The Bet That Left Us Without Clothes and Without Excuses

That night began with a call from Marcos at eight in the evening. I was standing in front of the mirror, adjusting my dark blue shirt, when my cellphone vibrated on the dresser.

—Diego, tell me you’re ready —was the first thing he said, without even saying hello—. Because I’ve got something lined up that you’re not going to believe.

—What kind of “something”? —I asked, putting on the last touch of cologne.

—Valeria and Natalia. Both single, both wanting to go out and have some real fun. Valeria’s in her forties, separated two months ago from a guy who didn’t deserve her. Natalia’s thirty-five, redhead, a knockout. I know them from the club where I go play paddle.

I smiled without being able to help it. When Marcos put together a plan, the plan usually worked.

—Give me ten minutes.

—Get down here now, I’m downstairs.

What was waiting for me in the street was not what I expected. Instead of the beat-up car he’d been using for three years, parked in front of the building with the hazard lights on there was a new, gleaming metallic gray pickup truck. I stopped on the sidewalk and looked at him through the glass, eyes wide.

—Where did this come from? —I asked as I got in.

—Financing, brother —Marcos replied with the arrogance of someone who had already rehearsed the answer—. Good things have to be paid for.

—You’ll finish paying for it when you’re sixty.

—That’s future Marcos’s problem. Today let’s focus on the present.

We found them on the corner of Corrientes and Uruguay, under the awning of a bar that was already closing. Two figures that took my breath away.

Valeria was exactly what Marcos had promised: a woman in her forties who wore age like a tailored suit. Fitted black trousers, a wine-colored blouse with a moderate neckline that didn’t need to exaggerate anything because the tits underneath spoke for themselves. Her brown hair fell over her shoulders in perfect waves. Natalia, beside her, was the perfect contrast: copper-red hair down to the middle of her back, a bottle-green dress that cinched her waist and hugged her ass, and that way of standing —one hip slightly forward— that said everything before she even opened her mouth.

—About time —Valeria said, leaning down to the window—. I thought you weren’t coming.

—Leave the two of you waiting? Not a chance —Marcos replied with that smile of his that always ended up being too effective—. Get in, the night’s just getting started.

***

The club was one of those places that doesn’t even have a sign on the door. Marcos had contacts. We got in without lining up, and inside the air was thick: expensive perfume, sweat, and the bass thumping against your chest like a soft fist.

At the bar, the drinks came fast. Natalia and I ended up talking almost on our own while Marcos and Valeria drifted toward the far end of the counter, leaning toward each other with that intimacy that takes only twenty minutes to build when both sides want the same thing.

—Do you dance? —she asked, looking at the dance floor.

—A little —I lied.

A little was a lot more than that. I learned salsa in a course I took years ago, and that night the rhythm was on my side. I took her by the waist on the third beat and she was surprised, I saw it in the way her eyes widened before she relaxed. Her body responded to mine with a fluidity that isn’t easy to fake. We danced together for twenty minutes without talking, which was better than any conversation. On one turn I pressed her against my hip and felt her press her ass against my bulge for a second too long, as if testing the waters. I smiled over her ear and she smiled against my jaw.

It was on the dance floor that he showed up.

A man pushing his way through the crowd with the clumsiness of someone carrying too much alcohol. It took me a second to process the scene: the guy planted himself in front of Valeria, who was with Marcos at the bar, and started talking at a volume that drowned out the music. The ex-husband. Drunk, furious, and completely out of place.

Marcos didn’t move from where he was. He lowered his voice three octaves, looked at him with that calm that’s more intimidating than shouting, and said something I couldn’t hear from where I was. The guy tried to grab Valeria by the arm. That was the mistake the club security needed to step in: two huge men escorted him outside in less than a minute.

Valeria was pale but composed. Marcos put a hand on her back.

—That’s over —he told her—. Want to keep going?

She took a second, then nodded. And they kept going.

Natalia looked at me from the dance floor, arching one eyebrow.

—Always so exciting going out with you guys —she said in an ironic tone, though the corner of her smile was trembling a little.

I took her by the waist and spun her. —The night’s not over yet.

***

At one in the morning, Marcos came up to me on the dance floor and spoke in my ear.

—How about we finish this at your place?

I looked at Natalia, who held my gaze with an expression that left no room for doubt. I looked at Valeria, who had her hair slightly mussed and her eyes shining.

—Let’s go —I said.

In the car, in the back seat, Natalia and I lost the time we had left. I took her by the nape of the neck and kissed her slowly at first, feeling how her lips answered with a pressure that kept increasing. The taste of gin and lime in her mouth was addictive. Her hands rested on my chest, then on my shoulders. A second later one of those hands slid straight down to my crotch and squeezed me over my pants without the slightest shame. She laughed softly against my mouth when she felt how hard I was.

—I can’t take this like this all the way to your place —she murmured.

She opened my zipper and slipped her hand inside my boxers. She took my cock in her warm palm and started stroking me slowly, gripping the base, sliding up to the tip with her wrist turned as if she knew exactly how it’s done. Marcos was driving with one hand and with the other he was reaching for Valeria’s knee, who had already abandoned all pretense of polite conversation; I saw his hand between her legs, moving beneath the fitted pants, and Valeria biting her lip while looking at the car roof.

Natalia pulled me out of my boxers and lowered her head. I felt the cool air a second before I felt her mouth. She took me all the way in, as far as she could, and came back up sucking with hollow cheeks. I closed my eyes and clutched the seat.

—Baby —I told her, voice rough—, if you keep going like that I’m not going to make it.

She lifted her head just a little, lower lip shining.

—You need to take me to your place more often —she murmured.

—We’re not there yet.

—I know. That’s why I’m saying it.

And she went back down. She sucked me for another minute, slow, wet, with her tongue working the tip every time she came up, until she straightened abruptly, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and tucked me back inside my pants with an almost mocking delicacy. She looked out the window like nothing had happened. Marcos accelerated.

***

My apartment is, I admit, excessively tidy for a thirty-two-year-old man. The books are organized by subject and size. The sheets are high-quality cotton and I change them twice a week. There’s nothing on the countertops that doesn’t serve a specific function.

That night all of that was going to change.

I opened the door, turned on the ambient lights, and the apartment welcomed them with that smell of clean and wood that’s always there. Valeria looked around with one eyebrow raised.

—This doesn’t look like a bachelor pad.

—I’m a bachelor with standards —I replied, going to get ice.

Marcos poured. He poured badly, with too much whiskey and too little ice, but nobody complained. We settled into the living room: Natalia and I on the big sofa, Valeria and Marcos on the side chair. The conversation loosened up with the alcohol until Marcos saw the deck of cards on the shelf.

He picked it up. Shuffled it. Looked at me.

—How about a poker bet?

—What kind of bet? —Natalia asked, her glass halfway between the table and her mouth.

—Interesting ones —Marcos said.

The two women looked at each other. Natalia leaned toward Valeria and they whispered something I couldn’t hear. Valeria pursed her lips, calculating.

—We’re in —she said—. But if you two lose, you go run around the block naked, as God brought you into the world.

Marcos burst out laughing. I did too.

—And if you two lose —I said—, you owe us whatever we ask for.

Another exchange of looks between them. Another second of silent calculation.

—Deal —said Natalia, crossing her arms with a fake indifference that fooled no one.

***

The first two hands were even. Marcos lost his watch. I lost my shirt, which I folded over the back of the sofa with an order that made Natalia laugh out loud.

—Who folds clothes during strip poker?

—Someone with standards —I repeated my earlier line.

The third hand got serious. Valeria had a hearts run that left us with nothing. The girls’ sneakers landed on the floor, and Natalia rested her bare feet on the rug with a slowness that felt almost ritual.

Fourth hand: Valeria’s pants. She took them off slowly, with a calm that was clearly meant as provocation, and ended up in black lingerie that contrasted with her pale skin. She turned around on purpose so Marcos could see her full, round ass, split only by the thong, and Marcos held his breath in a very unsubtle way.

Fifth hand: Natalia’s dress. She pulled it off over her head in one movement. Her red hair fell mussed over her shoulders and she was left in a sea-green lace set that made the skin beneath the dim light look warm.

—There go those —she said, tossing the dress onto the coffee table.

Neither of the men crossed their arms.

The last hand was the one that settled everything. Marcos and I had two pair. They had less. When the four cards lay face up on the table, the silence lasted exactly three seconds.

—Well —Valeria said, and that “well” was surrender and invitation at the same time.

The clasps came undone one after the other. The living room light caught both of them: Valeria with full tits hanging slightly under their own weight, her large, already rigid nipples pointing forward; Natalia with hers smaller and firmer, her nipples darkened by the arousal they’d been building for a while. Then the panties came down. Valeria had a neatly shaved cunt with a thin brown strip; Natalia’s was completely bare and already shining wet under the light.

Marcos set the cards down on the table. I stood up.

***

There were no more instructions. None were needed.

I went up to Natalia and took her by the waist, just like on the dance floor, but this time there was no music or crowd or excuses. I kissed her slowly, my hands on her back, feeling the heat of her skin directly against my palms. I slid one hand down to her ass and grabbed it whole, squeezing, and she dug her nails into my neck. I moved my other hand to the front, grabbed a breast, pinched the nipple between two fingers, and got a short moan out of her. She grabbed me by the waistband of my pants and tugged gently.

—You’re wearing way too much clothes still —she murmured against my mouth.

—Take it off for me.

She undid my belt, pulled my pants and boxers down in one yank. My cock sprang forward, already hard from the car. She looked at it for a second, bit her lip, and crouched down.

Marcos already had Valeria on the couch. I heard her laugh at something he said in a low voice, a short laugh that cut off when he brushed his lips over her neck and lowered his mouth to one nipple. I caught a glimpse of her: Valeria arching her back, offering him her whole breast, and Marcos sucking on it with his hand between her legs, two fingers going in and out of her cunt in a slow rhythm.

Natalia gently pushed me toward the sofa and knelt in front of me, now without the car’s awkwardness, with the whole rug in front of us. She looked up at me with an expression that didn’t need words. She took my cock at the base with one hand, licked me from the balls to the tip with a flat tongue, and then closed her lips around me. When she closed her lips around me, the entire apartment stopped existing for a long while.

She worked with studied slowness, her tongue moving precisely, her eyes meeting mine every so often to check the effect. The effect was devastating. She sucked me all the way, deep, with soft gagging when she hit the back of her throat, and then came back up slowly leaving a strand of saliva from the tip to her lower lip. With her free hand she squeezed one breast and pinched the nipple while she sucked. I tangled my fingers in her red hair —that blazing red that, under the living room light, looked almost unreal— and set the rhythm myself, pushing her head a little deeper each time. She didn’t complain; on the contrary, she moaned with my cock in her mouth and accepted the motion like a machine.

—That’s it, baby —I told her—, suck it like that.

She answered by squeezing my balls with one hand and taking my cock all the way to the back of her throat.

From the couch came the sounds of Marcos and Valeria: the rustle of fabric, one of her soft moans, his voice answering with something I couldn’t make out. I looked up for a second and saw Valeria on her knees on the sofa, gripping the backrest, with Marcos standing behind her fucking her. He held her hips with both hands and drove into her to the hilt, and Valeria’s tits jolted with each thrust. The apartment smelled of perfume mixed with something more urgent, of cunt and whiskey.

When Natalia stood up —her mouth still shiny and her breathing short— I took a second to look at her. The body of a woman who knows herself and doesn’t need to apologize for anything. Her tits standing up, her flat stomach, her shaved, shining cunt between her thighs. I laid her on the sofa, spread her legs with my knees and settled on top of her. Before I fucked her, I lowered my mouth to her cunt. I licked her from bottom to top, slow, searching for the clit with the tip of my tongue, and when I found it I stayed there, sucking it, shaking it with my tongue fast, while I slid two fingers inside her and searched with my fingertips for the spot that made her lift her hips off the sofa fabric.

—Oh God —she said—. Oh, like that, don’t stop, don’t stop.

I licked her until I felt her trembling and arching, until she squeezed my fingers inside with that unmistakable wet contraction and pushed my head back because she couldn’t take it anymore.

—Now —she gasped—. Fuck me now.

I climbed over her and took my cock in my hand. I ran it over the lips of her cunt, soaking it, and then settled myself and entered her slowly, all the way in, in one long stroke. She rested her forehead on my shoulder for a second, breathing. Then she lifted her hips and we started moving together, finding a rhythm that kept changing shape. I started slow, pulling almost all the way out and driving back in to the base, and she took me while crossing her legs behind my ass, pushing me deeper. Then I sped up. The sofa started creaking. Her fingers marked my back at some point and I didn’t care at all.

—There —she said every so often, voice low—. Exactly there. Harder. More.

I grabbed one of her legs, lifted it, and set it on my shoulder to change the angle. I drove deeper. She shouted a short curse and clutched the back of the sofa above her head with both hands. I bit one breast, sucked the hard nipple, bit the other. I slammed into her from top to bottom, with all my weight, and the sound of our bodies colliding mixed with the noise coming from the couch.

Across the room, Valeria was no longer making any effort to speak softly. Her moans filled the living room with a frankness that made Natalia smile against my neck.

—She’s about to come —she whispered in my ear, laughing—. Listen to her.

And it was true: Valeria was begging Marcos not to stop, to keep fucking her like that, that she was almost there, almost there. We heard the long cry when she came, and Marcos growling behind her, not finishing yet, keeping the rhythm.

Natalia squeezed my ass with her heels and dug her nails into me.

—I’m coming too, Diego —she told me—. Now, now, now.

I fucked her harder, faster, looking into her eyes. Her mouth fell open, her face went red, her whole back arched and she came, clamping down inside me with spasms that made me stop for a second so I wouldn’t come too. When the worst of the trembling passed, I pulled out, turned her face-down, lifted her hips, and shoved it back in from behind. I grabbed her red hair with my left hand and yanked it back, and with my right I grabbed her hip. I drove into her like that, on all fours, until I felt the base burning.

—Where —I asked through clenched teeth.

—In my mouth —she said—. Come on, give it to me.

I pulled out, knelt beside the sofa and she turned around, sat on the edge, and opened her mouth. I came on her tongue, on her tits, on her chin, in spasms that almost knocked me over. She wiped some of it into her mouth with two fingers, swallowed what was left, and smiled at me with dirty lips.

—Tasty —she said.

***

At some point in the night, without anyone really organizing it, we switched. Valeria ended up on the sofa with me, that brown hair messed across the leather cushions, and Natalia took Marcos to the corner we’d been using.

Valeria was completely different: more direct, louder, she knew exactly what she wanted and asked for it without beating around the bush. She climbed on top of me before I’d even finished settling in. She grabbed my cock, ran it through her soaked cunt —already soaked with something else, but by that point in the night nobody cared— and slid it in herself, sitting down slowly, closing her eyes until she sank all the way to the base.

—Uff —she said—. Like that.

She planted her hands on my chest and started going up and down, riding me with all her hips. Her big tits shook in front of my face and I lifted my head to suck them, one and then the other, biting her dark, large nipples until a moan escaped her each time. She grabbed my shoulders and corrected the angle with her hips. I obeyed. The results were immediate.

—Like that —she told me—. Exactly like that. Fuck me like that, shake this pussy for me.

I grabbed her ass with both hands and helped her move faster, lifting and lowering her in hard strokes. She leaned forward, pressed her tits against my face, and spoke in my ear while she kept moving.

—It’s been two months since anyone fucked me —she told me—. Fuck me like you owe me.

I turned her over, put her down, grabbed both her legs and opened them square, resting her ankles on my shoulders. I drove my cock in with one thrust and she screamed. I started fucking her like that, her legs folded against her chest, giving her everything I had, pulling out and slamming back in, harder each time, deeper each time. The sofa moved. She squeezed one breast with one hand and with the other she grabbed her clit and rubbed it in circles while I drove in and out of her.

Across the living room, Natalia was face-down on the rug and Marcos was fucking her from behind, his hands tight on her waist, thrusting with the same rhythm he’d used driving the pickup earlier. The four of us filled the room with gasps, curses, and slaps of skin on skin.

Valeria dug her nails into my arms.

—I’m coming again —she announced—. Diego, I’m coming, don’t stop, don’t stop.

I didn’t stop. I gave it to her harder, looking into her eyes, and she came in a long tremor, mouth open with no sound coming out, clenching around my cock in a way that almost dragged me with her. When she finished trembling, I turned her around, put her on her knees facing the back of the sofa, and shoved it into her from behind again. I grabbed her tits from underneath with both hands and squeezed them while I pounded into her. She pushed her ass back to take me.

—Come inside me —she told me over her shoulder—. I took the pill. Inside.

It took me less than a minute. I came inside with two long thrusts, gripping her hips with both hands, and stayed buried there feeling everything drain out of me. She let out a short laugh, tired, satisfied.

—Worth the wait —she said.

The room filled with the sound of four people who had decided, with different degrees of awareness over the course of the night, to end up exactly where they had ended up. The living room no longer resembled the immaculate place it had been two hours earlier: clothes on the sofa and rug, empty glasses on the coffee table, the deck of cards scattered around, a cushion on the floor with a wet stain that was going to be a problem for the upholstery.

Worth the wait.

***

At four in the morning we showered two at a time, in turns. Natalia used my shampoo without asking and the smell of the bathroom ended up mixed with hers and mine in a way that didn’t bother me at all. Under the hot water she cornered me against the tiles, grabbed my cock —hard again, no idea how— and stroked me slowly until I came for the third time that night between her fingers, the water carrying everything straight down the drain.

—Just in case you had any reserves left —she said, biting my shoulder.

Marcos drove the two of them home. Natalia said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and a smile that wasn’t exactly the same as the one she had at the start of the night, more relaxed, more genuine. Valeria said something to Marcos in a low voice before getting into the car that made him laugh.

I stayed at the door until the car turned the corner. Then I went back in, looked at the mess in the living room, and decided to leave it for the morning.

I went to bed with Natalia’s perfume still on the pillow and slept until two in the afternoon. At three I got a message from Marcos:

“Partner. Next time I’m the one who plans it.”

I replied: “Any time.”

And I meant it.