(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Thus complained Mick Jagger in one of The Stones’ biggest hits. I can relate to that.

The day before I fly home from Peru, I go on a quasi-date with Leo, my guide from Nazca, who happens to be in Lima on business. As luck would have it, he calls me just when I get to the dentist, and I’m two hours late due to having a crown fitted. Leo waits for me by the fountains of Larcomar with Peruvian patience and Hermes* takes off after the initial introductions so as to not cramp my style.

Those who know me well are perhaps not surprised that I developed crush on my guide back in Nazca while standing in the middle of the desert, surrounded by human skulls and fragments of bones. Appropriate, really. When Leo invited me to his house and we sat in his room, watching TV, I had to resist the temptation to run my fingers along the scar on the inside of his right arm. Not particularly because I wanted to trigger something of a sexual nature, but because I’m enthralled by different textures and I wanted to know what the scar felt like. As Hermes* and Gabriel* will testify, sometimes I rub my cheek against theirs, feline-like, because I love the abrasive texture of stubble, but randomly stroking the skin of someone I’d just met would perhaps have sent the wrong message…

I now understand why many people consider me cute because of my height; small people are cute. Leo’s adorably compact: he’s only two or three inches taller than me! I tend to like men who are taller than me (just as well, really, because otherwise I’d have to develop a passion for midgets), and Leo qualifies. Just.

What I initially liked about Leo was his passion for his job, his thirst for learning (he taught himself English and Italian, not having had funds to go to university) and his incredible local knowledge that made the ruins and the desert come to life for me. I was also touched by his humility and the touch of resignation when he talked about how when he retires, he won’t have the luxury of travelling around Europe the way his wealthy Western counterparts might travel around South America. I bet he’d get so much out of it, too; he’d love the ruins of Pompeii, the Sistine chapel, the English castles… “Oh well, for me, there’s always Google Earth”, Leo said, and I vowed there and then that if I can, if I ever wield power and influence, I’ll help Leo visit Europe sometime in the future.

When I told Leo that I’d like to treat him to lunch, I hadn’t envisaged the food court at one of Lima’s most touristy shopping malls, but I did tell him that it was his choice. It’s just that after he’d taken me to all the best local places in Nazca, going somewhere super-touristy is a bit of a comedown.

The lunch is pleasant enough. He tells me that he couldn’t sort out his retirement payments today because his paperwork was not all in order, so he’ll have to come back to Lima. He promises to take me to lunch the next time I’m in Nazca; “I’ll have my pension money by then!” he grins. When I started seeing Forrest, nine years ago, Xerxes* commented: “Now you can start killing your beaus and running off with their pension money.” Not quite true then, but spot-on now. I don't know whether I should be concerned that the age gap seems to be growing rather than shrinking. Xerxes* is convinced that I'll end up practicing necrophilia: "I knew it! I just knew it! You'll end up marrying a mummy!"

When the conversation touches on where Leo would like to travel, given the chance, he expresses the desire to go to New York and visit the Statue of Liberty. To me, that sounds rather…ordinary. I must’ve been expecting something more profound.

When Leo turns to leave, he gives me a hug, takes my hands in his and makes me promise to write to him. He then leans towards me, pssibly aiming to kiss me on the cheek, but managing to half-catch my lips. Hmm. I then realise that I’d forgotten to take a picture of him and sprint after him. He asks a taxi driver to take a photo of us. Afterwards, I turn to him to say goodbye, and he plants a smacker right on my lips, presumably encouraged by the fact that I didn’t run away screaming the first time. As I turn to leave, I see his hand reaching towards me out of the corner of my eye, but I’m already gone.

And just like that, the power balance shifts. The body language in the photo is quite revealing; Leo’s got his arms wrapped around me in a proprietary fashion, and though I’m leaning towards him, I’ve got my hand on his chest, partly to steady myself and partly pushing him away.

I wander off with a spring in my step, but my mind is churning with unbidden thoughts. Take a long walk along the misty cliffs of Miraflores as an equivalent of a cold shower. Gabriel* has told me on several occasions that he’d like to spend a day in my head, convinced that I live in some alternate universe, so I shall attempt to record my thought process.

Leo kissed me. That was nice. He’s clearly interested. I could probably have my wicked way with him if I wanted to. But now that the imaginary scenario in my head has the potential of becoming a reality, do I even want it? The thrill of the chase is over.

At lunch he was looking at me as if I were a unicorn. I’ve seen that look before. What if he’s falling for me? He should be wary of me. I’m bad candy. I’m a heartbreaker. I won’t be able to return his feelings. He’ll end up pining away and hurting, and it’ll all be my fault.

Does he like for my charm, my wit, my radiant inner beauty, or is it because my skin still fits me pretty snugly and he hasn’t had much attention lately from anyone under the age of thirty? What if he sees me as just a nice piece of meat? What if I see him as just a nice piece of meat?

The age difference is a concern. For Leo to be described as middle aged now, he’d have to live to be one hundred and thirty. That’s a bit older than I normally go for, though since he was born the same year as my father, I technically wouldn’t be breaking the ‘no older than my parents’ rule…Why do I even have that rule? Does age even matter? Well, maybe for procreation purposes, but otherwise… I’m curious…do people in their mid-sixties even have sex? Surely they must call it a day at some point. Technically, women can keep going forever, but men? What if I give him a heart attack? That’d be a fun one to explain to Peruvian authorities.

What do I want? A bit of slap and tickle, a profound mental and emotional connection. Am I likely to get it from Leo? Maybe the slap and tickle, but probably no more than that. Am I getting cold feet because he’s taken the initiative and therefore control? Hermes* reckons I should wrest that control back by taking the initiative myself by booking a hotel room and dragging Leo in with me. Now there's an idea.

I’m wondering if what I’d enjoyed in the desert in Nazca was, in fact, just the feeling of longing and being next to a man made attractive by what I’d perceived of his personality, coupled with the desert setting and the familiar darkness of Leonard Cohen’s music. Leo even visually resembles a short, bespectacled, Quechua Cohen, but I should do well to remember that he’s a real human being and not the embodiment of the spirit of the desert, or that of dark, powerful music. That’s a heck of a burden to project onto a diminutive Peruvian.

And so it continues, this endless cycle of thoughts, with my alternating between taking responsibility for the hypothetical feelings of someone who barely knows me, and pondering the ethics and practicalities of actually getting him into bed; whether I actually want a fling that’ll go nowhere and thus be ultimately unsatisfying. Gabriel* is wrong: my wondering whether Leo will fall for me and whether I’d ultimately end up hurting him is not a manifestation of great arrogance. I don’t think I’m all that. It’s a manifestation of my control-freakism, my trying to take control over something that I have no control over.

I like this man, and he likes me, so what the hell is my problem? When I was in his house, and he wasn’t showing any overt interest, I was dissatisfied. When he kissed me, I was dissatisfied for different reasons. Am I simply doomed to perpetual dissatisfaction? In fact, have I ever felt satisfaction in any of my romantic entanglements? The short answer to that is ‘no’. The long answer is ‘nooooooooooooooooo’. Angst? Yes. Stress? Monumental amounts of, yes. Happiness? Hmm. During the most deluded periods of my life I may have persuaded myself that I was ‘happy’ with Forrest or Pantera, but I honestly can’t remember. Had I even asked myself that question during that time, I’m not convinced I would have been able to answer them:

There you are, you think you’re high
You can’t ask yourself, ‘cause you’ll only lie…
Prince, “The Holy River”

My past love life seemed to fall roughly into two categories: either I went out with troubled men with psychological problems, and feel no great loss when they finally vacated my life, or I fell in love with amazing people, like, say, Apollonia* from afar, knowing full well that I’d never do anything about it because I became acutely aware of my inadequacies and limitations when around them:

You see, I’m just another snowman, standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love, his second-hand physique…
Leonard Cohen, “A Thousand Kisses Deep”

Also, they were too important, and I was not willing to risk anything that would compromise their place in my life, nor could I cope with their rejection, whereas the people who fell into the former category ultimately mattered little.

Where does Leo fit into this? I like him, and I think we could be friends. I’ve been taking a long sabbatical since the unravelling of my last relationship, and though I did buy a pack on condoms in December, with the full intention of using them before their expiry date (i.e. in the next 18 months), that’s not reason enough to rush into anything. In his latest email to me, Leo promises that ‘we will spend more time alone together’ in the Nazca desert, and though there’s nothing like being surrounded by sand dunes and human remains to get one feeling a bit frisky, luckily, it’s not a decision I’ll have to grapple with for some time.