Rendición, segunda parte

Me arrodillé de nuevo; habían pasado tres semanas desde que la esperanza había vuelto a mi corazón. Estaba dando gracias, y lloraba de miedo. Tenía las manos entrelazadas en la fe más profunda, pidiéndole a un Dios en el que me es difícil creer que por favor me ayudara. Cerré los ojos y escuché en el silencio una canción.

- Lo quiero. -dije. 

El Universo, conmovido, respondió. 

El Mar

- ¿Por qué lloras? – preguntó el Mar. Yo estaba echada encima, flotando, y había dejado de llover hacía una semana.
- No estoy llorando. –dije. No sé si era mentira o simplemente no me había dado cuenta.
- Ese no soy yo en tus mejillas. –respondió.

Cerré los ojos con fuerza y me hundí. Quise bucear con fuerza, sumergirme hasta donde no llegara la luz del sol, pero las olas me lo impedían, como jugando. “¿Qué quieres allá abajo?”, me decían, riéndose. “Sólo está el Hades, y ya lo conoces.” Movía mis brazos y mis piernas, intentando darles una fuerza que no tienen. “¡Ya deja de bucear, niña!” me dijo una, y en un solo movimiento me hizo saltar fuera del agua. El Mar me miró, divertido. A mí no me daba risa.

- ¿Por qué quieres hacer algo que sabes que no quieres hacer? –dijo el Mar. Las olas habían empezado a cantar una canción a lo lejos, y a él parecía agradarle.
- ¿De qué hablas?
- Tú no quieres bucear.
- ¿Y tú qué sabes?
- ¿Yo que sé?

El Mar me volteó, arrastrándome en una ola, sin dejarme ir. Tomé aire profundamente e intenté mantener los ojos abiertos, pero en segundos ya no supe dónde era arriba o abajo, dónde estaba el aire y dónde estaba el piso. Tanto tiempo me había enseñado como terminar con la revolcada: me rendí y casi instantáneamente regresé a la superficie.

- ¿Más tranquila? –preguntó.
- Sí. –respondí. Adolorida, también, pero no iba a decirlo.
- Ahora bien, ¿vas a decirme lo que quieres?
- Tú sabes.
- Dilo.
- Me da miedo.
- ¿Por qué?
- Porque… me da miedo… me da miedo que si lo digo no se va a hacer realidad.
- Susúrramelo, entonces.

Lo susurré.

- Cumpliste tu promesa. –le dije. –Cuando me dijiste que iban a haber otros a quienes iba a abrazar.
- Sólo la cumplí porque confiaste en mí. –dijo. Me miró con tierna sorpresa, y un par de lágrimas se asomaron por mis ojos. –Quiero que vuelvas a confiar en mí. Pero esta vez va a ser más difícil.
- Puedo hacerlo.
- Yo sé que puedes. Pero no así como estás: tienes que entrenarte, tienes que ser más fuerte, porque esta vez yo no te voy a llevar flotando. ¿Lo quieres?
- Sí.
- Entonces nada.

Me quedé quieta por un momento.

- ¿Hasta allá? –pregunté.
- ¡Nada!
- ¿Y si me ahogo?
- Nadarás.
- ¿Y si me pierdo?
- Nadarás de vuelta.
- ¡Es muy lejos! ¡Es estúpido, es peligroso, ¿cómo se te ocurre que voy a llegar hasta allá nadando?!
- ¡Nada! ¡Deja de preguntar estupideces y ponte a nadar! ¡NADA!

Lo miré con los ojos más abiertos que nunca, las dudas y los miedos acumulándose detrás de mi garganta pero lo único que hice…

… lo único que pude hacer…

… fue dar esa primera brazada y empezar a nadar.

Thank you for being present (The beautiful Dr. McStuffins)

I met Dr. McStuffins a Tuesday morning, in the middle of the last breath of a saga that might have better never started. He was wearing green cargo shorts, light-frame glasses and a plaid grey shirt with some red stripes on it. He looked a little bit lost, which was exactly how I felt.

Why did I raise my hand and welcomed him in? Why, when he didn’t answer the first time, did I say “Tall guy,  green shorts!"? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter much. Dr. McStuffins noticed my raised hand and came to meet me.

Dr. McStuffins comes from the west side of a great northern state, and lives even further north, though not neighboring with either maple syrup lovers nor artic bears (he says there are a few coyotes, but they're nowhere near dramatic enough). He had come, like the rest of us, to prove his worth on a test. A test! A whole (tall) being, thinking, sweating, warm-blooded being, forced to prove his worth on a test.

We sat next to each other, and when I occasionally broke off in Spanish he told me he had lived right in the middle of the world for a time, and that hearing me tugged him to that place in his mind. We talked about what means to be a doctor, the honor it grants us, the terrible price we pay for it. What were we going to do that night? A couple of beers and a crunch session on the grass, amidst a dying summer’s humidity.

I was there, fully. I could feel the heat on my skin, I could hear the screech of the crickets, I tasted the light bitterness of the beer, I smelled the night. I saw the person right in front of me, not the idea I might have made of him, and he was beautiful.

Dr. McStuffins bumped his head a while ago, and he is still learning to live with his scars. His pain has taught him what my pain taught me so many years ago: the deepest scars are the ones of the mind; they challenge not only what we believe in, but who we are.

Who are we, really? Day after day we change, and we’re not even the same hour after hour. How can we hold on to past definitions of a dynamic being? How can we keep promises based on ever evolving identities? How can we say “I’ll be with you for the rest of my life” if we don’t even know we’re gonna be the same person?

Why were we being so honest? Dr. McStuffins had shed his armor so gracefully it felt only natural to shed mine. Two human beings, two present minds, two people who chose to share themselves with one another simply because they wanted to. Is there need for another reason?

Dr. McStuffins drank a glass of wine while we fantasized with barbecued boar. We started talking about dancing and what it meant for me, and he told me about all those hours he had spent pursuing the perfection of tae kwon do form.

The night had closed in on us, and we had to get back to our rooms. I was afraid of Dr. McStuffins beauty, so I quickly said goodbye, only to see the disappointment in his eyes. I couldn’t resist it: I didn’t want to.

I thought myself safe enough, sitting on my couch, legs crossed. But Dr. McStuffins reached deep down into my soul, his blue eyes longing. He had seen me, and I had let him do so.

Pretty soon Dr. McStuffins kissed me with an urgency I had not expected; the passion that made his beard scratch my mouth was raw and immediate, his eyes pierced mine intently.

I didn’t think at all. I surrendered myself to the music of his mouth, dancing to the beat of it. My big queen bed was being used as fully as my unholy prayers had asked the day before. God, if you actually do exist, thank you for that one: you truly outdid yourself this time.

Boundaries were sensuously crossed; his hands discovered paths on my body, gaining control of the depth of my breaths. My lips were his for kissing, my nipples for him to bite, my skin for his beard to redden. Wetness between my thighs confirmed his overwhelming victory: I was his for the taking.

Test? What test? Aw, fuck the test. “Fuck” could mean so many things right now, and we mean the test? Yes, we do. We had to go to sleep; we had to rest, we had to give in to a formidable contender, the very reason we were both then and there: the fucking test.

Yet sleeping doesn’t have to be a solitary act; we woke up each other, almost fastidious, unable to let go of each other’s lips, hips, legs, arms and hands. We slept, alright, but only the strictly necessary.

The next day was the test. We spent the morning crunching, studying, going through scenarios over and over again, hoping things would turn out as they did on our heads. Of course they didn’t. Was your differential diagnosis cluster headaches? More like cluster fuck.

Yeah, fuck. We got back to our rooms in the hopes of reclaiming that word for ourselves. And yeah, fuck. We did.

Cocooned between the sheets lay his streamlined body, too beautiful to be understood by any less than staring at it, and yet I kept my eyes shut, kissing him. I decided he was not going to be my bed’s only master; I was going to show him exactly what the word pleasure means.

At first I would say he was pleased, and maybe very excited. I approached my target with wet lips and an open mouth, slowly making my way from his chest to his belly, listening and looking how he gasped and squirmed.

After a first taste from above I went from below, licking his thighs, working my way up with my tongue, kissing and gently sucking while he lost his mind. The surprise on his face was the sexiest thing I have ever seen: he didn't need to talk. I could see it in his eyes, that most delicious of questions: how can this feel so fucking good?

His mouth opened, awkwardly calling my name, unable to breathe. His hands grabbed onto my wrists, “God!”, the atheist whispered. Torture, he called it, almost unbearable, but he didn't want me to stop.

I claimed my credit, and he yielded willfully. Was it over, then? No.

I felt him in my mouth, surrounded by my lips. I heard him struggling to catch his breath, holding onto the sheets. Was it over then? Nope. I did not let him go until he absolutely, fully and irrevocably surrendered to me.

Dr. McStuffins checked out almost immediately. A deep, calm slumber came after the indescribable peak he had reached. It was our last night together, one of only two, and we fell asleep next to each other like the night before.

Goodbyes had to come soon. Dr. McStuffins flight was early in the morning, and he had to pack, but not before lengthily kissing, touching and biting me goodbye. I’ll admit there were a couple of times I also lost my mind, but don’t tell him: he might get cocky.

We kissed one last time and then he left. I came back to the empty bed and drowned in his scent. Would I ever see him again? While I rolled and tried to let his departure sink in a knock on my glass door startled me. Who was it? Dr. McStuffins, of course. He came to kiss me goodbye, again.

I put some clothes on and walked him out. We kissed yet again, and I felt his beard on my cheeks for the last time, his fingers between my own. He went into his car and I waved him goodbye one last, definitive time.

Will I see him again? Why do I care? Dr. McStuffins is just a guy I met for two days, while studying for the test; two days! Eight straight hours on the fucking test, God knows how many more studying, two-days-time is a generous exaggeration. Thursday’s early morning saw me come back to my room, wondering.

Earlier I had told him we would most likely never see each other again. I had panicked, frightened of what his presence may mean to me, impulsively throwing him away, far from where he could be of any danger. But then I had noticed he had bitten a little bit off his nail, where a tiny little wound stood where once flesh did, and I couldn’t help to kiss his finger. Why did I care about a stranger’s fingers? Why did I held his hand? Why did I call him out that first time, tall Dr. McStuffins?

Because I cared. And caring doesn’t need any reason, doesn’t need any time, doesn’t need anything else but the sheer will to do it. I care. I was there, he was there, beautiful Dr. McStuffins and I we were present in time and place, and our lives walked together for those two days. I care, and it means there's a possibility that there may come a day where I'll miss him, and I'll want him, and I might even ache from not being able to see him. Yet I care.

Houston, September 10, 2015