That Strange Man Arrived the Night She Left Me

The corn was popping inside the skillet with a nervous rhythm, identical to the one Esteban had carried in his chest since dawn. Every toasted kernel tapped against the glass lid and reminded him that Camila Rocío had left, and that the stranger stirring slices of salchichón on the other burner was all he had on hand to keep from falling apart.

They were not friends. Federico had shown up at the door two hours earlier, with a polite greeting and a name that did not appear in any address book. He said he was a friend of Camila’s, from back in school, one of those old acquaintances who resurface when no one remembers them anymore. Esteban let him in because loneliness weighed more than caution, and because something in his tone promised answers he would not know how to seek on his own.

While Federico watched over the skillet, Esteban took advantage of the moment to go over the few certainties he had left. His wife’s infidelity had not given him time to react. She had confessed it in the middle of birthday dinner, in front of guests who pretended to look at the tablecloth, and half an hour later she had stormed out with two suitcases and a badly pronounced apology. He was turning thirty-six that night. Not the kind of age one wants to remember.

—Shall I get you a Coca-Cola, Federico? —he asked from the refrigerator.

—A really cold one would be wonderful, Esteban. Thank you very much.

When he bent down, he heard the crinkle of the paper bundle in his back pocket. It was the sheets Camila had torn from her diary before leaving. She had left them on the pillow, folded in four, with a short note: “read them when you’re alone.” He was not alone, but curiosity was no longer bearable. He unfolded them right there, crouched down, hidden by the open refrigerator door.

—Do you need help with anything? —Federico said from the other corner.

—I’m checking the expiration dates —he lied, and slid the first fold open to catch at least a fragment.

“May twelfth, two thousand twenty-five. Dear diary: it’s almost midnight in Cartagena. Tomorrow we fly to Medellín and my husband is going to receive me with balloons and cake and all his usual love. I haven’t been able to sleep. When the candles go out I’m going to tell him what I’ve been keeping to myself for months. I hope I don’t break before then.”

Esteban felt a chill at the nape of his neck. Federico was humming a bolero in the background, oblivious —or pretending to be oblivious— to the small tremor in his hands. He moved on to the second paragraph.

“Tell me, my paper, where do I begin? With the other person who also seems to love me? With my betrayal over the last few months? With all the years when I was the perfect wife of a perfect man? Esteban doesn’t deserve any of this, and yet I’m incapable of staying. Three hours ago that other man had me face-down on the hotel bed, my ass in the air and his fingers buried all the way inside my cunt, ordering me to beg him to fuck me. And I begged him, my paper. I asked him with my mouth open against the pillow, with drool running down my chin, with my ass lifted and my knees spread like a bitch in heat. When he shoved his cock all the way in, I screamed so loud the lady in the next room banged on the wall. And I came twice before he finished inside me. I have to do it. I have to leave. Fear is eating my legs.”

He folded the pages with the same haste with which one hides a knife. When he straightened up, Federico was already in the kitchen doorway, Camila’s flowered apron tied over his shirt and a smile that could not quite decide whether it was cordial or sly.

—The salchichón’s ready. Do you want me to help serve, or would you rather set the table?

—You serve it —Esteban replied—. I’ll bring the drinks.

***

They ate the improvised snack in silence, seated diagonally, like two chess players who do not want to reveal the first move. It was Federico who broke the air.

—Excuse the nosiness, man, but what were you reading before? I saw you hide something in your pocket.

Esteban answered without blinking, with the calm of a man who knows he is being watched and invents a partial truth.

—Your friend’s birthday present. A few pages from her diary. I’m going to read them later, in private, if you don’t mind.

—Of course, not at all —Federico replied, and brought a slice to his mouth with the calm of someone who already got the information he came for.

They finished the plate without returning to the subject. When Esteban insisted on washing the dishes, Federico stood and walked to the living room, drawn by the old oak record player. It was a piece inherited from Esteban’s father, one of those they no longer make, and beside it the vinyl records Camila had not managed to take with her were piling up: his, the ones she had always dismissed as noisy or melancholic.

Federico pulled out a double album with a white-and-gold cover.

—Do you mind if I put on some music?

—Go ahead. Whatever you want.

He chose a Michael Jackson album. When the needle hit the groove, a ballad began to fill the room with a slow rhythm, almost like a farewell. Federico closed his eyes for a second, as if the song had a private meaning for him, and only then did he look back at the host.

—Do you have rancheras too?

—Some. My father loved them. Does Marco Antonio Solís ring a bell? José Alfredo?

—Either one. Although, if by any chance you had a Los Bukis album…

—Hmmm. I think so, down there, to your left.

Federico bent down. Esteban took the chance to pour two glasses: aguardiente for himself, vodka on the rocks for his guest. He had learned his preference in fifteen minutes, which struck him as odd because people usually do not announce what they drink unless asked. Federico had blurted it out as soon as he came in. “Vodka, if you have it.” As though repeating an order long since worn out.

He changed the vinyl and chose a song Esteban recognized before the first line was over. “Y si ya no te vuelvo a ver,” by Los Bukis. One of the songs Camila used to play when they were fighting and she wanted to ask for a truce without saying it. The coincidence seemed too precise to be chance.

—I hope it doesn’t bother you —Federico said, pouring himself more vodka—. I chose the song for me. A very special person dedicated it to me years ago.

—How curious. Someone dedicated it to me too, once.

Esteban said it without looking up, stirring the ice in his glass, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Federico lower his chin for a second. It was not much. A blink a little too long. Enough to confirm the suspicion that had been circling him ever since the other man opened his mouth.

***

He lit his pipe. Federico accepted a cigarette. The conversation drifted toward her, as it always does when two men drink in a house where a woman has just passed through.

—And what do you expect to find in those papers, Esteban? A chance to reconcile?

—I don’t know. Maybe the name of the guy she left with. Maybe a proper goodbye. Maybe nothing.

—It would be naive to think she wrote down the lover’s name —the lover’s name… he corrected himself, and the correction came too late, like a shot that has already ricocheted off the ceiling.

—I think the same. Camila isn’t careless. But sometimes, when a woman writes at three in the morning, details slip out that she wouldn’t want to give away. The handwriting changes, nicknames creep in, places appear. It’s a matter of reading slowly.

Federico drank. The vodka went down hard. He sought refuge in his cigarette and, when he exhaled, tried to throw the ball back.

—Tell me about her, man. What was she like when you met her? If you want, of course. Might help you get it out.

—Not much to it. But I’ll tell you. She was unbearable. Beautiful and unbearable, both things in equal measure. I offended her out of habit. I answered in kind. It took us almost two years to admit we loved each other. And another twelve to learn how to be happy.

—And after that?

—After that is the part you already know. Or don’t you?

Esteban looked at him with the calm given by the second glass of aguardiente. Federico looked away toward the painting on the wall, where Antonia, the daughter of the house, smiled at eight years old in a pirate costume. He drew a breath, weighing whether to keep lying or change the song.

—I separated from Lorena three years ago —he said at last—. I know a bit of what you’re going through.

—How curious. Camila never mentioned that. And my wife talked about all her friends as if they were family.

Federico bit the inside of his cheek. He knocked back the glass and stood as if he needed an excuse to flee Esteban’s blue gaze. He changed the vinyl. This time he chose a Wham! album, Make It Big, and then Esteban knew for certain that the man was no old school friend.

Camila had bought that record for Esteban’s twenty-third birthday. It had a dedication written in her rounded handwriting on the back cover: “from your little cinnamon bundle, with all my love.” Only two people in the world knew that nickname. Esteban and her. And now, apparently, a third.

—Do you like this album? —he asked, letting it spin without touching it—. Do you know the songs?

—By heart —Federico answered, distracted, reading the back cover—. “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Everything She Wants,” “Careless Whisper”...

—My wife gave it to me when we were dating. She said she wanted me to let my hair grow, like the singer. I’ve kept it in perfect condition. Look at the dedication on the back.

Esteban watched him turn the cardboard sleeve. Watched him run his thumb over the ink. Watched him hold his breath half a second longer than was prudent. Federico lifted his head with a new smile, mask gone, almost like sports defeat.

—Nice handwriting.

—Yes. Nice. And unique.

***

Federico’s phone began ringing on the patio table with a personalized melody, a cheesy ballad Esteban recognized immediately: it was the one that had played at his wedding. Camila had chosen it. Federico froze.

—Aren’t you going to answer? —Esteban asked, pouring himself another aguardiente—. It could be important.

—I imagine who it is.

—Well then, answer. Meanwhile, I’ll put something else on. Something more in line with the conversation we still have pending.

He pulled an old Louis Armstrong album from the stack and dropped the needle on side two. “Someday You’ll Be Sorry” began to play while Federico stepped out onto the patio with the phone pressed to his ear, avoiding his host’s gaze. Esteban followed him discreetly to the doorway. He caught two words from him and a voice on the other end, contained, pleading. He did not know if it was her. He wanted to believe it wasn’t. He knew it was.

He took advantage of the pause to lock himself in the laundry room, where Mishka, Camila’s cat, had spent the whole afternoon meowing at the garden door. He bent down to stroke her. She purred for a second and went back to her bowl, where she sniffed but did not taste anything. Esteban unfolded the papers from his pocket, turned over the first page he had already read, and let his eyes fall on the second, dated one day later.

What the first line said made him drop the paper onto the washing machine.

Federico. Of course it had to be Federico.

Federico, who approached me at the gallery vernissage and told me, in that smoker’s voice of his, that he had spent half an hour staring at my tits over his champagne glass. Federico, who came up behind me in the bathroom corridor and slipped his hand under my skirt before I could decide whether to be offended or let him. His fingers sank into my wet panties and he whispered in my ear: “I knew it already, I knew you were soaked, you can tell from the way you walk.” He pinned me against the wall, pulled my skirt up to my waist, knelt right there in a hallway where anyone could have walked by, and ate my cunt with his whole tongue, with his lips, with his teeth brushing my clit until my legs gave out. I came with my hand clamped over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream, and he stood up with his beard shining with my juices and told me, without smiling: “I’ll wait for you at the Estelar Hotel in twenty minutes.”

And I went, my paper. I went like a madwoman. I rode the elevator with my cunt throbbing and my panties turned into soup. When he opened the room door, his cock was already outlined against his pants and I knelt before he said a word. I opened his belt with my teeth. I took it out and shoved it into my mouth all the way to the throat, so far back my eyes filled with tears and drool ran down my tits. He grabbed my hair with both hands and fucked my mouth at his own pace, using me like I was a toy, saying, “that’s it, slut, that’s it, deeper.” And I liked it. I liked the way he treated me, and that’s the part I can’t forgive myself for, the part I can’t confess to Esteban even if I kneel for twelve years.

He threw me on the bed. He ripped my panties off in one pull, literally, I heard the elastic snap. He spread my legs wide open and stared at my cunt for a whole minute, without touching me, just looking at me, and I twisted around begging him with my hips. When he finally shoved his cock inside, he did it in one thrust, all the way in, until I felt it knock against my womb, and he covered my mouth with his hand because I was howling. He fucked me for forty minutes without stopping. On all fours, then on my back with my legs over his shoulders, then against the window with the glass pressed to my tits and the whole city below, and in the end sitting on top of him, bouncing on his cock, clutching his neck, biting his shoulder so as not to wake the hotel. I came three times. Three. In fourteen years with Esteban I had never come three times in a single night. And he came inside me, without asking, without a condom, and I lay there feeling his semen drip between my thighs, and instead of being disgusted I felt a filthy, sad pleasure that made me cry softly against his chest.

Then came eight months of the same thing. Different rooms, same hunger. Federico learned to read my body in a way Esteban never did. He knows where to touch me so I come in two minutes, he knows when to squeeze my throat and how hard, he knows how to take me in the ass patiently until I beg him for it, he knows how to fuck me in front of the mirror, making me look at my own face while I’m having an orgasm. And I, meanwhile, went back home, showered, put on the pajamas Esteban gave me for Christmas, and made love to my husband while thinking about another man’s cock. I’m miserable, my paper. Write it for me, because I’m no longer trembling with shame, only with desire.

Outside, the voice was still speaking softly on the patio. The cat, indifferent, curled around his feet. And Louis Armstrong, not knowing what he was narrating, announced that someday that man was going to be sorry.