The Bricklayer Who Seduced Me While My Husband Was at Work

I needed to add an extension to the house. My mother had told me about some bricklayers who had finished a job in the house next door and had done impeccable work, so I called them to ask for a quote. The one who came to see me looked nothing like any bricklayer I had dealt with before.

He arrived wearing dark jeans and a pressed white shirt. He smelled of cologne, not sweat or cement. He spoke slowly, in well-constructed sentences, looking me in the eye when he answered. He had to be in his forties. I calculated the estimate quickly and told him yes that same afternoon.

That night my husband laughed when I told him.

—Did you hire him because you thought he was handsome? —he said, pouring himself some wine.

—I hired him because he was clean, polite, and professional —I replied, pretending I didn’t notice the rest.

—Those aren’t criteria for choosing a bricklayer.

—They’re criteria for someone coming into my house every day —I said, and ended the discussion.

But of course, yes, I had hired him for the smile. And for the way he had stood in the doorway, legs apart and hands in his pockets, as if he knew exactly what I was looking at.

His name was Damián. The helper was Reinaldo, an older man, around his late fifties, with a dry sense of humor and jokes that made you laugh whether you wanted to or not. The two of them made a good team. The work progressed well, with no delays, no dust where there shouldn’t have been any, no radio blasting at full volume. Damián seemed to run everything with a calm I had never seen in any laborer before.

He arrived punctually every morning. At eight I opened the door for him and he greeted me with that broad smile, his hand lifting slowly, his eyes shining a little more than necessary.

—How are you today?

He said it in a tone you don’t use when greeting a client. He said it as if he truly wanted to know, as if my answer mattered more than the thermos I was about to prepare for him. I answered him with whatever came to mind, smiling, and he would keep looking at me a second too long before heading out to the patio. A second in which his eyes dropped from mine to my mouth, and from my mouth to my cleavage, and then back up without any hurry.

I would prepare a thermos of hot water for the mate. Then I’d go back to my things: organizing the house, doing the shopping, taking the kids to school. At midday my children ate and then went off to afternoon classes, and I was left alone in the house with Damián and Reinaldo until five.

I had gotten used to snooping. I would go downstairs for any excuse: a glass of water, some cookies, a question about the plaster. Damián always stopped what he was doing, wiped his hands on his pants, and explained patiently. Sometimes I asked him the same question two days in a row. He never pointed it out. But he took off his T-shirt when it was hot, and I learned to go down to the patio right when the sun was strongest. He had a broad chest, a flat stomach, a strip of dark hair running down from his navel and disappearing under his pants. I stared at that strip just long enough for him to notice.

One afternoon, while I was bringing him a fresh thermos, I found out he was married. Reinaldo let it slip in passing, a joke about Damián’s wife that barely got half the laugh it deserved. Damián changed the subject quickly. Later, when we were alone, he told me in a low voice:

—We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for years. It’s the only thing we still have in common, that house.

I didn’t know what to say. I nodded, poured him some water, and went upstairs. That night, in bed, I turned my back to my husband without really knowing why. I felt my husband’s hand search for my hip, drowsy, with that habitual gesture that no longer meant anything, and I pretended to be asleep. When I heard him snoring, I slipped a hand between my legs and found I had been wet long before getting into bed. I touched myself slowly, clenching my teeth so as not to make a sound, and thought of the strip of dark hair running down Damián’s belly under his pants. I came in silence, biting my lip, with my husband snoring twenty centimeters away.

***

The work had already been going for three weeks when it happened.

That morning Damián arrived silent. He didn’t greet me with his usual smile. He barely looked at me when he thanked me for the thermos. I asked if he was okay and he told me no, that he had a toothache that had kept him awake for two nights.

—Go home —I told him—. There’s no point in you being here if you can’t work.

—I have to finish the plaster at the back. If I leave it for today, I ruin my whole week.

—I’ll pay you for the day. Go on.

He shook his head and went back to the patio. I offered him a painkiller; he took it without looking at me. An hour later, Reinaldo came into the kitchen without knocking.

—Ma’am, Damián’s not well. He’s lain down on the roof. He doesn’t want to come down.

I climbed the stairs the opposite way I usually do, almost running. I found him lying on his back on the corrugated sheets, one arm across his forehead. I knelt at the edge of the stairs and spoke to him.

—Damián, come down. You can’t stay up there.

—I’m fine.

—You’re not fine. Come down. My son’s room has a made bed. Lie down there until it passes.

—I don’t want to be a nuisance.

—You’re not bothering me. Come down.

It took him a while. He came down slowly, holding the railing as if his whole body weighed too much. I led him down the hallway to my son’s room, gestured to the bed, and stood in the doorway while he sat down.

—Lie down —I told him—. I’m going to lower the blinds.

I lowered the blind and the room fell into dimness. When I turned to leave, he called me.

—Wait.

I turned. He had a hand stretched toward me, his eyes narrowed but fixed on mine. I stepped closer to the bed. I took his hand without thinking, the way you take a sick person’s hand.

—Do you need anything else?

He gave a gentle tug. It wasn’t really a tug, more like an invitation. But I took the step. I found myself standing at the edge of the bed, looking down at him, still holding his hand.

—Thank you —he said, and the word came out hoarse.

—It’s nothing.

I wanted to pull away. He tightened his fingers around mine.

—Stay a while. Until it passes.

I sat on the edge of the bed. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, with Damián’s hand between mine, listening to his breathing. The room smelled of the cologne he always wore. The bed was narrow, my son’s, with blue checkered sheets.

The first caress reached me on the thigh, over my pants. It was a brush of knuckles, almost an accident. I didn’t move. The second came with an open palm and went a little higher, to the crease where the thigh meets the hip. I closed my eyes. The third reached my waist, under my blouse, over the skin. His fingers burned me. I felt the callus of his thumb scrape a mole I have there, and that tiny friction strangled a moan in my throat.

***

I felt a current run down my spine. It was a sensation I didn’t remember having in a long time, that electric, slightly shameful thing that makes you realize your body has been on pause for years. I didn’t open my eyes. I thought that if I opened them, something would break, and I didn’t want it to break.

Damián’s hand didn’t stop. It rose to just under my bra and there it lingered, feeling the fabric, finding the edge. Then he slipped his fingers beneath the underwire, found my nipple with his thumb, and pinched it slowly. I arched without meaning to. I arched against his hand as if my body remembered something my mind had forgotten.

—Come here —he told me.

Damián sat up slowly. He grabbed my waist with both hands and pulled me toward him. I let myself be guided. I fell onto him, onto his chest, and he held me there for a second before kissing me.

He had a mustache. It was the one thing about him I had never liked, that strip of hair above his lip that seemed out of place. But when he kissed me I discovered the mustache rasped in a way I had never known. It scraped my lip, my chin, then my neck when he moved downward. It was a new roughness, rough and soft at the same time, leaving my skin on fire. He slid his tongue into my mouth without asking, thick, hot, searching for mine and winding around it. I sucked on it as if someone else were sucking on me. I felt the moan rise from his chest.

He pulled my blouse off with one hand, no permission asked. He lowered my bra, freeing my breasts, and latched onto one. His mouth was hot, his tongue rough, and the mustache scraped my nipple every time he moved his head. That friction left me unable to think of anything but what came next. He sucked hard, took the whole nipple into his mouth and bit it gently, and I felt the other one harden on its own, jealous. He switched. He did the other side. He licked the hollow between my breasts, moved up my sternum, went back to my neck. I gripped his head with both hands. I ran my fingers through his hair. I told him without a sound not to stop.

—You’re beautiful —he said against my skin—. I haven’t been able to think about anything else for three weeks.

—Shut up.

—It’s true.

—Shut up and keep going.

Damián’s hands were large and rough. They had tool calluses, reddened knuckles, hard palms. My husband has fine office hands, hands that sign papers. Damián’s were hands that lifted cement bags. They passed over my skin and left a mark the others never had. He unbuttoned my pants with two fingers. He slid his hand under my panties and found me soaked. He laughed softly against my ear.

—You’re drenched.

—I know.

—For long?

—Shut up.

He opened me with two fingers. One slid in slowly, probing, finding the rhythm. Then the second. He fucked me with those two rough fingers while his thumb stroked my clit, and I had to bite his shoulder to keep from screaming. His fingers filled me in a way my husband’s hadn’t in years. He curled the pads inward, searched for a spot, and when he found it he made my whole body shudder.

—There —I told him, and didn’t recognize my own voice—. There, don’t stop.

He didn’t stop. He made me come like that, with his fingers inside me and his thumb above, while I bit his shoulder and he watched my face from very close, not missing a single expression. I felt the orgasm rise from my thighs to my throat, trembling, shaking me against his hand. I collapsed for a second, my head resting against his neck.

—That’s the first one —he told me.

I sat on top of him to take off my pants. I yanked them down, panties still inside them, and ended up naked on top of him. Damián unbuttoned his own. What appeared there wasn’t a surprise, it was confirmation: he was hard, thick, ready long before. His cock stood up against his stomach, thick, with a pronounced vein running down the side, the head swollen and shiny. I took it in my hand, measured it without saying it, brought it closer. I ran my thumb over the tip and drew a short groan from him.

—Wait —he said, his voice broken.

—What?

—Are you sure?

I looked at him. His face was flushed, his hair mussed, and the toothache seemed to have evaporated. I wanted to laugh.

—If you ask me again, I’ll get off and throw you out of the bed.

He laughed. It was a short, hoarse laugh. Then he grabbed my waist and lowered me onto him.

***

I felt him enter slowly. He filled me completely. I had to stop, brace my hands on his chest, and wait for my body to adjust to something it had never taken in that way before. His cock went in centimeter by centimeter, opening me, and I felt every one of those centimeters. When I was fully seated, my ass pressed against his thighs, it felt as if I had him inside me all the way to my throat. Damián didn’t move. He looked up at me, lips parted, waiting for me to decide.

—My God —I said.

—Are you okay?

—Shut up.

I started to move. Slowly at first, almost testing it. I lifted until only the tip was inside me and then dropped back down in one thrust. Damián let out a growl. He dug his hands into my hips. I repeated the motion. Then I found my own rhythm, one I hadn’t allowed myself in years with my husband, where positions were always more or less predetermined. I rode up and down on Damián, let him slip almost all the way out and then slammed back down. My thighs trembled with the effort. I felt his cock pounding inside me, in a place I hadn’t known I had. He groaned low, teeth clenched, hands fixed to my hips guiding me, marking the beat when I lost it.

—Like that —I told him—. Like that, don’t stop.

—I’m not stopping.

I leaned forward. I pressed my breasts against his face and he sucked them while I rode him. My son’s bed creaked beneath us, a rhythmic creak slipping in between our breaths. Between thrusts I thought that downstairs Reinaldo had to be hearing us. And instead of frightening me, the idea tightened everything inside me and drew a moan from Damián.

—You clenched —he said—. What are you thinking about?

—That Reinaldo can hear us.

—He likes it.

—Damián.

—He likes it —he repeated—. Move.

Within a few minutes we changed positions. He put me on my back, spread my legs with his elbows and entered again, this time in charge. He fucked me slowly, without hurry, watching my face each time he slid back in. His cock went in all the way, to the bottom, and when he pulled out I stayed empty and desperate, waiting for the next one. I couldn’t hold his gaze. My head fell back against my son’s pillow, my eyes closed, my hands searching for something to hold onto. I grabbed his ass with both hands and pushed him against me, so he would never come out again.

—Look at me —he said.

I looked at him. The veins in his neck were standing out and a bead of sweat was running down his temple. The room was dim, but I could still see him clearly, over me, propped on his arms so as not to crush me.

—Harder —I asked, and my voice came from a place I hadn’t reached in a long time.

He obeyed. He started fucking me hard, without care, the bed hitting the wall with every thrust. He grabbed one leg and threw it over his shoulder. In that position he got even deeper, and I felt a scream slip out of me, which I smothered against the sheet. He covered my mouth with his hand.

—Sssh —he said, without stopping—. Reinaldo.

I bit his palm. I licked his palm. I sucked it.

—Whore —he told me softly, with a smile I didn’t see but could hear in his voice—. You’re a whore.

—Yes.

—Say it.

—I’m a whore.

—Again.

—I’m your whore.

He went crazy. He thrust so hard the headboard hit the wall twice. He took my leg off his shoulder, flipped me face down, lifted my ass until I was on my knees. He shoved his cock into me from behind with his eyes closed, gripping my hips, and there he lost the rhythm and turned into something animal. I buried my face in the pillow and let him fuck me. I felt his cock slam against my deepest point, felt his heavy balls hit my clit with every thrust, felt his hands leaving marks on my hips that would be hard to explain later.

—I’m about to come —he told me.

—Inside.

—Are you sure?

—I said inside.

He slipped a hand underneath me and found my clit. He rubbed it in circles, never stopping his thrusts, and I came a second time on his cock, clenching around him, biting my arm so I wouldn’t howl. He held on a few seconds longer and then sank all the way in and stayed there. I felt his cock pulse inside me and the hot stream surge through me, long, in waves. He emptied himself completely. Every throb of his cock against my walls sent a shiver through me.

***

When he finished, he collapsed beside me on the narrow bed. The two of us barely fit. We ended up pressed together, sweaty, breathing the same stale air in the closed room. I felt the semen slowly running down between my thighs and did nothing to clean it off.

We didn’t speak for a long while. I could hear Reinaldo downstairs in the patio, hitting something with a hammer. Each blow reached me with a different sensation. That he had no idea what was happening one floor above —or that he did, and was making noise on purpose, covering for us. That I had just changed something in my life and still didn’t know what.

Damián ran a finger along the side of my face. He traced it down my neck, between my breasts, and rested his palm on my stomach.

—And the toothache? —I asked, without looking at him.

—It went away.

—Liar.

—A little liar.

I laughed. I laughed in my son’s room, naked, beside a man I had barely exchanged three words with that morning, with the man’s semen running between my legs and the blue checkered sheets soaked beneath me. Then I sat up on the bed, found my blouse on the floor, and put it on backward.

—You have to get back to work —I told him—. If Reinaldo comes up and sees us, the job’s over.

—Reinaldo isn’t going to come up.

—How do you know?

He looked at me. Smiled to one side.

—Because he knows.

***

That night, when my husband asked how the day had gone, I told him fine. That the work was moving along. That the bricklayer had had a toothache but was feeling better now. My husband nodded without listening, pouring himself more wine, watching television.

I went up to my son’s room to get something. I straightened the sheets. I smelled them. They smelled of Damián’s cologne, of the two of us sweating, of semen. I changed them before going back down and shoved them in the bottom of the laundry basket, underneath everything else. I took a long shower. Under the water, when I ran my hand between my legs, a warm thread still came out. I pressed myself against the tiles and touched myself again, thinking of Damián, and came once more with my mouth open against the mosaic.

That night, in bed, I was the one who turned my back to my husband, but this time I did know why.

The next morning Damián arrived on time. He greeted me with his usual smile, his hand lifting slowly.

—How are you today?

I answered him with whatever came to mind, smiling. He kept looking at me a second too long before heading out to the patio.

While I prepared the thermos, I thought about talking to an architect about a second extension. The back room needed a new bathroom. And the laundry-room roof, now that I thought about it, was starting to give way too.