The Summer I Subdued My Newly Widowed Neighbor

I arrived utterly exhausted, opened the door, and went straight into the kitchen. I raided the fridge, took a long gulp from a bottle of juice, and then got into the shower, where I let the warm water loosen my muscles. Every morning I run seven kilometers along the seafront to stay in shape, and at thirty-two the effort still pays off.

My name is Nadine. I’m French, though I have Spanish blood on my grandfather’s side, and he left me this chalet on the Costa Brava where I spend every summer. I work as a psychologist with difficult teenagers, boys who don’t fit into any system. I know how to listen, how to wait, and exactly what to say to make someone let their guard down. In my public life I’m correct to the point of boredom. In my private life I’m something else: a woman who has tried almost everything and who enjoys moving people around like pieces on a board.

The sound of an engine announced an arrival. I leaned out onto the balcony, which has a privileged view, surrounded by pine trees with the sea in the background. A gray Audi parked in the chalet next door. It was the neighbors from Valencia, always friendly. Marc got out first, a kid of about twenty, the typical city boy who seems to drag his feet through life. Then Núria got out, and she really surprised me: fuller, more neglected, with a dull expression I didn’t remember. I waved hello. He waved back; she barely nodded. I didn’t see her husband anywhere.

The next day I went down to the beach early. I’d already taken a swim—the water was cold but perfect—when I saw Marc arrive alone. I waved him over and he spread his towel next to mine. We had always gotten along well. That was how, with sand between my fingers and the murmur of the waves in the background, I found out that his father had died in a car accident a few months earlier. We chatted for quite a while. I offered him my psychologist’s attention and let him let off steam.

The following day Núria came down with him. We melted into an embrace and she shed a few tears. She told me she was in therapy and that she took medication to sleep. After listening to her at length, she seemed lighter. A swim and a few beers at the beach bar made her sociable again. That night we ran into each other at the restaurant everyone in the development goes to. We were served by a waiter I had already had my eye on: tall, dark, slim, with one of those smiles that disarm you. The typical tourist seducer. He had flirted with me on the first day, and a cold look was enough to scare him off. That was why, that night, he focused all his attention on Núria.

***

We crossed paths again on the sand the next day, and again we went out for dinner. Núria left early, but Marc and I stayed at the beach bar until they turned the lights off. We walked back and headed toward their chalet. There was a light on in the upstairs bedroom, and faint sounds were drifting out. As we got closer, Núria’s moans became unmistakable.

I gave Marc a little gesture with my finger and pulled on his arm. The garden was enclosed by tall hedges. We hid behind one, right at the angle where his mother’s window was in full view. She was in bed, rocking her hips, working a vibrator into herself with moans that grew less and less shy. The light was dim but enough. I could clearly see her hand holding the toy, the wedding ring still on her finger, her lips parted with two fingers of the other hand as she slowly fucked herself.

I put my palm on Marc’s back and we looked at each other. For a moment I thought the discomfort would make him run off, but he reacted the other way. His eyes turned hungry, fixed, incapable of missing a single detail. Perfect, I thought. Núria pulled the vibrator out, gleaming with wetness, and thrust it back in to the hilt. Her chest rose and fell, her abdomen tightened, her breathing broke apart. Her legs started to tremble. She arched her back, turned her head against the pillow, and a howl tore through the garden’s silence. She stayed still for a few seconds, hands over her face and her body undone.

What came next stayed with me all night: she brought the vibrator to her mouth and licked it slowly, shamelessly, savoring herself. Then she stood up, cleaned it in the bathroom, put it away in a drawer, and went out into the garden to smoke. Each drag lit up the ember a few meters from us. Luckily, she had her back to us. When she finally went back inside and switched off the light, I waited a bit, took Marc by the arm, and brought him to my house.

***

We went into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and handed him a beer, which he accepted without thinking. I opened another and sat down across from him.

“What you saw is normal,” I said, to break the ice. “She’s a woman and she has needs.”

“I’d never seen her like that,” he murmured, still agitated.

“Life goes on, Marc. You’ll have to accept certain things.”

“What things?” he asked, frowning.

“That sooner or later she’ll meet someone. And she’ll sleep with him.”

“I know,” he answered, lowering his eyes.

I looked at his crotch. The pants betrayed a solid erection, and that was where my perverse side came out. I leaned in and ran my hand over the fabric. He let out a puff of breath and jolted.

“Did you like seeing her like that?” I asked bluntly.

He nodded, looking at me with shame, as if I were going to judge him. I didn’t, and that calmed him.

“Do you want me to make you cum?” I whispered. “And you’ll come like her.”

He turned red to the ears and nodded again.

“But this stays between us,” I said, pinning him with my gaze.

“Yes,” he replied, almost voiceless.

I moved closer and unbuttoned his pants. It shot out, average size but very thick, veins standing out. I wrapped my hand around it and started stroking slowly, uncovering the glans. He was breathing hard, and my movements grew firmer.

“Would you like to see your mother with a man?” I whispered in his ear, turned on by it.

“Yes,” he stammered, lifting his hips off the chair.

“Your mother is a woman who needs to be used. Do you understand?”

He looked at me trembling, his breathing ragged, nodding to everything.

“I don’t want to see her sad,” he said suddenly. “I want someone to make her happy.”

“Will you let me take care of that? Let them turn her into what she really wants to be?”

Marc couldn’t hold out any longer. He came in an arc that splattered the kitchen floor while I squeezed his shaft until the last drop. I loosened my hand little by little until it went limp and trembling. We stayed silent. I motioned for him to leave, scrubbed the floor, and went up to my bed to finish myself off too, thinking about how to make use of the gift fate had just placed next door.

***

In the morning, Núria and Marc laid their towels beside mine. He gave me a complicit look and went off into the water, leaving us alone. For the first time I looked at Núria not as a neighbor, but as a woman. The release from the night before had done her a world of good; it showed on her face, just like it did on her son’s, just like it did on mine.

I studied her calmly. She practiced topless sunbathing: small breasts with pointed nipples, a soft belly, thick thighs, her toenails painted a light brown. A sort of chubby woman in her late forties, with gray eyes that were, by far, the most attractive thing about her. We started by talking about nonsense while I let her relax. Then I went straight to the point.

“Have you thought about rebuilding your life?” I said with a smile.

“What do you mean, getting married again?”

“You don’t need to get married. I’m talking about having… something.”

“I don’t want any serious relationship,” she replied. “What would my son say?”

“You don’t understand me,” I lowered my voice. “I’m talking about someone fucking you properly.”

“Phew,” she snorted, lifting her head, fully drawn into the conversation. “Sometimes I really want that… and I have to make do with a toy.”

I laughed without letting on that I had already seen her with my own eyes.

“I mean real fucking,” I insisted in a whisper.

She turned her head to make sure nobody was listening and smiled again, this time wickedly.

“That body of yours is still good enough to be enjoyed!” I assured her.

“But I…” she buried herself in the towel, laughing under her breath.

“Did you see the waiter the other night? He devoured you with his eyes. He’s the one who should take you to bed.”

“But he’s so young!” she protested, with a laugh that gave her away.

I held her gaze. I saw how flattered she felt that a boy was noticing her, how her eyes were shining. That fed my perversity. From that moment on I decided I was going to convince my neighbor to give her body over, to let herself be used, to discover how far her own desire went.

“Tonight we’re eating out. If he looks at you again, and he will, you’re going to tease him. I’ll take care of the rest… and your son too.”

She kept staring at me. For a second I thought she would refuse. Her gaze was lost out at sea, but in the end she pulled herself together and nodded, just like that.

***

That afternoon I went to the restaurant alone. I located the tables the waiter served, sat down at one of them, and ordered a beer. He served it with impeccable efficiency.

“What’s your name?” I asked, politely.

“Karim,” he replied, intrigued.

“You’re the local heartbreaker,” I said in a conspiratorial tone.

He shrugged and gave me a smile that gave him away.

“Bring me the bill.”

He came back right away with the saucer, the ticket holder, and the bill. I left a five-euro note in plain sight and, under the plate, showed him a hundred. Karim cleared the table and the money vanished into his hand with years of practice.

“Do you remember the woman I came with the other night?”

He nodded.

“I want you to take her to bed. Treat her the way she needs to be treated: with hunger, without rushing, and without mercy. Make her come out of there changed into someone else.”

“Is that all?” he asked, glancing sideways to see if anyone was watching us.

“That’s all. Do it right and there’ll be more.”

Karim nodded and headed back to the kitchen. I stood up, left the beer half-finished, and walked back to the chalet with one very clear idea in my head: I had the whole night ahead of me to prepare Núria. To teach her, step by step, to obey.