Last updated on 2023-03-07 at 19:54 pm - Estimated reading time 00:03:19
“I immediately recognized my landlady while, with a powerful stroke, I took refuge against the edge of the basin.
“The container ship my husband is working on is stuck somewhere in New Zealand. He just called. That’s why I’m up in the middle of the night!” She continued.
“Despite my confusion, we talked for a long time, discussing about sailors and her man whom she rarely saw, her country, my studies and my ambitions. After a few minutes that felt like hours, almost motionless in the water, I could feel the cold seeping through me and my limbs going numb. Incredibly talkative, she seemed to enjoy my embarrassment when I dared not get out of the bath which nevertheless was freezing me to the bone.
“In the dark, she showed me a broad smile when she finally got up and disappeared into the house. But being barely out of the water, her presence surprised me again when she promptly handed me the towel she had gone inside to get.
“It’s time for me to stop torturing you.” She said. “You must be modest and I believe you’re naked!” She then amused herself by pointing it out to me.
“Destabilized for a while, I was quite unable to perceive how her remark was ironic while barely dried, I contented myself to wrap my hair in the towel which was too small for me anyway to wear as a sarong.
“Oh, being stripped down to my birthday suit is nothing compared to how the victims of the Inquisition were treated.” I replied bluntly while as if out of bravado, I joined her under the patio that she had just lit up now.
“I know that with several of your fellow students you recently went to visit the torture museum of El Castell de Guadalest…”
“Do you believe that it is with such refinement that you will succeed in extracting a few confessions from me?” I was kidding, but that’s what I asked her.
“More surprised by my answer than by my casual attitude, her face lit up for a moment before she insisted.
“The best road may not be the most direct. In love, for example, pleasure and pain are intimately linked, aren’t they?”
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