Chapter 5: La clase de gimnasia y el top mojado
The heatwave hit on Thursday. By third period, the air in the halls was thick and soupy, buzzing with the discontent of a thousand overheated students. Martín had skipped the bus, taking a long, sweating walk just to avoid the top deck and the possibility of her. He arrived at the institute with his t-shirt stuck to his back, feeling gritty and off-balance.
The library was his refuge. It was old, with high, dusty windows that trapped the heat but at least promised silence. He headed there after lunch, seeking the particular musty calm of the history section in the back. His head was still full of the gym, of the shocking clarity of sensation through damp fabric, a phantom memory that ambushed him at idle moments. He needed the solid, unfeeling weight of books.
He found a secluded study carrel, its wooden sides scarred with decade-old initials. He spread out his notes on the Treaty of Utrecht, the fan of papers a fragile barrier against everything else. For twenty minutes, he managed it. The only sounds were the distant scrape of a chair, the hum of the struggling air conditioner, and the reassuring rustle of his own pages.
Then a new sound. A familiar, light tread on the linoleum. The scent of peach shower gel cut through the smell of old paper.
He didn’t look up. He willed himself into the text, his vision blurring on the words “territorial concessions.”
A chair screeched opposite him. She sat down, placing a single, battered notebook on the table. She wore a simple black tank top and denim shorts. Her hair was in that messy ponytail, strands sticking to her damp neck.
“Aquí estás,” she said, her voice a low murmur that still seemed too loud for the library. “Te he buscado por todos los sitios.”
He kept his eyes down. “Estoy estudiando.”
“Yo también. Historia.” She kicked off one of her sandals under the table. Her bare foot, he saw from his peripheral vision, came to rest near his own shoe. “Es un peñazo, ¿no? Tanta guerra por unos trozos de tierra.” She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. The movement made her chest press against the edge of the carrel, the tops of her breasts swelling slightly over the neckline of her top. “A mí lo que me interesa es la parte humana. Las pasiones, tú sabes.”
He said nothing. He underlined a sentence about the Spanish Succession, his pen digging into the paper.
“Oye,” she whispered. “¿Me pasas ese subrayador? El azul.”
It was right next to her notebook. He gestured weakly towards it.
“No llego,” she said, a pout in her voice. She stretched her arm, her fingers wiggling just short of the pen. The stretch pulled her tank top taut. He saw the outline of her bra strap, the curve beneath it. With a sigh of false exertion, she pushed her chair back and stood up, walking the two steps around the table to his side of the carrel.
There was no space. The carrel was a niche meant for one. She squeezed into the gap between his chair and the wall, her hip brushing his shoulder. He curled inward, trying to become smaller.
“Aquí estaba,” she said, plucking the highlighter from beside his elbow. But she didn’t leave. She stayed there, trapped in the narrow slot beside him, her thigh now pressed firmly against his arm. He could feel the heat of her skin through his shirt.
She uncapped the highlighter with a soft click. “A ver, qué dice esto…” She leaned over his notes, her body arcing over his shoulder. Her ponytail tickled his cheek. The scent of her was overwhelming. She reached across him to point at a paragraph on his page, her breast pressing down onto his upper arm, a soft, insistent weight.
“Esta parte,” she breathed directly into his ear. Her voice was a husky whisper. “¿Esto entra para el examen?”
He couldn’t speak. He could only nod, a stiff, mechanical jerk of his head. His whole world had narrowed to the point of contact on his arm. The gym had been shocking, public. This was slow, intimate, and infinitely worse. The library silence magnified every detail: the rustle of her top, the sound of her breathing, the faint squeak of her skin against the wood as she shifted.
She didn’t move away. She pretended to read his notes, her chest remaining welded to his arm. Her free hand came to rest on the back of his chair, near his shoulder, caging him in.
“Tienes la letra muy pequeña,” she murmured. “Tengo que acercarme mucho para ver.”
She lowered herself another inch. The pressure increased. He stopped breathing. His own hand, resting on the table, clenched into a fist.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she turned her head. Her lips were centimeters from his ear. “¿Te acuerdas de ayer, en el gimnasio?” she whispered, the words barely audible. “Cuando te di aquel abrazo para agradecerte el agua.” A pause. He could hear her swallow. “Noté algo. ¿Notaste tú algo?”
His face burned. The memory was a brand. The feeling of her, taut and damp against him. His body’s involuntary, humiliating response.
“No,” he choked out.
She made a soft, disbelieving sound. “Mentira.” Her hand left the back of the chair. For a terrifying second, he thought it would travel lower. Instead, her finger tapped lightly on his clenched fist on the table. “Te pones muy tenso, Martín. Aquí.” Her fingertip traced a single, slow circle on his knuckle. It was an echo of the bus, that same maddening, circular pattern. A callback he didn’t want.
A librarian coughed pointedly from a few stacks away.
Marta straightened up, but only slightly. The pressure on his arm lessened by a fraction. “Bueno, no te pongas así,” she said in a normal, though still quiet, tone. “Solo te preguntaba.” She finally stepped back, extracting herself from the crevice. The cool air that rushed to replace her felt like a betrayal.
She returned to her seat, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. She opened her notebook and began to highlight nothing, the bright blue streaking aimlessly across the page. She glanced at him over the top of the carrel. “¿Sabes lo que pasa?” she said, as if continuing a casual chat. “Que estás demasiado callado. Y a las mujeres nos gustan los misterios. Nos pica la curiosidad.”
He started gathering his papers, his hands trembling. The Treaty of Utrecht was a smudge of meaningless dates.
“¿Te vas ya?” she asked, her tone faux-innocent.
“Sí.”
“Qué pena. Justo cuando me estaba enterando de lo de Gibraltar.” She capped the highlighter and stood as he did. “Voy contigo.”
“No hace falta.”
“Claro que hace falta. Hace un calor de muerte ahí fuera.” She fell into step beside him as he walked through the silent rows of books. Her sandals slapped softly on the floor. “Oye, ¿y si vamos a tomar algo? Un café con hielo. O una cerveza, que somos mayores.”
“Tengo que irme,” he said, pushing through the heavy library doors into the blinding white heat of the afternoon corridor.
The sudden noise and movement of students between classes was a shock. She kept pace, undeterred. Just before the flow of bodies would have separated them, she reached out and grabbed his wrist. Her grip was firm.
He froze, staring at her hand on him.
She stepped close, using the crowd as cover. “Mañana es viernes,” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes held that challenging, liquid shine. “El autobús va vacío a la salida. Te guardo el asiento de atrás, el de la esquina. El que no ve nadie.”
She released his wrist. Her fingers trailed down his palm, a whisper of a touch, before letting go completely.
Then she turned and melted into the stream of students, disappearing almost instantly.
Martín stood rooted to the spot, the sensation of her touch etched into his skin like a scar. The library’s silence was now inside him, a void filled only with the echo of her proposition. The corridor pulsed with heat and noise, but he felt cold, and terribly seen. He walked towards the exit, not feeling his feet touch the ground, her final words mapping his tomorrow with a dreadful, inevitable certainty.