hablamanos sobre sexo, baby (por supuesto)

Hey Fatso,

Here, “Gorda/o” is a term of endearment, like “Hon" or “Sugar” or “Booger Breath,” and does not reflect the Fatso's size in any way, shape, or form. What do you think? Let's keep it. At least ironically?

* * * * *

On Friday, I met an Argentine model named Juan whose English is (dare I say it?) worse than my Spanish. We decided to exchange language lessons. I’m afraid I may be forming somewhat of a habit of arranging "lessons" with tall, dark, and alarmingly good-looking Spanish-speaking men named John. It's likely to become addictive.

* * * * *

I’ve had two ten-American-dollar-an-hour guitar lessons with Juani now at his apartment. During our first lesson, we (he) restrung my guitar and went over the names of the strings and chords, which he refers to by their Sound of Music names (do a deer a female deer re a drop of golden sun mi a name I call myself fah a long long way to run so a needle pulling thread la a note to follow so ti a drink with jam and bread and that will bring us back to do…). I also learned the Spanish words for case (estuche – mine, Juani marvelled, is “Que duro!” “How hard!”), string (cuerda), pick (pua), tight (tenso), out of tune (desafinada), to tune (afinar), fret (traste), chord (acorde), and to have a hangover (tener resaca).

Juani showed me the chords for “Creep,” by Radiohead. We sat in his living room, which was small and had brightly-colored landscapes on canvases leaning up against walls.

“Who’s the painter?” I asked.
“My father.”
“Does he live in Interiors (the provinces, where Juani is from, which makes him, he explained, not porteno)?”
“No, he lives here.”
“You live with your father?”
“Yes. And my older sister and my brother.”

It’s quite normal here, I’ve learned, to live with one’s family into one’s thirties.

As if on cue, his brother came home. He has 21 years and speaks English very good from working at a GM call center (where he assists many American callers with their car problems). He kissed me on the cheek, took a seat across the table from us, and sat there throughout the rest of the lesson, commenting on Juani’s English and eating cheese.

Before the lesson ended, Juani’s father also came home. He, too, kissed me on the cheek and told me I had a pretty name and pretty eyes.

As I was leaving, Juani’s sister emerged from another part of the apartment (apparently, she’d been there the whole time) and kissed me on the cheek.

Juani walked me out, kissed me (alas) on the cheek, and told me to sing the song while I’m practicing.

* * * * *

My TEFL teacher (I’ll call her “K”) is thirty-something with two kids and a “worthless” ex-husband. K returned from a weekend trip to Spain to inform us that her crippling fear of flying had been temporarily assuaged by her makeout session with the man sitting next to her on the plane. K also told us how, to the Argentine, there is no such thing as an inappropriate question. One might say to a friend, for example, “You’re looking a little fatter. Have you gained weight?” Over a lunch of pizza and beer with her the other day, I tried on some Argentine bluntness for size. “If it’s normal for people to live with their families until their thirty-five,” I asked, sipping my Quilmes, “then where do they go to… do things?”

And this is how I learned about something called a “playa privado,” or a private parking lot, which one rents by the hour or bi-hourly and which, K assured us, has nothing to do with the beach (playa). Informally, it’s referred to as “telo” (derived from “hotel”), and is frequented by normal, everyday, boyfriend-girlfriend type monogamous people.

* * * * *

I don’t know why it came up, but my host mother Elsa (who is pushing seventy and has lists of rules posted on her students’ bedroom doors which mandate bed-making and strictly prohibit “relaciones sexuales”) told me about something called an “amigovio/a.” This is a person who is mas que un amigo/a, pero menos que un/a novio/a. I wanted to ask her if one would accompany such a relation to a telo, but I refrained. She asked me if we had a term for this in English and to keep myself from blurting out “fuck buddy” at the dinner table, I took a deep breath and said, “friend with benefits.” Luckily, she didn’t ask me what kind of benefits.

* * * * *

Last night, I met Juan on a street corner in the rain. I was five minutes late (which in Argentine time is twenty-five minutes early). He was toting an English textbook and dictionary and teased me about getting lost. Then I followed him in a big circle to find some bar that was supposedly “just around the corner,” which we never found. I teased him about getting lost.

We went to a Mexican restaurant, where Juan practically passed out from what I considered to be some very mild salsa. I teased him some more and taught him the various meanings of the English word “pussy.” He had never heard of Negra Modelo and made me order two in Spanish. “Nos traes dos cervezas por favor” (“Bring us two beers please”).

* * * * *

Juani scheduled our second guitar lesson for a time when the apartment would be empty, so that “I can give all my attention to you and you can give all your attention to me.” When I came over, he tested me on “Creep,” scolding me for not being able to sing and strum at the same time. “You didn’t practice,” he said (I swear, Candy, I did! It’s like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time!). He took the guitar to show me what I was doing wrong. While he played, I kept looking at his face. “Look at my hands,” he said. “Sorry,” I said, but kept looking at his face. “Look at my hands,” he said. “Sorry,” I said, and looked at his hands, but not at the chords. I became fixated on the way he held the pua. Can a person have sexy thumbs? If so, Juani does.

“You’re not paying attention,” he said.
“What?” I said.

After the lesson was over, we sat drinking mate (pronounced mah-tay, it tastes sort of like green tea, but is made with loose leaves and sipped out of a straw. You’ll share one cup among friends, passing it around a circle like a joint) and talking about tango (which he hopes to play professionally once he finishes violin school). I told him how my pure roommate was aghast (I believe her words were, “Well, I never…”) at the prostitution theme of the tango show we saw at Café Tortoni (totally expensive, but I love the cavernous, stained glass ceilings, art nouveau- or deco?- mirrors, tuxedoed waiters, and chocolate espeso—dense hot chocolate, churros optional for dipping). “This place is for tourists,” he said and promised to take me to hear some “real” tango. “As for prostitutes…”

I asked him about telos, explaining that in the U.S., the only people who rent hotel rooms by the hour are with a prostitute or cheating on a spouse.
“Yes, those people go there, too,” he said.
“But also people like you... and/or me?”
“I’ll show you why,” he said, putting the mate on the table and leading me across the room through a door to the back of the apartment: a little hallway with three other doors.
“The bathroom is there,” he said, pointing to the to door on our left. He opened the door directly in front of us. Inside was a room the size of a cupboard with a twin-sized bed. “This is where my sister sleeps,” he said. “Sometimes his boyfriend sleeps here.”
“Her boyfriend,” I said.
“Her boyfriend,” he said, and opened the third door, to our right. This room was the size of two cupboards. Against one wall was another twin-sized bed. “This is where my father sleeps.” And against the opposite wall were bunk beds. “My brother and myself.”

At this point, his mother and younger sister came home. They still live in Interiors (when I asked Juani if his parents were married, he explained, “Yes, but when my father lost the pizza shop, some of us had to come to Buenos Aires”) but were in town for the older sister’s boyfriend’s completion of his biochemistry degree. They each kissed me on the cheek, then grabbed the champagne they stopped by to pick up before heading over to the school to throw raw huevos (eggs), aceite (oil), and cabbage at him as he came out of his final exam. It’s a tradition.
“Doesn’t that get smelly?” I asked Juani.
“Yes,” he said.

* * * * *

“Thank you,” I said.
“Fank you,” Juan said.
“Thank,” I said.
“Fank,” Juan said.
“Th-,” I said, pointing to my tongue.
“Th-,” Juan said.
“Good!” I said. Then he kissed me.

Then we left the Mexican restaurant and were kissing (past continuous) in the street in the rain, and by the time we stopped, his “th-“ was quite good. He started talking about where else we could go, but I got cold feet (literally—Juan scolded me for not wearing “sockets”) and went home.

* * * * *

My fake friend Juanathon told me I talk about sex too much.

I told him to go fuck himself.

* * * * *

In other news, a pigeon may or may not have peed on my face today. But I guess that can happen in any city.

Happy Trails,
Sandy

P.S. Sumo is the name of Juani’s favorite Argentine rock band, and he gave me their CD “Corpinos En La Madrugada” to listen to. Some of their songs are in English (including one called “Telefonos – White Trash”) because the singer, who was Italian, lived for a time in the U.S., where he developed a heroin habit. He moved to Argentina to stop using heroin, but started drinking and then died. Check them out. “Banderitas Y Globos” has a circusy flair to it. Me gusta "Quiero Quiero" tambien.