My husband came home early and found me with a stranger

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary on an ordinary Tuesday, and marked the occasion by eating dinner in front of the television without speaking much. Diego barely looked up from his phone except to wish me a dry kiss on the forehead. We had been in a dry spell for almost a year, and I had started counting the days.

It wasn’t that I lacked anything material. We lived in a beautiful penthouse in the center of Valencia, with a terrace overlooking half the city, and he earned more money than we could ever spend. But his investments mattered infinitely more to him than I did. He traveled nonstop, and when he was home he talked to me about percentages and accounts in one name or the other, never about us.

—Are you going up to bed soon? —I asked him that night.

—I’ve got some calls with Asia —he replied without looking at me.

And I was thirty-six, not seventy. I’ve always had a hot-blooded temperament, the kind of woman who enjoys sex without asking permission. At first, when we started dating, everything was different: it was enough for me to see him undress to get me fired up. Now, though, we did it once in a blue moon, quickly and without enthusiasm, like filling out a form.

I learned to take care of myself almost by accident. One dawn I woke with my hand between my legs, rubbing myself in my sleep, and I ended up coming before I was fully awake. It was a revelation. For weeks that was enough: videos in the dark, my fingers, imagination. But plastic never has desire. It doesn’t look at you, it doesn’t pant, it doesn’t want you. And what I was missing was exactly that.

Things changed on an afternoon in June, without my planning it. I had gone to the gym as I did every week: a body conditioning class, a while on the bike, and, at the end, a massage. I hadn’t had one in months, and only then did I realize how much I needed it.

—Good God, you’re so tense —Lorena, the masseuse, murmured, sinking her thumbs into my shoulders.

—Yeah… it’s been a long week —I answered in the steadiest voice I could manage.

It was the moment she started rubbing oil on me that I felt myself heating up from the inside. I had to bite my lip not to moan. Every time her hands moved down toward my thighs, toward my belly, I dug my nails into the table so I wouldn’t move my hips. I thought she noticed how my nipples hardened, but she didn’t say a word. Very professional, Lorena. The longest thirty minutes of my life.

I walked out of there burning. I thought about locking myself in the locker room and giving myself a quick touch-up, but I stopped myself: the last thing I needed was to get caught with my fingers inside myself. Diego was on a trip to Frankfurt — I don’t think I’ve said my husband is called Diego and I’m Carla — so I was in no rush to get home to an empty house.

On the way, freshly showered, in leggings and a sweatshirt, I stopped in front of an old-fashioned café with a certain reputation. They said it was a hookup spot for women like me. It was an impulse, a prank, I told myself to convince myself I wasn’t serious. I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. The simple idea of trying it out, even though I swore I wouldn’t do anything, left me soaking wet.

The atmosphere, contrary to what I’d imagined, was elegant and discreet. Around me were women my age and older, very well put together, and younger men moved among them, almost all of them attractive. When a woman came in alone and stayed a while, sooner or later someone would approach her. Some couples ended up leaving together. Nothing sordid. Just an ordinary café, except for what pulsed beneath the surface.

—Excuse me for bothering you —said a voice behind me.

—Yes? —I turned.

—I don’t want to intrude, but I saw you alone and couldn’t resist offering you my company.

He was tall, athletic without going overboard, dark-skinned and dark-haired, dressed with a care that didn’t seem like effort. My age, perhaps a little older. My first response must have sounded hostile, because he made as if to back away, and I had to rush to stop him. I had made up my mind, and that man seemed like a very good option.

—No, forgive me —I said—. I don’t usually… well…

—I understand. Would you like another drink?

—Yes, sure.

—My name’s Adrián, by the way.

—Carla —I replied, and felt my cheeks burning.

We talked for almost an hour. He moved with an ease that relaxed me, making what we were doing feel normal without ever naming it. Soon we were on first-name terms, as if we had known each other forever. A light, witty, contentless conversation, only there to hold up the tension building between us.

—Looks like they’re about to close —he commented.

—I’ve lost track of time —I laughed.

—When you’re having a good time… Want me to walk you home?

—I’d love that.

He paid and we left. It was cool for June. He slipped an arm over my shoulders and I held on to his waist, and we walked like that all the way to my building. When we got there, he pretended to say goodbye.

—It’s been a pleasure, Carla.

—Has it? —I tugged gently at his hand.

In the elevator we kissed as if we’d spent the whole night holding back, which was exactly what had happened. I opened the door and let him in.

—Wait, sit down and I’ll make you a drink —I told him.

—I don’t know if I’m going to be able to wait.

We laughed. I opened the bar cabinet in the living room, took out ice, tonic, gin. While I poured, I caught a side view of the sizable bulge under his pants, and my mouth went dry. I set the drinks on the table, knelt on the rug in front of him, and, looking him in the eyes, started unbuckling his belt. He took my face in his hands and leaned down to kiss me.

—I’ve been waiting for this all night —he whispered.

I stripped him slowly while he pulled off my sweatshirt. When I had him in front of me, I saw it was nearly twice the size of Diego’s. I wrapped my hand around it, feeling its hardness, that tension that barely let me move the skin. He weighed my breasts, caressed my nipples, slid his fingertips between my already wet, open lips, and guided my head downward. I opened my mouth and took him all the way in. It was the first time I’d done it for anyone other than my husband, and I was surprised by how much I liked it.

—Slowly… slowly —he panted, leaning back to watch me.

I slowed my pace. It excited me to feel him throbbing against my palate, to notice how he shuddered when I squeezed him hard. His fingers pinching my nipples sent me completely over the edge. I couldn’t remember ever being so aroused. I pulled away for a moment, got on all fours on the rug, and braced my hands on the seat of one of the armchairs.

—Put it in me already —I begged.

I moaned when his hands grabbed my hips, and nearly screamed when he drove into me in one thrust. He started a slow back-and-forth, pulling almost all the way out, a slowness that instead of calming me drove me wild. Sometimes he leaned over me to knead my breasts or bite my neck.

—Harder —I pleaded.

—That’s what you want, huh? —he murmured, and a slap cracked against my hip.

He began pounding me fast, without mercy. I was drowning in my own moans, my face buried in the armchair. His body slammed against mine again and again. Every slap, every dirty thing he said in my ear, worked like an accelerator. I was so lost in it that I didn’t hear the lock.

—More… like that —I panted, not knowing we were no longer alone.

***

After six hours at the airport and another hour in a taxi, I got home after midnight, with the news that my return flight to Frankfurt had been canceled. I was surprised to see the living room light on. Carla usually went to bed early, with that healthy-living obsession of hers.

As I crossed the hall I started to hear an unmistakable sound of slaps, panting, and the occasional muffled cry. My heart sped up and my ears rang. I had to stop for a moment in the dim light, my hands shaking, trying to make sense of what my mind refused to accept.

When I collected myself, I walked to the living room door and peered in. Carla, on all fours, her forehead pressed against my favorite armchair, was taking the thrusts of a man I had never seen in my life. And she was enjoying it. I had never heard her moan like that, never with that complete surrender. I stayed there, I don’t know how long, watching that guy smack her and call her things she hurled back at him while begging for more.

I thought about leaving and going to a hotel and pretending I hadn’t come back. I thought about shouting, about interrupting everything. I thought about a thousand things at once. But I didn’t move, and then I realized I was hard, a wet stain spreading across my trousers. I hadn’t wanted her like this in months. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever wanting her more.

With clumsy fingers, without thinking too much, I started unbuttoning my shirt. I crossed the living room toward them. It took them a while to notice me, and when they did they only stopped for a moment. I lifted Carla slightly, holding her under the arms, and took the armchair, sitting down in front of her. She looked at me with a mixture of shame and defiance I had never seen on her before.

—Fucking cuckold —she spat at me, almost out of breath.

—I know —I answered, and I didn’t even know why.

***

Seeing him there, sitting down, looking at me with his hard cock in his hand, short-circuited something inside me. I should have died of shame. Instead, I was hotter than ever. Adrián didn’t stop pounding into me. He placed a hand on my nape and, with a complicit smile aimed at my husband, guided my head down to him.

—Come on —Adrián murmured—, give him what you’ve never given him.

I opened my mouth and took Diego while the other kept burying himself in me from behind. In ten years, I had never sucked him off like that. I heard him groan, surprised, as if it were another woman doing it. And in a way, it was. Adrián set the rhythm from behind, I swayed between the two of them, and for the first time in a long time I felt absolutely desired by two men at once.

—Fuck, Carla… —Diego panted, taking my hair in a tenderness utterly out of place in the scene.

The rhythm of the slaps, the thrusts, my own body shaking between the two of them: it was the most brutal image I had ever imagined, and I was living it in my living room. I came screaming, my face buried against Diego, while Adrián held my hips and emptied himself inside me with a long groan.

I was left trembling, wrecked on the rug, breath coming in broken bursts and an idiot grin I couldn’t wipe away. Adrián straightened up, got dressed at his own pace, and lit a cigarette.

—Do you have an ashtray? —he asked Diego, as if they had known each other forever.

—Yes, of course… —my husband answered, still dazed.

***

I poured myself another drink and lit a cigarette too, not really knowing what to do with my hands. Adrián dressed without hurry and, before leaving, came up to me.

—Look, if you frame this right, it’s not a disaster —he said, lowering his voice—. Now you know what he likes.

—Yeah… —I murmured.

—A bit more attention, a bit more excitement. You know what I mean.

—Of course.

—If you ever feel like doing it again, you’ve got my number —he added, winking at me—. Next time won’t be free, though.

—Whatever —I answered, and I didn’t even recognize myself.

When the door closed, I was left alone with Carla, who was lying on her back on the sofa, eyes half-closed. It had been a long time since I really looked at her. In truth, I had never seen her like this: spent, flushed, with the marks of hands that weren’t mine on her pale skin. Instead of hating her, I wanted her with a new urgency.

I went over, parted her thighs, and found her still wet, open, waiting. She moaned before I even touched her.

—So this was what you wanted —I told her, sliding into her.

—Diego… —she murmured, wrapping her arms around my neck.

I fucked her slowly at first, and then with a rage that was more hunger than reproach. She bit my lips, panted into my mouth, touched herself while I drove in and out. For the first time in years, both of us were in the same place, with no screens, no accounts, no trips.

—Don’t stop —she begged—. Like that.

I came inside her holding her tightly, and we stayed still, tangled together, catching our breath. I brushed a strand of hair from her face and kissed her on the forehead, this time without haste, without dryness.

—Things are going to change —I told her.

—At last —she replied, and fell asleep against my chest.