What Happened Before We Went Into the Room That Night

It was almost eleven-thirty and I was still standing in the hallway, barefoot, in my cotton pajamas, eyes closed. I wasn’t sleepy. It had been a long day — swimming class, a birthday party in the park, a burst of tears in the supermarket — and the three kids had collapsed into our bed like always when something like that happened. Martín was finishing up in the kitchen. I had stayed there, in front of the closed door of our bedroom, waiting for something I still didn’t know how to name.

I heard him come up the stairs. First the creak of the third step, the one he’s been promising to fix for three years, and then the silence of the rest of the flight because now he walks without putting his heel down. I stayed where I was, arms crossed over my chest, forehead pressed to the wood. If I turn around, something breaks, I thought. Let him come to me.

He did. He hugged me from behind without saying a word, both arms closing over my stomach. He kissed me under the ear, in that spot he knows by heart and that I pretend he doesn’t know undoes me. I lifted my arms, took them back, and crossed my hands behind his neck, and he used the position to keep moving his mouth down my throat.

—Still awake? —he whispered.

—I couldn’t fall asleep.

He didn’t ask anything else. The kisses stopped being kisses and started being something else: he would open his mouth a little, leave hot breath on my skin, then close it again. I could feel the nape of my neck prickling and the pajamas suddenly felt heavier. It was hard to breathe slowly.

His hands climbed from my waist to my chest without asking permission. I wasn’t wearing a bra — I never do to sleep — and that thin cotton shirt doesn’t hide anything. My breasts are big, heavy, and my nipples get hard right away. He took them from underneath, like when he wants to cup them completely, and squeezed. A firm squeeze, unhurried, with his whole palms.

I bit my lip. I felt my nipples harden against the fabric in exactly two seconds.

—Shhh —he said in my ear, even though I hadn’t made a sound.

The warning made it worse. The kids were on the other side of that door, the three of them piled up in our bed, and any noise could wake them. We both knew that. And instead of pulling away, we both sank deeper into the silence.

The pads of his fingers found my nipples through the cotton. He pinched them carefully at first, just a graze, and then with a little more firmness. One of the nipples he stretched until the shirt lifted a few centimeters, and I had to brace both hands against the door so I wouldn’t tip forward.

I started to feel the heat between my legs like something urgent. My panties were no longer just warm. They were wet. It had been less than five minutes.

I slid my right hand under my own shirt. I wanted to feel my skin, the pulse, what was happening. He took it as an invitation — or as permission — and kept going with his hands under the fabric too, leaving no inch untouched. He circled my areolas slowly with his fingers, making slow rounds, as if he were drawing something. My nipples reacted to every circle. I arched my back a little and my ass moved back without me asking it to.

There he was. Hard. Against me.

I pressed my hip against his to feel him better over the pajama pants, and he answered with a short shove. It wasn’t the first time we’d done something like this in the hallway, but it had been a long time since it happened. Between work shifts, the kids, family dinners, the washer always running, you start losing this. We had been losing it without knowing since when. And there, in three minutes, it had come back.

With one hand he kept kneading a breast. With the other, he went lower. He stroked my stomach with an open hand, unhurried, and kept going down to the waistband of my pants.

I was faster. I already had my hand there, rubbing over my clothes, searching for the exact spot of my clit through the cotton. At first I didn’t press, I only grazed. Then I started pressing with flat fingers, making short circles. The pajamas were wet on the outside, you could feel it to the touch.

He noticed, of course. He gave a short sound, almost a rough laugh against my ear, and pulled my pants down with a soft yank to halfway down my thigh. They stayed there, caught. He grabbed my panties from behind and shoved them into the crease of my ass, pulling them slightly upward. It made me catch my breath for him to leave them like that, tight. I’ve been completely waxed for years, I don’t have a single hair on the mound or the lips, and he knows it, but every so often he still runs his fingers over me as if to confirm it.

I kept rubbing over my panties. They were so soaked everything showed through, even the slit of my cunt. I rested my forehead on my left arm against the door, closed my eyes tight, and focused on not moaning. My clit was swollen. I could feel it big, throbbing, and every time my finger passed over it a jolt shot through my lower belly.

I pushed the fabric of my panties aside a little with my index and middle finger. I wet my fingers at the entrance — I was dripping, literally — brought the moisture up to my clit and started tracing firmer circles, with lubrication now. I had to clamp my legs together to keep from making a sound.

Then he knelt down.

I didn’t see him. I felt him. His breathing changed places: I stopped feeling it on my neck and started feeling it very low, on the curve of my ass. Two big hands opened my cheeks firmly but without roughness. Then two others spread my cunt lips too, opening me completely. I didn’t dare move.

The first contact was a finger. It went in without resistance, all the way to the bottom. It didn’t hurt at all because I was soaked. He pulled it out slowly, slid it to my clit with the lightest pressure — a nothing-touch, like a warning — and went back to the entrance. The second time, two went in. I opened my legs more by instinct, even though the pants held me back at the thighs.

—More —I whispered. I didn’t say anything else. I don’t even know if he heard me. I think he did.

He moved his fingers calmly, curling them forward, touching exactly the point he needed to touch. With the other hand he squeezed one whole cheek and gave the other a soft bite, so soft it was more a kiss with teeth than anything else. The mix of both sensations — his fingers inside, his mouth on my ass — made my knees shake.

He sped up. He went in and out faster, his fingers shining with me. I brought my hand back to my clit. I lubed myself again with the wetness running down from my lips and started rubbing in earnest, without care, because I couldn’t wait anymore. What I didn’t want was to finish yet. I wanted to stretch it out.

My hand and his brushed against each other. He stopped for a second, took my fingers, and slipped them in beside his inside me. Four fingers. Two of mine, two of his. We moved them both at once, slowly, in sync. We had never done that. Or I didn’t remember it. The sensation was strange and perfect. My eyelids started to feel heavy from sheer pleasure.

—I’m going to come —I said breathlessly.

—Not yet.

We pulled our fingers out at the same time. I kept my hand on my clit. He opened my ass cheeks again and ran his tongue, flat and long, from my anus to where he could reach. My legs really did shake then. I hadn’t expected the lick there, not like that. I let go of the door with my left hand and quickly covered my mouth with it, because a sound almost slipped out.

He slid his fingers back in — two again — while his tongue kept moving over everything in front of him. It was a mess. Everything was wet: his face, my thighs, my fingers, the pajama fabric hanging at thigh level. I squeezed my eyes shut. The children, on the other side of the door. The door, against my forehead. Him, down there, working me without mercy.

He got completely between my legs. As far as his pants and position allowed. He started licking my clit directly while his fingers stayed inside, moving with a firmer, deeper rhythm. I took my hand away from my mouth and grabbed his head. I pressed him against me. I pushed my hips toward his face.

He sped up. He sucked, without stopping his fingers. I moved my hips on my own, I was outside myself. I let one hand go from his hair and pinched one nipple hard, with my nails. Then the other too. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t moan. I could only clench my teeth and take it.

My legs gave out twice. The third time I couldn’t hold on anymore. I lifted my head, looked up at the ceiling, let out a muffled moan against my own shoulder, and came. It lasted a long time. Much longer than other times. I felt the orgasm in waves, one after another, and he kept going down there until I had to push his head away because I couldn’t take any more, because everything was electrified, because if he kept going one more second I was going to come apart right there.

He stood up slowly. He pulled my panties back up, pulled my pants back up, adjusted my shirt with a tenderness that had nothing to do with what had just happened. He turned me around.

I kissed him. I kissed him at length, eyes closed, with the taste of me in his mouth. I put both hands on his face.

—Thank you —I said very softly.

—Another day it’s my turn —he answered, with that half-smile he gets when he knows he’s won.

—Another day.

I stayed one more second with my forehead against his. Then I opened the bedroom door slowly, very carefully, and we went in silently. The three kids were still sleeping piled up like puppies in the middle of the bed. We got in on either side, without making a sound, the lights off. I fell asleep almost instantly, with my pajamas still smelling like him.