The Night My Wife Became Herself Again

What I’m about to tell happened a little over a year ago, and I still struggle to find a way to tell it without it sounding like something it wasn’t. It wasn’t an affair. It wasn’t a betrayal. It was, in a way I’m still trying to understand, the night Natalia became Natalia again.

We had been together for sixteen years. Sixteen years that included a daughter, two moves, three different jobs, and a pain that came three years ago and refused to leave. Something related to our oldest son that is not mine to go into. What I can say is that pain hit her in a way I didn’t know how to soften. I watched her slowly go out. She stopped painting, which was what she loved most. She stopped playing music in the kitchen. She became serious in a way that had nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with the weight of something she carried alone, even though I was always there.

The anniversary was my idea. I chose a small room downtown, with linen tablecloths, candles, and a musician who played on Saturdays. It was recommended to me as an intimate, quiet place. They didn’t tell me it would change something in us.

Xavier came up onto the little stage when we had already ordered the starters and I was beginning to notice that the conversation wasn’t flowing easily. Natalia was there, present but only halfway, as she had been for quite some time. And then he started to sing.

He had a voice that seemed to come from deeper inside than the body should be able to hold. Low, warm, with a slight rasp that softened each note before letting it go. He started with Caribbean boleros, followed by ballads I didn’t know but that Natalia clearly did, and by the second song I saw her change.

She set the fork down on her plate. Lifted her face. Her lips parted slightly, in that way she has when something surprises her but also recognizes her, and for the first time in months I saw her fully in the place where she was. Not halfway. Not on the other side of that wall of sadness that had separated us without either of us choosing it.

Xavier had that instinct singers with experience have: he chose someone in the room and sang directly to them, with a calm intensity that made the chosen person feel that the song existed only for them. That night he chose Natalia. He locked his eyes on her face, softened his tone, and kept singing without looking away.

Natalia cried. Not much, and she hid it without fuss, but I saw her wipe away a tear with the back of her hand as she applauded at the end. It wasn’t a cry of sadness. It was the cry of someone who has gone a long time without anything really reaching them.

When he finished his set and the room applauded enthusiastically, Xavier came over to our table. I invited him to sit down without thinking too hard about it. He accepted with a broad, open smile, took Natalia’s hand, and placed a kiss on it that lasted exactly two seconds longer than etiquette required. She did not pull her hand away.

We talked for more than an hour. Xavier traveled a lot, sang in bars and hotels in different countries, and spoke with that rhythm men have when they’ve seen enough to know what’s worth telling and what isn’t. Natalia slowly thawed: first with a cautious smile, then with a real laugh I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. I found myself feeling relieved and, at the same time, something else I took a while to recognize.

When he invited her to dance, Natalia looked at me for permission. I nodded. I watched her walk over to the small dance floor and, from the table, I watched them move. Their bodies started at a distance, with that initial stiffness of two people who barely know each other trying to find the same rhythm. But the music brought them closer, beat by beat, as if each change of note reduced the distance between them by a centimeter.

At one point Xavier whispered something in her ear. She smiled with her eyes closed and leaned her head lightly toward his shoulder. And I, sitting alone at the table with my glass, felt something in my chest that I took time to identify. It wasn’t jealousy. It was desire. The desire to see her like that, surrendered and present. The desire for what that man was giving her back not to stop. My dick hardened under the tablecloth without warning, watching Xavier’s hand slide down from Natalia’s waist to settle right at the swell of her ass, and watching her not move away.

***

I suggested we go up to the room when they came back to the table. I hadn’t planned it: it occurred to me and I said it, and the next second it was already irreversible. Xavier looked at both of us with a calm that held no surprise at all. Natalia squeezed my hand under the tablecloth.

The suite had champagne on ice as part of the anniversary package and fruit in a ceramic bowl no one had asked for. The three of us chose music together. Natalia went to the bathroom and came back wearing the same dress but without her shoes, her hair loose over her shoulders. That small difference made her seem different. Lighter.

We danced the three of us in the space between the sofa and the window, glasses in hand and the music very low. At some point—I don’t remember exactly when—Xavier and Natalia kissed. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. It was the logical conclusion of two hours of built-up tension. I was less than a meter away seeing everything, and what I felt was not what I had expected.

I got turned on. Simple as that, no shades of gray. Watching my wife shove her tongue into that man’s mouth, watching him grab her ass with both hands over the dress and lift her slightly against his body, made my cock so hard I hadn’t felt it like that in years. I moved in slowly, put a hand on her back. She turned for a moment to find my mouth too, and in that kiss there was something I couldn’t name right away but later recognized: gratitude.

Xavier lowered Natalia’s dress zipper carefully, without hurry. The fabric fell to the floor and she was left in black underwear, the set she had put on for me that night and was now being worn for the first time in front of another man. He kissed her neck, the curve of her shoulder, her collarbone, while unfastening her bra and freeing her tits. He pinched her nipples slowly, looking into her eyes, until she let out a low gasp. She tipped her head back with her eyes closed and made a sound that was the exact opposite of the silence she had lived in for the last two years. A genuine sound, effortless, with nothing to prove.

Xavier knelt and licked one nipple, then the other, sucking them hungrily, biting just a little, until Natalia grabbed his head with both hands and pressed him against her chest. He pulled her panties down her legs and let them fall to the floor. He slid his hand between my wife’s thighs and she opened for him without resistance. I watched as two of Xavier’s fingers sank into her cunt and came out shining, wet up to the knuckles. Natalia was soaked. For months in our bed she hadn’t gotten like that.

I sat down on the edge of the sofa and watched them. Not because I was uncomfortable, but because I wanted to see. I wanted to see Natalia like that. Xavier treated her with care: he looked into her eyes before every move, stopped when he noticed her body tense, waited for the signal to keep going. She thanked him with her hands, with the way she arched toward him, with the way she rubbed herself against the fingers that kept opening her up.

He took her to the edge of the bed, made her sit, and knelt between her legs. He spread her thighs with both hands and buried his face in her cunt without ceremony. I watched from the side: Xavier’s tongue working up top, slowly at first, then with more pressure, while two fingers went in and out of her with a wet sound that filled the room. Natalia grabbed Xavier’s hair with both hands and started moving his head at the rhythm she needed. She said, in the roughest voice I’d heard from her in years:

—Like that, lick me like that, don’t stop.

I heard her use that word and realized that Natalia hadn’t spoken in bed for years. She was untying herself in front of me, and I had my cock in my hand inside my pants, squeezing it without even realizing it.

Xavier licked her until she came for the first time, her legs trembling and her heels dug into his back. I heard her howl softly, almost biting her lip, and then let out a sharp breath as if she had been holding it in apnea for a long time.

He stood up. He unbuckled his belt, pulled down his pants and underwear all at once. I let out a breath. Xavier had a notably large cock, thick, dark, and Natalia’s eyes went straight there without any attempt to hide it. She licked her lips in a way I had never seen from her before.

Natalia knelt in front of him. She took him with both hands, studied him for a moment with that attention she has when something truly interests her, and then she took him into her mouth with total concentration. She started at the tip, sucking it slowly, playing with her tongue around the head, and little by little worked her way down until she had all of him in. She worked slowly, alternating hands and mouth in different rhythms: one hand at the base milking him, the other on his balls, and her mouth moving up and down the rest. The tears gathering in her eyes were from effort and pleasure mixed together, impossible to separate. She gagged, coughed a little, pulled back to breathe with a thread of saliva hanging from her lip, and went right back to taking him in.

I moved closer. I knelt at her side. She looked up at me and, without saying anything, made a gesture that was an invitation. I took Xavier’s cock in my hand and brought it to my mouth. I had never done that. I hadn’t planned to. But it was there, warm and pulsing between my fingers, and she was looking at me with parted lips, and the moment had a logic of its own that asked no explanation. I ran my tongue from base to tip, awkward at first, and tasted the salty prelude of semen on my tongue.

We shared that moment: our mouths meeting on Xavier’s cock, seeking each other, exchanging heat and saliva and his taste. Natalia sucked my lips between licks, with Xavier’s tip resting against both our cheeks. When Natalia took him all the way to her throat, I sucked his balls. When I tried to take him in, she guided me with her hand on the back of my neck, unhurried, teaching me. Xavier looked down at us and spoke softly, saying simple, dirty things.

—Like that, both of you. You two do it so well together.

Natalia looked for me directly to kiss me and in that kiss there was something the two of us hadn’t had in a long time. Intimacy without distance. Closeness without the shadow of the pain that had separated us.

When Xavier reached the edge, Natalia took him without pulling back. She took all of him and he grabbed her head with both hands and emptied himself into her mouth with a long groan. I saw the spurts. I saw Natalia swallow what she could and the rest drip from the corner of her mouth and onto her tits. Then she came looking for my mouth. We kissed with all of that between our tongues, shared it, the warm salty load moving from her mouth to mine, and it was one of the strangest and most real moments of my life. I wiped with my fingers what was left on her chest and brought that to my mouth too.

***

Natalia lay back on the bed and called him with her arms outstretched. Xavier was patient. He lay down beside her and worked her cunt with his hand for a long time, attentive and unhurried, three fingers going in and out while his thumb worked her clit. Natalia writhed, arched her back, and louder and louder gasps kept slipping out of her. I had already undressed and got into bed on the other side. I offered my cock to her mouth and she took it without stopping the way she moved against Xavier’s hand. She sucked me from the side, with that new hunger, while Xavier kept opening her up below with his fingers.

—Enough already —she said to Xavier, voice breaking, giving me a moment’s freedom from her cock—. Fuck me already. I can’t take it anymore.

Xavier still used lube, because of how big he was, and settled himself between her legs. He pressed the tip to her entrance and started to push very slowly. Natalia opened her mouth without making a sound. I watched from the side as the thick dark cock went in, centimeter by centimeter, into my wife’s cunt, how her lips stretched around it, how Xavier stopped when he felt her body tense, waited, then pushed a little farther. It was a lot. Natalia needed time to adjust. She grabbed his forearms with both hands, nails digging in, and breathed through her mouth.

And when she did, when she felt it all inside, she let out a moan of relief and no longer asked him to stop. She asked for more, deeper, and without lowering her voice.

—Fuck me —she told him—. Fuck me hard. Ruin me.

Xavier started moving. First in long thrusts, pulling nearly all the way out and then driving back in to the hilt. Then faster. The bed began slamming against the wall. I was beside her, my cock hard against her hip, and she looked for my mouth while Xavier kept fucking her. We kissed with tongue, never stopping looking at each other, and there we were, the three of us: she taking Xavier’s cock below and my tongue above, me keeping my eyes fixed on her face to make sure she was all right. The expression on her face left no room for doubt. Her cheeks were red, her mouth open, her gaze lost.

I grabbed one of her tits and squeezed it. I pinched her nipple. She guided my hand downward, between her legs, to where Xavier was still thrusting into her. I rubbed her clit to his rhythm. I could feel Xavier’s cock entering and leaving beneath my fingers, my wife’s cunt stretched around it, everything soaked.

—I’m gonna come —she said through clenched teeth—. I’m gonna come again, don’t stop.

At one point she opened her eyes and looked for me. Not to ask for anything. Just to make sure I was still there. I nodded. She closed her eyes again and gave herself over completely. She came with Xavier inside her, squeezing him with her cunt so hard he had to stop for a second and breathe deeply so he wouldn’t finish at that very instant.

She asked for more time. She asked to be turned over. Xavier put her on all fours and grabbed her hips with both hands. He penetrated her from behind again, even deeper in that position, and gave her hard thrusts that made her move forward on the bed. Natalia lowered her face to the mattress, her ass high in the air, and offered herself to him without any reservation. I stood in front of her and offered my cock again. She took it in her mouth without opening her eyes, and that was how we had her: fucked from both ends, giving from the front and the back, one body between two men.

Xavier changed the rhythm so it would last. He grabbed her hair, lifted her face from the mattress, and made her look at herself in the large mirror across from the bed.

—Look at yourself —he told her—. Look how much you like it.

Natalia looked. She saw her red face, her open mouth, my cock going in and out of her lips, Xavier’s cock behind disappearing into her. She tensed her fingers in the sheets, clenched her jaw, and at some point let out a cry that cut itself off on its own, like something overflowing and being held back at the same time. She came again, longer, deeper, shouting it this time without fear of being heard.

I couldn’t take it. I came in her mouth while she was still trembling from the orgasm, and she swallowed everything without letting go of my cock, sucking it clean to the last drop. Xavier lasted a few seconds longer. He pulled out at the last moment and came on her back and ass, long hot spurts sliding down her skin. Then he pushed his cock back in, still dripping, to leave the last drops inside her. I held her. Xavier held her. The three of us stayed motionless for a few seconds, breathing like we had just run a race.

***

When it was over, the three of us remained in silence on the big bed. Xavier rested. Natalia and I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, our fingers interlaced in the space between our bodies.

—I’m ashamed —she said softly, without turning her head.

—Why? —I asked.

—Because I really enjoyed it. Without holding back. And I know you saw everything.

—I know —I said—. That’s why you don’t have to be ashamed.

It took her a while to speak again.

—I had imagined it a few times, never knowing whether I could tell you. And now I feel like I owe you something.

—You don’t owe me anything, love.

—Were you okay too?

I squeezed her hand before answering.

—Yes. It had been a long time since I saw you like that.

She stayed quiet for a moment. Then she turned over, rested her head on my chest, and at some point we both fell asleep without turning off the light.

***

Xavier left before dawn. He got dressed in silence, gathered his things, gave sleeping Natalia a soft kiss on the forehead, and shook my hand at the door.

—Take care of her —he told me.

—That’s what I do —I replied.

When the door closed and I went back to bed, Natalia moved without opening her eyes, found me with her arm, and settled against me. Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten.

Almost a year has passed since that night. Natalia started painting again. Not all at once: slowly, like someone taking up again something they thought lost and discovering that the muscles still remember how to do it. There are still hard days. But there are also other days. Days when I hear her humming something in the kitchen while she makes breakfast, or see her smiling to herself in front of a blank canvas, and I know that what that night gave her back was not only pleasure.

It gave her back to herself. And that was enough for me.