My Mother’s Neighbor Caught Me on the Roof

Back then I was living with my uncles, just a few blocks from my parents’ house, and I went over to visit them almost every day. Sometimes it was because of the tournaments we’d organize with the neighborhood guys—soccer one week, football the next, one block against another—and sometimes simply because I had nothing better to do. That afternoon was one of the latter.

I was bored in the way only a nineteen-year-old can be bored. My uncles’ house was full and empty for me at the same time: the maid busy with her chores, my aunt taking tea with her friends in the living room, the TV replaying the same old shows. My friends were tied up with homework. So I left without saying anything and walked to my parents’ building.

It was a small building, only three floors, with no doorman or anything of the sort. I rang the apartment bell and no one answered. I went back down to the sidewalk, looked for my mother with the neighbors who usually gathered in the afternoon, and she wasn’t there either. My younger brother wasn’t hanging out with his usual group. It was one of those afternoons when the whole world seemed to have decided to leave me out.

When I came back, a man was leaving the building with the keys in his hand, and I slipped in before the door could close. I thought about waiting seated in front of the apartment until someone got home. Just then, a woman came down the stairs with her daughter, people I’d known all my life. We stood there chatting for a while on the landing.

—Want to go to the movies later? —I asked the girl, more out of habit than anything else—. Or get some ice cream, whatever.

—I can’t —she answered—. I’m going out with my mom in a little while.

And there I was, standing around with the whole afternoon ahead of me and nothing in my hands. At that age, when you have nothing to do, you make something up. And if you’re horny on top of that, you make it up even faster. I’d gone days without running into Carla, the girl I liked back then, or any other girl. So I did what I sometimes did when the waiting got too long: I went up to the roof.

***

There was no one up there. The sun was coming in from the side, and the concrete still held the noon heat. I started wandering around aimlessly, looking at the water tanks, the crooked antennas, the laundry hanging on clotheslines stretched all the way across the terrace.

That’s where I saw them. Between sheets and shirts swaying only slightly in the wind, there was a set of lace underwear hanging there. A tiny, dark piece, the kind you don’t wear for comfort. I stared at it longer than I should have, wondering whose it was. In a building that small, there weren’t many possibilities, and my imagination got to work on its own.

I got aroused right away, with that stupid, total urgency you have at that age, when one image is enough for everything else to disappear. I looked around one last time to make sure I was alone. Then I took the garment from the clothesline, slipped between two water tanks where no one could see me from the door, and closed my eyes.

The fabric was soft, cool, still smelling a little of soap and a little of something else. I pulled down my pants, already hard, and wrapped the garment around my cock. The feel of the lace against my skin made me breathe deeply. I started stroking myself slowly, with my eyes closed, letting my imagination take me wherever it wanted. For a moment I completely forgot where I was.

—Does it feel good with my panties?

The voice came from so close my heart lurched. It was a woman’s voice, deep and teasing, not a trace of anger in it. I opened my eyes in a jolt and turned my head, and there she was, one step away from me, behind me, looking at me with a smile that couldn’t quite decide whether it was reproach or invitation.

—Uh… I… ahhh… —I couldn’t get a single full word out. Shame rushed up my neck like a fever.

It was Marisol, the neighbor from the apartment below my parents’. How many times I’d imagined her without ever daring to look at her straight on. She must have been in her early thirties, carried in a way that made you forget the number. I saw her almost every morning going out for a run, in leggings when it was cold and shorts when the heat was heavy, and I’d stand there transfixed watching how her body moved as she jogged. She was the material for half my fantasies, and now I had her a yard away, with her garment still tangled in my hand.

Before I could even think to cover myself, she reached out and rested her hand on me, over the fabric covering me. Shock had made me stop moving, and right away I felt some of my hardness fading.

—No, no —she said, lowering her voice until it became a murmur—. We can’t let you go soft right now.

And she started moving her hand, slowly, up and down, picking up where I had left off. I didn’t understand anything. Part of me was still waiting for a shout, a scandal, a threat to tell my parents. But none of that came.

***

When I managed to get my head back together a little, I looked at her face. Her lips were parted and her eyes were fixed on my hand, on hers, on the place where they touched. I felt her pressed against my arm, her breasts against my skin, her fingers closing around me with a confidence I lacked completely.

—How many times I saw you looking at me when I went out for a run —she said, almost to herself—. I thought you were shy.

I didn’t answer. I turned toward her so we were face to face, and she took the opportunity to undo my pants completely and pull them down a little more. She stroked me with her open palm, unhurried, as if she had all the time in the world.

—What a pleasant surprise —she murmured—. I never would have imagined you like this.

I got brave enough to touch her. She was wearing a tank top with thin straps, fairly low-cut. I pulled down one strap, then the other, and slid my hand under the fabric. Her skin was warm and firm. She didn’t stop me at any point; on the contrary, she arched her back just a little to come closer.

—What’s so strange about my cock? —I asked, my voice still broken, because she couldn’t stop looking at it.

—That it’s nice —she said, and gave a little laugh—. Thick, good to look at. Do you want to finish in my panties, or do you prefer something else?

I didn’t answer with words. I lifted her breasts over her bra and slid my hand down her body until I reached the waistband of her pants. They were tight, the kind that are hard to get off. I stroked over the fabric and felt her body tighten.

—There’s no time for all that —she said suddenly, her breathing shorter—. My husband’s about to get here.

That sentence, instead of stopping me, set me on fire. The urgency, the risk that someone might appear through the roof door at any moment, all of it made every second more intense. Marisol seemed to think the same thing.

***

She sat on the edge of one of the washbasins, gathered her breasts in both hands, and pulled me toward her. She wrapped me with them and started moving up and down, setting a slow rhythm that made me clench my teeth to keep from finishing right away. I held myself up with one hand on the cold edge of the basin and with the other kept sliding her side zipper lower.

I managed to slip my hand inside, moving the fabric of her underwear aside, and I touched her while she held me between her breasts. She was wet, hot, and when I touched her in just the right spot she let out a sigh, trying to hold it back by biting her lip. We stayed like that, giving each other pleasure at the same time, looking into each other’s eyes on that empty rooftop while the wind moved the laundry hanging around us.

—Look at me —she asked softly—. I want to see your face.

I couldn’t hold out much longer. I felt everything narrowing in, that there was no turning back now, and I warned her as best I could. She sped up the motion just as I finished. The first spurt splashed onto her neck and chest, and the rest were lost between her hands. As soon as she felt the first one, she pulled back a little, leaned in, and finished me with her mouth, cleaning me slowly until nothing was left and I was shaking, barely held up by my legs.

***

After that, everything went back to normal with a speed that left me stunned. Marisol straightened up, grabbed a clean cloth from the clothesline, and washed her neck and chest in the washbasin with complete calm, as if she had just watered the plants. She adjusted her tank top, pulled the straps back up, and picked up from the floor the garment that had started everything for me. She put it in the laundry basket and began taking the rest down from the line.

I helped her without being asked. Every time I handed her a garment to fold, I took the opportunity to brush against her back or waist, and she let me do it with that same crooked smile from before. We folded a couple of large sheets together, one at each end, moving toward each other in the middle to bring the corners together.

—Thanks —I said, and felt like an idiot the second I said it, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

—You behave yourself —she answered, and laughed.

She hooked the basket against her hip and walked toward the door. At the last second, just before she left, I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. She didn’t pull away. She looked at me one more time, amused, and while she went down the stairs she lifted that lace garment into the air, the one that had turned a boring day into the most impossible afternoon of my adolescence, and waved it like a goodbye.

We never spoke of it again. I kept seeing her running in the mornings, in leggings or shorts depending on the weather, and she’d wave to me like any other neighbor. But every time I passed by her window, the two of us knew what had happened that afternoon on the roof, among the hanging laundry and the heat of the concrete, and that was enough to make my heart race like the first time.