Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) by Muhsin al-Ramli Read Free Book Online Page B

He leaned her against a lamppost with his hands on her butt, just as he always did even when she was sitting at her secretary’s chair in our company. Whenever he kissed her, he reached out to touch her there.
    The group all came out, wiping sweat from their foreheads, fixing their clothes, and waving the collars and armpits of their shirts in order to air them out. There was Antonio, Eva, Jesús, Enrique, Maria, and Pilar, who came up to me and said, “How was it? Did you enjoy the evening?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Me too!” she said. “There’s no more metro service now. I live outside Madrid in Móstoles. How about you?”
    “I live here, close by, on Fomento Street. Near Plaza de España,” I said.
    She said, “Oh, how lucky you are! Do you live alone?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Would you let me spend the night at your place?”
    “Sure.”
    We said goodbye to the others, and Antonio said, “Till next time—at work in two hours!” Then he added, with a smile that was meant to be suggestive, “Try to get some sleep, even if it’s only one hour ….”
    We had only turned into the next street when Pilar slipped her arm under mine, clinging to me as she walked. The streets were empty except for people like us, coming out of the clubs, or loitering drunks, who snored in the recessed entryways of banks. From time to time, a car sped past.
    Pilar said, “It’s lucky that my work is in the evening. This way I’ll be able to sleep. What about you?”
    “Me?” I said. “I start work at six. So I usually take a nap when I get home. From noon until three, and sometimes until six in the evening.”
    I could feel her soft breasts against my arm, and her breath on my shoulder when she spoke. She said, “We have clubs in my neighborhood too, of course, but ever since I was fourteen years old I’ve loved the ones here in the center. I’ve gotten to know lots of friends in them. How old are you?”
    “Thirty. And you?”
    “Twenty-six,” she said.
    We reached the door of the apartment building where I lived and found a cat sleeping there. It got up and moved off when I stopped and took out the key. Pilar said, “Oh, how cute! I have a cat too. Her name is Clara. My friend Laura gave her to me for my birthday two years ago.”
    I opened the door and turned on the lights in the stairway while she continued to talk about her cat without waiting for an answer, perhaps to fill the silence or to further our acquaintance. “I love her very much, and she always sleeps in my arms. That is, if I don’t have another person in bed with me, of course!” She laughed. “Imagine, she gets jealous too!”
    We got tired climbing the stairs. Since the stairs were old, like the building, they were made of wood and had high steps that were all the more uncomfortable due to how narrow the stairwell was.
    “It’s true, she gets jealous of me! Unfortunately, Laura and I quarreled nine months ago. She got jealous over her boyfriend on account of me. How much do we have left?”
    “Two floors,” I said. “I live on the top floor, the fifth.”
    Panting, she continued, “Uff! Well, no problem. We’re young, and they say that climbing stairs is good for the heart.”
    She grabbed my arm for help and took off with a jump, moving two steps ahead of me, such that her butt was just in front of my face. It was round and luscious. Her tight black pants revealed its details, and the pants seam sank deep between the two cheeks. The outline of her underwear was visible as a bulge, higher on one side than the other. I knew they were white because I could see the tops of them coming out above her pants. She was bending over as she climbed, causing her shirt to rise a little.
    She was breathing hard, but she didn’t stop talking: “I live on the third floor, and we have an elevator because the building is new. I own my apartment, which I bought with a mortgage from the bank on the basis of my salary. I’ve worked in the post office for