The Friend Who Spied on Me at the Town River

The town where my father lived had a climate that gave no mercy. The heat sank into your skin from dawn and didn’t let up until well into the night, so during those summers my refuge was always the same: a hidden waterfall in a river of crystal-clear water, far from the center, where hardly anyone ever showed up.

Sometimes I went with my cousin Carolina. We’d walk almost half an hour along a dirt trail until we reached the bend where the water fell, forming a deep, still pool. We’d get in to take the humidity off us, sometimes in shorts and a blouse, other times completely naked, convinced that no one could see us. That was the silent understanding between us: the river was ours, and no one else knew about it.

Until one day it wasn’t.

We were swimming naked when Carolina suddenly froze. She had seen a bush move on the bank, more than any breeze could explain. She covered herself with her arms and got out of the water almost running, mortified at the thought that a man might have seen her like that.

As for me, I didn’t feel the same shame. There was something about knowing I was being watched that didn’t quite bother me. I didn’t cover myself, didn’t hide. I stepped out of the water calmly, dressed without hurrying, and we went back to my grandmother’s house talking about anything else.

But that feeling stayed stuck to me for days.

***

The following afternoon I wanted to go, Carolina couldn’t come with me. I didn’t mind. More than that, I think deep down I preferred going alone. I put on a short Lycra dress, tight, with thin straps and a neckline that left little to the imagination. I wasn’t wearing a bra, because the fabric showed everything, and every few steps I had to tug it down because it kept riding up my thighs.

On the way to the waterfall I ran into Mateo.

Mateo was one of Camilo’s friends, part of that group of guys from town who were always together. He was around thirty, several years older than me, tall, fair-skinned, with a way of looking that hid nothing. He had been circling me with his eyes for a while, and I knew it perfectly well.

“Hi, Daniela!” he said, raking his gaze over me from head to toe without the slightest shame.

“Hi, Mateo. How are you?” I answered, letting my voice sound sweeter than necessary.

“Good. You’re as pretty as ever.”

I felt a shiver run down my belly. It was a silly thing, a phrase anyone might toss off without thinking, but in his mouth and with that look on me, it carried a different weight.

“Thank you,” I said, and leaned just enough so my neckline could speak for me.

He didn’t miss a thing.

“And where are you off to all alone?” he asked.

“Just for a walk.”

“Like that, without Carolina?”

“She couldn’t come today.”

We said goodbye, but as I walked away I felt his gaze pinned to my back, dropping down to where the dress threatened to ride up again. I turned with a smile that had nothing innocent about it while I smoothed the fabric over my ass.

“What are you staring at so much?” I shot at him.

He blushed, nervous.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Sure,” I said, hands on my hips, and kept walking without looking back.

I knew he was going to follow me. I knew it, and I did nothing to stop him.

***

I reached the waterfall and sat for a moment on a warm rock. I looked to one side and then the other. Not a soul. I took off my dress and thong and stood naked under the sun before getting into the water.

The cold of the river gripped my skin all at once. My nipples hardened and a current ran through me, that mixture of cold and heat you only feel when you step into water under a heavy sun. I floated on my back for a while, with the sound of the waterfall in the background, feeling the current gently push me against the smooth stones at the bottom. I touched myself without thinking too much, first my breasts, then lower, letting the water and my own fingers do the rest until my legs trembled and I had to brace myself on a rock so I wouldn’t lose my balance.

And then I felt it again. That certainty at the back of my neck that I was being watched.

I looked toward the bank calmly, almost expecting it. And there Mateo was, standing among the trees, watching me with eyes that made no attempt to hide what he was thinking. For a moment I stayed still in the water, holding his gaze. Then I smiled and started to come out.

He looked me over from top to bottom and let out a shy laugh, like a boy who’d been caught doing something forbidden.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I said, covering my breasts with one arm and my sex with the other hand, though we both knew it was pure theater.

“You’re so hot,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off me.

Those words went to my ego more than anything else could have. I lowered my arms slowly, put my hands on my hips, and let him see all of me.

“Why? Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman?” I asked, daring him.

“Yeah. But not one like you.”

I caressed my breast with one hand while looking him in the eyes.

“Do you want it?”

I didn’t give him time to answer. I turned around and got back into the water, knowing exactly what was going to happen behind my back.

When I turned again, Mateo was already taking off his clothes. He pulled down his shorts and everything else without the least bit of shame, and got into the water to come closer to me. It only took him three strokes.

***

The first thing he did was look at my breasts. He took one in his hand and squeezed a nipple harder than I expected.

“Not like that, not so hard,” I protested, laughing.

He loosened his grip and pulled me closer to him. He started kissing my cheek, my neck, that spot right below the ear that undoes me, and I felt the heat I’d brought from the path concentrate between my legs. I sought his mouth and slipped my tongue into it while I grabbed his cock under the water, stroking it slowly until I felt it firm in my hand.

I spread my legs a little, making clear what I wanted. He made me lift one knee, resting it against his hip, and entered me with a slow thrust that tore a sigh from me against his mouth. The water rocked us while he set the rhythm, and I clung to his shoulders until the two of us finished almost at the same time, panting, foreheads pressed together.

We came out of the river trembling a little from the contrast with the hot air. I had brought a towel, and we dried off halfway, without much patience.

Mateo put one hand on the back of my neck to kiss me again and the other slid down my back until it closed over my ass. I answered by finding him again with my hand, slowly, while he carefully parted me and stroked me with two fingers, looking into my eyes. I smiled at him, feeling more sensitive than I had ever been.

We spread the towel over the grass.

I knelt in front of him and took him in my hand. I ran my tongue slowly, taking my time, until I had him all the way in my mouth. He held my hair and murmured things I couldn’t quite understand, until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Then I lay back on the towel and opened my legs, looking at him. I touched myself, silently inviting him to finish what he had started. He understood the message. He came down between my thighs and used his tongue with a patience I didn’t know he had, alternating between licking and circling me with his mouth until I was writhing on the fabric.

“Don’t stop,” I begged him, my voice broken.

He didn’t stop. When I couldn’t take it anymore, he settled over me and entered again, this time hard, each thrust tearing a cry out of me that got lost in the sound of the falling water. My body was at its limit, hypersensitive, responding to everything.

***

When we caught our breath a little, I turned onto all fours, supported on my hands and knees. Mateo held me by the waist and entered me slowly, building the pace little by little until he made me bite the towel. He gave me soft little slaps, and I felt my legs go weak, my whole body tense.

Then he made me turn over and put my legs on his shoulders, sinking all the way in. I moved my hips to meet him, forward and back, until I felt him shudder all over against me.

I lay stretched out on the towel, my legs numb and a tremor that wouldn’t leave me alone. I touched myself, still swollen and sensitive, while he kissed my shoulder and watched me with a mix of pride and exhaustion.

“You squeeze so damn good,” he said, almost voiceless.

“And you’re not far behind,” I answered, laughing softly.

We got back in the water one last time to cool off. The sun was already starting to go down and was tinting the pool a thick gold, and there, with the river up to our waists and him pressed against my back, we still found the strength for one more round. We moved slowly, without rushing, letting tiredness and pleasure blend together in every motion. The whole afternoon slipped away like that, between the cold water and the warm towel, with neither of us wanting to be the first to leave.

***

I kept seeing Mateo throughout that summer. More than once I sneaked him into my grandmother’s house, who slept so deeply she never found out a thing. He wasn’t the only one, I admit it without a trace of shame: back then I knew exactly what I liked and had no intention whatsoever of apologizing for going after it.

What began as a suspicion on the riverbank—the idea that someone was spying on me among the trees—ended up being one of those confessions I still keep with a smile. I don’t regret it. That hot summer, far from the city, taught me that sometimes the most intense desire is born precisely from knowing you’re being watched.