For a moment, I admit, the idea of a terrorist act passed through my mind. I saw the visceral realists getting ready to kidnap Octavio Paz, I saw them breaking into his house (poor Marie-José, all that broken china), I saw them emerging with Octavio Paz gagged and bound, carried shoulder-high or slung like a rug, I even saw them vanishing into the slums of Netzahualcóyotl in a dilapidated black Cadillac with Octavio Paz bouncing around in the trunk, but I recovered quickly. It must have been nerves, or the gusts of wind that sometimes sweep along Insurgentes (we were talking on the sidewalk) and sow the most outrageous ideas in pedestrians and drivers. So I rejected his invitation again and he insisted again. What I have to tell you, he said, will shake the foundations of Mexican poetry. He might even have said Latin American poetry. But not world poetry, no. One could say he restricted himself to the Spanish-speaking world in his ravings. The thing he wanted to tell me would turn Spanish-language poetry upside down. Goodness, I said, some undiscovered manuscript by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz? A prophetic text by Sor Juana on the fate of Mexico? But no, of course not, it was something the visceral realists had found and the visceral realists would never come anywhere near the lost libraries of the seventeenth century. What is it, then? I said. I'll tell you at my place, said Luscious Skin, and he put his hand on my shoulder, as if he were pulling me toward him, as if he were inviting me to dance with him again on the horrible dance floor at Priapo's.

I began to tremble and he noticed. Why do I have to like the worst ones? I thought, why do I have to be attracted to the most brooding, least cultured, most desperate ones? It's a question I ask myself twice a year. I still haven't found an answer. I told him that I had the keys to a painter friend's studio. We should go there, I said, it was close enough to walk, and along the way he could tell me whatever he wanted. I thought he wouldn't accept, but he did. Suddenly the night was beautiful, the wind stopped blowing, and only a gentle breeze accompanied us as we walked. He started to talk, but frankly I've forgotten almost everything he said. There was just one thought in my head, one wish: that Emilio wouldn't be in his studio that night (Emilito Laguna, he's in Boston now studying architecture, his parents had enough of his bohemian life in Mexico and sent him away: it's either Boston and an architecture degree or you get a job), that none of his friends would be there, that no one would come near the studio for-my God-the rest of the night. And my prayers were answered. Not only was no one at the studio but it was clean too, as if the Lagunas' maid had just left. And he said what a super studio, this place really does make you want to paint, and I didn't know what to do (I'm sorry, but I'm extremely shy-and worse than shy-in these situations) and I started to show him Emilio's canvases, I couldn't think of anything better, I set them up against the wall and listened to his murmurs of approval or his critical remarks behind me (he didn't know anything about painting), and the paintings just kept coming and I thought, wow, Emilio really has been working a lot lately, who would've thought, unless they were paintings by some friend of his, which was highly possible, since at a glance I could see more than one style, and a few red, very Paalenesque canvases, especially, had a well-defined style. But who cares? The truth is that I didn't give a shit about the paintings, but I was incapable of taking the initiative, and when I finally had all the walls of the studio lined with Lagunas, I turned around, sweating, and asked him what he thought, and with a wolfish smile he said that I shouldn't have gone to so much trouble. It's true, I thought, I've made a fool of myself and now on top of it all I'm covered in dust and I stink of sweat. And then, as if he'd read my mind, he said you're sweating and then he asked me whether there was a bathroom in the studio where I could take a shower. You need one, he said. And I said, probably in a tiny voice, yes, there is a shower, but I don't think there's any hot water. And he said good, cold water is better, I always take cold showers, there's no hot water on the roof. And I let myself be dragged into the bathroom and I took off my clothes and turned on the shower and the gush of cold water almost knocked me out, my flesh shrinking until I could feel each and every bone in my body. I closed my eyes, I might have shouted, and then he got in the shower and put his arms around me.

The rest of the details I'd rather not disclose; I'm still a romantic. A few hours later, as we were lying in the dark, I asked him who had given him the name Luscious Skin, so suggestive, so fitting. It's my name, he said. Well yes, I said, all right, it's your name, but who gave it to you? I want to know everything about you. It was the tyrannical, slightly stupid kind of thing you say after you've made love. And he said: María Font, and then he was quiet, as if he'd suddenly been overwhelmed by memories. His profile, in the dark, seemed very sad to me, thoughtful and sad. I asked, maybe with a hint of irony in my voice (perhaps I'd been overcome by jealousy, and sadness too), whether María Font was the one who'd won the Laura Damián prize. No, he said, that's Angélica, María is her older sister. He said a few more things about Angélica that I can't remember now. The question burst from me as if of its own accord: have you slept with María? His reply (my God, what a sad, beautiful profile Luscious Skin had) was devastating. He said: I've slept with every poet in Mexico. What I should have done then was either be quiet or hold him, and yet I did neither, but kept asking him questions, and each question was worse than the one before and I lost a little ground with each one. At five in the morning we went our separate ways. I caught a cab on Insurgentes, and he walked off north.

Angélica Font, Calle Colima, Colonia Condesa, Mexico City DF, July 1976. That was a strange time. I was Pancho Rodríguez's girlfriend. Felipe Müller, Arturo Belano's Chilean friend, was in love with me. But I liked Pancho best. Why? I don't know. All I know is that I liked Pancho best. A little while before, I'd won the Laura Damián prize for young poets. I never knew Laura Damián. But I did know her parents and lots of people who'd known her, even people who'd been friends with her. I slept with Pancho after a party that lasted for two days. On the last night, I slept with him. My sister told me to be careful. But who was she to give me advice? She was sleeping with Luscious Skin, and with Moctezuma Rodríguez, Pancho's younger brother, too. She was also sleeping with someone called the Gimp, a poet and alcoholic in his thirties, but at least she had the courtesy not to bring him home with her. Really, I was sick of having to put up with her lovers. Why don't you go fuck in their pigsties? I asked her once. She didn't answer and then she started to cry. She's my sister and I love her, but she has no self-control. One afternoon Pancho started to talk about her. He talked a lot, so much that I thought she must have slept with him too, but no, I knew all her lovers. I heard them moan at night less than fifteen feet from my bed, and I could tell them apart by the sounds they made, by the way they came, quietly or noisily, by the things they said to my sister.

Pancho never slept with her. Pancho slept with me. I don't know why, but he was the one I chose and for a few days I even lost myself in fantasies of love, although of course I never really loved him. The first time was pretty painful. I didn't feel anything, only pain, but even the pain wasn't unbearable. We did it in a hotel in Colonia Guerrero, a hotel probably frequented by whores. After he came, Pancho told me that he wanted to marry me. He told me he loved me. He said he would make me the happiest woman in the world. I looked him in the face and for a second I thought he'd gone crazy. Then I realized that he was actually afraid, afraid of me, and that made me sad. I'd never seen him look so small, and that made me sad too.