The Confession of Infidelity That Brought the Party to a Halt

Two sharp beeps and an orange flash flickered over the fluffy white sweater covering Renata Belén’s neck. On her face, the only thing that could be seen was an uneasy calm, a serenity that did not fit with anything she was about to say.

The mobile camera accidentally framed the upholstered interior of her truck. From the angle of her body, it could be guessed that she was arranging bags in the trunk. She straightened up again, centered her face in the shot, and, unhurriedly, pressed the lock button. The tailgate closed behind her with the slowness of a yawn.

—Everything that’s happening to me… —she said, narrowing her eyes—. Everyone needs to know this!

Under the white canopy in the garden, the couple’s relatives exchanged glances without saying a word. Everyone was looking for Esteban, too still on the platform, frozen in front of the screen where his wife’s face was being projected.

—Just so there’s no confusion, in case anyone wants to start handing out blame: this decision is mine and mine alone. I don’t want Esteban to have to bear dirty looks or suspicions. He didn’t do anything wrong. I allowed all of this!

Renata’s family shook their heads, disbelieving. Beatriz, Esteban’s right-hand woman and business partner, hurried up onto the stage, took him by the forearm, and spoke into his ear.

—Relax, this has to be one of her awful jokes again. She’s probably late and made up this whole show so we’ll forgive her. —But even she didn’t believe her own words, and the tight set of her lips gave her away.

—A few days ago, alone at home, I started tidying up the bedroom and sorting clothes to donate —Renata continued from the screen—. And then, in the darkest, dustiest corner of the closet, I found our photo albums.

As I dusted them off, an old bolero he used to dedicate to me played in the background. I sat on the edge of the bed and flipped through them one by one. Our wedding, my first pregnancy, the sleepless nights… So beautiful, so neatly organized!

Under the canopy, applause mingled with a collective sigh of tenderness. Esteban’s mother, Mrs. Marta, moved closer and pressed him against her side. His sister Lorena rested a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were already wet, still convinced it was a joke.

—Then came the photos from my second pregnancy —she went on, as she climbed the carpeted stairs and the camera shook with every step—. And I remembered your care, your exaggerations, that utterly you way of loving me. In every picture where we were together, I saw us laughing, embracing, in sync. Our love was obvious from a mile away, my teddy bear.

Esteban drew a deep breath. For a moment, pride beat out anguish, and he even smiled at the screen. This is a joke, it has to be a joke. But Renata didn’t see him: she was turned away, putting something away at the edge of the bed.

—It’s over, Esteban. I’m no longer going to be your wife. And it’s not because I’m sick of you. It’s because I got tired of lying to myself. Something kept growing inside me and I can’t keep hiding it. I realized something very important: no matter how high I fly, I’ll never reach your height.

The guests stared at the screen as if it were the last chapter of a soap opera. The empty glasses betrayed the thirst the gossip had awakened, and the waiters kept refilling them without pause. Someone put a glass of whiskey with two ice cubes in Esteban’s hand. He took it without looking at it.

—Don’t think it was your quirks or our routines —she continued—. I’d come back from my flights and find the house full of flowers and gifts, but empty of you. You lived for your business, and I lived on weekends away, in hotels in beautiful cities I would have loved to explore by your side. The video calls never warmed my skin, or got between my legs when my cunt was burning at three in the morning in a hotel bed. Do you know how many times I had to shove two fingers inside myself thinking about your cock, teddy bear? Too many. And I was always left hungry.

Inside Esteban, two things were fighting: guilt for having been absent and resentment at not being understood, he who had busted his ass to always give her the best. Isn’t loving someone with things also a kind of love?, he thought.

—Over the years, with work keeping us apart, alone in so many beautiful places, this began to grow —said Renata—. And then, about a year and a half ago, he came back into my life. A love from my youth who left without explanation, who left me with questions, broken dreams, and unfulfilled fantasies. He came back just when you weren’t close enough to protect me from temptation.

Camila, their daughter, could not believe what she was hearing. She kept shaking her head over and over, while her red-haired girlfriend tried to calm her with pats on the shoulder.

—I got tired of fighting the need to taste what had been left behind when he disappeared —she went on, and took a long drink from a sports thermos—. I’ve been seeing him for a few months. Only a few times, and almost never alone, but enough to understand there’s no going back now. The first time was during a layover in Madrid. I ran into him in the hotel lobby and we didn’t even make it to the elevator before he shoved his tongue down my throat. We went up to my room and he ripped my stockings off with his teeth. He laid me face down on the bed, with my uniform still half-undone, and drove his cock into me in one thrust, no questions, no permission asked. I screamed into the pillow, came in less than two minutes, and he kept fucking me until I came three more times in a row. I’ve felt awful about myself, about you, about our children and about everyone who’s out there. I’ve cheated on all of you. But every time he fucks me, I forget the guilt.

An outraged murmur swept through the garden. Don Aurelio, Renata’s father, hurled the question into the air, furious, glancing sideways at his wife as if she had something to do with it.

—What the hell is wrong with that girl? Is she out of her mind?

—Hold on, Aurelio, because that girl hasn’t told me a thing —Doña Rosalba defended herself, waving both hands in the air, her colorful bracelets jingling on her wrists.

—I want you to keep being the same loving man you’ve always been —Renata resumed—. Not for a second should you feel miserable because of me. Someone else will come along later by your side; just don’t shut yourself away in the despair I’m leaving you in. Open your arms to that new love, without fear. And your cock too, teddy bear, because it’s far too pretty to leave it crying.

Esteban finally moved, as if the ground had softened beneath his feet, and tried to climb onto the platform. Camila reached him and grabbed his leg.

—Dad, stop. Please stop. —And when she saw he was still trying, she spoke louder—. Can’t you understand? Mom is leaving you. Wake up already! She traded you for someone else a long time ago. She’s leaving, and she’s not coming back.

Esteban lowered his leg, defeated, and cried on his daughter’s shoulder.

***

—Forgive me, great love of my past, for having been unfaithful to you all this time while I lived honestly beside my husband. —The sentence fell like a bucket of ice over the garden—. And forgive me too, my teddy bear, for letting that ghost wrap itself around my ankles. I broke our vow to grow old together. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.

—Damn it, Renata! Stop saying stupid things already. This little joke is giving me a migraine. Enough! —Esteban shouted, pounding the edge of the platform with both hands.

The image began to break up. The video froze, the voice cut into pieces, and all that could be heard was her ragged breathing, drawers opening, zippers sliding, something heavy being dragged across the floor.

—Oh, family, I lost the video! Such a poor signal… —But she was stuttering too much, pretending—. I think it’s better this way. I can’t see you, you can’t see me. Can you at least hear me?

A resounding “yes!” burst from half the room. And she, supposedly with no good signal, heard them perfectly clearly.

—I’d rather you not see me now, my beautiful teddy bear, and I’d rather not see you either. Maybe that’s best: to keep the memory of the last time we saw each other happy. That morning, before I went to the airport, you hugged me tighter than usual, not wanting to let me go, and whispered in my ear how much you were going to miss me. Then you slipped your hand under my skirt, yanked my panties off in one pull, and fucked me standing up against the closet door, with my stockings still on and my uniform shirt open halfway. You sucked my tits like it was the last time, biting my nipples until I screamed, and made me come with your tongue deep in my cunt before you put your cock inside me. You finished inside me, without a condom, without rushing, pressing me against you while you emptied all your load into my pussy. I still had your semen running down my thighs when I got into the taxi.

Esteban listened, eyes fixed on the floor, not daring to look at the screen. Anyway, there’s nothing left to see.

—You were always scared when I flew —she went on—. You hid it behind that confident posture and that conqueror’s smile, but you were terrified every time I crossed the ocean. And what I never confessed to you is that I felt the same way. Pure adrenaline, and a little panic that I wouldn’t make it back home, to your arms. Until today.

—On that, La Negra is right —Ricardo whispered to his brother—. Esteban was shitting himself every time she got on a plane.

Lorena heard the comment and pinched his arm. She knew how much Esteban hated people referring to his wife that way.

—I don’t love you like I used to anymore, and it’s not that you deserve less —Renata said, her voice breaking—. It’s that my love for you matured and became something else. I care about you, but that old fervor has stopped. I don’t feel those same vibrations when you’re near, or that warmth in my lower belly you used to give me just by making me imagine you. Before, when you whispered something dirty in my ear, my panties got soaked instantly. Now not even when you fuck me do I feel it with the same intensity. I faked the last orgasms, teddy bear. The last six months, every single one of them. I came with him in the morning and at night I put on a show with you, moaning softly so the kids wouldn’t hear, squeezing your cock with my cunt to make you believe I was coming. I’m sorry, my teddy bear.

***

Esteban understood that no one was going to give him the name willingly. He looked among the guests for whom to interrogate first. Someone here has to know. He pushed through the arms trying to hold him back and reached his mother-in-law, gripping her shoulder in desperation.

—Mother-in-law… please tell me, what is going on with Renata? With whom…? What is that guy’s name? I beg you! —His voice, which wanted to be a shout, came out low and broken.

Doña Rosalba leaned back, startled, and took a moment to answer.

—Oh, son, look, the way I see it, I’m just as surprised as you are. God bless me, I have no idea! It’s just that the poor thing’s hit that age and her hormones are running wild. When I catch her around here, she’s going to hear from me. I’m going to grab her by those locks so she learns to respect her man. Yes, sir!

He recognized the sincerity in those words and turned his head. And then he saw her: Tatiana, his wife’s close friend, phone pressed to her ear, dodging a waiter, walking toward the exit with no concern at all for what was happening in the garden.

Meanwhile, at a separate table, Verónica drained her champagne flute with a smile she barely managed to hide. I’ll make sure to help you forget her bad pay, woman, she thought, feeling like the luckiest person at the party. Under the table, she clenched her thighs, imagining Esteban’s cock going all the way into her, herself on her knees, sucking it with devotion until she made it explode in her mouth.

—And maybe, by setting you free, someone very close will appear —the voice resumed from the blank screen—. Someone who’s always been there, who took care of you even better than I did. Your right hand, for example. Or someone whose fascination with you I discovered in these last few months. I saw her eyes, teddy bear. I saw how she looked at your zipper when you crossed the room. I know perfectly well she gets her panties wet over you.

Beatriz, the assistant, stood petrified, shaking her head, not knowing where to put herself. Andrés, her husband, stepped away from her and looked at her with new doubts.

—Maybe my best replacement is in my own younger sister, Daniela, who’s been in love with you for years and that’s why she’s never committed to anyone. She confessed to me herself, drunk, that she dreams of unzipping your pants and sucking you under the dining table while I serve dinner. —At the opposite end of the garden, Daniela felt naked under the gaze of the whole family, red to her ears, unable to deny anything.

Esteban tore free of the hands holding him and lunged toward Tatiana. But before he could reach her, Renata’s voice filled the room again and stopped him dead in his tracks.

—Esteban? I know your head is manufacturing a thousand questions. So let me make this clear right now: no one in my family, or yours, or among our friends, knows anything about this. Don’t go looking for what you won’t find. The decision was mine and no one else’s.

A heavy silence fell over the garden. Esteban stood four steps away from Tatiana, the whiskey glass trembling in his hand, without having tasted a single drop.

—Do you want to know more about him? About the man who came between us, the one who’s waiting for me outside right now, with a hard cock inside his pants, ready to fuck me again the moment I start the truck? —The screen was still blank, but her voice sounded closer than ever, as if she were about to walk through the door—. All right, my teddy bear. If you need it that much, I’m going to tell you everything. I’m going to tell you how he licks my pussy for hours before putting it in. How he puts me on all fours and fucks my ass while calling me a whore in my ear. How he makes me come five, six, seven times in a row until I can’t even walk. I’m going to tell you every dirty thing he’s done to me, every time I’ve swallowed his load, every time I’ve begged him to fuck me harder. If you need it that much, listen carefully, because I’m not repeating myself.