9: The Little House (1)

Mario was lying on the bed, Marta's arm draped over his shoulder, Marta herself covering the rest of his chest, and the duvet covering them both.
"I should check what's in the kitchen." Marta lifted herself slightly. "Or we could find a corner shop nearby."
"Don't they usually have one run by a foreigner around here?" Mario propped himself up on his elbows.
"Honestly, I have no idea. The woman across the road still calls them that." Marta shrugged as best she could from her position, which made her look vaguely like a hen ruffling its feathers.
Mario found that funny, and shifted his weight to stretch out an arm and plant an unplanned kiss on her.
Marta responded with her whole body, as though it hadn't been nearly enough.
She surprised herself, and with a small laugh let herself fall back onto Mario, who was watching her with amusement.
"What happened?"
Marta pouted and rolled her eyes.
"It wasn't enough."
Mario repeated the kiss — much longer, much deeper.
"You give me life, Marta. You lift my soul."
"Oh, come on." She protested, delighted, burying her nose in his chest. "Anyone who heard you would think you were a robot before."
"Following my father's lead, without asking myself if it was what I wanted?"
"Is that so bad?"
"Not at all." Mario closed his eyes and exhaled. "But it's been so many years of beliefs built around him — and then with you in front of me, I start to wonder whether the world might have different colours from the ones he taught me."
Marta let out a clean, uncomplicated laugh.
"Are you colour-blind?" She looked at him with a smile and reached out to touch his face. "Your father's word isn't gospel, Mario."
"For an only child, raised with love and respect by his parents — their teachings become the rule. Don't you think?"
"I grew up surrounded by men — two brothers and nothing but male cousins." Marta smiled, narrowing her eyes. "I think I turned out fairly feminine, all things considered."
Marta got up from Mario, leaving a small pink mark on his sternum.
She knelt on the bed and studied the mark with amusement, biting her lip.
"What?" Mario looked at her, then followed her gaze down to his own chest. "What is it?"
"Nothing!" Marta went to the rustic wardrobe in the room and pulled out a champagne-coloured jersey dress to put on. "I'm going to the kitchen."
"Can I come with you?" Mario sat up on the bed, perfectly at ease. "I want to look at you every moment I can."
Marta opened the wardrobe again and took out a flannel shirt. She handed it to him.
"Put it on," she said. "I think it's your size."
"You have men's clothes here?" A trace of jealousy crept into his tone. "What for?"
Marta walked over to him, took his chin in her hand and kissed him.
"You're not going to be jealous of my son, are you?"
"Your son — of course!" He conceded.
Marta went to the kitchen, leaving Mario to get dressed in peace. While she rummaged through the cupboards for something tinned, he finished dressing and came to join her.
"Anything interesting in there?" Mario asked when he reached her, wrapping his arms around her from behind and kissing her neck.
"Peaches in syrup and tinned bean stew."
"A classic. Do you want to go somewhere for lunch?" Mario studied the same cupboard, the same tins. "My treat!"
Marta felt a twinge — but something else was mixing with the guilt, and it was desire. A clear, uncomplicated desire that urged her to spend every possible moment with Mario.
"What does it matter, when we have this?" Marta gave him a soft smile.
"Are you ashamed of me?" Mario said it lightly, as a joke, but the question carried pain and urgency beneath it. "Or of yourself?"
"Why?" Marta glanced at him from the corner of her eye and nuzzled her head against his, eyes closed, the way a cat would. "So we can lose time getting there, coming back, and everything in between?"
"Are you sure it's not because you feel guilty? Those were your words."
"Guilty of what — of feeling something for the first time in years?" Marta set the tins down on the kitchen table and turned in Mario's arms. "Nobody knows me here. I can be whoever I want."
"You want to use this place as a refuge?"
"Here I don't have to be a businesswoman, I don't have to be a mother, I don't have to be an example — I don't need anything more than to just be a woman." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "One who can let herself feel everything you make her feel."
Mario, caught up in Marta's enthusiasm, opened his mouth to say something he had been holding back since that Thursday afternoon.
"I lo—"
Marta silenced him with a passionate kiss.
"Don't rush it. Don't say it." Marta pressed her fingertips to Mario's lips, having sensed exactly what was coming.
She closed her eyes and exhaled. She did not want that feeling named. She felt that if he said it aloud, her world would collapse, and she would no longer be able to go back to anything. If she let Mario say it, she would answer the same way, and neither of them could remain who they were — not who they were now, nor who they had been before.
"You're afraid — but so am I." Mario buried his nose in her hair, breathing in her scent. "You don't want me to say it out loud, but I feel it all the same."
Marta said nothing more. She set about heating and serving the tin.
"When we go back to Madrid tomorrow, we'll go back to our lives. Can't we simply enjoy this — here, and now?"
"As you wish, my queen." Mario took her chin, kissed her gently, and silently screamed with every cell in his body that he loved this woman.