While My Wife Prayed, I Was with the Veterinarian

During the first few years, Esteban and Mercedes couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They had married in their early twenties, in a time when desire always got the better of them: in the morning before work, in the kitchen against the counter, on the couch with the TV on and the volume turned up to drown out the noises. Mercedes had an easy laugh and a way of biting her lip that he knew how to read instantly.

All of that began to go out in the winter when she discovered the congregation. A neighbor invited her to a prayer meeting, and Mercedes came back different. First it was Wednesdays. Then entire Sundays. Then came the pastors with their meek smiles and their speeches about the purity of the body and the sanctity of marriage, understood their way.

—Pleasure for pleasure’s sake is a trap, Esteban —she told him one night, already in her long nightgown buttoned up to the neck—. The body is a temple.

A closed temple, he thought. With a CLOSED sign on it.

Little by little the caresses disappeared. Mercedes prayed before going to sleep, turned over, and switched off the light. When he tried to get close, she would take his hand gently and move it away, as if forgiving him for something. “God doesn’t want that,” she would murmur. Esteban would lie there staring at the ceiling with his cock hard against his pajama pants, grinding his teeth, wanking in the bathroom at three in the morning so he could finally fall asleep.

***

Rocío worked at the veterinary clinic on the next block. She was in her thirties, with dark hair always pinned up with a pencil she’d take out halfway through the day, and a way of looking straight at people that threw Esteban off the first time. He met her one ordinary afternoon when he brought his dog in because it was limping on one leg.

She crouched to examine the animal and the white coat pulled tight across her back, defining her round ass and the line of her bra. Esteban looked away too late. Rocío lifted her head, caught him staring, and said nothing; she only smiled faintly, as if filing that information away for later.

After that visit, the dog developed a suspicious number of ailments. The stomach, the ear, not eating much. Rocío always received him with that same calm smile, and Esteban began to notice that she wasn’t in any hurry to get rid of him either.

—Your dog is perfectly fine —she told him one afternoon, as the place emptied out and the last light came in slantwise through the window—. You’re the one who comes in here with something else.

Esteban opened his mouth to make up an excuse. None came out. Rocío walked to the door, slid the bolt, and came back toward him without breaking eye contact.

—It’s okay —she said softly—. Sometimes you need someone else to say it first.

She kissed him slowly, as if testing him, and when he answered with the urgency of months of accumulated hunger, she smiled against his mouth. Esteban’s hands found her waist, then the curve of her hip under the coat, and Rocío let out a low sigh that had nothing fake about it. She reached for his fly with an open hand and squeezed the bulge over the fabric.

—Wow —she murmured, laughing against his neck—. You really came loaded, didn’t you?

***

They did it right there, on the stainless-steel exam table, cold against the skin. Rocío unbuttoned her coat button by button, unhurried, enjoying the way he watched her. Underneath she wore a simple black bra and cotton panties that Esteban thought were the most obscene thing he had seen in years. He yanked off her bra awkwardly and took her tits in both hands, heavy and warm, with the nipples already hard and dark, standing up immediately between his fingers. He bent down and sucked one while pinching the other, and Rocío threw her head back, releasing a rough moan.

—Like that —she told him, grabbing his hair—. Suck them hard. It’s been forever since anyone touched my tits like that.

Esteban dragged his mouth down her neck, over her collarbone, bit her shoulder softly. She tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his head back to look him in the eyes.

—Slow —she murmured—. We don’t have to rush.

But he was already on his knees on the floor of the clinic, tugging her panties down. When he opened her thighs and saw her pussy, soaked all the way to her groin, shining under the last light from the window, he nearly let out a moan himself. He buried his face in it without preamble, his broad tongue moving up from her entrance to her clit, sucking it with his lips and coming back down, sliding his tongue inside her, tasting the salty, thick flavor he’d gone months without tasting. Rocío gripped the edge of the table and arched her back.

—Oh, fuck yes. Don’t stop. Don’t stop, come on.

He drove two fingers into her and kept sucking her clit at a steady pace, feeling her clench around his fingers, feeling her legs trembling on either side of his head. Rocío came the first time with her mouth open and no sound, shaking all over, her hands gripping his hair so hard it felt like she might rip it out.

When he stood up, she unbuttoned his pants and yanked his cock out in one pull, hard and already dripping from the tip. She looked at it for a second, ran her tongue over her lips, and took it all the way into her mouth. Esteban had to brace himself on the table so he wouldn’t fall over. Rocío sucked him with hunger, cheeks hollowed, taking him to the base and pulling off with a wet sound that echoed in the empty clinic. She grabbed his balls with one hand, massaged them, and then took him back into her mouth to the back of her throat until he felt her throat tightening around his head.

—Wait, wait —he panted—, you’re gonna make me cum like this.

She pulled off slowly, with a pop, and wiped the saliva from her chin with the back of her hand.

—Then fuck me —she said, climbing onto the table and spreading her legs—. Come on. Fuck me hard. You’ve had it stored up for so long.

Esteban positioned himself between her thighs, ran the tip of his cock over the lips of her drenched cunt, and when he finally sank into her, both of them held their breath at the same time. She was hot, tight, soaking wet, and he had to stay still for a second so he wouldn’t come right there and then. Then he started moving, first slowly, finding the rhythm, and then all the way in, to the hilt, pulling almost all the way out just to shove back in with one thrust. The table banged against the wall with each stroke, a metallic sound mixing with her moans and the wet slap of skin against skin.

Rocío dug her nails into his back, bit his neck to keep from screaming, and he fucked her harder, gripping her ass, lifting her legs and putting them over his shoulders to drive into her from another angle. Her face was red, her hair stuck to her forehead, her mouth open.

—Yes, yes, like that, harder, break me —she panted—, give it to me all, come on, come on, come on.

When she came again, her whole body shook, squeezing his cock inside with contractions so strong he felt like she was sucking all the air out of his body. He held out a little longer, just enough to see her fall apart one more time, and only then did he let go, burying himself to the hilt and unloading all the semen he’d been storing up for months in waves that jolted his legs. He collapsed on top of her, face in her neck, feeling the spunk slide between their bodies and wet her thighs.

They stayed stuck together, sweaty, laughing under their breath like two teenagers who’d just pulled off a huge prank.

It took Esteban a few minutes to get his breath back. He ran his thumb over her cheek, brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, and surprised himself by how badly he wanted to stay. It wasn’t just the body he’d been missing all those months; it was this, the after, the warm weight of someone who didn’t turn over to switch off the light.

—Come back whenever you want —Rocío told him, fastening her coat over skin still damp with sweat—. But leave the dog at home, poor thing.

***

They became lovers with the naturalness of someone who finally finds the missing piece. Two, three times a week. In the office after hours, at her apartment on Sundays when Mercedes spent the whole day at her meetings, in the car parked somewhere out in a vacant lot on the edge of town, the windows fogged up and she riding him in the passenger seat with her skirt hiked up to her waist.

Esteban discovered he could talk with Rocío. That it wasn’t all sex, even if sex was the engine. She told him about her animals, about her ex-husband who’d left her out of boredom, about how she wanted to move near the sea one day. He listened and felt, for the first time in a long while, truly seen.

The sex with her didn’t resemble anything he remembered either. Rocío had no shame and no hurry: she asked for what she wanted in plain language, laughed when something came out clumsy, guided him with her hand when he hesitated. “Put it in deeper,” “bite me here,” “go down on me,” “cum on my face”: nothing cost her saying, and that bluntness lit up whatever little decency he had left.

One night at the apartment she had him sit on the edge of the bed and settled herself on top of him facing him, impaling herself slowly on his cock until he was all the way inside, and then she stayed still for a second, eyes closed, savoring it. Then she started moving, setting the pace herself, up and down, rolling her hips, biting her lower lip every time she was about to finish. Esteban grabbed her tits, licked them, sucked her nipples while she groaned louder and louder, riding him. When he felt her tighten, he grabbed her ass with both hands and started thrusting up into her, coming in and out at a brutal rhythm, and Rocío came clinging to his shoulders, screaming without a single care for the neighbors.

—Don’t cum yet —she begged when she caught her breath, and climbed off him to get on all fours on the bed, offering up her raised ass.

Esteban knelt behind her and shoved in with one thrust that made her howl. He fucked her, gripping her hair, tugging her head back, giving her spanks that left his handprint on her cheek. Rocío pushed her ass back to take him, face buried in the pillow, asking for more. When he felt like he couldn’t hold out any longer, she turned around quickly, knelt in front of him, and opened her mouth. Esteban finished himself off with his hand and emptied all his semen over her tongue and chin, watching her close her eyes and swallow what made it into her mouth without ever stopping smiling at him. He learned to read her body as he once read Mercedes’s, and discovered that paying attention was, in itself, a form of pleasure.

One afternoon he took her to his own house, a transgression that excited him more than he wanted to admit. He laid her on the marital bed, on the sheets that smelled of Mercedes’s perfume, and whispered in her ear while kissing her back.

—I shouldn’t be doing this here.

—That’s why you like it so much —she answered, arching against him and lifting her ass to press it against his hard cock.

He stripped her right there, slowly, over his wife’s bedspread, and ran his tongue all over her back, down the line of her spine, over the crease of her ass, stopping to lick her asshole and continuing on to her cunt, already drenched. Rocío gripped the headboard and pushed her hips back, asking for more tongue. He ate her ass for a long while, his nose buried between her cheeks, tongue going in and out, until she was trembling and begging him to just stick it in already.

He took her from behind, slowly, sinking all the way in and pulling almost completely out, toying with her impatience until she begged him to stop torturing her. He traced her spine with his tongue, bit the nape of her neck, whispered things he would never have dared say out loud.

—Feel me fucking you in my wife’s bed, whore. Look where I’ve got you. All mine, huh?

—All yours —she panted—, fuck me here, in her bed, harder, come on, let her know I was here.

Rocío came twice before he was done, biting Mercedes’s pillow, squeezing his cock inside with long spasms. The second time he couldn’t hold back anymore and unloaded inside her, leaving all his semen there, knowing it would later run down her thighs onto the clean sheets. They stayed wrapped around each other in the forbidden bed, she with her face buried in his chest, until the clock forced them apart.

***

Meanwhile, Mercedes began to suspect. She found a long dark hair on the collar of a shirt. She smelled a perfume that wasn’t hers. But instead of confronting him, she prayed harder, as if faith could cover the hole opening up in her house. Esteban lied without effort —“it was at work,” “I ran into a client”— and she preferred to believe him, because the alternative was a world her congregation had not taught her how to handle.

The day Rocío called him with a broken voice, Esteban knew before she said it.

—I’m pregnant —she murmured—. It’s yours. There was no one else.

He went silent for a few seconds, the phone pressed to his ear. Then he felt something strange in his chest, a mix of panic and an absurd pride he hadn’t expected.

—I’m coming over —he said.

***

He didn’t leave her alone. In his twisted way, Esteban took responsibility: he gave her money for the clinic, bought whatever was needed, accompanied her to appointments by inventing work trips. And they kept seeing each other, of course. The pregnancy, far from stopping him, turned him on in a way he couldn’t even understand. Rocío’s body changing month by month, the new curves, the swollen tits with darker, more sensitive nipples, the skin hotter to the touch, the pussy wetter than ever.

—Careful —she warned him laughing, when he laid her on her side and kissed her round belly—. We’re not made of rubber.

—I’ve got you —he answered, and treated her as if she were made of glass, which only drove her madder.

They fucked spoon-style, him behind her, going in slowly, one hand around her belly and the other playing with her clit while he kissed the nape of her neck. Rocío came long and low, squeezing his cock with slow contractions, while he whispered in her ear how beautiful she looked, how hot it made him to see her like that. Other times she made him lie on his back and climbed on top of him with her huge belly, riding him carefully, guiding his hands to her heavy tits so he could squeeze them while she moved. She loved seeing him underneath her, looking up at her with his mouth slightly open, and when he came inside her she would lower herself slowly onto his chest and stay there, laughing softly, feeling his cock throbbing inside.

The problem remained Mercedes. The late returns, the money missing from the account, the foreign smell. One night, sick of the prayers and the nightgown buttoned up to the neck, Esteban decided to tell her the truth. Or something close to the truth, tailored to what she was capable of believing.

***

He walked into the bedroom where Mercedes was reading the Bible under the lamp, sat on the edge of the bed, and arranged the most solemn face he could manage.

—Mercedes, I have to tell you something. I had a revelation.

She looked up, alert.

—Last night, while I was asleep, a light appeared to me. I don’t know how to explain it. A presence. And it spoke to me —Esteban lowered his voice, as if sharing a sacred secret—. It told me there is a creature on the way, in the womb of a woman from the neighborhood. That this creature is special, chosen. And that you and I have the mission of raising it as our own.

Mercedes dropped the Bible onto the bedspread. She brought both hands to her mouth.

—A… revelation? —she whispered, eyes full of tears—. To you?

—To me —he nodded, barely holding back a straight face—. I know it sounds impossible. I didn’t believe it either.

Mercedes slid off the bed and fell to her knees on the rug, clasping her hands. He swallowed it whole, Esteban thought. The pastors had left her so ready for miracles that a house-call miracle seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

—It’s a sign! —she cried—. After all that praying! Of course we’re going to raise it. It will be our child, the child God is sending us. That’s why the church was preparing me, don’t you see? That’s why.

***

From then on, Mercedes threw herself into the project with a devotion that was a little frightening. She visited Rocío, brought her books and food, stroked her belly while speaking to “the chosen creature.” Rocío, who had a devastating sense of humor, humored her with a saintly expression.

—Yes, sister —she would say—. It’s a miracle. I feel it kicking and I think about how blessed we all are.

And as soon as Mercedes crossed the door, Rocío would turn to Esteban with one eyebrow raised.

—Your wife’s a case —she’d tell him, tugging him by the arm toward the back room—. Come on, we’ve got about an hour before she’s back with more books.

He’d pin her against the hallway wall, hike her maternity dress up to her waist, and yank off her panties with two fingers. Rocío was already wet just thinking about it, her cunt swollen and hot between her thighs. He’d lift one leg, hook it over his hip, and shove into her in one thrust right there, holding her weight against the wall, fucking her carefully around the belly but with all the force she asked for, her mouth at his ear. Rocío bit his shoulder to keep quiet and clawed at his back under his shirt, moaning softly, panting into his neck: “More, come on, more, like that, fuck me, make the pious bitch wear the horns while your pregnant girlfriend sucks your cock, come on.”

Esteban came fast with that dirty mouth in his ear, unloading inside her with his forehead pressed to the wall, and both of them came stifling laughter and moans in the same motion. Then Rocío would crouch down with her belly and all, lick whatever semen remained on the tip of his cock, and smooth his pants back into place with a pat before the bell rang again.

***

Twins were born, to everyone’s surprise: two healthy boys with Esteban’s unmistakable nose. Mercedes received them as a double blessing and gave them biblical names he didn’t even bother arguing about. She raised them with fanatical tenderness, praying over the crib, convinced she had two chosen ones sleeping in her house.

Esteban paid for everything, kept the two lives balanced, and sometimes wondered, in the few nights when insomnia let him think, how long a tightrope like that could last. But then morning came, Mercedes ironed his shirt while singing hymns, Rocío texted him from across the block, and he decided he’d deal with it tomorrow.

—The Lord provides —Mercedes would say with a serene smile while serving him coffee.

—Yes —Esteban would answer, looking out the window toward the veterinary clinic across the street—. So it seems.