I Pulled Over on the Shoulder So They Could Watch Me

Marcos called me at noon, when my hands were still stained with ink and my head was somewhere else. He wanted us to meet in the afternoon on the terrace of a café that was right about halfway between his office and my house, because—so he said—two of his coworkers were really eager to meet his fiancée.

His fiancée?

I stayed there with the phone pressed to my ear, saying nothing. We’d only been together a few months, in a lukewarm way, with no promises of any kind, and suddenly he was talking about me as if there were a ring involved. He had talked about me so much and so well to those girls, he insisted, that they were extremely interested. It made me feel more bewildered than proud, but I didn’t say anything. I was already beginning to know him well enough not to argue on the phone.

I agreed. When I got to the terrace, they were already seated, one beside the other, with two sodas sweating on the metal table. Marcos ordered a mixed drink as soon as he sat down.

—You must be Elena —said the taller one, holding out her hand—. I’m Lucía, and this is Marina. We work with him.

They were two ordinary women, a little younger than me, freshly graduated in tourism. Pretty without being flashy, dressed with that simplicity of women who don’t need to draw attention. The conversation flowed right away: where we were from, what we had studied, what our families were like. Nothing outside the predictable, and yet I felt comfortable with them in a way I hadn’t felt with Marcos in weeks.

At one point, Marina put down her glass and looked at me with an open smile.

—Hey, tomorrow we have to go and check out a new route. It’s a day trip we want to set up, up through some mountains. We only know the final destination; the rest has to be measured on the ground. Why don’t you come with us? With your profession you’re sure to notice things we’d miss.

Something tightened in Marcos’s face. He didn’t look at all thrilled by the idea, but they insisted, and the more they insisted, the more he kept quiet. I had no plans for the next day and, honestly, I was tempted. We agreed to have breakfast together at the same café and leave straight from there.

***

A little before the agreed time, Marcos showed up at my place. He had barely crossed the threshold when he slapped a hand to his forehead.

—I left something on in the car. I’ll go down and switch it off while you finish getting ready.

I gave him my house keys so he wouldn’t have to wait out in the street, thinking he’d be back in two minutes. He took much longer. When he came back up, sweaty and with a flimsy excuse about the car being parked farther away than he remembered, he had already started ruining my morning before we’d even left.

Lucía and Marina were waiting for us with a company car. We ate breakfast quickly, went over the map at the table, and set off. The destination was an hour and a half away, according to the navigator, mostly along a two-way national road that wound first through fields and then through mountains.

Marina was driving. Lucía rode shotgun, half the time twisted around to chat with me. Marcos, beside me in the back seat, stared out the window with the face of someone doing us a huge favor.

Halfway there we ran into a real traffic jam. A truck had broken down crosswise on the road, blocking both directions. We were stopped for almost forty minutes, with the engine off and the windows down, watching the heat rising off the asphalt shimmer in the distance. I drank water. Then I drank a little more. That was a mistake.

When they finally cleared the truck and we got moving again, I could already feel that familiar, uncomfortable pressure. I held out as long as I could. Fifteen minutes from the destination, I couldn’t take it anymore.

—Pull over for a second —I told Marina—. I need to pee.

—And you can’t hold it for fifteen more minutes, for fuck’s sake? —Marcos cut in before she could answer.

—Either you stop now or I’ll do it right here —I said, looking him in the eye.

Truth was, I could have held it. I could have clenched my teeth and waited until we arrived. But as soon as Marina pulled onto the shoulder and stopped the car in a gravel turnout, I felt something other than simple urgency. I felt that old tingle, the one that had been with me for years and I had never told anyone about: the desire to be seen.

I got out of the car. Traffic on the road was still slow because of the earlier jam, a line of cars inching by, unhurried, with all the time in the world to look. I walked to the side of the vehicle, pulled down my jeans, and squatted, leaving the car door ajar as though to cover myself out of modesty.

But I wasn’t covering myself. I knew perfectly well the half-open door didn’t hide a thing from the road. I’d worked it out in a second. Anyone passing on the opposite lane, reduced to a snail’s pace, could see me completely: the curve of my back, my hips, my ass shoved out toward the approaching headlights.

And they did pass. Four, five cars, maybe more. I felt their looks the way you feel sun on your skin, a warm, shameless caress. One driver slowed a little more than necessary. Another acted like he wasn’t looking and looked twice. I took my time. Much more than I needed. Let them look, I thought, let them enjoy the view as much as I enjoy knowing they’re looking.

I pulled my jeans back up slowly, with a calm that was no accident, and returned to the car with my cheeks burning, but not from shame. I stuck my head through the passenger-side window.

—Aren’t you girls going to get out and stretch your legs? —I asked them.

Marina and Lucía looked at each other, and Lucía made a gesture with her hand, pointing at the cool mountain air.

—In this chill, if we get out, we won’t hold it either —she said with a laugh.

I felt like something passed between the three of us without needing to be said.

***

The last fifteen minutes were unbearable, but not because of the road. Marcos never stopped talking.

—Take example from your coworkers —he said, nodding toward them—. Look at that composure. What a difference. After how well I talked you up, and now they see you doing this. What are they supposed to think?

Lucía and Marina were up front, silent, uncomfortable, exchanging glances in the rearview mirror that Marcos had no clue how to read. He kept going and going, trying to humiliate me, convinced I would shrink into my seat. I didn’t shrink. I looked out the window at the mountain scenery and let him talk to himself.

We finally reached the exact destination. There was nothing there: a dirt clearing serving as a parking lot, no booth, no restroom, no shade. Marcos was the first out, and before he’d even closed the door he was already relieving himself against a bush with a desperate sigh of relief. When he turned back, zipping himself up, he announced in a solemn tone:

—All right, now we need to find a bathroom for the girls.

—What? —the two of them said at once.

Marina slammed the car door shut.

—If you want to go looking for a toilet for us, go right ahead —she said—. But we’re going to piss right here, because we’ve been dying for it for half an hour. So decide: either you go look for a restroom, or you turn around, walk away, and leave us alone.

Marcos opened his mouth, closed it again, and, for once all day, found nothing to say. He walked away a few yards, with his back to us, his hands in his pockets, dignity in the dirt.

I didn’t walk away. I stayed leaning against the hood, playing the part of someone keeping a polite distance, while they found a spot behind the car. And, just like with the cars on the road, I didn’t look away. I saw them both squatting, their jeans pulled halfway down, the pale curve of skin against the mountain green. Marina had a gorgeous ass, round and firm, and Lucía wasn’t far behind. I didn’t pretend not to look. What for.

—You have a gorgeous ass —I told Marina when she stood up, saying it with the same casualness as someone commenting on the weather.

She laughed, unembarrassed, buttoning her jeans.

—Yours isn’t exactly bad either. We saw it earlier, from the car.

And for a moment, the three of us shared something electric and fun that didn’t need to go anywhere in order to exist. Just the pleasure of knowing yourself looked at, and looking without guilt.

***

They took their measurements, made their notes, photographed the parking area and the access roads. On the way back we dropped Marcos at his front door—he got out muttering something about how tired he was—and the three of us kept going until we left the company car near my neighborhood.

When we stopped, Lucía turned all the way around in her seat.

—How long have you been together? —she asked me—. Because yesterday on the terrace it seemed like you don’t even fit together as friends.

Marina switched off the engine and chimed in.

—We’ll be honest with you. We suggested the trip because we don’t trust him one bit. He’s a sleaze, always making inappropriate sexual comments. One coworker quit the company because she was sick of putting up with him, and we’re not willing to get to that point. We wanted to see you up close, see who he was with.

—And we loved you —Lucía added—. That spontaneous streak of yours on the shoulder… If he hadn’t been there, we would have done the same thing without thinking twice. But with him in front of us, we won’t grant him even a smile. He disgusts us.

I laughed, and in that laugh there was relief. From that very moment I started seriously considering leaving Marcos. Not because of jealousy, nor because of the humiliation on the road, but because those two strangers had seen me in one morning better than he had seen me in months.

We exchanged mobile numbers right there in the parked car. We stayed friends. We see each other now and then, and always, at some point in the night, one of us brings up that shoulder and we laugh like three accomplices.

With Marcos I kept a still more superficial relationship for a few more weeks, more or less as before, but now very much on alert, watching him the way he had never known how to watch me. I didn’t take long to break up with him. It turned out that what I really liked wasn’t having him look at me, but choosing for myself who did.