The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa [222]
“You don’t know how to kiss, beautiful.” Trujillo smiled at her, kissing her again on the hand, agreeably surprised. “You’re a little virgin, aren’t you?”
“He had become aroused,” says Urania, staring at nothing. “He had an erection.”
Manolita gives a short, hysterical laugh, but her mother, her sister, her niece don’t follow suit. Her cousin lowers her eyes in confusion.
“I’m sorry, I have to talk about erections,” says Urania. “If the male becomes aroused, his sex stiffens and grows larger. When he put his tongue in my mouth, His Excellency became aroused.”
“Let’s go up, beautiful,” he said, his voice somewhat thickened. “We’ll be more comfortable. You’re going to discover something wonderful. Love. Pleasure. You’ll like it. I’ll teach you. Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not an animal like Petán, I don’t enjoy being brutal to girls. I like them to enjoy it too. I’ll make you happy, beautiful.”
“He was seventy and I was fourteen,” Urania specifies for the fifth or tenth time. “We were a mismatched couple, climbing that staircase with the metal railing and heavy wooden bars. Holding hands, like sweethearts. The grandfather and his granddaughter on their way to the bridal chamber.”
The lamp on the night table was lit, and Urania saw the square wrought-iron bed, the mosquito netting raised, and she heard the blades of the fan turning slowly on the ceiling. A white embroidered spread covered the bed, and a number of pillows and cushions were piled against the headboard. It smelled of fresh flowers and grass.
“Don’t undress yet, beautiful,” Trujillo murmured. “I’ll help you. Wait, I’ll be right back.”
“Do you remember how nervous we were when we talked about losing our virginity, Manolita?” Urania turns toward her cousin. “I never imagined I’d lose it in Mahogany House with the Generalissimo. I thought: ‘If I jump off the balcony, Papa will really be sorry.’”
He soon returned, naked under a blue silk robe with white flecks and wearing garnet-colored slippers. He took a drink of cognac, left his glass on a dresser among photographs of himself surrounded by his grandchildren, and, grasping Urania by the waist, sat her down on the edge of the bed, on the space left open by the mosquito netting, two great butterfly wings crossed over their heads. He began to undress her, slowly. He unbuttoned the back of her dress, one button after another, and removed her belt. Before taking off her dress, he kneeled, and with some difficulty leaned forward and bared her feet. Carefully, as if a sudden movement of his fingers could shatter the girl, he pulled off her nylon stockings, caressing her legs as he did so.
“Your feet are cold, beautiful,” he murmured tenderly. “Are you cold? Come here, let me warm them for you.”
Still kneeling, he rubbed her feet with both hands. From time to time he lifted them to his mouth and kissed them, beginning at the instep, going down to her toes and around to her heels, asking with a sly little laugh if he was tickling her, as if he were the one feeling a joyful itch.
“He spent a long time like that, holding my feet. In case you’re interested, I didn’t feel the least excitement, not for a second.”
“You must have been so scared,” Lucindita says encouragingly.
“Not then, not yet. Later on, I was terrified.”
With difficulty His Excellency stood, and sat down again on the edge of the bed. He took off her dress, the pink bra that held her budding little breasts, the triangle of her panties. She allowed him to do it, not offering any resistance, her body limp. When Trujillo