What My Friend Did to My Wife on Her Birthday

I’ve known Rodrigo since university. He’s the kind of man who fills any room he walks into, always with a smile too wide to be completely innocent. We’ve been friends for years and I had never held a grudge against him for anything... until that night.

Although it’s not really resentment I feel when I remember it. It’s something more complicated than that.

His birthday fell on a Tuesday, which made it almost impossible for Valeria and me to go. We both work in graphic design, with schedules that rarely respect anyone else’s calendar. But that day, by one of those strange twists of fate, we both finished before six in the evening. We looked at each other at the same time. No need to even say it.

—Let’s go surprise him —she said, already with her phone in hand to warn someone other than Rodrigo.

Valeria chose that dark blue dress that I find hard to ignore when she wears it. Short, tight, with black stockings that make my eyes drift every time she moves. She asked me how she looked while adjusting her earrings, and I told her perfect, which was true and also nowhere near enough.

As a gift I brought a bottle of artisanal mezcal a colleague had brought us back from a trip to Oaxaca. He’d warned us to be careful, that it wasn’t ordinary mezcal, that it had a blend of herbs that “puts you in another state.” I thought that was salesman’s exaggeration. I was wrong.

The look on Rodrigo’s face when he saw us at the door was worth everything. He pulled us in with hugs, introduced us to the people we hadn’t met yet, and when I brought out the bottle, the mood shifted. Everyone wanted to try it.

I poured tiny amounts, just as my colleague had recommended. A finger in the glass, no more. The effects took a while, but they came, and when they did they hit all at once: a kind of calm euphoria, a well-being that loosened the muscles and made conversations more interesting than usual. It made some people sleepy. Rodrigo, on the other hand, it lit up.

Valeria didn’t try the mezcal. She distrusted anything that smelled like an “alternative experience,” so she stuck to her glass of red wine, perfectly in control while the rest of us slowly started to lose our footing.

Rodrigo’s wife, Clara, started feeling sick after midnight. Too much wine, she said. She went upstairs to lie down, apologizing, and Rodrigo, instead of worrying, seemed to relax. It was not subtle. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

The party began to empty out. By one-thirty there were only four or five people left besides the three of us. The music lowered. The conversations became slower, more intimate.

I started feeling the mezcal around two. It wasn’t a gradual dizziness: it was as if time had begun to break into fragments, as if there were jumps between one instant and the next that I couldn’t remember. I told Valeria in a low voice. She smiled with that affectionate, condescending expression she uses when she knows she’s right.

—Shall we go? —she asked.

—Not yet —I said, though I wasn’t sure why.

It was shortly after that Rodrigo offered to bring me sparkling water. Valeria said she’d go with him to the kitchen. I saw him take her by the waist to let her pass, a hand brushing right where the dress flared over her hips. I don’t know whether it lasted two seconds or ten. The mezcal made time hard to measure.

They took longer than necessary to bring back a glass of water. Five minutes, maybe more. At the time it didn’t seem important.

When they came back, something had changed in the air between them. I couldn’t say what. Valeria had a different expression, a different order in her gaze. Rodrigo was more serious than when he’d left. I drank the water in one gulp. The cold in my throat was a relief.

What had happened in the kitchen?

The thought came without my summoning it. And with it, something else: the image of Rodrigo’s hand on Valeria’s waist. It started circling in my head with a persistence I didn’t fully understand. My heart was beating differently. It wasn’t jealousy, or at least not only that. My cock was starting to get hard inside my pants without my being able to stop it, and that reaction confused me more than anything else.

We kept talking. Or rather, Rodrigo and Valeria talked while I nodded in monosyllables, increasingly distracted by what I was starting to catch out of the corner of my eye.

Rodrigo’s hand was on Valeria’s leg. Right at the hem of the dress, where the stockings began. Still at first, then with a small movement, almost imperceptible. She didn’t move it away.

I did what anyone does when they want to know what’s going on without getting caught staring: I kept talking about anything at all, eyes fixed on a neutral point, attention completely on what my peripheral vision was picking up. The temperature in the room had gone up several degrees.

The minutes passed. Rodrigo’s hand slid up Valeria’s thigh slowly, unhurriedly, as if they had all night. His fingers went under the dress and disappeared into the dimness between her legs. I saw her part her knees just a little to give him better access. I saw her jaw tighten when Rodrigo’s fingers found the spot they were looking for over her underwear. She turned her head toward me two or three times to check whether I noticed. I didn’t notice. Or so it seemed.

I decided to make things easier for them.

—I’m going to the bathroom —I said, getting up with the believable clumsiness of someone who’s had too much mezcal.

Neither of them answered.

Instead of going upstairs to the bathroom on the first floor, I slipped into the tool room Rodrigo keeps by the entrance. I left the door half-closed. From there I had a direct view of the living room.

What I saw in the next few minutes I remember with a strange clarity for the state I was in.

As soon as they lost sight of me, they looked at each other. No words were needed. Rodrigo brushed a hand along her cheek, she tilted her head slightly into the touch, and then they kissed. It wasn’t a shy or exploratory kiss: it was the kiss of two people who had been holding back for a while. They devoured each other’s mouths with tongue, with hunger, with the urgency of having waited all night for that moment.

Rodrigo’s hands roamed over her back, her shoulders, the curves of the dress. He squeezed her ass over the fabric and pulled her against him. I saw the bulge in Rodrigo’s pants pressed against Valeria’s hip, and I saw her grind herself against that bulge without the slightest pretense. She took him by the neck, bit his lower lip, whispered something in his ear that made him close his eyes. From the darkness of the tool room I watched them without breathing, my heart pounding in my chest in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time, with my cock already fully hard inside my jeans.

I don’t know how long they stayed like that. Rodrigo murmured something in Valeria’s ear. She nodded, and they stood up.

They walked toward the kitchen. They passed so close to me I could hear their breathing. Darkness covered me. They didn’t see me.

***

The kitchen was even better from my angle.

They came in stumbling between kisses, without turning on the main light, only the glow coming in from the hallway. Rodrigo pressed her against the counter and kissed her harder. Valeria let out a low, contained sound that was perfectly familiar to me and at the same time completely new in that context.

He slipped the straps of her dress off and pulled the fabric down until her breasts were bare. Her nipples were already hard, outlined, and Rodrigo bent down to bite them one by one, first the right, then the left, sucking them until Valeria arched her back against the counter. He caressed her breasts with his palms, slowly, studying her, weighing them as if he’d never seen tits before. She threw her head back and closed her eyes.

—You’ve got such good tits —I heard Rodrigo say in a low, rough voice.

Valeria let out a contained laugh, almost a moan.

—Shut up and keep going.

I rubbed my eyes once, by reflex. They were still there. This was really happening.

Valeria pulled Rodrigo’s shirt out of his pants. Then she went straight for the belt, with a decisiveness that struck me as almost overwhelming. Rodrigo didn’t stop her. He helped her. He shoved his pants and underwear down in one yank to mid-thigh, and his cock jumped up, already rock hard, the tip shining in the light seeping in from the hallway.

When she knelt in front of him, the mezcal and disbelief stopped mattering. Only what was in front of me existed.

She took it with both hands, studied it for a moment, and stuck out her tongue to lick it from base to tip, slow, as if tasting something. Then she took the whole thing into her mouth in one go, until her nose touched Rodrigo’s stomach, and he let out a long gasp that reached me clearly from where I was. He braced one hand on the edge of the counter so he wouldn’t lose his balance. With the other he held her hair, not tightly, just steadying her, looking down at her with an expression I had never seen on him before.

Valeria started sucking him with that rhythm I knew so well: she went slowly up to the tip, teased the head with her tongue, and then went back down to the base, swallowing it completely. Her free hand took him at the root and started jerking him in sync with her mouth, twisting her wrist with every stroke. I heard the wet sounds of her mouth working Rodrigo’s cock, the saliva running down her chin, those guttural noises she made when she wanted to show she liked it. Rodrigo looked down and watched the scene with his mouth slightly open.

—Fuck, Valeria... just like that, like that...

She pulled him out of her mouth for a second, panting, her lips shiny and a strand of saliva hanging from them.

—Do you like how I suck your cock? —she whispered.

—You’re killing me.

She took it back in, this time deeper, holding it at the back of her throat for a few seconds before pulling it out again. I could hear the noise and feel my own cock demanding attention inside my pants without my having given it permission.

Valeria is extraordinarily good at that. I know it better than anyone.

They went on like that for several minutes. Rodrigo stopped her before he came, breathing raggedly, almost hauling her up by the hair. He made her stand. He grabbed her face and kissed her with his mouth still dirty with him. He turned her gently and bent her over the breakfast bar. With one hand he hiked her dress up to her waist, leaving her ass bare and framed by the black stockings, and with the other he pulled down her underwear to her knees. He pried her legs apart with his knee.

I’d been touching myself for a while without consciously deciding to. I’d unzipped my pants without realizing it and was giving myself a slow handjob with my cock sticking out through the fly. Somewhere in what I was watching, my body had started making its own decisions.

Rodrigo crouched for a moment to look at her from behind, spread her ass cheeks apart with his thumbs, and licked his lips. I saw him run two fingers through her pussy, sliding through something that was already shining, and then put them in his mouth, sucking them with his eyes closed. Then he got behind her. He grabbed her hips with both hands and entered her in one motion, driving himself all the way in. Valeria buried her face in her arms to muffle the long moan that came out of her throat.

—Ah, fuck... —I heard her choke into her own forearm.

Rodrigo started fucking her with hard thrusts, with no gentleness at all, each impact making Valeria’s ass cheeks slap against his pubic bone with a sound that was both dry and wet. He dug his fingers into her hips, pulling her back with each thrust so he could bury himself even deeper. Neither of them spoke for a while. Only the crash of their bodies, the rustle of the dress against the counter, her breathing that I knew so well and that at that moment was completely different, deeper, more surrendered.

At one point Rodrigo leaned over her, reached around with one hand and grabbed a breast, squeezing it as he kept moving. With the other he seized her hair from the nape of her neck and yanked her head back.

—Tell me you like it —he growled in her ear, without stopping.

—I like it —she panted—. I love it. Don’t stop.

—Harder.

—Harder, fuck, give it to me harder.

Rodrigo let go of her hair and grabbed her hips again and gave it to her even harder, until the breakfast bar started bumping against the wall. Valeria gripped the edge of the counter with both hands. The dress hung wrinkled around her waist, her breasts bounced against the cold marble with every thrust, the black stockings stayed perfectly snug above her knees, and that detail, I don’t know why, was what finally blew my mind apart.

I was jerking off in silence inside the tool room, grinding my teeth so I wouldn’t make a sound, with my other hand over my mouth. I was about to cum and I’d been holding it back for ten minutes.

—I’m going to finish —I heard Rodrigo say, his voice broken.

—Out. Out —Valeria whispered—. Not inside.

He pulled out of her for a moment. She turned and dropped to her knees in front of him again, grabbed his cock with her hand and started stroking it fast, aiming it toward her own face and her own chest. Mouth open, tongue out, staring at him with that look I thought she only gave me. Rodrigo closed his eyes, let out a deep grunt, and came in thick spurts over Valeria’s mouth and chin, over her still-bared tits, over the top of the blue dress. She finished him slowly with her hand, squeezing out the last drop, never taking her eyes off him. With one finger she gathered a bead from the corner of her mouth and sucked it off.

I came at that very same instant inside the tool room, hand full, biting the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t make a single sound. I had to brace myself against the wall. My knees trembled a little.

When he opened his eyes, Rodrigo exhaled slowly and leaned against the counter. He handed Valeria a piece of paper towel. She wiped her face, her chest, fixed her dress with hands that trembled slightly, and slipped the straps back up. In thirty seconds she looked like a woman who had gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

***

I waited a few minutes before going back. I wiped myself as best I could with a rag from the tool room, buttoned my pants, took several breaths. When I came out into the hallway, they were already back in the living room, separated, with that careful distance of people who have just done something they shouldn’t have done.

—Did you get lost? —Valeria asked with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

—The upstairs bathroom was occupied —I said—. I had to find the other one.

Rodrigo offered for us to stay the night. It was late, the mezcal had done its damage, and neither of us was in any condition to drive. We accepted. He lent us the guest room on the ground floor.

As soon as I shut the guest room door behind us, I grabbed her. I didn’t speak, didn’t explain anything. I pushed her against the wall, lifted her dress the way Rodrigo had done in the kitchen, and slipped my hand between her legs. She was soaked. Still. I yanked her underwear aside and felt the warm wetness he’d left on the outside, and hers on the inside, mixed together, already sliding down the inside of her thigh. Valeria let out a surprised gasp against my neck.

—What’s wrong with you? —she whispered, but she didn’t pull my hand away. On the contrary, she spread her legs to let me work better. I pushed two fingers in and felt how loose she was, how hot, how different from usual.

—Shut up —I told her, covering her mouth with my other hand.

I threw her onto her back on the guest bed and ripped the dress off over her head. I spread her legs and got on top of her. There was no foreplay, no tenderness. I shoved my cock into her in one thrust, all the way in, just like he had, and she let out a muffled cry against my shoulder.

—God —she panted—. God, God...

I fucked her with a rage I didn’t know I had in me. With images in my head I couldn’t turn off: her mouth open under Rodrigo’s cock, her tits bouncing against the marble in the kitchen, the way she had asked for harder. I gave it to her harder. I gave it to her like I hadn’t in months. I dug my fingers into her hips the same way I’d seen him do it and drove her against me, and she grabbed my shoulders and sank her nails in and begged me in my ear for things she normally didn’t ask me for.

—Like this, baby, like this, don’t stop, like this...

I put her on all fours on the bed. I looked at her ass from behind and saw she still had pink marks where Rodrigo’s fingers had squeezed her. I ran my tongue down her back from the start of her ass to the nape of her neck, and I went back in. She buried her face in the pillow to muffle her moans. I heard the same sounds I’d heard from the tool room, this time beneath me, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.

—You’re different tonight —I whispered, half question, half accusation.

—So are you —she panted into the pillow.

I turned her over again, hauled her up on top of me. She straddled me and started riding me slowly, her hands on my chest, looking at me with half-closed eyes. I grabbed her tits with both hands and took one nipple after the other into my mouth, sucking them with the absurd certainty that I was tasting something another man had tasted less than an hour ago. She moved faster. I could feel her tightening around my cock in shorter and shorter waves.

She came on me with a long moan she didn’t even try to hide completely, trembling, pressing herself against me, biting her lip so she wouldn’t scream. I held out a little longer, looking up at her with that face she makes when she finishes, and I came inside her a few seconds later, pulling her hips down so I could bury myself as deep as possible.

She collapsed onto my chest, breathless, sweaty, her hair stuck to her forehead. We stayed like that for a while, without speaking, listening to our breathing settle. Me, not knowing whether to hold her or ask her. Her, not knowing that I had seen everything. Me, unable to get any of the images I’d just recorded out of my head.

We didn’t talk about it that night. Nor the next morning, when we said goodbye to Rodrigo over coffee and fake normality.

We still haven’t talked about it.

But there are moments, when Valeria looks at me a certain way, when I wonder if she knows that I know. And if she knows, whether she remembers it too sometimes.