The upstairs neighbor came up to ask me for salt

Moving to Málaga after my divorce in Oviedo was like suddenly opening a window in a house that had been shut up for years. At forty-one, with the bitter aftertaste of the breakup still stuck in my throat, the light of the Mediterranean and the sound of my motorcycle along the seafront gave me back a desire to live I had thought buried.

I rented an apartment downtown, a bachelor refuge where the suitcases were almost never unpacked. My life became a nonstop rush: internet dates that took me to Granada, Almería, Seville, or Cádiz, nights that ended at dawn, and a comfortable mess, the kind of life of someone who owes no explanations to anyone. I was living my second bachelorhood to silence a broken heart.

I found the contrast every time I walked through the building entrance. On the first floor lived a couple who seemed the reverse side of my coin. He was a man of about fifty, with a friendly expression and an agreeable voice. She was Rosa, a woman in her forties who was a monument to maturity: blonde, with soft features and a deep gaze, and that body of a real woman, wide hips and generous breasts that her clothes could barely contain.

But Rosa’s beauty had a bitter soundtrack. Over the past week, the silence of my naps had been broken by the shouting rising from her apartment through the lightwell. Fights like those that leave the air thick, reproaches hurled with the rage of people who have swallowed too much for too long. I listened to them while getting dressed to go out, with a mixture of pity and a curiosity that kept growing.

That Thursday, around nine-thirty, the building was unusually quiet. Since my doorbell had been broken since I moved in — bachelor priorities didn’t include household repairs — a knuckle rap against the wood startled me.

It was her. But not the impeccable woman from the elevator. She was wearing a thin house robe, tied in a hurry, clinging to her curves in a way that was almost reckless. Her chest was rising and falling fast, and in her eyes there was a mixture of nerves and something else I couldn’t quite read.

—Sorry, neighbor… well, Bruno —she said, using my name for the first time, and suddenly the distance between us shortened—. Do you have a little salt? I’m out. I thought I had some and…

I leaned against the frame and let my gaze travel slowly over the sight in front of me. My eyes drifted on their own to the neckline the hastily tied robe hadn’t quite covered. After the shouting that had echoed through the courtyard, her being there asking for something as stupid as salt sounded like an excuse that was too obvious to be real.

—Salt? I’m not sure if I have any left. Come in, don’t stand in the doorway —I said.— Sorry about the mess, but I barely ever stay home.

—I was going to make dinner and saw the salt cellar was empty —she explained, though her gaze was no longer looking for the kitchen, but for me—. I didn’t want to bother you, Bruno. I know you’re always in and out, with the bike, with the trips. You don’t seem like a man for this kind of domestic stuff.

—It’s true I don’t spend much time between these four walls —I admitted, taking an almost imperceptible step toward her, just enough for her heat to begin filtering in—. I got divorced a few months ago, so now I go out quite a bit. But the last thing I want is to be tied down to anyone. I’d rather dip here and there, with no complications.

Rosa crossed her arms, a gesture that, far from closing her off, pushed her breasts up and tightened her neckline to the limit. She looked me up and down slowly, with the face of someone assessing a temptation she knows she shouldn’t allow herself but desires with a shamelessness that burns.

—You really know how to live, Bruno —she said, with such ease it left me unarmed.— Good salary, the bike outside, and every night you come home at dawn. Forty years old, divorced, no kids to support. My God. You’re every single woman’s dream and every married woman’s headache. And, besides… —her gaze settled on my shoulders—, you’re in great shape. Really great.

She said it without the slightest restraint, like someone confessing a sin she no longer cared about committing. She wasn’t flirting like a girl: she was speaking like a mature woman who knows how to recognize the value of what’s in front of her. Her words were an inventory of my body, but it was her body, vibrating under the thin fabric, that was making the real offer.

—What a compliment, Rosa —I replied, letting my voice drop an octave—. But I get the feeling you didn’t come up just for the salt, especially at this hour. I heard you and your husband arguing these past few days. Is something wrong?

She took another step toward the center of the living room and let the door close almost all the way behind her. Her voice, cautious a moment before, turned firm and sharp.

—Yes —she said, pinning me with her eyes without blinking—. I caught him with a coworker. He’d been acting strange for a while, coming home late and always keeping his phone face down. One day I couldn’t take it anymore, I looked at his phone, and it was all there. That’s the real reason for the shouting you’ve been hearing.

She let out a long sigh and her shoulders relaxed, and the robe settled over her breasts in an even more suggestive way. The tension from the fight seemed to have turned into something else, something much more dangerous.

—Now he’s at the beach house. We’ve been like this for a week, between silence and slammed doors —she continued—. So, I’m alone. My eldest lives in Bilbao with his girlfriend, and the younger one is studying away from home. Alone… and badly in need of affection.

She let the last word hang in the air like a direct invitation. This wasn’t a neighbor’s venting: Rosa was looking for the fire I, with my ownerless life, represented for her.

—Do you find me attractive, Bruno? —she asked.— Do you think a woman like me could do the same as you? Go out there, blow off all this steam, and have a good time.

—Absolutely —I answered in a rough voice.— You look very womanly. Very appetizing. Any man with blood in his veins would turn around if he saw you walk past.

She gave a slow smile, loaded with intent, and the living room seemed to shrink. She came a little closer, and her voice dropped to a whisper that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

—And you? —she blurted out.— Would you sleep with me?

I fell silent for a second. My bachelor’s brain, used to not having to explain itself, faltered.

—Well… I… —I stammered.— But the other neighbors. In a building, everything gets known eventually.

She didn’t let me finish. She stepped forward decisively and put a hand on my chest. I felt the heat of her palm through my T-shirt.

—Forget the neighbors and look at me —she said with a confidence that lit me up.— I’m here, now. Nobody saw me come up, and nobody cares what happens behind your door.

Her fingers pulled at the belt of the robe. The fabric slid off her shoulders and hips and fell to the floor like a whisper. Rosa stood in front of me, completely naked, offering me her maturity in all its splendor: the whiteness of her skin, the fullness of her breasts with broad, dark nipples, already hard and pointing at me, the curve of her belly and, lower still, the patch of blond hair, trimmed but thick, framing a cunt that was already gleaming, parted open. An image of such carnal power that it made every internet date seem like child’s play.

—Do you like my body? —she asked, pinning me with her green eyes, defiant and vulnerable at once.— Would you fuck me right now?

The question hung in the air, but the answer didn’t need words. Without looking away, I closed the final distance. My hands, used to motorcycle leather and the hurried skin of fleeting dates, found her hips. Her skin was much softer than I expected, and her heat hit me full on. Rosa let out a broken breath, that sound that mixes the relief of being desired with the hunger of someone who’s gone too long without caresses.

I pulled her hard against me, pressing her naked body to my clothes. The contrast was brutal: the roughness of denim against her skin and the weight of her breasts flattening against my chest. She wrapped her arms around my neck, found my mouth, and when our lips met the kiss was no neighborly courtesy: it was a collision of needs. She tasted of built-up desire and of that freedom I was always preaching about. Her tongue came in boldly, looking for mine, while one of her hands slid down and squeezed my cock through my jeans, measuring it, calibrating it, like someone checking what they were about to put in their mouth.

—Fuck, you’re already rock hard —she whispered against my lips, squeezing again.— And nice and thick. Just what I needed tonight.

—I promise you tonight you won’t be missing any of that affection you say you’re short on —I murmured in her ear, while I grabbed a full breast in my hand and pinched the nipple between two fingers until she let out a short moan.

I lifted her, feeling her solid weight, and she wrapped herself around my waist with eager legs. I felt her cunt soaking my denim above the fly. There was no need to go to the bedroom: my bachelor living-room sofa was about to witness the first-floor neighbor becoming the absolute owner of my night.

***

Rosa didn’t wait for me to make the first move. The humiliation of betrayal and the days of loneliness had cooked up a hunger she no longer bothered to hide. With a determined motion, she guided my hand to my bulge and squeezed with a firmness that tore a growl from me. Her urgent fingers undid the jeans button and pulled the zipper down with startling agility. She slipped her hand inside my briefs, pulled my cock out into the open, and weighed it in her palm, staring at it with wide eyes.

—My God, Bruno, what a beautiful cock —she gasped, squeezing me from top to bottom, feeling how I throbbed against her fingers.— Thick, hard, with the veins standing out… It’s been years since I held one like this in my hand.

She yanked my jeans and briefs down to my knees and knelt on the rug. She looked up at me from below, with those eyes blazing with payback, and without saying a word she opened her mouth as wide as she could and took me all at once, until I felt the tip hit the back of her throat. She started sucking with a voracious rhythm, her broad tongue flattened against the underside of the head, saliva streaming from the corner of her mouth and dripping in drops onto her breasts. With one hand she jerked me at the base, squeezing and twisting her wrist, and with the other she cupped my balls, weighing them, squeezing them very slowly.

She pulled me out completely, watched me shine between her saliva-slick lips, and then swallowed me again in one gulp. She slurped, spat on the head, and used her own spit to give me a fast, filthy handjob, not the least bit self-conscious about the sound. When she felt me thrust my hips forward, she answered by opening her mouth wider and letting herself get throat-fucked, with short, controlled gags that brought tears to her eyes.

Halfway through, she pulled me out of her mouth, dripping, and rubbed me over her cheek and parted lips while holding my gaze with pure shamelessness.

—Am I doing it right? —she asked, her voice hoarse from having me inside her mouth.— Do your internet dates suck cock like this?

—Like a dream —I managed to say, planting my hands on her head so I wouldn’t lose my balance.— You really had a hunger on, you little bitch. You suck like a whore.

—I am a whore tonight, Bruno —she said, laughing with her mouth open, tongue out, smacking her chin with my cock.— Your little whore. A horny mature woman who came up under the excuse of salt so her neighbor would shove it all the way in. Say it, tell me I’m your little whore.

—You’re my little whore, Rosa. My mature slut —I growled, grabbing her hair.— Look what you came here looking for. Look how soaked you are.

She swallowed me again to the base, moaning around my cock, and with her other hand she slipped two fingers into her cunt and started fingering herself at the same rhythm she was sucking me. I watched her hand shine with slick, the way she clamped her thighs against her heels.

—It drives me crazy —she confessed when she pulled back again, catching her breath and wrapping her fingers around me once more.— Imagine, so many years only seeing my husband’s, always half-hard, always out of routine. And now this beauty in my mouth. I’m about to cum just from sucking you. Tell me… how many women have you taken to bed since you’ve lived here?

I laughed. There was no point in lying to her, especially with her on her knees, spitting on my cock.

—In the year I’ve been here, it’s been seven, maybe a few more —I said naturally.— Some lasted a month, the longest one lasted three. In short, I haven’t stopped.

She listened like someone hearing the chronicle of a forbidden world, her fingers never stopping, fucking her mouth against my head.

—Seven cocks a year… well, seven cunts a year —she whispered, wetting her lips and biting mine underneath.— I’m jealous, Bruno. That freedom to choose, to try, to feel a new cock every month. My life has been a desert compared to yours. I’ve gone five years without cumming with a cock inside me. Five years, Bruno.

She stood up slowly, deliberately, letting the light travel over her hips and her big white ass. She was a step away, vibrating, and I noticed how the wetness between her legs was already running down the inside of her thigh.

—Then today you won’t need to wait until the third date —she said, grabbing my wrist and taking my hand straight to her cunt.— You’ve had seven, but now you’ve got me. And you’re going to fuck me until I forget every one of those screams you heard this week.

When I touched her, I found her burning hot. My fingers sank into soft, soaked flesh, and her clit had swollen to the point where I could feel it throbbing against my thumb. This wasn’t the domestic sex of an exhausted marriage: it was the hunger of a woman who had just broken her chains.

I laid her on the sofa. When she fell, her hips spread out with a heaviness that made the furniture creak. I grabbed her legs behind the knees and opened them wide, obscenely, until her cunt was fully exposed, gleaming under the living room lamp, the outer lips thick and the inner ones peeking out, swollen and purple with arousal. I knelt between her thighs, which offered no resistance now. I brought my face close and it surprised me: I expected the wear and tear of a long marriage, and instead I found a clean, hot smell, straight to the brain, the smell of an eager mature woman. I parted her with my thumbs, exposing the clit, and my tongue went in without a second thought.

I started at the entrance, very slowly, widening it with the tip and sinking it in as if it were a little cock. I fucked her with my tongue, in and out, sucking up the juices that ran down my chin. Then I moved up the slit, licking every fold calmly, until I reached the clit and trapped it between my lips. I sucked, pulled gently, then harder, and circled it with the tip until I saw her arch.

—Look at me, Bruno —she said, her voice breaking, grabbing my hair and smashing my face into her cunt.— This is what my husband doesn’t want to touch anymore. Five years without anyone eating me out like this. Five. I’d forgotten what it felt like.

I slid in two fingers, then three, curling them upward, looking for the spot inside while I kept sucking her clit. She was wide from three births and from the years, but she gripped, oh yes she gripped, and inside I could feel everything rough and swollen. Rosa arched her back, dug her heels into the sofa, and seized my wrist with unexpected strength, guiding my rhythm, showing me the exact spot.

—There, there, fuck, there —she panted, her head thrown back and her tits bouncing with each thrust.— Don’t stop. I don’t care if the neighbors hear me. Let the whole building hear me. Let them know I’m here, with my legs open for the bachelor on the second floor.

The heat was scorching. I started moving slowly, then faster, sucking and pumping at the same time, while with my other hand I squeezed one breast and twisted the nipple. She convulsed all over. Her cunt closed in spasms around my fingers, soaking my hand to the wrist, spilling over the leather of the sofa. Her moans came in broken bursts, almost sobs, and she sank her nails into my scalp.

—I came like crazy —she blurted out, with a nervous laugh mixed with tears of pure pleasure.— You have no idea how badly I needed this. Five fucking years, Bruno. Five. Don’t stop, please, don’t stop.

When she finally calmed down, panting, with glassy eyes and hair stuck to her forehead, I withdrew my hand slowly, the three fingers shining and coated with thick slick. I brought them to her mouth without asking, and she accepted them with her tongue out, sucking them clean, tasting herself without a shred of shame.

—Now fuck me —she whispered against my fingers, biting them.— I can’t take it anymore. Put it all the way in, Bruno. I want to feel you driving it into me.

I positioned myself on my knees between her thighs, grabbed her hips and yanked her to the edge of the sofa. I took my cock at the base, pressed it against her soaked slit, and rubbed it up and down, wetting the head with her juices, tapping her clit until she jolted. She was looking at me with her mouth open, waiting for it, moving her hips in an attempt to swallow it.

—Don’t make me beg, you bastard —she moaned.— Put it in already.

I drove in with one thrust and she swallowed me to the base. It went in easy, slippery, hot as an oven, and I felt her inner walls slam shut around me, squeezing like a fist. Rosa let out a long, hoarse moan, with her eyes rolled back and her mouth open.

—Yes… put it all in, Bruno. All of it. All the way.

I started pumping, first slowly so she could get used to the size, then hard, feeling her wrap around me loose and burning all at once. Each thrust made her breasts bounce upward and smack against her chin. She grabbed her chest, pinched her nipples and bit them, looking at me with shameless lust, never taking her eyes off mine.

—Harder —she begged, her voice broken.— Fuck me like I’m one of your dates. Fuck me like a filthy bitch. Don’t treat me like the lady downstairs, treat me like a whore you picked up off a website.

I sped up. The sound was filthy, a constant splashing from her soaked cunt, the dull slap of my balls against the slit of her ass, her gasps breaking with each thrust. I grabbed one leg, threw it over my shoulder, and turned my hips a little to enter her from another angle. She let out a scream that must have been heard all over the stairwell.

—There, fuck, there you’re driving it in all the way —she panted.— Keep going, keep going, don’t pull out.

I pulled out in one jerk, set her on all fours on the sofa, and grabbed her hair. I looked at her big white ass, the open slit, the cunt that had already swollen twice its size and was leaking down the inside of her thigh. I shoved back in with one thrust and this time I grabbed her hips with both hands and pounded her mercilessly, dragging her back each time I pushed forward. Her ass trembled with each impact, ripples forming in the flesh. I landed a hard slap on one cheek and left my handprint red there.

—More, more slaps, treat me badly —she moaned into the cushion.— Make me forget my own name.

I gave her two more slaps, one on each cheek, and pressed up against her back, my cock buried to the hilt, to grab her breasts from underneath, weighing them, squeezing them while I kept driving into her. She slipped one hand between her legs and started rubbing her clit to the rhythm of my thrusts, demanding more from me, until I felt her whole body tense like a rope about to snap.

—I’m coming again, fuck, I’m coming again —she shrieked.— Don’t stop now, don’t stop, don’t stop…

She came with my cock inside her, screaming it at me, and I felt the contractions of her cunt milking me, squeezing me from top to bottom as if she wanted to wrench my orgasm out by force. I held on as long as I could, biting her shoulder, but it was impossible.

—I can’t hold it anymore… —I groaned, my hips already out of control.

—Do it inside —she panted, looking back at me over her shoulder with shining eyes.— Come inside, Bruno. Fill me up completely. I want to smell you on me tomorrow, when I cross paths with my husband, and to have your cum dripping down the inside of my thigh.

I couldn’t take even one more thrust. The orgasm shot up from my balls like a lash, tensing my entire body, and I came inside her in bursts, one after another, my mind going blank and my teeth sunk into her shoulder. I felt the semen fill her and start slipping out around the edges of the slit, running down onto my balls. Rosa convulsed again with the second spasm, screaming, her body arched, nails dug into the back of the sofa.

I pulled out slowly, exhausted, and watched a thick white thread run from her open cunt and slide down her thigh to her knee. She let herself fall onto her side, panting, with an exhausted smile painted across her face. She ran two fingers along the slit, gathered a fat drop of the mix of juices and semen, and put them in her mouth, sucking them slowly while staring straight at me.

—Fuck, Bruno… you’ve left me feeling brand new —she said, catching her breath.— It’s been years since I came twice in a row. And I won’t even tell you what it’s like with a cock inside.

—Well, looks like the salt ended up costing you dearly —I joked, and she burst out laughing, a rough, tired laugh that came up from her chest like she’d been holding it in all night.

***

—I don’t feel like going back downstairs yet —she said after a while, curling up against me, her cunt still dripping onto my thigh.— Can I stay over? I’ll sneak down early, before dawn, and nobody will know.

—Sure —I answered.— But first let’s clean up this mess. I don’t want the living room to smell like what happened here tomorrow.

She let out another low laugh and asked me for a towel. Then we got into the shower together. The hot water fell like a blessing. I soaped her back, ran the sponge over her ass, slid my fingers between the crack of her ass while soaping her slowly, and then washed her cunt with my open hand, feeling my semen run down the drain mixed with the soap. She braced herself against the tiles, arched her ass back, and moaned softly when I ran my thumb over her swollen clit.

—Stop, you brat —she said, laughing and swatting my hand away.— If you keep going, I’ll cum again and I won’t make it to bed alive. And I’m warning you now, tomorrow we’re doing this again, because something has woken up in me that’s been asleep for years.

We dried ourselves with clean towels and went to the bedroom. The room fell dark, lit only by the orange glow of the streetlamp slipping through the blinds. Rosa turned toward me, threw an arm over me and pressed herself to my body, her breasts flattening against mine, one leg crossed over my own, her still-hot cunt brushing my thigh.

—Hold me tight —she whispered.— I like sleeping like this. Like someone is taking care of me for one night and I don’t have to think about anything else.

I wrapped my arm around her and she let out a deep sigh, settled against me, and closed her eyes.

—Good night, Bruno —she murmured.— Thank you for tonight. Tomorrow… we’ll see.

And that was how we stayed. Her breathing gradually became slow and deep, the weight of her relaxed body against mine. The smell of sex still hung in the room, soft now, mixed with the soap from the shower. I thought there was nothing more intimate than that: a neighbor nine years older than me, asleep pressed against my body, hidden from the world behind a cardboard excuse.

And I knew that in the morning, when she tiptoed out, I’d be left smelling of her on the sheets until I had to put them in the washing machine.