What Happened with the Masseuse While My Husband Was Working

A couple of months before the world shut down, Martín had an engineering congress in Santa Marta. His company sent him with everything covered: flights, hotel, expenses. When he told me that night in bed, he mentioned it almost in passing, as if it were nothing. But all I needed was to picture the sea to come up with the idea of going with him. I only had to pay for my ticket; everything else was already arranged.

We didn’t stay at the hotel where the event was being held, but at another one a few blocks away, smaller and much nicer. It had a long pool surrounded by palm trees, and from the room’s balcony you could see the Caribbean opening out until it disappeared. We arrived on a Tuesday, shortly after noon, and dropped our bags off to run out and have lunch in the historic center.

We spent the whole afternoon walking through the old quarter, among colorful facades and wooden balconies. We ate fried fish at a shabby little stand that turned out to be the best meal of the trip. Martín held my hand and pointed things out to me, and I laughed at any nonsense. It had been a long time since I’d seen him so relaxed, so far from screens and meetings.

That night we made love with the windows open and the hum of the air conditioner in the background. I had a real orgasm, with nothing faked, something that lately had cost me more than I liked to admit. I fell asleep right away, pressed against his back, with that warm feeling that the trip had been a great idea.

When I woke up, Martín was already dressed and combed, checking his congress badge in front of the mirror.

“Are you going down for breakfast, or should I bring you something?” he asked.

“I’ll go down with you,” I replied, still half asleep.

I put on shorts and a thin blouse, without a bra, because the heat already felt sticky that early. We went down together to the dining room, a huge buffet with fruit I couldn’t even name. Martín barely had time to drink a coffee and bite into toast; he had to leave before eight. He kissed my forehead and left me alone in front of a full plate.

***

I was eating slowly, looking at the sea through the glass wall, when I noticed him. A tall man, broad-backed, dressed all in white: linen trousers and a polo shirt clinging to his arms. His skin was very dark, shining under the morning light, and something in the way he moved between the tables made me follow him with my eyes more than I should have. In Santiago, where I’m from, you hardly see men like that. I was embarrassed to realize I was watching him like an idiot.

I finished, put my napkin on the table, and stood up to go back to the room. Just as I crossed the lobby, he caught up with me.

“Good morning, ma’am. Would you be interested in a massage?” he said, in a deep voice with a coastal accent that stretched the words out. “I work here at the hotel. For fifty dollars I’ll give you a full one, an hour long, and I’ll throw in fifteen more minutes for free.”

I stood there for a second, not knowing what to say. The idea of his hands on my body flashed through me before I could stop it. I thought about the day ahead, alone, with nothing to do until Martín came back at night.

“All right,” I said, and my own voice sounded strange to me. “Room 304.”

“I’ll give you ten minutes to get settled and then I’ll come up with my things,” he replied, and walked away without waiting for an answer.

I went up almost running. I brushed my teeth, let my hair down, straightened up the clothes I’d tossed around. I got massages often in Santiago, but always from women. Never from a man. And no matter how much I repeated to myself that it was a hotel service, that there was nothing strange about it, my heart was pounding as if I were doing something forbidden.

He knocked on the door. I opened it. He had a rolled-up mat tucked under one arm and a bag with oils. He spread it out on the bed, with that hollow in the middle to rest your face in, and smoothed it flat with his palm.

“Stay in your underwear and lie face down, ma’am. I’ll turn around while you undress.”

For a moment I hesitated. I thought about the night before with my husband, about the fact that that morning I hadn’t even had time to shower properly. I felt a silly kind of shame, and I was on the verge of telling him to forget it, that I’d pay him something for the trouble. But I bit my lip and convinced myself it was his job, that he’d surely touched a lot of women, that I had no right to judge myself.

I stayed in my thong and lay down on the mat, my face sunk into the opening. I heard him rubbing his hands with oil.

***

He started at my head, pressing his thumbs into the base of my skull, and slowly worked down to my neck and shoulders. His hands were huge, warm, and his strength seemed measured to the millimeter. Every time he worked a knot loose, I let the air out in a gasp. When he got to my back, the tension of months began to melt away. At some point, without realizing it, I fell asleep.

I woke up with a different sensation. I didn’t know how much time had passed. He had taken off my thong without me noticing, spread my legs apart, and was stroking me very softly, barely grazing between my ass cheeks and lower down. All without asking permission. I was so relaxed that my body had gotten there on its own, and it was exactly that caress that brought me back, already on fire.

Feeling his thick fingers moving down there was too much. I wanted to say something, turn over, stop him, but all that came out was a sigh. He noticed I’d woken up, that I was hesitating. And in that exact moment of hesitation, he slipped in one finger. I moaned before I could help it, and then he slid in a second.

“Mrs. Carolina,” he murmured, close to my ear, “for fifty dollars more you can try what you’ve never tried before.”

I had never paid a man in my life. I had paid for dinners, for hotels, for drinks on the occasional night out; but paying for this, never. And yet there I was, naked, face down on the bed I shared with my husband, with a stranger moving his fingers inside me and about to accept.

“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking. “I’ll pay you.”

He pulled his fingers out and, before I could react, lifted me by the waist as if I weighed nothing and slid two pillows under me. I was left face down, with my hips raised. I heard him open a wrapper.

He settled onto my back and slid his cock between my ass cheeks. Just from that I understood how big he was, and I caught my breath. He put on the condom and entered me slowly, forcing his way in, until he filled me completely.

“Feel the difference, ma’am,” he told me in my ear, never stopping his movements.

“I feel it,” I panted. “You’re too big.”

“Last night with your husband, today with me.”

“Yes… and I’m even paying you for this.”

“Do you like it?”

“Too much…”

He spoke softly, with that drawn-out voice, and each word turned me on more than the last. I had my first orgasm almost right away, long and shattering, leaving me shaking. He didn’t stop. He kept pushing with patient rhythm until I came again, and by then I had already lost any sense of shame.

He got up, took my hips, and turned me over like I was a toy. He arranged me at the edge of the bed, bent my legs against my chest, and, standing in front of me, entered me again. From there I could see his face, his thick lips, his forehead shining with sweat, and I was turned on by looking at him as much as by feeling him.

“Do you like it like this?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“I love it,” I answered without thinking. “I love you.”

“Is it worth the hundred dollars?”

“It’s worth it… it’s worth everything.”

And then came the third. I didn’t black out; I was still there, but I lost any sense of where I was, who I was, what I was doing. He moved me however he wanted: on my side, on all fours, on top of him riding him. I stopped counting orgasms. I gave myself over to his hands and his strength until, at some point, his phone alarm went off on the nightstand.

“Time’s up,” he said, almost amused. “I have to go, ma’am.”

He went into the bathroom and showered in two minutes. I stayed on the rumpled sheets, still flushed, staring at the ceiling. When he came out, already dressed in white and immaculate again, I reached into my purse for the hundred dollars Martín had left me for shopping and put them in his hand.

“Thank you,” I said, not quite knowing why.

He looked at me, gave a slight smile, and closed the door on his way out. I was left alone in the room, with the hum of the air conditioner and the sea beyond the balcony, knowing that that night I would have to look my husband in the eye and pretend the day had been boring.