nothin' sexier than a woman who wakes up in the morning and goes to work
SEDUCTION. Watercolor on cardboard, 1942. Alba Calderón - Wikipedia: Alba Calderón de Gil was an Ecuadorian social realist painter, leftist activist, and feminist. She founded the movement for the recognition of women's rights in Ecuador. IMAGE SOURCE: https://ccbenjamincarrion.com/revista_digital/exposicion-alba-calderon-artista-y-militante/#iLightbox[gallery_image_1]/6
It’s a soft unbridled evening in the throes of the threshold of spring. And as I hold my binoculars to the world I offset every mistake of my miserly existence on a planet sputtering toward never-ending doom by listening to Bach.
The world is burning maybe, but everything’s fine here in Manglaralto. Except for earlier this morning when I awoke and the water to my place was off.
Pro tip: Whenever the water goes out NEVER FLUSH THE TOILETS. This primal philosophy can be explained in the simple hippie mantra: If it’s yellow, let it mellow // If it’s brown, flush it down.
Yeah, and I am writing these words while drinking a tall can of beer, my first for the evening. And the girl I’ve been seeing is at the nearby beach with a friend who just got into town from Quito, the capital city. (He’s a gay German dude who will be leaving for a job in Mexico City.)
I’ve been cuttin’ my jib by working HARD in my place and cutting out the rest of the world even though that’s impossible for a writer and anybody else too. Yeah. Ophelia and I had conversations this week about many things. And last weekend, I thought about it … while on the beach with her on Sunday.
We sat under a canopy after she showed me some of the apartments that were settled and quiet and unbecoming. I liked the flowers, yellow, that fell to the ground and placed one in my hair.
“You’re so cute!” she said. And that felt good. Like the other times on my couch where we started talking about niceties regarding each other, which she began.
“You look like a rocker,” or “I like you because you are smart.”
“I like you,” I responded, “because you close the drapes when I kiss you.”
“What?”
“And I like you,” I continued, “because the dinosaurs are dead and deer meat is like plum pudding and rapscallion is a cool word, don’t you think?” I nibbled on her ear. “Then there’s the billions of galaxies everywhere we don’t even think about.”
She didn’t know that my English was bad. Whenever I corrected her, I did it out of JEST.
And later in the week, I brought up Chilean democracy. I’d come across a story while researching something for an article about gambling in South America.
The country had elected a 36-year-old president, the youngest in their history. And I looked into it some more and discovered that they came into their 2021 general elections after establishing a Constitutional Convention that began on July 4, 2021. It was a sort of homage to Philadelphia back in the late 18th century.
The CC was made up of 155 seats, 17 designated to indigenous peoples, and the total allotment of seats was split between men and women. They were rewriting the country’s constitution after a student protest movement. One of the leaders of that movement had gotten elected to the lower house in 2013 and again in 2017.
Then he became the president, a socialist so they said. And the process included dozens of political parties forming 11 coalitions (including independent candidates).
“Tell me more about Chilean democracy,” she whispered as we went to bed together.
I slipped a hand under the sheets after turning out the lights beforehand.
In the morning, well the NEXT DAY — after we’d decided to drink tequila and shoot the shit. I’m getting ahead of myself. Because on the beach last Sunday, as she and I talked, I felt like I was in an Aldous Huxley novel, Point Counter Point. Where these intellectuals just sat around having deep conversations, Huxley had been satirizing upper-class society in Britain.
But I’d been learning a lot by listening to a woman. And in fact, the whole time I decided to let her lead. When it came to kissing, conversation, everything. I kept my mouth shut, nodding.
“Really?” she’d asked when I revealed that to her as we’d embraced.
“Yeah.”
Then I shoved a stiff knuckle into her buttocks.
“Ow!” she yelped, smacking me, laughing, grinning, wide-eyed, lovely, and alive.
We got a little drunk on tequila, and we made a ruckus in the bedroom. And in the morning as we rolled and cuddled and … caressed (a new word I defined for her), she said, “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I gotta get up.”
“Yeh?”
“Yeah, I have to go to work.”
“All right, babe.”
It was early for getting out of bed after three shots of tequila the night before, and I felt the sweetness of the darkened room as she rose and I sprawled out in her wake. Maybe she showered (I no longer remember).
As I heard the brushing noises in the bathroom behind my head, I thought — there’s nothing sexier than a woman who wakes up and goes to work in the morning. And she’s also brushing her teeth!
Wondrous feelings escaped me like a field of light emanating from within my soul as she left my apartment and I tossed and turned and felt glad that I could get up whenever I wanted to, although I’d take my time since I felt slightly hungover. I smiled to myself in the darkness as the street, caked in dirt and dust, bustled and moaned, birds chirping happily in their pleasantness.
I worked slowly that day, and later on, at night she returned (she’d left her laptop since I’d allowed her to work there the day before— allowed?) We debated on what to get for dinner, she felt tired and lay on my couch in a dress.
“I could lay down and you couldn’t today.”
“Yeah, I feel tired!”
She turned and I saw her butt and thought okay here I am sitting in a chair and she likes me and we are going to get dinner together, there’s nothing pressing down on us… That’s magic.
“We can watch a movie!”
Together, we went to the grocery store nearby since the rain began and I got some beef, pasta, salsa (by accident), and other ingredients. Then I cooked while she CHILLED and I was happy about that. “You’re so sweet.”
“Why?”
“To cook for me.”
Finally, we ate, talked after dinner, and shared a bottle of Malbec.
“Pour me some more.”
“Okay.”
In bed, she fell asleep almost immediately after setting up a movie on her laptop. It was Don’t Look Up. But I was much more interested in her, on all fours, in my bed again — her blue underwear, big booty, and a sexy black bra.
“Babe,” I said, “I wanna take a picture of you like that. You look so damn sexy!”
She laughed, then she came close, putting her hand under my chin.
“No,” she said,” it’s a private show.”
And here I am writing about it like a doofus since it’s been on my mind. We slept, but only after the asteroid was going to be hitting earth in six months, yeah. I listened as she snuggled up against me, slightly snoring. And I heard the dialogue of the female president in the White House, a jocular meeting between SCIENTISTS and POLITICIANS.
The writing was bad. It was corny. I decided to close my eyes.
“What’s corny?” Ophelia asked me in the morning.
“You know,” I responded, “there’s nothing sexier than a woman who gets up and goes to work in the morning.”
It was nice to get along with a beautiful woman, through and through.
