What Happened in My Friend’s Kitchen That Night

She’d been settled there for almost a year and still had no one she could call a friend. Renata knew it would be hard from the day she decided to emigrate, but the language, the reserved nature of the locals, and the impossible hours of her job had made life much harder than she’d imagined. The village itself didn’t help either: a handful of houses lost among the mountains, with an average age hovering around retirement and a social life comparable to a cemetery in winter.

That was why the day chance brought her together with Carola was so important. The only teacher at the only daycare in the area, Carola was a torrent of energy, the complete opposite of every neighbor Renata had run into until then. Cheerful, affectionate, with a huge smile and a million anecdotes to tell over a bottle of cheap red wine. She was quite a bit younger, not yet twenty-five, but the shared language and her easygoing manner brought them together right away.

Soon she also met her roommate, Paloma. Another compatriot in her twenties, a nurse, with an easy, loud laugh and the same weakness for popping open bottles. Renata’s life improved overnight.

But there was still one dark spot her new friends couldn’t illuminate. Blonde, tall, with an angelic face and a body that, when she was young, had paid her way through university as a swimsuit model, Renata was used to a level of male attention she wasn’t getting even remotely there. That desert crossing of abstinence was, by far, the longest of her life, and it was starting to take its toll. So that night, sharing pizza and supermarket wine on the girls’ couch, she asked the million-dollar question.

—So how do you two meet guys around here?

The two of them let themselves sink back against the sofa and exhaled in unison, as if there were no good answer. It was Paloma who put it into words.

—Impossible. There’s nothing here. You have to drive two hours to the city, and even then it’s hard. The guys around here don’t give a shit about anything. And if you catch one, he gets tired of coming to the end of the earth pretty quickly. He fucks you a couple of times and disappears.

Carola nodded in silence, refilling her glass. Renata processed the confirmation of her fears with a faraway look and, without realizing it, let her body speak for her.

—At this point, I’d be happy with a couple of good fucks.

—Oh, well! There are always alternatives for that —Paloma blurted out, so naturally it sounded obvious.

Under Renata’s questioning look, she explained herself better.

—Me, for example, when I’m hungry I go to the bakery.

It took Renata a few seconds to connect the phrase with the two chubby brothers in their fifties who ran the village bakery. There were no two more ordinary men, and on top of that, both married.

—But… which one? —she asked.

It was Carola who answered, brushing a strand of her endless dark hair out of her face.

—She’s decided why break one family when you can break two at once.

—Both of them?? —Renata could hardly believe it. It was impossible to imagine Paloma, short, with a sweet, round face, with that pair of men.

—I learned to tell whether she’s been with one or both by the number of loaves she brings home as a gift —Carola added with a wicked smile.

Paloma threw a piece of pizza at her in mock outrage and they both burst out laughing. It was clear there were no secrets between them. Even so, the nurse struck back.

—Carola, on the other hand, prefers home delivery.

Renata looked from one to the other, lost, until the one in question clarified.

—The delivery guy.

The delivery guy. There was only one in the village. A huge man, nearly two meters tall, who barely stammered the language.

—But he’s very… —Renata stumbled.

—Ugly? Very. But he fucks like an animal —Carola cut in without blinking—. If I’m going to get properly fucked over now and then, I’d rather have a stud than a handsome guy.

Renata couldn’t believe those shameless women, almost a decade younger than her, were opening her eyes so casually. And the truth was that for weeks now she’d been fantasizing about men she wouldn’t even have looked at a year ago.

—Trying to sleep after a night shift —Paloma went on, smacking her palm against the back of her hand— and in the next room, clap, clap, clap!

Carola spit out her wine in the middle of a laughing fit. When the laughter died down, she only managed to shrug.

—She likes it from behind. What am I supposed to do?

To her surprise, imagining Carola taken against the wall by that giant sent a thoroughly indecent tingle between Renata’s legs.

—Once I found her on her knees in the landing —Paloma finished, delighted—. If she doesn’t suck him off, he doesn’t leave the package.

—Seriously? —Renata’s jaw dropped.

—Oh, absolutely! —Carola laughed, without a shred of shame.

The three of them laughed again. And kept at it, glass after glass, telling their stories from the village, fueled by the look of disbelief on their guest’s supposedly most experienced face. Renata listened, fascinated, with a burning heat rising from her belly to her cheeks with every confession and every swallow of red wine. After a while, Carola invited her to join in, her large black eyes fixed on her, shining with alcohol.

—We’re the only ones talking here. Don’t you have any unconfessable confession?

Renata rummaged through her fogged memory. She had more experience than enough, she’d never lacked lovers or the inhibitions to use them, but she wasn’t sure she had anything as daring as what she’d just heard. Except, maybe, that one time.

—A long time ago. I was in college. A classmate I didn’t even like took me to the movies. After half an hour of trying to put the moves on me, the idiot took his dick out and started jerking off right there in the middle of the theater.

—And what did you do? —Paloma asked, now listening intently herself.

—Well, instead of leaving, which is what I should’ve done, I just sat there staring like an idiot. Until the bastard got me hot and I ended up sucking him off right there.

The girls burst out as if they’d scored a goal in the last minute. Encouraged by the audience, Renata launched into the part she’d meant to keep to herself.

—And the worst part is that when he was about to come, he held my head so he wouldn’t make a mess. I had to cross the whole cinema lobby with my face a wreck to go to the bathroom and clean myself up.

—And you let him?? —Carola mimed scandalized outrage.

Renata paused dramatically, took a flirtatious sip of wine, and told the truth.

—The truth is, I liked it.

Laughter again. Paloma threw her a cushion, Carola refilled her glass in approval, and Renata was surprised by her own looseness.

—Wait, there’s more. When I came back he told me the usher had been watching us and had jacked off watching us. And the bastard, keeping quiet, letting me put on the show.

—Here, if you’re not a bitch, you’re a super-bitch —Carola declared, raising her glass in a solemn toast that finally sent all three of them back into laughter.

***

The jokes went on well into the early hours of the morning, between bursts of laughter and the clink of glass, until Paloma called it a night.

—Well, I’m off, I’ve got work tomorrow.

—I should probably go too —Renata said, not having realized how late it was.

So late that Carola, with good sense, insisted she stay over on the couch. Renata was dying to get home, put something on the computer, and masturbate until she collapsed from exhaustion; the wine and those confessions had lit a spark in the ocean of gasoline that was her long celibacy. But the idea of facing the cold, shut-in night alone made her change her mind.

Finding her a pair of pajamas was quite a challenge. A fitted top was enough for the upper half, but finding a pair of pants in athletic Carola’s closet that could contain Renata’s pronounced curves in back was another matter. She settled on some ridiculously tiny basketball shorts, the seams threatening to burst. Aware of the pounds she’d gained in recent months, almost all of them in her ass, she mumbled an apology. Carola took it as a joke and gave her a loud slap on the backside.

While Carola washed up, Renata decided to return the hospitality by clearing away the remains of the party. She stacked the pizza boxes and went over to the sink with the glasses, unable to get the image out of her head of sleek, elegant Carola being used at will by the delivery guy. It was Carola herself who snapped her out of her reverie, hugging her from behind by surprise as she left an elongated pink object beside her in the dish rack.

—I found you a lover! —she laughed, pointing to the neon pink vibrator precariously balanced beside the faucet.

Renata almost dropped the glass. When she understood the joke, she burst out laughing again with Carola pressed against her back. But the laughter evaporated and the embrace remained. It wasn’t the first time her friend had taken such liberties, but it was the longest. Her thin arm encircled her bare waist; her warm breath stroked her shoulders. Then her lips settled on the nape exposed by the blonde updo.

—Though there are always other alternatives —Carola whispered, gently biting her earlobe.

Renata’s heart raced. Without stopping washing a glass that was already shining like it belonged in an ad, she asked the unnecessary question.

—Which ones?

The curiosity of her prey was all the invitation Carola needed. The hand caressing her belly slipped beneath the shorts, dodging the waistband stretched to its limit; her fingers slid, deftly, through the dampness of her slit, making her jump. The other hand massaged her breast through the thin fabric of the borrowed top.

—I think you already know which ones —she murmured.

Renata didn’t answer. She kept washing mechanically, her temples pounding, the night’s images unfolding in her head. And then Carola’s fingers abandoned her all at once, leaving her orphaned of caresses just when she was beginning to get lost. In their place, warm, wet fingertips traced her lips. Without thinking, without letting go of the glass, she took them into her mouth. She tasted herself, closed her eyes, and the freshly unlocked memory of that movie theater scene came back to ambush her in full.

***

Carola slid down her back and squatted behind her, shattering the reverie. With a precise tug she pulled Renata’s shorts down to her knees, dragging her underwear with them. She gazed at the pale mountains of flesh now freed with the reverence of someone opening a long-desired gift. She stroked, kneaded, spread them, and buried her face in that valley with a hunger that Renata felt coursing through her body from heels to crown.

She looked at the ceiling, stifling a cry. At some point she had dropped the glasses and was gripping the edge of the counter. At some point she had arched her back to offer better access, and her hips were rocking slowly, settling into the tongue that was working over her with the mastery only practice brings. Until one thought yanked her back into the kitchen with a jolt: Paloma. The third occupant of the house could show up at any moment.

The shock almost made her regain her composure, but one especially deep lick chained her back to the sink. Her legs went weak. The deep moan that escaped her was impossible to hold back. Carola sensed the excess eagerness and eased off. She straightened up, turned off the faucet nobody had remembered, and slowly turned her prey around to kiss her. Gentle first, demanding afterward. Renata didn’t cooperate, but she didn’t resist either. Carola’s hand held her nape and her mouth was flooded with a wet, wine-bitter kiss that colonized her completely.

Between kisses and bites, Carola dragged her to the bedroom. The dance continued in front of the wardrobe mirror: she took Renata by the chin and guided her eyes to the reflection. She had lost the lower half of her clothes, except for a pair of white socks; the top did little to hide her erect nipples, and her pale curves contrasted with the brown limbs coiled around her. Then she placed her back to the glass and explored her ass with fingers that promised and denied in equal measure.

—It’s a sin to let a body like this go hungry —she breathed in her ear, her breath tasting of wine and desire—. Look at you. You’re a goddess.

Renata didn’t open her mouth except to let out sighs. Carola got tired of the monologue and pushed her backward onto the bed, without roughness. She approached slowly, elegant, feline. In an instinctive burst, Renata raised her legs and held the backs of her knees, in silent offering. Carola smiled at the first real sign of cooperation, pulled the pale blue nightgown over her head, and sprang on the weak point of her prey with predator precision.

She licked harder, sucked deeper, reached farther. Renata writhed, clutching the sheets, the waves of pleasure about to make her explode. But Carola knew the danger and wouldn’t let her: as soon as she felt her getting close, she left the center and slid her tongue somewhere else, taking her back and forth between the summit and the abyss, multiplying the intensity of her moans with each pass. Renata grabbed a pillow and pressed it to her face to muffle the racket, thinking of the witness sleeping on the other side of the wall. Carola snatched it away immediately and crawled up behind her, rubbing her small breasts against her while one hand returned to the dampness of her slit.

—Don’t worry —she purred, nibbling her ear—. Paloma doesn’t like women. She’s not coming. But she does like listening.

Carola’s fingers moved faster and faster.

—She masturbates when she hears me with the delivery guy. She told me. Don’t you want her to masturbate listening to you?

Renata’s feverish mind pictured Paloma in the next bed. Let them all come, she thought: more mouths, more hands worshipping her body after so many months of drought.

—Yes —was all she could whisper.

Music to Carola’s ears, who celebrated her conquest by pushing her fingertips to a precise spot inside her and tracing measured circles over the inflamed center of her pleasure. Renata broke. The cry that had been stuck in her for months finally spilled out, overwhelming, liberating, echoing through the room, the apartment, the entire building. She convulsed, tore the sheets, dug her nails into the cinnamon-colored thigh that hugged her waist, and collapsed empty when the most intense orgasm of her life died away slowly, with the calm of a job well done.

***

She needed a few minutes to catch her breath. When she came to, she found Carola stretched over her, her lips sucking on her still-hard nipples, her crotch rubbing against her hip. Renata felt the urge to return the favor. She laid her recent tormentor back and settled between her legs without stopping to think.

She found new ground, unfamiliar. She explored it with her tongue—different smells, different textures—but it quickly became clear that wasn’t enough: the silence was deafening compared with the storm that had just been unleashed, and Carola’s hand stroked her head with an almost condescending gesture.

Renata conceded the battle but not the war. She lay back down beside her friend and planted a long, deep, wet kiss on her: in that, she was a master. Her tongue revived Carola, who climbed back onto her thigh, rubbing hard against her crotch. Renata pinched her pointed nipples, drawing out cries she no longer bothered to hide, while her other hand searched for the small, firm ass and slid a finger to the tight ring there, which she did not hesitate to breach carefully.

Carola lifted her head with a wicked smile. Renata smiled back and, finally recovered her clarity, decided she would be the one chanting the psalm this time. She pulled firmly on the half-undone ponytail, exposing the neck of the predator turned prey.

—The next time your delivery guy friend comes over, I’m coming too —she whispered—. How about it?

—Very good —Carola panted, letting herself be carried along by the finger advancing in her back and by the voice rocking her.

—The two of us will get ready for him. Let him choose whichever one he prefers. Which one do you think he’ll choose?

—You —she didn’t hesitate: it was the answer the game wanted and, at the same time, the plain truth.

Mastered by the ever tighter pull of her hair and by the ever deeper visitor, Carola gave herself over. Renata savored the filthy sweetness of every answer, her tender voice crashing against the sordidness of the questions, until her friend stopped listening and answered everything in monosyllables. A second finger joined the first, adding a point of pain to the feast of pleasure shaking her body.

—What a good friend I’ve found —purred Renata, in the affectionate tone of someone talking to a pet.

And there the move reached its limit. Carola imploded in a silent, almost gasped orgasm: she trembled, scratched, gulped for air, tossed her loose hair at last, clamped her whole body around the two intruders and fell apart. She collapsed, spent, into her friend’s arms, and with all the care in the world Renata withdrew her fingers, drawing one last shudder from her.

They looked at each other. Suddenly sober. Suddenly sated. Suddenly shy. Until a voice boomed from the other side of the wall.

—Well done, girls!

And the two of them burst out laughing.