The Afternoon My Best Friend Confessed Her Fantasy

My name is Nuria, and I still struggle to tell this without my pulse picking up. I was just over twenty when it happened, and I’m still the same dark-haired woman with hard legs and a gym obsession that I was then. Very little has changed in me, except for what I learned that weekend.

It was a Saturday afternoon, one of those that stretches out lazily. I was sprawled on my bed with a book open on my chest, knowing that at some point I had to get up and go train. My parents had gone out for drinks with some friends and the house was silent.

The doorbell rang. It was Vanesa, who came to see me without warning, as she always did.

We sat in the kitchen with coffee in our hands. She didn’t even get through two sips before she pulled out her phone and started showing me photos of guys, one after another, with that smile I knew so well and that never meant anything calm was coming.

—And who are these? —I asked.

—Remember I told you I was going to sign up for that app, Deseos? —she replied.

—That rings a bell.

—I signed up a couple of weeks ago.

—And these are your contacts? —I insisted, running my finger across the screen.

—If you want the truth —she said, lowering her voice, even though there was nobody else in the house—, these are the three men I’ve slept with thanks to the site.

And she told me everything, unfiltered, as always when something was burning inside her. The first two were from Seville, ordinary guys she’d met on random nights. The third, though, was a guy passing through the city, a traveler who moved from capital to capital just to meet women through the app.

—He had his test results on him —Vanesa went on, and from her tone I couldn’t tell whether she was bragging or warning me—. He gets tested so he can sleep with strangers without having to give explanations. I’d had mine done a month earlier with Hugo, so…

—Wait —I cut in—. You slept with that guy without anything?

—Twice —she said, and her smile widened—. In his hotel room.

I stared at her, not knowing what to say. Vanesa had always been the brave one of the two, the one who jumped into the pool without checking the water, and I was the one who watched from the edge, calculating the fall.

—He said something I haven’t been able to get out of my head —she continued—. That you have to live your fantasies all the way through, not leave them half done. And I think he’s right.

Then one of her little speeches began. That man had convinced her to do a kind of soul-searching, to sit down and really think about which desires she wanted to fulfill before any others. And she had done it.

—And what did you come to? —I asked, more out of habit than courage.

She set her cup on the table, slowly, and fixed her eyes on me.

—I’d like to have an experience with a girl. Preferably with you.

She said it like that, without beating around the bush, like someone making a comment about the weather. I let out my breath all at once.

—With me? —I repeated, and my voice came out higher than I wanted—. Seriously?

—I’m not joking —she replied without blinking—. I’d like us to sleep together.

I went breathless, cup halfway to my mouth. I thought she was done, that that was the whole confession, but Vanesa was still holding back half of it.

—And there’s something else —she added—. I’d also like us to do it with a guy. Just the two of us and him.

I didn’t know what to answer. I got up from the chair and started pacing around the kitchen in front of her, my arms crossed. I would stop, look at her in silence, then start walking again, my eyes fixed on the floor tiles. Too many things were spinning through me at once: what I felt, what I was supposed to feel, fear, and beneath all of that, a curiosity I didn’t dare name.

My father always says that when you have several difficult decisions in front of you, the worst thing is to freeze. That you have to choose a path and move forward.

I stopped. I went back to the table and took her hand.

—Come on —I said—. Let’s take a shower.

***

The hot water fogged the bathroom mirror in seconds. We stepped under the shower together and, at first, neither of us moved. Just the sound of the water and our breathing. Then she put a hand on my waist, and I answered by running my fingers over her wet back.

—Just sex, agreed? —I said, looking for her eyes through the steam.

—Just sex —she repeated—. I’ve got Hugo, that’s enough for me. This is something else.

—And do you want the threesome fantasy with him too? —I asked.

—No, no —she said at once—. I’m leaving Hugo out of this. I’ll find someone else for that.

We didn’t talk anymore. We turned off the tap, went out leaving a trail of wet footprints down the hall, and threw ourselves onto my bed. What came next had nothing rehearsed about it. We sought each other out awkwardly and curiously, discovering each other as if we’d been putting it off our whole lives. We spent the entire afternoon pleasuring each other, losing count of how many times, laughing in between at how absurd and how good it all was at once.

My parents came back barely ten minutes after we’d finished getting dressed. Ten minutes of margin between two worlds.

My father, delighted to see her, invited Vanesa to stay for dinner. At the table he asked her what we’d done all afternoon.

—Girl stuff —she replied with such natural authority that it ended the matter on the spot.

The four of us had dinner, and before leaving Vanesa came up to my room for a while under the pretext of saying goodbye.

—Tomorrow morning I’ve arranged to meet the guy from the app, the traveler —she told me from the doorway—. Are you coming with me?

I didn’t know how to answer. I asked her for the address and the time, wrote them down, but I made no promise. She shrugged, as if to say the decision was mine, and left.

***

On Sunday at eleven in the morning I was standing in front of a hotel room door. I’d put on a black leather miniskirt, a white spaghetti-strap top I knew flattered me, and a small backpack over my shoulder. I’d been arguing with myself in the hallway for a while before deciding to knock.

I knocked. I expected Vanesa to open it.

The one who opened it was a man, in a bathrobe, his hair still wet. I was so surprised I took half a step back.

—You must be Nuria —he said with a calm smile—. Vanesa warned me you might get here before her.

—Yes, that’s me —I replied, still thrown off.

He invited me in with a gesture and, without my saying a word, seemed to read the discomfort on my face.

—There’s no mystery here —he said, closing the door—. We both know why we’re in this room today. Vanesa will be here any minute. Do you want us to have a drink and get to know each other for a bit, or would you rather get straight to it?

I was surprised by how easily I answered.

—Honestly, I’d rather get straight to it.

Nothing else was needed. He took my hand, laid me carefully on the bed, pulled down my underwear and began to work his mouth over me slowly, without hurry, as if we had the whole morning ahead of us. I let him. Within minutes I was soaked and had completely forgotten the hallway and my doubts.

He stood up, tossed the bathrobe onto a chair, and helped me sit up to finish undressing me. I ended up standing in front of him, completely naked before a man I had only seen ten minutes earlier in the photos on my friend’s phone. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t ask. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, let me fall onto the mattress, and moved between my legs.

We kissed while he moved inside me, and I came sooner than I ever had with anyone. I don’t know if it was him, or the situation, or knowing someone might knock on the door at any moment. Probably all of it at once.

And they knocked.

He got up, tied the bathrobe shut, and went to open the door. It was Vanesa, of course. He let her in and she found me naked on the bed, my legs still open, still caught in the tail end of the orgasm.

—She just came —he said, like he was reporting in.

—What time did you get here? —Vanesa asked me, looking amused and a little provoked.

I didn’t answer. The words wouldn’t come.

—She got here at eleven —he answered for me.

—Fifteen minutes! —Vanesa exclaimed, incredulous—. Fifteen minutes and you’re already like this!

—That’s the effect of the fantasy —he said with a shrug—. When you’ve been thinking about something for weeks, your body is already prepared.

Little by little I got my voice back and something like composure. I propped myself up on my elbows.

—Didn’t we agree this was going to be a threesome? —I asked.

—Let me show you how it’s done —he replied, and for the first time I understood why Vanesa had been so impressed by him.

He guided us with a calm that didn’t seem premeditated, and yet was. He knew how to pace everything. At one moment I was adding heat to what was happening between Vanesa and me; the next she was the one in excess and came back when he decided; after that it was me who was extra, watching them from the side until they called me back. At times we were two and one, at times all three of us at once, tangled up without really knowing whose hand was whose. He led us through corners of something neither of us had ever tried and that he seemed to know by heart.

We forgot to eat. Around five in the afternoon the three of us were exhausted, starving and overheated, sprawled on a rumpled bed that smelled of sweat and hotel room.

We ordered something to restore our strength. While we ate, I asked him if we’d continue after the break.

—I can’t —he said, wiping his hands—. I’ve got another date tonight. A new girl, someone I don’t know at all.

He showed us her profile on his phone. She was also a traffic stopper.

—Do you always meet girls that beautiful? —I asked, half joking, half prickled—. Girls like us?

—I only match with girls I like —he answered without a shred of modesty—. And I look for the ones who take care of themselves, the ones who get tested. That’s why you two are an exception.

—Speak for yourself —Vanesa cut in, laughing—. I’m a regular user.

—You’re exceptional for another reason —he told her—. For bringing your friend. Almost nobody does that.

Out of curiosity, I asked him to show me photos of other women he’d been with. He scrolled through them one by one, and each one seemed prettier than the last.

—How many do you meet per trip? —I asked.

—One a day, on average —he replied as if he were talking about the weather—. I move through the nice neighborhoods. That’s where the girls go looking for the rich man, but a lot of the time they settle for the handsome guy standing in front of them.

I glanced sideways at Vanesa.

—Was that what you were doing? —I asked her.

—No —she answered—. I met him from home, nice and relaxed on the sofa.

—That’s a mistake —he interjected—. For this game you have to get away from home. Somewhere nobody knows you, where nobody can tell anything afterward.

With that advice, half serious and half joking, we said goodbye. We gathered our things, got dressed, and stepped out into the hotel corridor with the day’s heat still stuck to our skin.

We never saw him again. I never even found out what his name was. Vanesa doesn’t remember it either, or says she doesn’t, which amounts to the same thing. Sometimes, when we see each other and go quiet, I know we’re both thinking about that room. And neither of us says it out loud, just like that afternoon in the kitchen: girl stuff.