Page 41 of Every Step She Takes
“The only thing I like about this country,” Mal answers. She picks up one of the pastries and shoves it toward me aggressively. “Try it. Right now. I want to watch.”
“That’s… weird…” I take the small treat from her and study the flaky crust and the custard-like middle.
“It’s not weird. You’ll get it when you taste it.”
I gingerly take a bite, andoh my fucking Christ.
The flavor explodes across my tongue. The buttery crust, the lusciously decadent custard, the hint of spice. Cinnamon, maybe, or nutmeg. I temporarily leave my body as the sweetness flows through me, and when I return to earth, I am moaning obscenely into my last bite of pasteis de nata. I’ve somehowblacked out and eaten three of them standing here at the bar, and now Mal is staring at me with an unreadable expression.
But the custard is so delicious, I’m not even embarrassed by my reaction. “Okay,” I tell her, licking my fingers for any lingering taste. “I get it.”
Mal clears her throat. “Nothing like it, right?”
I want more, but we have to rejoin the group for sharing circle.
“Today, I want us to create our intentions for this trek,” Inez says in her sage voice once we’re all gathered together. “The third day is one of the hardest. Your body is sore and tired, and you’re not yet used to the daily distances. When it gets challenging today, I want you to return to your intention. I want your intention to be your true guide on the Camino.”
Ro snorts derisively into their croissant, and Mal angrily throws a pasteis de nata at them.
While Inez’s constant prompting for self-reflection can feel heavy-handed at times, this morning her words niggle at something in the back of my mind.
I agreed to this trip because I wanted to escape, and if she’d asked me my intention yesterday, I would’ve said it was simply to survive the Camino.
But now I’m here, on a sidewalk café in Europe, with the taste of custard lingering on my lips. There are cobbled streets and sunlight and trees. There’s a long path in front of me, and a Portuguese lesbian beside me who just wants to help, and I feel like I can aim for something better thansurviving. I’ve been in survival mode since I was twelve years old.
I think I can do better thanescape.
Maybe Mal was right, and for the first time in my life, I can simplybe.
Maybe it’s time to make some mistakes.
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cestlavi
Hey Nomads! Please allow me to introduce you to the love of my life: the pasteis de nata. She’s small, but she is mighty.
And make sure you feast your eyes on my latest blog post about eating my way to Esposende, where I rank everything I’ve eaten on the Camino so far. (It turns out walking almost 14 miles in a single day makes you surprisingly hungry…)
#beatrixtours #cestlaviwithme #travelblog #broadsabroad #travel #portugal #spain #caminodesantiago #solowomentravelers #pasteldenata #foodporn
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: a white plate with two custards, sitting on a yellow tablecloth
TENESPOSENDE, PORTUGALThursday, May 15, 2025
Mal
“I’ll do it!”
Sadie bounces up next to me in a flurry of sunburned limbs. She must’ve jogged to catch up, because her face is beet-red, she’s sweating even more than usual, which is saying something. Her chest heaves up and down as she gulps in desperate breaths, andholy hells. That’s all it takes for my brain to replay the pornographic way she ate nata at morning tea. The way her eyes blew wide with wonder and pleasure, the way she savored each bite on her tongue, the way she gasped and moaned, completely unselfconscious and unapologetic, maybe for the first time all trip. Maybe for the first time in her whole life.
I should’ve known she’d react that way to the world’s greatest pastry. When Sadie thinks no one is watching, she stares at the scenery with unbridled joy. She smiles at the blue sky every morning, and she’s taken at least two hundred pictures of the beach that’s always to our left. Seeing the coastline through her eyes makes it feel new to me too. It makes me feel like I did as a kid, growing up near these shores, in awe of everything.
I squeeze my eyes shut for the length of one deep breath, then look back at Sadie without picturing her mouth dotted with custard. “You’ll do what?”
“The queer—” She cuts off as she pinches her side and pants. “The queer adolescence thing. I’ll do it. I-I want you to help me make up for lost time.”
“It’s not about making up for lost time.” I hand her my water bottle, and she stops walking to take a long drink. Water sloshes out the side of the bottle’s wide mouth and drips down her chin. “It’s about reliving the coming-of-age experiences our heteronormative society denied you.”
