Barcelona Metropolis

Gosh, walking all the way up is tiring, isn’t it?

I can picture you coming here, to Montjuïc, to Miró’s mountain and the Font del Gat fountain and cruising, in broad daylight. Your mouth was watering just thinking about what awaited you. Because we both know that you love to drop by. Just to be here, just that; to see what’s going on, who’s here, what the people you come across week in and week out tell you. Sometimes I wonder if we’d greet one another, if we met elsewhere… I’d better not even think about it.   

Gosh…

Depending on where you come from, it mightn’t seem like it, but Montjuïc has got it all. On one side are the museums, the avenue, and a neighbourhood, and, on the other, a cemetery overlooking the sea; I’ve only been there once, and the truth is I wouldn’t go back. There is nothing but bones, but not half-gnawed bones, bones with some meat on them and can be thrown into the pot, no, dry bones. The avenue, on the other hand, is teeming with tourists, people who wear bright colours and who, like us, dodge the cars and the stench of the dustbins and rubbish containers. Parties are often thrown here, and because not many people live here, they can afford to leave their rubbish here for longer than in other parts of the city. As you can understand, that’s not what bothers me the most. What most irritates me is the smell of sun cream, or armpits, or feet, that the tourists give off as they pass by, like the elongated slime of slugs.

Ugh, I just can’t stand them…

Then there is the forest, that big green spot on the top of the mountain. There are pine trees, and palm trees, and plane trees providing shade. There is also asphalt, but up here it is not as bothersome as in the city, close to home. Here the asphalt is shy, modest, as if it were ashamed to tread on the soil in a place where the soil dominates everything. And it’s not that I’m that green, in fact, I’m not very sure about what it means to be an environmentalist, but I pee on the road, take a piss and mark it when I know nobody is watching, not so much to say “it is my spot”, but because of that call of nature that you don’t know why, but that comes to you at the least expected, the least planned, the least anticipated time, whether you’re in bed or at the beach or in the woods, like a little while ago. Like when I saw you.

Gosh, when I saw you…

I caught a glimpse of you from afar, through the bushes, and I didn’t see the whole of you, but I immediately knew it was you. You were leaning forward, in a pose that in another situation would have seemed forced, or strange, or rigid, but soon after I remembered that almost anything goes here. What were you doing? You were alone, and looking so dapper, without a doubt. You were wearing a harness. We don’t beat around the bush, I said to myself. And I like it when you give it your all on our first encounter. I’m turned on by extremes, and yet I found it endearing to look at you and think, “he has to be mine”, without you even imagining that I was watching you from down the road. You were, for all intents and purposes, harmless. I felt powerful and, admittedly, a bit smug too, as if what was to come next didn’t matter as much as that moment of naughtiness.

Gosh.

You turned around and caught sight of me. I don’t know if it lasted seconds or an eternity, but when we finally met I noticed how a lightning bolt made our eyes meet. And I made an effort not to lower my eyes, so that you could see that I had indeed been watching you and that I wanted you.

You didn’t make a sound towards me. You were watching, shy but careful, to make sure that no one was spying on us behind the bushes. At first glance, the vicinity seemed quiet, but in places like this, who could say for sure… The flight of a stray bird occasionally broke the silence of small insect stirrings, far-off movements of people, far-off foghorns, which sounded muffled, like an ad on television when you’re in the backyard. The tiniest noises that neither you nor I could perceive unless we paid close attention, with the spirit of an explorer.

And I explored you, of course I explored you… Ugh.

I didn’t need sounds to win you over: I went from smelling you to licking you. And you let me, you certainly did, and it was at that instant when the idea struck me that exploring the innermost recesses of your body is a good way to find out who you are, to get to know you beyond a name, a game, where you live, your favourite food or whether you’re more of a beach or a mountain person. Who cares about a name or an address in a situation like this? I thought and didn’t think about the taste, about licking you like this, about feeling that often smelling, licking, sucking, checking each other out, is also a path that leads to the perverse world of hierarchies, and I was your master, and you obeyed me, you belonged to me, you listened to me, and it seemed that nothing and nobody could interrupt our forced intimacy in the shade and under this July sun, rolling around in the grass. And a pleasant dampness filled my armpits and the crooks of my legs…

 “Rascal!”

 “What?”, I asked myself. It was like I fell. I looked both ways and didn’t see anyone. Rascal… Is that your name? And why on earth should I be interested in your name? I didn’t want to wonder, I wanted to check out your body, but no matter how hard I tried, someone was looking for you and had decided that they could interrupt us. You froze the way puppies freeze when their mother grabs them by the scruff of the neck, to protect them… I didn’t want to insist.

 “Rascal, come here!”, the voice went again. “That’s enough, stop making wee friends.”

Seconds later, I saw her: standing on the hill, in her mules. She was your owner. A middle-aged woman who looked very much like one I once had.

Before she tied the harness to your leash, I thought that, some day, I’d really like to bite your thighs.

©Sebastià Portell