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Observing reality
through desire
Miguel Ángel Guerrero Ramos
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Copyright © Miguel Ángel Guerrero Ramos
Original title: Observar la realidad a través del deseo
© edition- La Lluvia de una Noche
Front: La lluvia de una noche
Translated from Spanish by Sebas Tian, authorized by the Author.
2013
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Dedicated to all the muses of inspiration
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Synopses:
Nina‟s a young attractive girl who‟s got to search for the love of her life,
according to a mysterious airtight female clairvoyant, sooner than three days
from now. In order to fulfil said task, Nina‟s scheduled to visit some of the most
excellent geniuses and virtuosi of painting, photography and other visual arts
alike; some geniuses who would get inspired by her, her glance, the beauty of a
muse who irradiates her slightly wavy hair or her fragrant skin of pearly moon.
This is, therefore, a story moored in the deepest desires of a damsel who‟s
been consecrated with such matchlessness and splendour. Or rather, of that
woman who could well happen to be the reincarnation of Calliope or, otherwise,
at least of all those corporeal shrewd certainties hidden behind the loom of
yearning.
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Chapter 1: Desires of an existentialistically-probing
dazzling sensual muse
They met under the luminescent fiery glow of a cerise nightfall, a crimson dusk
quivering with passion and overflowing in radiant strokes above life‟s very own
bewilderment. There was, at that moment, a delightful moon overhead, meaning
to bathe herself in the eyes of a star or, who knows, perhaps some infatuated
romantic. He approached her having all his senses been somewhat distorted by
such reality that can only be woven by longing. He drew near her with
remarkable chivalry. He called her Calliope. Some cats meowed in the ceilings,
as if they were chasing an utmost bare plucky mystery with their feline music.
Shortly afterwards, soon after they‟d met each other under the shining sizzling
spark of that hitherto crimson dusk, both of them decided to submerge
themselves in passionate waters and vertiginous currents, which belonged to
the unremitting surge of entreaty. Thus with their lives following that strain of
spine-tingling and every so often overpowering breezes, on one occasion of
pulsating unswerving collective appetites, while she fondled her beloved‟s
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chest, looked intently into him with eyes of enchanted muse. Then, just some
few seconds afterwards, it occurred to her to ask him this:
—Tell me, my love, why do you call me Calliope? Who is she?
They both remained still. There was a silence leaning on the fringe of an
unsuspecting layer of doubts. However, a fleeting moment later she, supplying
her voice with a withdrawn magnetic nostalgic harmony worthy of a tern amidst
the zephyr, suggested:
—Tell me, my love, whether she happens to be another lover of yours.
—Calliope, sweetheart —he faced up to reply—, is, according to Greek
mythology, the muse of poetry and eloquence, the most prestigious and
beautiful, you see, amongst all the Olympian muses.
—I want to know something.
—Sure.
—Do you see me in her, or do you see her in me?
—I wouldn‟t be able to tell you.
As soon as she got out of the sweet bed belonging to that artist who was
comparing her to one of the Olympian muses, more precisely to who was
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supposed to be the most beautiful and prestigious of them all, our beloved
beautiful Nina absorbed with her profound rubicund glare the spring warmth
through a bevelled window and through the very path of desire‟s mystique. A
strange silence, meanwhile, swirled around her unstoppably. “What you just
said, as if with some poetic tone, my dear artist, makes me think you dream
about me”, she said as if just for the sake of it, with her body exposed and
removing from her face some wicked locks of wavy hair.
—That, lovely Calliope —he said— means you are that driving force that turns
me into a virtuoso who takes the chisel, shapes the clay and mixes the paint
with unparalleled genius yet to be seen in any other artist.
Nina was still naked over the artist‟s bed, an act that, unbeknownst to her,
instated on his tongue the unstoppable yearning of exploring her breasts‟
softness which, by the way, portrayed a perfect contrast, and it could be said
nearly in a passionate and sublime sense of harmony, with the hardness of her
erected delighted nipples.
Outside that room, by the way, as we can remember, it was spring, but for one
reason or another, it was autumn inside our dear gorgeous Nina‟s soul, which
was ploughed with trade winds and other less undecipherable breezes. She
didn‟t stop meticulously analysing the words of that artist although, it has to be
said, she seemed to be rather wrapped up in some uncertain deep thought.
“I‟ve got to go”, the beautiful Nina said, when recalling the cold sentence a
mysterious female clairvoyant had made the previous day. Then she let him —
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the artist who compared her to one of the Olympian muses— observe her sweet
and soft naked female body for a few more seconds, during which he tried to
retain it in order to sculpt and paint it hundreds and hundreds of further times
from that day onwards and throughout all the life still ahead of him. She then
proceeded to get dressed after taking a short refreshing shower. Something
was telling gorgeous dazzling Nina that said artist was not and could not ever
become the love of her life. Of course, he just saw in her a walking poem called
“Calliope”, quite flattering, yes, but quite outside reality, which is why she had to
consequently chivvy along. Time was running out according to the warning of a
mystifying female clairvoyant, whose glance was immeasurably diluted in the
realms of Oblivion, which meant the hourglass of Nina‟s loves could stop any
moment. That‟s why she‟d got to hurry and look for the one but, shortly before
leaving, the artist took her by the arm and asked her for one last sweet soft
good-bye kiss. Against all odds, she declined. He then told Nina, in a desperate
attempt to keep her next to him, that her sweet female kisses actually were
what made him dream, and that charming exquisite flavour of her skin was what
gave him that determined inspiration he was talking about some minutes earlier
and which made him paint like no other artist elsewhere.
There wasn‟t any way or means for him to persuade her to stay, as she left him
lost in the company of the sour seclusion found in he who knows to possess an
unequalled extraordinary talent and who knows he must only work on it. Now
well, if the female clairvoyant was right, that bewildering female clairvoyant
whose glance was immeasurably diluted in the realms of Oblivion, Nina had
less than three days to find the love of her life, otherwise she‟d never do it and
would remain forever alone and with the massive distress of having lost, even in
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her youth, her very last big chance. There wasn‟t, thus, a lot to think about or
consider, the warning from the mysterious female clairvoyant of immeasurable
glance was, in its moment, squib. How did this whole story of the female
psychic and Nina looking for the love of her life in less than three days start?
Simply enough, it all began with a dream that profoundly fretted the beautiful
striking Nina in such a way that she opted to consult someone who could make
sense of it. That day of hastily roaming clouds and the bluest stationary sky, as
a consequence, a rather wary and sceptical Nina respect whatever the fortune-
teller she was about to consult could say, said to herself this: “You ought not to
believe an absurd fallacy out of nowhere Nina. You should trust your instinct
over anything else”. What gorgeous Nina didn‟t know was that her intuition
would wind up backing up that terrible forecast given to her by the spiritualist
and which from then on left her drifting through an uncertain deceitful limbo.
What was that mysterious and distressing dream of Nina‟s about? The one
dream, that is, that she wanted to be decoded by a female clairvoyant of
immeasurable glance, as if it‟d been diluted in the realms of Oblivion, or at least
she wanted to be pointed in the right direction and then get to know herself a
little bit more. It was, in fact, about a reddish twilight of quite an intense tonality,
and full of echoes which were just as perplexing as they were unsuspected, as
well as about what had happened under such sunset, which was Nina walking
down the streets of a forsaken city. In her dream, she didn‟t notice how strange
it is for a city full of high buildings to find itself as empty as it was. There were,
by the way, some disperse clouds in that sky of red tint. She, beautiful dazzling
Nina, was looking at the livid and serene clouds when someone placed a hand
on one of her shoulders, someone who also drew closer to her and whispered:
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“I‟m here, dear Nina, as an iridescent rite of light made by the shadows, and if
you don‟t turn around, I‟ll be gone forever taking all your love while you, dearly
beloved, will be carrying a heavy lumber from here to the rest of eternity and
infinity”. Nina heard that voice in a state of true perplexity, and even when that
stealthy voice warned her so categorically about that, she didn‟t turn around to
see who was talking to her. She was paralysed, though not completely so: in
that instant, at least, Nina was able to somehow recognise it was but a dream
from which she‟d wake up sooner or later. But she didn‟t wake up, and instead
began falling into a red thickness; in other words, falling into an overwhelming
red intensity from that sky spread with white and largely bruised clouds. She
shouted and desperately tried to hold on to something, because she‟d one way
or another been announced, deep down, that she‟d be permanently gobbled by
such sky of a red so intense as her most intimate ardent passions.
Nina awoke shaken up and that same afternoon, after leaving the restaurant
where she‟d been waitressing for some months, she decidedly headed towards
a female clairvoyant, or channeller, or something like that, who, according to
what Nina herself had previously learnt, is very famous and respected in that
city. Yes, Nina chose to go to some mysterious female clairvoyant for her
uniquely disturbing dream to be interpreted, and also to speak to her about love,
affection, unexpected reencounters, mysterious surprises and, who knows?,
maybe infuse some optimistic vibe into her tumultuous and agitated life.
Anyway, in she went, that warm day, to the vaguely lit lair of the aforementioned
female clairvoyant. In that den, it has to be said, an inner, mysterious and
startling lassitude seemed to be breathed, but a gaunt light haloed everything
there and that gave that lugubrious place a phantasmagorical aspect.
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The female clairvoyant spoke with a voice as rough and remote as those
memories that provoke the most heartfelt tears of their mystical supernatural
and somewhat nostalgic existence, lost in foreign destinations even being
aware that knowledge of no fate teaches life to perfectly unfold in its complex
breadths. But even then she —the female clairvoyant of immeasurable glare—
had something strange and truly peculiar. Had anyone other than Nina been
there in that enclosure, they would‟ve sworn to have seen female clairvoyant
the stroking Nina with her glare and being utterly smitten by her, biting her lips
with lewdness and thoroughly-examined sensuality, and Nina at loggerheads.
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Chapter 2: Desires of a beautiful sensual Muse
existentialistically involved in unfounded passions
“Your kisses, which are still suggestive even when they‟re on your lips, are
passionate and inspiring”, said to Nina the second man she decided to visit after
she‟d seen an artist who was a virtuoso of painting and sculpture. Said second
man, who also made love to her, is incidentally a politician, and not a very
affable one by the way, as he over gesticulates with his hands and speaks in a
martial tone. As he was opening his main door to Nina, that man felt the
bouquet of a passion that burnt his loins. To her —that is, to beautiful dazzling
Nina—, as it is customary, that politician talked about all he knew, which was,
himself. He then, customarily as well, took advantage of one of the chances he
found in the conversation —if such a thing can be called a conversation to begin
with— to unbutton the silk blouse gorgeous Nina was wearing, liberating her
breasts, which then overflew as only the most impetuous of the passionate
rivers ever could. Then he played as he wished with her ardent chest and slid
one of his hands towards the moistures and different pleats of her sex, which
not only damped the politician‟s hand a bit but which also seemed to somehow
satiate a remote instinctive thirst. He made love to her thereafter over a
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threadbare mauve-coloured carpet. All throughout that time, beautiful Nina said
and uttered naught.
“Listen to me, beautiful: if you don‟t toss yourself as if entering the ocean for the
first time, you‟ll lose the will to love for good. Be careful, though, since it won‟t
be easy at all to choose the right person”: That was precisely the last advice
given to gorgeous Nina by the mysterious female clairvoyant just the previous
day when interpreting the former‟s dream. “Oh, something else”, added the
baffling female clairvoyant right at that moment: “You‟ve only got two days
starting now to do what I told you to”:
“I want one more of your gall kisses”, said the politician to gorgeous Nina. “What
could you want another one of my kisses for, if you‟ve had me for long
inexorable minutes of passion”, she replied. “There‟s still some inspiration
missing, my dear, a kind of security to be able to talk before any audience and
any congress”. “I‟m sure, sweetheart, that you‟ll get it elsewhere”, concluded
beautiful dazzling Nina, shortly before walking out permanently from the
politician‟s house and his selfish life.
Passionate storms are now chasing uncertain invisibilities of feeling as they also
drag gorgeous Nina towards some man who used to be her boyfriend at some
point and who‟s always worked in theatre as he intends to find the curtain hiding
the exact staging of desire… of carnal desire, of course.
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In fact, beautiful Nina thinks about him so intensely that she can‟t ever forget
about a letter he once wrote to her and which she still keeps in an old drawer in
an old cupboard at her small comfy apartment, next to other very precious
correspondence from past loves and next to some soft palpitations of dreamy
life. Nina‟s saved, by the way, love letters dedicated to her by several men
throughout several years and which make her want to fly between the clouds
and then feel life doesn‟t stop softly and unconcernedly stroking her. At that
moment of rushes and doubts, however, gorgeous Nina only thought about that
love letter sent to her once by some man who‟s always been devoted to his
theatre work and which says:
I don’t know if you remember this Nina. I was Hamlet, in a world
far from history, at one of the impalpable untraveled corridors of life,
avidly, imperiously and enquiringly asking myself whether to be or not
to be, when suddenly, I looked up as if staring at a hoist horizon of
opalescent stunning appearance, and I saw you as the most comforting,
sensitive and extraordinary of facades. Yes, I found myself wondering in
those instants whether to be or not, whether getting on or not with
existence or denial or whether choosing the contents of absolute, or by
the indefinite unsuspected shape of nothing, when I saw you there, in the
middle of the discontinuous figments of a feverish pulsating tide of
heartbeats. There, at one of the galleries of such enormous modern
theatre where my soul began someday a while ago to be pursued by the
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soft silky breath of dreams and where I’ve been practising as a director,
as a lead actor and occasionally as a skilful gifted playwright, more
exactly whenever fragrant inspirations of vaguely forbidding muses want
me to.
What was the first thing I thought when I saw you for the first
time? Well, I thought you, with your gleaming amber eyes and pearly
skin, were as beautiful and hypnotic as those aforementioned vaguely
forbidding muses, as pretty as the most flirtatious and fickle of the
Sylphs. What was the second thought that came to me then? That I had to
become someone completely independent and concrete as well as
physically situated in this complex universe as an entity that is immerse
in life’s very own sudden character, and in the refulgent glow of sidereal
eyes of this earth. In other words and to make myself be better
understood, I thought in resuming doing what I was doing: acting, which
I did until the last second of the performance, until the very last moment
of that dexterous dramatisation.
The next day, before starting off the respective function, I saw you
again at the same place, in other words, the same box seat. In that instant
I told myself “Focus! Set yourself to delve in the outmost dense,
burnished and intangible ocean of the staging”. I remember, come to
think about some details relating to you, that my workgroup and I were
going to portray Reasons of Being a Starless Firmament during that new
afternoon function of that day. That was a musical about detectives and
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mafia members, inspired in the life of Al Capone and the head of the
operations to bring him down and leader of the Untouchables, Eliot Ness,
and was supposed to be the only performance of the day at that vast
modern theatre. Ten minutes to start, however, and just after double-
checking it was you who were the one in the dream suite and not a
delusion of my insufficient and moderately tactile senses of my inner
self, I abruptly changed my mind. Out I got, thus, filled with euphoria,
and told the audience of that huge up to date theatre, that marvellous
foreshadowed afternoon, that besides playing the work on detectives and
mafia, they’d be able to appreciate, as a brief and juicy treat at the end of
the evening, a small piece of Romeo and Juliet.
Such performance of Romeo and Juliet supposed itself, because of
the speed of the decision taking it to stage, in a uniquely distinctive way.
It was initially meant to be a performance of Romeo (me) talking to an
imaginary Juliet at a perfumed imaginary balcony (or at least that was the
idea). Said Juliet wound up being you. Yes, you, with your amber eyes
and pearly skin, because you directed to me several rogue, unfinished,
flirty, extremely sensual however discreet smiles, which, as soon as I
received deep down in my core, and in that zone of the soul where an
imperishable enchanting flame made me feel like I was in the most
sublime eternal of paradises.
Nowadays, even though we’ve barely greeted each other a few
times in person, I find myself writing a play I’m planning on performing
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with my theatre group especially for you. I’m already aware you’ve
become a big admirer of my work, enjoyed my part as Oedipus with a
recently self-inflicted blindness, as brave Jason looking for the Golden
Fleece, or Dante Alighieri going through the different circles of hell with
the invaluable company of Virgil. I also know you like it very much
when I, in the middle of a performance, recreate a life unusual to me,
untimely and overwhelmingly turn to you, to the point I’m familiar with
the exact way of your favourite fine elegant twists which I make before a
multitude of people, and in which my soul appears to be possessed by the
haughty and imperious presence of a clear open shimmered night as if
it’d been covered with different kinds of nudity.
Because that’s precisely acting: fiction; a kind of pretence seeking
to get to the bottom of the most real thoughts and the most sensitive
clarified hearts. That’s just what performances are: an impacting illusion,
a reality, a charade which, in my case, turns out to be the most mystical,
moving, magical and veracious of all realities.
Nina couldn‟t help but feeling a kind of emotion when recalling the fine, precise
and elaborate way that man expressed his feelings through that letter. She
then, as if she‟d been taken by a breeze recently captivated by a horizon
anxiously anticipating, went to the theatre where the man who‟d always been
involved in drama used to work in those days. He was acting at that moment,
playing a part in which he kissed an incredibly beautiful actress, drawing his
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body closer and closer to hers as his hands skilfully went across her soft
feminine thighs. Nina stood there watching the scene. For a moment she
thought it was remarkable and quite well-acted, but then she thought it was a bit
over the top, both in terms of length and graze by the actors. It was then that
her sense of intuition told her: those thespians who kissed each other were
involved and, in fact, shared some highly ardent and fiery passions on a daily
basis. They certainly know each other‟s bodies, even more thoroughly than the
way in which they act.
Nina didn‟t think about it twice and quickly left that theatre without having said a
word to that man —she needed to hurry. All the essence of the sky‟s passion,
by the way, was hidden in her eyes.
“You, beautiful, yes you, my dear, graze me in the most intimate with your
sensuality and make my senses hallucinate with your scent”. By hearing the
female clairvoyant saying that, as if she‟d found herself in an odd trance or even
about to kiss her, and while she was stroking her wavy her, Nina, for some
reason, thought about her mother, imagining her fondling her hair the same
way. However, the image beautiful Nina daydreamed about was soon blurred.
Had she ever met her mother, Nina would‟ve surely had that beautiful wistful
image forever there, underneath her memory.
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Beautiful dazzling Nina asks herself about love: she wants to know what it is,
whether it‟s the flame lighting the inextinguishable torch of passion; a trampoline
leading you to profound astonished instants; a sublime crackled light in the
middle of darkness; a condiment or some species for the exquisite palate of the
heart. No, no and no… come to think about it, Nina thinks it‟s like a fire rain, or
something beautiful that sprouts and raises up life itself.
Yes, that‟s how she was imagining love when she got to her house and found
the following message on her answerphone: “I‟d like to take you to the pictures,
Nina. There‟s a new French film I‟d like to watch with you. Do you remember
when we talked about French cinema in our school years? Anyway, if you‟re up
for it, let me know. Love you Nina”. That was a guy Nina‟d met back in school
and who‟d early on shown an interest in her, but Nina never gave him a chance
and she‟d hardly do it if it were up to her. Nina deleted the message from the
answerphone and went to carry out her itinerary. In the middle of the street, she
kept assigning shapes to love, under the golden light of a crescent sun.
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Chapter 3: Desires of a beautiful and sensual muse
existentialistically confused
Beautiful unequalled Nina heads towards the old cupboard where she saves, as
a treasure made up of the remnants of various enamoured souls, each and
every one of the love letters from the past. She wishes to feel alive and, for that
reason, she gradually caresses and flutters her own body as she‟s reading
some letters with the initial intention of cheering herself up before going out to
look for the one. She didn‟t use to do that as a child, that allegedly sinful act but
which encloses a kind of ecstasy and engrossing delight as she thought that
was taboo and now, as a youngster, it turns out several years have already
passed since different lovers go through the geography of her body with their
hands and taste the most scented porosities of her skin at will. Nina, however,
discovers some intimate personal pleasure and keeps doing it for some
minutes, up until she finds a letter, which she still keenly keeps to this day,
written by an old flame that used to work as a corporate spy, and which says:
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My dear:
Butterflies take to the air rather agitatedly in this soft perpetual
place where I am and which happens to be autumn disguised as spring.
The unstoppable and somewhat nostalgic flutter of its wings reminds me
I owe you five glasses of Vermouth, two smiles, a wink and one or two
nights of pleasure and unequivocal pleasure. It also reminds me, honey,
that you owe me several songs by Armando Manzanero, one or two by
Ana Gabriel and, above all, dearly beloved, And the Clock Struck Ten by
Joaquín Sabina.
Those butterflies that for a long time have known the end of this
slightly crystallised sky that covers us, also remind me that not long ago
we decided to leave our most unnoticed and individual inner deaths in
order to fully devote ourselves to this hourglass-shaped love with altered
minutes and passionately constant seconds and to these curtains swishing
under the cover of our warmest looks. Yes, this love, and these fevered
butterflies that surround me, remind me that not long ago I decided to
leave, for you, my love, my job as a spy, as a corporate spy. They remind
me that not long ago I decided to destroy all the microfilms, data CDs
and all the information I’d stored for years and which was worth millions
but which neither you nor I wanted to know anything about.
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Those butterflies that surround me, you know, also remind me of
that night in which your eyes confessed to me that your job wasn’t other
than being a sweet and pretty Mata Hari. That means your eyes admitted
your passionate task was merely seducing me with all the charming
devotion of your hair in the breeze, and to be aware of each and every
one of my movements. A job, yours that is, remains as constant as
always. Of course, I’ve left mine behind and now it’s but covering my
thoughts with you each night and woo you with kisses every day. Yes,
my days as a spy have been left behind since that subtle and passionate
instant of touches which were somewhat transmuted into dreams, when
you told me you’d leave everything for me. We have indeed left
everything, to the point it doesn’t matter if anyone intercepts this letter
which I’m writing to you right now. It doesn’t matter anymore if there
are more spies around us, because they’d only learn that we love each
other.
Last but not least, do not ever, honey, forget that you’re like the
flower that perfumes the shades of my horizons, and that I hope you
come here soon, to this place where butterflies and domestic curtains
move concurrently; to this tropical paradise where I’ve got an excellent
house next to the beach, because here, my dearly beloved Nina, we’ll
only be spied by the eloquent impetuosity of a breeze that is like our
love, that is, a breeze that each morning and evening seeps through the
windows and strokes the curtains.
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As he opened the main door to beautiful Nina, that grey-haired musician whom
she‟d smiled at first sight, effusively hugged her and asked her to enter and
make herself comfortable. And then, without further ado and in his frenetic
manner, that musician of unearthly inner oceans started kissing gorgeous
unparalleled Nina, deliberately and all of a sudden, just the way he always
does. It was just past noon. The previous night Nina‟d made love to an artist,
that morning to a politician and now it was no other than that musician who
soothed his most fiery and passionate desires on her. For that impetuous
musician, the sweetest flavours of life have always been those of Nina‟s, the
same way music from heaven, or at least from some of our most essential and
spiritual vitalities, has always been Bach‟s. Yes, Bach‟s, the same music
someone named Santiago used to play for beautiful Nina just before she went
to bed, with all the possible care.
“I want you to grant an eternal flame to my ideas and I wish, my dear, for one of
your sweet blackberry kisses”, asked the third man Nina‟d made love to,
intensely and passionately, after a mysterious female clairvoyant of
unfathomable glance as it‟d been diluted in the realms of Oblivion told her to
speed up in the search for the love of her life. Yes, said man is the musician
we‟ve recently started to talk about: the man who pierced her with his erect sex
as if he wanted to reach the very centre of Nina‟s soul, lifting her up with his
arms while penetrating her only wishing for her to reach the dreamland of
pleasure and for him to get to the sacred paradise of inspiration, submerging
himself in the beautiful skin of the gorgeous Nina to make her forget about said
skin‟s very existence and think, without any concept whatsoever, about the
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most concentric and concave of passionate infinitudes, and rummaging through
Nina‟s sex, within her open passionate flower, in order to discover which
strange and curious fire was burning inside of him. The same man who, after all
the hurly-burly that‟s been described to a degree, asked her for one more of her
blackberry kisses, one further osculation after a sweet bed-sheet pursuit and
the unseasonable and unpredictable music of her moans, Nina‟s. “Buy some
blackberries, dear”, she said while leaving that musician‟s house and concluded
he wasn‟t the love of her life either. There‟s not too long before the deadline for
her quest for the one concludes, as predicted to her via a dream. Just a few
more hours…
While being with the musician, Nina‟d reached the temporary conclusion that
love was like a strong blizzard that shows up and tears the inhibition curtains.
Now, disappointed, she imagines love as a snowball that first makes an
impression while it‟s descending and then it slowly dries. In other words, love
may merely be a vane illusion and could actually consist in hanging the heart by
a thread.
That‟s what Nina was thinking about while being caressed by a lukewarm
breeze which moved her wavy hair and introduced itself under her skit. Beautiful
dazzling Nina felt how that breeze went through her body as if it‟d been the avid
hands of her lovers. She wasn‟t wearing any tights and didn‟t remember where
she‟d left them, whether at the politician‟s or the musician‟s. She‟d got no
knickers either, but she was positive she‟d forgot them at the musician‟s place.
Anyway, whatever beautiful unequalled Nina thought about love, the only
certainty was that the deadline was approaching for her to accomplish her task.
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Nina thought about the boy who‟d left a message on her answerphone that
morning: perhaps he was her true love. She could go see him, even tell him
some things. She swiftly ruled him out, though, as she didn‟t know how to
approach him without making it look like she was giving away her soul and
existence. He‟s moderately shy and, if she helps him too much, it‟ll seem she‟s
offering herself to the most intimate and secret realms of her being, or at least
that‟s how she sees it. Yes, because of that foolish and unfounded fear, or
rather for that foolish and unfounded idea, she ruled him out; the same fear or
idea that kept her from even daring sending him a message regardless of the
fact she‟d already been with several men who‟d touched her and delved into her
most intimate nature. But anyway, the true important part here is that, all of a
sudden, she decided to visit another one of her old flames: a scientist this time.
In the solipsism of life, that scientist pleasantly saw beautiful Nina‟s visit and,
just like the previous three men, was quick to dissolve his desire, rather
modestly, in the encircling desirable amplitude of her body. Unlike the musician
or the artist, whose hands have always been skilful and curious, that scientist
touched Nina‟s body as if it were some sort of fragile paper.‟ That way, love with
him didn‟t last long. “Are you leaving so soon? Stay a while longer Nina”. “No, I
can‟t”. “At least grant me the sweetest of your kisses and inspire me to
understand this chaotic world”. “Perhaps you and I don‟t live in the same world,
dear”. Nina finally said, shortly before leaving and crying in disappointment, not
before men but before love, next to a crystal-clear water fountain she found in
an almost empty street.
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Nina, by the way, carried with her one of the love letters from the past, which
made her want to fly amidst the clouds and feel life doesn‟t stop softly and
unworriedly stroking her every time she read or just remembered them, just in
case it could cheer her up. Nina took it out of her handbag, a randomly-chosen
letter from the drawer of her old cupboard and which now and there, next to the
crystal-clear water fountain, turns out to be the letter of an old flame who used
to be, and quite possibly still is, a photographer, and which says:
My dear:
You know that when your glare, in one of those pictures you send
to me, pretends to be a foaming and lovely bubble bath, I don’t know
why I think I can find the exact level of intimacy of a perfect stroke, and
the aura of your pictures, by its side, transmits certain warmth to me. A
kind of warmth that, only sometimes, turns into a silence that, my
beloved Nina, seems to hurl me to one of those abysses shaped like
absence and which occasionally inhabit the horizons.
I’m very sorry to tell you this, Nina. I’m sorry to tell you the
warmth I get from your glance in the pictures and the negatives you send
to me, sometimes, and only occasionally, turns into silence, despite being
one of those heats that may remind me that true corporeal tepidness hides
outside rather than inside the body. Don’t blame me, though: blame
distance, like I do, for it is distance that keeps us from easily seeing each
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other daily to share our most shameless gravitations, that immense and
colossal puddle of water called the Atlantic Ocean, and I don’t remember
clearly whether it’s about 2,500 or 3,000 miles that separate us.
Do you know something else, Nina? Now that I’m writing this, I
think that you, my dear, must surely be thinking that distance has given
us a very beautiful way of communicating with each other, in which you
send me pictures, some innocent some a bit more daring, for me to
follow the lead of that glance of yours that so deeply loves pretending it’s
a bubble bath, during everlasting diurnal and nocturnal moments of
daybreak. You send those images, in fact, partly because you know I’m a
photographer, and also for me to write a poem or a love letter to you,
mentioning the landscapes or the places where you snap yourself, so that
I send you the letter or poem on the post or on-line just how you do with
the pictures in the midst of the rosiest autumns of life (I’ve gotta admit,
my dear, that it’s far more comfortable and inexpensive to send you
everything via the internet, and that way you can also quickly check it
out in your mobile).
About all I’ve written to you, Nina, up until today, I remember I’ve
come up, for instance, with A Beautiful Lady under Mystical Bushes of
Zirconium Colour, The Bedroom Featuring the Dolls with whom the
Moon Used to Play, The Earlier Night Sunken in Your Eyes, and The
Most Enraptured Slopes of Essence next to a Cup of Coffee. Those, as
you know well, have been letters or poems I’ve written to the pictures
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you send. It turns out that in the last one, you’re covered in foam and
seemingly naked, in a smooth white tub. I’ve seen that sensual
photograph and have just thought about this letter which lightly alludes
to the foamy bubbles where you find yourself submerged, since said
bubbles, which reflect your heart’s shape, remind me of your very own
charm, which has sweetly blown up the distance and solitude that
separates us.
“A beautiful letter”, Nina thought. That sheet of paper couldn‟t, however, cheer
her up the way she so desperately needed, and which her soul‟s breeziest and
most tempestuous part so badly required. “It seems”, said the breeze to Nina
while placing itself under her skirt, “that the soul worries and mixes itself up with
anything, and when that happens, its dreams and desires invariably blend with
other realities”.
Nina, still next to that previously mentioned crystal-clear water fountain, asked
herself over and over if she was actually a kind of muse named Calliope and
who refines some celestial gift, whose name harmonises with the most perfect
neuronal organisation of her lovers, who always wind up turned into virtuosic
geniuses. Perhaps, at the end of the day, she was a mere life consolation for all
of them, or a promise piercing into the deepest sides of spirit. A strange
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besieged sensation overwhelmed Nina, the same one which appeared in her
heart of hearts past her troubling dream, and the same one she experienced
while a mysterious female clairvoyant stroke her fragrant wavy hair with an
intimate sexual lustful desire. It could be that the interpretation of that dream
was an utter fallacy , but Nina still saw herself as a failure, as she hadn‟t
thought of finding any traces of love whatsoever. She felt as a pseudo-
existential solitary condemned figure, and that‟s when she suddenly
remembered him at last…
Yes, Nina‟s remembered him, at last she sees him wandering through her
thoughts and staying there, dwelling in them with all the clarity of the case. This
sudden memory makes her feel complete somehow.
The same way she‟d done for the last couple of days, Nina herself arrived in
„his‟ house. She felt odd, as if she‟d been carrying the world upon her shoulder
and, at the same time, as if something in her mimicked the flight of a butterfly.
He‟ opened the door to her and greeted her with substantial lightness but also
with massive joy. “It‟s so good to have you here again, María Sofia”. It‟d been a
while, it has to be said, since Nina‟d been called by her birth name, which is
why she outlined a charming and tender smile —the first one after two turbid
and rough days—. Nina devoted the rest of that afternoon to making one of the
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soups Santiago liked so much and then thought about asking him something in
the middle of supper: “Dad, I wanna know how mum was”. “How mum was, you
say?" “Yes!”
Santiago was left thinking, reminiscing about that time when his daughter
introduced him to her first boyfriend. They both had that night a father-daughter
talk about relationships, love and maturity, and which Santiago tried to sort out
in the best possible way, telling her that sometimes it‟s alright to observe reality
through desire or emotion, especially through love, but she‟d better keep in
mind that some sensations don‟t entirely belong to us; some feelings are
created by other people, and the true secret of life, as a result, is based on
listening to our heart in order to identify true sentiments and that‟s what we
really want.
“You see, my dear Nina, your mother used to say that always, wherever she
was, she‟d love you infinitely, even regardless of all the years in the world
passing by”, said Santiago to his daughter, just as he‟s done an endless amount
of times since his wife died. “Something else, dad”. “Of course, dear, tell me”.
“What is love?” Santiago when he listened to his daughter asking him that,
savoured a piece of chicken he‟d extracted from the soup he was having and
then, being as straightforward as always and full of simplicity, said: “Honey, to
love is to give the best and feel good about it”.
That night, as they analysed mum‟s blue eyes in an old photo album, they
laughed and there were many dreams and illusions painted on her faces. That
was a night in which a lot of diverse artists, either in painting, theatre or
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photography, turned into virtuosic geniuses under the light of an inspiring moon.
That night, just before going to bed, he thanked his beautiful daughter for her
visit, telling her he felt at peace, even though that night he didn‟t play any Bach
piece for Nina, as he used to when he had to raise her up by himself to make
her sleep. The next day, Nina woke up and found her dad still lying on his bed.
He smiled and she, for one reason or another, knew he‟d left this world. She
also knew somehow that an intense true love had been embedded forever in
the zeal of his memories. Then, with an ocean of tears pouring out of her eyes,
Nina kissed her father‟s forehead, as he‟d so often done as he watched her
growing up. “Here‟s to you, dad, who taught me that true kisses, just like the
best things in life, have always been free”.
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Table of Chapters:
Chapter 1: Desires of an existentialistically-probing
dazzling sensual muse
Chapter 2: Desires of a beautiful sensual Muse
existentialistically involved in unfounded passions
Chapter 3: Desires of a beautiful and sensual muse
existentialistically confused
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