Gasoline. Quim Monzo

of the blond girl, until the boy discharges all over her eyes, nose, and lips; she smiles contentedly. The boy and the brown-haired girl are also smiling contentedly. Then there is a brief pause (of only a few seconds), and the same girls appear, now sitting down, all dressed and demure, drinking from tall glasses. One of them moves her lips in silence, as if speaking, and the other nods in agreement as she runs her tongue over her upper lip. The blond girl picks up the receiver and dials a number. The brown-haired girl drinks her drink and smiles. The blonde sits down. A short while later they look at the door with a surprised expression on their faces (conveying the impression that someone has knocked). The brown-haired girl goes to open it and finds the same boy from before at the door, wearing the same polo shirt, but now with pants, carrying a cardboard box the size of a pizza. Gesturing and moving their lips, they invite him in. He comes in. He seems shy. The brown-haired girl takes out her handbag, gives him a five-dollar bill, and searches for change (obviously to give him a tip), but she only comes up with big bills. She looks surprised as the other girl searches through her handbag and also finds no change. Without missing a beat, they get out another glass for the boy, fill it for him, refill their own, and smile at him. He smiles, too, but shyly. The blond unbuttons two buttons on her blouse, gazing at the boy and bending down to flick the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray (suddenly they are smoking; had he not noticed until that moment, or has the cigarette appeared magically?), revealing a good expanse of breast. The brown-haired girl runs her tongue over her lower lip. The boy smiles broadly to indicate that he’s understood. He kisses the brown-haired girl, who runs her hand up the boy’s leg until she reaches his groin, in exaggerated evidence . . .

      The projection breaks off again. He leaves. Another man is leaving another booth at the very same moment, staring at the ground, his face red as a beet. Heribert looks at the man’s shoes to see if he has splattered. He thinks he could have put a coin in slot a, to see what it was. He walks out into the street, wondering why he hasn’t had an erection the whole time, neither leafing through the magazines nor in the booth.

      •

      He goes into a state of rapture at a newsstand, looking at the magazine covers. He sees a magazine (Mademoiselle) displaying articles on clothing, beauty, health, and love, aimed especially at women and with Brooke Shields’s face on the cover. He remembers how, as a boy, he had only had fashion magazines to masturbate to. He buys it. He leafs through it. He feels a foggy twinge of arousal. He goes into the first bar he finds. He sits at the bar. He orders a whiskey. He pays up. He takes a drink. He leafs through the magazine. A woman with very red lips hides her face behind a veil, to promote Revlon lipsticks. A well-known TV actress, with a bottle of Max Factor perfume in her hand, says: “Part of the art of being a woman is knowing when not to be too much of a lady.” There is a striped bathing suit, with a tutu, from Saks Fifth Avenue. He finds the model absolutely beautiful. Cacharel, on the facing page, announces a perfume called Anaïs Anaïs (a reference to Anaïs Nin?). On a motorcycle rides a young man in a black jacket and a young woman in a slip, also black, both wearing Carrera glasses. A girl is jogging in Max Factor WaterProof. Dexatrim shows a photograph of Melody Mahoney of Warren (Indiana), who lost 105 pounds in thirty-six weeks by taking one Dexatrim capsule a day. There is also an interview with Michael Caine: “the man women love to love.” Another ad for a bathing suit with tutu, by Lakeside. Angie Dickinson reports that California avocadoes have only seventeen calories a slice (“If you take into account,” it says in one corner of the ad, “that there are sixteen slices to a medium-sized avocado.”) The headline for Sambuca Romana says, “If they try to tell you that Sambuca Romana is an after-dinner drink, tell them you weren’t born yesterday. You just look that way.” Chimère says: “Chimère perfume: From a distance, it’s discreet and elegant; from close up, it’s out of this world.” The page is split between two shots. On top, a woman at an office desk is surrounded by three men. Underneath, she’s embracing one man. (One of the three from the picture on the top? A new one?) He has another drink of whiskey. He heads toward the bathroom.

      There is an article on how to stop biting your nails. A girl wrapped in a pink towel says, “I never felt like this until I tried Caress.” Caress is a soap. Many pages on how to sunbathe. A long article titled “The Elegant Art of Flirting.” A report on dressing in ecological colors. Two girls look out at him from an article titled “Love in the Afternoon,” which begins: “Don’t wait for the sun to set to put on a sexy dress. We have a series of new designs for you that can be worn all day long . . .” He unzips his pants and begins to fondle himself. What if he were to fall in love with one of those models with almond eyes who look out at him from the ads? Searching for them and finding out whether they were as seductive in the flesh as they are on paper would be a struggle . . . Even to have thought of falling in love with them makes him smile. And yet, he has fallen in love a few times: many years ago . . . Has he really been in love, though, or is it an illusion he half-remembers that doesn’t jibe with the dictionary definition of the word? It occurs to him that it must be an arduous task to write a dictionary, to have a precise knowledge of all sentiments and to define them, to know exactly what it is to fall in love, what passion is, where the line between good and evil and between pleasure and perversion falls, or between abundant, numerous, plethoric, overflowing, considerable . . .

      He is thinking all of this as he stares at the tiles, the pictures in the magazine long forgotten. He is profoundly bored. He lets go. His erection goes limp and disappears at once. He leaves the magazine on top of the paper towel dispenser, goes back out to the bar, drinks up the third gulp of whiskey, and opens the door to the street.