an earthquake. The window, the whole dormitory, filled with a seminal odor.”
“How do you know they were copulating?” Don Rigoberto taunted him. “Why not just fighting?”
“They were fighting and fornicating at the same time, as it must be, as it has always had to be.” Fito Cebolla danced in his seat; his hands had locked and his ten fingers rubbed hard against one another, the joints cracking. “They sodomized each other with all their legs, rings, hairs, and eyes, with everything they had in their bodies. I never saw such happy creatures. Nothing has ever been that exciting, I swear by my sainted mother in heaven, Rigo.”
According to him, the excitation produced in him by arachnidian coitus had resisted an aerial ejaculation and several cold showers. After four decades and countless adventures, the memory of those hairy little beasts clutching at one another beneath the inclement blue sky of Baton Rouge still returned to disturb him, and even now, when his years recommended moderation, whenever that distant image came suddenly to mind, it gave him more of a hard-on than a swig of yohimbine.
“Tell us what you did at the Folies-Bergère, Fito,” Teté Barriga requested, knowing perfectly well the risk she was taking. “Even if it’s a lie, it’s so funny!”
“That was asking for it, like holding your hand to the flame,” Señora Lucrecia remarked, drawing out the story. “But Teté loves to play with fire.”
Fito Cebolla stirred in the seat where he sprawled, almost overcome by whiskey. “What do you mean, a lie! It was the only pleasant job I ever had in my life. Even though they treated me as badly as your husband treats me at the office, Lucre. Come, sit with us, pay some attention to us.”
His eyes were glazed, his voice lewd. The other guests were glancing at their watches. Doña Lucrecia, summoning all her courage, sat down next to Teté Barriga and her husband. Fito Cebolla began to evoke that summer. He had been stranded in Paris without a cent, and through a girlfriend he got a job as nippler at the “historic theater on the rue Richer.”
“That’s nippler, not nibbler,” he explained, showing the obscene tip of his reddish tongue, half-closing his salacious eyes, as if to see more clearly what he was looking at (“And what he was looking at was my cleavage, my love.” Don Rigoberto’s solitude became populated, and feverish). “Though my work was the most menial, the worst paid, the success of the show depended on me. And that was a damned big responsibility!”
“What, what was it?” Teté Barriga urged him on.
“To stiffen the nipples of the chorus girls just before they went onstage.”
And for that, in his nook behind the curtains, he had a bucket of ice. The girls, decked out in plumes, adorned with flowers, exotic hairdos, long eyelashes, false fingernails, invisible mesh tights, and peacock tails, their buttocks and breasts bare, bent over Fito Cebolla, who rubbed each nipple and the surrounding corolla with an ice cube. Then they, giving a little shriek, leaped out onstage, their breasts like swords.
“Does it work, does it work?” insisted Teté Barriga, eyeing her sagging bosom while her husband yawned. “If you rub them with ice they get…?”
“Hard, firm, erect, proud, haughty, arrogant, overbearing, bristling, enraged.” Fito Cebolla was prodigal with his synonymatic knowledge. “They stay that way for fifteen minutes by the clock.”
“Yes, it works,” Don Rigoberto repeated to himself. A faint ray of light slipped through the blinds. Another dawn far from Lucrecia. Was it time to wake Fonchito for school? Not yet. But wasn’t she here? As she had been when he had verified the Folies-Bergère formula on her own beautiful breasts. He had seen her dark nipples harden in their golden areolas and offer themselves, as cold and hard as stones, to his lips. The process of verification had cost Lucrecia a cold that had infected him as
“How do you know they were copulating?” Don Rigoberto taunted him. “Why not just fighting?”
“They were fighting and fornicating at the same time, as it must be, as it has always had to be.” Fito Cebolla danced in his seat; his hands had locked and his ten fingers rubbed hard against one another, the joints cracking. “They sodomized each other with all their legs, rings, hairs, and eyes, with everything they had in their bodies. I never saw such happy creatures. Nothing has ever been that exciting, I swear by my sainted mother in heaven, Rigo.”
According to him, the excitation produced in him by arachnidian coitus had resisted an aerial ejaculation and several cold showers. After four decades and countless adventures, the memory of those hairy little beasts clutching at one another beneath the inclement blue sky of Baton Rouge still returned to disturb him, and even now, when his years recommended moderation, whenever that distant image came suddenly to mind, it gave him more of a hard-on than a swig of yohimbine.
“Tell us what you did at the Folies-Bergère, Fito,” Teté Barriga requested, knowing perfectly well the risk she was taking. “Even if it’s a lie, it’s so funny!”
“That was asking for it, like holding your hand to the flame,” Señora Lucrecia remarked, drawing out the story. “But Teté loves to play with fire.”
Fito Cebolla stirred in the seat where he sprawled, almost overcome by whiskey. “What do you mean, a lie! It was the only pleasant job I ever had in my life. Even though they treated me as badly as your husband treats me at the office, Lucre. Come, sit with us, pay some attention to us.”
His eyes were glazed, his voice lewd. The other guests were glancing at their watches. Doña Lucrecia, summoning all her courage, sat down next to Teté Barriga and her husband. Fito Cebolla began to evoke that summer. He had been stranded in Paris without a cent, and through a girlfriend he got a job as nippler at the “historic theater on the rue Richer.”
“That’s nippler, not nibbler,” he explained, showing the obscene tip of his reddish tongue, half-closing his salacious eyes, as if to see more clearly what he was looking at (“And what he was looking at was my cleavage, my love.” Don Rigoberto’s solitude became populated, and feverish). “Though my work was the most menial, the worst paid, the success of the show depended on me. And that was a damned big responsibility!”
“What, what was it?” Teté Barriga urged him on.
“To stiffen the nipples of the chorus girls just before they went onstage.”
And for that, in his nook behind the curtains, he had a bucket of ice. The girls, decked out in plumes, adorned with flowers, exotic hairdos, long eyelashes, false fingernails, invisible mesh tights, and peacock tails, their buttocks and breasts bare, bent over Fito Cebolla, who rubbed each nipple and the surrounding corolla with an ice cube. Then they, giving a little shriek, leaped out onstage, their breasts like swords.
“Does it work, does it work?” insisted Teté Barriga, eyeing her sagging bosom while her husband yawned. “If you rub them with ice they get…?”
“Hard, firm, erect, proud, haughty, arrogant, overbearing, bristling, enraged.” Fito Cebolla was prodigal with his synonymatic knowledge. “They stay that way for fifteen minutes by the clock.”
“Yes, it works,” Don Rigoberto repeated to himself. A faint ray of light slipped through the blinds. Another dawn far from Lucrecia. Was it time to wake Fonchito for school? Not yet. But wasn’t she here? As she had been when he had verified the Folies-Bergère formula on her own beautiful breasts. He had seen her dark nipples harden in their golden areolas and offer themselves, as cold and hard as stones, to his lips. The process of verification had cost Lucrecia a cold that had infected him as
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