I knew I wanted Catherine from the moment I saw her blonde curly hair, and big blue eyes blinking up at me.  She seemed to know so little about the world and I wanted to teach her everything.  Nathan was a fool.  Sure, he’s a brilliant economist, but he couldn’t see what he had, the best thing sitting right in front of him.  Cliché after cliché, but then my English is not so good.

Still, men like Nathan should realize they’re capable of writing many papers, and publishing multiple books. But finding a woman like Catherine, she remains something a man like him could loose easily and never hope to find again.  Better for me, Catherine was with him. 

American men are so stupid.  They’ve been trained by a militaristic culture to separate from the feminine part of their being.  The part of a man that speaks without saying a word, it’s an understanding that comes from within, or can be extended with a touch.  A touch that conveys sexuality, without being sexual.  It’s the sensual, then, that these American men have lost, or perhaps never had in to begin with.  To explain further, it’s why we Latin men find mothers so attractive, beautiful, sexual, sensual.  American culture likes little girls, skinny, asexual.  They’re afraid of life.  But we Latins, Spainards, we love life and the signs that show it: big hips, a soft belly, the flesh that feeds the future. 

I saw Catherine in a negligee one night.  She opened the door expecting Nathan, but the fool was still at the office working on some statistics.  While she changed into her robe, I went upstairs to bring down a Riesling, and some pate.  Her beauty needed to be celebrated. 

The fact that Nathan allowed another man to fill his woman’s need of companionship led me straight to the weakness in their relationship.  Catherine was in need of a friend.  Someone to listen to her stories, to know the name of her childhood pet, of her desire to climb Angkor Wat, to understand that her fear of spiders could be seen in the scar left on her arm.  All these details combined together, like a unique fragrance, one that drew me closer to her, and her to me.  It was the unique combining of each one’s sense of self.  I told her about my right ankle.  How the problem originated from a fall off a horse, and my need to sustain my “manhood,” no doctors, no crying.  I was a man.  It had been a test by my father, which I won at the cost of a forever limp. 

I promised to show her the world, and if we loved it together, we’d stay that way.  I would make her my wife.  Catherine grew up in Texas, close enough to Latin America to appreciate the heat.  I’ve always believed those who grow up in hot climates remain more passionate by nature.  Perhaps it’s what they call pheremones in the sweat, though I think it’s a product of the land.  You can see it in the dancing, the twirls in a salsa, the thrust of a tango.  Flamenco lights the flame of desire that permeates the night, which is why latins stay up so late and sleep through the morning.  Our siesta is a rest from the heat that burns within us.

And so this is what I told Catherine, that she must come with me, leave this cold place behind.  No hurtful words.  Just an “I love you, Goodbye.”