There's one thing nobody tells you when you break something: the noise. Not the bone, not the tendon, not the shitty crack I heard that morning at the gym. The noise afterwards. The noise of things falling because your right arm is no longer your right arm, but an expensive appendage that hurts. The noise of the mug against the kitchen floor. The noise of the bottle of oil. The noise of your own patience, which breaks before the shoulder does.
Forty-five years old. Eighteen competing in weightlifting, eight of them at the elite level, a European bronze I have framed in the hallway and that I now look at the way you look at a dead person's photo. And a rotator cuff shredded by lifting, on a random Tuesday, a hundred and ten kilos that were nothing to me until they were.
Belén waits for me in the consulting room with a folder and a face that has no hurry on it, which makes me nervous. Forty-three years old, short hair pinned up with a clip, lab coat open over a striped T-shirt. She looks at my shoulder, looks at me, and says:
—Eight weeks. And we're going to start with the hardest thing.
—Squats with a bar?
—Opening a jar of jam.
I laugh. She doesn't.
That's how it all starts. With jars. Belén doesn't send me exercises off a sheet: she sends me life tasks. Holding a mug for ten minutes without my elbow coming off my side. Buttoning a shirt from top to bottom. Opening a can of chickpeas. Every thing I manage is a private joke that grows between us, because we both know how ridiculous it sounds and how huge it is.
—Ten minutes with the mug —she says on the third day, stopwatch in hand—. And without spilling. It's a mug, Charo, not the World Cup.
—To me it's the World Cup. —The trembling escapes me and the mug clinks against the saucer.
—Good. There's the limit. Right there is where we work.
And right there is where we work. Week one: the mug. Week two: the buttons, which make me sweat as if I were pulling two hundred. Week three: the jars, and that's where I lose my temper.
—Another one? —she asks, taking a jar of peppers out of the cupboard.
—Another one.
I look at her. She looks at me. There's something in the clenched jaw, in the way she hands me the jar like someone handing over a sword.
—Let's see who opens it first —I say.
—I've got two arms, cheater.
—And I've got a European bronze. Your call.
Belén laughs with her mouth closed, that laugh of hers that comes out through her nose, and grabs another jar. We both stand up, face to face, each with her jar, and on three we squeeze. She opens hers in two seconds. I take nine, with my good shoulder, my face red and a curse that makes the waiting room laugh. But I open it.
—Nine seconds —she says, noting it in the folder—. Personal record. Next week, eight.
—You're winding me up.
—I'm training you.
And there's a difference, but sometimes not that much of one.
The couch
Friday's massage is what I dread most and what I look forward to most, in that order and at the same time. Belén sits me on the couch, places my arm on the pillow and starts on the trapezius. Firm, dry hands that know exactly where to press and where not to. At first we talk about the series she's watching, the bread she makes on Sundays, her eleven-year-old daughter who wants to be a vet and is afraid of blood. We talk so it doesn't hurt. Then my breath goes and we talk less.
—Breathe —she says—. The knot's here.
—I am breathing.
—You're breathing like a bellows. Breathe deep.
I breathe deep. Her hand moves down from the trapezius to the deltoid, and there's a point, just one, where the pain and something else cross. A sound escapes me that isn't quite a moan.
—Does it hurt?
—No.
—Then?
—It doesn't hurt. —And it embarrasses me, at forty-five, that it shows.
Belén says nothing. But she makes the next stroke slower, and her thumb stays a second too long on the edge of my shoulder blade. A second that isn't clinical. I feel it in the back of my neck, which prickles, and in my belly, which tightens.
—I'm going down to the arm —she warns—. If it bothers you, say so.
She takes my wrist and stretches it slowly, and her hand moves up my forearm with the palm open, and it isn't a physio massage, or not only that, because her thumb stops on the inner side of my elbow and draws a circle that isn't in any protocol. My pulse quickens. She notices it in my wrist, of course, clever thing, and looks up.
—Your pulse is at a hundred and ten.
—Must be the effort.
—Must be.
And she keeps going up. Her hand reaches my bicep, kneads it, and then stays there, still, fingers around the muscle, and I notice she's looking at my mouth. I look at hers. Her lips are chapped from the cold and she has a half-formed grimace.
—Belén.
—Tell me.
—That if this stops being clinical at some point, let me know, so I know.
She laughs, short, and lets go of my arm. But she doesn't move away. She leans in, rests a hand on the couch beside my hip and kisses me. No preamble, no asking, with her mouth open and her weight forward. I take her face with my good hand and kiss her the way I kiss the bars: all in, holding nothing back. She tastes of coffee and of the elastic band she chews when she's thinking.
She pulls back a centimetre.
—This isn't in the folder —she says.
—Put it in.
She kisses me again, and now her hand goes down from my bicep to my side, to the hollow of my waist, and slips under my T-shirt. Her fingers are cold and she runs them over my ribs, and I arch as much as my shoulder lets me. Not much. Just enough for my tits to press against the chest of her striped T-shirt and feel the heat underneath.
—The couch holds two hundred kilos —I say against her mouth.
—I know. I bought it.
—Then you also know what I'm thinking.
She pushes my good shoulder, gently, until I'm lying down, and she places my injured arm on the pillow without stopping kissing me, with a naturalness that turns me on more than anything. Then she pulls away and takes off her lab coat, and the striped T-shirt, and stays in her bra, with a soft belly and wide hips that make me want to bite. Forty-three years of real woman, and my mouth is dry.
—You're going to wreck your shoulder —I say.
—The shoulder can take it. You take me.
She pulls down my tracksuit trousers with both hands, unhurried, and takes them off my ankles. Then she kneels on the stool and opens my legs with her palms on my knees. Her eyes are dark and she has the smile of someone doing something she's wanted to do for a while.
—Have you touched yourself thinking about this? —she asks.
—Every Friday at seven.
—Liar.
—Since week two. —And it's true, and saying it gives me a heat that rises up my chest.
She leans in and licks me over my knickers, slowly, from bottom to top, with a flat tongue. I grip the edge of the couch with my good hand. She pulls the fabric aside and licks me directly, and I find my clit all at once, and I let out a curse that echoes in the empty consulting room. Belén laughs with her mouth on me, and the laugh vibrates.
—Don't laugh —I gasp.
—It's just that you're very noisy.
—And you're very clever.
She licks me methodically, the way she works: first slowly, probing, then with more pressure and a finger that slips in and searches inside me. I have my good hand in her hair and the other still on the pillow, and my shoulder protests with a twinge that mixes with the pleasure and makes it all more intense. I come with my back arched and my mouth open, and she doesn't stop until the spasms pass and I push her face away because I can't take any more.
She climbs onto the couch carefully, lies down beside me facing me and kisses me with her mouth glistening. I slip my hand into her trousers and find her soaked, and she moans into my mouth. I find her clit with two fingers and rub it in circles, and Belén thrusts her hips forward and bites my lip.
—Like that —she says—. Like that, fuck.
I come her in under a minute, with her forehead against mine and her hand on the back of my neck, and when it passes she's left panting and laughing, and she says:
—This has to go in the folder. Goal achieved.
Eight weeks
The rehabilitation continues, but it's not the same anymore. The jars get opened between kisses. The buttons get buttoned with the other's hands on top. Belén sends me more and more absurd tasks and we both know what for: to touch each other. Holding a shopping bag with my arm outstretched for thirty seconds, and meanwhile, she kisses my neck. Opening a jar with my bad hand, and if I manage it, a reward. She sets the rewards and I won't describe them here because it makes me hot just thinking about it.
But there are bad days too. The Wednesday of week four I stand staring at my shoulder in the bathroom mirror, with the scar from the stitches and the strange lump of the tendon, and real panic sets in. Not the mug kind. The other kind. The kind that says this body is no good for anything anymore, not for lifting, not for fucking, not for anyone wanting it whole.
Belén notices the moment I walk in.
—What?
—Nothing.
—Charo.
—That I'm broken. —I sit on the couch—. That you look at me and see a project, and when the project's over, that's it. A broken shoulder and forty-five years old.
She sits beside me and takes my face in both hands.
—Let's see. How much did you open today?
—I haven't opened anything.
—How much did you open yesterday?
—Eight seconds.
—Eight seconds. In week two you took nine. —She gives me a quick kiss on the mouth—. That's not a broken body, it's a body that's going. And I like how it's going. I like how it's going and I like how it is right now, with the lump and the scar. —She moves her hand down to my chest and squeezes a tit over my T-shirt—. Do I prove it to you or do I tell you again?
—Prove it.
My bed
My bed is harder than the couch, because on the couch she's in charge and here we both are and the shoulder gets in the way. The first night Belén sleeps at home we try it on our sides and I spend twenty minutes holding the weight of my arm until my forearm goes numb and I let out a curse.
—Right —she says, turning on the light—. We stop. Cushions.
—How romantic.
—More than that circus of your shoulder. Come on.
She gets up in her T-shirt and knickers, goes to the wardrobe and comes back with three cushions. She places them with a physio's judgement: one under my elbow, one under my bad shoulder, one at my side so I can lean without the arm bearing weight. And suddenly, lying on my side on that rig, the shoulder goes quiet. It's the first time in months it's been quiet in bed.
—Better? —she asks.
—Much better. Fuck, Belén.
—I'm very good.
—Modesty aside.
She lies down behind me, pressed against my back, and kisses my neck and the edge of my good shoulder. Her hand goes down my side, over my hip, and slips round to the front. She finds me wet and hot and opens me with two fingers, and I push my leg forward to give her room. The shoulder doesn't even notice.
—Like that —I say—. Like that, yes.
She touches me slowly, with her fingertip on my clit, and kisses my back and says things in my ear, dirty things and tender things mixed together, which is what turns me on most about her. I take her hand with mine and set the rhythm for her. When I'm close, she pulls away, puts on the harness and looks at me.
—Shall we try?
—Let's try.
I position myself on my side with my top leg bent over the cushion, and she enters from behind slowly, with her hand on my hip. It hurts a little, from the pleasure, and then nothing. Just her filling me and her mouth on my neck and the shoulder quiet. She thrusts short, because from behind there's no room for more, and I come with Belén's hand on my clit and her name in my mouth, and it's clumsy and it's strange and it's the best fuck of the year.
Afterwards, lying there sweaty, she says:
—New position. We'll call it "the Charo".
—We'll call it "the shoulder's in charge".
—Whatever you like. It's going in the folder.
Record
Week eight arrives with a masters championship at the neighbourhood sports centre. My weight category, three snatch attempts and two clean and jerks, and a shoulder that now takes a mug, a jar and Belén on top without complaining.
Belén appoints herself coach. She warms up my shoulder in the changing room, tapes my wrists, gives me the chalk and says in my ear:
—Forty-five kilos on the bar. Not one more. If I see you ask for more, I'll pull you off the platform.
—Yes, boss.
I go out onto the platform and the hall smells of rubber and old sweat. There are four people in the stands and one of them is Belén's daughter, with a crooked banner. I take the bar, breathe, and the shoulder holds. It holds the deadlift, it holds the pull, it holds the squat. I lift forty-five kilos above my head and lock them out, and the judge gives the green light, and I drop the bar and turn to Belén, who's at the edge of the platform with her fists clenched and her eyes shining.
—Record —she says—. Category record.
—And the shoulder?
—The shoulder, impeccable. —She takes my face in front of everyone—. And you, gorgeous, forty-five kilos and forty-five years old. Not one more.
I laugh and kiss her with chalk on my hands and my heart at a thousand. Behind us, her daughter shouts something about the banner. In the folder, that night, we write "goal accomplished" on the last line, and then we close it and leave it on the bedside table, next to the cushions.
There's one thing nobody tells you when you break something: that after the noise of things falling there's another noise, lower, the noise of a mug held for ten minutes, the noise of a jar opened in eight seconds, the noise of a bar going up. And that sometimes, if you're lucky, beside you there's someone with firm hands who keeps counting the grams for you.