"Say things in Irish," she demanded. We were in bed.  

She said it again, whispering in my ear: "say things in Irish, is so sexy."  

Possibly the only time in my life when actually paying attention to Irish classes would come in handy.  

"Uhh... Sláinte..."  

She looked at me mildly aggressive, and not the good aggressive. "That's no sexy. I know what it means".  

In her broken English she was angry at me for not fulfilling my duties as a male Irish. I was doing my best to give her good thrust and speed that would match with her getting an orgasm, but that clearly wasn't enough.  

"Fáilte", I whispered in her ear.  

"I know also this one, I want sexy words".  

She wanted dirty talk in Irish. Jesus, I'm sure I would never have learned this even if I wasn't just messing around in school.   

We met a week before in a work function. She wasn't from work though. She was serving at the counter, a beautiful blonde with deep dark eyes and a smile that could sell pints by the dozen. My wallet was screaming at me for the amount of times I opened it, just so I had a reason to talk to her.  

On my third one I said "Sláinte!" to her, as she was around washing some glasses. I was sure she was from Dublin, at that point. But then she spoke.  

"Is beautiful that word. I love Irish language".  

She was from Uruguay, and wasn't a natural blonde, as I later discovered. She had this delicious accent with a lot of Spanish and just a bit of her newly-acquired English. She came to Dublin to study English for a few months, and had a degree in Sociology. I fell in love with the idea of her there and then.  

And she liked Irish. By extension, she was also into Irish guys. To be quite honest, I never heard a girl say before she was into Irish guys. They go for the British, or the French, but they don't even acknowledge our existence. We get thrown in a pot with anyone else who speaks English and is not an American. "All those people from those islands", a girl said to me and a mate once, in Italy. She thought we were all Brits. The nerve of that girl.  

I then said one or two more simple words in Irish, whatever I still had in my mind from my leaving certs. She was instantly hooked, and I, being in a bit of a drought with the lasses lately, abused my luck.   

"You study Irish?"  

"I studied it in school", which was not untrue.  

"Wow, is a very sexy language. Do you speak?"  

"Not as much, but I knew it quite well", which was completely untrue.  

Next thing I know, she gives me a napkin with her name and phone number in it. Dolores.

"Tá tú... ard, Dolores", I was sure I said "beautiful", until I got home and looked it up. I had told her she was tall. No bother, she never realized. 

I told her I would call and left the pub.  

A beautiful girl like that, with a head on her shoulders... I didn't think she'd even pick up the phone if I actually called. Or, as it happened more often, I'd call someone who had never heard of hot Dolores before. Oh, well, I could always return to the pub.  

I sent a message three days later: "Hey, Declan here, the Irish man :) Wanna get together for a drink this week?"  

Ten minutes later, after I had already given up on checking my phone's notification bar every five seconds, came an answer. "Yes, good to hear of you. Friday is ok? I don't work"  

Yes, Friday was great. Any day would have been great, I was just glad she answered.

So we set it up at The Church. I wanted to take her someplace nice, have a decent conversation, make sure I don't screw up. At least there I could point out the architectural details, talk about the history of the place and appear to be smart and interesting for once. A church turned into pub and restaurant should be a good place to put my degree in Architecture to good use for once. Working as a clerk in an engineering company, my diploma was as useful as the spam I got from Domino's in the mail.

And now she was here in my bed. I had accomplished the mission. I was able to talk to her through the whole night without hearing a yawn. We had some glitches, though. It was hard to understand her. There was a lack of words in every sentence, and an excess in others. At some point I got myself thinking I should have done an intensive course in Spanish to go on this date. She wanted a glass of red wine, I only got the wine part and came back with a glass of sparkling wine. She seemed confused, and so did I. 

"No red?".  

"Red what?", was my reply.  

She pointed at her glass "like this, but red, rojo... red, other wine…” she was at a loss for words and I was lost in her words. The way she said 'red' was simply alien to me. But she was hot. 

She didn't bring up the subject of Irish one single time during drinks. She spoke of her life in Uruguay, of her desire to find work here in a university once she learned enough English. I spoke of the history of the pub, because I really didn't want to bore her with my work life, which was basically all I had going for me at that point. I had a job, yay.

"Baile Átha Cliath", I said, very seductively.  

She moaned. She would probably have recognized it if it was written, but I was damn sure she had never heard it out loud. She grabbed my arm and dug her nails on it. She was pleased. You wanted dirty talk? You got it.  

"Say more, say more". I had started it, I'd better finish.  

"Tá tú ...Taoiseach", it's all in the inflection, you know. Being a Prime Minister never sounded so hot before.  

It was working, so I had to make use of whatever words I could remember.  

"Conas atá tú"  

"Ohhh, is very sexy, say more..."  

At that precise moment, images of Mr. Donnelly came to my mind. His brownish old sweater and the grey pants, always the same. It seemed as if he didn't change his clothes from class to class. I could picture him at the front, pointing to sentences we couldn't be bothered to learn, and asking us to repeat them. Mr. Donnelly could not be part of my sex life.  

"Why you stop? You ok?"  

I was trying hard to dissipate those images from my mind. Focus, Declan, focus. You have a hot foreign girl in your bed. Focus on that. Look at her.  

I looked at her. She was gorgeous, she was naked. I start again.  

"It's all good, darling. No problem."  

"Ok, just keep talking..."

I tried hard to come up with something else, but the Irish classes kept popping in my head. I could see my best mate Sean passing a note to me, making fun of the teacher. We never were caught, but ended up in the principal's office for laughing too hard and disturbing the class. And I remembered Medbh. Oh, and how I remembered her. She was the prettiest girl in that year, and I was lost in love for her. She sat in front of me, and her hair was like silk. I longed to touch it and tell her we'd be married and have all this beautiful babies. I obviously never said anything to her. 

"You slow down, don't do this."  

Dolores was still there, even if I was back in school.  

"Sorry, sorry." and I went back to the trying to make her have a good time. Me, I was just happy to have a girl in my bed.

I went next to the classic "Póg Mo Thóin". And she liked it. Probably the closest to real dirty talk, so I repeated it a couple of times. At some point, I was making up words that sounded Irish, and just using the accent to my advantage. Eventually, it was clear that she didn't need any more incentive, so I focused in also having fun. It took me three minutes, once I didn't have to think anymore. Why women must bring the brain into sex? For men it's a simple exercise in spilling fluids, for them it's an intellectual effort.

I laid beside her thinking of how useless it had been to learn Irish. How lucky those bastards in America are, they don't have to learn any other languages. They never even bother to learn Spanish, which is probably hell of a lot easier than Irish. Still, I could have been born in China, so I shouldn't be complaining.

After all was over we were cuddling and I was feeling quite exhausted from the effort. Not the sex, that part was not too demanding, but thinking up words really got me tired. One more reason why I work with numbers. Almost falling asleep, I hear her say in my ear: "you must teach to me what these words means…”

For feck's sake.