The Neighborhood Fox Collected His Debt in His Cot

She was twenty-seven, with a figure that collected stares on every corner, a husband jealous to the point of sickness, and a sex life so poor that, until then, she had no idea what it meant to truly come.

Damián “the fox” Brizuela ran the half-empty grocery in the Aurora neighborhood, in San Justo, a flat, boring city where nothing happened except the March wind and gossip. The routine had already been oppressive, but when the construction strike broke out and my husband Hernán started staying home all day, it became unbearable. The only thing that improved his mood was spending the afternoons with Walter, his best friend, and, along the way, with Sandra, Walter’s wife, who had become my confidante by default.

The refrigerator was emptying out and the tab at Damián’s grew week after week. Mom helped me with a bag of groceries now and then, but it barely covered the gas and electricity. Hernán refused to let me work. The mere idea lit his face with rage, as if asking a woman for permission to go out and earn a few pesos were a personal insult. I obeyed him, of course, as always, though inside me an ever-greater disappointment was eating me away.

After a month of striking, the tab couldn’t take any more. Damián’s sighing behind the counter could be heard before I crossed the store’s doorway, and shame rose to my hairline every time I asked him to put something on credit. He, however, didn’t look at me angrily. He looked at me with something else.

The days kept passing like a silent movie. In the middle of the afternoon, Hernán and Walter grabbed their soccer cleats and went off to play as if they were twenty years old, while we stayed in Sandra’s patio drinking mate, chewing on our anger, and complaining about the world.

One of those hot March afternoons, Sandra asked me with a crooked smile as she swallowed the last sip:

—What’s the deal with the fox?

—You mean the grocer? —Sandra nodded, still holding the kettle—. Nothing. We owe him our lives. But nothing else. Why?

—He made a comment to me yesterday and… he gave me to understand that he likes you —she said, passing me the mate.

—That’s just you —I replied, but I felt my neck grow hot.

The conversation continued in that vein, with her needling me and me playing it down. The truth was that I’d noticed something about him for a while. Too attentive, too smiley, making conversation with me over anything, as if he wanted to keep me there five minutes longer every time. There was a hard-to-explain magnetism, something strange that I pretended not to notice but didn’t mind feeling.

Damián was past forty. He was tall, around six feet, with a shaved head and a thick mustache above a large, tight mouth. He had pale blue, almost gray eyes that seemed to strip me naked every time I entered the store. He spoke in a deep voice, slowly, as if every word had a hidden meaning. With me, he had lowered his tone from the beginning, and little by little his friendliness had turned into one innuendo after another.

—Welcome to the fox’s den —he warned one morning, showing his teeth.

—It’s not like I’m a little hen —I answered almost without thinking.

—No. But do you know how I’d eat you?

He said it slowly, and I think he himself was surprised that he’d said it. The midday light came in from the side and struck his cheekbones. Not as much as his gaze struck me. A heat different from the day’s climbed up my legs, slipped beneath my skirt, and settled between my thighs. I didn’t know what to answer. I gathered the things I’d come to buy, wrote them in the notebook myself because he wasn’t moving, and left the store with my face burning.

***

I came back an hour and twenty minutes later. Hotter, more embarrassed, and more determined.

—What did you forget? —Damián asked from behind the counter, going over a list with a chewed-up pencil.

—My husband went to play a game —I said, lowering my gaze—. Maybe you’d like to play another one.

It was a few minutes before two in the afternoon when Damián turned the closed sign toward the glass. A blue curtain covering a side passage slid aside, and it swallowed me whole. Behind it was a little windowless room smelling of yerba and wet cardboard, with a narrow cot covered by a checked blanket. I sat on the edge without taking off my sandals, and the cot creaked as if protesting. Damián smiled, and his mustache spread wider.

—I knew you’d come back —he said, and closed the curtain behind him.

He came closer slowly. He placed a rough hand on my knee and slid it beneath my skirt without hurry, as if he had the entire afternoon ahead of him. When he reached the inside of my thigh, I leaned toward him. We kissed like two people who had been thinking about it for months. I grabbed the shaved nape of his neck with both hands, and he squeezed my waist until he lifted me slightly off the cot. His mouth was large, his lips hard, and he tasted of dark tobacco.

He pulled my blouse over my head without unbuttoning it, and tugged at my bra with a single finger. When his hand came to rest near my left nipple, he pinched it very slowly, as if measuring how much I could take. Hernán had never touched a nipple with that intention. I felt the bite afterward, slow, and my ass cheeks prickled as if cold water had been thrown over me. My panties began peeling away on their own, wet, and he finished removing them with a tug. He moved me to the edge of the cot and opened my legs with both hands.

—Stay still —he ordered.

He put his mouth down there and held my thighs so I couldn’t squirm away. I didn’t know whether to fight him or thank him. I gripped the edge of the cot and let him. Damián’s tongue was patient; he knew exactly where to press and where to ease off. He didn’t touch me hurriedly: he licked me from below, spread my lips with his mouth, and sank back in, as if he wanted to search for my trembling layer by layer. He sucked me with a hunger that loosened my back and made me arch my waist toward his face. I breathed in broken gasps, my hands dug into the blanket, feeling the wetness slide down my thighs and him seeking it with the precision of a hunting dog.

—That’s it. Don’t make me work for nothing —he murmured against my cunt, and the vibration sent a shiver across my belly.

He spread my legs wider with his hands and inserted two fingers inside me at once while continuing to eat me. They went in slowly, opening me, feeling their way with a filthy patience that aroused me more than any tender caress. I moaned softly, shyly at first and then without any shame at all. I felt his middle finger brushing inside me and his tongue punishing my clitoris, again and again, until my whole body began to throb as if someone had plugged me into the wall.

—Don’t hold back —he said without lifting his mouth—. Come on my face.

And I came all at once, with a spasm so strong it curled my toes inside my sandals. The convulsion tore a hoarse cry from me and made me squeeze my thighs around his head. Damián held me there anyway, wedged between my legs, licking whatever was left of me with the calm of a son of a bitch. When he finally straightened up, his mouth was shining and his gaze was darker.

—Now comes the other part —he said.

He stood, unbuckled his belt, and let his trousers fall without any theatrics. He was rock hard, much thicker than my husband, with a vein running up the left side. I took him in one hand, and my hand seemed small. I brought him to my mouth out of curiosity, more to find out what a man like that tasted like than for any other reason. I lasted a few seconds before he took hold of my head—not to force me, but to set the rhythm. I licked the tip, filled my mouth with his salty, heavy flavor, and felt his jaw tighten. When he decided that was enough, he made me climb onto the cot again.

—Sit down —he told me—. And look at me.

I sat on top of him, both knees sinking into the side of the thin mattress. I lowered myself slowly onto the new tip of that heavy mast and controlled my descent, millimeter by millimeter, until the pain turned into something else. First he opened me with a sharp stab, then filled me completely, hot and firm, and I had to swallow so I wouldn’t run away. Damián stayed still for a few seconds, watching my face, letting my body adjust around his cock. When I finally pushed down a little farther, I felt him split my breathing apart.

—That’s it —he growled—. Lower.

The cot creaked beneath us. Damián held my waist with both hands and began thrusting from below, unhurried but without stopping. I planted my palms on his chest and let myself be carried by the rocking motion. Every thrust drew a new moan from me, because the pressure against that spot inside me kept rising to my throat. He watched my face as if he wanted to memorize me. His forehead was damp, his mouth half open, and his hands were imprinted on my hips. He lifted me slightly and drove into me again, hard, making the cot slam against the wall with a sharp knock that seemed to keep time with our gasps.

—Tell me if you want me to stop —he said.

—Don’t stop —I answered, surprised to hear my voice so broken.

Then he grabbed my tits with both hands and ate them his way, alternating tugs, bites, and squeezes until I felt myself coming apart. He fucked me harder each time, filling me and pulling out with an ease that made me lose my breath. I could feel myself opening for him, wet, slick, unable to hold on to any thought except that pounding inside my body. I came again almost at once, with a long tremor that made me clench my teeth. Damián kept moving over me, enjoying the tug of my cunt against his cock, until the second wave left me whimpering, unable to do anything but dig my nails into his shoulders.

I thought of Hernán just as I came for the third time, and that made me scream Damián’s name as if I were spitting something out. The creaking of the cot mingled with my moans and his hoarse voice, whispering orders at me: “That’s it, don’t move, let me use you.” I obeyed him. It was the only thing that made sense in that airless room. Damián lifted me afterward, turned me facedown, and put me on my knees on the cot. He penetrated me again from behind, grabbing my hair to force me to arch my ass, and gave me hard, deep thrusts while pulling my butt cheeks apart with one hand to watch himself going in and out. Each blow tore a different sound from me, more animal, lower, and the checked blanket had bunched beneath my knees as if it were suffering along with me.

—What a beautiful ass you have —he whispered in my ear—. I’m going to leave my mark on it.

He gripped my hips hard and used me as if he really meant to break my back. I could do nothing but open myself wider, beg him for more, push my ass backward to take him better. The smell of sex grew thick, a mixture of sweat, saliva, and the sour undertone of the closed-up room. His cock was driving all the way into me, drawing short, desperate moans, and I was thinking of nothing but holding out a little longer so it would last. When his breathing began to tremble, he came inside me with a low, prolonged growl, squeezing my buttocks hard as he stayed buried, lodged to the end, filling me with a thick heat that made me close my eyes.

Afterward I dozed for a while on his chest, while he stroked my back with his fingertips. I felt like a woman for the first time in my life, and the guilt I’d thought would come never did. When I woke up, we continued. Damián did everything I asked him to do and everything I didn’t ask for, too. He made me kneel in front of him so I could suck him slowly, put his fingers inside me again until he left me dripping, sat me on top of him once more, and made me bounce on his cock until my legs were shaking. It was glorious; I can’t find any other word.

***

I got home before Hernán returned from the game, showered twice, and served him dinner as if nothing had happened. That night I slept better than I had in years.

What came afterward was easier than I could have imagined. Every time Hernán and Walter grabbed their cleats, I grabbed my purse and walked the three blocks to the store. Damián already had the closed sign ready at five to two. Sometimes he waited for me in the little room; sometimes I sat down to wait for him. Sometimes we didn’t make it to the cot, and he took me against the shelves of cookies, his mustache scraping my neck while he made me keep my voice down. He put his hand under my skirt as soon as I crossed the curtain, forced my mouth open with his fingers, made me kneel on the concrete floor whenever he felt like having me surrender. I already knew how to read the hunger on his face, and I liked his hunger because it matched mine. There were afternoons when I leaned against the counter, lifted my ass slightly, and he filled me from behind again and again, with the merchandise shifting on the shelves and both our breathing turned into a wreck.

The tab kept growing, but I wasn’t ashamed of it anymore. Every so often Damián would cross something off with a gesture and a wink, as if the pesos didn’t matter. I knew he was playing that parallel account too, and I didn’t care. I liked being his debt.

It took Hernán three months and a couple of weeks to realize that the fox was scratching me. He found out through an offhand comment at the club, some drunken nonsense, and went straight to the store to confront Damián with his fist clenched. He didn’t hit him. Damián looked him in the eyes and told him he hadn’t done anything to me that I didn’t want, and it was true. Hernán left the store without saying a word and entered the house without shouting, either, which was even worse.

I went to live with Mom that same night, with two bags and a strange anger, a mixture of relief and sorrow. Hernán called me two months later, crying, asking me to come back. I nearly did. We spent a few afternoons talking in a café downtown, going around in circles, making promises neither of us believed. But he couldn’t forget Damián, and deep down, I couldn’t forget how I had felt on that cot, either.

The fox, for his part, didn’t wait for me. He slowly devoured Sandra first, then a neighbor from the back, then the baker’s daughter and half a dozen more. By the time I found out, he was already far away. I had moved to the capital, with a job at a shoe store downtown and a tiny apartment on the avenue.

That’s where I’m writing this confession, eight years later, with another man sleeping beside me and a smile that won’t leave my face whenever I pass the yerba aisle at the supermarket. Sometimes, without meaning to, I catch the smell of wet cardboard and dark tobacco, and my skin prickles as it did that March. I regret nothing. Not the debt, not the cot, not the fox who taught me that a woman’s body belongs to the woman, too.