plenty of fuck buddies” he said,
shrugging. “Do you have a pen for me to sign?”
She took a pen from her purse and gave it to Roberto. He wrote his
name over the dotted line and then his hand flew to the bottom of the contract,
where he should sign. With the pen he touched the piece of paper but didn’t
sign.
“We still haven’t talked about being friends.”
“What?”
“Do you remember we also talked about hanging out as friends?
Nothing in this contract says that we can also start a friendship
simultaneously.”
“I’ve been thinking about it and— won’t it me be weird? Maybe it’s
better if we only try to be fuck buddies.”
He left the pen on the table and didn’t sign the contract.
“Do you have many friends here?”
Sara had a moment of hesitation before answering.
“Actually, I have kept in touch with very few people. Particularly,
I speak with Susana Vázquez, do you remember her? She was with us in high
school.”
“Yes, I know who she is. The point is that I have almost no friends
to hang out with. My ex and I shared our circle of friends and when we broke up
my— friends, so to speak, preferred her.”
“Tough luck!”
“Tell me about it! But what can I do? My ex has the gift of the gab
and more self-confidence than me. But you can help me out of loneliness and
suffering” he said theatrically. “It would be great if
besides gratifying our desires, we could hang out. Do you like movies? Going to
the cinema alone is very sad.”
Sara thought about it and then said:
“Okay. We can meet not only to fuck but also to hang out as friends.
But as friends, ok?”
“Of course.”
He smiled, took the pen and signed the contract.
5.Under
the stars
It was half past twelve of a Thursday night especially hot. Sara’s parents were sleeping and she was
lying on her bed with a book on her hands. It was an erotic novel and it wasn’t
helping to deal with the temperature. She had just turned the page when her
phone vibrated. She took it from the bedside table and read the message that
she had received. It was Roberto’s.
“Are you free?”
She checked the hour
and answered:
“It’s 12:30.”
“So what? You’re
awake” he replied.
Sara thought about
it. He was right, who cared about the time? In fact, the night was the ally of
lovers. She wondered what her parents would say if they saw her sneaking out of
their house at midnight, but then a furious
voice inside her head said “Oh, jeez! You’re not a teenager anymore!” It was
her rebel part, the one who hated the fact that she had had to move again with her
parents, leaving behind freedom. But her rational side stated that, no matter
how old she was, she did have to give explanations about her whereabouts as
long as she lived under her parents’ roof. She considered both voices before
answering Roberto’s message.
“When do we meet?” She could only
hope that her parents would be sleeping deeply and wouldn’t hear her.
“I’ll be at your door in 5
minutes.”
She got up to change her clothes
because she was already wearing her tiny pajamas but then she thought better of
it and chose to wear a thin jacket that was long enough as to cover her outfit.
S he rolled up its sleeves because she didn’t want to
sweat earlier than expected. She left her house with a pair of sandals in her
hand, trying to make as little noise as she could. Her father’s snorings
encouraged her. She put on her sandals as she went downstairs; when she got to
the vestibule, Roberto was already waiting for her inside his car.
She greeted
him as friends would do and he started the car. Sara guessed that they would go
to a waste ground or a hidden place in the woods that surrounded the town, as
they had done two days before when they had screwed in the back seat after Sara
had called him on his day off. However, this time was different and it didn’t
take her long to realize that they were going farther than usual.
“Where’re