What I Did in the Bar Bathroom With My Husband Nearby

Sex with my husband is a choreography I know by heart. I don’t remember when was the last time I truly came with him. Most of the time I fake it, sigh at exactly the right moment, and he falls asleep convinced he left me satisfied. And that’s fine. It is what it is. Long ago I stopped expecting anything else from that bed.

Mateo and I have sex on Tuesdays and Saturdays. On Tuesdays, once the kids finally fall asleep, we slip under the sheets. He touches me with little enthusiasm, we kiss, I pull my underwear down. If I’m lucky, he licks and nibbles my nipples for a while, which is the only thing that truly turns me on, even if he’s the one doing it. Then I get on all fours, he wets me a little with his fingers, goes in, and has his two minutes of glory. If Tuesday is generous, he makes it to three. If it’s a Tuesday blessed by heaven, four, and with a bit of faith, I might even feel something too.

Saturdays are another story, a little better. We go out to dinner somewhere nice. Then we stop for a couple of drinks at one of the bars he likes and that, over the years, ended up growing on me too. We get home half drunk, with the kids already asleep. In bed the script is the same as always, but the alcohol makes it a little more bearable.

Last night, Saturday, was almost like any other. Almost. Because it was different and, in its own way, perfect. We went to a bar we had never been to before, a place with dim light and a long counter, the kind that seems made for conversations one shouldn’t be having.

From the moment we sat down, an older man, around fifty, didn’t take his eyes off me. Mateo is naturally distracted; someone could have stripped naked beside him and he would have kept studying the cocktail menu.

I felt good. I think it happens to almost all of us: we’re happy knowing we’re being looked at, desired, interesting to someone. It had been a long time since my husband had looked at me like that, as if I were something worth discovering.

When I finished my first drink, I got up to go to the bathroom. The man intercepted me in the hallway, near the door. He smelled of expensive cologne and had that calm confidence of someone used to getting what he wants.

“You’re a very attractive woman,” he said, without beating around the bush. “And very interesting.”

“I came with my husband,” I replied, nodding toward the table.

“That’s the most exciting part of all,” he answered, and half a smile appeared on his face.

I didn’t know what to say. I went into the bathroom with my heart pounding against my ribs. When I came out, he was still there, leaning against the wall with a drink in his hand.

“If you go in again,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’ll understand you want a quick fuck.”

I held his gaze a second longer than necessary, smiled, and went back to the table with Mateo. The man returned to the bar.

His words left me burning. The situation felt devilishly hot. There I was, like every Saturday, having a drink with my husband, and at the same time I had a sexual proposition waiting for me ten meters away. I felt that emptiness in my lower belly, that persistent tingle of wanting to take the opportunity and, for once after so long, have a sexually full Saturday.

“Should I get another round?” Mateo asked, oblivious to everything.

“Get me a martini,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. A martini is a drink I find very strong and almost never choose, but that night I needed something that would push me forward. He ordered, as always, his second drink of the night, giving nothing any importance. I drank slowly, feeling the alcohol and adrenaline blend into the same hot current.

Within minutes, the urge to go back to the bathroom was unbearable, and it had nothing to do with my bladder. I looked toward the bar. The man was still there, alone, swirling the ice in his glass. It felt like a movie scene to me, and my mind took off without permission. Our eyes met. I stood up.

“I’ll be right back,” I murmured.

I walked toward the back of the place. I didn’t look behind me, but I heard the scrape of his chair against the floor. I knew he was following me.

Next to the women’s bathroom there was another, single-occupancy one for men. I pushed open the door and went inside. He came in behind me and locked the bolt. There were no preliminaries, no kisses, no sweet words. I didn’t need them. We had said everything that needed saying in that hallway.

“You know we don’t have much time,” he said, looking into my eyes.

“I know,” I answered.

The bathroom was tiny, just a sink, a toilet, and a smudged mirror under a yellowish light. He lowered the toilet lid and sat down. He unbuttoned his pants calmly, pulled down his boxer briefs, and revealed a thick erection, not too long, but wide in a way that made me bite my lip. It had been years since something had provoked that immediate reaction in me, that physical hunger you don’t think about.

I fumbled with the buttons on my jeans, my fingers clumsy with haste. I pulled them down together with my thong to my thighs, just enough. I moved closer, turned my back for a moment so we could both see ourselves in the mirror, and then sat on him astride, facing him. With my hand I positioned his cock between my legs and lowered myself slowly, feeling him open me centimeter by centimeter. I let out my breath in a rush. I was so wet he slid in all the way without resistance.

I leaned slightly forward, resting my hands on his shoulders, and started to move. He gripped my hips firmly, setting the rhythm, driving into me with an intent my husband had forgotten long ago. We didn’t talk. All that could be heard was my broken breathing and the faint creak of the toilet each time I came down on him.

One of his hands slid up my back to my nape and held me by the hair, not violently, but with authority, forcing me to look at him. The other slipped under my blouse and found a nipple already hard, pinching it between two fingers right on the edge between pleasure and pain. A moan slipped out of me, which I smothered against his neck. He smelled like clean sweat and that expensive cologne, and I moved on top of him thinking how absurd it all was: the muffled noise of the bar music on the other side of the door, people drinking a few meters away, my husband stirring the ice in his drink without suspecting a thing. Every detail of the situation pushed me closer to the edge.

After two or three minutes, someone knocked on the door. I went rigid, with him inside me.

“Occupied,” the man said, in a voice so steady it sounded bored.

The footsteps moved away. And that interruption, instead of scaring me, lit me on fire. The idea that we were one latch away from being caught, that my husband was still at the table waiting for me with his drink, pushed me over the edge faster than I ever thought possible. I sped up. I ground myself down on him again and again, searching for that exact point, chasing it with a desperation I hadn’t felt in years.

The orgasm hit me from the inside, long and deep, one of those you can’t fake because they can’t be faked. I had to bite the back of my hand to keep from screaming. I trembled all over him, spilling over, feeling every muscle contract and release in waves.

When I caught my breath a little, he held me by the waist.

“Get up,” he said.

I obeyed without thinking. I stood on shaky legs, and he rose from the toilet.

“Get dressed and go back to your husband,” he said, pulling up his pants.

“He hasn’t finished yet,” I replied, hardly understanding why I was giving him that information.

“Don’t worry,” he answered, and for the first time he really smiled. “The night is long.”

I pulled up my thong and jeans, adjusted my blouse in front of the mirror, and tried to erase any trace of what had just happened from my face. My cheeks were flushed and my eyes bright. I hoped Mateo, true to form, wouldn’t notice anything.

The man reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed me a business card. I took it without reading it and tucked it into my purse.

He cracked the door open, checked that no one was nearby in the hallway, and nodded at me. I went out first. I walked back to the table with a calm I didn’t feel inside, still feeling the throbbing between my legs.

“You took your time,” Mateo said, barely lifting his eyes from his glass.

“There was a line,” I lied, and smiled at him.

We finished our drinks, paid, and went home. That night, in bed, he didn’t touch me, and I silently thanked him for it. I stayed awake for quite a while, staring at the ceiling, with the card still tucked away in my purse on the other side of the room.

I don’t know how his night ended, whether he left alone or accompanied, whether he looked at another woman at that bar. But on Monday, when the kids are at school and the house falls silent, I’m going to take out that card and write to him. I’ve made up my mind.

After all, a woman always gets, on the outside, the pleasure she believes she deserves. And last night, I remembered exactly how much I deserve. I owe myself, and I plan to collect.