37: Your Silhouette

Mario checked the time again and realised something.
"I'm thinking about your mother. How is she getting home?"
"She's staying at my aunt's."
"The question stands, Hugo — how is Felisa going to get to Marta's? Will she take a taxi?"
"I came to pick her up and then head home myself." He gave a sheepish smile — he hadn't thought of it.
Mario smiled.
"We'll have to break the spell." He said, with a touch of wryness.
Hugo made to go back in, and Mario stopped him.
"No need to rush." He pulled slightly at his sleeve. "By the way — did that outing happen the other day with your cousin and our secretaries?"
"Yes — Julián and the young one got on straight away."
"Didn't you like Lorena? She's as observant as you are — though she never says so or comments on it. She rises completely above all the gossip." He was trying to get a rise out of Hugo, though the comment wasn't meant as an attack.
"Lorena isn't friends with anyone." His eyebrows levelled in an expression that was less disgust and more weary resignation.
Mario pressed his hand over his mouth to hold back a laugh as they stepped out of the lift.
They ran straight into Manuel and Felisa.
"Dad?"
"Mum?"
The man crossed his arms and looked at his son with inquisition.
"Everyone's leaving without a word to us?"
Mario turned, looked at Hugo, and when he looked back at his father, he found a very broad smile.
"We didn't want to interrupt — we were going to wait for you downstairs, and then we remembered Felisa wouldn't know where Hugo was."
Checking the time, father and son walked mother and son to their car to say goodbye.
As the car turned the corner, Mario noticed Manuel make an unconscious grimace. He felt strangely reflected in it — if Marta had driven away from him like that, he would have done something very similar.
"I'll have a glass of milk and go to sleep. It's been quite a day." He announced.
"Same here."
He thought he caught a trace of resignation in his father's tone, but the man said nothing more.
When they got home and poured their drinks, Manuel kept his eyes fixed on the packet of sponge fingers on the kitchen counter.
He said nothing — rinsed his glass and turned it upside down on the draining board to dry. Then he went to his bedroom to sleep.
Mario tried not to make it obvious, but he watched his father's every move until he disappeared down the hall. He exhaled, looked up at the ceiling and, giving a faint shake of his head, went to his own bed.
As he lay back and plugged in his phone to charge, his mind returned to her scent, her warmth, her voice and her silhouette.
On instinct, he sent her a message.
"Can I call you?"
She was the one who rang.
"I wanted to hear your voice." She went straight for it.
"You took the words right out of my mouth — blimey." Mario said with fond reproach.
"I want to see it again." He heard her hesitate. "I don't think I saw it properly."
He knew exactly what she meant.
"I'll show you whenever you like — as long as we're alone."
Marta laughed on the other end of the line.
"Are you coming tomorrow to see the house too?"
Mario let himself be a little dramatic, and thought of his father.
"Are you taking Felisa?"
"Felisa?" She sounded puzzled. "What does my sister-in-law have to do with it?"
"It's a small gift I want to give you."
"Wait — I don't follow, Mario."
"I'd like to kiss every centimetre of your skin as though it were my only sustenance."
"And now you're changing the subject?"
"I'd like to contemplate your silhouette and linger over every curve."
"You haven't answered me!" Marta's protest came with a small laugh.
"Your silhouette."
"You already said that." She pointed out.
"That's right. Your silhouette."
"Mario, I don't follow — what does Felisa have to do with my silhouette?"
"If you bring Felisa tomorrow, watch how she behaves. Just that."
"And what were you saying about my silhouette?" She played along.
"If my favourite hobby is looking at you — if I were to recreate you, could I observe you in secret?"
A deafening silence took over the line. Mario began to think she had hung up.
"Mar—?"
"It's pressing on my chest."
"What?" Mario was alarmed. "No, no, no—"
"In a good way — but for a bad reason. Do you realise how stalker-ish that sounds?"
"And how am I supposed to hold back the urge to kiss you?"
"Don't change the subject." Marta was trying to sound serious, while melting inside.
"I'm not changing it — do you have any idea how much I want to hold you?"
A microsecond to crumble — and she answered in kind.
"I suppose... as much as I do." It came out far more naturally than she had expected.
"God—" Mario curled up on his bed, pulled himself into a ball, and felt the temperature rising. His voice dropped and everything felt too close. "Your flirting undoes me, my queen."
"I didn't say it with that intention." She paused to think. "We could both do with a cold shower — don't you think?"
"I hate loving you this much."
"I'm sorry?"
"The way you said that—" Mario gave a small, quiet laugh "—I genuinely don't think even a cold shower would put me out."
"You won't be the only one taking one." Marta left two seconds for him to take that in. "I adore you, blockhead." And she hung up before he could reply.
Mario spread out on his bed like something deflating. Why had he said that? He hadn't been thinking it at all.
If she had pressed him, he would have told her what Hugo had figured out.
He propped himself up and looked at the bookcase.
The silhouette idea wasn't as far-fetched as she seemed to think.
Who would guess that the curves in that painting were Marta's? Only someone who had seen her without her clothes. And her figure — only her late ex-husband and he had ever seen it.