When I left Viernes de Cine I took the tram at Montgomery. I was reading a new book, Erasure (more about it in a future post, because I'm getting hooked and I'll have to share). Some time during the trip these two young guys came in. They looked like construction workers. The lean type. They were speaking Portuguese, but their code was something I thought had died out in the 1960's, or would only be spoken by people who were now close to their 60's. I mean, their accent was so thick and their words so out of synch with my Lisbon-suburbs upbringing - and no, I don't come from a middle-class suburb, more one of factory and supermarket workers, and low-grade public servants, with a few doctors and lawyers thrown in, but very few, mind you! - that I had troube to understand them at first.
At a certain point they started talking about girls. One of them said that Patricia made his balls acke every time they kissed. Sometimes they would spend three hours kissing and his balls would hurt so much he felt like bursting. Patricia didn't let him do it, it was killing him; the pain. He had spoken to her about it, but she shrugged it off saying that it was normal he would feel that way. His friend showed sympathy. How awful that they couldn't just do it. They should be able to manifest the body, he said as we all got out of the tram. Gare Terminus. Not bad, I thought, much deeper than I had expected.
It was a scene truly from another world. I sometimes forget that there are still Patricias and young construction workers like these two guys out there. Kissing for three hours with their balls acking. I wonder how Patricia felt. Was she in pain too? I'm sure she wouldn't tell her lover about it. Patricia wouldn't be that honest with her man. Her man was trying to get her to compassionate, give him some release. Poor boy. But Patricia was tough, she knew how to guard herself. I hope they get married. It would stop the pain. Introduce others. But they'll cope, I think.
My first reaction was to think that those two guys were being sexist, and rude (I never say balls), but then I thought again and realised that they were just being honest and expressing it the way their code allowed them to. I felt relieved I wasn't them. Yeah, a bit smug. So what? That's how I felt. Then I tucked my new book inside my Ermenegildo Zegna bag and strolled down the street feeling the cool breeze in my ears and thinking of home, and Jarl's arms, and my daughter's baby eyes. Love pulsating like dawn inside my heart.
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