The Girl with the Piercing Waited for Me in the Hallway

Mateo arrived at the student residence with a medium-sized suitcase, a backpack, and the certainty that he was going to spend the worst week of his life. Twenty years old, first year of college, first time away from home. In the corridor on the third floor there were girls laughing out loud and talking about things he didn’t understand, and he moved among them as if he had to apologize for taking up space.

He had this habit of hunching his shoulders in new places. And of looking at the floor when he didn’t know what to do with his eyes.

Valeria saw him that first afternoon. He didn’t know it until days later, when she told him: that she had seen him cross the corridor with that posture of someone who doesn’t want to be seen, and had thought, with a precision that was a little dizzying, that that boy was going to be interesting.

***

They met in the third-floor kitchen, on a Tuesday night.

Mateo was heating something in the microwave, trying not to make noise. It was almost eleven. He thought no one else would be awake.

The door opened and Valeria came in barefoot, wearing a long T-shirt that reached her thighs and with her dark hair still damp. She was petite, with her hair cut very short on the sides and a small ring in her left eyebrow. She had the kind of face you looked at and then weren’t quite sure how to stop looking at.

—You’re the new guy in 314, right? —she asked without introducing herself.

Mateo nodded. He looked back at the microwave.

—I saw you yesterday in the corridor. You walk like you’re asking permission to exist.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. He felt the heat rising to his ears.

Valeria leaned against the counter opposite him and studied him with a calm that was more unsettling than any direct question.

—That’s not an insult, just so you know. —She paused briefly—. My name’s Valeria. And I like you.

The microwave beeped. Mateo took out his container without saying anything.

—You’re welcome —she said, even though he hadn’t thanked her.

***

Over the next few days, Valeria started appearing.

Not in an obvious way, not in a way you could point to. But then suddenly she was in the study lounge when he got there at ten at night, with headphones around her neck and a cup of coffee she didn’t seem to care much about. She was at the vending machine on the second floor when he went downstairs to get water. She was in the corridor at midnight, and she would greet him with a nod that was half hello and half appraisal.

Every time she saw him, she said something. A direct observation, some comment that went straight to the center of something Mateo hadn’t said out loud. “You look like you haven’t slept properly since you got here.” “Why do you always sit with your back to the door?” “That sweater is two sizes too big. Do you do it on purpose, or do you just like hiding?”

He never knew what to say. She never expected him to answer.

On Thursday night they crossed paths in the corridor at one in the morning. He was coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water. She was coming out of her room with a novel tucked under her arm.

They both stopped at the same time.

—Are you sleepy? —she asked.

—A little.

—Come on.

It wasn’t a question. Nor exactly an order. It was something in between, said in that low, calm voice that didn’t leave much room for “no.” And the curious thing was that Mateo didn’t want to say no. He wanted to know where this led.

He went.

***

Valeria’s room was more orderly than he expected. A plant in the window, books stacked with purpose, the bed with the sheets a little rumpled but in a controlled way. It smelled citrusy. A candle burning on the sill cast long shadows across the wall.

Mateo stood by the door, not knowing what to do with his arms.

—Sit —she said, pointing at the bed.

He sat on the edge. Back straight, feet on the floor, hands on his knees. Like it was a job interview.

Valeria leaned against the desk opposite him and watched him for a moment that stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.

—You know what I like about you? —she asked at last.

—No.

—You don’t pretend. —She paused—. Most people who come in here try to look confident. You don’t. And that’s a lot more interesting than confidence.

She came closer. Slowly. No rush. She stopped in front of him, close enough that Mateo had to lift his head to look at her.

—I’m going to ask you for something —she said—, and I want you to think before you answer. All right?

—All right.

—Tonight I’m in charge. You follow what I say. If you want to stop at any point, you say “stop” and we stop, no questions asked. But if you decide to keep going, you keep going for real. —She paused briefly—. Can you do that?

Mateo took a few seconds to answer. Not because he didn’t know the answer.

—Yes.

—Good. —She placed a hand on his jaw, gently—. Take off your T-shirt.

***

Obedience came before thought. He took it off, folded it by inertia, and left it on the pillow.

Valeria watched him. Without hurrying. With that gaze that seemed to catalog every detail as if she had all the time in the world.

—Hands behind your back.

He put them there.

—Like that. Don’t move them.

She started with his shoulders. Her hands first: a firm pressure running over the trapezius, searching for the tension Mateo carried without realizing it. She found it immediately. Then her nails, tracing very soft lines that raised goosebumps all over his arms despite how light they were.

Every time he tensed his muscles by reflex, she stopped.

—Let go.

And he let go.

Pressure and pause. Contact and absence. Valeria ran her tongue over his collarbone, very slowly, and bit him right where the neck meets the shoulder. Mateo sucked in a breath between his teeth. He felt his cock hardening inside his pants without having consciously done anything to provoke it, and he blushed because he knew she was noticing.

—You’re already hard —she said, without stopping nibbling at his neck—. And I haven’t even started yet.

—Sorry.

—Don’t apologize for that. That’s exactly what I want.

When she leaned in to speak into his ear, his breathing was already a little uneven.

—Now you’re going to look at me —she said very quietly—. Don’t look away. Understood?

—Yes.

—Yes, what?

A long pause.

—Yes, Valeria.

—That’s it. Much better.

She straightened. Took a step back. And pulled off her T-shirt in one direct motion, with no theatrics. A simple black bra. Under it, two small, firm breasts pressing against the fabric until the nipples showed. Mateo looked at her and felt he had to make a conscious effort not to lower his eyes.

—What do you feel? —she asked.

—I don’t know how to describe it exactly.

—Try.

—Like I’m hot on the inside and cold on the outside at the same time. And like my cock is about to burst through my pants.

Valeria tilted her head slightly, as if his answer confirmed something she already knew. She reached behind her back and unclasped her bra with two fingers. She let it fall to the floor without ceremony. Her nipples hardened in the open air, dark, small, perfect.

—That’s exactly what you were supposed to feel.

***

She came closer again. This time she sat on top of him, legs on either side, without putting all her weight down. Enough for Mateo to feel the contact and the heat of her pussy through her underwear, right over his erection, but not be able to move easily.

—Hands stay behind —she said.

He hadn’t moved them.

She kissed him. It wasn’t a soft kiss: it was a kiss staking out territory, saying something clearly without needing words. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and Mateo received it with a low moan he hadn’t planned on letting out. When he tried to bring his hands up to her, Valeria pulled back a millimeter and waited.

—I didn’t tell you to move them.

—Sorry.

—Don’t apologize. Just obey.

She started moving on top of him, very slowly, rubbing her sex against the hard bulge in his pants. Mateo felt the wetness soaking through the fabric and almost came from that alone, fully clothed, without her having touched his cock even once.

—Don’t come yet —she said, as if reading his face—. If you come before I say so, it’s over.

—No, no —he whispered—. I can hold it.

—Yes, Valeria.

—Yes, Valeria. I can hold it.

—Good boy.

She bit his lower lip with just enough pressure to make him let out a small, rough sound.

—That’s it —she said—. That’s what I wanted to hear.

She got off him and knelt on the floor between his legs. She undid the button of his pants, the zipper, and yanked them down along with his boxers. Mateo’s cock sprang up, hard, the tip already shiny with fluid. Valeria looked at it as if evaluating it.

—Pretty —she said—. And nicely soaked with need.

She ran her thumb over the glans, spreading the precome in a slow circle. Mateo closed his eyes.

—Open them. I told you to look at me.

He opened them. And saw Valeria take his cock into her mouth, first just the tip, sucking with closed lips as if tasting something. Then she went down, very slowly, swallowing his cock all the way to the root. Mateo clenched his fists behind his back until his nails dug in.

—Fuck —he whispered.

She came back up, let the cock out with a wet sound, and smiled at him with glossy lips.

—Can you say “fuck”?

—You can say whatever you want. Except come.

She took him into her mouth again. She began to suck him with a rhythm that kept building, her tongue wrapping around the glans every time she came up, her hand stroking his balls with the slightest pressure, driving him insane. Mateo could feel everything gathering at the base of his cock, and every time he was about to tip over, she noticed too and stopped, pinching the base with two fingers to cut off his orgasm.

—Not yet.

—Please —he said, and the word came out before he even realized it.

—“Please” what?

—Please, Valeria.

—Better. But still not yet.

She kept sucking his cock for what felt to Mateo like hours. When she finally let him go, his face was red, his chest rising and falling fast, and his cock so swollen it hurt.

—Lie down —she said—. Arms above your head. Don’t lower them.

He lay down. He didn’t lower them.

Valeria took off her panties. Mateo caught sight of a shaved pussy, the lips shiny, swollen, and open with arousal. She climbed onto him astride and grabbed his cock with her hand.

—Don’t move —she said—. Not a centimeter. I do everything.

She sat down slowly. Mateo felt the glans parting warm, wet lips, and then how her cunt swallowed him, millimeter by millimeter, gripping his cock in a ring of hot flesh that almost made him come right then and there. He clenched his jaw, clenched his eyes, clenched everything he could possibly clench inside.

—Look at me —she ordered.

He looked at her. Her nipples were hard, her eyes half-closed, and a faint smile of total concentration curved her mouth. She sat all the way down, until the base of Mateo’s cock touched her open pussy, and stayed like that for a few seconds, savoring the sensation of having him completely inside.

—You’re nice and deep —she said, more to herself than to him.

She started to move. Slowly at first, rising and falling with her hips, letting the cock almost slide all the way out before swallowing it down again to the hilt. Mateo watched his dick disappear inside her again and again, glossy with slick, and he had never seen anything more obscene in his life.

—You’re rock hard —she said, breathing faster—. I can feel all of you.

—You’re really wet —he shot back, voice hoarse.

—Yes. That’s because you turn me on so much. Did you know that?

—No.

—Well now you do.

She sped up. Started fucking him harder, bracing her hands on his chest for a better angle, grinding her clit against his pubic bone every time she came down. Mateo could feel his whole body tightening, his balls clenching, the orgasm rising from somewhere he wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer.

—Valeria —he gasped—. I can’t hold it.

—You can. —She moved faster, moaning softly—. You can hold it until I say so.

—I can’t, fuck, I can’t…

—You can.

She dug her nails into his chest and kept riding him, faster and faster, and Mateo saw her breasts shaking and her mouth opening and the sweat shining on her neck, and the effort of not coming was making his thighs tremble.

—Almost there —she said, squeezing her eyes shut—. Almost there, hold on a little longer… a little longer…

She collapsed onto him, clamping her pussy around his cock in spasms, and came against his neck in a long orgasm that shook her entire body. Mateo felt her cunt closing around him again and again, milking his dick with no mercy.

—Now —she gasped into his ear—. Come inside. Now.

It was like a gate had been thrown open. Mateo came with a convulsion that arched his back off the bed, emptying into her in long, hot spurts, moaning a “fuck, Valeria” that came from the bottom of his chest. She kept moving slowly on top of him, squeezing out the very last drop, with that half-smile of someone who has just gotten exactly what she wanted.

She stayed lying on top of him for a while, with his cock still inside her, feeling it slowly soften. She ran her fingers through his sweat-damp hair.

—Don’t let me forget to tell you something —she said—. You’re not the first guy who likes this. But you are the first in a long time who doesn’t fake it.

Mateo didn’t answer. He had nothing to say to that.

—That was a compliment —she clarified.

—I know.

—Good.

She carefully got off him. Mateo’s come slid down the inside of her thigh, and she looked at it for a second before wiping herself with her hand and putting two fingers in her mouth without taking her eyes off him.

—Tasty —she said, perfectly calm.

Mateo thought he might get hard again just from that alone.

***

The candle had gone out on its own when Mateo opened his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t know how much time had passed. Cold streetlight was coming in through the window, drawing pale rectangles on the floor.

Valeria was sitting beside him, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up. She had her T-shirt back on and that usual calm, as if nothing that had just happened had disturbed her rhythm in the slightest.

—What do you have tomorrow? —she asked.

—Class at ten.

—Are you going to get any sleep?

—I suppose so.

She fell silent for a moment. Then she asked what she’d been thinking for a while.

—And this? What do you call what just happened?

Valeria turned her head to look at him.

—You call it finding something that fits you. —She looked forward again—. The name matters less than you think.

Mateo processed that for a few seconds.

—Is it going to happen again?

—Depends on you. —She stood up from the bed—. Next time you see me in the corridor, don’t look at the floor.

—All right.

—And if at any point you don’t want to keep going, you tell me. No drama.

—All right.

—Good. —She tipped her head toward the door—. Now go to sleep. You’ve got class at ten.

***

Mateo crossed the corridor back to his room with his hands in his pockets and something in his chest he still didn’t know how to categorize.

It wasn’t exactly euphoria. It wasn’t exactly relief. It was something more like the sensation of having found a language you’ve been using wrong for a long time without knowing it, and suddenly pronouncing it correctly, of someone correcting you without cruelty and telling you: like this, this way, much better.

He got into bed. It took him a long while to fall asleep. Not from distress, but because he didn’t want the night to end completely.

At nine forty, when he came out of his room to go to class, Valeria was in the corridor leaning against the wall with her phone in her hand and the ring in her eyebrow catching the cold light of the fluorescent lamp.

She saw him coming.

He didn’t look at the floor.

She said nothing. Just tilted her head slightly, with that half-smile that promised interesting conversations, and kept walking in the opposite direction.

Mateo thought it was going to be a very long semester.

And that he didn’t mind at all.