The Confession of My Honeymoon in Cartagena

I never believed the heat of Cartagena would change me so much. It wasn’t just the weather, which in August clung to the skin like a second set of clothes. It was something else, a current that seemed to run through the walled city from the very first afternoon, and that my wife picked up on before I did.

Camila walked beside me along the sand, wearing a light chiffon dress that hugged her hips every time the Caribbean wind decided it should. We’d been married two days and I still found it hard to get used to the idea. Not to the marriage itself, but to the way she’d started looking at me since we crossed the hotel entrance.

—What are you thinking about? —she asked without turning her face.

—Nothing.

I lied, of course. I was thinking about how, at the airport, two men had followed her legs with their eyes until we passed through the boarding gate. And how she, far from being bothered, had pressed herself against my arm with a small smile I didn’t know she had.

***

The suite had a huge terrace overlooking the pier. Four or five neighboring balconies looked out over the same view, and from below, by the pool, it was easy to lift your gaze and find whoever was leaning out. That first afternoon, Camila stepped onto the terrace wrapped in nothing but a towel. I was inside, finishing unpacking, and I saw her through the reflection in the glass.

She let the towel fall to the edge of the hammock. Not completely: she held it lightly with two fingers, letting it hang over her hip, while she lit a cigarette with a calm that could not have been accidental. From the reflection I saw one breast left bare, the nipple hard from the fan’s cool air, and the way the fabric barely covered her cunt. My cock went hard instantly, pressed tight against my trousers, and I had to brace myself against the dresser so I wouldn’t go tear the towel off her right there.

I counted three seconds. Four. Five.

Then she adjusted her swimsuit with the same slowness, as if she wanted to gift the air the image it was trying to take away. She ran two fingers through her crotch, shifting the fabric just a little, as if settling it, and I knew she’d done it on purpose.

—There are people downstairs —I told her when I went out onto the terrace.

—I know —she replied, slipping the cigarette into her mouth with a smile.

That was the first sign. Not a single word, not an obvious gesture: just that smile that made me understand Camila was no longer the same woman who had walked with me to the altar three days earlier. Or maybe she’d always been this way, and I hadn’t known how to read her until that terrace.

***

—Does it bother you? —she asked that night, combing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror.

—Does what?

—What happened earlier. On the terrace.

I looked at her in the mirror. She was wearing only the robe, open from her collarbone to her navel, with no intention of closing it. The tops of her breasts were visible, her skin still damp from the shower, and a drop was sliding down her sternum to disappear into the fabric.

—I don’t know if it bothers me —I said honestly.

She turned toward me, slowly. The opening of the robe fell completely apart and both breasts were on full display, round, with dark, erect nipples pointing at me. Lower down, a triangle of trimmed hair and the slit of her cunt, glossy, as if she’d already been wet for a while.

—I think you do know.

I did know. That’s why I didn’t answer.

She came over until her body pressed against mine. She took my hand and brought it between her legs. Her cunt was soaked, hot, and the moment I ran my middle finger along the slit she shuddered all over.

—See? —she whispered—. I’ve been like this all day.

I shoved two fingers in at once and heard her moan against my neck. She was so wet my fingers sank in without resistance, and my palm brushed her clit every time she moved. I bit her ear while I kept taking her with my hand.

—Wait —she panted, squeezing my wrist—. Wait. I don’t want to finish here.

—Where do you want to finish?

—Somewhere someone can see us.

I pulled my fingers out, shining with her wetness, and ran them over her lips. She opened her mouth and slowly sucked them, looking me in the eyes, savoring herself all the while.

She closed the robe, put on a short skirt over a white thong and a linen blouse that the heat clung to even before we left the room. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and by then I was no longer surprised. The Caribbean dressed women in its own way, and Camila seemed ready to obey it.

***

We went down to dinner at the hotel restaurant. A terrace with a view of the sea, tables separated by candles, and a young waiter who looked at her a second too long when she ordered the wine. Camila didn’t notice, or pretended not to. I did. I also noticed how, under the table, she’d spread her legs a little and was stroking herself over her skirt, her gaze fixed on me.

—Taste it —she said, bringing the glass closer to me.

I rested my fingers on her wrist to hold the crystal. Her pulse was beating faster than mine.

—Are you nervous?

—No. Turned on.

She said it quietly, without theatrics, as if it were a body temperature and not a word. I felt the hair on my back rise. We’d gone two days without touching each other beyond a long kiss in the elevator, and the waiting was starting to ache in a new way, one that had nothing to do with frustration. My cock had been trapped against the zipper since I’d come out of the bathroom with her fingers on my lips.

—And you? —she asked.

—Same.

—Then let’s go have a drink outside.

***

We left the hotel on foot. Cartagena at night was another city: the walls lit up, the streets of the old quarter full of tourists, musicians, vendors selling cold mojitos. Camila walked a step ahead of me, as if so I’d follow her with my eyes. She knew exactly what she was doing. Her skirt rode up a little with every step, and the blouse went transparent along the line of her back when sweat stuck the fabric to her. Her nipples stood out hard against the linen, and when the air lifted her skirt a little the white thong was wedged between her ass cheeks.

We passed a group of Brazilian tourists. One of them went silent halfway through a sentence when she walked by. The rest followed the direction of his stare until Camila disappeared into my shadow.

—They’re looking at you —I whispered in her ear when I caught up with her.

—I want you to look at me —she replied—. But I want them to be able to too.

I stopped her against a limestone wall. I pushed her hair off her neck and ran my lips over her skin, where perfume blurred into sweat. I slid my hand under her skirt, found the thong, and pulled it aside with two fingers. Her cunt was pouring, so much that my finger slipped along the slit without being able to catch. I rubbed her clit with my thumb while I pushed the other two fingers all the way in. She drew a sharp breath, eyes closed, and for the first time I fully understood the game that had started on the terrace.

—Not here —she murmured, pressing my wrist against her pubis so I wouldn’t stop.

—Where?

—Somewhere with more people.

I pulled my fingers out, wet to the knuckles, and cleaned them on my tongue in front of her. Camila watched my mouth with parted lips.

***

The place was called something like Habana 16. A room with high ceilings, stone walls, and a small dance floor lit in red that barely let you see above the waist. The music was slow salsa, heavy, made to stick to someone and not let go.

I ordered two drinks at the bar. When I came back, Camila was already dancing with a blonde woman who looked Swedish, the two of them laughing without really understanding each other. I set the drinks on a column and stayed watching. The Swede had her hands on Camila’s hips and Camila was moving her ass against the other woman’s pelvis, rubbing without a hint of shame. At one point the blonde slid a hand under her blouse and brushed the side of one breast. Camila didn’t push her away.

The Swede left after the song, kissing Camila on the cheek and giving me a long look, as if asking permission for something she never quite asked. Camila came over, took the drink from my hand and downed it in one gulp.

—Dance with me —she said.

I took her onto the floor. I put my hand on her waist under the blouse, and her skin burned as if she’d been in the sun all day. The red light made the fabric look almost transparent at certain angles and you could make out her stiff nipples against the linen. She knew it. She chose it. She rubbed her ass against my cock on the first beat and felt how hard I was; she stayed there, moving slowly, and whispered:

—You’re rock hard. Everyone’s going to notice.

—Your fault.

—I know. I love it.

—There’s a guy at the bar who hasn’t taken his eyes off you —I told her in her ear.

—Which one?

—The one in the blue shirt.

She turned a quarter of the way around, without pulling away from me, just enough for the stranger to see her dance face-on. She looked at him for a second. Then she looked back at me. She took my hand to her chest, slipped it under her blouse, and pinched her own nipple with my fingers, biting her lip.

—Do you like it when I do that? —she asked.

—Yes.

—Then I’ll keep going.

***

We danced like that through one whole song, then two, then three. Every turn of Camila’s was for him as much as for me. Every time she leaned against my body, I knew the stranger could see her from behind, from the neckline, from the curve of the skirt lifting just a little. On one spin she bent down slowly to pick something up from the floor and the guy, from the bar, had to see the white thong between her thighs. Camila rose slowly, adjusted her skirt with both hands, and looked for my eyes to know if I’d seen it all. I never took my eyes off her, and Camila never took her body out of his line of sight.

Nothing was going to happen with him. I understood that soon enough. That wasn’t the game. The game was knowing he desired her, and that she let herself be desired without belonging to him. The game was me watching her belong to me while the rest of the world wanted her for itself.

I ordered one last round at the bar and passed the stranger his drink on my tab as a silent thank-you. He lifted the glass toward me and smiled, without coming any closer. He understood the rules better than I had five hours earlier.

***

We got back to the hotel close to three. Camila wasn’t talking. She walked very close to my side, with her hand inside my shirt pocket, as if she needed to confirm that I was still the destination. In the elevator she kissed me the way she hadn’t kissed me in two days: long, sharp, tasting of rum and sweat. She slid her hand over my trousers and squeezed my cock through the fabric. It had been hard for hours.

—I swell up just thinking about how they looked at you —she murmured against my mouth—. You too?

—Me too.

—Close your eyes —she told me when we got into the suite.

I closed them. I heard her moving around the room, opening the curtains wide, shifting something on the terrace. When she told me to open my eyes, she was outside, stretched out on the hammock, her skirt hiked to her waist and her blouse unbuttoned. The yellow light from the neighboring balconies reached her skin. She’d left the white thong balled up beside the hammock. Her cunt was shining, swollen, lips parted and clit exposed.

—Come —she said.

—There are still people around —I muttered, looking toward the opposite buildings. Two balconies had lights on. On one, a silhouette was moving.

—Yes.

I didn’t move for a long second. I looked at her from the threshold, my heart in my throat. Camila brought a hand to her body slowly, without urgency, without theatrics. She parted her cunt lips with two fingers, showing herself wide open, and with her other hand began rubbing her clit in slow circles. She was touching herself only for me, but with enough light for anyone leaning out to see everything.

—Look —she whispered toward me, though she was deliberately speaking loud—. Look how wet I get thinking they can see me.

She shoved two fingers all the way in and pulled them out dripping. She brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked them, never taking her eyes off the balcony across from us.

I switched off the lamp in the room, stepped out onto the terrace and knelt beside her. I kissed her thighs first, where the skirt marked the border. I licked the inner side of her thighs, moving slowly upward, while she spread her legs wider and hung one over the edge of the hammock so everything could be seen. Then I reached her cunt. I ran my tongue all the way from bottom to top, from her entrance to her clit, and she let out a deep gasp that stole the air from the terrace.

—Like that, like that, don’t stop —she whispered.

I sucked her clit whole, pulling at it with my lips, whipping it with the tip of my tongue. She took hold of my hair, not hard, just to guide me. I pushed deeper and slid my tongue inside her, fucking her with my mouth while I pressed her clit with my thumb. Her cunt tasted of sea and of an aroused female. I slid two fingers into her, searching for that spot in front, and she arched her back against the wood.

—Oh God, yes, make me come like this, with them watching —she panted, no longer bothering to control her voice.

Her breathing changed fast. I could hear her holding back, as if she didn’t want to give the neighboring ears the satisfaction of a scream, but without hiding the pleasure entirely. I drove my tongue into her clit at a steady rhythm, not changing the pace of the assault, while my fingers went in and out of her cunt with a wet slap that could be heard across the whole terrace. She pinched her nipples with both hands, head thrown back and mouth open to the sky.

—I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t stop, I’m coming —she started repeating, faster and faster, louder and louder.

She came like that, with her head thrown back against the wood of the hammock, biting the back of her hand and her eyes open toward the balconies opposite. Her cunt clenched around my fingers like a fist, once, twice, three times, while a hot stream bathed my chin and neck. I didn’t know if anyone was watching. I didn’t care. She did.

She stayed panting for a moment and then, still trembling, reached for my fly. She pulled my cock out right there, on the terrace, and took it into her mouth without saying anything. She sucked deep, all the way to the back of her throat, eyes lifted, looking at me. The light from the neighboring balconies hit her face as she choked on my dick.

—Fuck me —she said when she pulled it out of her mouth, a thread of saliva between her lips and the glans—. Here. Let them know.

I turned her around on the hammock, face down, ass out toward the balconies. She spread herself open with her own hands, offering herself. I drove my cock into her in one single thrust and she screamed without choking it back. I grabbed her hair with one hand and her hip with the other, and started fucking her hard, really hard, the sound of flesh against flesh echoing off the stone of the terrace.

—Harder, harder, let them hear me —she panted, pushing her ass back against me.

I gave it to her harder. With each thrust she rose up on the hammock. I brought one hand around front and found her clit again, still swollen, and rubbed it in time with my cock. She let herself fall onto her arms, tits hanging, face turned toward the opposite balconies, and came again almost immediately, squeezing my cock inside her with long spasms.

I held out a little longer. I changed her position, turned her onto her back, legs open and one leg hanging out of the hammock so anyone watching could see us properly. I buried myself in her again, this time slowly, all the way to the hilt, and she begged me to finish inside her.

—Inside, inside, I want to feel it —she murmured, her fingers dug into my ass so I wouldn’t pull out.

I came inside her, my mouth pressed to her neck and my teeth sunk into her shoulder so I wouldn’t roar. I felt her fill, tighten around me, and when I finally pulled out the semen ran down the crack of her cunt to the opening of her ass, and from there onto the wood of the hammock.

She kissed me afterward, slowly, gratefully, and whispered against my mouth:

—Thank you for letting me be like this.

***

It’s been three years since that honeymoon. Camila and I are still together, and we’re still playing. Other cities, other balconies, other strangers who watch and never touch. We’ve never crossed the line into bringing someone else in; that isn’t the game, and never was. The game is her on display and me as witness. Her being looked at and me being chosen. The rest is just scenery.

I’m telling it now because few friends would understand it. It sounds like betrayal, it sounds like risk, it sounds like a lot of things that it really isn’t. For us it’s the opposite: it’s the repeated confession that desire only grows if you give it air. And sometimes the air is the gaze of a stranger we’ll never see again.

My wife still laughs when I remind her of that first afternoon on the terrace, the towel hanging from two fingers.

—You were so quiet —she tells me—. I thought you’d get mad.

—I was learning you —I answer.

And it’s true. Cartagena wasn’t the honeymoon. It was the beginning of a marriage neither of us expected, and one we wouldn’t change for anything.