Hypothermia

the tiny bushland around her ass and masturbated her to a climax, and then I entered her from behind, my hands squeezing her fists.
    The third time she sucked me. With Teresa I take more pleasure in giving than in receiving, so that when I felt myself on the verge of exploding I told her I wasn’t going to hold out much longer, and how did she want us to do it? She rose up and without unclenching my member she told me that she wanted me to come in her mouth, that I could take however long I wanted but I should drown her in semen. I sat up comfortably against the headboard to get a better view. She curled up perpendicular to my body and scooted forward a little, so that I could put my hand between her thighs or her breasts, follow the curve of her back down to her buttocks, and play with her toes. When she felt like that was enough, she opened my legs and dove between them. She looked me in the eyes and said: Come. I did so, exorbitantly, until it hurt. She gave me a salty kiss and thanked me. I lost myself in an almost dreamlike trance and slipped into sleep.
    I was awakened by her riotous laughter—like shrieking in a cathedral—mixed with the deep sound of Raul’s voice. I got out of bed, put on my shorts to go to the bathroom and, in that near state of grace, descended to the kitchen. It turned out that besides Raul and Teresa, who were drinking some tequila in the living room, in the kitchen there were also—knocking back their first drink and gossiping in whispers, surely about me—the movie critic and his wife, Socrates and his young lover, and Tijuana sans husband. Teresa gave me a long kiss and sent me to say hello to the other guests, among whom I went delivering hugs and kisses. Tijuana stuck a finger in my belly button and told me I looked very cute. I told her that I’m no angel.
    We chatted about nonsense while I brewed myself a cup of mint tea. When it was ready, Socrates poured in a little tequila and told me that they’d heard I was going to do the cooking; that was why they all came over. I told him that I’d need some galley slaves because people were already hungry. Tijuana and the movie critic volunteered to help, and the others went to the living room. Teresa came in with a stack of pots and pans.
    I set Tijuana to prepare the brown sugar and Teresa to cut the dragon fruit. I gave the movie critic—clearly the least talented—very specific instructions for how to prepare the shrimp broth, handing him the little bunch of rosemary that he had to use, and precisely measuring the salt and the water, never taking my eyes off him. I sliced open the roast, so fresh that it was dripping blood. I set my cutting board next to the one Teresa was working on. Her hands were stained with the vegetable blood of the fruits—she was slicing them with careful devotion, as cleanly as coins. Another tequila. We made potatoes with the remaining rosemary and a jar of mole sauce we found in the refrigerator. When the critic finished with the broth—anyone else would have done a better job in half the time—I set him to work peeling carrots. We heated the oven and I suddenly remembered the hellish family dinner awaiting me at home. I called my mother to cancel.
    When I came downstairs again, Tijuana and Teresa were waiting for me in front of the bag of guavas without the least idea what to do with them. It’s an Aztec game: you’ve got to split the fruit in half and remove the pulp that surrounds the seed as if it were a heart, then you’ve got to peel it with the same tender loving care as if you were bathing a little child. We didn’t have a fourth knife sharp enough for the critic to use, nor enough faith in his ability to carry out such a delicate operation: what remains of a guava after the sacrifice is an extremely delicate little rosy pink strip barely an eighth of an inch thick, just a leftover, which is, simultaneously, the sweetest and most sour thing in the world, and which denotes the metaphysical nature of Baroque cuisine: more theory than food. I told them that rump roast stuffed with guava pulp was the favorite dish of Bishop Palafox. It’s out of this world, I said, the meat enveloping the remains of something that no longer has either an inside or an outside, just like the sacred host.
    And my vagina, said Tijuana, sticking a finger in her mouth. She pulled it out shining with saliva and slipped it into Teresa’s mouth. We made the guava paste in the same bowl in which we’d cooked