Her Skin
By Max Diamond

She took my arm as I walked by, as though she had been waiting for me, as though we had made a date for lunch and I was late.

"You don't take pictures like a tourist," she said.

"I was sent here," I said, "by a magazine."

"Will my picture be in a magazine in the States?" She wanted to know.

"I hope so," I said, "depends on how it comes out. Would you like that?"

"Claro, she said, that's why I made you take it."

I didn't argue. Seagreen eyes, violet dress. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, rotated her broad shoulders and the shade of her dress changed like the feathers of a tropical bird as the sunlight struck the shiny fabric at different angles. Violet is my favorite color: the bright almost purple violet of orchids, the pale violet of dusk. She looked at me with a wary bravado. That's the shot I wanted. Too late. For an instant I think of us as children playing together.

"Will you give it to me?" she asked in Spanish.

"I'll send it," I told her. "Where do you live?"

She indicated the road before us with a disappointed movement of her head. She can't receive mail there, no mailbox, letters get lost. She reminded me of my mother, Margarita, who irritates and attracts me, and who I secretly want to be like. I want to be her, not her daughter.

"You look at me as though we know each other," she said, "do we?" I told her she reminded me of someone.

"I am Violeta, " she said. Then quickly added, "Today. Tomorrow maybe some other name. If you hear someone call me Lucinda don't be surprised."

"I like Violeta" I said.

"I thought you would." Her nails rasp lightly against my forearm as we walk. I asked where she was taking me.

"For a drink," she replied. "If you like."

She excited me in a familiar but unfamiliar way, as though I were meeting a twin sister I never knew I had. We walked another two blocks, turned up a dusty alley, and the noise abruptly stopped. There is a cantina on this quiet street, you wouldn't even know it was there from the outside, a small band, dark tables, she knew everyone in the place. We drank mescal, chased it with icy ale and danced close together.

"I've never done this with a woman before," I told her.

"I have," she said.

Back at the table she told me about her family.

"There are dozens of villages like mine," she said. "They are all the same."

I looked at her hand on the table; her fingers slightly bent and raised my camera from my lap. I pressed the shutter.

"Do you mind?" I asked.

She smiled. "Take all the photos you want," she said, "there are many different versions of me."

I got up from the table and shot her from different angles while we talked. She made quick sudden movements, gesturing with her hands, or turning her head to follow me, then away.

"What kind of work do you do here?" I asked.

"I find things to sell, I find ways to eat. I meet guys. I get by."

"A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do," I said. "To get by."

She looked angry for just a beat, then laughed. We both laugh. I put the camera down and looked at her long eyelashes; she looked at my neck. I want to touch her.

Her apartment is small, like a drawing reduced to fit in the corner of a page layout: a round table for two, compact kitchenette, a small dresser painted a bright scarlet, and the bed, unmade, covered with a soft embroidered quilt, superfluous in the heat, disheveled, beckoning. It makes me want her just looking at it. We sit at the table and drink dark coffee. My film is all used up. I watch her face. We don't talk. Then she looks back at me. Her eyes are as green as a tropic sea. The light from the overhead fixture explodes around her in a small pool. There is nowhere for it to escape. My fingers slide toward her, pulled by a gentle magnet. She takes my hand and leads me to the bed.

Your skin is an exotic wood, like manzanita bleached to a creamy tan. Lips a burnt red: dried blood, or a rose held too close to a flame, like your platinum hair streaked red. Your breasts are full and sloped, networked sparsely by a suggestion of bruise colored veins. I let my fingers move back and forth between them and across a surprisingly downy valley of skin. I didn't know I would know how to caress your nipples with my fingers. Then my tongue. You smell of sun, cardamom and cloves. I think of the pumpkin pies my mother makes at Thanksgiving, a holiday you've never heard of, in a house larger than you've ever seen. There I am safe. But I am not there. I am here with your round breasts giving way against my ribs. Your lips, hot on my throat, bring me back into your orbit. Everything else is gone.

I hear your breath keeping time with the irresistible rise and fall of your hips. I crook my fingers and slip them into the apex of your pelvis that is now fully wet, spilling slick trails that run down your buttocks. I lean forward. I am a small animal at work, digging into you as if you were home. You make a noise in your throat and the vibration travels up through me. I wrap my arms around your legs. Suddenly you turn me over. I feel your breath on my belly and arch back, let your mouth close over me, your tongue tickling a sudden shock. Your hands hold my hips, pull me to you. I let myself roll the way you did and my mouth moves mute, as though imitating what I feel. I come. I reach for you, and we root each other, cradled and rocking.

In the morning she was slumped against me like a sister. I remembered how her warm breath tingled on my body. She woke then and smiled, a little sad. We both were. We got up and dressed, reflecting each other's actions like someone dressing in front of a mirror. In the late morning light, I went back to my own room. I think of her skin and fall asleep on motel sheets starched and hard, the opposite of her bed. The opposite of her.

Copyright by author 2000