The Blonde from Madrid Who Changed My Week at the Beach

—Tomorrow’s going to be chaos —my boss warned me on Tuesday, as if I didn’t already know. Wednesday was my last day before three weeks of vacation, and I still had to wrap up the photo archive for the Sunday edition, hand in material for two features, and check the press proofs. I left the paper at two in the morning, red-eyed and with my back knotted tight.

I packed a tiny suitcase: two pairs of pants, three T-shirts, a couple of sarongs, two bathing suits, sandals, and the albums that always travel with me. Camila, my friend since adolescence, had given me a blue beach towel when I told her I was going to Caleta Esmeralda. “You need to disappear for a while,” she told me. She was right.

I got to the terminal before seven, had a coffee and a ham-and-cheese sandwich for breakfast, and boarded the bus with the feeling that something new was finally beginning. The engine was already roaring when a taxi cut in front and a girl got out. She wore a long terracotta skirt, white sneakers, and a black shirt wrinkled from the trip. She was carrying a suitcase, a green backpack, and a tiny purse.

The conductor settled her into the only free seat, which was next to mine. I covered myself with a towel to protect myself from the air-conditioning and fell asleep almost at once. When I woke up, the bus was crossing a mountain road and my seatmate was reading an old Asterix magazine. She was blonde, wore her hair short, had freckles around her nose, and an enormous watch on her left wrist. I couldn’t help looking at her more than I should have.

We got off in a small town. Almost all the passengers were European. A big man offered a pickup truck to take us to the hotel, but the price was robbery. I stepped forward, bargained in Spanish, and got a reasonable rate for the group. A German woman, in her halting Spanish, thanked me with two pats on the shoulder. The blonde looked at me sidelong, smiling just a little.

Hotel Marisol was a large building, with balconies overlooking the sea and an open-air dining room under a palm-frond roof. My room was on the fourth floor and there was no elevator; I hauled my suitcase up by brute force, and when I stepped out onto the balcony and breathed, I felt something I hadn’t felt in months. Calm. The real kind, not the one the anxiolytics give you.

I went down to the dining room with my hair freshly done in the hotel salon. Almost every table was occupied. The blonde beckoned to me from a table by the window, and I sat with her. We ate seafood rice and, for dessert, a fruit salad with honey that she devoured with her eyes closed.

—My name is Lucía —she said.

—Nice to meet you. Yamila.

—Are you from here?

—From the capital. You’re from Madrid, right?

She blushed.

—I’ve lived in Madrid for twenty years, but I was born in a town in Valencia, Sagunto. Do you know it?

I shook my head. At that moment I remembered that the first time I heard about Caleta Esmeralda was from my therapist.

—I don’t know half the towns in my own country either —I said—. So how did you end up here?

—A friend of mine who’s an anthropologist came last year. He went back full of praise, so I packed my bag and jumped in.

We kept talking until I saw on her huge watch that it was almost two. I decided to sleep for a while and go down to the beach when the sun was lower. I imagined the sunburned skin of the Europeans and laughed at my own caution: on black women like me, the sun only makes us blacker, that’s all.

I went down with a Patricia Highsmith novel and took a couple of dives into water that was warm and delicious. I floated on my back, arms spread wide, feeling the waves rock me. At some point, without meaning to, I thought of Daniela. She had been my partner for two and a half years. We had bought furniture together, talked about moving to the coast, planned everything. Until she met an Italian woman in a chat room, some Marta from Rome, and walked out of my life without warning.

The months that followed were a disaster. I smoked too much, drank more, lost my job, lost almost everyone. My family drifted away when they discovered that living with Daniela had not been a passing phase. My friends from the neighborhood did too. Camila was the only one who stayed, the one who took me to the therapist, the one who recommended me to the newspaper boss when I could no longer even cover the rent. I spent a month on probation and stayed. Six months ago I started what I decided to call my pampering time: the gym, decent meals, letting my hair grow, saving up for this vacation.

I came out of the sea before six, took a long shower, and fixed my hair in the salon. The hairdresser gave me the name of a trusted taxi driver and a cheap dining room near the beach. When I stepped onto the balcony to hang up my bathing suit, I saw Lucía on the next balcony taking pictures with a digital camera.

—Dinner with me? —she asked.

My plan was to go to bed early, but I nodded without thinking. I put on pants, a light blouse, and sandals, and tucked a scarf into my purse in case the wind ruined my hair. We walked to a small bar with tables almost touching the sea. We ordered a pizza and two beers. Lucía was a systems engineer and worked for a food quality control company. Her face was reddened by the first day’s sun.

We got back to the hotel after eleven. By midnight I was asleep like a stone.

***

Three knocks on the door woke me. I jumped out of bed wrapped in the sheet and opened it, my eyes still glued shut.

—Sorry, I heard you complaining from the balcony. I thought something was wrong.

—It was a nightmare. Thanks. Have you had breakfast yet?

—I was about to. Should I save you a place?

I went down ten minutes later and ate as if I had never had dinner. Lucía laughed while serving herself scrambled eggs with fried plantains.

—These vacations are going to wreck our diets —she said—. How much do you think a taxi would charge us to go to town? Feel like taking a walk?

We got a taxi for little money. We walked down the crafts street, looked at seascape paintings that left her enthralled, bought regional sweets, and had lunch of rice with beans and fried chicken in a town dining room. Back at the hotel, we sat on my balcony with two cold beers and, at four, went down to the beach.

Lucía was a terrible swimmer. She cheered my dives with applause, sank whenever she tried to float, and laughed at her own clumsiness.

—Teach me? —she asked.

I had to hold her in my arms, one hand under her back, the other under her thighs. It had been a long time since I’d touched a woman’s body. The bikini was hardly anything: two triangles that barely covered her nipples and a thong that wedged itself between the cheeks of her ass every time she moved. Her wet skin clung to my fingers, and without meaning to I noticed that the palm of the hand holding her thighs brushed, now and then, the warm bulge of her cunt through the fabric. She didn’t pull away. On the contrary, she closed her eyes, let her head fall back, and spread her thighs another centimeter, just enough for me to understand it hadn’t been an accident. I suppose my skin color concealed the heat that rose to my cheeks, and the one that sank into my lower belly. We practiced for a long while, her nipples hardening and pressing into my arm every time I lifted her, until both of us looked west and saw the water turning pink.

The other bathers kept splashing about, oblivious to the show. I stood there, water nearly to my neck, while Lucía floated hooked onto my arm.

—I hadn’t seen a sunset in years —she said, very softly.

We got out of the water when the last reflection sank into the horizon. The breeze raised gooseflesh on our skin. I looked at her shoulders and breasts, where the bikini had left marks, and saw that she was redder than she should have been.

—Did you put on sunscreen?

—I was going to after the shower.

—If you don’t put it on, tomorrow you’ll be peeling like a snake.

—Don’t scare me.

***

I took a long shower and sat on the balcony wrapped in a towel, watching the sea turn dark blue. Lucía came in without knocking, a tube of sunscreen in her hand and a semi-transparent tunic that hid almost nothing: her pink nipples were outlined, the blonde shadow of her pubic hair, the curve of her hips.

—Would you put it on me? If you don’t mind.

I hid my reaction as best I could. I told her it didn’t bother me. She took off the tunic with the ease of someone who has spent years on a nudist beach and lay face down on my bed, completely naked. The tube slipped from my hand, bounced on the floor, and disappeared under the furniture.

I bent down to look for it and completely forgot I was only covered by the towel. When I raised my head again, Lucía had turned over and was looking at me. Her nipples were hard, one hand resting between her open thighs, and in her gaze there was a hunger that left no room for interpretation.

I started with her shoulders. Her pink thighs prickled at the first touch. I traced long lines down her back, slid along the curve of her waist, bathed her firm buttocks with both open hands, squeezing them, spreading them just enough to spread the cream properly along the crease in between. When I ran my thumb between the two cheeks, without meaning to —or meaning to, I don’t know anymore— she let out a low, rough moan that dried my mouth. I kept going down her thighs, behind her knees, along her calves. Then back up. When I reached the cleft of her ass again, I left my hand still for a second. She arched her waist slightly and offered me more. I spread the cream slowly, with two fingers, until I brushed the lips of her cunt, already swollen and hot beneath my fingertip. I heard her let out a very slow breath.

—Are you done?

—Yes —I lied, my voice rough.

She turned over. Her full breasts shifted once and settled, with her nipples standing up as if the air hurt. God, how beautiful she is, I thought while I spread the cream over her belly, avoiding looking at her face so I wouldn’t burn myself too. But my hands went on their own. I circled her breasts, pinched her dark nipples gently between forefinger and thumb, and she closed her eyes and parted her legs shamelessly. The blonde cunt, wet, gleaming between her thighs. I slid the cream down her belly, over her mound, and when I brushed my palm across her vulva as a whole, she let out a long gasp.

—Does your skin burn? —she asked, her voice breaking.

I nodded. But the burn wasn’t from the sun. It was from two years of accumulated silence, from a body that had been shut away too long and was suddenly being told, “come back.”

—Come here, lie down.

I obeyed. The towel fell open by itself, and I didn’t close it. Her hands traveled over my shoulders, my back, my thighs to my heels, and back up again. She lingered over my breasts, pinched my dark nipples until they were hard as stones, licked one while she caressed the other. She slid one hand down, opened my thighs, and ran two fingers along the seam of my cunt, from top to bottom, not putting anything in, just testing. I was soaked. She brought them to her mouth, sucked them slowly, looking at me, and smiled.

—You taste delicious —she said.

Then she stood, bent down to kiss me on the mouth with her tongue still tasting like me, and whispered that she’d be right back. She left.

She didn’t come back that night. The ceiling fan dried the cream and the sweat, and I fell asleep with my fingers between my legs, finishing off alone what she had left half-done, biting the pillow so it wouldn’t be heard in the neighboring balcony. I woke at seven and saw that she had left the balcony door open. I dressed quickly. Lucía was on the next balcony, hanging up a freshly washed blouse. She smiled at me.

—Coming? —she asked.

***

I crossed to the other balcony in a couple of jumps. Lucía had a better stereo than mine and a small radio. She searched for a station and settled on a Pablo Alborán song.

—I wanted to apologize to you. Last night I think I abused your trust a little.

—But girl, what are you talking about?

—I don’t know. It’s just that… maybe I…

She couldn’t go on. She started crying and I got scared. I took her hand and sat her on the bed. Her green eyes, flooded with tears, seemed even more transparent.

—You’re beautiful —she said, and took a deep breath.

—So are you —I answered, and kissed her before she could say anything else.

I expected her to pull away. I expected an explanation, an apology, a graceful exit. What I got was her mouth returning the kiss with an urgency that left me breathless. She shoved her tongue deep into me, bit my lower lip, sucked my tongue as if she wanted to eat me alive. In seconds we were naked on the bed. The tunic flew, my dress flew, I don’t know how. Her body was a torrent of warm skin slipping through my hands and finding me again.

I pushed her flat against the mattress and climbed on top of her, straddling her. Our cunts brushed and both of us moaned at the same time. I grabbed both her tits with open hands, squeezed them, pressed them together, and leaned down to suck them. I licked her pink nipples, one and then the other, nibbled them until she screamed, tugged them with my teeth. She dug her nails into my back, searching for my mouth blindly.

—Please —she said—. Please.

I went down. I kissed her belly, buried my tongue in her navel, bit her hips. I opened her legs wide and stared for a second at her swollen, soaking cunt, with the inner lips peeking pink between the trimmed blonde hair. I ran my tongue over her entire slit, from bottom to top, and she arched her whole back off the bed, moaning long. I tasted her slowly at first, with my whole mouth, sucking her lips one by one, slipping the tip of my tongue into the hole of her cunt. Then I focused on the clit. I licked it in circles, sucked it like you suck a fruit, tapped it with the tip of my tongue. She squeezed my head between her thighs, pulled my hair with both hands, kept saying my name through clenched teeth.

I slid in one finger, then two. I felt her close around them, wet, hot. I moved them inside while I kept sucking her clit, and when I added a third, with my thumb brushing her ass, she came violently, making me feel powerful and trembling at the same time. She opened up wide. She arched her waist two, three times, screamed something I didn’t understand, and came in my mouth. I stayed there, sucking everything that came out of her, until she pulled away laughing because she couldn’t take it anymore.

Still breathless, she grabbed my arms and pulled me up. She kissed my neck, played with the line of my breasts, sucked my dark nipples with hunger. Then she went down. Her tongue worked every possible devilry on my sex. She licked my clit slowly, sucked my lips, put her tongue inside me and moved it as if she were fucking me with it. She drove two fingers into me, curved upward, searching for that spot no one had touched me on in years, and when she found it, she started pounding it while sucking my clit at the same time.

—I’m going to come —I told her, and she moaned against my cunt without stopping.

I came with my legs shaking, pressing her head between my thighs, soaking her face. It was a balm. There’s no other word for it. I felt my body working again, my story starting over.

After that she climbed on me again, mounted my thigh, rubbed herself against it without any shame, leaving my skin wet with cunt juice. She gripped my tits to use them as leverage and rubbed until she came again, looking me in the eyes, biting her lips so she wouldn’t scream. We stayed wrapped around each other, panting, legs crossed and our cunts still hot against each other.

***

We made love all afternoon. We ate each other, sucked each other, fingered each other until we lost count of how many times we came. Once she put me face down, spread my ass cheeks with both hands, and ran her tongue from my back hole to my clit over and over until she made me beg. Another time I rode her face and she rode my thigh while she stuck her fingers in my ass. We slept until dawn, and at five I woke up with her mouth between my legs again.

It was ten days so intense that now, when I think of them, I don’t know where we got the energy. On the third night we talked about our failures, naked and sweaty, our legs still tangled together. Lucía had been married to a man she left two years ago, when she accepted that she liked women, and she had recently come out of a breakup with another woman. Neither of us was in any place for promises, so we let the days pass without conditions, and the nights too.

On the last afternoon we rented a boat that she, she said, knew how to handle. We crossed the bay until sunset and went back to the hotel to look for a simultaneous orgasm that we never quite managed, between laughter and frustration: every time one of us was about to come, the other would come first and infect her with laughter instead of pleasure. We ended the same way, coming in turns, with two fingers each buried in the other’s cunt, screaming into the pillow. Lucía left on a Friday afternoon. The goodbye was short, no drama.

When I remember those ten days, I smile, thinking of the morning we went into the water before dawn and caressed each other until we had to run back to the hotel to finish what we’d started —me with two fingers buried in her cunt under the salt water, her biting my shoulder so she wouldn’t scream—, or the night we crossed barefoot and naked from her balcony to mine, biting our lips so we wouldn’t laugh out loud, and fucked against the railing with the sea roaring below, her behind me, her hand between my legs until she made me come against the cold iron.

Ten months have passed. I had a couple of dates with a nice girl, had a good time, but I haven’t stopped missing Lucía’s Madrid accent, her low laugh, her transparent eyes, the taste of her blonde cunt in my mouth. We’ve talked by chat, by phone, at odd hours, and more than once the two of us ended up with a hand between our legs, telling each other what we’d do if we were close by. I got the visa and she bought me the ticket.

In a week I’ll be landing in Barajas. Today a virtual postcard arrived with a photo of the Cibeles fountain and an old song. The message says only one thing: “It’s autumn in Madrid. With you, it will be the perfect landscape to fall into the sweetest danger. I won’t let you save me.”