I Sent Her to Cantabria and Drove to Carmen

The morning began with a fine rain over the rooftops of Zaragoza. Marcos was standing by the kitchen window, watching the water leave shining streaks on the glass, when Silvia appeared with her hair still damp from the shower and a cup of coffee in her hand.

—I’ve been thinking —she said, sitting down across from him—. My parents have been waiting for months for us to visit. It would only be a couple of days.

He looked at her without moving from the window. Santander in November. The cold of the Cantabrian coast, the heavy silence of Sundays at his in-laws’ house, the conversations that always ended in the same old places.

—It’s not that I don’t want to go —he replied, choosing his words carefully—. It’s just that I’m up to my neck in the Ibercaja project and I don’t know if it’s the best time.

—Marcos, we’ve been putting it off for three weeks. —Silvia set the cup down on the table more firmly than necessary—. I’m not asking you to stay a week. Just a couple of days.

He walked over, refilled the coffee, and leaned back against the counter. —All right. We’ll try it. But we leave early to avoid the traffic on the AP-68.

Silvia smiled, and in that smile there was something he knew well: the quiet satisfaction of someone who gets what she wanted without having to push too hard.

***

The following days passed at their usual pace: work, brief dinners, the occasional conversation about the travel preparations. Silvia looked up hotels, mentioned the restaurant where they’d eaten last time, remembered that her mother had asked them to bring her preserves from Zaragoza.

Marcos listened. And while he listened, he waited.

The call came on a Tuesday afternoon, without warning. It was his friend Javier, talking about a postponed match and a dinner that had to be rearranged, and then, almost in passing, he mentioned that Diego was heading to Valencia that week for some work sessions. Four days. Carmen would be staying alone in the apartment in Burgos.

Marcos didn’t change his tone. He kept answering in monosyllables until Javier hung up, and then he remained on the sofa with the phone in his hand, staring at the black screen.

Four days.

The memory came back unbidden: the summer afternoon at his in-laws’ pool, the crushing heat, Carmen on the pool edge with her wet swimsuit clinging to her skin. His hand brushing hers under the water. The exact second when neither of them pulled away, even though both could have.

They hadn’t spoken about it again. But they hadn’t forgotten it either.

***

That night, while Silvia folded clothes in the bedroom, Marcos approached her with the calm of someone who has made a decision but still hasn’t said it out loud.

—I’ve been thinking —he said, using the same words she had started with three days earlier—. I think it’s better if you go by yourself this time. My mother’s been telling me for weeks that I never call her, and if I take the weekend to see her, I’ll get that monkey off my back.

Silvia stopped with a T-shirt in her hands. —Your mother? You never said anything.

—It’s not urgent. But since you’re going to Santander, it makes sense for me to take advantage of it.

She looked at him for a moment. He held her gaze without forcing it.

—Well —Silvia said at last, folding the T-shirt more carefully than necessary—. If you’re sure. Though I’m not crazy about arriving alone with the suitcase.

—Your father picks you up at the station, right? You won’t be alone for even ten minutes.

She nodded, unconvinced but not resisting. —Fine. But next time you’re coming.

—Next time I’m coming —he promised.

It was the kind of lie that slips out on its own, without effort. The most comfortable kind of lie there is.

***

The night before the trip, something between them lit up spontaneously. Maybe it was the looming separation, or the silence that had settled in since the conversation about the trip, or simply that they’d gone too many days without touching each other with intent.

Silvia came out of the bathroom with her hair loose and stopped in the bedroom doorway. Marcos was in bed, reading, and looked up.

Neither of them said a word. She walked toward him.

What came next was direct and unceremonious. Silvia stripped off her clothes with that speed she had when she didn’t want to think too much, and lay back, looking at him. He took her by the waist and pulled her closer. Her skin was still cool from the bath, but it warmed quickly under his hands.

Marcos gave her breasts slow attention, taking them in his hands, feeling the warm, firm weight of her tits against his palms, squeezing them with an old, almost animal confidence. Silvia arched her back and let out a low moan when he lowered his mouth and sucked one nipple hungrily, licking it slowly before biting it just a little. She opened wider, pressing her chest against his face, and ran her fingers into his hair to keep him there.

—Like that, fuck… —she muttered, her breathing broken—. Don’t stop.

He didn’t stop.

He slid his hand down her stomach, her cunt already wet and hot, and found her slick slit with two fingers. Silvia shuddered the moment he touched her, spreading her legs without realizing it, offering herself without a trace of shame. Marcos brushed away the wetness with the tip of his fingers, opening her wider, exploring the swollen lips and sensitive clit, rubbing right where she trembled the most. Silvia let out a louder moan, one hand in the sheet, the other clutching his shoulder.

—Look at me —he ordered, his voice low and rough.

She opened her eyes and looked at him as he lowered his head between her legs.

He dragged his tongue up her pussy from below, slow, tasting the salty, warm flavor, and Silvia jerked so hard it tightened her thighs. Marcos ate her with patience, sliding his tongue into the wet cleft, sucking her clit, alternating pressure and relief until she was writhing on the bed. She pressed both hands to the back of his neck, moving her hips to seek more, not to be left wanting. He responded by improving the angle, opening her with his fingers and licking deeper, listening to how her breathing changed, how it became more and more broken and desperate.

—You like it when I eat you like this, huh? —he said between licks, without stopping.

—Yes… yes, Marcos… fuck, yes.

His tongue stayed glued to her, relentless, while one finger slid inside, slowly at first and then firmer. Silvia arched with a long whimper, nails digging into the sheet, and began to rock her hips in a savage rhythm, begging for more. Marcos added another finger, opening her wider, fucking her with his hand while his mouth stayed busy on her clit. Silvia’s body suddenly tightened and then gave way in a deep wave, trembling all over beneath him, a long spasm that left her breathless.

He didn’t pull away right away. He held her with one hand on her hip and kept licking her slowly until she stopped trembling.

Then he came up and kissed her. Silvia kissed him back with a wet mouth, her own taste on both their tongues, gripping his shoulders as if she wanted to drag him on top of the mattress.

Marcos tore off his clothes in abrupt movements, and she watched him with narrowed eyes, enjoying the sight of him naked, hard, with his cock already taut and pointing at her belly. Silvia took it in her hand and ran her palm along it from top to bottom, feeling the hot skin, the firm weight, the damp head. He let out a low grunt.

—I’m going to put it in you now —she said, with a tired, dirty smile.

—Do it.

Silvia settled underneath him, spreading her legs with obscene ease. Marcos dragged the tip of his cock through her pussy, soaking it in her wetness, and pushed slowly, just a little, until he felt the entrance give. She moaned at the first stretch, clamping around him with her mouth and thighs, and he paused there for a second, feeling the closed heat around him, before sinking all the way in with a slow thrust that drew a sigh from both of them.

—That’s it… —Silvia panted, arching her back—. More.

He fucked her with a steady, deep rhythm, hitting the back wall more and more confidently while the bed creaked beneath them. Silvia clung to him, first to his shoulders and then to his back, marking his skin with her nails. Each thrust pulled a different sound from her, somewhere between pleasure and need, and she matched his movement by lifting her hips, hunting for the angle, offering him her open, wet cunt so he could keep breaking her apart with clean, hard fucking.

Marcos changed position, lifted one of her legs over his shoulder, and opened her even more. From there he went deeper, the cock slipping in and out with a perfect friction that made her tremble from her thighs to her throat. Silvia screamed his name once, then again, her voice getting more and more undone. He held her hip with one hand and used the other to touch her clit again, massaging in small circles while he fucked her without pause.

—You’re getting tighter —he murmured, noticing how she was clenching around him on the edge of coming—. You like it when I leave you this fucked up.

—Yes… yes… give me more.

Her answer drove him to keep going harder. The bed was hitting the wall, Silvia’s breathing had become a continuous, broken gasp, and her cunt was throbbing around his cock with an eagerness that had him on the brink. He held her like that until her body tightened again, a deep contraction that made her come with a muffled cry and a jerk of her hips. Feeling her clench around him like that tore a low groan from him, almost a warning, and he kept moving, heavier and more urgent each time, until he drove into her a final few times with contained violence.

When the end came, Marcos shoved her down into the sheet, teeth clenched, and came inside her with a long tremor through his abdomen. The semen spilled hot and thick, filling her from within while he stayed buried in her, motionless, breathing as if he’d just run a race. Silvia wrapped her legs around his back and held him there, still feeling the last pulses inside her cunt.

Afterward they lay in silence. The suitcase was still half-packed on the chair in the corner.

—Are you going to miss me? —she asked, her voice still shaky.

—More than you think —Marcos replied.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. It was just an incomplete answer.

***

The next morning, Marcos loaded the suitcase into the trunk of the Triumph and waited in the street while Silvia locked up the flat. November’s cold was dry and direct, the kind that gives no warning.

—We’re cutting it close —she said, checking the time on her phone as she came down the steps.

—We’ve got plenty of time. Get on.

The ride to Delicias was quick. Silvia sat behind him, arms around his waist and her chin resting on his back. They didn’t speak. Marcos knew that silence: it was the one she went into when she was happy but didn’t say so for fear of spoiling it.

At the station, he lifted the suitcase out of the trunk and helped her settle her backpack on her shoulders.

—Platform three —Silvia said, looking at the ticket on her phone—. I’ve got twelve minutes.

—More than enough.

He kissed her calmly. She kissed him back with a tenderness that weighed on him in a way he preferred not to examine too closely.

—Call me when you get there —he said.

—I always do. —She took the suitcase handle—. Take care of your mother.

—I will.

He watched her walk away through the crowd with the suitcase rolling over the terminal floor, without looking back. Marcos waited until he lost sight of her among the turnstiles. Then he went back to the bike.

***

He started the engine unhurriedly. The GPS marked the route: two hours and twenty minutes to Burgos by the N-232.

Before leaving the city, he stopped at a red light and took out his phone. He typed the message slowly, choosing every word:

“Looks like you’ve got a few quiet days. I could come by and keep you company.”

He read it twice. Sent it.

***

In Burgos, Carmen was in the living room with her laptop open and a list of tasks she hadn’t managed to start. Diego had left the apartment tidy, the fridge well stocked, and a note with the pending errands that she had folded without fully reading.

When the notification arrived, Carmen set the laptop on the side table and picked up her phone.

She read the message. She read it again.

The pool afternoon came back the way it always did: all at once and without warning. The heat of the water, Marcos’s hand brushing hers, the exact second when both of them knew something had changed even though neither of them had said a word. She had spent the entire summer building reasons to convince herself it had been nothing. Reasons that, at that moment, with the message on the screen, were worth absolutely nothing.

She canceled lunch with her parents by text, briefly. Postponed the call to her friend. Closed Diego’s list.

And answered:

“I’ll be here. No plans.”

***

Marcos saw the three words appear on the screen, leaning against the Triumph’s seat on the shoulder of the N-232. He read them once.

He put the phone in the inside pocket of his jacket, put on his helmet, and got back on the road. The poplars at the sides were shedding the last leaves of autumn. The sky was gray but there was no rain.

***

Halfway there, he found a gas station with a bar. November cold on the road doesn’t forgive, even if you’re wearing bike gear, and Marcos needed to stop as much as he needed the coffee.

The place smelled of freshly made coffee and roadside kitchen grease. Behind the counter was a woman in her mid-thirties, with dark hair tied back carelessly and a way of moving that didn’t ask to be looked at but made you look anyway.

—What can I get you? —she asked, with the direct tone of someone who’s been on shift for hours and has no energy for protocol.

—A cortado and toast with oil —Marcos said, sitting on the stool closest to the counter.

She nodded and began preparing it. Marcos watched her move with the calm of someone who knows her space well. She had a thin scar above her left eyebrow and coffee-stained fingers, and she wore a leather bracelet that jingled every time she moved her wrist. She wasn’t the kind of woman one finds twice in the same place.

—Long trip? —she asked, setting the coffee down in front of him.

—Burgos. I’m coming from Zaragoza.

—More than two hours —she said, as if doing a quick calculation—. In this cold, too.

—The cold can be dealt with. AP-68 traffic, less so.

She smiled. It was a small, corner-of-the-mouth smile, one that didn’t reach her whole face but said more than if it had.

—My name’s Rebeca.

—Marcos.

They talked for a while, without either of them planning it. About the road, about the winter taking its time settling in that year, about how gas station bars have a bad reputation but the coffee is usually better than people imagine. It was one of those conversations that only exist in places people pass through: no context, no continuation, perfectly contained within themselves.

When Marcos paid and got up to leave, Rebeca handed him his change with that same corner smile.

—Safe travels.

—Thanks. —He paused in the doorway—. If I passed by here on Sunday, would you still be on shift?

She looked at him for a moment before answering. —That depends on how your weekend goes.

—Sure —he said—. Like everything.

He stepped back out into the cold with the taste of coffee in his mouth and that light feeling short encounters leave behind when they’re measured just right.

***

He got back on the bike, put on his gloves, and returned to the road.

He had less than an hour left. Carmen was in Burgos, with three days ahead of her and her apartment door unlocked, waiting for him.

Marcos accelerated. The poplars slid by on both sides like a metronome. He was thinking about the afternoon at the pool, about the hand under the water, about the months of calculated distance they had both kept since then without either of them saying it out loud.

Today, what couldn’t happen that afternoon was going to happen.

And he’d been driving toward it for hours.