My Confession: What Happened in the Back Row

There are things a woman never says out loud, not even to her closest friends. This is one of them, and I’m writing it now because I think enough time has passed for me to confess it without dying of embarrassment. My name is Camila, and it happened when I was still in university, at that stage when I was truly discovering desire, games, the urgency of a body that was only just beginning to get to know its own.

I’d been going out with Mateo for a few months. It was that stage of a relationship when everything burns: we kissed in any corner, groped for each other’s hands under tables, counted the hours until we could be alone. Any excuse was good enough to touch each other, and we both knew it.

That afternoon we decided to go to the movies. I don’t remember what film we went to see, and for good reason: I didn’t watch a single minute of it. It was a sweltering Tuesday, the kind of day when clothes cling to your body, so I’d put on shorts. I don’t normally wear skirts or shorts; I prefer pants, but that day the air called for something else.

We bought tickets for an afternoon showing, almost empty. We went all the way up to the last row, that place everyone chooses for the same reason and never admits it. I counted the people out of habit: at most ten scattered around the theater, each absorbed in their own world, in their popcorn bag or in their phone going dark just as the lights dimmed.

“Good thing it’s empty,” Mateo whispered in my ear, and I noticed that his voice already had that low note I know so well.

“Behave,” I told him, even though I already knew neither of us intended to.

The trailers started and we started kissing. At first it was soft, almost tender, his hand resting on my knee while the screen flickered over our faces. But as soon as the real movie began, that hand stopped staying still. It climbed slowly up my thigh, tracing slow circles, testing my reaction.

I didn’t move it away.

It had been less than five minutes before his fingers were already brushing the edge of my shorts. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. This is insane, I thought, glancing sideways toward the rows below. But nobody turned around. Nobody looked at us. And that certainty, instead of calming me down, only made me hotter.

“What if someone sees us?” I whispered, more as a game than as a real warning.

“Then don’t make a sound,” he replied, and his fingers slipped beneath the fabric.

It was as if the air in the theater vanished. His hand moved with a patience that drove me crazy, first over my underwear, barely pressing, until he felt how wet I was. I said nothing. I couldn’t. I pressed my lips together and stared at the screen, not understanding a single image of what was happening on it.

The fear of getting caught and the pleasure of the forbidden mixed into a single current that ran through my whole body. Every time a silhouette moved below, I held my breath. And every time I confirmed that no one was turning around, I let myself go a little more.

His fingers found the exact rhythm. I don’t know how long it went on like that, maybe ten minutes that felt like an eternity and at the same time like a breath. When I came, I did it by biting his shoulder through his T-shirt so I wouldn’t moan, my whole body tense, my nails digging into his arm. I had to remind myself to breathe.

***

When I recovered some sense, the first thing I did was look around again. My head was spinning. I checked row by row, expecting to find accusing eyes, someone standing up in outrage. But no. The same ten silhouettes remained absorbed, completely oblivious to what had just happened three meters away from them.

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I felt powerful, shameless, alive in a way I had never felt before. And then I thought it wasn’t fair for only me to have all the fun.

I looked at Mateo. He was breathing hard, his eyes fixed on me, waiting. I dropped my hand to his lap and felt how hard he was, the fabric of his pants pulled tight. I held his gaze as I slowly lowered the zipper, enjoying the way he swallowed.

“Camila...” he started to say, but I put a finger to his lips.

“You said not to make a sound,” I reminded him. “Now it’s your turn.”

I unfastened the button and freed him. My first idea was just to use my hand, finish what he had started, return the favor in silence. But as soon as I touched him, I was overtaken by a much stronger impulse than prudence.

I leaned over him, grateful for the darkness and the height of the seatback in front of us, which hid us like a curtain. The position was uncomfortable, the armrest digging into my ribs, but I didn’t care. I started slowly, with my tongue, running over the tip, kissing him as if I had all the time in the world.

I felt his hand tangle in my hair, not to push, only to accompany me. I took him into my mouth as far as my position allowed, and I heard him hold back a moan that slipped out between his teeth. That reaction made me want him even more. I alternated: I took him all the way in and then let him go so I could lick him again, because I know exactly what he likes, I know the rhythm that drives him crazy.

Every so often I lifted my gaze to look at him from below. The bluish light from the screen lit up his face, his eyes closed, his jaw clenched from the effort of staying quiet. His other hand caressed my back, then my nape, sometimes sliding down my body in clumsy, desperate strokes.

“I’m not going to last much longer,” he murmured, almost voiceless.

I didn’t stop. I felt his whole body tense a second later, and when he finished I tried to swallow everything, though in the dark and with that impossible position I didn’t quite manage it all. I felt a couple of warm drops on my cheek. I said nothing. I straightened up carefully, fixed his clothes with one hand and, while he caught his breath slumped in the seat, I whispered that I’d be right back.

***

I left the theater with my legs still trembling, sure my face was red as a lantern. The movie-theater hallway was deserted, with that yellow, sad light of empty places, and the distant noise of another film seeping through the doors. I walked to the restroom praying not to run into anyone I knew.

I went straight to the sinks and looked at myself in the mirror. And there it was, the proof of everything: a shiny stain on my cheek, my hair mussed, my lips swollen. I put my hands to my face, half laughing my head off, half dying of shame.

“Having a good time?” said a voice behind me.

I nearly died of fright. It was a cleaning woman, with her cart of supplies and a rag in her hand, looking at me with a half-smile that carried absolutely no reproach. I froze, not knowing what to say, feeling the heat rise up from my neck.

“I... we were...” I stammered, turning on the tap quickly to wash myself off.

When I turned around to make up some excuse, to apologize, for whatever, she was already gone. The door was closing slowly behind her cart. I hadn’t even had time to finish the sentence.

I washed my face with cold water, fixed my hair as best I could, and took several deep breaths in front of the mirror. The girl in the mirror gave me back a look I didn’t quite recognize: the look of someone capable of things she would never have dared to imagine a month earlier.

***

When I got back to the theater, the credits were already rolling. Mateo had pulled himself together completely, with that look of absolute innocence he wears when he’s just done something he shouldn’t have. We gathered our things and went out into the bright lobby, blinking like two moles.

“That was good, wasn’t it?” he commented, stretching. “I loved the ending.”

I looked at him, not understanding, and then it clicked: he was talking about the movie. That movie neither of us had watched, the one whose title and characters I still don’t remember to this day. A laugh escaped me, and I had to cover it with my hand.

And then I saw her. The cleaning woman was crossing the lobby, pushing her cart toward another screening room. As she passed us, she looked for me, winked quickly, in a conspiratorial way, and kept going as if nothing had happened.

My face flushed again. Mateo noticed.

“What? What happened?” he asked, curious.

I told him about the bathroom in a low voice, about the stain, about the woman showing up right then. I expected him to die of embarrassment with me, to understand how mortifying it had been. But Mateo only thought for a second, with that crooked smile that made me lose my mind, and asked the only thing he could ask.

“So when do we do it again?”

I didn’t answer him. There was no need. I squeezed his hand as we went out into the street, into the heat of the afternoon, and I knew that wasn’t going to be a one-time thing. He was right, of course. But that’s another confession.