I Arrived at Three and Found Her Sleeping with Them

It was past eleven at night and I was still on the road, stuck behind a truck loaded with pipes that wouldn’t let me pass. I was twenty-seven, worked as an auditor at a mid-sized firm, and that week they’d sent me to review the accounts of a distributor four hours from my house. Mariana, my girlfriend, was in her last year of industrial engineering and had been dragging along a final project for months with three classmates, the only ones she’d managed to form a stable group with.

She was one of the few women in her year. It had never bothered me, or at least that’s what I told myself. Until that afternoon, when she called to tell me the project meeting had gone long and she was going to sleep at Lautaro’s place, one of the classmates, because another one worked the late shift and couldn’t meet up earlier.

—Come over too when you’re done —she told me on the phone, with that calm voice of hers that always knew how to soothe me—. Lautaro leaves the door unlocked, no matter what time it is.

I knew the classmates. We’d shared barbecues, a beer after an exam, even a birthday party. They were decent guys; none of them bothered me. Still, something in my chest tightened when I hung up.

I drove the four hours in silence, without the radio, chewing over an unease I couldn’t quite name. My girlfriend sleeping in a house with three men. Me far away. The door unlocked. I kept telling myself it was serious schoolwork, that the final year of college was hell, that she’d never given me any reason. And yet, with every kilometer I covered, I pressed harder on the accelerator.

I got there at 3:10 in the morning. The neighborhood was dead. Lautaro’s gate wasn’t locked, just ajar, exactly as they’d told me. I pushed it open with two fingers and went into the yard without making a sound. My watch ticked out the time with a sound that seemed far too loud.

The living room light was still on. So was the one in the back, above the table where I figured they’d been working. Papers were scattered around, two laptops open, empty glasses, an empty bottle of red wine, and a half-finished bottle of fernet. I turned off the lights one by one, with the absurd feeling that I was walking into someone else’s house to steal something.

I went down the hallway. The door to the main bedroom was barely cracked, and under it a yellow strip gave away that the light was still on. I laid my palm against the wood and pushed it open slowly.

The first thing I felt was heat. Then that mixed smell of sleeping bodies, stale alcohol, and men’s deodorant. The second was a stab in the stomach that didn’t let go until the next day.

Lautaro was asleep on a sofa bed against the wall, completely naked, with a blanket pulled up to his knees. His cock looked thick even at rest, lying sideways against his thigh, his balls hanging heavy between his spread legs. Sebastián was on a mattress on the floor, in boxer briefs, face down, his back bare and the bulge outlined through the tight fabric. Federico was on another mattress, in shorts and no shirt, hugging a pillow, with a dark damp stain at the crotch I couldn’t quite make out. And Mariana, my Mariana, was in the double bed in the room, alone, asleep on her side.

She was wearing a long white man’s shirt, the first two buttons undone. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t hers. Her legs were bent and the shirt had ridden up to her waist. She was wearing tiny red lace panties I’d never seen before. The curve of her hip was exposed to the air, perfectly lit by the bedside lamp that no one had remembered to turn off. The red fabric sank between her ass cheeks, showing half her bare ass, and in front it outlined the cleft of her cunt with a sharpness that punched me in the gut.

I stood still, not fully stepping in, one hand still on the latch. It was an image that didn’t fit. The panties on display, the borrowed shirt, the three guys meters away from her, the light on like this was a stage set up on purpose for someone to watch her while she slept.

What the fuck happened in here before they fell asleep?

I took my phone out of my pocket. I turned the brightness all the way down, switched it to absolute silent, and took three photos. One of the whole room, another of her with the shirt ridden up and the red panties eating into her ass, and another of Lautaro naked on the sofa, his limp dick lying across his thigh. I don’t know exactly why, but something in me didn’t want that scene to stay only in my head. If later I tried to convince myself I was overreacting, the photos would be there to remind me what I’d seen.

I moved to the edge of the bed. Mariana’s breathing was even, deep. Her hair was loose, stuck to her temple with sweat. I crouched beside her, still bent low, and looked at her legs parted just a little, her nape, the exposed shoulder where the shirt had slipped, the perfect line of her waist dropping into her hip.

I did something that later made me ashamed, but in that moment it came out of me without thinking. I brought my hand forward and, with the tips of two fingers, brushed the outside of her panties at the side. The fabric was warm. I ran my fingers toward the center, following the seam that crossed her cunt, and slipped the edge aside just a little. She was wet. Soaked, really. A string of thick discharge had stuck to her lips and stretched sticky when I moved the cloth. She smelled like herself, yes, but there was something else underneath, denser, sharper, a smell I recognized immediately because it was mine after finishing inside her. Semen. Someone else’s semen drying slowly between her thighs.

My throat went cold. I brought my fingers closer, almost brushing inside her, and felt the flesh inflamed, hot, still open. The lips of her cunt were throbbing slowly, as if her body were still coming down from something that had happened only a little while ago. I kept my fingers suspended there, not daring to sink them in, not daring to pull them back either.

Mariana shifted in her sleep. She muttered something I couldn’t understand, parted her thighs a little wider as if looking for air, and slowly turned over, giving me her back. The shirt rode all the way up. Her whole ass was on display, the red panties barely holding in half of it, and between her cheeks I caught a glint, a thick drop sliding down from her cunt toward her thigh. I pulled my hand back as if I’d been burned.

That was when I heard Lautaro’s voice behind me.

—Nice ass, huh? —he said, hoarse, without getting up from the couch.

I whipped around. He was awake, propped on one elbow, the blanket completely kicked off, not bothering to hide anything. His gaze was glassy, still drunk from the night, and one hand was wrapped around his cock, which was already hard, thick, the glans swollen and a clear drop peeking out at the tip. He was stroking it slowly, barely, not quite jerking it, as if he were waiting for permission or waiting for me to get nervous.

—What the fuck are you doing, asshole? —I hissed.

—Relax, brother —he laughed without raising his voice, still massaging the shaft of his dick with two fingers—. I thought you were going to start right there when you came in. I even got myself set up to watch. The girl’s wrecked, look at her. She wouldn’t wake up to a cannon blast.

—You’re an idiot —I said.

—Your girlfriend sucks dick really well, you know that? —he let out, with a crooked smile—. Really well.

My vision blurred. I wanted to smash his face in, I wanted to pull out my phone and record him, I wanted to wake Mariana up screaming. I did nothing. I stood there, mute, watching him keep touching himself with obscene slowness while his eyes stayed fixed on my girlfriend’s ass. He shrugged, still smiling, ran his thumb over the glans to catch the drop, and lay back down with his hand still on his cock. He closed his eyes as if nothing had happened. As if that were a normal comment between friends.

I turned off the bedside lamp. I took off my shoes. I lay down on top of the sheet, clothed, beside Mariana, and slipped an arm around her waist as if I were trying to mark a territory I was no longer sure I still had. Her warm ass settled against my fly, still with the red panties badly on, and I felt my cock hardening against the seam of my pants. I hated myself for it. She sighed without waking and pressed more tightly against me, moving her hip in a sleepy sway, as if she were repeating a movement she’d made hours earlier with another body.

I didn’t sleep. I spent five hours listening to other people’s breathing in a house that wasn’t mine, staring at the ceiling, going over every sentence she’d said to me in the past few months. Every time she’d told me to shut up when I asked about the group. Every time she’d laughed at a text message without showing me the screen. Every birthday of Lautaro’s she’d gone to without me. And all the while, that warm dampness I’d touched with my fingers burned my hand, as if I’d never washed it off.

***

At nine in the morning, the two of us left the house alone, the classmates still asleep. We walked to the car without speaking. She’d put on leggings and the white shirt over them, the same shirt that wasn’t mine. Only when I started the engine did I ask her.

—What were you doing last night?

—Working, what else would we be doing? —she answered without looking at me.

—You in panties and the three of them practically naked.

—It was hot. Federico turned off the air because his ear hurt. I changed in the bathroom and put on one of Lautaro’s shirts because I hadn’t brought pajamas. What do you want me to say?

—The panties were red. I don’t know them.

She turned her head slowly and looked at me for the first time the whole trip.

—Are you seriously saying this to me? Are you policing my underwear?

—I’m asking you. You were wet, Mariana. Soaked. I touched you while you were asleep.

She turned red all the way to her neck. She pressed her lips together.

—I must’ve had a dream. It happens to me. You wake up with your dick hard too and I don’t accuse you of anything.

—I bought them yesterday, before coming. Want the receipt? —she went on, not giving me time to answer, her tone sharp—. If you’re going to be this insecure, better we leave it here. This isn’t sustainable.

I drove another twenty minutes in silence. I was thinking of telling her about Lautaro’s comment, about the hand on his cock, about the semen I’d smelled between her legs, about the photos on my phone. I didn’t tell her anything. I was afraid the answer would be worse than the silence.

Two days later, in my apartment, I tried again. I brought it up more calmly. I asked her why Lautaro had said what he said. Why they changed clothes in front of her without any shame when they had presentations. How the group had gotten so comfortable.

—They’re my classmates, not my lovers —she said, with the patience of a tired teacher—. Yes, they’ve seen me in my underwear. Once Sebastián saw me naked when I came out of the bathroom because I’d forgotten my towel. He stared at my tits for a long time, yes, and he didn’t apologize. You’re the one making a scandal out of this.

—And the night you said they showed each other their cocks to see who had the biggest one? —I shot back, because she’d told me that herself weeks before, laughing as if it were just another anecdote.

She fell silent for a moment. Then she let out a short, humorless laugh.

—It was a drunk bullshit thing. I’d come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and they started fucking around. They asked who looked better endowed. The three of them dropped their pants, took them out, and showed them to me hard next to the couch. Federico had a thin one but it was really long. Sebastián’s was short and thick. Lautaro’s was enormous, as thick as my wrist, with his balls shaved clean. They were all touching themselves in front of me, goading each other, getting harder and harder. I told them to stop, and they laughed like idiots. Nothing else happened.

—You got them hard without touching them.

—They got themselves hard. I just looked and gave my opinion.

—And did you make them come in your hand or what?

—Don’t be vulgar.

—Answer me.

She looked down. She took too long.

—Lautaro came on the little table. Just a shot, it slipped out. The other two held back. Then we all went to sleep in our own spots. Is that cheating on you?

I didn’t know what to say. I felt like yes, something had happened, that probably a lot more had happened than she was admitting, even if I couldn’t put it into words. I also felt that anything I said would sound like a jealous, possessive, controlling man. Three labels she was already starting to hang on me in every conversation.

—You’re not yourself —she told me that night, before turning her back to me in bed—. I don’t want you like this.

Still, that night I fucked her. I grabbed her from behind without saying a word, yanked her pajama pants down and shoved her face into the pillow. I stuck my tongue in her ass, then two fingers in her cunt, looking for something I couldn’t find. She was dry. I licked her well, grabbed her hair, and drove my cock in with a single thrust all the way in. I fucked her furiously, braced on my knees against the mattress, driving with the dry slap of my pelvis against her ass, while I asked in her ear if that was how Lautaro had fucked her, if he’d gone that hard, if she’d squeezed his cock like that too when he came. She didn’t answer me. She moaned, came biting the pillow, and when I finished inside her I felt like I was marking something that was no longer mine.

***

We lasted two more months. Two months of messages she took forever to answer, of projects that ran long, of weekends when she’d leave without saying what time she’d be back. I never brought it up again, but the issue was always there. It was a third person, or four, in every room we were in together.

We broke up one Sunday afternoon, without any big fight. She told me I wasn’t the same anymore, I told her she wasn’t either. We hugged in the doorway and I never saw her again.

Three years passed. I’m in another relationship now, with a woman who looks nothing like Mariana. I live peacefully. And yet, when I’m alone, when my current partner is asleep and I’m lying there staring at the ceiling, I go back to that room. I go back to the white shirt bunched up to the waist, to the red panties sunk between her ass cheeks, to the bedside lamp left on, to the smell of someone else’s semen that stuck to my fingers, to Lautaro naked and jerking off slowly in front of me with his thick cock aimed at the ceiling, to that “nice ass, huh?” said in a low voice like an invitation, to that “your girlfriend sucks dick really well” that still rings in my ear.

The photos are still in a hidden folder on my phone. I’ve never looked at them with anyone else. But sometimes, in silence, I open them, pull down my pants, and take hold of myself slowly, staring at the red panties eating into Mariana’s ass, imagining what had happened before I arrived: the three of them taking turns, her on her knees sucking a cock while they fucked her from behind, Lautaro coming on her face or inside her cunt, the other two waiting their turn. I come hard, quietly, my hand full, and every time I discover that the scene that destroyed me back then now turns me on more than any fantasy. That deep down, I would’ve liked to stay standing in the doorway, not turning off the light, with my dick out, letting whatever was going to happen happen. That maybe I would’ve joined in.

But that’s another story, and I’ll tell it in another tale.