The Storm That Brought My Neighbor Into My Bed

I loaded the last boxes into the trunk and drove to the neighborhood where I had grown up. In reality, it was my Aunt Rosario’s apartment, my mother’s older sister, the woman who raised me when my mother died and I was just a two-year-old kid. I never knew anything about my father: he disappeared as soon as he found out my mother was pregnant. I never needed him. Rosario gave me everything, including that third-floor walk-up that was now becoming my refuge again.

Over the years, I had renovated it completely: new floors, new windows, a kitchen she would have enjoyed like a little girl. But the apartment still smelled of the way she cooked and of rainy afternoons pressed against the window. Going back there stirred up happy memories just when I needed them most, because my life had just blown to pieces and I had no idea where to start picking them up.

Carrying the boxes up to the third floor was a punishment. On the second trip, blinded by a box that was far too big, I didn’t see the person hurrying down while staring at her phone. We collided on the landing and I ended up sitting on a step, the edge dug into my back.

—You could watch where you’re going! —I protested, in pain.

The girl stopped and burst out laughing.

—Daniel? Don’t you recognize me? It’s Clara.

Clara. The neighbor across the hall, Doña Amparo’s granddaughter, my partner in mischief when we were both a pair of little tadpoles. I hadn’t seen her since my aunt’s funeral. She helped me up, still laughing, and we hugged in the middle of the stairwell with an affection that hadn’t rusted with time. When she pressed against me, for the first time I noticed what the mischievous little girl had become: firm breasts flattening against my chest, a round ass outlined without shame by her leggings, and a scent of clean skin that slid straight between my legs. I pulled away with my cock already stirring inside my pants and prayed she wouldn’t notice.

—I can’t tonight —she said, still in a hurry—, but tomorrow I’ll make you dinner at my place and we’ll catch up like old times. At nine.

She noticed the pale mark my wedding band had left on my finger. She didn’t ask anything. Clara never asked directly: she waited, and at some point she would get everything out of you without your realizing it. She kissed me on the cheek and kept going down the stairs three at a time.

The next day, at the office, I discovered that fate had a sense of humor. The project that was tearing me apart was shared with another company, and the person who walked into the meeting room, with a smile identical to the one forming on my face, was her.

—You could have told me we’d be working together —I said.

—I could —she replied—, but then I’d have missed your face.

Her ideas fit mine like two pieces made for each other. She was the opposite of Gonzalo, the coworker who, in my absence, had spent his time imposing his own ideas to take the credit, even if they sank the project in the long run. With Clara, we lost track of time: a coworker had to remind us that lunch even existed. We hadn’t seen each other in years and she still read me like the first day.

That night, in her kitchen, while a sea bream roasted in the oven and we uncorked a white wine, she finally asked the question that had been circling her all day.

—You don’t need to ask me about the finger —she said—. Gonzalo, right?

Gonzalo. The same man who had been worming his way into my marriage for months. Marina had confessed it to me on some ordinary night, in a level voice, as if commenting on the weather: she had fallen in love with someone else, she needed to explore what she felt, and that someone else was precisely the man I had to face every morning.

—How do you know? —I asked.

—Because he tried it with me too —Clara replied—. Gonzalo is only interested in women who already belong to someone. He didn’t get anywhere with me, but my boyfriend back then didn’t believe me and left me. So I know very well what it feels like when someone decides your version is worth nothing.

I believed her without hesitation. We’d known each other since we were children and we both had the same flaw: we didn’t know how to lie; our tells gave us away, and Clara didn’t do a single one while she spoke. When a tear escaped her, I hugged her. I hadn’t felt so at home anywhere in months.

The following weeks became a silent countdown. We worked together until late, cooked in one house or the other, laughed until it hurt. Without realizing it, Clara filled the space Marina had left, healing wounds I had thought were permanent. But fear still lurked in the shadows. What if I trusted again and they shattered me all over again?

One morning, when I came back from the bathroom, I saw Gonzalo cornering Clara by the coffee machine. I approached without him noticing.

—I hear you’ve got a partner again —he was saying with that smile he thought was irresistible—. That makes you interesting again.

—No matter how expensive a cologne you spray on —she replied without flinching—, there’s no way to cover up the rotten smell you drag around.

Gonzalo clenched his fists and started walking toward me. He held my gaze for a second, then two, and it was him who ended up lowering his eyes and continuing on his way. Something had changed inside me since Marina’s betrayal, and for the first time it didn’t scare me.

***

Everything changed one stormy night. We had eaten something quick after hours wrestling with the project, and I collapsed as soon as I rested my head on the pillow. I sleep so heavily my aunt used to say the house could fall on me and I still wouldn’t notice. What woke me was not the thunder: it was the desperate pounding on the door.

Clara had been terrified of storms since she was a child. I found her sitting on the landing floor, curled in on herself, trembling, her head between her knees and only a long T-shirt on. She was freezing. When she felt my arms, she clung to me without being able to say a word. The shirt had ridden up to her waist and beneath it she was only wearing a pair of very thin white panties, stuck to her pussy by the dampness of the stairwell. I saw the outline of her lips pressed against the fabric and a darker little spot right in the center.

I took her to my bed so she could warm up. I went to get a blanket, intending to sleep on the armchair that had belonged to my aunt, but her voice stopped me.

—Please, stay —she said—. Sleep with me.

I climbed under the sheets and held her from behind. I could feel her back against my chest, the warmth coming off her, every shiver that ran through her when lightning lit up the room. Her ass was pressed against my cock and no matter how much I wanted to think about something else, it got hard as stone against the seam of her panties. She noticed it, went very still for a second, and instead of pulling away she pushed her hips back, rubbing slowly, searching for that bulge with the fabric of her underwear. I let out a gasp against her neck.

—Clara… —I murmured, my mouth in her hair.

—Shut up —she whispered—, I’ve wanted this for a long time.

And then she stopped trembling with fear. She turned slowly, straddled me, and under the white light of the next flash of lightning I saw her face: she was still soaked in tears, but there was no trace of panic anymore. Only enormous calm and a smile. She yanked her shirt off and I was left staring at her tits head-on for the first time: two medium-sized breasts, white, with pink nipples already hard as little pebbles. I took one into my mouth without thinking, sucked the whole nipple, pulled gently with my teeth, and heard her let out the first real moan of the night.

—Suck them harder —she panted, grabbing my head with both hands—, much harder.

I ran my tongue from one to the other, nibbling, and she rubbed herself against the bulge in my briefs with a desperation that got me even harder. She lowered one hand, pulled my cock out through the opening of my underwear, and stared at it for a moment, like someone finding something they’d been looking for for a long time. She weighed it in her palm, closed her fingers around the shaft, and started stroking me very slowly, up and down, squeezing the tip.

—Fuck, Daniel —she whispered—, it’s beautiful.

And without letting go, she bent down and took it into her mouth. I felt her warm lips close around the head, her tongue wrapping around it, and then how she went lower and lower until the tip reached the back of her throat. She sucked with hunger, without hurry, looking up at me with shining eyes, pulling me out with a wet pop to lick my balls and take me back in whole again. I buried my hands in her hair and didn’t let her go; she let me guide her, moaning with her mouth full, and pleasure leaked out of me through every pore.

—Stop —I panted—, stop or I’m going to come in your mouth right now.

She sat up with a wicked smile, licked her lips, and climbed back on top of me. She parted the fabric of her panties with two fingers and guided me inside her without rushing, as if we had practiced it a thousand times. I felt her close around me, hot and wet, around my cock, and heard her sigh as she leaned back and began moving her hips. I didn’t say anything. There was no need. I put my hands on her waist and followed her rhythm, slowly at first, feeling how her cunt squeezed me every time she came all the way down, how her juices ran down the inside of her thigh every time she rose back up.

—You’re soaking —I groaned—, fuck, I can hear it.

—That’s what you do to me —she panted—, I’ve been getting myself wet in the shower for weeks thinking about your cock inside me.

She leaned forward until her mouth was an inch from mine. She looked at me, and in that look I recognized something I only ever saw in myself every morning in the mirror, when I thought no one was watching. She kissed me with a sweetness that undid me and, at the same time, sped up, rubbing her clit against my pubic bone, chasing her pleasure without letting go of my lips. I grabbed her ass with both hands, spread her open, and drove my cock up into her with short, hard thrusts. The headboard slammed against the wall in time with the storm. Good thing the neighbor across the hall was her.

—Don’t stop —she whispered against my mouth—, don’t stop, don’t stop, fuck me like this.

And I didn’t stop. I carefully turned her until she was on her back, opened her legs as wide as they would go, and sank deeper in one single thrust. She let out a long, shrill moan that swallowed the thunder. I watched her cunt as I went in and out: her lips opened around my cock, shining, and every time I pulled out I dragged her slick all the way to the base. Without thinking, I spit in her mouth and she swallowed, laughing and moaning at the same time.

—Harder —she begged—, break me, give me everything.

I kissed her neck, went down to her nipples and sucked them while I fucked her hard, while she dug her nails into my back and arched her body every time I went all the way in. I lifted one leg, threw it over my shoulder, and like that, almost sideways, I drove into her until I felt I was touching bottom. Her moans were no longer moans; they were muffled screams against the pillow, and each thrust made an obscene wet sound that mixed with the rain against the glass.

—I’m going to come —she panted, clutching her tits—, I’m going to come on your cock, don’t pull out, don’t pull out…

I felt her tighten around me in long spasms, closing so much I could barely keep moving. Her neck turned red, her whole back arched, and she let out a scream that dragged me after her. I drove all the way in one last time and came inside her in hot spurts, feeling my seed fill her cunt while she was still convulsing, while a lightning bolt split the sky with such brutal thunder it swallowed our cries completely.

I stayed inside her until my cock softened slowly, feeling my release seep out between us and stain her thighs. What the storm couldn’t swallow was what was beating in both our chests. Clara collapsed against me, her breathing broken, saying nothing, just smiling. I pulled the duvet over us, kissed her forehead, and we stayed like that until our breathing matched and sleep overtook us.

***

The next morning I got up before her to make her breakfast. I found her worried: I hadn’t said a word since the night before and she was afraid she had made a mistake.

—Didn’t you like last night? —she asked.

—I liked it so much I was trying to surprise the woman I’ve fallen in love with with breakfast —I replied.

Her face lit up and she rushed to hug me. But, true to form, she set one condition: we wouldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend until I asked properly. Since I’m a disaster when it comes to saying what I feel out loud, I wrote it. A clumsy, sincere letter where I confessed that for weeks I had been feeling something much bigger than friendship, that she had been the light pulling me out of the hole, that I wanted to fill beside her the emptiness betrayal had opened in me. I signed it as “your boyfriend” and left it propped against the coffee cup.

She read it in bed. I held my breath; she shed her first tear by the third line. We ended up wrapped around each other again, laughing and crying at the same time.

—Now I can call you my boyfriend —she said, and then immediately added, laughing her head off—: well, that’ll depend on how good breakfast is.

She set the letter aside, pulled me onto the bed, and yanked the pajama pants off me in one sharp tug. She sucked me again with that Sunday-morning calm, staring straight at me, taking me all the way in until I came a second time over her tits. She wiped the semen off with two fingers, brought them to her mouth without stopping smiling, and asked for the toast.

***

As for Marina, I heard she moved to another city and rebuilt her life with a man who looks at her the way Clara looks at me. Gonzalo sank on his own, without anyone having to push him: his arrogance cost him his marriage, his job, and his reputation. Sometimes fate collects its debts without you lifting a finger.

We decided not to sell either apartment. We tore down the wall separating my place from hers and joined them, because within those walls we had been happy as children and we wanted to be happy as adults too. A few months ago, in a hospital room, I held our daughter in my arms while Clara slept, exhausted and happy. When she opened her eyes and saw her, she cried, and I finally understood that the emptiness an infidelity had left in me had been filled by her, to the brim, with not a single space left for fear.