The Call I Shouldn’t Have Made That Morning

Months have passed, but I still remember my hands trembling when I picked up the phone that morning, December 28. This isn’t a story I will ever tell out loud. I’m writing it here because I need to get it out of me, leave it somewhere other than my head, where it has been lodged for far too long.

My name is Lorena, I’m thirty-eight years old, and until recently I would have described myself as a normal woman. Married for fourteen years to a man who travels too much for work, mother to a boy who is hardly ever home anymore, literature teacher at a school in the neighborhood. An orderly life, without surprises. A life that broke apart on Christmas Eve.

That night I truly got to know Mateo. He had been coming and going from my house for months as my son’s friend, but I had barely noticed him beyond a distracted greeting. Twenty-two years old, quiet, with dark eyes that held your gaze for a second longer than necessary. He stayed for Christmas Eve dinner because his family was away. My husband had come back just for the holidays and went to sleep early, exhausted from the jet lag. My son went upstairs to talk to his girlfriend. And I was left in the kitchen with Mateo, washing dishes that didn’t need washing that night.

What happened between us after the rest of the house fell asleep isn’t what I’ve come to tell today. I know that part too well: how he cornered me against the counter, how he slipped his hand beneath my skirt without asking and found me already soaking wet, how he tore off my panties and shoved two fingers into my pussy while covering my mouth with his other hand so I wouldn’t wake anyone. How he forced me onto my knees on the cold tiles and pushed his cock deep into my mouth, until he made me cry, until he came and forced me to swallow every bit of it while he held the back of my head. Every gesture, every filthy word he whispered in my ear, every mark from his fingers on my hips that took two weeks to disappear. What I’ve come to tell is what happened afterward. What I discovered about myself when he left.

Three days. Three whole days unable to think about anything else.

The next day, the 25th, was the worst. My husband went to his parents’ house and I stayed home alone, pretending to have a migraine. I got into bed with the curtains drawn and relived the night before again and again until my thighs were numb from squeezing them together so hard. I touched myself. I touched myself three, four times that afternoon, with my hand between my legs and my face buried in the pillow, and no matter how many times I came, it didn’t go away. Every orgasm was a short, insufficient release that left me hungrier than before. I remembered the bitter taste of his semen in my throat and another wave would hit me. I pushed my fingers in as far as they would go, trying to recreate the thickness of his cock, and it wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. On the 26th I forced myself to go out, went to the supermarket, the hairdresser, tried to fill the hours. It didn’t help. In the car, stopped at a traffic light, I caught myself crying without knowing why, my panties wet and my nipples so hard they rubbed painfully against my bra. On the 27th my husband left on a trip to Berlin and my son went to the snow with his friends. And I was left alone in a house that was too big, my head full of Mateo, Mateo’s smell, Mateo’s cock.

On the 28th I woke drenched in sweat. I had dreamed about him all night, fragmented dreams in which his voice mingled with mine and I begged him to fuck me again. I went downstairs to the kitchen in my nightgown, made a coffee I didn’t drink, and sat at the table with the phone in front of me. His number had been there for months. I had memorized it by looking through my son’s contacts, long ago, back when I still told myself it was only curiosity.

I saved it in my contacts as “Electrician.” A little lie in case anyone looked at my screen. That lie was the first step. When I saved it, I already knew where I was headed.

I dialed.

It rang once. It rang twice. On the third ring I almost hung up; on the fourth I hung up for an instant, then dialed again before I could regret it. On the fifth, he answered.

—Yes? Who is this?

That voice. The voice that had been echoing in my head for three days. I went silent. I had to press the phone against my chest and breathe before I could speak.

—Mateo… it’s Lorena. The mother of…

—I know who you are —he cut me off. And I heard him smiling on the other end of the phone. That slow, slight smile that had driven me crazy in the kitchen—. I’ve been waiting for this call for days.

I closed my eyes. I rested my forehead against the cold tabletop.

—I don’t know what I’m doing —I whispered.

—Yes, you do. It took you three days, but you do.

—My husband isn’t here. My son isn’t either. I’m alone.

There was a long silence. So long that I thought he was going to hang up and leave me there, humiliated, with the phone in my hand. My free hand dropped without thinking, slipped beneath the table, found the hem of my nightgown, and kept moving upward until it reached my naked pussy. I was so wet my fingers slipped.

—Say it —he said at last.

—Say what?

—What you want. Say it out loud. I’m not moving from here until you say it.

I swallowed. My mouth was dry and my body was burning. I had imagined this conversation for three days, and now that it was happening I couldn’t form a word. I squeezed my thighs around my own hand. I felt the wetness soaking through the fabric.

—I want you to come over —I finally said.

—For what?

—Mateo, please.

—For what, Lorena?

The way he said my name, slowly, almost made me lose control right there. I bit my lower lip until it hurt.

—To finish what you started in the kitchen.

—That wasn’t starting anything. That was trying you out. If you want more, you’re going to have to ask for it better. With the right words.

—I want you to fuck me —I blurted out, and as soon as I said it a moan escaped me that I couldn’t contain—. I want you to come and fuck me. Like in the kitchen, but without stopping. Without anyone sleeping upstairs. Without having to cover my mouth.

—That’s better. Keep going.

—I want your cock again. I haven’t been able to think about anything else for three days. I’ve imagined it in my mouth, in my pussy, inside me. I’ve touched myself until I hurt and it doesn’t help. I need you. Please, come. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything.

—Anything?

—Anything.

—I’ll be there in forty minutes. When I arrive, don’t make me wait at the door. And put on the black dress you wore on Christmas Eve. Nothing underneath. No panties, no bra. Nothing.

He hung up.

***

I ran up the stairs two at a time. I showered in almost-cold water to cool the heat rising up my neck, dried myself quickly, and put on the dress. My hands were shaking so badly it took me three tries to fasten the zipper. I looked at myself in the mirror and barely recognized myself. The woman looking back at me had dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, nipples showing beneath the black fabric. She didn’t look like the literature teacher of forty-two students. She looked like a whore waiting for a customer. And that idea, far from frightening me, made my guts clench with desire.

I went downstairs to the living room. I sat down. I stood up. I sat down again. I turned on the television without sound so I’d have something to look at. Every car passing in the street made me jump. I hated myself for being like this, for having come to this, and two minutes later I wanted it again, wanted it with an urgency I hadn’t felt for my husband in years, perhaps ever.

Exactly forty minutes later, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door. Mateo was there, wearing a dark sweatshirt, his hands in his pockets, looking me up and down without hurrying, as if he had all the time in the world. He didn’t smile. He came in, carefully closed the door behind him, and slid the bolt. That gesture, the bolt, was what made me lose the last scrap of my sanity.

—Turn around —he said quietly.

I did. I felt his hands on my hips, not gripping yet, merely resting there. His breath on the back of my neck.

—Did you do what I told you?

—Yes.

—Check.

I put my hands to the hem of the dress and lifted it to my waist, slowly, not daring to turn around. I heard him inhale behind me. One of his hands moved down, traveled along my thigh, and found me so drenched that wetness was running down my skin. He shoved two fingers into my pussy without warning, all the way to the knuckles, then pulled them out just as quickly and sucked them in front of my face, turned over my shoulder.

—Three days thinking about this —he murmured as he licked his fingers.

—Three days without sleeping. Three days touching myself nonstop and never coming properly.

—Then you won’t sleep tonight either. And you’re going to come so many times you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.

He pushed me against the entryway wall, my face pressed to the wallpaper, my dress pulled up to my breasts, my ass bare. He moved my hair away from my neck and kissed me beneath the ear. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a kiss that asked permission and gave warning at the same time. I nodded without his asking anything. I felt his erection pressing hard and unmistakably against my ass through his jeans, and I pushed my hips backward before I could stop myself.

—Look how desperate you are —he said against my nape—. I haven’t even taken my cock out and you’re already rubbing yourself against me.

—Take it out. Please.

—Say it properly.

—Take your cock out, Mateo. Put it in me now. I’ve had an empty pussy for three days, thinking about you.

I heard the belt, the zipper, the fabric sliding down. And then I felt it, hot and bare, resting between my buttocks. He rubbed it up and down without putting it in, coating it in my wetness. I moaned against the wall, my nails digging into the wallpaper.

—Say it —he repeated, just as he had on the phone—. Say it here, in my ear, where there’s no phone between us.

—I’m yours this afternoon. Do whatever you want to me. Fuck me, humiliate me, spit on me if you want. I don’t care. I’m yours.

—Not this afternoon. This afternoon and every afternoon I decide. When I call you, you come. When I tell you to be quiet, you’re quiet. When I tell you to open your mouth, you open it. This isn’t a whim, Lorena. If you pick up for me, you pick up all the way to the end.

I closed my eyes.

—Yes.

—Louder.

—Yes. Yes, fuck, yes.

He spun me around in one movement. He took my face in both hands. He was shorter than my husband, younger, but there was something in his gaze no man had ever directed at me before. Certainty. Absolute calm about what he was going to do to me.

—One more thing —he said—. If at any point you want to stop, say “Paris.” Not “no,” not “wait,” not “please.” “Paris.” I won’t believe anything else.

—Paris.

—That’s it. Don’t forget.

And then he kissed me the way I had been imagining for three straight days. A long, controlled kiss in which he decided when to pull away and when to return. My hands clutched his sweatshirt. His sank into my hair, pulling, positioning my head where he wanted it. He pushed me downward without saying a word. I dropped to my knees on the entryway floorboards with the naturalness of someone who had spent her whole life waiting for that moment.

His cock was in front of my face. Thick, veined, the tip gleaming with pre-cum. I grasped it with both hands and put it in my mouth without ceremony, all the way in, until I gagged. He let out a hoarse groan and held my head. He began moving me at the pace he wanted, sliding in and out, fucking my mouth slowly and then quickly, forcing me to swallow all of it. My eyes watered and drool ran down my chin onto the black dress, and I didn’t care about anything. I had never enjoyed being on my knees so much in my life.

—That’s it, that’s it, look at me —he ordered, gripping my hair—. Look at me while I shove it all the way in.

I raised my eyes. He was looking at me with that implacable calm, his mouth slightly open, never looking away. He sped up. He rammed my throat five, six times in a row, then pulled out abruptly. A strand of saliva connected the tip to my lower lip.

—Get up. To the sofa. On all fours.

I obeyed. I crawled to the sofa with the dress bunched at my waist, climbed onto it, and got on all fours, bracing my elbows against the backrest. He came up behind me. He spread my buttocks with both hands, looked at my open, dripping pussy, and without warning drove his entire tongue into it. He licked upward from my clitoris to my anus and came back down, eating me hungrily, sucking, swallowing what dripped from me. I thrust my ass against his face, screaming, forgetting that the windows were open.

—Be quiet —he said, giving my right buttock a sharp slap—. The neighbors.

I bit my arm. He kept eating me for what felt like hours, alternating his tongue with two fingers, then three, until I came for the first time with my face buried in the cushion and my legs shaking so hard I nearly fell. It was a long, dense orgasm that shook my whole body and left me breathless.

And then, while I was still trembling, he put it inside me. With one thrust, all the way to the bottom. I screamed into the cushion. No one had ever filled me like that. My husband didn’t fill me like that. I felt every inch entering, parting me from within, touching places that had been asleep for years.

—Fuck, you’re tight —he grunted, gripping my hips—. You can tell nobody fucks you.

He began to move. At first slowly, pulling almost all the way out and sinking back in, letting me feel the entire length of the motion. Then harder, and then brutally, the wet sound of my pussy sloshing around his cock filling the whole house. I thrust backward with every stroke, asking for more, asking him with words I had never spoken aloud in my life.

—Harder, fuck, break me, don’t stop, keep going, like that, like that, like that…

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, forcing me to arch my spine. He changed the angle and began pounding a place inside me that made me lose all control. I felt another orgasm approaching, different, deeper, rising from my belly.

—I’m going to come again —I gasped.

—Come on my cock. Come on. Soak it.

I came screaming, my face crushed against the cushion, squeezing him inside me with spasms I couldn’t control. He didn’t stop. He kept thrusting while I came apart beneath him, taking advantage of every contraction, fucking me through the end of the orgasm and beyond, until I began begging him to stop and, at the same time, never to stop.

He pulled his cock, shining with my release, out of me, turned me over, and laid me on my back on the sofa. He climbed on top. He opened my legs, pressing them against my chest, and put his cock inside me again while looking into my face. Every thrust knocked the air out of me. He sucked my nipples through the dress, bit me, spat in my mouth when I told him I had no strength left.

—You can take another —he told me—. You can take as many as I say.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, dug my heels into his buttocks, and gripped his back with my nails. I felt his rhythm losing control, heard him begin to pant harder, felt every thrust becoming deeper and more desperate.

—Where are you coming? —he asked through clenched teeth—. Tell me where.

—Inside. Inside, please. I’m on the pill, inside.

—Say it properly.

—Come inside me, Mateo. Fill my pussy with your semen. I want to feel it.

He came with a long groan, burying himself deep inside me, the veins standing out on his neck, his eyes closed. I felt every beat of his cock emptying inside me, jet after jet, wave after wave of heat. I came a third time just from the sensation, holding him inside with my legs so he wouldn’t slip out, so I wouldn’t lose a single drop.

He stayed like that for a few seconds, on top of me, breathing against my neck. Then he pulled out slowly. I felt his semen begin to run down my pussy, over my buttocks, onto the upholstery of the sofa where my husband watched the games.

—Don’t clean yourself —he told me—. I want to see you walking around the house with my cum dripping from you.

***

I’m not going to tell you everything that happened afterward. There are things I’d rather keep to myself. I’ll say that we didn’t leave the living room until it got dark, that he fucked me twice more before nine, once standing against the window with the curtains half-open and once on the rug with my face pressed to the floor and his hand over my mouth. I’ll say that from the living room we went to the bedroom, to the bed I shared with my husband, and that there he did things to me no other bed had ever seen: he opened my ass patiently, lubricated it with his own saliva, put in one finger first, then two, and finally his entire cock while I cried face down on the sheets of my marriage and came for the fourth time that afternoon. I’ll say that from the bedroom we went downstairs to the kitchen because he made me prepare him something for dinner while he watched, still shirtless, sitting at my table, eating what I served him naked as if that were the most natural image in the world, and that between courses he sat me on top of him and fucked me again, slowly, his mouth pressed to my ear as he told me filthy things while I moved my hips on his lap. I’ll say that I discovered things about myself I had spent twenty years refusing to look at: that I like obeying, that I like being called a whore, that I come harder the dirtier what’s being done to me is. I’ll say that when he left, at three in the morning, he carried the black dress folded under his arm, along with the panties I had worn the day before and that he found in the laundry hamper, and told me that next time I should open the door wearing nothing.

My husband returned from Berlin the next day. I greeted him with a smile, coffee, dinner already made. I asked about the meetings, the hotel, the cold weather there. I let him hug me. That night we slept in the same bed, and for the first time in years I had no trouble falling asleep. I was exhausted from a new kind of tiredness, satisfied and dark. My pussy was still sore and my ass burned, and every time I changed position I felt a lash of memory between my legs.

Three weeks passed before Mateo called me. Three weeks during which I thought I was going to lose my mind waiting. When I saw his name on the screen— it no longer said “Electrician”; now it was only an M, a single letter only I understood— I picked up on the first ring. My husband was in the living room watching the game. I told him it was the headmistress and went upstairs to the study.

—Saturday afternoon —Mateo said without saying hello—. Will you be free?

—Yes.

—Book a room somewhere discreet. Wherever you want. Pay with your card. Send me the address.

—Yes.

—Good girl.

He hung up.

I stayed sitting on the study sofa, staring at the dead phone, feeling my blood race through my whole body. Downstairs I could hear the sportscaster’s voice, my husband complaining about a foul. My orderly life continued exactly as it had half an hour earlier. And I was already somewhere else, planning what underwear I would wear on Saturday, which hotel, what excuse I would give at home.

That is the confession I’ve come to make today. Not the night when it happened for the first time. The morning when I picked up a telephone and knew, as I dialed, that I was dialing forever.