Het Fruit van Unforbidden

De halsband van Azendi van het „Verboden Fruit“, $490

„U kunt hun wanhoop zoals parfum ruiken.“

Ik ontmoet de blik van cabbie in de overzichtsspiegel: de barsten in het glas weergalmen het rode spidering door het wit van zijn ogen.

„Zo zijn de toeristen aan de mannen en de vrouwen hier,“ hij zegt, het glimlachen. „U gaat door ruwe tijd? Zij ruiken het, en zij zijn klaar om u te troosten. U bent als een rijpe appel die van een boom bengelt.“

I cackle met hem. Ik enkel vertellend hem hoe verdacht ik van de dwaze vriendelijkheid van Miami was, en hij had mijn gissing geuit: „Oh, maar u kan zeker zijn hun niceness iets van u.“ wil

Hij had me in Miami van de binnenstad opgeraapt, waar ik een high-rise condo bekeek. De rest van de de wit-piket-omheiningsdroom van het land smolt van de hitte van zijn hebzucht af, en zijn zuidelijk het meeste uiteinde had een brandverkoop: de luxe gebouwen die uit van Bedrijfs Miami vervallen district toenemend werden te temptingly geprijst. Zo was ik gaan zien wat als een belachelijke overeenkomst scheen: wat zou ik voor een bescheiden flat in Los Angeles zou betalen een dertigste-verhaalvlakte hier kopen. Een deel van zich glas en staalbeeldhouwwerk het uitrekken aan de hemel, had condo een baaimening aangeboden die maakte me als god voelen die neer op mierenmensen kijkt, samen met een doorman, en het dak van 24 uur sauna.

Het' D scheen montage dat Miami dicht mogelijk een hellish hitte zo aan hemel zou plaatsen.

En de flat was mooi geweest, zijn openbare sensually verzorgde plaatsen, maar ik ben niet nog zeker hoe Miami geen hel in vergelijking met La zou zijn, dat reeds saaie purgatory in vergelijking met New York is. Ik bouw nog mijn carrière, en het maakt me zenuwachtig dat Miami carpe diem het bevel is explicieter dan in de stad van het woestijnstrand ik reeds in leef: vergeet uit om het even welke inspanning buiten onmiddellijk genoegen, enkel kou.

Ik ontspan in de zwarte zetel van de taxi, aangezien wij over de brug terug in touristy Strand van het Zuiden stoten. Uit is mijn venster vakantievilla's, de pleisterkastelen die van de cabine door een gazon van oceaan op een afstand worden gehouden. Mijn mening wordt die in dat ideale eiland wordt verloren, zijn palmbomen die als het wenken handen slingeren, zijn jachten die als hoofden bobbing ja neigend „.“ Ik let op een paar writhing samen op een pijler.

„Wat het gekste ding is dat aan u in een cabine?“ is gebeurd Ik vraag. „Toen de laatste tijd u in deze auto en gedachte, `was ik niet kan wachten om iemand over dit' te vertellen?“

He laughs, shortly. “Once, it was winter, so it was only five o’clock but already dark. I pick up these women from a hotel and it becomes clear they just met and they want to go to the next bar. So then they are drunk and laughing, and then they start kissing me, touching me, everywhere! They want me to go to the bar with them. They won’t stop.”

“They were hot?”

“Oh, yes,” he nods. “And this was before I was married! But they were drunk. Something about a drunk woman touching me, it is disgusting.”

“I agree,” I say. “It’s somehow insulting, right?”

“Yes.” He makes a left turn, onto the street of my hotel. “Plus I knew, women like that, the next bar we go to, they’d leave me soon as possible for ten other men.”

I laugh.

“Yes, this is a horny city.” He stops, hops out, and opens the door for me. “You’d be surprised what a conservative woman will do here, as soon as she gets off the plane.”

I face the decaying Deco hotel I’m staying in, its white walls streaked with cracks of black. It’d been cleaned since the 1920s, sure, but it seemed so sloppily spit-shined. Under the sun the building shrugged, “Good enough,” like the dark woman that painted my nails red earlier that day, unconcerned about a smudge until I’d tipped her.

Two days in Miami, and I’d already acquainted myself with a constant, carpe-diem carnival, a world where no one cared much about anything but the heavy hedonism dancing in front of them. And somehow that never-ending now made the city eternal.

I wander around the corner of my hotel, barely with Starbucks as a goal in my head: it’s so, so hot, iced espresso seems like the only way I’ll keep from forever falling asleep.

As I stroll, I look up into a boiling blue sky caged in by the tips of tall buildings. Miami is a sparse forest of skyscrapers, of towers of Babel, and its streets are little brooks babbling with accents: Texas tourists, Russian revelers, tropical women chirping deep from their throats… But we all melt together in the city’s heavy heat, its hellish humidity that keeps us all sweating, dirt sticking to skin whether it’s red or black, to coughing Fords or crashing Ferraris, to the crumbling buildings that clean condos lean on.

I slide in line at Starbucks. In front of me is a woman with a body built like a Roman statue, though in South Beach she’s just more flesh for an on-going orgy. In front of her is a father and daughter in hip-hugging jeans, both blurrily young. With highlighted hair, lean legs, they’re a reminder of Miami’s immortal youth, the beach’s deceptive, Dorian Gray beauty. I can’t tell their ages, and the only way I’m sure they’re parent and child is how their looks mirror one another, and how they are(n’t) touching each other. Their tanned skin sparkles with sweat, like they’re dusted with cheap crystals, like the sugar sparking off the pastries in the coffee shop’s display case.

I’m tempted by an apple tart, but I make myself only order espresso. Its icy cup is sweating as soon as I step back outside. I ignore men hissing at me from their cars, and when I turn a corner I pretend not to see the homeless man baking in the sun, ghost eyes barely blinking, his corpse hand dancing a bit in the breeze.

I walk into my hotel, straight to the lift. As the elevator creaks up, I stare at the rhinestone crucifix on the ass of a woman’s jeans.

.

I don’t leave my bedroom until it’s dark and I’m starving: I’d been slaving for hours, putting in hellish effort to build my own heaven on earth. When I step outside into the night, its dark is only exaggerated by street lamps. The wind fingers my hair, caresses my face, and the air is wet with the scent of designer vodka.

I roam blocks away from the beach before there’s more than just hotels. Music blows out of bars; sounds from different Me Decades dance: ’80s club throbs in the air, then I pass a wave of jittery jazz. The songs leak into each other, the eras blur together, strung together by their writhing rhythms, their same soul: a fast beat that makes me want to dance right now with whoever is nearest.

I step into a Japanese restaurant, and everything on the menu drips of grease, of sweet sauce, of indulgence. I order a plain-sounding salmon, and the waitress, soft as a geisha girl, says to come back in fifteen minutes. I walk outside, and see a flashing sign across the street. It pulses: Erotic. Sex. Museum.

I saunter into the building, taking a shaky elevator to the final floor. A dim gift shop of wrinkled Marilyn Monroe posters ends in a glassed wall and a sleepy cashier: $13 TO ENTER.

I pay, and walk into space littered with paintings of flappers revealing boyish bodies, androgynous Greek gods twisting into each other, Austrian jewelry boxes that reveal mistresses enjoying their men. Whalebone dildos glisten in a dull display case, a sculpted vagina yawns open to reveal a shark’s jaw, and an orgy of hard-lined, Art Deco-styled women wink at me in a painting from the 1980s.

I float out and pick up my dinner, then head back to my room, as crowds are finally flowing out of their hotels and into others, waves of bodies heaving through the shadow streets like a heavy breath on someone’s chest.

..

The next morning I wake up to sunshine burning through my hotel room’s windows. Out of their corner view of the street I can see little gremlins sweeping up midnight’s mess.

I stroll to the same Starbucks. Walking through Miami in the daylight is waking up to a woman from a bar: she looks aged under fresh light, the morning makes shadows in her face, and what was sexy and disheveled is simply sloppy. But 10 a.m. or p.m., the air is sultry, and I can feel myself moving through it, the humidity like a million kisses on my skin.

I order my coffee, then pause in front of the display of tempting, glittering pastries. I was always so careful about what I ate…

“Anything else, miss?” The cashier is that Latin flavor of friendly, quick to warm people without their realizing it, like a tropical cocktail. “Something to get you going in the morning? How about this one?”

He points to a sugary treat, its center dripping in gold and red, that same apple tart that winked at me a day ago.

I give in.

I bite into it, and taste what I’ve been missing: I’ve been so wrapped up sacrificing for a future heaven, when I might be naked without any concern but for my enjoyment of now.

I feel the heat of someone watching me, and I turn around to catch the eyes of a dark man. With boiled skin, in crisp black, he looks so vaguely familiar, an echo of someone from a dream life of mine. As I hand over my money, his hand interrupts me.

“I’ll pay for you.”

Related to "Unforbidden Fruit":

» Generra Your K Is…

» Shopping Brief - Balenciaga

» Roberto Cavalli Snake Bracelet

"Unforbidden Fruit" keywords: Cover Story, SEX, Travel .
You can follow responses to "Unforbidden Fruit" through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.