November 5th
Perhaps you invoked San Antonio, through retched loneliness, and prayers whispered into the void. Send me something good.
Perhaps for once, you were heard.
Just look at the wealth of new and miraculous matches on your dating apps. Matches of quality, of caliber. You spend hours looking at the profiles and crafting clever messages. You ask these men to send voice notes, then wake up at dawn to masturbate to the sound of their voices. More aroused than you have been in months, you play them on a loop and run out your vibrator’s battery. The truth is, it’s been forever since you’ve been touched, and even longer since you’ve been touched in any way that gives you pleasure. You can already imagine it: the warmth of another body in your bed all winter long, someone to nurse through the flu, perhaps even a Christmas gift. You thank San Antonio, lighting a candle and placing a flower by its base.
But by the end of the week, none of the conversations, so promising at first, have converted into dates. One by one, the messages trickle out, until each of them disappears into silence. You’ve done nothing wrong, nothing that could explain this. You play out multiple scenarios in your mind.
It’s possible, it just might be, that San Antonio doesn’t respond well to positive reinforcement.
Look at you now. You, who always found the spirituality and attachment to mysticism from back home, primitive, and provincial. Look at you, turning the statue upside down, wrapping its eyes, binding it with strings.
You catch yourself and think: I’m losing my fucking mind.
* * *
October 25th
Rewind: San Antonio appeared in your apartment one cold fall morning. After opening what seemed like a care package, you simply sit dumbstruck on the floor of your Bed Stuy studio walk-up staring at a 15-inch tall clay statue. The statue of a Saint, to be precise. A brown tunic, bald head, baby Christ on one arm, and a bunch of lilies on the other: San Antonio de Padua. You ruffle around the box to see if there is anything else—spices, sweets, maybe a delayed birthday present. There is only a brief note:
I thought this should be with you now; I am sure he will work miracles.
Love,
Tia Rossy
You look around. There is no one to text, not a single confidant to say: isn’t this ridiculous?
Your American friends—a generous use of the term—would squint their nice white liberal eyes, full of cultural openness and acceptance. They would ask to learn more, to be called in: Do people pray to these clay statues in your country? Do they light little candles? Do they consider them sacred in a mythological way?
Friends from back home—also a generous use of the term after six years of loose contact—would not understand your surprise or why you’re texting them.
In a way, you admire Tia Rossy’s restraint. She waited until your 31st birthday to send the Saint statue that would aid old maids—solteronas —in finding husbands. You kneel in front of San Antonio, just to look at it at his eye’s level. Your mother used to light candles around her collection of clay saints, bring them fresh flowers, and sew them clothes. In exchange, they granted her what she called blessings but you called luck.
Until they didn’t.
* * *
October 26th
The next morning, you wake up at 10 a.m., anxiously realizing you did not set an alarm and slept in longer than what’s acceptable. Then comes a worse realization: you have nowhere to be. The long pit of unstructured time looms menacingly before you. Weekends are the hardest days.
As productivity always helps you feel better, you decide to go for a run.
While running, you listen to your Aunt’s voice messages. Tia Rossy, your mother’s younger sister, has updates on the whole family that she lists quickly. Her children are playing in the background. The noise, the rattle around her, makes you long for mess, for late and crowded Sunday lunches after mass, where children would play, men would talk, old people would sleep, and there was not a moment of peace.
Her mention of your father, and his new young wife, takes you out of your melancholy, and you are suddenly relieved to be far away.
When your mother fell sick, and your father—meandering at best, controlling at worst—decided that he needed a clean break and stopped showing up; you were less angry at him than you were at yourself. “Árbol torcido, nunca su tronco endereza,” said your aunt. True—they’d be separated for years, your father waltzing in and out of your mother’s life when it was convenient for him. Why, then, did you expect more from him? Why were you disappointed when, day after day, he’d fail to walk through the hospital doorway, swatting away his responsibilities as he’d swat an annoying fly?
He announced he’d knocked up one of his little girlfriends before your mother’s body was cold in the ground.
Of course, you didn’t go to the wedding. By then, you’d followed your aunt’s advice and re-engaged in your master’s program. You were nearing the end at the heavy recruitment phase, where consultancies that will Change The World put you through a grueling machinery of interviews and case studies (Company X wants to start exporting butterflies. What is the expected market size? What are their estimated distribution costs?) This gave you the perfect excuse. Everyone back home understood that you were off doing Important Things that would bring Big Money.
Exhausted but full of endorphins, you indulge in a 400-500 calorie bagel sandwich and sit on a park bench to scroll through Social Media. A group of women from Grad School have posted Stories that show them having brunch a few blocks away. Isn’t that what good Western women do on the weekends? Their church: debrief their sexual escapades over bottomless mimosas and provide each other with validation on their physical appearance and psychological fortitude to endure the grueling dating market. A ritual of devotion towards each other, filled with its chants and prayers (Be a Girls’ Girl; Women Supporting Women.)
You, alone: a heathen.
* * *
A buzz from your cell phone is an alarm reminder to go home and get ready for a date with Kevin (32 y/o). He’s an app designer working for the biggest Social Media Company in the world. He owns a dog and used to row, as stated in his dating app profile, supported by photographic evidence. He’s been texting you on and off for a few weeks, his lagging responses barely enough to keep you hopeful but not to avoid a feeling of futility.
Yet, you stand up and start doing your hair, first straightening it and then curling it back into loose soft waves. Finding love, or at least, a warm kind body, is a task that should be taken with the same industriousness dedicated to a job. Before leaving the house, you jot down the data for this date in a tracking spreadsheet. You’ve given yourself SMART goals:
1) Go on three dates a week.
2) Respond to all the messages of men that fulfill a checklist of essential characteristics (see footnote) and give them four dates before allowing yourself to cut communication.
3) Ignore one orange flag before each date.
Your summary statistics don’t seem good, but it’s hard to tell as there aren’t many sources to compare them to. What you’ve found in the few peer-reviewed papers on the topic is this: Men of all ethnicities are three times less likely to swipe right on Latina women than they are on white and Asian women (this trends worse for Black women). These differences are statistically significant—and depressing.
Your qualitative evidence is also depressing.
Over the past few months, you’ve gone on dates with a man who asked if you’ve ever been skinnier, one who asked no questions at all, one who demanded you pee on him, another who worked for a big hedge-fund who waved the waitress away saying: “She won’t have anything to eat. I don’t buy food on the first date. At the rate I go out, it gets expensive.”
Perhaps Kevin will be good. Perhaps he’ll find you funny, interesting, attractive. He’ll have a clean apartment, interests, friends. Maybe he’ll talk about his family and kiss you softly by the fountain.
You sit on one of the park benches, headphones on and no book, as he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would like that. You spot him and pretend not to.
Please, God, let this be a good date, you pray, once more, into the empty universe.
You look at the trees, trying to seem at ease and distracted. The leaves are changing, now taking on bright tones of yellow and orange. The seasonal window to find a partner is closing quickly.
After what seems like more than enough time, you discreetly look up, only to find Kevin looking around, perplexed. Tapping him on the shoulder, your worst fears materialize: he’s disappointed. Here you are in the flesh: much stockier, leggier, and rougher features than he was led to believe from the kind angles in your pictures. He doesn’t say anything, but you see his pupils contracting, and you catch a twitch on his lips. The briefness of his questions and his curt politeness, speak volumes. The date ends one hour later in an overpriced wine bar, as he says he is sorry he had totally forgotten that he had to meet up with a friend and help him move, and he is actually in a hurry. Could you pay for drinks? He’ll send a Venmo.
* * *
You arrive home 45 minutes later—starving. This was supposed to be a dinner date. As a result of a 70-hour work week, there is nothing in the fridge. You kick off your ankle heels and are tempted to sit on the floor and cry for a bit. Opening an app, you feel too sad, too weak to decide between an overpriced and insipid salad or a greasy chicken burger—when San Antonio catches your eye.
You crouch on the floor, and touch the top of the statue’s head. Longing for your mother hits you so hard, you almost lose balance. The feeling worsens with the realization that the anniversary of her death was last week while you were working until two a.m. to finish the Urgent Deck for the Client.
She’d know what to say to make it all better, to make you believe that it’s not you, it’s them. The nostalgia runs through you now, as well as the guilt; like a sharp knife drawing a soft and painful line from your throat to your belly button.
When your mother was diagnosed, you had the impulse to go into her room and smash the Saint statues with a hammer. Should your most fervent servant be punished, you sadists? But none of the statues were of the top guy, who just hovered around, invisible, formless. You stared at the room and then retreated; held back by the memory of your father punching walls, breaking glasses, screaming profanities at minor inconveniences of life.
Then again, this wasn’t a minor inconvenience.
You could feel your mother slipping away from under your grasp, each day her skin getting thinner and her face gaunter. You gripped her harder, willing her to stay in this world, willing the universe to let her be in your life just a bit longer. You clung to her with a strength that frightened you both.
Oh, willful girl. Always bending reality to your desires out of sheer tenacity. Clawing yourself out of the pit of Lima middle class, out of an extended family that expected little to none from you. You got every prize, every scholarship, every opportunity to move up. Was there anything that couldn’t be achieved from the sweat of your brow?
There was.
“It’s God’s will,” your mother said faintly after only a few months, and she let herself be pulled away, refusing treatment, refusing science. Then again, science wouldn’t have made much of a difference, with a disease caught at Stage 4.
A secret: you did break a statue. The day after she died, you grabbed Santa Teresa’s statue by its base and smashed it against your mother’s bed frame until the room was covered in white clay powder.
Another secret: it felt good.
Your aunt found you cleaning it up.
“Go back to your master’s in the US, love,” she said, taking your hand. “Tell them you are done with your bereavement leave. Build a life there, like you’d planned. There is nothing for you here anymore.”
But is there something for you here? Look around: On the floor of your small studio apartment—void of warmth and of any detail that betrays a personality; no photos, postcards or clutter, no signs of human connection—what is there for you here?
You text your aunt now: Tia, how are you? I just got the package, jaja! Thank you! How are my cousins?
She immediately replies with pictures from your cousins and four long voice notes. You don’t open them, but feel a little more loved now. And so you feel the renewed strength to order food and pick up your San Antonio, and choose a place where it will not cause disruption. You walk around the apartment with it, feeling its weight in your arms. You stop by a small mantel-place in the entryway, where you feel is his place.
You stroke the cheek of the baby Jesus, who is resting peacefully in San Antonio’s arms.
* * *
October 27th
Your next date of the weekend is with Matt (38 y/o); a lawyer and self-defined gym rat who looks fantastic without a shirt and in a suit. The orange flag that you choose to ignore in this case, is his initial message: Hola Mamacita.
Matt sends a new message that makes you hopeful: Excited to meet you 🙂
On the way out, you pet the head of the San Antonio statue, and whisper: “Thank you.”
The bar Matt chose is conveniently close to your apartment. You spot him sitting at a high table in the back, and his face lights up when he sees you. He brings you a drink and asks plenty of questions. He starts talking about the terrible week he’s had, and you almost feel like you have been friends for a long time.
But when you say you are a runner, he turns serious, asks if you lift weights, and explains that cardio will only make your womanly figure become boy-ish. When you stand to buy scones and he says that he does not—under no circumstances—put sugar, fat and carbohydrates in his body at the same time—you start to wonder if it was deliberate that he messed up your order of a lavender vanilla latte, bringing you black coffee with skim milk instead. After a depressing two-hours (and having somehow purchased protein-powder from his friend), you arrive home.
For some reason, you walk straight up to the mantelpiece with the San Antonio statue.
You have the clear and vibrant image of Tia Rossy coming home after a deception or a breakup and turning San Antonio upside down, with its head suspended in thick glass to keep it in place.
Your mother explained how it’s done—one had to “punish” San Antonio to make him work for you and help in love. Otherwise, he wouldn’t work she said, he needed some motivation. Tia Rossy would do all sorts of things as motivation. Turn it to his back, cover him with cloth, refuse to dust him.
You think of the happy chaos that surrounds your aunt now. Children running, talking, eating, everyone living and growing together. You want that life—no—you deserve that life. You take a deep breath and carefully lay the San Antonio statue down, facing the wall.
* * *
October 28th
On Monday, you rush into the large office building where you do things that will Change The World. The realization sets in: you barely talked to anyone over the weekend outside of transactions (either a date or a direct purchase of goods). Even the office small talk feels warm.
You dive yourself into your work, assigning the new associates tasks and SMART goals that you’ll monitor at the end of the week. You’ve been promoted quickly, too quickly to make you well-liked by the other Junior or Senior Associates. Your level of productivity and dedication puts their Protestant work ethics to the test. You have a leg up over them because you don’t work hard for morality; you do it out of old-fashioned Catholic guilt that cripples you inside if you slack even for a second. Both a blessing and a curse. For your supervisors, it’s entirely a blessing.
Once, at a Christmas party, your white boss sang a song from Hamilton at karaoke and pointed to you with a large smile as he sang: “Immigrants! We get the job done!” Your colleagues clapped half-heartedly.
Hey! What’s up?
Hi—nice to have matched, looking forward to meeting you
Yo, wanna meet up soon?
like swimming? I’m a swimmer too!
You take your laptop into a meeting room and input the data into your spreadsheet. You’ve overcome your natural match average by 300%, and have even got a precious and elusive Hinge Rose.
You walk out triumphant with the desire to tell one of your colleagues. But you know better. The last time you had a few extra drinks at the company happy hour, you ended up “over-sharing”—a distinctly American term to shame intimacy that hasn’t been earned. Blinded by how close in age you were, you failed to notice the intern’s widening eyes as you (jokingly) described Americans’ lack of finesse in bed. To your horror, the following Monday, you got a stern talk from HR and were forced to take an online training course on appropriate topics to discuss in the workplace (e.g., the weather). You’ve never overshared—or shared—since.
Still, you aren’t discouraged. The rest of the day in a haze. While attending meetings, taking notes, making small talk, typing into spreadsheets, analyzing data, and accepting more work you could possibly complete, you ponder.
Everything has remained constant over the past week. Expect one thing. One variable.
* * *
November 5th
Which leads you to that night. Slippery consciousness and violent pleasure. Perhaps you are indeed losing your mind. But the data doesn’t lie, something has gone wrong. This week, none of your SMART goals have been achieved. There aren’t only less messages, but also less matches than your average. You face the prospect of a whole weekend without talking to anyone.
In a fit of rage you Google: “CIA torture strategies”
You catch yourself and think: I’m sick, I’m a sick, crazy person.
Your pupils expand while watching increasingly horrid things, such as waterboarding and shock torture. You dip San Antonio in water for as long as a person could endure (though only the head so that the little baby Jesus in his arms does not suffer the same fate). In the middle of the night, you approach the statue to a lamp to scorch its ear.
Just then, your phone buzzes with a match.
You are awoken from the frenzy. You collapse on the ground, panting, and covered in the cold sweat of relief. It’s quickly replaced by waves of guilt and shame as you face San Antonio. You place him neatly over the mantelpiece and whisper prayers of apology.
You quickly read the profile and the messages of your new match. Greg (33 y/o) is moderately attractive and works in tech. You quickly strike up a conversation while balancing on your toes, crouched by the mantlepiece. He asks for a date for Saturday.
You gently stroke San Antonio. The clay is soft against your fingers, and you feel a tingle of pleasure. You kiss the top of his head and whisper: “Thank you.”
* * *
November 6th
You spend the next morning reviewing Greg’s profile. He has responded to the “green flags” prompt, saying that he loves poetry and books. In a next prompt, he writes that his favorite writers are Kerouac, Bukowski, and Hemingway, which is the orange flag you chose to ignore.
You arrive at the bar, and the stools are high. He is a full ten inches shorter than his profile listed, but he has a beard and a man bun. There is a MeToo case in the news playing in the background. A famous actor was accused of domestic violence and a lot of evidence was presented against him. He then sued his wife for defamation. The case is televised and unbearable to watch, though it is also impossible to avoid. All month, you’ve scrolled through the TikTok videos making fun of the wife’s testimony and have wondered what on earth could have made your algorithm misunderstand you so. You tell him this, thinking it’s a clever thing to say to someone who works in tech. But he wants to talk about details of the actual case.
“It is really wild, no? All that?” he says.
“Yes, it is crazy. The way the media is feeding off this person’s suffering.” You mean the woman’s.
“That should show her, though. You can’t just go around spreading lies with no consequences. If there is no accountability, then no one is safe.” He means, to your horror, the man.
You stop listening after that comment. That evening, you break the rule of giving men four dates. You find a template message online to kindly and politely reject someone.
I really enjoyed spending time with you today! But I am sorry, I just don’t feel the connection I am looking for. All the best! xx
He messages back almost immediately.
You sutpid cow you think I havnt seen this before? I cant believe I wasted my time with you to get this stupid ass template response…
You lie in bed that night, unable to sleep. That was more unpleasant than you deserved. A chill runs through your body. Were you too swift to count him out? Your only match. Soon it will be winter, people will retreat for months into the warmth of their relationships, and your loneliness will be more tangible. Was it too much to ask? Someone to watch movies with, to tell about your day, to cook for.
Your father once told you that you’d never find anyone to put up with you. “Difficult,” by which he meant so competent that you’d be emasculating. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. A parentified-eldest-daughter is a dirtbag-father’s worst nightmare. The Joker to his Batman. The Doña Florinda to his Chavo. But although he said it out of spite, as part of your endless battles for control over the household, you know that he truly believed that someone like you was cursed to be alone. His words resonate in your mind now.
You wrap yourself up in a blanket but can’t seem to warm up. Why have things been going so poorly lately? Your weekly statistics were never great but never this bad. The only explanation that crosses your mind: San Antonio doesn’t respond to niceties but doesn’t like this specific type of punishment either. He’s retaliating.
Time to escalate. Someone was to show him who’s boss.
* * *
This was never the plan, but what else would work? You conclude you’ve gone too modern with your strategies. After all, he was born in the 14th century.
You open Google and type: “Spanish Inquisition – torture tactics”
What comes out is absolutely awful. It makes you recoil. Still, you take notes in a tiny notebook.
You do things you’re not proud of. You’re even less proud of how much they excite you. In the haze of two a.m. you take a knife with a short tip and make small incisions in the toes that overflow from the tunic of the San Antonio, and on its shoulder blades. Crying, you beg him to help. You then leave San Antonio in the freezer.
You masturbate frantically for hours while playing the voice notes of the men who have ghosted you and imagining hurting them in a way that brings you both pleasure. A slap, a spit, a whip. You come again and again, ecstasy compounding.
Do you know why violence feels good? Because it tastes like both power and abandonment. Is this control? you ask yourself, Is this rapture? Is this grace? Is this what we fought for, the third wave feminists, for our own opportunity to slap men in the ass and hear them moan?
You fall asleep at dawn, drunk off power and craze. The limits to your sanity melt away. There are no witnesses to your life and your choices, and so it seems that the memory of your actions can vanish with enough effort.
Shame vanishes, too.
* * *
November 7th
When you wake, a match buzzes in your phone, and you hungrily inspect it. Anthony (35 y/o) has long lashes and eye-lined hazel eyes. He has a languid air about him. He is alone in each of his pictures, staring into the distance or at the camera.
Messages come in quickly. He writes in full sentences, and refreshingly, uses punctuation.
Hello. You have a beautiful smile.
You set a date for that evening.
At home, after a long hot shower, you defrost Saint Antonio and pat him on the head. Last night worked.
Anthony writes: I could come over to your apartment and cook for you.
Normally, this is not something you would have agreed with. Dateline has taught you to know better. But this time, they seem like the most attractive words ever written.
He arrives at exactly eight p.m. He greets you with a kiss on the cheek. You know his smell: incense and rose-water cologne. He seems to know his way around your house. He swiftly unpacks groceries and opens drawers to get utensils. He chops with his left hand.
He doesn’t talk much about himself. Or much at all. He asks questions that prompt you to share. Even overshare. Stories that you would normally leave out until the sixth or tenth date, though you have not progressed that far in too long. Like when you and your mother bought a whole carton of mangoes, ate them all over a weekend, and then were sick together for a week.
You laugh and he smiles kindly.
What would your mother have made of him? “Look for someone who has kind eyes. Someone who’ll understand you,” she used to say.
After too much wine, your eyelids begin to feel heavy.
He clears the table, and hovers over you. The smell of his body is intoxicating and pulls you to him. “Shall we go to bed?”
You smile, and say: “Yes, please.”
You undress him. He watches you undress. He has a bandage on his foot. When he turns, you see he also has injuries in his back. He winces when you touch them but tells you to carry on, and this makes you wet.
He lets you guide him around your body, you whisper what you want, what you need. At one point, he looks into your eyes.
“Do you want to hurt me?” he asks.
You have never been more aroused. You scratch, you slap, you lick. He places your hands around his neck, and you squeeze while he enters you, and then, squeeze harder.
You come screaming and are suspended in heaven for perhaps a second or perhaps an eternity. You drift off to sleep wrapped up in his warmth, comforted by the weight and heat of his body. Your last thought is: Thank you, Lord, for this gift.
The next morning, you wake up peaceful and happy yet alone.
When you look around the apartment, you find the statue still on the mantelpiece, with a dark hue around its neck.
You pick up the statue and gently kiss each of its kind eyes. Cradling it in your arms, you descend the four stories, and carefully place it on the stoop.
One by one, you delete the dating apps plaguing your phone, and walk into the city, lighter, satisfied, saved.
