The Whisper of your voice

"Are you kidding me?" Lucas took a beer from the refrigerator.

He came home that Saturday to "accompany me in my process." We hardly ever saw each other, and he showed up unannounced. He came for the gossip, to find out what had happened with Vera.

Even that was pathetic: the friend who never showed up, eager to see the results of his photographs.

"No."

"Are you going to have a woman you don't know living in your backyard because Vera cheated on you? At least wait, I don't know... two months?"

"Don't be an idiot. I felt sorry for her, she was out on the street because of me."

"Because of you?" Lucas leaned against the counter and took a sip of beer. "You didn't force her to leave her boyfriend."

"She found out the hard way. Because of me, in her apartment. She had no idea, she didn't even suspect anything."

"And what does that have to do with you?"

Sure, he and everyone else were used to seeing me differently: the son of a bitch who was an accomplice to other people's trash. I didn't know how to explain to him that when I saw her sitting there, trembling with anger and humiliation, I felt as if my hands were dirty too.

"I don't know, Lucas. It just came out of me to offer it to her."

"It just came out?" he laughed. He shook his head. "Spencer, you don't do anything because it just comes out. You calculate everything, even how many times you breathe per minute."

He was right. It was true.

"What's she like?" he asked.

"What do you want to know?" Here it came.

"I don't know. Is she pretty? Smart? Do you like her?"

I didn't answer. Sabrina was all of those things. I was being swept off my feet by a brat I was tied to by horns, guilt, and something else. Just one coffee, that was enough.

"You're not bringing her here out of pity," he opened his eyes as if he had read my mind. "You're bringing her because you like her."

"Are you even listening to yourself?"

"I am, but you're not. You like the bass player and you're mixing everything up."

"I gave her a place to stay, it's temporary until she finds somewhere else to go. Why the hell do I have to explain myself to you?" I raised my voice, trying to play dumb.

"Your guilty face is giving you away, don't fuck with me. Have you fucked her yet?" he asked suddenly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I exploded.

"That's answer enough," he smiled as if he had won something. "Not yet, but you want to."

"You're seriously messed up in the head."

But yes, she made me feel all kinds of things. Not just horniness, not just the urge to fuck her against the wall. She had this energy that radiated from her pores, screaming that this was what she wanted, what she liked.

After fifteen years of looking the other way when a nice ass walked by, noticing someone again came naturally. The only screw-up was that that someone was Sabrina.

"You're an idiot. Do you realize what you're doing?" He suddenly became serious. "She just broke up, and so did you. You're both a mess, and you think the solution is to get into bed together."

"No one said anything about getting into bed."

"Then you would have helped her find a place to rent."

It was true, there were a thousand ways I could help her without having her live twenty feet from my bedroom.

"She doesn't have the money to pay rent," I muttered.

"Oh, you're Saint Teresa of Calcutta! You go around picking up homeless people," he threw his hands in the air. "No, Spencer. It's simple. You like her, period."

He grabbed another beer and looked at me.

"So what if I like her?" I finally said. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing. The problem is that you're lying to yourself, saying it's out of pity, bringing her to your house and her accepting the situation you're both in. That's going to be a disaster."

It annoyed me that overnight Lucas had become the voice of my conscience. He had the life of a teenager, going from woman to woman, without attachment, without commitment, without anything. I had reached the age of 40 sleeping with the same woman every night.

"Did you hear about Vera?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"No."

"Nothing? Not even a call or a message?"

"Nothing. She left, and that was that."

"Well, it's not surprising," he raised his eyebrows. "Vera was always like that."

"Like what?"

"She never told you what she was thinking. She was always speaking in double meanings, with hints. And you went crazy trying to figure out what the hell she wanted."

"How do you know so much?"

"We all knew, except you. That thing about love making men stupid must be true. I highly doubt she's changed over the years."

"Did you come here to remind me that I was cheated on because I'm a fool?"

He laughed heartily.

"No, I came to see if I could introduce you to someone. But you already found someone on your own." He winked. I wanted to punch him in the mouth.

He settled back in his chair, with that air that guys who party all the time. Confident, calm, carefree. Without going to bed at night questioning himself about what the hell he did so wrong that the woman he was married to went and slept with another guy.

"It's not your fault," he said suddenly. "You know that."

"What?"

"That she did what she did to you. You're the most corny guy I know, even with that ugly face that scares everyone away. You loved her, you took care of her, you gave her even what you didn't have. It's not your fault."

Now it turned out I was an open book.

"Then whose fault is it?" I asked, tired.

"No one's. These things happen, these things you allow to happen. You spent the last 10 years denying yourself with all those little whores parading through the halls of the Senate. Well, Vera didn't."

His phone rang. He answered reluctantly. His new "girlfriend" apparently never tired of harassing him, looking for him, demanding things from him. She wasn't going to last long.

"I have to go pick her up," he sighed and stood up, fed up. "She's wearing me out with her stupidity."

"How romantic," I smiled sarcastically. "You're definitely the right person to give me advice about women."

"Very funny."

He walked past me and patted me on the shoulder.

"Let me know how it goes with your new tenant."

"Okay."

"Stop taking responsibility for other people's mistakes," he said, opening the door. "But you know what?

"Just go already.

"It's more fun this way, if you think about it.

I threw away the empty bottles when Lucas left. I looked at my hands, closing the trash bag, and remembered her eyes looking at them in the coffee shop. As if she wanted me to touch her.

So many years in politics had taught me to control every reaction, every gesture. But with Sabrina, everything had gone to hell in an hour.

I stood there with the bag halfway out of the trash can. What the hell was happening to me? Vera and I hadn't had good sex in months, but this was different. This was hunger. Thinking about Sabrina hit me in the gut, woke me up, got me hard.

Just like when I was 20, so much so that it bothered me. So much so that I didn't know how the hell to move so she wouldn't notice while I showed her the guest house.

"Everything is set up: kitchen, bathroom. Over there," I pointed to the left, "is the bedroom. I put groceries in the cupboards and there are clean sheets and towels in that closet."

"Thanks."

"Let me help you with that."

She put her bag on the floor and handed me the box she was carrying. It was heavy. It had some old vinyl records in it.

Well, at least it helped me cover up a little the obvious .