I Confessed What Happened That Night in the Empty Park

The night was warm, one of those nights when July air hangs still among the trees and smells of wet earth and jasmine. Renata walked alone through the park on Avenida Quintana, her heels tapping out a dry rhythm on the cracked pavement. She had nowhere to go. For months, she had gone out at those hours with no destination, when the house seemed to collapse in on her and the silence of her empty bed weighed more than exhaustion.

At forty-seven, she knew herself well. She knew what she wanted, and she knew she almost never got it. She had learned to call it many things—anxiety, insomnia, habit—but the truth was simpler and more uncomfortable: she was hungry, and no man had ever quite satisfied that hunger.

Most of the streetlights were burned out. The dimness gave the park the air of a forbidden place, and she liked that. She walked slowly, feeling the fabric of her dress brush her thighs with every step, conscious of her own body in a way she shared with no one.

Then she saw him.

He was sitting on a bench beneath a huge oak, hunched over with his elbows on his knees. Young. Very young. Twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. His dark hair was mussed, and he stared at the ground as though waiting for an answer that never came. His T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders, and there was something in his stillness, in that mixture of strength and helplessness, that made her stop.

You shouldn’t, she thought. And she kept walking toward him anyway.

—It’s late to be so alone —she said, stopping a step from the bench.

The boy looked up, startled. He had light eyes and an expression of surprise that quickly turned to curiosity. He looked her over from head to toe, without trying too hard to hide it, and Renata felt that scrutiny like a caress.

—I couldn’t sleep —he replied. His voice was deep, with a trace of shyness still in it—. And you?

—Don’t talk to me like that —she said, and sat down beside him without waiting for permission—. My name is Renata.

—Damián.

They spoke little. He told her he’d had an argument with someone, that he needed some air, stray phrases she barely listened to. She was too busy looking at his hands, big and restless, imagining what those hands did not yet know they wanted to do. When Damián fell silent, she rested her palm on his knee, unhurried, testing his reaction.

He didn’t pull away.

—It’s been a long time since anyone looked at me the way you’re looking at me —Renata said softly.

He swallowed. She saw the movement in his throat, the pulse beating fast beneath his skin. She leaned in and spoke into his ear, letting her breath brush his neck.

—Come on.

***

She led him by the hand behind the oak, where the foliage hung thick and shielded them from the few streetlights still working. The tree bark was rough and cold. Renata shoved him against the trunk with a firmness that made his eyes widen, and before he could say anything, she kissed him.

It was a long, deep kiss, with none of the uncertainty of the earlier conversation. Damián responded awkwardly at first, then with a urgency that set her on fire. His hands didn’t know where to settle: they brushed her waist, went up her back, came down again. Renata guided them to her hips and pressed herself against him, feeling the bulge already pushing against the fabric of his pants.

—Easy —she murmured against his mouth—. We’ve got all night.

But she herself was anything but calm. She unbuckled his belt with quick fingers, never stopping kissing his neck, his jaw, his ear. When she slid her hand inside his pants and wrapped around him, Damián let out a muffled sound and dropped his head back against the trunk.

—Jesus —he panted.

Renata smiled in the darkness. She moved her hand slowly, squeezing just a little, feeling him harden even more under her touch. She loved that part almost as much as the rest: the moment a man gave in, when he stopped thinking and surrendered to whatever she chose to do to him.

She knelt on the damp grass. The dirt stained her knees and she didn’t care. She took him in her mouth, slowly, listening to Damián’s breathing break apart into short gasps. His hands tangled in her hair, not daring to push, trembling with the effort of holding back.

—I’m not going to last —he warned, his voice tight.

Renata pulled back just in time and stood up. She loved taking him to the edge and leaving him there, suspended.

—Not yet —she said.

***

She hiked her dress up to her waist. Underneath, she wore nothing but a thin lace thong, which she shifted aside with one finger. She took Damián’s hand and guided it between her legs, to where desire had left her slick for some time now.

—Feel what you do to me —she whispered.

He touched her with an awkwardness that quickly turned to instinct. Renata bit her lip, braced her back against the tree, and parted her legs a little more. The bark scraped her shoulders through the fabric, a slight pain that only sharpened everything else.

—Now —she said—. Lift me up.

Damián held her by the thighs and lifted her against the trunk with an ease that surprised her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, threw her arms around his neck, and when he found her and drove upward, the two of them held their breath at the same time.

He entered slowly, filling her completely. Renata buried her face in his neck to stifle her moan. For a moment they stayed still, feeling each other, her heart pounding against his chest. Then Damián began to move, first carefully, then following the rhythm her hips set for him.

—Like that —she told him in his ear—. Just like that. Don’t stop.

The entire park shrank to that corner of shadow and the two bodies slamming against the tree. Renata heard her own ragged breathing, the rustle of clothing, the crunch of leaves beneath his feet. She dug her nails into his back, tightened her legs around him, urged him deeper, searching for what she knew was coming.

It hit her like a jolt that ran through her whole spine. She tensed around him, biting the back of her hand so she wouldn’t cry out, her body trembling in waves that took time to release her. Damián held her through it all, teeth clenched, and a moment later he emptied himself inside her with a low growl against her shoulder.

They stayed like that, panting, held up by the trunk and by her still trembling legs.

***

What any other woman would have taken as an ending was, for Renata, only a pause. She lowered herself carefully to the ground, feeling him slip free, and looked at him with a smile he was starting to learn to fear and desire at the same time.

—You thought we were done? —she asked.

She took his hand again and led him deeper into the park, to a clearing ringed by bushes where the grass grew tall and no one could see them. There she lay down on the grass, took off her dress completely, and gestured for him to come closer.

—You’ve got a lot to learn —she said—. And I’ve got all the patience in the world.

She taught him with words and with her hands. She showed him where to touch, how much pressure to use, how to listen to the small signals of her body. Damián was an eager student. When he lowered himself between her legs and began, uncertain, she guided him with her voice until uncertainty turned into something like skill, and then Renata stopped talking and simply felt.

The second orgasm was slower, deeper, a tide that rose and left her helpless on the grass. She lay there for a moment, staring at the treetops outlined against the sky, which was only just beginning to lighten at the edge of the horizon.

Then she mounted him. She rode him slowly, setting the pace herself, Damián’s hands on her hips guiding her without controlling her. She moved her hips in slow circles, looking him in the eye, watching pleasure undo his expression. She liked that: having control, being the one who decided when to speed up and when to stop at the brink.

—Look at me —she told him, and he looked at her, lost—. Remember this night.

She quickened until both of them were breathless, until he clung to her and let go one last time, and she followed a little later with a shudder that folded her over his chest.

***

The sky was already a pinkish gray when Renata dressed. Damián was still lying in the grass, spent, looking at her as if he still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. She crouched down, gave him one last kiss, soft this time, almost tender.

—Don’t look for me —she said—. It wouldn’t do any good.

She walked home with her heels in her hand and grass stuck to her skin. Her body ached in a way that was almost pleasant. She knew that in a few days the thirst would return, as it always did, and that another night she would go out walking with no destination once more.

But for that morning, while the sun began to warm the empty streets, Renata allowed herself to smile. She regretted nothing. She never had. And that, perhaps, was the only confession that truly mattered to her.