What My Father-in-Law Proposed Changed Everything Between Us

Damián put his things away in the locker and headed straight for the machines area. He got onto the stationary bike and started pedaling at a slow cadence, warming up his muscles without rushing. Quite a while later he was pedaling flat out, wiping sweat from his face with the small towel and taking short sips to replenish his fluids.

He looked at the clock and decided he’d had enough. He got off, ready to take a shower and do a few laps in the pool. On his way to the bathrooms he ran into a mature woman in a swimsuit heading for the sauna. He followed her with his eyes like an owl tracking its prey.

That woman’s curves stood out beneath the wet fabric, which barely covered the interesting parts. With each step, her hips moved with firm, trembling flesh. The soaked swimsuit clung to her skin, still damp from the spray of the wall beside her. He was surprised by how much she resembled Marisol.

What would she look like in that swimsuit? Or better yet, without it.

He watched her disappear behind the sauna door and stood rooted in the middle of the corridor, staring. He clicked his tongue and, after a few seconds of doubt, walked toward the showers and stood under the cool water. He couldn’t stop looking toward the sauna.

The wooden door opened again and he slipped inside, tall and well built. The woman, already beginning to sweat in the stifling heat, gave him barely a glance.

“Mind if I?” he asked, as if he needed permission.

Really he was just looking for an excuse to make contact. She, thrown off by such an obvious question, shrugged and nodded toward the empty bench. Damián nodded, as if he had been expecting that approval, and sat on the same step as her, but at the far end.

Both of them looked silently through the huge front glass that faced the pool and the hot tubs. Since it was tinted, they could see the people using the facilities without being seen. A spectacular blonde with huge breasts crossed from one side to the other in a tiny bikini that fit her like a glove.

Everyone at the gym called her “the foreigner.” Damián had never spoken to her, but that didn’t mean he desired any less than the others to run his tongue over that body.

When the blonde left his field of vision, the woman turned her face just slightly toward him, studying him from the corner of her eye. Damián had already anticipated that gesture, so what she found was the boy’s impassive face, looking with calculated interest toward where the other woman had disappeared.

And then it happened, what he had observed so many times and needed to check again: the real reason he had gone in there after that mature woman.

With discreet movements, the woman adjusted her breasts inside the swimsuit, lifting them a little. Then, subtly, she took the hair tie out and smoothed her mane.

Damián, smiling to himself, pretended not to notice.

You’re dying for people to see you’re pretty and desirable, no matter how married you are. Even if it’s only out of the envy you have for one another.

The woman cast one last checking glance. He kept his expression and, without saying anything else, left the sauna on his way to the locker rooms. Less than half an hour later he was leaving the gym for Lucía’s place, showered, relaxed, and with one clear mission in mind.

***

After climbing the five flights of stairs, he rang the doorbell with some nervousness. Lucía wouldn’t be back for another hour, so he had plenty of time to clear up a few things with her mother.

“Damián!” Marisol said in surprise. “Lucía isn’t here. Had you arranged to meet?”

But he hadn’t come to give explanations.

“Why did you tell Gerardo? About our conversation.”

The woman, who hadn’t expected that opening, was thrown off for a moment. Then she crossed her arms and leaned her shoulder against the doorframe.

“It’s what good people do with their partners,” she shot back. “It’s called fidelity and trust.”

“Bullshit. You did it to screw me over.”

“I did it because it was what I had to do. I’m your girlfriend’s mother,” she reminded him.

“And I’m your daughter’s boyfriend.”

“One you don’t deserve,” she hissed. “I thought you were a good boy. Proper, studious, even a little shy.” She looked him straight in the eye. “But I was wrong. You’re just another one of those who sees a chunk of meat in a woman. An instrument for your selfish pleasure.”

“You’re wrong, Marisol. I swear to you I love Lucía,” he said, lifting his eyebrows.

“In your own way, yes. Twisted and selfish. I don’t doubt you’d be capable of great things if it meant not losing her, not ending up without your trophy. But deep down… what you carry inside…” she paused, searching for the exact words, “there’s something dark about it. A poison that makes you dangerous.”

“And you?” he shot back. “You sure as hell stayed there watching.”

“I didn’t…”

“You did,” he cut in. “I was acting like a pig with your daughter and what did you do? You could’ve chewed me out, you could’ve left. Instead you stayed there spying. Enjoying the show.”

“I wasn’t spying on you,” she replied, holding back a roll of her eyes. “And you’re getting insolent again.”

Her volume stayed low, in keeping with the calm she didn’t want to lose.

“And you’re a hypocrite. You told him about me but left out what you did.”

“I told you, I didn’t…” She brought two fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying to hold out. She took two deep breaths before attacking again. “I froze when I saw you. You were saying horrible things that kept me from reacting.”

“Oh, come on, it was the usual crap people blurt out with no filter at the height of orgasm. Don’t tell me you’ve never talked like that when Gerardo and you are doing your thing.”

“Not that kind of thing,” she cut him off, now in a whisper, careful that none of the neighbors would hear them. “You sounded like a depraved man.”

“Because I wasn’t myself. I already told you that.”

“You weren’t yourself the afternoon we talked, and you repeated the same thing.” Her voice hardened. “You told me it was me you wanted.”

“I confessed it to you!” he shot back in the same restrained tone. “You begged me for honesty, remember? And that’s what I did: be honest with you, tell you the truth just as you asked me to. In confidence.”

Marisol went silent. She hadn’t expected that. Damián’s angry expression slowly changed into one of pity.

“I love Lucía and I want to be with her,” he protested. “What I told you were the same fantasies anybody has. I laid myself bare and repeated them, exposing myself to you, revealing something you would never otherwise have known. It was a fantasy, fuck, nothing more. And I told you that in confidence.”

She was still doubtful. Barely able to hold his gaze. Maybe she had gone too far in judging her son-in-law.

“Come on, Marisol, we all carry garbage in our heads we wouldn’t tell anyone, not even drunk. Embarrassing fantasies we don’t want anyone to know. I confessed mine to you, but you know I’d never do anything to hurt you, much less Lucía.”

He took a step closer and lowered his voice even more.

“Do you know how it makes me feel that now Gerardo thinks I’m a degenerate?”

Marisol closed her eyes, weighed down. By then she no longer knew how to feel.

“You’ve made my life harder,” he complained. “And you’re going to make it harder with Lucía.”

She opened her mouth to answer when, suddenly, a hand appeared over the edge of the door and it began to open. The figure behind it was slowly revealed.

“Damián,” said Gerardo in his booming voice once the door was fully open.

The boy froze, mouth half open, looking from one to the other and back again, wondering what the husband was doing there.

Was he at home? Fuck.

“Gerardo, darling,” Marisol said nervously. “The boy came to see Lucía. I was telling him she’s not here. He was just leaving.”

The man did not take his eyes off the boy, as if weighing something. Damián wondered how much of the conversation he had heard, if he had heard any at all.

“He can wait for her inside. I don’t think she’ll be long,” Gerardo said, stepping aside to let him through.

“No, I was just leaving already,” he managed to say.

But the other man didn’t react. He kept the door open, arm extended, not withdrawing the invitation. Marisol, eyes lowered, retreated to the living room to escape the scene, and Damián ended up following her so as not to seem rude.

He took an armchair beside the sofa where she sat. Gerardo, following in his footsteps, settled next to his wife.

The first thing that stood out was the awkwardness of the silence. That was followed by not knowing what to say. He had never wanted a tea offered to him so badly; at least then he could keep busy stirring the spoon.

“And…,” Gerardo finally took the floor, “what were you talking about? You’d been at the door for quite a while.”

Damián’s eyes flew wide open, but he didn’t dare answer. He let Marisol take the lead.

“He was asking me to apologize for the other day’s conversation,” she said.

The young man’s jaw almost hit the floor. What the hell is wrong with this woman? His mother-in-law had the unhealthy habit of speaking without a filter with her husband.

“Ah, that. About you wanting her for yourself. My wife.”

Marisol nervously put a hand on his forearm. Damián’s heart nearly stopped.

“I… it was a joke. I already told him I didn’t mean it.”

Gerardo frowned.

“But you said you liked her. You confessed it to me the day we talked in the kitchen.”

“No, look, what I said… what I meant…” He had aged several years in one go. The man, broad and deep-voiced, looked at him with eyes that seemed to want to pierce his flesh. He tried to swallow and couldn’t.

“Honey…” Marisol began. Her husband ignored her.

“You said it, didn’t you? That you liked her. That Marisol is an attractive woman.”

Damián’s lip trembled. Gerardo must have heard everything through the door and he wasn’t going to let some punk intimidate his wife.

“Gerardo.” This time Marisol’s call was one of warning. She had placed a hand on his knee.

He covered that hand with his own to calm her.

“It’s fine, it’s nothing.” He looked back at the young man, urging him to answer.

Damián looked from one to the other, not knowing which was the correct answer. If that hulking man lost his temper, he’d leave both eyebrows in the same place.

“Well… yes, sure, I said that, but… I meant that she still has a lot of her beauty… for her age.” He swallowed. “Right?”

“And that’s why you want to sleep with her. Because, at her age, you think she’s a woman you could make enjoy herself like no one else.”

“What? Me? I said that?”

Damián looked to Marisol for confirmation, but she had lowered her gaze to the floor. How much did he blab?

“Is it true or not?” the husband insisted.

“Gerardo, look, I already explained that none of that was truly what I meant. That at that moment…”

“At that moment you were not in control of yourself,” he cut in, “true. But then, in everyday life, you fantasize about her, don’t you?”

“Huh? I… well…”

“Gerardo, darling…” his wife interjected again, trying to stop that embarrassing conversation. He silenced her with a glance.

“Let him explain. I just want to know if it’s true.”

He turned to Damián and fixed his eyes on him.

“Tell me, do you desire her? Could you make her enjoy herself until she lost her senses?”

“I… I don’t…”

“Enough!” Marisol shouted. “Enough already. Stop it. I’ve told you a thousand times I don’t want to. I don’t need this. And least of all with him.”

“Why not?” her husband said, hurt. “He’s young and you think he’s handsome.” He narrowed his eyes. “And he won’t say anything.”

“Because no!” she screamed. “Because he’s a kid, because it’s wrong and because he’s my daughter’s boyfriend.” She sobbed. “Don’t you understand? We’re both in this together. For better and for worse.”

Damián’s mouth fell open. What the hell are they talking about?

Gerardo pressed his forehead to hers and stroked her face with extreme tenderness.

“Please,” he insisted in a near-begging tone.

“My love,” Marisol sobbed through her tears, “you know I love you madly, with everything I’ve got.”

“And that’s why you fade a little more every day. Do you know how much it hurts me to see you like this? What I suffer seeing you suffer?”

“Don’t say that. I have you. You know I love you above everything.”

“And I love you. But I can’t stop blaming myself for not being able to give you what you deserve.”

“Hush, silly,” she said through tears. “You give me everything.”

“Not everything, Marisol.”

He turned back to Damián.

“Answer me, would you be capable?”

She took his face and turned it back toward her.

“Gerardo, please. I’ve already made a decision.”

“I only want to see you smile one more time. Even if it isn’t with me.”

She put her hand over his mouth to stop him and, right after, kissed him.

By then Damián didn’t say a word. He remained motionless, as if that could make him invisible. This was bizarre. Gerardo consenting? Maybe he had some problem that prevented him from satisfying his wife. That explained the sour face and her sadness. He saw them embrace through tears, his included. That nearly two-meter-tall man with wardrobe-wide shoulders no longer looked like a bull about to charge him.

Marisol dried her tears and turned to him.

“Leave,” she said. “Go now.”

Without thinking twice, he walked to the entrance. She called him back before he crossed the threshold.

“And not one word of this to Lucía. Do you hear me?”

Her tone was cold and sharp. Damián knew for certain he had to obey more fervently than if Gerardo himself had ordered it. He nodded and disappeared down the stairs, not without casting one last look over his shoulder.

What a strange couple. Would he really have let me sleep with his wife just to see her smile?

He bit his lower lip, imagining the sleepless nights that now awaited him. He would no longer be able to stop thinking about that moment every time their eyes met in that house. And all behind Lucía’s back.

The husband’s secret, that he only wanted to see his wife happy.