Carlos was naked and beautiful. He asked me if I would like to take a shower with him. I said yes. But once we were in the bathroom and Carlos stepped into the shower, I felt hesitant to slide off my pants and step in after him. There had been no mention that anything like this might happen, and he had suggested it so casually. Could I have got the wrong end of the stick?
Hours later, we were sitting on a clump of boulders in the valley of Barranca, the mountains of Navacerrada surrounding us on all sides. ‘Why didn’t you want to get in the shower earlier?’ He asked me.
‘I did,’ I said. ‘But I was embarrassed… I didn’t want to assume anything…’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know…’
We went back and forth a bit. ‘But I’m glad I did,’ I said finally, looking up at him – though he is shorter than me, he was sitting on a higher rock. Then I rested my head against his knee. The air was chill but anything the sun touched was instantly immune, and I let it caress me as I sat there in peace. As cringey as it sounds, this was when I began to feel truly and utterly blissful. I could not be happier that I am out here in Spain, with no bastard job to go back to, no leering obligations, nothing but the unknown stretching out before me.
We reluctantly moved on, hiking further up the mountain. Spotted shrubbery and scatterings of broken rock lay beneath a loving blue sky. Below us, swathes of pine forest swept through the valley, climbing the mountains on either side. We often walked in silence but sometimes we talked. Talked about past relationships, about sex. Things like that.
We came back down along a chuckling stream, its water crystal clear, studded with grey and green stones. We also passed a building which Carlos claimed was an abandoned sanatorium, and I bounded up to it, eager to go in, but falling back at the last minute, overcome by the creepiness of the place and running back to re-join Carlos.
Carlos took me for dinner in the evening. A place called El Qunto Vino: ‘The Fifth Wine.’ It was a cool name, though we drank no wine there. I wanted to know more about Spanish beers and that included drinking the stuff.
When it came to the menu, I really had to trust Carlos because I couldn’t read a word of it. I got my first taste of Croquettes, a milky ham filling fried in some sort of batter. The nearest thing I can compare it to is McDonald’s cheesy bites, but rest assured it is far more sophisticated. The next dish was lumps of cold tuna with peppers, hard-boiled egg and a lot of oil which I was not so keen on. I was very relieved when the main course was not only tasty but hot too. It was salted pork with something I can only describe as crisp-fries. Fries shaped like crisps. They were surprisingly satisfying to munch.
Carlos translated the desserts for me and I chose tomato cheesecake. I was fantasizing about a rich cheesy mousse topped with tomato puree or something outlandishly savoury like that. But of course, it was predictably conventional. Just a cheesecake topped with tomato flavoured jam.
All in all, I enjoyed my dining experience at El Quinto Vino, but I am much more excited at the prospect of finally getting some paella tomorrow.
