Leave the Lust until Last

One thing that enabled me to get over my tiresomely predictable, and predictably futile, crush on Rafael the vet, was the appearance of Daniel the barman.

I answered the phone one day, only for my knees to jellify at the sound of the voice at the other end. From the lyrical, almost Italian lilt to his accent, I immediately knew the caller was from either Argentina or Uruguay, and to my great delight, he was ringing to enquire after the possibility of English lessons.

Convinced that such a voice could only belong to a tall, dark and scrumptious stranger, I confess my shallow little heart sunk on the day of his first lesson, when I opened the door to find a troll of a man on the other side: short, stocky and what he was lacking in neck, he more than made up for in body hair.

Dani embodied the saying: “El hombre es como el oso, cuando más feo, más hermoso.’ Loosely translated as, “Men are like bears, the uglier they are, the more beautiful they appear.”

So while he was most definitely not the heart-throb I had been eagerly awaiting, he did have a certain something, and as the lessons progressed and I let his glorious intonation wrap itself sinuously around my eardrums, I began to see an altogether different person.

In his mid-thirties, he had come to Spain in the hope of earning enough money to send back to Uruguay to support the ten-year old son to whom he was devoted. He had apparently been separated from the boy’s mother since before the boy was born, but his number one reason for existing remained Diego.

Dani had eventually found work as a barman in an up and coming bar in Puerto Banús – a rather extreme change from his previous job as a butcher in the family business in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo – and the motive behind his need to learn English.

He was a well-read man, and took great pleasure introducing me to the delights of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez and the poetry of Chilean wordsmith Pablo Neruda amongst many others, although he took almost personal affront at my affection for the work of Peruvian-born Chilean novelist, Isabel Allende. The tragic and beautifully written story of the death of her daughter, Paula, was the first book I had even read entirely in Spanish, and it cemented her place in my heart. But according to Dani, Allende was nothing but a García Márquez wannabe (I still don’t care).

Another contribution to my cultural enlightenment was an introduction to the band Maná.

A Mexican equivalent to The Police, a close acquaintance with their music was at that time a sure-fire way to ingratiated yousrself any member of the Latin American diaspora between the ages of twenty and forty. Luckily I fell in love with the music almost immediately, and could soon warble along to Vivir sin Aire with even the most die-hard Maná fans.

Among his various offerings of books and trinkets, it was Dani who first introduced me of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, – the cinematic release of which had somehow passed me by – presenting me with The Fellowship of the Ring on video. We watched it together on my sofa, and from that moment I was hooked: both on El Señor de los Anillos (who remembers the pain of having to wait an entire year for the next instalment?) and on the cultured ex-butcher from Montevideo.

His constant attentions and frequent little gifts soon culminated in a declaration, but it wasn’t exactly the declaration I had been expecting.

“Así que te quieres perder conmigo en la lujuria?” I double-checked, slightly taken aback.

Losing myself in lust without even the vaguest pretence of more: Dani “didn’t think he would be in Spain for long” and therefore “couldn’t offer anything more concrete” (I can report, Dear Reader, that he still lives and works exactly where I left him in 2003…). After giving it some thought, I decided I might actually be capable of that.

It sounded like a very grown-up sort of arrangement, with tempting undertones of Girl Power, and given how unsuccessful I had been thus far in my search for a more romantic and profound connection, maybe it was just what I needed.

Thus one of the most confusing and miserable associations of my life began.

Dani came to visit two or three times a week, but was always long-gone by morning, which seemed in line with a purely lust-based relationship. However, he texted me incessantly, especially when I was out with friends, but then refused any invitations to partake in social activities. He left for a trip to Uruguay without telling me he was going, but then rang me from a payphone in Montevideo airport as soon as he arrived and proceeded to ring me every couple of days throughout his stay.

Occasionally I would retaliate against his confusingly mixed signals by calling a halt to proceedings, but he would not rest until he had inveigled his way back in with single-minded determination.

Tapping into the presupposed Girl-Power element of the arrangement was proving beyond my capabilities: I found myself rendered vulnerable by his attentions, only to then be flayed by his boundaries and indifference.

Meanwhile the owners of Pangea were so impressed with Dani’s hard work that he was being given evermore responsibility and an increasingly interesting pay packet. It was starting to become apparent that this ex-butcher from Montevideo wasn’t going to be departing Spanish shores anytime soon.

So, given that my paramour probably was in fact “going to stay in Spain for a pretty long time” which therefore removed his supposed inability to “offer something more concrete”, the exhausting fog caused by his games started to clear.

I really should have believed him the first time.

But failing that, I should have had more self-respect than to allow a partner in a supposedly egalitarian relationship of convenience reduce me to a pathetic puddle of vulnerability and dependence.

After an entire year of being repeatedly reeled in just to be emotionally cast aside once again, I finally managed to face up to the fact that I had, once again, picked a duff’un – Argentine Fernanda’s take on the whole situation undoubtedly helping to put things in perspective:

Cris, she said one day Tienes que aceptar que para Daniel no eres más que un hueso donde roer.

Well, this bone was no longer available for the chewing, and this girl would no longer allow herself to be humiliated (well, not until the next time, at least…).