He felt the coolness of the forgotten mask under his fingertips and stood up muttering an excuse that his wife didn’t seem to hear. Nobodypaid him any attention as he stepped out of the café and put on the mask.
He began walking the perimeter of the plaza and saw other men dressed in their tiger masks, hooting and hollering, some of them dancing and others passing around a bottle of liquor.
He searched for Inés, wanting to see her smile that shone as bright as a shooting star, that flash of lively black eyes.
Suddenly he caught sight of her. There she was, dancing not with Bartolo, but with a stranger with a red handkerchief dangling from his back pocket.
Ulises watched her, and she must have felt his gaze, for she looked back at him. He was wearing the mask, but she smirked. She threw her head back, her hair like a black cloud, her lips parted with laughter. The sound of her voice made him shiver.
The melody ended and she moved away from the man. Swiftly he stepped forward and caught her hand, pulling her with him, but she extricated herself from his grasp.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I thought we might dance.”
She shook her head and laughed again. “Is that what you really want to do?” she replied, with a delicious, honeyed wickedness.
This time it was she who grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. They hurried down random streets, then zigzagged into a narrow alley that was speckled with confetti. The murmur of the plaza reached their ears, but it seemed far off, like the sound of the ocean in a conch.
There was one solitary lamppost at the entrance of the alley and as they moved farther in, the dim lights filtering from a window on a second floor could hardly penetrate the knot of shadows at street level. Everyone must have been at the plaza or holed up in cantinas and private parties.
They were breathless by the time he stopped and took off the mask, letting it clatter against the cobblestones. His palms itched to touch thecurve of her breast. She let out a low, sardonic laugh as he pressed her against a wall.
“Have you been drinking much?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I had a glass or two. Why do you care?”
“I’m worried you’re drunk, or else you wouldn’t be this friendly.”
“Who says I’m being friendly?”
“You haven’t kicked me.”
“Dancing always makes me happy. I can’t stay mad if I dance.”
“Lucky me.”
She smirked and stood straight and proud while he wrapped an arm around her waist and looked down at her.
“Can I kiss you or will you slap me?” he asked.
“Try it.”
He brushed his lips against her own, then gently pressed his forehead against hers. The smirk wavered. She seemed confused. That was not the kiss she’d been expecting, or that he’d meant to give her. But Ulises felt a pang of sorrow. He would have liked it to be different between them. He would have liked something ordinary and sweet. To be a man wooing a woman.
She must have guessed his thoughts, for she suddenly acquired a determined, furious look.
“Will you get on with it?” she said, her voice sharp. “I don’t have time for you to recite sonnets.”
Her hands tugged at his belt, and she kissed him, bold and unabashed and challenging. He supposed it was silly to expect sweetness from Inés. Mischief, yes. Sweetness, no. Though he wondered if she’d been different with that boy Perla had mentioned. Salvador. Perhaps he’d bought her flowers and copied lines fromEl Correo del Amor.Even memorized trite phrases from its pages, recited them in a tremulous voice. Manufactured romance that didn’t have an ounce of authenticity but that young women were foolish enough to believe.
He bunched up her skirts and delved his fingers between her folds,found her wet and wanting. She’d lied about not being drunk. She might not have imbibed much that night, but she was drunk on the attention and the motion of the dance. She’d been flirting for two hours with half a dozen men, smiling and teasing them, growing flustered. He suspected any fellow might have satisfied her, that if he hadn’t stumbled upon her she would have gone off with the policeman or the stranger with the handkerchief.
She undid his buckle, and he almost slapped her hands away, offended by the thought of being a useful palliative and nothing more. Yet there was no denying the wave of lust that hit him when she touched him; he wanted her very much, and without any more preamble he eased himself into her.
It had been too long since he’d had a lover. The women he courted for profit did not count, and the rest of his liaisons were brief and as flimsy as a spider’s web, disintegrating at the slightest touch. He even wondered if he’d ever had atruelover, and it was a marvel to find himself in a darkened alley, feeling almost faint with desire after the mechanical expedience with which he handled his conquests.
He rocked his hips, wrapped his hand around a lock of hair, delighted at the lushness of her curls. He wished he might have seen her naked, spread upon a bed. As it was, he hadn’t even had a glimpse of her breasts and still she was divine.
