Chapter 3

She sat close to me so that her skin touched mine. I wondered if she could feel the thumping of my heartbeat through my skin. She must have at least felt the electricity that put the hair on my arm on end.

The yellow crescent moon crept up in the east, between the columns of the ancient Roman city. Above it, many stars glittered in a formation I already recognize as the stretching Milky Way. I found Orion, Scorpio, and Cassiopeia. Venus hung low and bright above the horizon.

A silver spotlight flicked on, casting a lone circle in the middle of the stage. The only other light between that was the purple-red remnants of the sunlight in the west. The rest of the audience was cast in pitch-black shadow. And everyone was quiet, save for the occasional tinkling of champagne glasses and the polite clearing of throats.

A woman and a man walked out on stage. The audience clapped.

The woman entered the spotlight. Her flowing dress sparkled red. Red like a carnation, of which she had one adorned in her black hair, and the dress’s many frills were like the frills of a carnation. She gave a curtsy to the clapping audience. There were already sporadic shouts of ‘olé!’ in the stands that echoed off the ancient stone walls.

The man stayed in the shadow and sat in a chair with his guitar. He spent time tuning it, and when it was tuned to his satisfaction, he strummed it a few times vigorously.

The woman paused in an elegant pose. We all waited with hushed trepidation.

A few mournful notes of the guitar were plucked. Then a few more notes to establish a sparse beat. The woman took a few steps with each beat. Her footsteps clapped against the stage, echoing off the stone walls. Her hands curled through the air like rising smoke, her body moving smoothly like a feline, her hips swaying to accentuate her feminine curves.

The guitarist picked his strings faster. The woman began her dance with echoed staccato.

Eliana leaned toward me and whispered in my ear,

“It is flamenco in the Malagueña style. A style that is as free and vivacious as the Levante wind.”

The guitarist began to sing a wailing tune with a raw, cracking, and beautiful voice.

I had to hold my breath at the beauty of it. It was an intimate dance that was hard to say what it conveyed, except all human emotions at once. Joy. Sadness. Anger. Wistfulness. Most of all, there was sexual energy to it. And I could swear she looked right at me, curling her fingers at me as if to beckon me to join her there on stage so that she could hold my body tightly against hers as she danced. I felt that pull as if a thread was tied between us.

“Do you know her?” I asked Eliana.

“Yes, of course. That is Selena. You will meet her after the show. At the chiringuito.”

“Is she a gypsy witch too?”

“Yes! How did you know!?”

Her dance was a confident display of all the passions contained in humanity, plucking my heartstrings as the guitarist plucked the strings of his guitar. A beautiful display that made my chest heavy and brought me to tears. A bewitchment of my emotions that made it clear that she, like Eliana, was indeed a gypsy witch.

When it was over, about an hour later, the lights came on, and I felt as if I had just come out of a dream.

The audience gave a standing ovation. There were more shouts of ‘olé!’ and the crowd threw roses and carnations onto the stage. Two young girls came onto the stage to hand bouquets to Selena and the guitarist.

“That was so beautiful,” I said. “Thank you so much, Eliana.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “Now, it is over. But come, let’s get drinks.”

We stole two champagnes off a passing tray at the after-party and left to walk along the beach towards the chiringuito. We held our shoes in our other hands and let the waves lap coolly against our feet as we made our way back to the village and to the chiringuito where Selena, the flamenco dancer, supposedly awaited us.

I heard the thumping reggaeton music long before I saw the bar. Then I heard the jubilant shouting and laughter.

At the edge of the village, at the top of the beach, was the chiringuito, the beach in front of it a dance floor crowded with hundreds of people with their hands up in the air. The DJ stood beneath an awning of golden palm fronds, spinning the music.

As we approached, several people recognized Eliana and greeted her. She hugged and kissed and introduced me to some of them. I never caught their names or their faces.

It took some effort for us to get to the bar, but when we got there, Eliana leaned over the counter and gave the bartender a kiss on each cheek, and he handed us two beers. She put our now empty champagne flutes on the bar and shouted to the bartender over the loud music,

He pointed behind the bar. Eliana motioned with her head to follow her.

Around back, where the bartender directed us, there was a cozy grove of date palms, a private oasis. There was a bonfire, and people sat around it on milk crates and driftwood. Their shadows from the flame danced on the thick, curling date fronds. The music from the chiringuito was muted here.

The flamenco guitarist from the amphitheater was there, his guitar in hand.

“Hola Chicos!” Eliana shouted to the group.

They all shouted greetings back. She went around the circle and kissed each person on the cheeks until she reached the woman I recognized as the flamenco dancer, who was now dressed in lighter clothes, a white cotton blouse with a short blue skirt, and her hair tied back into a ponytail, and not the flamboyant curling gypsy waves she had worn it in on stage. Eliana pulled Selena from her seat into her arms. Hugged her and then, much to my shock, kissed her intimately on the lips. More than just a friendly kiss. It was a deep, passionate kiss, as romantic partners would kiss. It stung me like a cold bell. My heart sunk. Hope for a wild Spanish fling extinguished.

After the devastating kiss, Eliana introduced me to the group without noticing my confused devastation.

“Everyone, this is Julia. She is American, so be gentle with her!”

I smiled weakly, nodded my head, and drank shyly from my bottle.

“Bienvenido, Julia. Encantado,” said the guitarist. He touched his hand to his forehead in greeting.

“Julia, this is Pancho. The best guitarist in all of Andalucía!”

Pancho strummed his guitar.

“Now, he will play us a song.”

“Whatever Eliana says,” replied Pancho. “She is the boss!”

As Pancho began a song, Eliana grabbed Selena, and they started dancing. Eliana showing tremendous flair. She danced like Selena danced. She danced like a gypsy. Her deft skill made me wonder if every Andalucían had it in their blood to dance.

The flickering flame cast them in an amber glow. The breeze ruffled the fire, and the firewood caught the air, crackled, and snapped, causing sparks to rise in high spirals. Selena and Eliana spiraled around each other like dancing flames. They gazed intensely into each other’s. Their hands were at each other’s hips and shoulders. They twirled around each other as only dancers who were keenly aware of each’s bodies could. There was an intimacy there burning with a passion I had never known. And I was envious of it and very perplexed: How could Eliana have led me on so much? How dare she do to me the things she did on the beach this afternoon when, clearly, Selena was her partner? Uncomfortable questions that spiraled in my head, to which I was sure I would not like the answers. Yet, I was here now. And I had a cold beer in my hand. Good music to listen to. And perhaps I was overthinking it, as I tend to do. So, I tried sitting, listening, and clapping along to the music with everyone else, trying my best to catch the complex gypsy rhythm of the guitar as I could, and forgetting the brief, off-putting tryst.

Others got up and danced alongside Eliana and Selena. To my horror, a hand reached out, grabbed me, and yanked me to my feet to join.

I tried sitting back down.

It was Eliana. She had a wide grin on her face.

“Come on, Julia. Dance!”

“I don’t know how!” I protested.

She squared up to me. Flicked aside her hair with impassioned flair, grabbed both my hands and pulled me towards her. She wrapped one arm around the small of my back and, nose to nose, her lips close enough to mine to hear her breathing, she said,

And so, we danced. She twirled me, and I stumbled and laughed.

I warmed up to the idea of dancing when I realized that none of the other dancers around the bonfire danced with anything close to resembling the virtuosity that Selena demonstrated in the performance earlier, and, for that matter, neither did Selena. She danced carelessly, with a beer in one hand, a man in another, and a face full of laughter.

Eliana showed me basic moves. I tried replicating them, and she laughed good-heartedly when I failed.

More beer came. Then shots. Tequila, Vodka, and Orujo, a strong Spanish liquor burned my throat. I drank until my mind spun like flames.

At some point, we had made our way to the beach out front, into the chiringuito crowd. I lost Eliana in the shuffle, but I found Selena. Or rather, she had found me.

A tropical house beat pumped out the speakers. Selena drew close to me until there was no space between our bodies. Her skin was clammy with sweat. Her blouse was damp. Her hair frizzled up from the humidity of the summer night.

The crescent moon hung above its own reflection rippling in the black mirror that was the ocean. Stars, too, reflected there, sparkling like gemstones on a black cocktail dress.

My eyes darted left and right instinctively for Eliana. But she was nowhere to be seen, so I turned my attention back toward Selena. There was a fiery curiosity burning in her eyes. A somewhat intimidating thing. Selena oozed sexual volatility. A chemical concoction ready to ignite with just the right shake or just enough heat.

I gave her a smile. She smiled back. The DJ played a salsa or a bachata (I couldn’t tell the difference). She tightened her arms around me, bringing me closer so our bodies were one.

Selena was beautiful, not because she was a physically attractive being, though she was, but because she easily had me convinced that she lived in a way that most wanted to live but were too afraid to.

When I found a chance to, in a lull between songs, I asked her the question that loitered in my mind.

“So, you and Eliana. Are you a couple?” I asked her.

“Yes, of course!” She answered.

The answer I knew I would get. The answer I was afraid of.

“Oh. Cool,” I replied. My shoulders slumped.

A new song came on. We began dancing, and while dancing, she went to her toes to put her mouth to my ear to say, “What do you think of her?”

The moment on the beach with Eliana flashed into my mind. Selena would have no idea that had happened. My mind flashbacked to the beach. Eliana’s kiss. Her finger curled around my bra, pulling it down. The excited lust in her eyes as she gazed upon my breasts. Her lips around my hard nipple, her tongue, playful, soft, electrifying me with pleasure. I shook the image away and answered,

“She’s nice,” trying my best to mask the trepidation in my voice. Selena nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

“Yes! She’s great,” she shouted above the song.

After the song finished, I motioned to her for a break. I needed a drink of water. To quench my thirst and to calm my nerves. We went to the bar, and Selena asked for water for us. I took a mouthful of water and washed it down my throat to try to loosen the knot there. She gulped hers in one long draught, then asked the bartender for a beer.

She watched me with curiosity. A smile on her face as if she had a notion of what was on my mind. Did she know? An awkward discomfort spidered through me. That look in Selena’s eyes — it was a sensuous look. A psychic peering into my soul, sensing all the uncomfortable truths and desires that resided there. I glanced away and blushed.

“Are you ready for another shot?” She asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I should be heading back to Tarifa soon, but –“

“Don’t be silly. How are you getting back to Tarifa now?”

“Well, Eliana said she’d…”

I bit my tongue, realizing it was very late now, and Eliana had been drinking, so it would be unreasonable to expect her to drive me back to Tarifa now.

She laughed and shook her head. “There is no Uber.”

My heart sunk. I was brought here with the high hopes that I would have a wild adventure. And now, I was drunk, probably facing a huge hangover, and I didn’t have a way back to my hotel.

“Well, I guess I’m trapped in Bolonia now.”

“Oh, pobrecita, do not worry, let’s have a drink and let the night take care of the problem.”

She waved over to the bartender. Soon, a pair of tequila shots sat in front of us, accompanied by lime slices and a saltshaker.

“Bottoms up!” She said.

“Oh, God. Really, I can’t,” I sighed.

“Yes, you can!” She asserted. “Don’t worry. Tomorrow will figure itself out. Tonight, we have fun!”

After throwing back the tequila, she pulled me back to the dance floor. We danced to a sensual Reggaeton amidst sweaty bodies of couples writhing rhythmically against each other. My head swam. Selena’s skin was damp, warm. Her breasts were soft against mine. Her cheek was soft against mine, and the breathing against my neck riled me up. It made me burn with crazy desire. The same crazy desire that Eliana gave me. For a quick flash, I thought it a betrayal to think that way but tossed the thought aside. Nothing was going to happen anyways. Nothing ever did. So why worry? Why not just drink and let the night take care of itself? Tomorrow will figure itself out.

Selena’s hands went up and down my back and found their way to my ass cheeks. She squeezed, and she whispered in my ear,

“Eliana was right. You are very beautiful.”