The Adventure That Began with a Breakfast and a Red Rose

We had been living in that neighborhood for barely two months when we found the restaurant. One Sunday with no fixed plan, looking for somewhere to have breakfast with my husband and the kids, we passed in front of a small place with blue-checkered tablecloths and the smell of freshly ground coffee. We went in almost by chance. We left with full stomachs and with every intention of coming back.

The following Sunday we returned. And the one after that too.

On the second visit he came over to introduce himself. His name was Andrés; he was the owner. In his forties, dark-haired, with big hands and that slow, measured way of speaking that makes you pay attention without really knowing why. That day he brought us a courtesy at the table —a little plate of fruit and sweet bread nobody had ordered— and told us he was glad to see we were coming back.

My husband thanked him with his usual politeness. The kids didn’t even look up from their phones. I told him the coffee was very good.

Andrés held my gaze a second longer than necessary before excusing himself.

In the weeks that followed, I began to notice things. How, from the back of the dining room, his eyes would seek out mine just when my husband looked away. How he always found a way to come over and talk, even though the conversation was really for me. The Sunday I showed up in a sleeveless dress because it was hot, he took longer to greet my husband and greeted me first, as if he hadn’t decided to do it that way but had simply let it happen.

When he said goodbye, he did it with a kiss on the cheek. Always with me. To my husband he extended his hand.

I let it pass without giving it a name. I told myself any woman notices these things, that that’s how the world is made and I was no different from anyone else. But the truth, the one I didn’t say out loud, was that on Sundays I cared what I wore. And that more than once at night, with my husband snoring beside me, I put my hand between my legs thinking about Andrés’s big hands and how he kept staring at my tits when he thought I couldn’t see him.

***

The Thursday that changed everything started like any other day off. My husband was away on a work trip. The kids got home late from school. Adela, who comes to clean on Wednesdays, wasn’t coming that day. The house was mine from nine in the morning until seven at night.

I showered at my own pace, with hot water and without looking at the clock. I dried my hair slowly. I rubbed cream on my legs, my shoulders, my neck, for longer than the situation required. And when I opened the dresser drawer, I found between the nightstand papers the little card with the restaurant’s logo —the courtesy Andrés had given us on the first day— and something in my head made a decision before I gave it permission.

I’m only going to go see him. To kill some time. That’s all.

I took out the dark miniskirt, the one that comes halfway down the thigh and makes your legs look longer than they are. A pair of black low-heeled but substantial shoes. A chiffon blouse with an open weave that lets you guess what’s underneath. I stood in front of the lingerie drawer longer than any innocent decision needs. In the end I chose a red lace thong I kept for occasions that never quite arrived.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror before leaving. I turned halfway around. I liked what I saw. I slid my hand under the skirt and touched myself over the lace. I was already wet. I laughed to myself.

I left the house telling myself I was going to have breakfast. Just that.

***

I got to the restaurant around eleven-fifteen. A Thursday in the middle of the week, only a few tables occupied, the calm light of morning. I went in, looked toward the bar, toward the register, toward the back of the dining room. I didn’t see him. I sat at a table by the window and waited.

Ten minutes passed without anyone coming over. The place kept its slow, working-day rhythm. I started to think it had been a stupid idea, that maybe he didn’t work Thursdays, that I was going to have to order breakfast like any normal person and go home with my heels and lace thong without having done anything I hadn’t planned to do.

Then a waiter appeared with a tray. He put exactly what I always ordered on the table: green chilaquiles, black coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice. In the center, carefully placed, he set a thin vase with a red rose.

I just stared at it.

—From Mr. Andrés —the waiter said, and left before I could answer.

I was still taking that in when I saw him coming from the back of the place. Unhurried, hands in his pockets, with that way of walking that takes up exactly the space it needs and no more. He sat down in front of me without asking permission.

—Ah, it was you —he said.

—What do you mean, “it was you”? My order got here before I even placed it.

—I recognized you on the cameras as soon as you walked in. But the waiter had already left with the tray and I couldn’t stop him.

—And the rose?

He smiled. The smile of someone who has an answer for everything and knows that it’s irritating and, at the same time, not entirely irritating.

—That gets sent when I’ve confirmed the hypothesis.

—What hypothesis?

He leaned back a little in the chair, crossed his arms calmly.

—Women who order what you order always... I like them very much. When I see that order on the ticket, I start doing my calculations from the camera room.

I looked him straight in the eye.

—That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a long time.

—Could be. But here you are.

I ate breakfast slowly. We talked about unimportant things —how long I’d lived in the neighborhood, whether the kids had already settled into the new school, how he’d started out with the restaurant— but under the conversation something completely different was happening and we both knew it. At some point he came closer under the pretext of hearing something I was saying and put his hand on my knee, barely brushing it with his fingers.

Then he leaned toward my ear and said, almost in a whisper:

—Can I tell you something?

—Depends —I answered, glad my voice sounded calmer than I felt.

—I have a control room upstairs. With cameras all over the place. That’s where I make my hypotheses.

He slowly took his hand away. The whole palm, firmly placed, sliding from my knee to the top of my thigh, so high that his fingers brushed the lace of my thong under my skirt. He stopped there for an instant, pressed just a little with the pad of his middle finger against the fabric and felt how soaked I was. He looked me in the eye without taking his hand away.

—Just look at that —he said softly—. And I still haven’t touched you.

I felt the heat rise all the way to my neck. I felt other things too. A pulse between my legs that synced with the pounding in my temples.

—I don’t think there’s any camera room —I said, my voice already broken.

He got up. He held out his hand.

—Come.

***

We went up a narrow stairway behind the women’s restroom. We crossed a hallway with soda boxes stacked to the ceiling and reached a door with no sign and no number. Inside was a small, cool room, with a swivel chair and a table with four monitors divided into quadrants. You could see the restaurant entrance, the register, the bar, the outdoor terrace.

—There’s your table —he said, pointing at one of the screens.

I saw the table by the window. The vase. The empty cup.

I heard the click of the door closing behind me.

Before I could turn around I felt his hands on my waist, firm but unhurried, and his mouth on the side of my neck. A long, slow kiss, lips parted, that went down gradually to my collarbone. With one hand he yanked my skirt up to my hip and left it there, bunched up, with my ass and red lace exposed in front of the monitors. With the other he found the bra clasp under my blouse and undid it in one motion.

—Look at yourself on the screen —he told me in my ear, and took my chin to make me lift my face toward the dark monitor reflecting the room like a black mirror—. Look at your face.

I turned and kissed him first. It was a dirty kiss, tongue in from the first second, biting each other’s lips. I shoved my hand between his legs over his pants and felt how hard he was. I squeezed him through the fabric and he let out a sharp breath.

—Take it out —I told him. I didn’t recognize my own voice.

He loosened his belt and pulled his pants down to mid-thigh. His cock sprang out thick, hard, the head glossy. I grabbed it with my right hand and started stroking it slowly, looking him in the eyes. I worked him up and down, squeezing at the base, twisting my wrist at the tip, spitting into my palm so it would slide better. Andrés was breathing through an open mouth.

—Get on your knees —I said.

—No —he replied, and grabbed my hair with his open hand at the nape of my neck—. You first.

He pushed me down firmly but not roughly and I knelt in front of him, with my skirt still bunched up and my tits half loose inside the blouse. I grabbed his cock again with my hand and took it into my mouth without ceremony. I sucked it all the way, tightening my lips on the shaft, letting it hit the back of my throat every two or three thrusts. I licked from his balls to the tip, very slowly, looking up at him from below. I spit on it and took it back in. I sucked his cock hungry, with both hands on his thighs, and every so often I pulled it out of my mouth and slapped the head against my cheek, my lips, my chin, leaving it shining with my saliva.

—Like that, like that —he gasped—. You suck it so well, fuck.

I left one hand on his balls and with the other kept jerking him while I sucked only the tip, flicking my tongue against the frenulum. I felt his belly start to tremble a little and he pulled it out himself by yanking my hair.

—Not yet —he said—. I’m not ready to come yet.

He hauled me up off the floor by the underarms. He turned me toward the table with the monitors and bent me over it, with my chest pressed against the cold surface and my ass out. He pulled my red lace thong down to my knees. He stood there for a second looking at me from behind.

—Just look at how soaked you are —he said, and I felt two of his fingers push all the way into my cunt in a single thrust.

I screamed into my arm. He fucked me with his fingers hard, in a steady rhythm, making a wet, obscene sound that filled the camera room. With his thumb he pressed my clit every time he thrust, and with the other hand he held my neck against the table. I lifted my face and caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the glass of a monitor: mouth open, hair a mess, gaze gone.

—Please —I said, and I didn’t even know what I was asking for—. Please.

He pulled his fingers out and ran them over my lips. He opened my mouth with two fingers wet from my own slick and slid the other two inside. I sucked my cunt off his fingers while he crouched behind me and spread my ass cheeks with both hands.

His tongue found my cunt from behind first. He licked me all over, from bottom to top, with his tongue flat, leaving nothing out. He went after the clit, sucking it with his lips pressed tight as if he were trying to pull something out of me, and every so often he slid his tongue up to the other hole and circled that too. I pressed myself against his face, pushing my ass back, with no shame at all. The first orgasm hit me like that, my face crushed against the table and his tongue inside me, and I let out a rough cry that drowned in my own arm.

I stayed trembling for a few seconds, my legs still weak. He straightened up behind me, wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and took hold of his cock at the base.

—You still haven’t paid for breakfast in full —he said, and set the head at the entrance to my cunt.

He drove in in one thrust, all the way, and I felt him knock the breath out of me. He stayed still for a second, all the way inside, letting me feel every inch.

—Fuck —he muttered—. You’re so tight.

He started fucking me against the camera table. At first slow, with deep, long thrusts, pulling almost all the way out and then sinking back in slowly. Then he picked up the pace. He grabbed my hips with both hands and pushed me toward him every time he came in. His balls slapped my clit with each thrust. The chiffon blouse got caught on one elbow, my tits hanging and bouncing against the cold surface of the table every time he rammed into me.

—Look at yourself —he said, and yanked my hair back to lift my face—. Look at how the lady of the house lets the restaurant owner fuck her.

—Keep going, don’t stop —I begged him, barely—. Harder.

He drove it in with all his hip. Then he pulled out, spun me around in one yank, and sat me on the edge of the table. He spread my legs with both hands, stepped between them, and shoved back in. Now I could see him. I could look at his face while he fucked me. He grabbed one breast in his hand and with the other he pressed my throat very gently, just enough for me to feel he was there. I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my heels into his ass every time he thrust.

He lifted me by the hips with ease and carried me to a dark leather sofa in the corner. He laid me back there. He pulled my thong all the way off. He folded it with a calm that struck me as a little provocative, and hung it from his right wrist as if it were a watch.

He got on top of me without hurry, found the right angle, and slid in again slowly.

The rhythm he kept was calculated. Fast just long enough to make me lose track, then slow until I went crazy, then fast again. He drove it to the hilt and stayed inside, moving his hips in circles, letting me feel him throbbing inside me. Then he came out almost all the way, left only the tip resting against the lips of my cunt and made me wait, looking me in the eye, until I pushed my hips up looking for him. And then he slammed back in. Minutes passed and I was on the edge the whole time without quite falling over. I knew right away it was deliberate, that he knew exactly what he was doing.

He put me on my side, with one leg over his shoulder, and from there he pushed deeper. The other leg got trapped under him. I could feel his cock striking a spot that made my knees shake. He sucked my fingers and pressed my clit with the tip of his finger, circling it just a little at the same time he fucked me.

—Come —he whispered in my ear—. Come on my cock.

When I could take no more, he came out of me, lowered himself again between my legs, and finished with his mouth what he had started. He ate me out hungrily, sucking my swollen clit with his lips tight, while he slid three fingers in and curved them inside, searching for that exact spot. The orgasm came from my feet, climbed up my back, shook me whole, and took a while to leave. I screamed without caring if it could be heard downstairs. I pressed his head against my cunt with both hands and got his face wet.

Andrés wasn’t done. He stood up from the sofa with his cock still hard and shining with my saliva and my slick, stood by my face, and grabbed himself at the base.

—Open your mouth —he said.

I opened it. He stroked himself two, three times in front of me and came in spurts: the first hit inside my mouth, the second splashed my cheek and ran down my chin, the third landed on my tits still loose inside my unbuttoned blouse. At the end he put it in my mouth so I could clean the tip with my tongue. I swallowed what was inside me without taking my eyes off him.

I stayed lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling for a good while, with the taste of him still in my mouth and semen drying on my chest. The hum of the screens was the only sound in the room.

—My thong —I said at last.

He lifted his wrist with a smile. The red lace thong was still hanging there, like a small trophy.

—That was payment for today’s breakfast.

—Breakfast here is pretty expensive.

—It includes every Thursday.

I sat up. I wiped with two fingers what was left on my cheek and sucked them while looking at him. I straightened my blouse over my sticky tits, adjusted my miniskirt, found the heels that had ended up beside the sofa at some point I hadn’t noticed. I looked at myself in the dark reflection of one of the screens that was off. I had the face of another woman.

—We’ll see —I said.

But as I went down the stairs and crossed the dining room toward the exit, with my cheeks still hot, my thighs sticky, and my miniskirt with nothing underneath, I already knew exactly what I was going to do the following Thursday.