I Came Back from the Gym Smelling Like Another Man

I’m glad the first time I told our story was so well received. I thought the game with Mateo had reached its limit, that there was nothing lower left to drag him through with me. I was wrong. I discovered there were deeper layers to my desire and, above all, to his. Layers I myself hadn’t even suspected. And it all started, once again, at the gym.

I had started training almost every day. Not just for my body. I did it for the power it gave me. I loved feeling the eyes stuck to my back when I did squats, to my breasts moving under my top while I ran on the treadmill. It was an electric current running through me, one that stayed with me for the rest of the day.

One afternoon, after a brutal weight session, I went into the locker room. The air was thick, heavy with heat and steam. I took off my soaked clothes and, while I dried my neck, lifted my arm to gather my hair up. And then I caught it. My own smell.

Not the sweet perfume I always wore. Something rougher, more animal: sweat, effort, hot sex after an hour of movement. I expected to feel disgust. Instead, a strange warmth crawled up my belly. A tingle.

I brought my nose to my skin and inhaled slowly. I stink. And I love it. I liked feeling dirty, real, unfiltered. I liked the idea of smelling like myself, like what I truly was underneath the soap and fragrance. I didn’t realize then how far that revelation was going to take me.

I stood there a long while in front of the locker room mirror, still naked, watching myself. Skin shining, hair stuck to the nape of my neck, red marks from the bar on my shoulders. I thought about Mateo, about the way he loved me so clean, so neat, so tailored to his measure. I thought about how much it would cost him to accept the woman standing in front of him, the one who sweated and smelled and desired without asking permission. And the idea of showing her to him, of forcing him to smell her, tightened something low in my belly.

That same day was when I noticed him. Tall, broad, his arms covered in tattoos that tensed with every repetition. The others called him Bruno. He always looked at me with an intensity that made me feel hunted, as if I were the prey and he had all the time in the world.

That afternoon I went over while he was resting between sets. I knew exactly what I was doing.

—Will you help me with the last set? —I asked, letting my eyes do the rest of the work.

He nodded without saying a word. I stood under the bar to do squats and his hands settled on my waist. Not to correct my posture. To touch me. I felt his firm fingers sinking into my flesh, marking it. Every time I lowered myself, I felt the bulge in his crotch brushing my ass.

The air between us thickened with the smell of both our sweats mingling. I finished the set panting, and it wasn’t just from the weight. I turned to look him in the eye. We were too close.

—Thanks —I said.

—It’s nothing —he murmured.

And without warning, he grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me. It was a rough kiss, without elegance, all saliva and need. He dragged me into one of the single bathrooms in the locker room and shut the latch with his elbow without letting me go.

He yanked my top up and bit my nipples until the pain blurred with pleasure. He pulled my leggings down violently and knelt in front of me. He didn’t lick me right away. First he buried his face and smelled me, inhaling my sweat and desire as if he needed it to breathe.

—You smell fucking delicious —he growled against my skin before burying his tongue in me.

He made me turn around and pressed my palms against the cold tile. He fucked me from behind, slowly at first, working his way in with sweat as his only aid. Then he stopped being patient. He rammed into me with his face pressed to the wall, one hand gripping my hip and the other covering my mouth so no one at the gym would hear what we were doing three meters from everyone else.

At no point did he worry about whether I finished. He didn’t need to. He knew I hadn’t gone looking for him for that. And neither had I. I had gone looking for what would come after, for the scene I was already building in my head while he held me against the tiles.

He came inside me with a low grunt. When he pulled away, he turned me around and kissed me again, a mouth that now tasted of everything that had just happened between us.

—Next time don’t wear perfume —he said, pulling his pants back up as if nothing had happened.

I didn’t answer. I was already thinking about something else. About who was waiting for me at home.

***

I arrived smelling like sin. My whole body was a map: the workout sweat, Bruno’s trace between my legs, his taste still on my mouth. I didn’t shower at the club. I didn’t change. I wanted to get home exactly like that. I wanted Mateo to notice.

He was on the couch, watching TV with that Sunday calm he always had. He turned to greet me with a smile that froze halfway. He frowned.

—Camila… what is that smell? It’s like… sweat.

I planted myself in front of him, hands on my hips, not a grain of guilt on my face.

—It’s the smell of the gym, Mateo. The smell of training like a beast. Is there a problem with that?

He got up and came closer, hesitating with every step.

—No, it’s just… it’s really strong. And your breath… smells weird.

My smile turned to ice.

—Weird how? I ate a yogurt in the car. Now you want to smell my mouth too? Are you going to control what I eat as well?

He took a step back, nervous.

—No, please! I’m just saying it smells different.

—Different from what, Mateo? —I moved in until I had him cornered against the wall, one flat hand on his chest—. Different from your boring mint breath? I like how I smell. I smell like a woman. Like a woman who really lives. Does that scare you?

His breathing quickened. I saw the conflict cross his eyes: revulsion fighting against a sick curiosity he couldn’t hide. His body, as always, betrayed him before his mouth did.

He was the same Mateo as always. The one who got outraged with his mouth and begged with his hands. The one who said “this isn’t right” while his pulse sped up and desire stood out under his clothes. I had learned to read that language better than he himself could. I knew exactly where to press, what line to use, how much to humiliate him so that instead of leaving he’d stay asking for more.

—No… I’m not scared —he lied.

—Then stop complaining and make good use of me —I ordered, unzipping his pants.

He was half hard. I grabbed him firmly and squeezed.

—Look. Your body understands me just fine. Your body knows I’m a filthy girl and it loves it.

I knelt in front of him on the living room rug and took him into my mouth. The same mouth that had been somewhere else an hour before. I sucked him slowly, mixing my saliva with what was left of Bruno, and spoke in his ear between licks.

—You know what your cock tastes like now, baby? It tastes like me. And it tastes like another man. And you know what my mouth tastes like, my little cuck? Like what they did to me at the gym.

He was moaning. Shaking his head, saying no, telling me to stop. But his hips moved on their own, pushing deeper into my throat. His body confessed everything his pride refused to accept.

—No, Camila, don’t say that… —he pleaded, voice breaking.

—Shut up and fuck me —I cut him off, standing up and throwing myself flat on my back over the dining table.

I pulled my leggings down, still stained with workout sweat and the trace of what had happened a little while before. I opened my legs in front of him.

—Put it in. Now.

Mateo, defeated, came over and fucked me. He took me right there, on the table where we had dinner every night, while I narrated my “fantasy” in his ear.

—Imagine there was a guy at the gym, Mateo. Imagine he took me into a bathroom and turned me against the wall. Imagine he used me until he got tired and now I’m passing on to you everything he left on me.

He drove into me harder with every word. I didn’t know whether he believed me or chose not to believe me, and that doubt was exactly what drove him insane. He came inside me with a muffled shout, half pleasure and half defeat.

I didn’t come. I didn’t need to. My pleasure was something else, colder, more mental. It was the pleasure of victory, of having him in the palm of my hand knowing he’d come back looking for me even if I shattered his soul.

I straightened my clothes calmly and looked at myself in the hallway mirror. Messy, marked, smelling of my own sweat and another man’s. I felt powerful. I felt more alive than ever.

—Clean this up —I told Mateo, pointing at the mess on the table.

And I went to take a shower, leaving him alone with his doubts and with the smell of my betrayal stuck to his skin.

He still didn’t know the whole truth. He preferred not to know. But I knew. And every time he smelled me again, part of his mind, the part that never lies, would recognize the truth before he ever dared think it.