The Lovers We Hid in the Closet That Summer

The villa “Las Buganvillas” smelled of sea, honeysuckle, and guilt. It perched on a cliff on the Costa de la Luz, with two floors, four bedrooms, and a terrace from which the Atlantic could be seen as far as the eye could reach. Silvia and Marta, friends since they were fifteen, had convinced their husbands to rent it for a “romantic weekend.” What their husbands didn’t know was that the romance was going to be very different from what they imagined.

Silvia was forty-eight, with generous hips, dark hair with a few gray strands she refused to dye, and the ability to lie with a smile that disarmed even the most suspicious man. She was married to Roberto, a commercial representative for agricultural machinery who collected trade show key chains and believed that humor consisted of telling the same wedding joke every time there were more than three people gathered. In bed, Roberto was punctual, brief, and polite, three adjectives Silvia had ended up associating with visits to the dentist.

Marta, forty-six, smaller and with a disconcerting ease for getting out of tight spots, had been married for twelve years to Ernesto, a mechanic who had retired early and lived for armchair athletics: shouting players’ names while watching football with a beer in his hand. Ernesto touched her breasts over her nightgown twice a month, always on Saturdays, always before falling asleep, always without taking her clothes off.

On Friday afternoon the husbands left for a rented boat in Tarifa. They promised to be back Sunday night. As soon as the rental car disappeared down the coastal road, Silvia took out her phone.

—They’ve got two hours, tops —she said—. Andrés and Sergio get here at seven.

—Perfect —Marta replied, sliding her wedding ring off her finger and hiding it in the kitchen drawer, among the corkscrew and some toothpicks—. I’ll make sure Sergio comes in through the back door. You handle Andrés on the terrace. And if anyone knocks, we’re two respectable ladies having an aperitif.

—I’ve gone three weeks without getting fucked, Marta. If Andrés doesn’t split me in two tonight, I’m going to start screaming.

—Tell me about it. The last time Ernesto made me come was during the World Cup. And I don’t even remember which one.

At quarter to seven the back doorbell rang.

Sergio was forty-one, broad-shouldered, with a jaw as if carved by chisel blows and a bottle of cava in his hand. Marta dragged him upstairs and shut the master bedroom door, bolting it. Before he could set the bottle down on the nightstand, she was already on her knees, unfastening his belt with her teeth clenched.

—Not even a hello or anything —grunted Sergio.

—Hello later —said Marta, and yanked down his trousers and underwear in one pull.

Sergio’s cock sprang free, already half-hard, thick and curved upward, and Marta took the whole thing into her mouth without giving him time to react. Sergio let out a low gasp, grabbed her head with both hands, and started fucking her mouth slowly, watching how her painted lips stretched around his dick. Marta sucked with her eyes closed, salivating, pushing herself to take more, until the tip touched the back of her throat and she felt that gag reflex tingle that turned her on like few things could. She pulled back for a moment, drew a deep breath, and plunged back to the root with a wet sound that made Sergio shudder from head to toe.

—Fuck, fuck, fuck —he muttered—. You’re going to make me come in three minutes.

Marta pulled him out of her mouth with an obscene pop, a thread of saliva hanging from her lip.

—Don’t you dare. I want to eat the whole thing later. Fuck me now.

She stood up, pulled her dress over her head, and stayed in her panties, tits bare, nipples already hard as stones. Sergio tore her panties off in one pull—literally, the fabric gave a sharp rip—and shoved her face-down onto the bed. He pried her legs apart with his knee, grabbed her hips, and drove into her in one thrust, all the way to the hilt. Marta groaned against the duvet, a long, sharp groan from a woman who had been needing it far too long.

—Like that, like that, like that —she panted—. Hard, fuck, hard.

Sergio began pounding her at a steady rhythm, one hand in her hair and the other digging his fingers into her hip. The mattress squeaked, the headboard hit the wall, and Marta buried her face in the pillow so she wouldn’t scream when she felt Sergio’s cock forcing its way deeper and deeper inside her. She was so wet he slid in with a continuous liquid sound, and every thrust made her tits bounce against the sheets.

Five minutes later, Silvia opened the terrace sliding door. Andrés, forty-four, with elegant receding hair and hands that knew exactly how to use themselves, appeared carrying a box of nougat and a crooked smile. Silvia pushed him toward the guest bedroom without a word and threw him onto the bed.

—The box, on the floor —she ordered—. The hands, on me.

She climbed onto him astride, still wearing her summer dress, and grabbed his face with both hands to kiss him with an open mouth, her tongue deep inside, biting his lower lip until he gave a small moan. Andrés yanked her dress up over her hips and discovered she wasn’t wearing panties.

—My God, Silvia.

—I’ve been without them for four hours, waiting for you. Touch me.

Andrés slipped his hand between her legs and found her cunt soaked, her lips swollen, her clit throbbing beneath the pad of his finger. Silvia let out a guttural moan the moment he started stroking her, writhing on his fingers as if she’d been practicing that movement for months. Andrés shoved two fingers into her at once and she clung to the bed’s headboard, her tits swaying under the dress.

—Lick me first —she said—. I need a tongue right now or I’ll die.

Silvia rolled onto her back and spread her legs. Andrés stripped her dress off completely, tossed it to the floor, and buried his face between her thighs. He started licking her cunt with eagerness, his tongue flat, moving from the entrance up to the clit, sucking her lips, sliding his tongue inside. Silvia gripped his hair, gripped her breasts, pinched her nipples, bit the pillow. Andrés’s tongue knew exactly where to press, what circles to draw, when to suck her clit between his lips and when to tap it quickly with the tip.

—There, there, there, don’t stop —she panted—. I’m going to come, don’t stop, fuck.

She came with a long tremor, pressing Andrés’s head against her cunt, her legs closing around his shoulders. When she finally let him go, his chin and cheeks were soaked with her, gleaming under the lamp light, and he wore a satisfied smile from ear to ear.

—Now you —said Silvia, still panting—. Get it in me now.

Andrés stripped in three seconds and climbed on top of her. His cock was hard, long, slightly less thick than Sergio’s but with a curve Silvia knew well. He slid into her slowly, millimeter by millimeter, enjoying the face she made as she felt him enter. Silvia dug her nails into his back when she felt him reach the bottom.

—Fuck me, Andrés. No mercy. Like that time at the hotel in Cádiz.

And Andrés started fucking her exactly as she’d asked: mercilessly, braced on his arms, pushing with all his hips, pelvis slamming against pelvis at a rhythm that made the whole bed move toward the wall.

For the next hour the villa turned into a symphony of held breaths, muffled laughter, and the rhythmic creaking of two poor-quality mattresses at once. In the master bedroom, Sergio had Marta on all fours and was pounding her from behind, groping her tits from underneath, biting her neck and the back of her neck, whispering dirty things in her ear.

—What an ass, fuck. What an ass you’ve got. I’m going to come in your tits when you tell me to.

—In my mouth —Marta panted—. When you finish, in my mouth. I’ll swallow it all.

In the guest bedroom, Silvia and Andrés had reached the most interesting part of the evening—she with her hands on the headboard and him biting her neck slowly, cock buried to the hilt, giving her slow, deep thrusts that pulled muffled moans out of Silvia—when Roberto’s voice rumbled up from the living room as if it were coming from the bottom of the sea.

—Silvia! We’re back, darling!

Silvia froze, Andrés still inside her. Her lungs forgot how to work for a full three seconds.

—My God —she whispered—. The engine broke down. They took a taxi from Tarifa.

—What? —said Andrés, sitting up abruptly and slipping out of her with a wet snap.

—Into the closet. Now.

Andrés, naked, with his cock still hard and shining from Silvia’s cunt and his trousers in his hand, climbed into the built-in closet in the guest bedroom with the reasonable dignity such a situation allows. Silvia hurriedly tied the belt of a burgundy velvet robe she found hanging behind the door, feeling a thread of semen and arousal run down her thigh, and stepped out into the hall just as Roberto reached the last steps.

—What a surprise! —she sang out in a voice she hadn’t practiced enough—. You’re back already? What happened with the fishing?

—Not a damned fish. The dinghy ran out of motor. Ernesto is taking the coolers out of the car. What were you doing?

—Nothing… stretches. The back-stretch exercises the physio gave me. You know how it is.

Roberto looked her up and down. Silvia had her hair mussed, her face flushed, the robe badly tied, and her tits swaying beneath it with no support.

—You’re sweating.

—The stretches are very intense. The doctor says you have to force the muscles.

***

In the master bedroom, Marta’s situation was considerably worse. Sergio had her pressed against the wall, had lifted her off the floor, her legs wrapped around his waist, and was fucking her bare with short, quick thrusts when they heard Ernesto’s voice from downstairs:

—Marta! Come downstairs and help me with the coolers!

Marta shoved Sergio into the en suite bathroom with so much force that he had to grab the towel rack to avoid falling, his cock still dripping from her, semen halfway out.

—Bathroom. Get in the tub and don’t make a sound.

—In the tub? Marta, I was about to come.

—Well then hold it in. Under the towels. Move.

Sergio, completely naked, his hard dick pointed at the ceiling, lay down in the empty bathtub while Marta threw the towels from the rack over him. Then she put on one of Ernesto’s huge T-shirts she found over a chair, wiped the insides of her thighs with a hand towel, ran her fingers through her hair, and went downstairs with a ten-point smile, feeling her cunt still pulsing with every step.

—Hi, baby —she said—. You gave me such a scare. How was the fishing?

—A disaster. Why are you flushed?

—I was doing Pilates in the bedroom.

—You hate Pilates.

—I’ve started to like it. It’s very good for the back.

Ernesto opened his mouth, closed it, and said nothing more.

***

The husbands left the coolers in the kitchen, poured themselves two beers, and settled onto the sofa with the faces of shipwreck survivors. Silvia and Marta looked at each other from the opposite end of the living room like two actresses about to improvise the most difficult scene of their careers.

—We need to keep them busy —Silvia whispered.

—How long do we need?

—Long enough to get them out without anyone seeing them come downstairs. And for it to stop showing that I’ve got half a liter of semen between my legs.

—Go upstairs and wash up, for God’s sake. I’ll keep them busy.

Silvia came back down to the living room two minutes later, already wearing panties, and sat between the two men with the smile of a game-show host.

—Guys, I was just about to call you. My sister Pilar is coming to dinner tonight. With her new boyfriend. In less than an hour.

Roberto’s eyes widened.

—Pilar? The one from Valencia? Tonight?

—You know her, spontaneous as they come. And Marta’s cousin is coming too, with her husband. Four more. Better order pizzas, right?

Marta, who had just come down, added with complete conviction:

—That way we won’t have to cook. Much more convenient for everyone.

The husbands exchanged a look. Ernesto scratched his head. Roberto nodded with the resignation of a man who has been married long enough to take everything he hears with a grain of salt.

Meanwhile, in the guest bedroom closet, Andrés was trying not to breathe too loudly and also not trying not to notice that the taste of Silvia was still sliding down his chin. The closet was old, wooden, and creaked with every movement. Every time he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, it sounded as if someone were stepping on a rotten plank at the bottom of a boat. His cock was half-mast, trapped against the trousers he held like a shield, and a thick drop threatened to fall onto the parquet.

In the bathroom of the master bedroom, Sergio lay in the empty tub under a heap of terry towels, sweating in silence, his cock still hard, throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and wondering at exactly what point in his life he had made the decisions that had brought him here. With every minute that passed, his dick swelled a little more against the towel’s edge, and his balls were begging for someone to finish what Marta had started.

Every ten minutes, Marta went upstairs on the excuse of “looking for my phone charger” and opened the bathroom door just wide enough to whisper:

—Stay still. Ernesto’s downstairs.

And Sergio, under the towels, answered by lifting his thumb and, the second time, grabbing Marta’s wrist and taking it to his cock under the terry cloth. Marta closed her eyes for a moment at the feel of the hot, hard flesh in her palm, squeezed twice, very slowly, a quick provisional goodbye caress, and left the bathroom breathing hard.

—Later —she whispered.

—Later —he repeated.

***

The first serious crisis came twenty minutes later.

Roberto announced that he wanted to take a shower before the imaginary guests arrived. Silvia intercepted him on the stairs with the speed of a soccer fullback.

—The hot water’s cut out. There’s a problem with the heater.

—I’ll shower in cold water, I don’t mind.

—No, no. It’s just that there’s a technician coming right now. I called him earlier.

—A boiler technician at eight at night?

—Emergency service. Very expensive, but there was no choice.

Roberto looked at her with the expression of a man who has been married too many years to believe everything he’s told at face value, but also too many years to want to find out the truth.

—I’ll just wash my face in the hallway bathroom and that’s that —he said, and turned right.

Silvia exhaled slowly and hurried upstairs as soon as he disappeared.

—Andrés. We need to move you. Roberto could come up any moment and this closet creaks.

—Where am I supposed to go?

—To the big bathroom in the master bedroom. With Sergio.

—With Sergio?

—It’s the only option we have. In your underwear, come on.

Andrés crossed the hall in his underwear and socks, his cock still pressing against the cotton, and slipped into the master bathroom with the caution of someone who knows his dignity has already reached its limit for the night. Inside, Sergio lifted a towel and looked at him from the bathtub. He was completely naked, half-covered, and it was impossible not to see that he was hard as a rock.

—Hi —said Sergio.

—Hi —answered Andrés, closing the door carefully.

Sergio looked at Andrés’s crotch, then his own, then the ceiling.

—We’re in the same boat, aren’t we?

—Three weeks of waiting —muttered Andrés—. I was left halfway through.

—I was seconds away.

—Are you hungry? Marta slipped me half a sandwich under the door.

—What kind of situation is this?

—The one we chose —said Sergio, with a philosophy that at that moment was exactly the last thing Andrés wanted to hear.

Andrés sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and tried to think of anti-sexual things. The accountant’s invoices. His mother-in-law’s feet. The Christmas Eve speech. It didn’t work: his cock kept throbbing as if it had a life of its own and was screaming for something, anything, a cunt, a hand, its own. He looked at Sergio. Sergio looked at him. They both understood, and both looked away at the same time.

—No fucking way —said Andrés.

—No fucking way —Sergio confirmed.

They stayed silent for a long minute. Then Andrés slipped his hand inside his underwear, grabbed his cock, and started masturbating slowly, staring at the ceiling tiles. Sergio did the same under the towel. Neither said a word. It was the quietest and most dignified pact of the night.

—Are you thinking about her? —Sergio whispered after a while.

—Mine. Shut up.

—Me too.

They both came ten seconds apart, biting their lips, each in his own towel, each thinking of the woman downstairs lying to her husband.

***

The second crisis came at nine fifteen.

Ernesto decided he wanted to put on a jacket for dinner. According to his very clear recollection, the jacket was in the master bedroom closet. Marta saw him heading for the stairs and went into silent panic mode.

—Honey —she said, stepping in front of him—. The blue jacket is in the car. I saw it earlier when I took the cooler out.

—No, I put it in the closet this morning. I’m sure.

—You’re mistaken. I put it in the trunk bag so it wouldn’t wrinkle on the trip.

—Why would you put my jacket in the trunk without telling me anything?

—Because I’m a considerate wife.

Ernesto stared at her for three seconds. Marta held his gaze without blinking.

—Well, I’m going to check —he said at last.

—I’ll come with you —she replied, following him to the garage.

While they were downstairs, Silvia warned the two men in the bathroom.

—You have to get out before they come back. There’s a window in the service bedroom that opens onto the side garden. You can climb down via the awning.

—How far is it to the ground? —Andrés asked.

—Three meters. Maybe a bit more. There’s a lavender bush that softens the landing.

—A lavender bush?

—It’s big. You’ll get dressed first, of course.

Silvia looked at them for a second. Andrés in his underwear, Sergio with a towel around his waist, both of them with mussed hair and the unmistakable smell of what they had just done to themselves. A nervous laugh escaped her, half guilty, half hot.

—Seriously, guys?

—Medical emergency —said Sergio.

—It’s true about the bush —Andrés added—. I’ll walk you to it.

The two men looked at each other for a moment that could have turned into an argument, but instead ended with both of them silently looking for their shirts. Silvia shut the bathroom door and went downstairs to make sure Marta was still keeping Ernesto busy in the trunk.

***

The third crisis was the decisive one, and the closest to disaster.

When Andrés and Sergio, now dressed, were crossing the hall toward the service bedroom, Roberto came up the stairs carrying a bottle of wine and found them face-to-face.

There was a silence of about two seconds that seemed to last a whole year.

Silvia, who was coming behind him, reacted before her brain had finished forming the plan.

—Roberto, they’re the boiler technicians. They just finished.

Roberto looked at them. Andrés had his shirt untucked and his shoes untied. Sergio had his hair flattened on one side and a towel mark on his cheek.

—Boiler technicians.

—The night service. I already told you.

—You told me they were coming. Not that they were already inside here.

Andrés, who in his ordinary life taught amateur theater on Tuesday nights at a neighborhood civic center, improvised with admirable conviction:

—Good evening. All sorted. A pressure problem in the secondary circuit. Nothing serious.

—And why did they come out of the master bedroom bathroom? —Roberto asked, unmoving.

—Because the boiler is connected to that bathroom —said Andrés without hesitating for a single instant.

—All boilers are connected to all bathrooms —added Sergio, with the technical authority of someone who knows absolutely nothing about boilers but believes in himself with unshakable faith.

Roberto watched them a moment longer. Then he looked at Silvia. Then back at them. Something in his expression suggested he was connecting dots he preferred not to connect fully.

—Well —he said at last—. Thank you.

—You’re welcome —the two of them said at once.

Ernesto, who had just come up behind Marta with the blue jacket indeed found in the trunk, saw them passing toward the stairs.

—Who are those guys?

—The boiler people —said Marta.

—At this hour?

—Night service. I’ll explain later.

—Why does that one have wet hair?

—He washed his hands —Silvia said from the hall—. They’re very clean.

Ernesto nodded with the slowness of a man who isn’t entirely convinced but also doesn’t have the energy to keep tugging at the thread.

***

Andrés and Sergio went down the stairs with the composure of two people finishing their workday, crossed the living room with a brief nod to the husbands, and left through the front door.

As soon as the car started up the driveway and the taillights disappeared around the bend, Silvia and Marta locked themselves in the kitchen, leaned their backs against the door, and took exactly five seconds to burst out laughing. A low, nervous, contained laugh, from people who have just saved something they should never have risked in the first place.

—We were this close —Silvia whispered when she got her breath back.

—Sergio didn’t come —said Marta—. He was just about there and I left him in the tub. He hates me.

—Andrés didn’t either. Well. Andrés managed something up there, he told me by signs. It’s almost sweet.

—Did they jerk off in the bathroom?

—Both of them. Together. Without looking at each other.

Marta covered her mouth with both hands so she wouldn’t howl with laughter. Silvia clung to the kitchen counter, nearly crying.

—Next time we organize ourselves better —said Marta when she could breathe.

—Next time there is no next time.

—That’s what you said last summer in Alicante.

Silvia poured two glasses with what was left of the cava, the only ones that had survived the night intact, and they toasted in silence in front of the kitchen window overlooking the dark garden. She still had panties wet from her cunt both coming and going, and with every movement she felt them stick to her lips like a hot reminder.

From the living room came the unmistakable sound of the television. Roberto and Ernesto had found a football match, and nothing else existed in the world for them now.

—To well-ventilated closets —said Marta.

—To boiler technicians who know how to improvise —added Silvia.

They clinked glasses without making a sound. Outside, the Atlantic was still where it always was, indifferent and vast, and the lavender in the garden smelled stronger after someone had fallen on it.

They laughed again, softly, with that particular mix of relief and adrenaline left behind by a lie well maintained when it can finally be dropped. And on Silvia’s phone, hidden in the pocket of her robe, a message from Andrés was already vibrating, saying in three words: “When, again?”