The Secret I Shared with My Flatmate
What I’m about to tell was something I kept to myself for months, and my face still burns as I write it. But whoever reads this will understand why I needed to get it out of me. It’s my first year away from home, told exactly as I lived it, even if I changed a name or two out of modesty.
My name is Carla. Wavy brown hair, freckles that come out in the sun, the kind of body that goes running every morning by the river. I’m nineteen, and last autumn I moved into a shared flat in Ruzafa, that neighborhood in Valencia that isn’t so working-class anymore but still smells of ovens and narrow streets. The building was old, with a yellowed facade, an elevator that took forever, and a lobby that always smelled of the fried food shop downstairs.
My parents live in Paterna. My mother is an administrator at an insurance mutual, quiet and obsessed with making sure I eat vegetables. My father repairs cars, his hands always black, calls me “princess,” and gets nervous if I mention I’m seeing someone. I have a sister three years younger who sends me memes all day long.
On the first day of Journalism class, I walked into the lecture room smelling of burnt coffee. I sat in the third row because I hate the front ones. Next to me dropped a girl with a pastel pink backpack and headphones hanging around her neck.
Her name was Noelia. My age, but she looked like she was from another planet. Very long straight black hair, beach-brown skin, huge green eyes, full lips with a clear gloss, and a dancer’s body: tiny waist, hips that seemed to move on their own, a high chest that challenged the cropped top she was wearing that day. A tiny navel piercing peeked out whenever she stretched.
—Jesus, it’s so hot in here —she said, fanning herself with the timetable.
I smiled at her. She smelled of vanilla and something floral and expensive.
—I’m Carla.
—Noelia. Are you dead on your feet too, or is it just me?
We spent the whole class writing each other notes under the desk. By the time we left, we’d already arranged to grab a drink after the last class. A week later, when I found out the middle room in my flat was free, it was her who moved in.
***
The flat was small: three bedrooms and a living room with a tiny balcony overlooking a courtyard of washing lines and cats. I slept at the back, Noelia in the middle room, the brightest one, and the third was rented by an exchange student who almost never showed up. We paid just enough and took turns cleaning the bathroom.
The first few weeks were a whirlwind. Classes in the morning, library in the afternoon, beers on some terrace at sunset. Noelia was seeing a second-year guy, some Ivan, tall and tattooed, who came to the flat some nights. I heard them through the thin wall. She moaned without shame, and I’d lie still in bed, my hand inside the shorts of my pyjama bottoms, listening, imagining.
I got around more easily. An exchange student kissed my neck all over in the bathroom of a bar one October night. Another, a classmate, took me to his residence hall on a rainy afternoon. I’d come back to the flat with my hair a mess, and Noelia would sniff my neck and laugh.
—You smell like need, you little slut —she’d say.
I’d go red, but I loved it.
***
One November night, after a horrible exam, we were alone in the living room. A bottle of cheap wine, some series on in the background that we weren’t watching, both of us in oversized T-shirts and little else, our legs tangled together without us even noticing.
Noelia looked at me steadily.
—Have you ever been with a girl?
I shook my head, but my heart was pounding in my throat.
—I have. In high school, with a friend. It drove me crazy.
She moved closer. Her breath tasted of white wine and mint.
—Do you want to try?
I didn’t answer with words. I leaned in and kissed her. Soft lips, a timid tongue at first and then a hungry one. She tasted sweet. She slid her hand under my T-shirt and pinched a nipple until I moaned against her mouth. I slowly pulled down her lace underwear and parted her legs. She was already wet, her skin burning, and when I ran my fingers along the slit of her cunt I felt the sticky heat, the open flesh waiting for me. She lifted her hips, impatient, and grabbed my wrist to guide me.
—Like that, fuck… don’t stop.
I slipped two fingers into her slowly, feeling how she swallowed my knuckles, how she tightened and loosened around me. She arched, grabbed my hair, and kissed me harder while I set the rhythm, in and out, pushing deeper and deeper until she began to pant with her mouth parted. She took off my T-shirt, sucked my breasts like she was starving, gently bit the tip of my nipple and left my skin burning. Then she lowered her head, opened my legs, and licked me slowly, without rushing, parting the lips of my cunt with her tongue, first around it, then straight over the clit, soaking me completely. I held her head when she started sliding two fingers into me again, pushing at the same time with her mouth, a delicious torture that took my breath away. When I came, I was shaking, my legs closing over her shoulders, my whole body convulsing while she kept licking and fingering me until I emptied myself in her mouth. Then I climbed on top of her, rubbed my sex against hers, clit against clit, hot slick skin, and we came almost at the same time, staring into each other’s eyes, breathing as if we’d run a marathon.
***
From that night on everything changed, but without drama. We kept going out with guys whenever we felt like it, and sometimes the other one watched from the half-open doorway. Other nights it was just the two of us: she’d put me on all fours on her bed and whisper things in my ear that made me push back, begging for more.
At Christmas I went back to Paterna. My mother asked about some marks on my neck and I lied, said it was a guy. My father muttered something about being careful. Noelia went to Sagunto, where her mother made her home cooking and asked if she had a boyfriend yet; she laughed and said she had someone special. We came back in January closer than ever. The flat still smelled of coffee, street, and now of us too.
***
February arrived like a cold slap. The wind slipped through the gaps, and if we didn’t turn on the heating, the thermometer plunged. But the neighborhood was starting to light up: it was festival season, streets with lights and terraces despite the cold, and the two of us were brimming with need after the holidays.
The first weekend we went out alone, heavy coats over short clothes because we didn’t care about the cold if it was for the thrill. We walked among light installations changing color across the facades, and we kissed on every dark corner, tongues slow, hands slipping under clothes. In a narrow tunnel of neon lights, with people just a few meters away, Noelia pushed me against the wall.
—Take off your underwear here —she whispered, her voice rough.
I laughed, nervous, and looked around. But I did as she said. The cold air hit me when she slid her hand between my legs, two fingers straight in, moving slowly while she kissed my neck. She spread the lips of my cunt wide with her hand, found my wetness, and took it to her mouth in a slow gesture, looking at me with a dirty smile.
—You love that they can see us, don’t you?
I nodded, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream. Someone passed close by and gave us a weird look, but kept going. Noelia made me slip my coat open and licked me over my tights, then she shoved her fingers in again, deep, without stopping kissing me. I came fast, trembling against her hand, the lights flickering behind my closed eyelids.
We went back to the flat soaked through with rain and with each other. We took our clothes off in the hallway, leaving a trail of coats and boots, and fell onto her bed, the big one, against the courtyard window. That night was long and slow: she laid me on my back, opened my legs, and fucked me with her fingers until I was shaking, then put my face on her and made me come again by licking me nonstop, while I grabbed her hair and told her to eat me better, harder, not to let up. We fell asleep wrapped around each other, still breathing hard.
***
Carnival filled the neighborhood with costumes and impromptu parties. One night we ended up in a themed club near the center. I was dressed as a little devil, Noelia as a fallen angel, dancing pressed together among sweaty bodies. A guy dressed as a pirate came over, tall, confident smile, and bought us drinks. The three of us ended up in a secluded corner: he was kissing my neck while Noelia licked my chest, then they switched. He lifted my skirt, slid his hand between my legs, and found me soaking; the pirate put two fingers into me while Noelia bared her breasts and sucked on his mouth, taking turns without shame. Then Noelia knelt in front of me and devoured my cunt eagerly, her tongue firm and his fingers going in and out behind my thighs until I came almost at the same time, him carefully and with protection, us holding each other’s hands. We went home at dawn and showered together, soap sliding over us, slow kisses under the hot water, her slippery hands roaming my tits, my belly, and my cunt until they made me start breathing hard again.
At university things got intense: midterms, group projects late into the night. One afternoon, at a secluded table in the library, Noelia was wearing a short skirt and nothing underneath, so she told me in my ear. She slipped her hand under the table and fingered me slowly while I pretended to read notes, covering my mouth so I wouldn’t moan, my legs trembling in silence. Her fingers went in and out, finding the exact spot, and when she brushed my clit with the pad of her thumb I had to clamp my thighs together to hold myself in.
***
March and April passed in a blur of papers, nights of studying, and escapes to bars where we kissed without hiding it. For Book Day we walked among stalls of novels and roses. Noelia gave me a poetry collection with her own notes in it and a white rose; I gave her a pendant with a tiny key and told her it was the key to my body. We ended the day in a tapas wine cellar, tipsy on vermouth, and went back to the flat to love each other slowly over a stack of open books, smelling of paper and crushed roses. We undressed without hurry, letting our clothes drop to the floor, and she made me sit astride her face; she held me by the hips and licked me with cruel patience until my legs shook. Then I made her turn over, spread her ass, and slid my fingers into her cunt while I bit her neck, hearing her pant between laughs and curses.
In May a third one appeared. Her name was Sandra, twenty years old, one of Noelia’s classmates in another subject. Petite, very short blond hair, light eyes, freckles all over her face and chest, a slim body with soft curves. She came from a town inland and had identified as bisexual since high school. She had seen us kissing in a corridor and, instead of stepping away, she smiled and said she thought it was beautiful.
One afternoon we invited her to the flat. We started with beers on the balcony, talking about guys, girls, fantasies. Sandra admitted that the idea of a threesome with a steady couple turned her on. Noelia and I looked at each other. I kissed her first, then Sandra, and the three of us ended up in the living room, taking turns with hands and mouths until we came in a chain: first Sandra trembling, then Noelia, and then me watching them until I finished too. We pulled Sandra’s pants down, each of us sucked one of her tits, and while one of us fingered her the other kissed her cunt over the tops of her thighs. We left her panting against the sofa, and when it was my turn they fucked me between them, one with her mouth on my nipples and the other licking me below until I saw white. After that she joined us some nights, never permanently, but always bringing some new idea under her arm.
***
June arrived like a fire. The sticky heat, the sleepless nights from final exams. When classes ended we celebrated at a party by the harbor, taking advantage of the city being taken over by music. The three of us went, dressed in barely anything, sweat shining on our skin as the speakers thundered over the sand.
There we met Gonzalo. Forty-five years old, divorced, architect, two children living with his ex-wife. Tall, short hair graying at the temples, trimmed beard, a calm smile that contrasted with the chaos of the party. He bought us drinks because, he said, we looked like the ones having the best time. He smelled of expensive cologne and the sea. The four of us ended up in a secluded area near the water.
—Want to come upstairs for the last one, more quietly? —he suggested, unhurried.
We went up. It started with kisses shared around, hands everywhere, and the four of us ended up tangled together in the dim light, always careful and always with protection. He took me slowly at first and hard afterward, while Noelia and Sandra kissed each other as they watched me and touched themselves. His fingers opened my cunt and he fucked me with a steady rhythm, drawing out moans that made my back arch; then he turned me around, put me on my back, and went in again, his breathing heavy in my ear. When it was all over he asked us to finish together in front of him, and that’s what we did, all three at once, touching and licking each other until we came again. He wasn’t possessive; he just gave us his number in case we ever wanted to do it again, with no strings attached.
***
The term ended in mid-June. I passed by the skin of my teeth. I went back to Paterna for a few days: my mother hugged me tightly, my father grunted a “well done, princess,” my sister asked for gossip and I gave her a very watered-down version. Noelia went to Sagunto, Sandra stayed on as a waitress for the summer.
Noelia and I stayed one more week in the flat, before the lease ended. We said goodbye slowly, room by room, laughing and crying a little at the same time.
Almost nine months later, I still smell her vanilla on my fingers some nights. She writes to me from Sagunto, messages that make me smile alone in bed. Sandra sends voice notes saying next year will be even better. And Gonzalo wrote yesterday, in case we’re around the city this summer.
The first year ended. But this, what I discovered about myself, I think has only just begun.