The Stranger on My Terrace and My Wife’s Diary

Esteban Tomás held his breath as he read the first line. He read it again twice, just in case his eyes were deceiving him, and then let the air out in a rush. His wife wasn’t sick. She was just exhausted and, apparently, as broken inside as he was now.

“April 19, 2024.

Dear diary:

I’m back, yes, I know I hadn’t opened you in months. I took advantage of the fact that I moved my rest shift up aboard. I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep. I’ve been turning over for hours what’s waiting for me when we land, so I’d rather tell you in writing, so I don’t explode.

We’re crossing the Atlantic. The girls in the crew are looking at me funny. I asked for relief on the last flight and I had never done that before. Lorena already asked me twice if I’m pregnant. I told her no with a smile, but I don’t know if she believed me. I swear I’m not, little one. It would be the height of it to add that on top of the mess I’m already in.”

Esteban Tomás closed his eyes for a moment. Lorena. That uninhibited flight attendant who had worked with his wife for years, who went to her birthday parties and hugged her like an old friend. A possible informant, without knowing it. He mentally noted the name and kept reading.

“I’ve thought a thousand times about how I’m going to sit down in front of Esteban and tell him all this. I’ll appeal to his good judgment, right? That’s it. I’ll tell him calmly. I’ll explain the circumstances, I’ll tell him the fault is mine alone, that I didn’t fail him because I was lacking something, but because I had too much past.

I’ll tell him I was walking through one of the airport corridors, in a hurry, looking for the rest of the crew. That among all those unfamiliar faces, one caught my attention for no apparent reason. That I stopped. That he stopped too. That time folded back like an old cloth and, all of a sudden, we were no longer the two strangers in the airport, but the two neighborhood kids who promised each other what later didn’t come true.”

That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Esteban Tomás knew that now. The encounter had been accidental. Carolina hadn’t planned it. On that she had been honest. On everything else, no.

“We had a quick coffee. Brief, hear me? Innocent. I swear. We said goodbye with two kisses and the usual exchange of numbers. He promised me that this time he really would come find me. The same promise from twenty years ago, the one that broke my heart when we were almost teenagers.”

“But then you showed up, my little monkey, to put me back together. To heal me without even realizing it. So it didn’t matter if he failed me again.”

It didn’t matter. Until it did. Esteban Tomás tightened the paper between his fingers. The following lines described without shame how, this time, it had been she who sought him out. The photos on social media. That man’s wife: white, green eyes, short black hair. A son who looked like his father. A life that was happy on the outside and, evidently, rotten on the inside.

“We chatted in secret, my handsome little monkey, always behind your back, like he did with his wife. We met several times. Coffees in public places at first. Lunches in hidden restaurants later. Aguardiente in bars for single people. And to change the taste of that first coffee, one night we ordered vodka shots in Madrid, in February, to celebrate my birthday two months late.”

“Son of a bitch,” Esteban Tomás thought. He was married. He was also lying to his wife. He clenched his jaw and kept reading, because he could no longer stop.

“Until it happened, Esteban. We toasted with French champagne on a cute terrace, with the sun going down over the sea of seven colors and a band playing reggae in the distance. On the table there were leftovers of a red snapper, crab empanadas, and a rundown stew he let me taste from his fork. Then we walked barefoot on the sand. We drank rum and Coke in a bar far from the beach. And that night, with our feet tired and the alcohol nicely warmed us up, we ended up in my hotel room.

As soon as he closed the door, he shoved me against the wall and stuck his tongue down my throat. I felt his hard bulge against my belly and my legs went weak. I, who had spent months telling myself it was only a coffee, a lunch, chatting, ended up rubbing myself against his cock over his pants like a bitch in heat. He yanked my dress up, tore one side of my panties off and left them hanging from my ankle. He put two fingers in my pussy and pulled them out dripping wet. ‘You’re soaked, Caro,’ he told me in my ear, with that hoarse voice that tickled even my navel. I couldn’t even answer him. I undid his pants with trembling hands and pulled his cock out. It was hard, thick, the tip shining. I knelt right there, on the hotel carpet, and took him halfway into my mouth. He grabbed my hair, firmly but not roughly, and started setting the rhythm. I sucked his cock the whole way, licked his balls, ran my tongue under the tip, and when I heard him moan I knew I had spent twenty years waiting to hear that moan.

He lifted me by the hair, turned me around, and threw me face down on the bed with my legs hanging off the edge. He spread my ass cheeks with both hands and licked my pussy from bottom to top, unhurried, as if he had all night. He pushed his tongue inside me, pulled it out, sucked my clit until I was shaking all over. I bit the bedspread so I wouldn’t scream, little monkey, and he sank his fingers into me while he licked me, one first, then two, then three. When I couldn’t take any more, he stood behind me and shoved it in with one thrust. I screamed, yes. I screamed loud. He filled me all the way and stayed inside for a second, still, breathing on the back of my neck. Then he started moving. Slowly at first, holding me by the waist. Then harder, faster, fucking me like he wanted to blow me apart from the inside. The blows of his pelvis against my ass made a wet sound that only turned me on more.

He turned me over onto my back, lifted my legs and put them over his shoulders. He looked me in the eyes while he put it back in, all the way, and I came right there, with him inside, squeezing his cock with my pussy. I was shaking all over, little monkey. My thighs, my tits, my throat. He didn’t stop. He kept fucking me while I was coming, and when he was about to finish he pulled out, put his cock between my breasts and came in thick spurts over my neck, my chin, my open mouth. I ran my tongue over the tip to steal the last drops of his cum and he laughed, exhausted, still breathless.

We stayed like that, sticky together, not talking, for a long while. Then he went to the bathroom, wet a towel and cleaned me himself, with a tenderness that didn’t fit with what he had just done to me. And two hours later we fucked again. And at five in the morning too. I walked out of that room crooked, little monkey. With my legs weak, my mouth dry, and my pussy burning. And with a smile that not even breakfast coffee could wipe off my face.”

Cartagena. The September trip. Carolina had come home with skin burnt by the sun and a smile Esteban Tomás had read as happiness at being back. What an idiot he had been.

***

The sound of sneakers dragging over the kitchen tile pulled him out of the trance. Esteban Tomás folded the pages quickly and shoved them into the back pocket of his pants. When he raised his head, his face was already composed.

—Well, I was starting to think you’d gone to bed and left me standing here. Where did you get to? —Sebastián appeared in the patio doorway, glass in hand and a relaxed smile on his lips.

—I was checking that the patio door was locked. If Cleopatra gets out, tomorrow I’ve got another problem on top of the one I already have —he replied dryly. Then, almost on autopilot, he added—: Does that call mean we’re done talking?

—Not at all, man. They were just worried because I was still hanging around here. —Sebastián went back to his chair on the terrace, not noticing the change in tone.

Just as Esteban Tomás sat down, his cell phone rang. The name on the screen made him get up again.

—Excuse me —he told his guest, and walked away toward the fireplace.

—Hey, Nati —he answered in a lower voice.

—Brother-in-law. Are you okay? Sofía told me you had an unexpected visit. Caro’s friend, supposedly.

—I’ve got him here, yes. He’s one of her colleagues. Sebastián. Sebastián… something. With this head I didn’t retain the last name. Does the name ring a bell?

—No, not at all. Pilot?

—Private pilot. Russian tankers, he says. Nothing to do with the airline.

—Mmm. That’s weird, Esteban. Caro never mentioned him to me. But listen: Sofía told me that guy had come to deliver an errand from Felipe. Maybe they met when Felipe was in Buenos Aires. Ask him.

—Yes, it’s weird. That’s why I’m talking to him. Take care, and please keep an eye on Sofía. Don’t let her overdo it with the drinks. Love you.

—Love you more. Bye, brother-in-law.

***

When Esteban Tomás came back to the terrace, Sebastián already had a cigarette between his fingers, unlit, waiting for him. The host’s blue gaze went over him from top to bottom, scrutinizing him in silence, and the guest felt uneasy. He suspected that in that call something had taken shape in the man’s head. He took a deep breath and tried to steer the night back toward the pending conversation.

—Everything okay? Shall we continue?

—My sister-in-law checking in. My daughter’s already on her way home. Are you going to smoke?

—I’ll take the chance now, yes. Later I don’t think they’ll let me. —Sebastián lit the Pall Mall and the lighter’s flame lit his face for an instant—. Your wife has a strong personality. Determined, rational. Has Carolina always been like that?

—In character, yes. In everything else, now I don’t know her.

—In everything else?

—Liar. Manipulative. Traitor. Unfaithful. Am I leaving anything out?

Sebastián held the glass at chest height. He hadn’t expected the other man to be so direct. It took him two seconds to answer.

—I get it, man. It’s logical that you see her that way now. But before, before all this, what was she like with you?

—Carolina always put passion into everything she did. Her work consumes her. She enjoys the little things. She’s self-assured, she loves simplicity. She’s a reader, she loves green mango with salt, she listens to salsa even when nobody can hear it. And when she loves, she does it without fanfare. Slow caresses. Measured words. More feeling than promise.

—Mmm. Interesting, the slow caresses.

Esteban Tomás lifted an eyebrow. Sebastián, without taking his eyes off him, took a long drag and went on, as if the phrase had not fallen between them like a stone to the bottom of a well.

—And the clothes. Did the way she dressed change much? I almost always see her in uniform.

—More sophisticated now. Deep colors, soft fabrics. She never buys on impulse.

—Details, Esteban. Little details that say a lot. When you notice them, that is.

Silence hung between them for a moment. The acetates had finished turning inside. Sebastián stood up, poured more aguardiente into the host’s glass, and went to the sound system to change the cassette. Esteban Tomás took advantage of the guest’s back to pull another sheet from his pocket. His hands were trembling a little.

“December 4, 2022.

Hi, little witch. I opened you again to tell you what happened to me a few days ago. I was just about to take a nap after lunch with the girl, when I got a message and the sleep vanished.

Yes, you know. It was him. Him him. And I got nervous like a teenager. A thirty-eight-year-old woman, about to turn another year older, and trembling like a girl reading every word. I don’t know what’s waking up in me, little witch. It’s a… a delicious fear. All nice.

And Esteban? Yes, I know, I know. But I didn’t do anything wrong. I answered the greeting, like friends. Is that betrayal? Maybe a little. That’s why, when I read his proposal to celebrate my birthday in Madrid or Lisbon, I got a shiver and closed the screen. I shouldn’t have told him I was going to Europe soon.

The worst part, little witch, is that after I closed the screen I got into bed and touched myself thinking about him. I pulled down my pajama pants, spread my legs and ran my fingers over my pussy imagining what he’d do to me if I ran into him in Madrid. I imagined him fucking me against a hotel window overlooking Gran Vía, his hand on my throat and his cock all the way in. I imagined sucking him on my knees in the shower, with the water falling over us. I slid two fingers inside myself and pinched my clit with my thumb and came in less than three minutes, biting my arm so I wouldn’t wake Sofía in the next room. Then I lay there staring at the ceiling, sweaty, with sticky fingers, and thinking that Esteban was napping on the living room couch, suspecting nothing. The guilt lasted until the next morning. After that, no more.”

The sound of applause pulled him away from the page.

—No way, man, what relics you’ve got in this house! Cassette tapes! Haven’t touched one in ages. —Sebastián came back to the terrace with a full glass and a broad smile.

Esteban Tomás tucked the pages away discreetly and returned a half-made grimace. In his head, though, two letters were turning over like a fly against glass: Ese, Ese. The initials of his wife’s lover. The initials of the man seated in front of him.

For a second, he let the idea settle into place. Sebastián Sosa. Sebastián Soto. Sebastián Salinas. Any of the possible surnames fit the empty slot too well.

He thought about asking him outright, no beating around the bush. “What’s your last name, Sebastián?” But after reading what he had read, he didn’t want to give the other man time to spin a lie. Better keep pulling his tongue, keep him comfortable, keep him believing Esteban knew nothing.

—Esteban… Esteban?

—What? Sorry. I was somewhere else.

—I was asking you about the cassettes. But it doesn’t matter. Let’s keep going. Where were we?

—You were telling me you hadn’t brought me the lemonade.

—That. Exactly that. And instead, she herself came down with two plastic cups, full of room-temperature borojó juice. She stood in front of me, waiting for me to take the first sip. I looked it over with disgust, until with that almost military commanding voice we already knew, she challenged me.

Sebastián laughed. Esteban Tomás didn’t. He played along with a half-smile, while inside, beneath the table, his hand squeezed the folded bundle of papers against his thigh.

The name. He was missing the name. And that man drinking vodka on his terrace, smiling as if nothing were happening, was going to give it to him. Whether he wanted to or not.

To be continued…