they kissed, wanting to inhale all of the man’s strong, masculine odor, tinged with his cologne—notes of leather and ceder—along with a distinct, acrid, exciting smell of male sweat.
There was a shudder as the rickety elevator lurched to a stop on Kim’s floor. They broke apart to negotiate the elaborate slow process of opening the ancient double doors, first of the elevator cage and then of the seventh floor, then closing each leaf behind them, making sure they were all firmly shut.
“These old lifts are beautiful,” Kim commented, “but if someone leaves just one door open by accident, the thing is stuck where it is until someone comes huffing up the stairs to close the offending door. I pity the poor receptionists—they must have to do that several times a day.”
“I prefer that,” Dídac said in a low voice. “I’m glad they haven’t modernized it. I like old things.”
“Like me?” Kim cocked an eyebrow at him, smiling.
Dídac chuckled but said nothing, just shaking his head as they walked down the short hall. In fact, he was feeling so nervous he didn’t trust himself to speak. Every time he opened his mouth, his voice seemed to fail him. Kim tapped his key card to the door and, opening it wide, waved Dídac in. Returning to the scene of the crime. Dídac had felt mortified the last time he had stood in this room, and now the memories came flooding back: Laia and he, Elena and Joana, all drunk and confronting the fact that they had imposed themselves without an invite on this revered titan of the theater world. To be honest, part of the fault must lie with the receptionist. Why had they been allowed up if Kim had wanted to sleep?
“I’m sorry for the last time… I was here,” he stammered. “It was a misunderstanding…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kim replied, coming up to him and putting his arms around the younger man. “I’ve been thinking about that. At first I wanted to blame the receptionist, but it was really my fault for assuming that his English was better than it was…. A foreigner’s arrogance, I guess. He mentioned a group from the theater was coming and I think I said something like ‘I’ll pass on that,’ because I needed my sleep. He gave me an answer that I thought weird at the time, but I was too tired to think about it. It might have been something like, ‘I’ll pass them up.’ I just thought it was his poor command of English, but I didn’t think he had actually misunderstood my request not to be disturbed.”
“Well, I’m glad he did,” Dídac commented. “Otherwise I’d never have gotten to see you in that fetching pink robe.”
Kim laughed, a hard, loud sound that broke the tension in the room.
“Thatwasthe receptionist’s fault! Apparently the hotel thought that Kim could only be a woman’s name. So they left me that delectable number! I’ve since got it sorted out.” He nodded to where a man’s pale gray robe hung on the bathroom door.
They began to kiss again, but just then there was a tap on the door. Breaking apart once more, Kim went to answer it while Dídac wandered onto the terrace. Outside, the full moon shone down, marking a clear trail across the Mediterranean sea toward them. The walls of the hotel glowed softly luminescent, while the hills around Barcelona looked like silhouettes cut out of black card. Dídac walked up and leaned on the balcony railing, a further rendition of the stylized fig trees on the façade yet this time worked in wrought iron. He breathed in the night air, sweet with the mountain’s summer perfumes: Spanish jasmine, Mediterranean heather, and wild grasses. Tonight it would happen. He knew.
17
Kim stepped out onto the terrace and placed an ice bucket containing a chilled bottle, and two flutes onto the outside table.
“Let’s see…” he began.
“No, let me,” Dídac cut in. “My uncle has a small winery in Sant Sadurni. I know about cava.”
Kim released the bottle to him with a slight bow.
“The thing about cava… and champagne,” Dídac said, “is that it’s been sitting as still as can be in its dark cellar for up to three years. Unfortunately we see too many TV shots of racing car drivers shaking it up and spraying it over themselves like idiots. But cava should be handled gently, almost caressed, so as not to disturb any remaining sediment or upsetting the careful aging process. You want the gas to release naturally as you’re drinking it. After taking off the foil and wire cage, we hold the cork and just twist the bottle lightly from its base, trying to avoid the cork from popping.”
As he spoke, he demonstrated, performing his actions slowly and lovingly. There was a soft hiss as the cork came out. He laid it on thetable and gently filled one glass and then the other, tilting them so that the cava flowed in without frothing up and overflowing.
“Wow, you’re quite the sommelier!”
