My Wife’s Friend Arrived When It Was Already Too Late
The refrigerator’s whitish light illuminated Andrés’s face as he uncapped the bottle of soda. Cold, dark, sparkling. He returned to the living room dragging his feet, silently comparing what he had just heard with his own story, trying to find the exact crack through which Camila had slipped away from him.
Mateo was waiting for him in the armchair, a highball glass in one hand and a lit cigarette between his fingers. The drizzle beat ceaselessly against the terrace windows, regulating the temperature of that uncomfortable early morning with its monotonous tinkling.
“Congratulations,” Andrés said, filling his glass without serving his guest. “How beautiful the beginnings of an affair are. The intensity of discovery, that almost effervescent connection when two people decide, in unison, to build something new.”
Mateo smiled, appreciating the irony while pretending not to catch it.
“That’s exactly how it feels, man. The attraction, the conversation that grips you, the simple gesture that opens your chest. You think you’ve found everything all over again.”
“And the innocents waiting in ordinary life,” Andrés replied in a calm voice, though his eyes were heavy with emotion, “end up understanding, too late, that the changes were caused by something beyond our control.”
“It seems you’re falling into the usual stereotypes, and that’s a mistake. I never intended to hurt her, Renata. It just happened. You should know that better than anyone: the same thing happened to you with Camila at that party.”
“Not at all. Love at first sight is different from falling in love. Between her and me there was a long process, a difficult courtship. And I assure you, Mateo, it wasn’t luck. It was will. When you’re committed, respect is the armor protecting what you’ve promised. Love is the red cord that binds you even across distance and keeps you from falling into error.”
“I admire your self-control, Andrés. But sometimes the pressure of feeling different, excluded, leads us to accept opportunities we weren’t looking for. More than once I wanted to talk it over with Renata, but my convictions stopped me.”
“That’s the point,” Andrés said. “Before deciding to betray us, neither you nor Camila took us into account. That’s the cowardly part.”
Mateo lit another cigarette and let the smoke tangle with the sweet cherry aroma Andrés had just awakened while loading his pipe. A damp breath of air came through the open window and stirred the pages left on the rectangular clock on the sideboard. Andrés glanced at them and returned to the conversation.
“Listen, Andrés,” Mateo said, lowering his voice. “I have a question. If you had the chance tomorrow, knowing what she did yesterday, would you still give her the opportunity to come back?”
“I don’t know. If the delay were only a few hours and she came with honest remorse in her eyes, perhaps. But if she took days, her face would carry a different aura. And knowing she was someone else, I’d send her back the way she came. Or she could stay; she owns this house just as much as I do. The one who would leave would be me.”
Silence fell heavily. The drizzle persisted. Andrés fixed his gaze on the fire in the fireplace, where an orange ember stubbornly refused to go out.
“It’s a hell of a feeling, isn’t it?” Mateo said, exhaling smoke. “Having your world stop while everyone else’s keeps turning.”
“A goddamn mess. As if the ground collapsed and you kept falling without seeing the bottom. And you look for reasons, explanations for motives you don’t understand. When I had everything right here, by my side.”
***
Andrés took a long drink and settled into the armchair, ready to tell what he had been keeping inside for months.
“When I separated from Camila because of my studies and work, all I could think about was returning as someone important. Offering her a better future. A life by my side, if she wanted it. I went to Bucaramanga intending to learn. And there I met Lucía. We studied in the same department. We had a brief, intense affair, but I realized I missed Camila too much—her snubs, our little fights. Lucía went from being my lover to being an excellent friend. She was the one who pushed me to return.”
“Lucía? The woman at the reception desk of the restaurant where we met last week?”
“The very same. She’s always looked out for me. She loves me in her own way, honestly and unconditionally.”
“Man, we all have a guardian angel,” Mateo said with a smile, stirring the ice in his glass. “So what happened?”
“I came back at the end of the second semester. I visited her, spoke with her parents, went out partying with friends. And from one conversation to the next, she began telling me things without looking at me. A professor at the Aviation School had been flattering her; he explained the technical matters to her in private. Camila confused gratitude with sincere love and took the bait.”
Mateo raised his index finger, pressed it to his lips, stretched his left arm toward his host, and exhaled smoke.
“Don’t tell me that professor got there first.”
“What do you eat that you can guess? That’s exactly what happened.”
“Jesus! And what did you do when you found out?”
“Swallow it. Keep going with my studies, my work, my goals. If she had avoided looking directly at me, that meant I mattered to her as much as or more than that professor. I let her live out her romance. I kept listening to her, without pressuring her. Advice for sale, none for myself.”
“And did it work?”
Andrés looked up, and a spark of contained fury flashed in his blue eyes. The memory burned in his stomach. He tried to soothe it with the sweet taste of the soda.
“Yes and no. She asked my opinion about everything except the only thing that mattered. I had advised her to be careful. Not to open any doors unless she was sure.”
“Whaaat?”
“She confessed it to me three months late. Thirty days later, I was a raging lunatic in the administration offices, looking for the triple son of a bitch. By the end of June, the bastard had resigned to go to the United States, supposedly to improve his English. He did the deed and left her staring at a sparkler.”
“Did she have to get an abortion?”
“Don Roberto, my father-in-law, was very sick. He had been admitted with acute heart failure. Neither Doña Marta nor her sister Carolina knew Camila was dating someone at the school. Only Daniela, the youngest, knew about the secret romance. To keep the old man from getting worse and prevent her mother from throwing a fit, I spoke with Camila and offered to take responsibility. For everything.”
“Then… the boy isn’t your son?”
“Tomás may not have my blood, but he has my essence. He’s my son, by decree.”
Mateo fell silent. He pressed the cigarette butt against the ashtray, twisting it and suffocating the remains. The truth landed on him with force.
“Well, man. I didn’t see that coming. You took on a huge burden, and I admire you for it. But… don’t you think now that you made a rash decision? Because Camila didn’t love you at that point. There was only the initial attraction.”
“Exactly. That was the debate between us. At first she objected because, according to her, I shouldn’t waste my life. I answered with the same argument she herself demands now, since last night—or since many months ago. Time, Mateo. Time to devote myself to her, and an entire life together in which we could fall in love.”
***
Mateo used the pause to go to the freezer and take out three ice cubes. From the other side of the sideboard, he shook his glass and turned his gaze toward Andrés, who was already somewhere else.
“We got married at the First Notary’s Office, here in Chía. A simple ceremony. A party at my grandfather’s farm. The honeymoon was my older brother’s and Carolina’s idea: they got us a room at a hotel in Santa Marta.”
“Excellent choice, man. A city of salt and walls is exactly what a couple needs to seal their love.”
“That night in Santa Marta welcomed us with the warm heaviness of old ports after a brief downpour. The stone streets reflected the amber streetlights, as if the entire city were whispering secrets of other loves to us. We walked hand in hand through the center, surrounded by the sweet perfume of bougainvillea climbing the colonial balconies. All I could think about was taking her back to the hotel.”
Mateo nodded without interrupting. Curiosity gleamed in his black eyes.
“Drums reached us from a distance. Ancestral rhythms that slipped beneath Camila’s white skirt and from there, by osmosis, beneath her skin. She took me dancing. With every note, every turn, every caress of mine that slid lower from her waist, she grew hotter. Until one of my hands went beyond what was permitted and put some distance between us again.”
“Ha! Did the old Camila show up again, that dark bay filly who tripped you at the quinceañera?”
“She showed me her anger with dulled eyes, but laughter lit them up again at once. And I needed no other compass to know where my hands shouldn’t sneak without her consent, though I was already hungry to taste every pore of her dark skin with my tongue.”
“Go on, man, go on.”
“We shared an egg-stuffed arepa at a corner stand, laughing as if the luxury were having each other like that, thick as thieves. Beneath a sky spread like a black silk cloak covered in sequins, I understood how essential she was to my life. Later, sitting beside the walls with the Caribbean stretching to the horizon, words became unnecessary. The brush of her fingers and the silent clamor of her eyes were enough for me to give her a kiss more passionate than the first, without fear of rejection. The murmur of the sea against the stones was my silent accomplice.”
“And the night?”
Andrés smiled crookedly, the pipe between his teeth.
“That night I understood that sometimes love is best spoken softly, and becomes sublime between the sheets, reciting longings amid whispers and moans. With me on my knees between her legs, without our bodies necessarily being entwined. The private sanctuary would have to wait for another night.”
Andrés lost himself in the memory. He could see Camila trying to curl up, drawing her legs together, hiding between her arms what she barely dared to feel. And yet her swollen pink intimacy stayed attached to the expert mouth of her husband. She bit down on the knuckle of her index finger to hold back her moans. Until, overcome, her voice breathless, she spelled out every vowel of her confession:
“Ohhh, blessed little Jesus, what is this I’m feeling? Keep going, pretty boy. You’ve got me three orgasms away from saying to hell with everything and falling madly in love with you.”
“No fucking way, man!” Mateo laughed from the kitchen. “So it all came down to oral sex?”
“Our honeymoon was distant. My reputation as a womanizer brought the ice into the bed, on our wedding night and the nights that followed. And the shame of her pregnancy came between us during the first few months. Until one day, two or three months after the birth, it happened in the bathroom. Under the shower. She asked me for help. Between the slippery soap and the shampoo burning her eyes, I told her, ‘You’ve got all that right here, and I’m down here without having had breakfast?’ She burst out laughing. And I took advantage of the opportunity. It was the turning point.”
“Good for you,” Mateo toasted silently. “You managed to tame her distrust.”
“After that, everything intensified. Hungry, thirsty to explore each other. We finished our degrees, and our daughter Valentina arrived. Maybe that pause was what set off the search for new challenges. Camila didn’t lie to me that time. She told me we needed to venture out. I agreed with her.”
“What do you mean, venture out?”
Without taking his eyes from the family portrait ajar on top of the safe, Andrés chose his words.
“That growing sexual spontaneity. Isn’t it obvious?”
Mateo raised an eyebrow and narrowed his black eyes.
“Well, she’s direct, frank, and dominant, isn’t she?”
The sudden silence was enough for the guest to sense his host’s frown.
“In the little time I’ve known her, and with everything you’ve told me, I imagine she acted just as the Camila I know would act. That’s how she is, isn’t it?”
Andrés didn’t answer. Outside, the drizzle continued counting out the early morning. The pages written on the rectangular clock waited patiently for him to decide to open them again. And Mateo, from the kitchen, watched him with the slowness of someone who still hadn’t finished harvesting what he had come to seek.
That same night in Santa Marta, Camila had cornered him in the room the moment he closed the door. There was no movie-style tenderness or newlywed modesty: there was hunger. First she took off his shirt, tugging impatiently at the buttons while fixing him with her stare, as if she needed to make sure he was really still there, whole, for her. Andrés raised his hands, amused, and she bit his collarbone hard enough to leave a burning mark.
“Don’t play the saint,” she whispered in his ear, pushing him toward the bed. “Come here. I want to see your face when you dare to touch me for real.”
He answered with a brief smile and took her by the waist. Camila was wearing a light dress, still warm from their walk, and almost nothing underneath. The tiny bra barely contained the weight of her tits, and the curve of her hips showed through with a brazen softness that made Andrés’s blood ache. He sat her backward on the edge of the mattress and yanked up her skirt without ceremony. Camila’s legs opened on their own, obedient and defiant at the same time, as if she were offering him precisely the punishment they had both been postponing.
“That’s it,” she said, breathing faster. “Touch me there. Not gently. Lower.”
Andrés slipped his hand between her thighs and found her heat soaking through her underwear. The moan that escaped Camila was short, hoarse, obscene. He moved the fabric aside just enough to see her up close: her pussy was already glistening, open and sensitive, swollen with desire, and wetness ran along the root of her thigh. He spent a second looking at her, swallowing, before leaning down and running his tongue over the tautest fold, tasting her with a desperation he made no attempt to hide.
Camila threw her head back and gripped his shoulders.
“Yes, you son of a bitch… like that, like that… suck me hard.”
He obeyed without pause, parting her lips with his mouth, licking from bottom to top, sliding his tongue where she trembled most. Every time he pressed firmly, Camila squeezed the back of his head and pushed her pussy against his face, seeking more. Her thighs trembled. Her voice trembled. Her whole body trembled with an almost aggressive urgency. Andrés brought her to her first orgasm with his tongue, feeling her fingers stiffen in his hair and hearing a broken, dirty, shameless whimper escape her.
“Don’t stop,” she panted, still shaking. “Don’t let me breathe yet.”
He stripped her completely afterward, pulling the damp fabric down her legs. Camila sat up just enough to yank off his pants, desperate, and when she pulled out his cock, she seized it with both hands without fear, savoring its size, its heat, the throbbing hardness pulsing like a trapped animal. She ran the tip over her lips, her neck, her chest, then took it into her mouth with such voracity that Andrés closed his eyes.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Suck it properly. All of it.”
Camila sucked his cock without delicacy, her long tongue and open throat alternating deep sucks with quick movements of cheek and tongue. She looked at him now and then, defiant, as if she wanted to force him to hold her gaze while she brought him to the edge. Andrés held her head for a moment, without pushing, only guiding the rhythm, and when he felt his balls tighten with sheer anticipation, he lifted her and gently tossed her onto the bed.
Then he positioned himself between her legs.
“Tell me if you want it like this,” he murmured.
“I want all of it,” she replied, opening her legs wider. “Right now.”
He penetrated her slowly at first, not out of tenderness but to savor her. The tip of his cock opened her pussy with hot resistance, then everything gave way at once, swallowing him with a wet, obscene sound that filled the room. Camila bit her lower lip, then dug her nails into his back when he thrust all the way in. Andrés stayed still for a second, feeling her envelop him completely, feeling her squeeze his member from inside with a delicious pressure that nearly made him come immediately.
“Fuck me,” she said, her voice broken. “Don’t just stand there staring at me like an idiot.”
He began thrusting into her with a firm rhythm, hip against hip, striking deeper and deeper. The bed creaked with every rocking motion. Camila’s breasts bounced shamelessly in time with the thrusts, and he lowered one hand to squeeze them, pinching her nipples until she arched and let out a muffled squeal. Then he seized one leg below the knee and lifted it onto his shoulder to open her wider, to drive into her more viciously, and she answered by raising her ass, seeking him, guiding him with hard, commanding, obscene movements.
“That’s it, pretty boy,” she moaned. “Give it to me deeper. I want to feel you all the way up to my throat.”
Andrés denied her nothing. He grabbed her by the waist, shattered the rhythm with dry, bestial thrusts, and Camila began to come again, trapping him with contractions so strong they tore a growl from him with every stroke. Her face changed completely: eyes closed, mouth open, breathing wrecked, breasts reddened by his hands. He bent down to kiss her mouth while continuing to fuck her, and the kiss was as filthy as the rest: saliva, teeth, mingled moans, Camila’s tongue pushing the taste of her own arousal into him.
“You’re driving me crazy,” she said, trembling beneath him. “Keep going. Don’t stop now.”
Then Andrés turned her onto her side, folded her slightly over herself, and entered her from behind again, watching her ass tense and sink with every thrust. The sound of skin striking skin was pure abandon. Camila braced one hand against the headboard and placed the other between her legs, rubbing herself while he filled her from behind, deeper, heavier, until he made her sob with pleasure. He leaned over and bit her shoulder, burying his face in her neck, breathing in that warm smell of sex and salt and perfume already broken down by the heat.
“That’s how I like you,” he told her ear. “Don’t pretend to be decent with me.”
“Never,” she replied, squeezing her pussy tighter around his cock. “Never with you.”
Camila finally came with a low, twisted cry, clutching the sheet as if her life depended on it. Andrés followed almost immediately, feeling the spasm rise from his testicles up through his back, and before he lost himself completely he held her by the hips and filled her with a hot, thick load, pumping his semen inside her while she continued trembling and laughing at once, exhausted, satisfied, invincible. They lay there for a while breathing raggedly, sweaty, sticky, still joined, until she caressed his cheek with insolent tenderness and whispered:
“Now you’ve won the war.”
Afterward, however, time kept asking more of them. In that same room, late into the night, they weren’t satisfied with just once. Camila straddled him and mounted him slowly, guiding his cock with her hand as she lowered herself inch by inch, watching Andrés’s face with a mixture of defiance and hunger. She asked him not to speak, only to hold her, to let her use him however she pleased. He obeyed and gripped her hips, setting the rhythm from below when she began to bounce, faster and faster, her skirt already a wreck and her hair stuck to her sweaty neck. They could hear her panting, her nails scratching his chest, the wet sound of their bodies meeting without respite. Camila came on top of him, convulsing violently, and he held her until he could lower his head and suck her hard nipples, one and then the other, restoring her breath with his mouth.
Later, in the bathroom, with steam fogging the mirror and water sliding down their backs, they tangled together again. Camila braced both hands against the tiled wall, spread her legs, and asked him to enter her once more, this time more slowly, so she could feel him sliding in and out while he filled her until she trembled. Andrés held her waist and struck her pussy from behind with long, resounding thrusts, until she looked at herself in the mirror and saw herself reduced to pure need, her face flushed, her mouth open, her gaze lost. She touched herself, he covered her hand with his, and they both came again, panting against the fogged glass, laughing as if shame didn’t exist.
And when at last they fell silent, Andrés understood that this wasn’t merely a honeymoon release. It was the first time Camila had stopped measuring him, distrusting him, hiding desire beneath pride. She had given in for pure pleasure, yes, but also because she wanted him inside her life with the same intensity with which she wanted him inside her body. From then on, the bed stopped being a border and became an open field: Camila asked for his mouth, his cock, his hands, his ass sometimes, if the mood and her daring found her willing, and Andrés learned to read every one of her breaths as an order. They took turns between tenderness and savagery, affection and vulgarity, the domestic and the animal.
“What do you mean, venture out?” Mateo asked again, his voice still carrying that uncomfortable curiosity that wouldn’t leave him in peace.
Andrés took a long time to answer. Outside, the drizzle continued counting out the early morning. The pages written on the rectangular clock waited patiently for him to decide to open them again. And Mateo, from the kitchen, watched him with the slowness of someone who still hadn’t finished harvesting what he had come to seek.
“That she asked me not to treat her the same way all the time,” Andrés said at last, staring at the ember in the fireplace. “That sometimes she wanted me to grab her hard, pin her against the wall, make her be quiet with her mouth full. That she liked feeling the pressure of my hands around her neck, her breathing broken, the little bit of pain just before pleasure. Love wasn’t enough for her; she wanted hunger too.”
Mateo didn’t answer. He took one last drag and let the smoke rise slowly, as if measuring the exact distance between confession and disaster.