What Happened on the Coast with Adrián’s Mother

Several weeks had passed since that first encounter with Carolina, and I was starting to believe it would never happen again. I had tucked it away in some corner of my memory like one of those strokes of luck life only grants once. My best friend’s mother had let me touch her on a silly afternoon in May, and in my twenty-two-year-old mind that was already all I could ever hope to get.

Until the phone rang on a Tuesday night.

“Are you free the last weekend of the month?” she asked bluntly, as if months hadn’t gone by since the last time I’d heard her voice outside Adrián’s living room.

She explained that her husband had inherited an apartment on the coast, about three hours away by car. They needed to replace the appliances before the summer season: a new fridge, an oven, a microwave, everything that had become obsolete. The trip meant spending the night away, so she preferred to sort it out over Saturday and Sunday.

“My husband will come with us,” she added in a neutral tone that gave me nothing to read beneath it.

I told her yes. What else could I say? The idea of having her close for two whole days had me on edge, even if her husband’s presence buried any real possibility. I agreed, thinking it would be decent work and nothing more. She was going to pay me well for the favor, and besides, my exams were already over.

On Saturday morning I went downstairs with a bag over my shoulder and my heart somewhere that was not its usual place. When I saw the car pull up and opened the passenger door, I was surprised to find her alone at the wheel.

“In the end he preferred to accept some friends’ invitation to a meal at a country house,” she said without looking at me, adjusting the rearview mirror with deliberate calm. “His loss. We’ll be better off alone.”

And she gave me that sideways smile I had kept in my memory since the last time.

The drive flew by. We talked about stupid things, about Adrián’s job, about my faculty, about some family memory. Carolina drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift. Every so often her fingers brushed my thigh when she changed gears, and I would look out the window so I wouldn’t give myself away.

The apartment wasn’t large: a master bedroom, a modest living room with an open kitchen, and a narrow bathroom. What it had was the view. From the terrace you could see the whole beach, the promenade, and the line of water fading into the horizon.

“You install the appliances in the kitchen,” she said, dropping the keys on the countertop. “I’m going to put the rest in order.”

I spent the afternoon fitting the new fridge into its space, connecting the oven, programming the microwave. Every so often I heard her moving through the other rooms, opening drawers, shaking out sheets. At quarter to eight I was done. I wiped my hands on a cloth and called her from the living room.

“Well, you’ve done a good job,” she said, appearing in the kitchen wearing a light dress she hadn’t had on half an hour earlier. “What do you think about us taking a shower and me taking you out to dinner? Start tidying up while I shower first.”

I wanted to say something clever and ended up standing there with my mouth open like an idiot.

After we each showered in turn — she without asking me to wait for her, me without daring to take longer than necessary — we headed out to a beachside restaurant. She wore a white shirt open to the second button and a short linen skirt. I was in jeans and a shirt my mother had ironed for me on Thursday. If anyone looked at us from the street, we could have passed for mother and son on vacation. Almost.

We were finishing dessert when her phone rang. I saw her husband’s name on the screen. Carolina made a face I already knew and answered without getting up from her chair. Her replies were short, dry, almost monosyllabic. When she hung up, she set the phone face down on the table.

“The truth is he drives me crazy,” she said, stirring her coffee. “Lately he only thinks about going out with his friends, he drinks too much, and we barely go out together. He hasn’t even asked whether I got here safely.”

We paid and went down to the promenade. The night was warm. A couple was kissing against the sea wall and another, farther on, walked embraced with their hands tucked into each other’s pants. Carolina looked at them without bothering to hide it. When she turned to me, her eyes were shining in a different way.

“Shall we go back to the apartment?” she asked.

The question didn’t need an answer. We walked the two hundred meters to the building in silence, her holding onto my arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world. In the elevator, when the doors closed, she turned to me, put a hand on the back of my neck, and kissed me with an urgency that left me breathless.

Her other hand went down to my crotch. Whatever she found there must have pleased her, because she moaned into my ear.

“Fuck, you’re hard as hell.”

The elevator chimed. We reluctantly pulled apart, stepped out onto an empty landing, and walked to the door without touching. Inside was another story. The moment she locked it, she shoved me against the wall and started unbuttoning my shirt with a haste that didn’t seem like hers. She kissed my shoulders, nibbled at my neck, and left my clothes on the floor as we backed toward the bedroom.

When I was down to my boxer shorts, her gaze dropped to the bulge the fabric couldn’t hide.

“Damn, look at that,” she murmured, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Is it bigger than last time or is it just me?”

I took off her shirt, slid her bra straps down, and removed the garment. Her breasts were exactly as I remembered them, and months of waiting made them even more urgent. I took them in both hands, squeezed carefully, and lowered my mouth to her nipples. I heard her moan from deep inside. It was one of her weak spots; I had learned it in May and hadn’t forgotten.

She shoved me back onto the bed and yanked my underwear down in one pull. When she saw what was hidden there, she let out a nervous laugh.

“It’s bigger, I swear. I’m not making it up.”

Her hand slid all the way down the length of it and, at the end of the path, reached my testicles. She weighed them in her palm like someone checking a ripe piece of fruit. She frowned.

“You’re packed tight. How long has it been since you came?”

“Almost a week,” I answered.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been saving it for me?”

“Since I found out we were coming.”

She went quiet. She squeezed me again and slowly shook her head.

“You’re crazy. Did you really think I was going to let you come inside me? I told you last time. I’m an older woman, I don’t take care of myself like a little girl.”

But her hand didn’t stop. It moved up and down with a slow, deliberate rhythm as she spoke. The more she said no, the more firmly I felt her closing around me.

I pulled her toward me and rolled her over on the bed. I lifted her skirt, then her underwear. She lay there naked, legs half open, with a dark triangle between her thighs catching the lamplight. I ran my palm over her pubis very slowly.

“Damn, ma’am, you look amazing. You have no idea how badly I wanted to see you like this again.”

“Do you really like me that much? I know you have a girlfriend. I’m already my age.”

“There’s no comparison. I wouldn’t trade you for anyone.”

The phrase made her eyes shine. She looked at me with a new expression, something halfway between tenderness and hunger.

“I can see you really do like me,” she said. “You’re even harder than before. What do you want, to fuck your best friend’s mother again?”

“Tonight I’m going to make you enjoy yourself like nobody ever has.”

She bit her lower lip. And then she confessed something I hadn’t expected.

“When I found out my husband wasn’t coming, I thought about canceling the trip. I’ve been worked up since yesterday, you have no idea. I knew you were going to try to fuck me and it turns out I’m on my period. With my husband we use a condom at times like this, you know that. And you, with how rough you are when you come, you’re dangerous.”

She stopped. Took a breath.

“I went into a pharmacy this morning to buy condoms. I backed out. There was another woman behind me and asking for your size was horribly embarrassing. I left without anything.”

I didn’t answer. I lowered my mouth along her neck, her sternum, her navel. Knowing there was no rubber should have stopped me. In reality it drove me lower. I spread her legs with my hands, kissed the inside of her thigh, and rose very slowly to where I wanted to go.

“Nico, what are you doing? Oh, no... not there... it must smell bad.”

I ignored her. I stuck out my tongue and ran it all the way through the slit, from bottom to top, with the same calm as painting a wall. Her complaint turned into a different kind of moan. The smell was that of a woman who had spent twenty-four hours thinking about this. I focused on the clit, took it with my lips, stroked it with the tip of my tongue. Her hips started moving on their own.

“Nico... asshole... what are you doing to me... oh, keep going, keep going.”

I felt her convulse after a few minutes. She grabbed my head with both hands and pressed me against her without measuring her strength. It was hard to breathe. When she finally loosened her grip, she looked down at me with shining eyes.

“I’ve never felt anything like that. I always thought this was filthy.”

“Did you like it?”

“I came like a madwoman,” she laughed, still breathless. “I think part of it was in your mouth, I can feel it.”

I didn’t wait any longer. I got up, positioned myself between her legs, and brought the tip to the entrance. She looked at me in alarm.

“Nico, without a condom... in my condition that’s dangerous. I could get pregnant.”

“Tonight it’s not getting away,” I replied, pressing her with my hips. “It wants it as badly as I do. I can feel it.”

“Oh, boy... I told you... I’m ovulating... you’re going to ruin me...”

With a thrust of my hips I pushed halfway in. Her sex was burning, much hotter than I remembered. The words broke off in her throat.

“Oh, Nico... not like that... you’re tearing me open...”

Her protests weren’t entirely true. Both her hands were on my hips and she was pushing herself toward me, helping me go all the way in. I started moving, slowly at first, then harder. Her moans filled the small room, bounced off the wall, and mixed with the distant murmur of the sea.

It didn’t take long for her to come again. She clamped her legs around my hips and clung to me as if I were the last thing left in the world. I kept fucking her without pause. I spread her thighs with my hands, left her fully exposed, and started thrusting in and out with the energy of someone who has spent a week accumulating everything he has left over.

She sensed it before I did. She sensed it when there was no turning back.

“Nico... you have to pull out... out... no, not inside, you can’t... asshole, you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it...!”

I heard her, but I couldn’t listen. I picked up the pace, buried my face in her neck, bit the skin of her shoulder. The first release shot out with a force I had never felt before. Then came another, and another, and another. I kept driving all the way in, emptying myself inside her, feeling how each spasm filled her up.

“You’re going to knock me up... I can feel you... you’re filling me... oh...”

I stayed inside her for a while longer, still hard, my forehead resting against hers. Her breathing was uneven, her cheeks burning. She looked at me with a mix of anger and something I wouldn’t know how to name. Anger because I had done it against her will. Something else because she had liked it.

“You came inside,” she murmured. “You came so much that this isn’t going to stay at nothing. You’re crazy. You’re completely crazy.”

I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know what to say. When I finally pulled out, she saw a white thread running down her thigh. She closed her eyes for a moment.

“Fuck, you filled me up.”

She let herself fall back onto the bed. She didn’t speak again for a long while. I thought she was truly angry, that she was going to throw me out of the room, that the trip would end with an uncomfortable silent ride back and the promise of never seeing each other again. But after a few minutes she rolled over, slipped an arm across my chest, and rested her cheek on my shoulder. As if nothing had happened. As if the problem she had just created for herself could wait until Monday.

We stayed like that, embraced, without a sheet because it was hot, listening to the sea through the open window. In the morning there would be plenty of things to decide. Tonight, not.

***

That was only the first night. The whole Sunday still lay ahead, and I still didn’t know that Carolina was going to wake me before dawn with something very specific in mind. But that part is for another time.