The Night I Offered My Wife to a Stranger

Eight months ago my life started to fall apart, and to this day I haven’t found a way to stop the descent. First I lost my job, then my peace of mind, and finally the respect I had for myself. We lived from one day to the next, counting coins for food for our three children, and every conversation with Carla ended in the same silent reproach: the money we didn’t have.

She was still working as a waitress in a downtown restaurant, but her salary didn’t even cover the most urgent holes. The debts grew like a damp stain on the wall. I felt like a coward, a failure who couldn’t support his own family. A week earlier we sat down to talk for real, without shouting, and reached an understanding: if we kept fighting, we’d get nowhere, and for the sake of the kids we had to find a way out together.

A distant cousin offered to rent me his car so I could work on ride apps. I told him I had nothing with which to pay him, and he agreed to wait. “You’ll pay me when you can,” he told me. At last, some good news. I started the next day, still not quite getting the hang of the wheel, but with a hope I hadn’t felt in months.

It was a passenger who gave me the first tip that changed everything.

—Why don’t you try the weekend overnights? —he suggested—. Nightlife in this city moves serious money.

I took his advice. I told Carla I’d start working Thursday through Sunday, at night. She waited for me when she got off work at ten, and I’d pick her up to save us the transport fare. Those rides home, in silence or laughing at some stupid thing, were the only thing that kept us together during those weeks. We even started seeking each other out in bed again, after a whole month without touching.

But the early hours have their own rules, and one night a man with a deep voice got into the car and taught me all of them.

—How’s the night going, friend? —he asked from the back seat.

—Slow, but okay.

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was older, well dressed, with that calm of someone who knows every corner.

—You haven’t been doing this long, have you? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.

He noticed right away that I didn’t know the neighborhood we were headed to. He told me about the neon district, a maze of bars, nightspots, and “classy” brothels where, according to him, money flowed like water. Foreigners paid well and left generous tips. Many drivers had abandoned the apps to spend their weekends doing nothing but ferrying people there.

—I like you —he said when he got out, and handed me a card—. If someone’s looking for fun, call me. There’s a commission for every customer.

I tucked the card away without thinking too much about it. No balls and no desire to get into more trouble, I told myself. But the idea stuck in me like a splinter.

***

The days went by and the strain wore me down. Curiosity beat fear, and without telling Carla anything I started taking passengers to the area and phoning Mr. Robles, which was the name of the man with the deep voice. He’d tell me which bar was emptiest, I’d drop the clients off there, and he’d pass along my commission. Extra money, modest but real, that eased the suffocation a little.

In time, Robles gained my trust and gave me a catalog. Photos of women, rates, terms. The commission varied according to the girl. I was doing fewer normal trips and more errands of that kind. I was surprised by how many people wanted that, especially tourists with fat wallets. One night I asked him how much one of those women earned per service. The figure left me cold: in a couple of hours they took home what I made in a week.

At five in the morning I got home and found Carla awake, her eyes swollen from crying.

—Is something wrong, darling?

—I didn’t want to tell you before you left... there were cuts at the restaurant.

—Did they fire you?

—Yes. No severance, just half a paycheck. And look at this.

She handed me an envelope. I opened it with trembling hands. It was a bank ultimatum: fifteen days to raise more than forty thousand euros, or they’d start seizing our assets and, after that, the house.

—This is too much, Carla.

We just stared at each other with the same castaway expression. And then the thought appeared. Don’t say it, don’t even think it, I ordered myself. But there it was, crouched in the corner, the only quick solution my mind could come up with, and I felt disgusted with myself just for considering it.

—We’re not going to make it —she whispered—. We’re going to lose the house.

—Relax, we’ll think of something. We’ve got a couple of weeks. I’m going to shower and head out to work.

—You haven’t rested.

—Without money there’s nothing to negotiate. At least I’m bringing something in by driving. You rest now.

***

That night the car was nearly empty until two young guys got in, clearly well off, talking to each other without lowering their voices.

—I want something more natural, man —one of them was saying—. All the women in the catalog look operated on. They may be hot as hell, but I’m sick of so much silicone.

My mouth went dry. The day had been awful and the ultimatum was burning a hole in my mind. I pulled over to the side of the street. My hands were shaking when I took out my phone.

—Gentlemen, my apologies. I heard the catalog didn’t convince you. I have something different.

In my phone gallery I kept some photos of Carla. Intimate, suggestive images, a short video of ours I’d never imagined showing anyone. Before I could change my mind, I turned the screen toward them.

—Wow! This one’s for real —one of them said.

—She looks natural. A real woman.

While they licked their lips looking at my own wife, something happened that I still can’t fully understand: I didn’t get angry. On the contrary, hearing them talk about her like that set something alight inside me, in a way that scared me.

We arranged a date for ten at night in a nearby hotel. I laid down my conditions: only one of them, and with my presence in the room, as a spectator. They accepted without arguing over the price. One thousand euros. So easy it was dizzying.

The hard part came after. I had to look Carla in the eyes and tell her.

***

I got home too early and she got scared.

—What are you doing here at this hour? Did something happen?

—Nothing happened. Sit down, please. I need you to listen to me until the end without interrupting.

I confessed everything. Mr. Robles, the commissions, the catalog, the clients looking for fun. I swore I had never slept with any of those women, that my role was only to bring them and take them back. She listened, pale, without saying a word.

—And why did you hide it from me? —she asked at last.

—Because I was afraid you’d think the worst of me. But there’s more, Carla, and this is the part that’s really hard to tell you. Do you remember when, as a game, we used to fantasize about going to a swingers club?

—Finish already, for God’s sake.

—This morning two guys got in. They wanted something natural, not the women in the catalog. And I, like a desperate idiot, showed them this.

I showed her the gallery with her photos. Silence fell over the room like a slab. I felt like the most miserable being on the planet.

—Did you sell my photos and the video?

—No. It was worse. I offered them a night with you. For a thousand euros. And I’d be there, watching, without touching you, without anyone disrespecting you. Forgive me, my love, I was blind with desperation.

Tears were running down my face, from shame and fear. I expected her to throw me out, to scream at me, to leave me. Instead, she slowly stood up and took my hands.

—How much, you said?

I lost my breath at the question.

—One thousand euros. For one night.

—Do you have everything under control? This isn’t going to get out of hand, is it?

—I’m going to be with you every second. I’m not leaving your side.

—I love you and I want this nightmare to end. If there’s no other way out, I’ll do it. We’re not losing the house.

***

On the way to the hotel I told her a hundred times we could turn back. She arrived wrapped in a black trench coat and, before knocking on the door, put on a lace mask that left half her face uncovered. The young man was waiting for us with a bottle of whisky. He poured three glasses and started undressing while I sat in the farthest corner.

Carla knocked back two glasses in one go. I barely wet my lips; I needed to stay sober so I wouldn’t lose control of the situation. Under the trench coat she wore a red set I didn’t know: black garter belt, lace over her skin, her hair falling over her shoulders. At forty-two she still had a body that took your breath away. She was shy, quiet, until the alcohol began loosening the stiffness in her shoulders.

The guy asked her to dance. She moved slowly, turning, meeting my gaze every few seconds, as if asking my permission or asking it of herself. When his hands settled on her hips, I expected to feel jealousy, a stab of rage. It didn’t come. Something else did: heat climbing up my neck, sweaty palms, my pulse racing.

He turned her toward him and unclasped her bra with a skill that made it clear he knew what he was doing. He traced her neck, her breasts, her belly with the slow thoroughness of a connoisseur. Carla threw her head back and sounds came from her throat that I knew by heart, but had never heard caused by another man. He took an ice cube and ran it over her back, over her stomach, over the fabric still covering her. She spread her legs almost without realizing it.

I couldn’t take my eyes off them. My hand moved to my groin before I even told it to. I had never seen my wife like that, eyes rolled back and breath broken, surrendering to a stranger’s hands. It wasn’t a question of size or technique; it was seeing her lose herself, and seeing her lose herself was driving me crazy.

When he penetrated her, she let out a long moan that went through me. They changed positions again and again: on her back, on her side, on her knees on the bed. My only condition had been not to participate, and I respected it to the letter, masturbating silently from my corner, hypnotized by a scene I had never imagined being part of. The music had gone off long before; in the room there was only the sound of the two bodies colliding and Carla’s voice begging him not to stop.

It ended ten minutes before the agreed time. The guy behaved like a gentleman: he left us the bottle, thanked us for the night, and, while getting dressed, mentioned that his friend had to live through something like that someday. I had come without even noticing the exact moment.

***

We went home without saying a single word. She got in the shower and called me from inside to join her.

—Nobody needs to know —I told her, stroking her back under the water—. We got ourselves into this hole. We’ll get out of it ourselves.

—Yes, darling. We’ll get out. Will you make love to me?

The soap slid over her skin and my lips followed it. One hand on her chest, the other moving down to where I know she goes wild. I pressed her against the tiles and, while I entered her slowly, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had just seen, how she had given herself over, the moans another man had drawn out of her.

—Like that, my love —she murmured—. Tell me you love me.

—I love you with everything I am.

—I’m yours and nobody else’s. No matter what happens, we’ll do it together. If I have to be your accomplice in any madness, I will, but with you.

—No matter how bad things get, we’re going to get through this.

—Don’t think about that now —she panted—. Focus on me.

We came almost at the same time, exhausted, clinging to each other like two people holding themselves up on the same precipice. That night didn’t solve our debts or erase the bank’s ultimatum. But something between us changed forever, and even today, when I remember her look behind that mask, I don’t know whether I regret it or whether I’d do it again.