I Took My Faculty Rival’s Boyfriend

Mariana was one year ahead of me at university. We were never friends, but we were never outright enemies either; it was more a kind of warm distrust that she carried around every time we crossed paths in the hallway. I knew why. I knew she was dying of jealousy over the way men looked at me, and especially over the way her own boyfriend looked at her when he thought no one was noticing.

Because her boyfriend, Mateo, looked at me.

Mariana was petite, slim, with straight black hair and brown eyes. Pretty in her own way, but understated, almost invisible when she walked into a classroom. I was the opposite. At twenty-two, I had a body that drew attention without me having to make the slightest effort: wide hips, long legs, generous breasts. I had been used to looks for years, and I learned early that those looks were a form of power.

Mateo was tall, green-eyed, fair-skinned, with straight hair leaning blond. The kind of man who walks into a place and lowers the temperature of the conversation. He was with Mariana, yes, but everyone knew the relationship was held together with pins and string. He used her for notes, for group assignments, to have someone waiting for him. And she clung to him like someone hanging on to something she knew she was going to lose.

The first time we exchanged more than a look was in the university cafeteria. Mariana had gone to get a coffee, and he took advantage of those thirty seconds to come over to my table.

—You know you drive me crazy, right? —he said bluntly, with a shameless smile that should have annoyed me, but didn’t.

—I know —I answered, holding his gaze—. That’s your problem, not mine.

He laughed. Mariana came back and he straightened up as if nothing had happened, but the game was already underway and we both knew it.

***

I’ve always liked provoking people, I won’t deny it. I went running and cycling on weekends, and I chose my clothes with the same intention with which one chooses a weapon. A thin-strap top with nothing underneath, the sheer fabric outlining my nipples; tight leggings tracing every curve. I liked feeling desired, I liked noticing heads turning as I passed. It wasn’t innocence. It was strategy.

One Saturday morning I went out cycling with Daniela, a lifelong friend, and we ran right into Mariana and Mateo, who were also out biking in the park. He saw me and went dumb with lust, without even trying to hide it, his eyes glued to my body as I rode by. I didn’t even register it at the time, but Daniela did.

—Look at him devouring you with his eyes —she whispered, amused, pedaling alongside me.

What neither of us had figured on was that Mariana had seen it too. I stopped for a second and caught the commotion: she was shouting at him, hitting his arm, her face red with rage.

—Why the hell are you staring at that girl’s ass?! Do you like her or what?

Mateo went red and didn’t know what to say. Mariana shot off on her bike toward where I was, ready to confront me, but he stopped her and dragged her away almost by force. I stayed still, with a calm that must have churned her stomach, and in that instant I understood something with absolute clarity: I was going to take him. Not because of Mateo himself, but because of the way she looked at me, because of that contempt she gave me without ever having given me a single reason.

From that day on, I flirted with him without mercy. Wherever I saw him, I smiled slowly, bit my lip, brushed his arm as I passed. Sometimes I did it in front of Mariana, just to watch her boil. And like almost all men, Mateo fell easily. He played along with me more and more shamelessly each time.

***

The encounter that changed everything was one weekday afternoon on a downtown street. I was alone, wearing a floral mini dress with a V-neck, open back, no bra. High sandals, my hair loose, made up as if the occasion deserved it, even though I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. The truth is, I liked feeling like that.

I saw him coming toward me and knew that afternoon was not going to end with just looks.

—Hi, Mateo. How are you? —I said in my softest voice.

His face lit up. He raked his eyes over me openly, pausing a second too long on the neckline.

—Hi, Camila. Hot as always —he said.

I kissed him on the cheek, letting my perfume and the closeness do their work. I lowered the neckline just a little as I leaned in, just enough for him to see a bit more, and he swallowed. He invited me for coffee and I accepted with a smile that already promised how it would end.

We sat next to each other in a corner of the café. It took him less than five minutes to make his move. His hand slipped under the table, first to my knee, then slowly up my thigh, centimeter by centimeter, gauging my reaction. When he reached the hem of my dress, I closed my legs, trapping his hand—not to stop him, but to feel the pressure, staring straight into his eyes with a hunger I no longer bothered hiding.

—You’re trembling —he told me quietly.

I didn’t answer. I loosened my legs a little, gave him permission, and when his fingers brushed the damp fabric of my panties, a sigh escaped me that I had to muffle against his shoulder. We kissed right there, slowly at first and then out of control, until a waiter came over and asked us, with all the discomfort in the world, to please leave.

We left almost laughing, burning, and headed to my place. My mother worked all day and I had the place to myself.

***

We went straight up to my room. We sat on the edge of the bed and kissed again as if we’d been forbidden to do it our whole lives. He pushed his tongue into my mouth while his hands searched for my breasts over the fabric. He pulled the straps of my dress down and my tits were bared; he bent to kiss them, to lick them, while he hiked up the skirt and stroked my thighs until he found the center of everything.

—I want to see you —he said, rough-voiced—. I want to see what you do to yourself when you’re alone.

I liked the idea. I took the toy I kept in my nightstand drawer for my solo afternoons, slipped off the rest of my underwear, and spread my legs in front of him. I touched myself slowly, fingers circling, while he watched without blinking, holding himself back. Then I turned on the vibration and started pressing it into me, arching my back with each wave.

—Like that, don’t stop —he murmured, biting his lip.

I kept going until my whole body tensed and I came with a long shiver. I took my glistening fingers and brought them to his mouth; he sucked them without breaking eye contact with me, and then he kissed me so I could taste myself too.

He undressed. I knelt in front of him and ran my tongue over him from base to tip, slowly, feeling him throb in my mouth. He liked it so much he had to brace himself against the wall so he wouldn’t lose his balance. I left him right on the edge and stopped; I wanted him to remember that afternoon for weeks.

I pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top. The naked truth: Mateo wasn’t the most experienced lover who had passed through that room, but that afternoon it didn’t matter, because I was the one setting the pace. I sat on him very slowly, rolling my hips, playing with the rhythm until we both lost our minds. I rode him looking him in the eyes, watching pleasure pull his face apart.

—Is that how you give it to Mariana? —I threw at him between gasps, with every intention.

—I barely touch Mariana —he answered, breathless—. You’re something else.

I laughed to myself. That sentence was worth more than everything else.

We changed positions. I lay on my back, spread my legs, and let him go deep, pounding into me with a rhythm that built and built until the sheets ended up soaked and the two of us came almost at once. Then I got on all fours and asked him to fuck me hard, without mercy, until my voice broke. We spent the whole afternoon like that: resting, starting again, trying things, laughing. A long, sweaty afternoon with no clock.

***

With Mateo, we repeated it many more times. He wasn’t the only man in my life those days, but for him it became an obsession: he came looking for me with any excuse, made up gaps in his schedule, lied at home. And as always happens with these things, it ended up being found out.

One afternoon Mariana followed him. She waited outside while we were upstairs, and started banging on the door with a persistence that did not bode well. I went down to open it wearing the first thing I found, a T-shirt of Mateo’s that barely covered me, and Mariana’s face twisted when she recognized it.

—Where is my boyfriend? —she spat.

—Which boyfriend? —I answered, with a calm that made her even angrier.

—That’s his T-shirt! Mateo! Mateo! —she started screaming, and pushed her way into the house before I could stop her.

She went straight up to my room and there he was, sitting on my bed. She went after him, calling me every name under the sun—bitch, slut, easy—while Mateo tried to calm her with not much success. In the middle of the struggle, the towel I had covered myself with fell to the floor and I ended up completely naked in front of both of them. He grabbed my arm so I wouldn’t get near her.

—Yes, I slept with your boyfriend —I told her, not lowering my voice—. And I’ll keep seeing him if I feel like it. Maybe you should ask yourself why he’d rather come here than stay with you.

Mariana fell silent, her eyes filling with tears. Then she turned around and left. Mateo hurriedly dressed and followed her, I suppose to keep that relationship, which no longer made any sense, going a little longer.

***

For weeks Mariana made sure to spread the gossip among all her friends. Every time I ran into her, she gave me some hate-filled look, some insult under her breath. I let her; I understood that was all she had left. She forgave him, of course, but the relationship ended anyway when he moved to another city for work.

I never saw Mateo again, and honestly, I didn’t need to. What we had was never about him. It was about that feeling of taking what the other person flaunted as theirs and proving to them they didn’t have it as firmly as they thought. I’m not proud of how I handled it, but I’m not going to pretend I regret it either. Sometimes desire is half the story. The other half, in my case, was always winning.