Tonight I’m Seducing My Best Friend’s Husband

I saw his face when he opened the door, and the words died on his lips.

—Lucía? What are you doing here? I thought that…

—Can I come in?

He hesitated for a second before answering. It was clear he was trying to pull himself together after finding me standing on his landing at that hour, three months after our last conversation.

—Uh… yes, of course. Come in.

He stepped aside and I went straight into the living room. I dropped onto one of the sofas as though the house still belonged to me, at least a little. Diego followed, uncomfortable in his own apartment.

—Do you have anything to drink?

—What do you feel like? A beer?

—Something stronger. And pour one for yourself too. You’re going to need it.

—Lucía, you’re scaring me.

—Do what I’m telling you. I’ve come to ask you a favor, and you’re not going to like it.

Diego stopped halfway to the drinks cabinet, looking at me with an unreadable expression. After a couple of seconds, he poured two short whiskeys and brought me mine. He sat on the sofa opposite mine and set his on the table between us without touching it.

—All right. What’s this favor? What’s with all the mystery?

I watched him in silence as I lit a cigarette, after asking his permission with a gesture. Diego took an ashtray from the lower shelf of the table and put it within my reach. I stared at it as if it were a roulette mat. I was about to bet everything on a single number.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under my scrutiny. At last, I made up my mind.

—How well do you know Rodrigo?

The question threw him. His eyes widened.

—What do you mean? Lucía, for fuck’s sake, get to the point. You’re making me nervous.

—Please answer. It’s important.

—All right —he said, running a hand through his brown hair—. Well… I don’t know. You know. The four of us have gone out together a few times, so…

—I mean apart from that. At work and outside of work.

—Well, we’re colleagues at the company, although we’re not in the same department. I joined a couple of years after him, and we became friends through the annual tennis tournament. Outside work, the usual. Beers after work. The occasional game. Not much more.

—Does the company Aquanova Construcciones ring a bell?

His perplexity was genuine. Diego was far too transparent to lie without showing it.

—Wait —he said, standing up—. Are you here as a cop? I thought you…

—Relax. I’m not here as a cop. Unless you’ve got a bomb hidden somewhere —my joke did not amuse him—. I’m here as Marina’s friend.

Marina’s name alone was enough to change his expression. I hadn’t bet wrong.

—What’s wrong with her? Is she all right? Did something happen?

I almost laughed, but the subject was too serious.

—Nothing has happened. Yet. But it will soon, and I need to do everything I can to make sure as little of it as possible splashes onto her. Does the company ring a bell or not?

Diego sat down again, nerves tightening his jaw.

—No. It doesn’t ring any bell. What does it have to do with Marina?

—A few days ago, a colleague from the prosecutor’s office came to see me. He knows I know Rodrigo and gave me a heads-up about what’s coming. He’s handling a case involving influence peddling and irregular contracts for pipeline construction in several new housing developments. Aquanova Construcciones, a sole proprietorship owned by Rodrigo, got the contracts through clearly illegal means.

—You’ve got to be fucking kidding me —Diego leaned forward—. But Rodrigo’s rolling in money and…

—They discovered that the money used to capitalize the company came from a second mortgage on the house Marina and he own on the coast. He forged her signature.

—Are you sure?

—Completely. If Marina knew, she would have told me. I have no doubt whatsoever.

—What a fucking bastard.

—That’s not all.

—Does he also run a chain of nightclubs? —he tried to joke without conviction.

—Not exactly. Though he’d be the only customer. The surveillance operation authorized by the judge also revealed that Rodrigo regularly sees a couple of lovers. And that he doesn’t turn anyone down if they happen to cross his path.

I watched him closely. There was an involuntary movement in his eyes that I couldn’t miss.

—You’re not surprised.

—I am… well. Look, not completely. But…

—Care to clarify?

Diego cleared his throat, arranging the words before letting them out.

—It does surprise me, yes. But not completely. It fits his… charming personality.

—Yes. Like a snake.

—You don’t like him, do you?

—No —I put all my sincerity into that single syllable—. I never have. But until today my hands were tied.

Diego gave me a look halfway between surprise and doubt.

—So you didn’t know anything about his affairs either.

—I had no proof. I knew he was the type to flirt with the waitress, the neighbor, his best friend’s sister. But I never imagined he took it that far. I mean… why would he do all that when he had a woman like Marina at home? You’d have to be…

My sentence broke off when I saw Diego clench his jaw. There it was. The confirmation I needed.

—Well, I mean… —he hurried to clarify something that needed no further explanation.

—Yes, I know. I know what you mean.

Diego raised an eyebrow, flushed, and picked up his glass to bring it to his mouth. He never got as far as drinking. An idea had lit a bulb in his head.

—Is that the favor you came to ask me?

—What? —now I was the surprised one.

He wore the expression of someone who believed he had solved a riddle.

—You know. That I get close to him to find out what he knows and then…

I burst out laughing, nearly knocking over the ashtray. Diego was left looking half bewildered, half offended.

—No, honey. No —I hurried to say before the offended half gained ground—. I’m not trying to turn this into a spy movie.

—Then what?

It took me a while, two cigarettes, and another drink to lay out the plan. I’m a bitch, yes. But I know all four of them like the back of my hand. His reaction confirmed it: Diego practically jumped in his seat. This time he really did take a good swallow.

—But that’s outrageous! —he declared, getting to his feet.

—I know.

Diego began pacing around the sofas, stopping from time to time to look at me the way a psychiatrist looks at a patient about to jump out a window.

—It’s insane. But why all this theater? Why not talk to her and tell her what you know?

—It isn’t that easy. Marina is a brilliant woman, very tenacious. But when she falls in love… she can’t see beyond it. It’s as if she blindfolded herself and covered her ears. She doesn’t want to see the ugliness of the world, especially if the ugliness lives in her house.

—Right.

—I don’t know what Rodrigo has, I swear I don’t. But he has Marina completely tied up. And to make matters worse, she has him on a fucking pedestal.

—When everything blows up and the legal and financial problems begin, he’ll convince her that he needs her more than ever. And Marina won’t be able to abandon him to his fate. I know her.

—Would she forgive the cheating too? —he asked, incredulous. There was a shadow of bitterness in his voice that he failed to hide—. If she loves him as much as you say, that’s going to destroy her, isn’t it?

—Logically, yes. But when it comes to Marina, logic doesn’t apply. She has too big a heart, and in this case that works against her. Somehow, between apologies, tears, and one of his con-man tricks, he’ll turn the tables and Marina will end up apologizing to him for being cheated on.

I imagined the scene, and something resembling sadness filled my chest. Several failed attempts to make Marina see the light came to mind, along with the tension I had swallowed afterward so things could return to normal. In any conversation involving her husband, my opinion and I came second, so far behind first place that we were almost irrelevant.

Diego paced a couple more times, chewing over the idea.

—And what’s going to change when she finds out you slept with that… with Rodrigo?

—I’ve seen it happen many times. Too many. Rodrigo does something wrong, puts on the face of a deeply repentant naughty boy, and that’s enough to trigger Marina’s sick savior complex.

—Messiah complex?

—No. Martyr syndrome. She’s dumber than a crucified saint. Stabbed, spat on, nailed to a cross, and instead of telling his father and the entire heavenly choir to fuck off, what does the guy do? He forgives them. With balls of steel.

—Well, Marina is three-quarters the same.

—So? —he asked, worried.

—So if she doesn’t react to her best friend fucking her husband…

I let the sentence drop like a stone. Diego waited for an ending that didn’t exist. I improvised one.

—I’ll crucify myself. And then turn myself in at the nearest police station —I sighed—. If this doesn’t make her react, Diego, I don’t know what else to do. But she will react, because she won’t be able to look the other way. The betrayal is too great.

We remained silent for a while. Diego refilled our glasses. I lit another cigarette and smoked it leisurely, contemplating a damp stain on the ceiling.

—Why me? —he broke the quiet.

I stood up and sat beside him on the sofa where he had dropped himself again.

—Do you know why we broke up? —I asked, looking him in the eyes.

—Yes. You made that very clear. We weren’t compatible. You wanted someone…

—Did you really believe all that bullshit I fed you? Come on, Diego. I may be a bitch, but I’m not an idiot. And neither are you.

Diego looked at me, bewildered. I knew it. He knew it. There was no time for beating around the bush.

—Diego, we broke up because you’re in love with Marina.

I waited for several possible reactions. Flat denial. A melodramatic scene. But no. Diego simply smiled sadly.

—Is it that obvious?

I put a hand on his shoulder. I felt the warmth of his skin beneath his T-shirt, his uneven breathing. For a second I wondered what kind of couple we might have been if he had truly been in that relationship, and not only halfway, always treading on someone else’s shadow. Suddenly I remembered one particular night, with him on top of me, moving slowly, and how I had closed my eyes and focused on his breathing so I wouldn’t think about the possibility that, inside, he was making love to someone else in his head. Now that torture made sense, and even a bitter taste that had nothing to do with the whiskey filled my mouth.

—Yes, honey. Yes. That’s why you have to be the one who’s there. Marina is going to need someone who loves her properly. She may forgive Rodrigo a lot of things, but not this. This will burn every ship and every bridge he has left for getting her under his spell again.

—But you…

I shrugged resignedly.

—I would do anything for her happiness. I know it’s going to hurt her. I know I’m going to destroy her. But in the long run, it’s a necessary pain to spare her a worse one.

—I know I have no right to make this decision. But I made it anyway.

—Those of us who work with explosives know that sometimes, to do our duty, we have no choice but to blow ourselves up with the bomb when it can’t be defused and lives are at stake. It’s not in any manual. No superior ever says it out loud. We accept it as part of the job.

—It doesn’t happen often. But it happens.

Diego looked at me for a long while, weighing whether I was sane or not.

—Please, Diego. Help me.

He thought about it. Thought about it again. And before smoke began pouring out of his head, he nodded.

—When it’s done, give her this —I said, standing up and taking a sealed envelope from my bag—. After the first few days have passed, when she’s ready to listen.

Diego took the envelope and looked at me with a question drawn across his face.

—You can open it. It’s a letter. She likes letters.

He broke the seal and skimmed the first line. “Dear Marina.”

—I explain everything you already know there. And a few other things.

—Why don’t you give it to her yourself? Surely when she finds out…

I ran a hand over his face. I felt the roughness of his stubble. My eyes were beginning to cloud. I shook my head.

—She won’t want to know anything about me —I answered, holding back my tears—. Take care of her, all right?

Another silence settled between us, much denser and more final than the first. With one last look at my face, Diego nodded.

—I promise.

***

I arranged to meet Rodrigo the next day. Some ordinary excuse: a professional favor, advice about a delicate matter. I suggested that we meet somewhere private, at a hotel near the harbor. I let the choice drop as if by accident, and he accepted with a smile that confirmed everything the surveillance operation had uncovered. It took no effort. Before I had even finished the sentence, he was already imagining something else.

I chose my clothes carefully. Not for me. For him. A short black dress, no bra underneath, stockings with a garter belt I had never intended to wear again, and lace panties I knew perfectly well would stay on him for less time than one of his promises. I looked at myself in the hotel elevator mirror and didn’t recognize myself. What I recognized, instead, was the choreography. The work uniform of another Lucía who was going to step out of that elevator and do what had to be done.

When he opened the room door, his belt was half undone and two glasses were waiting on the nightstand. I didn’t have to act. I simply let him come closer and press me against the door. I let him kiss my neck, lift my skirt, and slide a hot hand between my thighs as if he had been waiting years for that moment. I let him do everything, without moving a muscle beyond what was necessary. My body went through the motions. My mind was somewhere else, calculating how long it would take Marina to smash the photograph on the living-room sideboard into a thousand pieces—the one of the two of us embracing on a beach, a decade earlier, when neither of us yet knew what life had in store for us.

Rodrigo kicked the door shut behind me and squeezed my tits through the dress with both hands, pressing as if he were inspecting merchandise. He lowered his mouth to my neck, bit and sucked, and whispered against my skin:

—Bitch. I knew you’d come one day. I knew it.

—Shut up and do it —I answered without looking at him.

He laughed—a short, filthy laugh—and ripped the straps of my dress down in one tug, leaving my tits bare. He crouched and sucked one nipple, then the other, biting them until a complaint escaped me that he interpreted exactly as he wanted to. I let him believe whatever he pleased. While he sucked my tits, one hand pawed at my cunt through my panties, pressing the fabric against my lips, rubbing my clit with his thumb in a rough, hurried way, with no intention of pleasing me.

—You’re wet, slut. You’re soaked. Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about this.

I was wet, yes. I hated my body for it. I hated that biology had no principles. I closed my eyes and let him push his hand inside my panties. Two fingers plunged into my cunt and tore an involuntary moan from me. He began moving them inside with the impatience of men who have never learned how to fuck a woman slowly, who are always rushing toward the end even when the end leads nowhere.

—Get on your knees —he ordered, pulling his fingers out of me and bringing them to his mouth to suck.

I knelt. The hotel carpet scraped my knees through the stockings. He lowered his zipper, pulled out his already-hard cock, and held it in front of my face. It was thick and short, with prominent veins and a red, wet head. The typical cock of a man who thought he was blessed by it. He brought it to my lips and waited.

—Open that whore’s mouth, Lucía. Show me why Marina loves you so much.

Mentioning Marina at that moment was the only thing that made me hesitate. For a second. Just one second. Then I opened my mouth, and he thrust his cock all the way down my throat without warning. I gagged. My eyes watered. He grabbed my hair with both hands and began fucking my mouth at his own pace, giving me no time to breathe, forcing my head against his pelvis harder and harder.

—Swallow it. Swallow it all. That’s it, fuck. That’s it, bitch. Just the way I know you like it.

Saliva ran down my chin and dripped onto my tits. I let him do it. I closed my eyes and let him use my mouth as if it were just another cunt. Every time his cock sank into my throat, I thought about the forged signature, the mortgage on Marina’s house, the photograph on the sideboard. Every gag was one more piece of evidence. Every tug on my hair, another nail in the coffin of my friendship.

When he realized he was about to come, he pulled his cock from my mouth and slapped my face with it, once, then again, leaving trails of saliva and pre-cum on my cheek.

—Not yet, pretty girl. Not yet. Stand up.

He pulled me to my feet by the arm and dragged me to the bed. He shoved me onto my back, yanked my panties off with one swipe—I heard the lace seam tear—and forced my legs apart. For a moment he simply stared at my shaved, glistening cunt, wearing that look of greed I had seen many times, disguised at the dinners the four of us shared when he thought no one was watching.

—Fuck, Lucía. Fuck. What a delicious cunt. Marina doesn’t know what she’s missing.

He crouched and buried his face between my thighs. He licked my cunt from top to bottom, nibbled my lips, pushed his tongue inside, tugging at my clit with his teeth with more fury than skill. I grabbed his head and pressed his mouth against me, more to get that part over with than for any other reason. My body responded in spite of me. I began moving against his tongue, squeezing his face between my thighs, feeling pleasure rise through me like a double betrayal. Hating someone and coming in his mouth at the same time is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And yet I came. I came in a long spasm, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream, clutching the hotel sheets in my fists as if I wanted to tear them apart.

Rodrigo lifted his head, his chin wet with my come, and smiled.

—I knew it. Slut. Such a slut.

—Shut up. Fuck me already.

He climbed on top of me, gripped his cock, and rubbed it against the entrance to my cunt, soaking it in me. He drove into me in one thrust, all the way, without an ounce of tenderness. A brief, hoarse cry escaped me. He began fucking me with a brutal rhythm, bracing his hands on my tits, squeezing them until they hurt, shoving the bed against the wall with every thrust.

—Do you like it? Do you like the way I put it in you? Say it. Tell me you like it.

—Yes —I answered flatly, thinking of the letter inside the envelope.

—Louder. Tell me you like it better than your boyfriend’s. Tell me you like it better than anyone’s.

—I like it. I like it, Rodrigo. Fuck me harder.

He swallowed it whole. Men like Rodrigo believed anything they were told with a cock inside them. He pulled out, turned me over, put me on all fours on the bed, and drove back into me from behind. He grabbed my hair, pulled my head back, and began pounding me with all his pent-up rage, slapping my ass with his free hand.

—That’s it. That’s it, bitch. That’s it. Let Marina find out how I fuck you. Let her find out.

I pressed my face into the sheets, eyes closed, counting the thrusts as one counts seconds in a countdown. He sucked my thumb and pushed it into my ass while continuing to fuck my cunt, laughing with that proprietary laugh certain men wear when they have a woman in a position they consider defeated. A dull pain made its way into my belly. I endured it. I endured everything.

—I’m going to come —he announced between grunts, never stopping his thrusts—. I’m going to come inside you. I’m going to fill you, pretty girl.

—Out —I cut him off, with all the firmness I had left—. On top of me. On my tits.

He thought about it for a second. He couldn’t be bothered. But in the end he pulled out, turned me onto my back again, straddled me, gripped his cock, and jerked off quickly over my breasts. He came with a roar, in two or three thick spurts that landed between my tits, ran down my neck, and one of them brushed my chin. He stayed above me for a few seconds, panting, his cock still dripping onto my skin, looking at me with a satisfied smile that confirmed what a bastard he was.

—Fuck, Lucía. Fuck. This can’t end here.

—No. It won’t end here —I answered.

But I wasn’t talking about another afternoon in another hotel, and he, as stupid as he was, didn’t understand. He dropped beside me on the mattress, lit a cigarette from mine, and began bragging about what he was going to do to me next time. I turned my face toward the ceiling, his semen cooling on my chest, and returned to the photograph on the sideboard. Marina and me embracing on a beach. A decade earlier. Neither of us yet knew what life had in store for us. Now I did. And even so, I didn’t leave that bed until there was enough evidence that it had happened. Every minute I stayed there, while he spewed bile about his wife, was one more minute in which Marina drew closer to freedom without knowing it.