I sat up all night looking out the window, counting the flashes of lightning splitting the early morning sky like cracks in a delicate porcelain tea cup. The rain falls and I inhale its aroma and remember three long and lonely months in Hong Kong - lost in a city drowning in the rain, as I drowned in bottomless glasses of scotch and kept myself barely afloat in the arms of shop-girls and hostesses and charming bank tellers... after all these years I have learned only three things in my miserable life... one - I dream in Spanish, unless I dream of my father singing the songs of his youth... two - Love is the only thing worth living for, and sometimes worth dying for... and three - You can buy happiness - in Hong Kong... I sat there a little bit longer after the rain began to fall and I try to make sense of my choices once again - it is a senseless ritual as there is no worthy result, no magical moment of enlightenment, no answers to the “why’s” and “why not’s”...
The rain in El Paso is not the same as in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a fragrant all it’s own that the rain can never wash away - it is the scent of money... riches and prosperity await even the lowliest of citizens and visitors alike... and the rain is a gift of good joss that falls on that little island that sparkles in the night like a bejeweled pocket watch some gwailo China-Trader Captain let slip from his hands as he waved good-bey to his young concubine while his ship slowly steams away to India...
In this little room - so far away from the waters of Hong Kong - the fragrance that fills the air is that of “Carolina Herrera”, it slowly drifts out the window and mixes with the rain and the moans and sighs left behind from last nights love making... some of it will of course linger on the pillow cases and on my chest... and with her lipstick that stains the collar of my shirt. I will bear it as my scarlet letter until my dry cleaner absolves me of my sins with her magic formulas and
unforgiving glances from behind her alter...
Lorena - my mistress and my muse for the last few weeks is a gentle young woman, perhaps the most feminine and girly of all the women I have ever known. She is elegant and fragile (or she may only seem to be fragile for my benefit), She is a woman from a different era - she reminds me of the women I would watch on t.v. on Saturday nights when the Spanish stations played old movies from the forties and fifties - she dresses with a hint of nostalgia and has confessed to me that she wished she lived in a world where women still wore gloves and hats and had their hair done weekly at the salon... I said “do it my dear, and I will begin a crusade amongst my brethren to bring back the double breasted suit, and the fedora, and shiny wing tipped shoes”... She is my “Vettriano Girl”... in a red and white polka dot dress collecting shells on the beach at the end of a summer day... and she is the hungry wolf waiting in the back room of the China Market Shop in a little black Dior... Her kisses are softer and smoother... and warmer than any I can remember... her breath is warm coffee... she leaves every room she was in smelling like her and her scent is a mixture of cosmetics and grooming products that remind me of the shop-girls from Lane Crawford (Hong Kong) and it leaves me dizzy and incoherent like one of the kids down town sniffing glue from a brown paper bag. Her hands are small in mine... her fingers long and smooth... and they chase my demons away when they brush through my hair in the middle of her slow kisses and when they tremble as she unbuttons my shirt to touch my chest... her legs are pale and thin but her buttock is well defined... she does not were bikinis or swim suits, but appreciates the gifts of lingerie I surprised her with... especially the long purple silk night gown that I found that drags on the floor unless she is wearing high heels, which then looks like a perfect fit on her and the slits on the sides that go all the way up to her hips that reveal moments of her pale thin legs when she sways... legs I long to have wrapped around me... for some reason... when those legs are wrapped around me I feel like I am hers... Like I am her man and with her is where I am meant to be... the way I felt when Carmen wrapped her legs around me... and the way Anita did as well... but I know where I am meant to be is on the other side of the sea... where the rain falls for three moths on a city built by opium... and silk... and silver... and gold... Lorena’s love making is the complete opposite of Rebecca... she prefers things slow and with her I must pay close attention to the details like a sculptor molding the clay to get to that perfect moment that will be captured forever in time... I have to seduce her slowly and gently... I must stroke her skin ever so softly that my fingers brush her shoulders and her arms and the curves of her neck no more than the whisper of the breeze... I have to charm her into my bed with delicate words that land on the rim of her ears as gentle as butterflies landing on the edge of a tulip... her breasts must be handled with the utmost care... the way you would cradle a blind chick that has just pecked her way out of it’s shell... as much as I would like to ravage her body with mad passionate lust... I must restrain myself... for my kisses must be precise and carefully calculated... imagine if you will trying to catch a snow flake on your tongue or gently flicking at a drop of melting ice cream from a collapsing ice cream cone... yes, half our night is only fore-play... the other half is making love...
When it was over I held her in my arms until we both began to breath in the same rhythm... slower and satisfied and tired... I held her jealously in my arms the way I held on to that box of letters from Elsa for fifteen years... But Lorena is not Elsa... and she is not Rebecca... and she is not Carmen... I could not use her like a bar girl from Soy Cowboy and get away with it... I had to make up for the seduction she had been denied... and so... without any words between us I commenced to seduce her... slowly and gently I began to make love to her... one fragile inch of her delicate body by fragile inch... imagine if you will trying to reform a shattered Ming Dynasty Vase piece by piece without any glue... but by sheer will power and the gentlest of thoughts and you will have some idea of the apology I tried to conjure up from the remaining darkness... I made love to her with more emotion and honesty and vulnerability than I ever had in a very long time... in fact... I couldn’t believe I still had it in me... and when Lorena let out a sigh that pierced through the dark heavy clouds that hung low over her apartment I knew I had gone to far... for I have heard that sigh so many times... it is the sound that comes just before a heart breaks... a heart I will break... and that sigh made my soul tremble... but still... I continued to make love to her...
I ran up the street to a coffee shop hoping to get be some fresh brew while a wait for a bus to take me uptown but as I neared the door of the café my eyes focused on the woman standing in front of the entrance... wide eyed and mouth agape in disbelief... she shook her head ever so slowly and the guilt of an unfaithful husband came over me by surprise... I stood there and waited for Rebecca to run up to me and throw her hot coffee in my face - I braced myself for the worse... but she stood there in silence calculating the facts... where could I be coming from and where am I going... had I made love to her... of course I had... did I seduce her with gentle words and visions of far away places that I promise to take her to some day... I did... and was she perhaps still lying in bed thinking of me and planning out trips we will never take to Buenos Aires or Monte Video... absolutely...
As she tallied up the obvious in her mind she eventually remembered that she was the one that ended our relationship... and perhaps it was the anger stirring up inside of her or other emotions that maybe still linger... she started to cry... I don’t know if she was angry or frustrated... or both... she stomped like a child, who did not get her way, to her car... but she did get her way... maybe one day soon I will tell the ending of that story but for now... the rain is falling on me...
The bus I wanted to catch was coming up the road so I walked slowly to the bus stop - I never got my coffee - part of me did not really want to catch the bus and just stay there in the rain... I waited for all the other passengers to board and stood there a bit... the driver... without saying a word smiled at me inquisitively and I shook my head... he nodded politely and slammed the door shut!
I lifted the collar on my coat and began to walk north... “she did get her way...”
I once met a women from the Philippines named Sofia in Singapore... and several times she promised me love like I will never ever find anywhere in the world from anyone... the way she promised to love me... if I would devote my life to her... I do not know whatever became of her...
The rain falling on me today is filled with bad joss... it is not the rain in Hong Kong... and I am not the same man I was in Hong Kong... I tried to calculate all the “why’s” and the “why not’s” in my life... but it would be easier, perhaps, to count the raindrops falling... this rain that has taken on the scent of Lorena’s bedroom... My memories of Hong Kong slip further and further away... like the sound of my fathers voice... the rain comes down hard... I think of Carmen... and run to find a place to hide...
So... you want to be a Vettriano Girl too, huh?
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