Free Me by Ricky Martin Page B

or divorced. What I wanted was to have a good time and live to the fullest. I wanted to get to know myself and give myself the chance to try new things. I don’t know if at the time I wanted to prove something to the world, or to myself, or if I was simply allowing the situation to flow with all the fury and euphoria of adolescence. During those years I also had some experiences with men—part of my experimentation—but they were never relationships that lasted or marked my life in any way. They were fun, exciting, and I enjoyed myself immensely, but in the aftermath they always left me feeling guilty, so I decided I didn’t want to think about them. I did not allow myself to analyze or assess whatever was going on inside. I was living through so much and having so much fun that I focused more on feeling and less on thinking .
    I was in the middle of this whirlwind of relationships when I fell into the grips of passion with a marvelous woman who was intense, sensuous, and also forbidden.
    She was the complete antithesis of the first woman I mentioned, but just as strong, with a lot of personality and confidence, with a very unique perspective on life. Everything about her seemed larger than life—she was a mega-woman. The thing is, I didn’t just like her a lot; this woman drove me crazy . In a matter of days she turned me into mush: She lit up my soul and turned me inside out. She was like a poison that awoke the animal in me. The attraction, desire, and physical passion I felt for her tore me up in every way. Physical chemistry overload. The smell of her body was completely addictive and her skin, sweat, tongue, her excitement, the way she moved, the way we both moved together . . . The whole thing drove me insane. She hated her breasts, but they made me crazy. I loved looking at her body; it was like a painting that I could describe to the last detail. Her legs and the little toes on her feet lit me up. I wanted to devour them—and I always did. I was obsessed with and fascinated by everything about her. She was simply incredible. The time we spent together was like a roller coaster; she awoke a rebellious streak in me, a craziness, and a spontaneity that opened me and liberated me, and to this day I feel that it was one of the most electrifying relationships I have ever been in.
    I was so obsessed with her that I allowed myself to entertain all kinds of dreams and illusions about a future together. But sooner or later, I would come back to reality and ask myself, “Come on, don’t you see that you are just a toy for her to play with? Enjoy it while it lasts!”
    The fact that she was married—although at the time she was separated—was of course a source of constant pain for me, but I think it was also part of what attracted me so much. Forbidden attraction makes things more exciting. And she was both dangerous and a forbidden woman, which made the whole thing even more irresistible. But despite how much I loved her—and maybe because of it—she broke my heart. One day when she picked up the phone and heard my voice, she said, “Oh, Gabriel, I have a headache right now; I’ll call you when I wake up.”
    This response was like a bucket of ice thrown in my face. Pretending I was Gabriel, her assistant, meant that she was sleeping where she was supposed to be sleeping—with her husband. In that instant I told myself, “This has gone to shit.” I hung up the phone without saying a word and just sat there. Freezing. I was so hurt. I was living through a moment that I had known would come, or to put it in the words of the great Gabriel García Márquez, it had been “the chronicle of a death foretold.”
    I will not deny that it took a while to get her out of my mind. Despite the damage she did, all I could do was think about her. Sometimes I even waited for her at the entrance of the theater where she worked, just to see her for an instant. I did it in a way so that she couldn’t see me, of course. I mean,