“Do you like it – the flat?” These had been the only words of Silkleigh she had understood. She inspected the two rooms in Millan Astray. When she saw the unwashed plates in the kitchen and the bath still full of water and the goggle-heaps, but above all the hurriedly kicked notebooks beneath the sofa, she decided after all not to let her heart flare for him. She worked in a library, but if Ernesto had taught her a thing, it was never to live beyond her mental means.

If she told the truth, sex bored her. She agreed with Ernesto: “The great pleasure comes if you do nothing! Sex is about restraint.” But how did you tell that to Panteco? As she coaxed an erection from Panteco, she felt she was handing a loaded revolver to a man who couldn’t shoot. Dolores closed her eyes as he kissed her brow. She didn’t want to see his face. With Panteco, she swiftly discovered, it was but a matter of time before she could open her eyes.

“Do you think there’s sex in heaven?” she asked. She kneeled on all fours, watching her favourite soap opera while at the same time luxuriously arching her instep against Toribio’s tongue at the edge of the mattress. She was confident the man behind her was thinking of another person, and that when he released the words, “Precious, my precious,” it was not Dolores he addressed (nor Toribio, who lifted his head and slapped his tail against the cupboard door), but her friend the fadista. The knowledge didn’t make Dolores jealous. Rosita was her ally. With Rosita she could talk about men, men like Lieutenant Casares, in Abyla to complete his military service. Unfortunately, Casares had caught the eye of Señora Menendez. With Rosita she could talk also about Panteco.

It was not like sex with Ernesto. The conductor, had excited her. Would she ever feel something of the same for Panteco, this loud, tall, stubborn, gauche, proud policeman who treated her so off-handedly, although she could see he didn’t mean to, who now plunged his face into the pillow, away from her, panting like a tunny fish. “Dolores, why do you have to ask such stupid, stupid questions?”

Probably not, she decided.

“Dolores, will you listen to me.” Over the telephone Panteco listed several reasons why she must change her mind about tonight.

Dolores picked up the paperknife. She inspected her face again. “Lustrino, I’m listening.” She had the night before on her face. Her body was telling her she wasn’t beautiful. The coffee in Panteco’s flat had made her skin dry and ruddy. When she made love regularly she felt good. If she didn’t make love regularly, her body grew stale, she became neurotic and aware of a tremendous physical unhappiness. It was no good Panteco telling her she was beautiful.

Dolores tilted the blade from one eye to the other, to her nose, to the definite spot on her chin, to the unending stacks behind her, unread and smelling of mildew. The insecurity of a beautiful woman wasn’t something a man like Panteco could appreciate. It was something a lot of women couldn’t understand, but Ernesto had understood it.