LAST CUBA LIBRE

LEO

Two fifteen in the morning, flat out on the couch at Adrenaline. My shirt is stuck to my skin with sweat and my head is spinning like a top. I keep my eyes closed and breathe deep to keep from puking.
"Hey, you alright?"I open my eyes: there are three girls in jeans and t-shirts with the Playboy logo. Identical. I squint, trying to bring them into focus and overlap the images. It's just one girl, actually, blonde and not bad at all. She's wearing faded jeans and a red t-shirt with the rabbit logo."Just had too much to drink," I mutter."Can I do anything to make you feel better?" she asks."GIVE ME YOUR CUNT!" I exclaim, throwing my head back.The girl looks at me with extreme pity, then she turns and walks away.Everything starts spinning around me, the images double, triple and blend into one another. The music hammers in my ears and there are people moving on the dance floor.I turn round, push my face into the space between the back of the couch and the wall and then, very nonchalantly, shove my finger down my throat and throw up.I adjust the collar of my Ralph Lauren shirt and get up. I feel decidedly better. I walk towards the bar, staggering slightly."A Zombie Special," I say to the cashier. She looks at me severely, then rings up the receipt.I push into the crowd around the bar. I lift one finger to attract the attention of the barman who is nodding his head in time to Superman by the Holy Ghost."A Zombie Special," I say. The barman is a guy my age with a tribal tattoo on his bicep and a piercing in his eyebrow.He takes the receipt and tears it, then he pours the various types of rum, fruit juice and Curacao into a shaker, adds a spoonful of Demerara, shakes it and serves the cocktail to me in a tumbler. I sip it and move towards the dance floor. I stop under the platform, raise my eyes and observe from an interesting perspective a dancer on the podium, she's wearing a thong and her legs are gleaming with oil. The music changes and Sunrise by Duran Duran starts to play.I walk away still staring at her and return to the table under the DJ's station, where Jessica is flirting with a really cool Rasta in a Guru t-shirt and D&G jeans torn at the knee. All around me are these guys acting big, ordering Moët by the gallon. They are really trying to look like big spenders who live the life. The tragedy is that anyone can see that they are trying hard and that they probably spend the rest of the week working their arses off in a factory, or some other sad place like that.I wonder how my girl managed to get in with this crowd, then I finish the cocktail nodding my head up and down to the rhythm of the latest piece by Gwen Stefani, What you waiting for?"Did you know that the Rasta religion requires its members to smoke marijuana and not to cut their hair until all the blacks in the world are finally reunited in Africa?"I turn round. Claudio, wearing a white Ralph Lauren shirt exactly like mine, glances at my girl."No," I say." "But now I think I'll convert.""Who is that guy, anyway?""It must be Alan... They were at school together, err...grammar school." then I change the subject "Listen, do you mind giving me your phone number again. I've lost my mobile.""Shit," says Claudio. "I think I would kill myself, if I lost my cell phone. I'll give you a ring.""OK" I say, then I pull out my new Nokia 6670 and I start to dictate my new number to him."Hey" says Claudio pulling out the Motorola V980 and opening it. "Is that the 6670?""Sure," I say proudly. "Netfront Web browser, 1 megapixel camera that with 4x digital zoom or videoclips up to 10 minutes, 8 Mb internal dynamic memory plus 64 Mb multimedia memory card. I paid an arm and a leg for it.""Brilliant!!""Hello? 347.555..."Claudio rings me and I store his number in my address book. I finish my cocktail and glance at Jessica. The Rasta has put his hand on her knee and is squeezing it gently.I raise my eyebrows and turn to the mega-screen above the console showing images from Kill Bill Volume 2, then I look back at Jessica and the Rasta. Lenny Kravitz is singing Where are we runnin'? and I squeeze my glass hard when Alan leans towards Jessica, murmuring into her ear."Aren't you bothered that your girl is getting on so well with that guy?" asks Claudio."No." I say, embarrassed. "Err... should I be?"Well, I just wondered.""After all, they haven't seen each other for ages.""Maybe." says Claudio, puzzled.We turn at the same time to look at Jessica and the Rasta who are just getting out their mobiles – Jessica's is a Sony CMDZ7 and Alan has a Motorola C975 – they are exchanging phone numbers."Let's have another cocktail." I suggest."Good idea."We walk round the dance floor to the bar and order two Manhattans that the barman prepares by mixing the whisky and the red vermouth, adding a drop of angostura bitters to the mixing glass brimming with ice and pouring the drink into the chilled cocktail glasses and decorating them with a maraschino cherry.I pull out my pack of Marlboro Lights and light a smoke, but after one pull I throw it on the floor and crush it under my sneaker."This place is a real cunt house!" says Claudio looking around him.I nod moving to the rhythm of the dance version of Love Profusion by Madonna, while Uma Thurman shelters under Bill's brother's hovel on the mega-screen and the vocalist talks nonsense into the microphone.I glance at the dancer in a thong, she's leaning on the counter and drinking a Red Bull, but it's obvious that she has not even noticed me, so I gulp down my Manhattan and look away. My stomach gurgles loudly and ominously.Claudio follows me into the crowd on the dance floor, where we conquer some vital space near a girl in a Fiorucci t-shirt. He slings her a line but the music is so loud – we are close to the loudspeakers – that I can't hear what he says. She's pretty ordinary, bottle blonde, wishy-washy. Anyway, at three in the morning, anything goes. This is the routine: at midnight you try to get off with the babe, at two o'clock the average looker, by three o' clock, anything goes!After a while the girl opens her Gucci bag and takes out a Nokia 3310 to store Claudio's number. He says something and turns to me with an uncertain smile."She didn't want to give me her number," he shouts into my ear. "But she took mine."I sigh. "See..." says Claudio, "She'll never ring."The music is turned down for an instant and the vocalist greets the guys at our table and the DJ puts on Round Round by the Sugababes and I turn to look down the room where the dancer in a thong is climbing the ladder to her platform. I keep watching her as she shakes her ass and her legs, sheathed in knee-high boots.I nod at Claudio and move back towards our table, pushing my way through the wall of people. I move slowly slipping sideways and trying not to overbalance in spite of the bumps and thrusts that hit me from all sides.We reach the table and a guy hands me a glass full of Moët, I tip it back automatically; and in the meantime I stare around trying to see where Jessica has got to, but she's not here, she's gone and so has the Rasta. I ask the guy who gave me the champagne where my girl has gone, but he just shrugs.Claudio says, "She'll have gone to get a drink."I turn and start looking for Jessica amongst the heads bobbing about on the crowded dance floor, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack so I push into the river of guys and chicks moving towards the wall at the back of the club. I go with the flow glancing right and left while the music fades once again into I'm a believer by the Smash Mouth. I walk round the club a couple of times getting ever more paranoid, until I see Jessica coming towards me, drunk."Sweetheart, where did you get to?" she asks, laughing and shaking her black hair, bobbed like Valentina, the protagonist of Crepax's erotic cartoons. Her breath speaks for itself. It speaks of vodka and sangria."Funny!" I say. "I was just about to ask you the same thing.""Oh, you are so heavy!" says Jessica, widening her eyes in exasperation. "I went to get a drink, alright? Does that annoy you? I just can't take it when you're like this, Leo.""No?" I huff. "Well, were you alone or was your friend Alan with you?""He was there too, of course," says Jessica innocently. "So what? What's got into you, Leo? Do you think I'm such a bitch that I'd get off with someone else in front of you? Is that what you think of me? I wonder why you go out with me, if you think I'm that false and twofaced...""So what did you do? Can I know or is it a secret?""What do you think we did?" Jessica went for me. "We talked. We listened to the music. What do you usually do in a club?""And did he... err... try it on?""Of course not!" snapped Jessica. "Cut it out!""Where is he now? Your friend, I mean. Where's he gone?""Oh God!" said Jessica, covering her face with her hands. "He's gone home, alright? He was tired, at least that's what he told me... What should I know?""Hmm," I murmur raising one eyebrow suspiciously."For heaven's sake cut it out!" says Jessica looking away. "You are so heavy, when you're like this. I can't take it." Then she takes my hand. "What shall we do?" She asks in a much sweeter voice. "Shall we go?""Whatever..." I huff pissed off."What do you mean whatever?" snaps Jessica. "Do you want to spend some time with me, or not? If you can't be bothered, just forget it. It means we will just spend another hour or so here and that will be the end of the evening. You decide, darling," she says poisonously."No", I say calming down. "OK, let's go."We hand in our numbered vouchers at the cloakroom and they give us our Woolrich jackets. We leave the club and walk towards my Alfa 147. It's nearly December and it's so cold you can see your breath.The four indicators flash when I open the 147 with the remote control and Jessica hurries to get in. I get behind the wheel and start the engine. The defroster starts blowing air against the frozen, misted windscreen. Jessica puts her hand on my thigh and sighs. Then she looks at me shaking her head and says, "I love you, you idiot." And I really feel an idiot, but when I'm drunk there's nothing for it, I get jealous and I become paranoid for nothing."I love you too," I say nodding my head, taking her hands and kissing them to apologise. "I love you like mad."I hear the engine humming, the jet of air against the windscreen is warming the car and suddenly Jessica reaches out and puts her hand between my legs.In spite of everything I have drunk, my prick starts to rise and I can't resist the temptation to push my hand between her thighs, under her D&G dress, brushing the elastic on her hold-ups. Her thighs are warm and I push aside her flimsy pants and slip one finger into her wet cunt. I'm thinking how Alan, that fuckin' Rasta looked at her, about what he would have liked to do to her and what I will do soon, and I'm so hard my jeans are almost bursting...