The lips of Spanish prostitutes are so red and so
bright that you can see them even if you close your eyes. The lips of Spanish
prostitutes are grotesquely, phenomenally vulgar. And in the whole of the
carriage taking him from Santo Domingo to Sevilla (a short way, but a
challenging way), and without once turning his head, he could see just them:
the lips of two Spanish prostitutes.
They entered at Opera, and they saw him straight away.
It was like currently this middle-aged Irish gentleman was the sole reason for
their existence.
The two Spanish prostitutes sat on both sides of him.
One pretended that she was reading his book, a short story collection by
Brendan Behan, while the other was looking at him, quite intensely, without
saying a word. He felt helpless, like he was mugged in bright daylight, with
half a dozen sleepy Spaniards scattered about the carriage.
It was his last day in Madrid, the business trip was a
relative success (a complete success was not on the cards in the current
crisis), and he had spent the evening at O'Brien’s, an Irish pub not far from
Noviciado. It had all been going beautifully right until the moment the two
Spanish prostitutes fluttered into the carriage and perched on both sides of
him.
He tried not to react. He knew what they wanted, oh
perfectly, but there was no point in telling them about his wife in Dublin or
that it simply wouldn't work after four pints of San Miguel (for the love of
God, he couldn't get it up). They were hot, these girls, with skirts that
defied imagination, but he was determined to ignore them until they realised that
he was either a good family man (which he was) or a wanker (which he wasn’t).
It didn't work. Brendan Behan's "After The
Wake" was a wild jungle of words, he blushed like a girl, and they stayed
with him until his station. At Sevilla, he swiftly stood up and walked out
without ever looking back. In fact, he only realised they were following him
when he was already in Carrera de San Jerónimo, clicking their high heels ten
metres behind. Silently, without saying a word.
He walked faster, and they walked faster. He slowed
down, and they did just that. So that he changed the strategy and ran to his
hotel, bumping into the smiling guy at the door who had always looked like a
pimp but who compounded that suspicion now by asking him if those two
'beautiful ladies' behind his back were with him. Which was the point where he
gave up.
To wake up the next morning with a hangover the size
of a Raymond Chandler novel and no money in his wallet. In fact, the wallet
itself was also missing.
'So the birds have flown’, concluded Sam, studying his
face in the glass of Guinness that offered zero reflection.
‘Was the sex good?' asked Kevin.
This was Wednesday, our night at the Temple (fuck the
tourists).
'I only remember the beginning', said Jim, evasively.
'They were doing things women had never done to me before'.
Poor old Jim, I thought, he had only slept with
Margaret all his life.
'Soon they discovered the mini-bar, and we opened
whisky'.
'Were they pretty?' asked Kevin. Clearly he was
thinking of going to Madrid himself.
'I never even saw their faces. The legs were pretty.
And please, don’t tell Margaret'.
'Jim', I said, trying to imagine who else could have
called those legs ‘pretty’, 'did they really not say a word throughout the
whole thing?'
And then it was like a small lightbulb that suddenly
lit up inside his head.
'You know what – they did. They did! Now that you
mention it. I remember waking up early in the morning and them standing over my
bed, trying to talk to me'.
'Yeah? And what did they say?'
'It was Spanish, and they may as well have been
speaking in tongues. Besides, I was basically unconscious. But I think they
were telling me that they were not taking the credit cards'.
'So why did they?' asked Sam, quite reasonably. ‘Why
did they, Jim?’
'Because I couldn't answer them, I guess. I do not
know a word in Spanish'.
We all loved Jim, everyone
did, and the next round was on me.
