The Itch Only Honorio’s Bar Could Calm

Renata Soledad set the comb down on the vanity with a slow, calculated gesture, as though the calm in her hand might spread to the rest of her body. She looked at herself in the mirror with a thoroughly displeased expression, waging that old, familiar battle against herself that she never managed to win. She pressed her lips together, picked up the comb again, and pretended that fixing her hair was the only thing on her mind.

Deep down, she knew the battle had been lost from the start. At most, she could postpone it, steal a few minutes, win a reprieve that would let her feel, if only for a while, that she had an ordinary, everyday life. She dreamed of being like the other women of Las Acacias, the town that had watched her grow up and that, in its own way, accepted her with her virtues and oddities. The others were free, masters of their own hours, without that abnormal urgency lodged between their legs. She was not.

She picked up the eyelash curler, removed its cover, drew a deep breath, and brought it to her eyes. The internal itch grew minute by minute, stubborn and insistent. Ignoring it was nearly impossible, but Renata kept her face impassive. She finished applying her makeup and, in an act she herself knew was a lie, sat down to read a book.

The moment she settled into the armchair, the itch turned into a burning sensation. She read the same line for the third time without progressing a single word, squeezing her buttocks in a useless attempt to win the wrestling match against her own flesh. A few seconds were enough to prove that would not be sufficient, because it was never sufficient. She began moving her hips in circles against a seat that suddenly felt empty, inadequate, almost mocking.

She threw the book onto the floor and sprang to her feet, furious at herself, at her body, at the fate she had been given. She stormed out of the house, driven by an itch more intense than usual.

***

She walked quickly for two blocks, uncomfortable, with one single objective fixed in her mind: to reach Honorio’s bar as soon as possible. A low-ceilinged dive smelling of dampness and tired lights, which over time had become a kind of clinic for her affliction.

She entered without announcing herself, and her mere presence seemed to set the place alight. Some patrons sought solace at the bottom of a bottle; others, by contrast, waited—or rather prayed—for what eventually happened. For her to cross the door.

The moment she stepped over the threshold, six men of different ages, occupations, and degrees of attractiveness rose to their feet with a synchronization bordering on the miraculous, as though they had rehearsed the scene hundreds of nights. One after another, they delivered lines that already seemed part of the establishment’s inventory.

—Renata, what a pleasure to see you.

—Ma’am, what a pleasure. You know I’m here for whatever you command.

—Whatever you need, just ask.

She barely favored them with a sidelong glance. Her eyes searched for Honorio, the owner, who approached with the pride of a man who had the situation under control.

—All these loafers have their papers up to date, ma’am —he assured her, indicating them all with a wave of his hand.

Renata needed no more. She pointed at one of them almost at random and walked, without waiting for an answer, toward the little room behind the bar, fitted out just for her. The other men swallowed their disappointment in silence. Gervasio, the chosen one, felt the finger of destiny touch him on the forehead.

***

Gervasio had planned to go in hard, but what he saw when he opened the door surpassed any story he had heard at the tables. And yet it was exactly what they had told him to expect.

In that tiny space—a narrow bed, a bedside lamp, a coat rack, and a chair, just the bare necessities—he found Renata naked, her legs spread and her torso bent at a precise angle. Her skin seemed to give off its own light beneath the room’s unlit lamp. And, as though the scene needed one final touch of reality, she was applying lubricant to herself with the ease of a professional.

Gervasio’s mouth went dry. His body responded instantly, but his mind remained trapped in the image of the most dazzling woman he had ever seen. He reacted only when her impatient voice, tinged with annoyance, pulled him out of his trance.

—Hurry up. It itches badly.

The man approached with feigned calm and placed both hands on those firm buttocks, in an ingenuous attempt to improvise something resembling foreplay. He caressed them, squeezed them. But Renata, with no patience for preliminaries, took his hand, guided it to where she needed it, and pushed herself backward to feel him enter her at once.

Gervasio let out a moan of equal parts pleasure and disbelief. He felt the pressure give way and then return, felt his body sink into hers until they were locked together in a brief, brutal rhythm. There were no tender caresses or roundabout approaches: Renata wanted him there, buried inside her, filling her ass at once, and he obeyed with an excited awkwardness he could barely conceal. Every thrust drew a dry gasp from her, more one of relief than pleasure, while Gervasio’s hands clung to her hips as though they were a plank in the middle of the water.

Renata bent her torso farther, braced one hand on the bed, and spread her buttocks even wider to give him room to work. Gervasio looked at that perfect body and felt his reason slipping away. He drove his cock into her hungrily, and the wet sound of their contact began filling the room, mingling with the friction of skin against skin and their labored breathing. She was not asking for tenderness. She wanted depth. She wanted pressure. She wanted them to leave her wide open, thoroughly taken, until the itch in her entrails subsided completely.

—That —she said through clenched teeth—. Deeper. Don’t stop now.

Gervasio obeyed like an animal domesticated by someone else’s need. He gripped her hips, held her firmly, and began fucking her from behind with an increasingly confident rhythm. The sound of their bodies striking the bed was dry, insistent, almost indecent in its repetition. Renata closed her eyes, slackened her jaw, and let out a low, hoarse moan that was not exactly one of pleasure but of raw relief—the kind of relief that comes only when someone finally scratches where it truly burns.

Carried away by the sight of those taut buttocks and the waist moving to the rhythm of his thrusts, he grew bolder. He buried his face between her shoulders, held her by the waist, and pounded her harder, until the entire room seemed to contract around them. Renata arched her back, dug her fingers into the sheet, and demanded in a harsher voice:

—Don’t touch my mouth. And don’t slow down.

Gervasio gave a muffled laugh and continued. There was something in that order that excited him even more: the certainty that no romance was possible there, only a precise, brutal, almost mechanical service, and yet more intense than anything he had ever known. Renata’s breathing grew deeper, slower, as though her body had stopped fighting and had finally begun to thank him for the punishment. He rammed into her again and again, driving all the way in, feeling the hot firmness with which her flesh received him, driving him mad.

When Renata felt the burning begin to recede, she did not hide it. She moved with greater determination, maintaining the rhythm with one hand on the bed and the other gripping the edge of the mattress. Gervasio understood then that this was not merely savage desire: it was a physical necessity, an affliction soothed by a hard cock and constant penetration. And that realization finally undid him. His thighs trembled, his breathing quickened, and every thrust of his hips stole a deeper moan from him.

At last, Renata let out a long, nearly satisfied sigh and buried her face in her arm so as not to lose her composure. Her body relaxed slightly, an unmistakable sign that, for now, it was enough. Gervasio delivered a couple more thrusts, with the precision of a man unwilling to interrupt relief just as he saw it arriving. Then he withdrew awkwardly, his forehead soaked with sweat, his cock still throbbing, and his dazed expression belonging to someone who had just crossed a threshold from which he would never return unchanged.

***

Outside, Honorio was instructing the others with the solemnity of a schoolteacher while the rest listened to the dull rhythm coming through the wall.

—All right, boys, there are rules here, and they are to be respected. No calling her dirty names. She doesn’t like being treated badly, not with nicknames or vulgarities.

—Uh-huh, uh-huh —they nodded obediently.

—And listen carefully —he added, raising his index finger—: don’t even think about going for her mouth. And under no circumstances, not even by accident, are you to touch her in front. From behind, only from behind, and that’s that.

Inside, Renata was beginning to feel somewhat calmer. They were scratching exactly where it hurt, and the relief was enormous, although she knew it was temporary, dangerously fleeting. She turned her fine-featured face, fixed her green eyes on the man holding her, and asked him to go deeper. To help him, she spread her buttocks a little farther and pushed her hips toward him. She felt him deeper inside, but she also sensed the warmth that revealed, beyond any doubt, that his turn was over.

—I know she’s a splendid woman —Honorio continued on the other side of the wall—. I understand that you want to touch what you shouldn’t. But for her, that is intimate, sacred. What she needs from us is something else, one thing only. Neither more nor less.

Honorio’s lesson was cut short by the door’s abrupt opening. Half of that bewildering beauty appeared through it, her black mane tousled. A thick silence fell; not one of those present would have looked away if his life depended on it. Gervasio came out behind her, wearing the face of a man returning from a long dream and the foolish smile of someone who had touched something that did not belong to him.

—I need another one —Renata said in a neutral voice, as though asking for another beer.

—Casimiro, today’s your lucky day —Honorio announced magnanimously.

The man in question did not lose a second and stumbled into the room. A few moments later, the sounds of bodies colliding and Casimiro’s broken sighs could be heard, but not hers; on the other side of the wall, she sounded unperturbed.

—And what exactly does the man who goes in do, Honorio? —asked one who knew little about the bar’s arrangements.

—Gervasio just did it. Casimiro is doing it now. And anyone lucky enough to be pointed at by her finger will do it too. She isn’t looking for anything else: she needs that burning back there calmed down, nothing more —the owner explained with the patience of a tour guide.

—One more and I think I’ll be all right! —Renata shouted from inside.

***

Young Tobías, barely twenty-five, waited for no further signal. Before Casimiro had finished coming out, he was already inside with his trousers halfway down his legs. He shut the door so anxiously that he nearly slammed it into the man who had just left the room, who barely noticed: he was smiling for no reason, staring at his hands, and murmuring to himself, “It was incredible, it was incredible.”

Another newcomer, completely unaware of the drama unfolding behind the door but an attentive observer of the last few minutes, ventured to ask Honorio for a turn.

—Easy, boy —the owner told him calmly—. You can’t just show up and help yourself. You should know that the lady doesn’t allow condoms, first because she says they bother her, and second, perhaps more importantly, because she claims what’s inside acts as a soothing agent. Like a cream.

—No problem as far as I’m concerned, I’ll do it naturally! —the novice replied with the confidence of someone who believed he had solved everything.

Honorio raised his palm and closed his eyes in restrained exasperation.

—It isn’t that simple. Do you think we’re going to expose a woman like her to God knows what you might be carrying? Anyone hoping for even a chance must have up-to-date medical tests, from within the last three months, for every disease there is. There’s no need to worry about anything else, because no one gets to the front. Are we understanding one another?

—That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

—You don’t have to understand it, son —interjected a veteran with impeccable papers and eyes burning with hope—. You only have to give thanks for the opportunity and do nothing to ruin it.

—But be careful —Honorio warned, while Tobías’s final moans echoed in the background—. I still don’t know anyone who has passed through that room, or looked at her for a second too long, without becoming hopelessly hooked. Without even meaning to, she breaks hearts. And sometimes, even the will to live.

—Hey, Honorio —Tobías said, poking his flushed face out, effort making him laugh so hard he could barely speak—, the lady says she’s ready now and needs the plug.

***

A murmur of disappointment passed through those still longing for their turn. But Honorio, paying no attention to anyone else’s frustration, took a small wooden box from a drawer. He opened it, and inside lay a silver plug, which he handed to Tobías with the ceremony of a man passing the torch in a relay race.

When he returned to the room, Tobías found Renata in the same position, but now stretching with feline elegance, awakening from sleep with a languor that sent shivers through him. Now relaxed, she asked him to insert the plug so that, in her words, the relief would last her a good while longer.

With the cunning that only desire can provide, Tobías took his time. He caressed those perfect buttocks, squeezed one until he felt the firm flesh press between his fingers, spread it slightly, and carefully inserted the plug. Once it was in place, Renata straightened like a queen. She sketched a smile, murmured her thanks, and slipped into the black dress she had arrived in.

She came out adjusting her hair and said goodbye to Tobías by brushing his shoulder with her hand, in a gesture so casual it almost hurt. At the bar, Honorio was waiting with a glass of iced water, which she drained in one swallow. They all watched her in devout, almost religious silence. The dress was simple, with a modest neckline, but it fit her as though it had been sewn onto her body.

—How are you feeling, Mrs. Renata? —Honorio asked solicitously.

—Fine, thank you. Much better. Lately, it’s been getting worse; I don’t know what I’d do without you.

The boys stumbled over one another, stammering, “Whenever you like,” “That’s what we’re here for,” “It’s no trouble.” Out of sheer courtesy, she took the trouble to look at them one by one, without gauging the effect of her own gaze. And in that instant, each man felt those green eyes pierce his chest and take a piece of his will.

She left with the grace of a swan, leaving behind an impossible-to-ignore trail. The silence was broken only by the firm click of her heels against the floor, a sound that soon fell into rhythm with the quickened pulse of all those bewitched men. When she reached the threshold, she closed the door without looking back and left them all waiting for the next time the burning brought her back.