What Happened in My Married Neighbor’s Storage Room

I don’t know what category what I’m about to tell you falls into. Confession? Fantasy? Infidelity? Probably all three. There are things that slip between the labels and stay there, vibrating, waiting for someone to tell them.

This happened (or didn’t happen) in a city in central Mexico, in an old building where the hallways smell like wax and the neighbors know how many times each person takes out the trash.

I’d been running into Mariela for months. She was married; I was single at the time. We were both in our early thirties, that age when you stop making excuses not to do something: you do it and then figure out how to justify it.

We had hooked up a couple of times before. Quick things, meetings stolen from routine. One afternoon in my apartment while her husband was out of town —that time I fucked her on top of the dining table with her legs open and her dress hiked up to her waist, her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream while I buried my cock to the hilt—, another in the underground parking garage after a homeowners’ meeting, where she blew me on her knees between two cars, her hair tied back in a ponytail and cum dripping from the corner of her mouth when I finished. What we had moved with the cadence of something we knew wasn’t going to end well and that, precisely for that reason, kept going.

That afternoon was by chance. I was coming down from the laundry room on the top floor and she got into the elevator carrying two boxes and a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. She was wearing gray sweatpants, an old sweatshirt, her hair clipped up with a plastic barrette. No effort made. Nothing designed to turn me on.

And yet.

—Need a hand? —I asked before the doors closed.

She looked at me one second too long. That second that is really a whole conversation.

—I’m going to the storage room —she said—. It’s upstairs.

—My hands are free.

She smiled to one side. I took one box from her, she kept the other. The elevator closed and sat still for a moment before moving, as if it were hesitating. So was I. And we had already been naked.

—What are you carrying? —I asked, just to say something.

—Stuff I don’t want in the apartment.

—Bad stuff?

—Old stuff. Clothes I don’t wear anymore. My husband’s records. A box with letters I never threw away.

I raised an eyebrow. She laughed.

—Letters from before him. Don’t get excited.

—I wasn’t getting excited.

—Yes, you were. Your eyes lit up.

The storage rooms were on the top level, after a narrow corridor that smelled like damp concrete. A row of dark gray metal doors, one single bulb for every three doors, that strange silence of places where people keep what they don’t want to see. Hers was the fifth on the right. She took out a ring of keys and dropped them. I bent down to pick them up and, in the process, looked at her ankles.

—I saw you —she said.

—I didn’t see you looking at me.

—I saw how you looked at me.

She opened the door. Inside was exactly what you’d expect from an apartment storage room in Mexico City: two meters by two, a lightbulb you turn on with a cord, boxes stacked to the ceiling, an old cabinet, a bicycle hanging on the wall. Smelled like dust and wet wood.

—Come in —she said, and when I stepped inside, she closed the door behind me.

Not all the way. She pushed it until it rested shut, without locking it. But she left it there.

—The neighbors —she said—. You know. They’re unbearable.

—They are.

I set the box on the floor. She stood in front of me, still holding the bag, looking at me as if she expected me to decide for both of us. Her habit of making the other person carry the weight of the first move annoyed me a little, but I understood why she did it. If I took the step, I was the one who had come after her. If she took it, she was the one betraying her husband. And nobody wants to be the one who starts.

I took the bag from her hand and set it on top of a box. Then I held her face with both hands and kissed her. Slowly. Without rushing, though the rush was there, pulsing underneath everything.

Mariela kisses with her eyes closed but with an attentive mouth. She’s not the kind to surrender in the first kiss: she tastes you, measures you, decides. I felt her bite my lower lip, felt her pull back a millimeter to look at me, then come back. I ran a hand over the back of her neck, under the plastic clip, and took it off. Her hair fell over her shoulders.

—I’m going to have problems —she murmured—. They’re waiting for me.

—Who?

—It doesn’t matter.

—It does.

—It matters later. Right now, no.

And she kissed me again.

***

What happened after that happened fast and slowly at the same time. That strange thing desire does when you know the clock is running: every movement becomes sharper, like you’re recording it to watch later.

I slid my hands under her sweatshirt. Her skin was cold from carrying the boxes, but below her navel she was hot. I pulled the sweatshirt up over her tits and tugged her bra down without unfastening it, leaving it tight under her breasts, pushing them upward. They were firm, with the nipples already hard, dark. I lowered my head and sucked one first, then the other, barely biting them until a gasp escaped her. I ran my fingers over the waistband of her sweatpants and she drew in a deep breath, not moving. I kissed her neck, right where the pulse shows. It was racing.

—I don’t have anything —I said, thinking out loud.

—We’re not going that far —she answered—. Just for a little while.

—A little while.

—A little while.

She said it like a promise and like a warning. Both at once.

I slipped my hand inside her sweatpants. She was wearing cotton panties, nothing spectacular, and I liked that even more. Improvised always turns me on more than prepared. Mariela closed her eyes and threw her head back, leaning against the storage-room door. When I ran my fingers over the fabric, she was already soaked through. The cotton clung to the lips of her cunt like a second skin, and I felt the hard swelling of her clit underneath. I rubbed it in circles over her panties and her knees bent a little.

—Wait —she said, and pulled back for a second to listen.

Footsteps in the corridor. Far away. Someone opening one of the first storage rooms and closing it again. We waited like that, my hand still inside her underwear, both of us not breathing, until the footsteps faded.

—You still going? —she asked.

—I keep going if you keep going.

—Keep going.

I moved her panties to the side and slipped two fingers into her. She was so wet she swallowed them without resistance, all the way to the knuckles. I pulled them out dripping and rubbed them over her clit, smearing it with her own slick, then slid them back in. Slowly at first, until I understood how she wanted it. I curved them upward, looking for that rough spot inside, and when I found it she jolted, clenched her teeth, and hung on to my neck with both hands. Mariela pressed her lips together to keep quiet, but those short, throaty sounds kept escaping her, the most honest ones. She rested her forehead on my shoulder and started rocking her hips against my hand, riding it, her cunt open against my fingers, looking for the angle. Every time I curled my fingers inside her, a new moan escaped her, lower, and she dug her nails into the back of my neck.

—Holy fucking shit —she whispered against my neck—. Pull them out and put them back in, like that, deeper.

I obeyed. I pulled them out completely, waited a second while she asked for it with her hips, and shoved them back in hard. A louder moan slipped out of her and she covered her mouth with her own hand.

Then, without stopping moving, she unzipped my pants with the other hand, pulled my cock out over my waistband without fully unfastening me, and started jerking me off with the same rhythm I was using on her. I was rock-hard, and she took me in her full hand, squeezing, running her thumb over the tip every so often to spread the liquid already leaking from me. The two of us synchronized, both on the edge, both knowing it wasn’t going to end the way we wanted it to end.

—I’m going to come if you keep that up —I told her in her ear.

—Don’t come.

—Then stop.

—I don’t want to stop.

She laughed softly against my neck. Then she pulled away, crouched down, and before I could say anything, she took me into her mouth.

The storage-room light didn’t reach properly where she was kneeling. I could see her silhouette, the curve of her back, her hair falling forward. I pushed a strand aside to see her face. Her eyes were closed and she had that focused expression I’ve never seen in any other woman doing the same thing. As if she were solving something important.

—Look at me —I asked.

She opened her eyes without taking me out of her mouth. And held my gaze.

I felt my whole body drop into my legs. I held her head carefully, without pushing, letting her control the pace. Mariela did it slowly, with her tongue, in no rush to finish me. She took all of me out, ran the tip of her tongue over the frenulum, licked the full length from my balls to the tip, and then took me back in as far as she could. She closed her eyes, opened them. She sucked me deeply for a while, so deep I could hear her throat make a small sound, and then she’d go still, with the tip barely inside, breathing through her nose pressed against my stomach, her lower lip lowering over the crown of my cock as if she were kissing it.

—Spit on it —I told her softly—. I want to see you.

She took it out and spat a thick strand on the tip, and with that hand she started jerking me while she licked my balls, one first, then the other, sucking them slowly, her eyes locked on mine. She took me all the way in again in one motion and gagged a little, coughed, pulled me out laughing softly with wet eyes, and took me back in more slowly. With her free hand she slid two fingers into her own cunt, never stopping the blowjob, touching herself while she sucked me. Watching her kneeling in that shitty storage room, sweatshirt wrinkled up over her tits, sweatpants pulled halfway down her thigh, one hand on my cock and the other buried between her legs, almost made me blow right there.

Her cell phone pinged.

She ignored it.

It pinged again.

—Mariela.

—Wait.

She took me out just enough to talk, her mouth still pressed to the tip.

—A little longer —she murmured—. Just to taste it.

And she took me back in, deeper, sucking harder, her hand squeezing my balls below. I grabbed her hair, this time I did, and set the rhythm for a moment, barely pushing her head. She let me, moaning with my cock inside her, the vibration climbing up my whole back.

A third pinged. And a fourth. Call.

She pulled off, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and stayed there for a second, kneeling, looking up at me with a smile that was apology and complicity at the same time. Her lips were shiny, swollen, and a thread of saliva hung down to her chin.

—I have to go —she said.

—I know.

—I’m sorry.

—Don’t be sorry.

She stood up. She tucked me away herself, carefully, zipping up my pants as if she were dressing me back up to send me out into the world. Before fixing her panties, she ran her wet fingers over her mouth and sucked them clean, holding my stare, and that gesture left me worse off than anything before it. Then she fixed her hair, pulled her sweatpants back up, checked her pockets.

—Can you tell? —she asked me.

—What?

—Anything. My face. Whatever.

I looked at her properly. Her lips were a little swollen and her cheek was flushed. I ran my thumb over the corner of her mouth.

—Wash your face before you go down and that’s it. Nothing shows.

—Asshole —she laughed—. That means it does show.

—What nobody looks for doesn’t show.

She took out her phone. Read the messages with a frown. Typed something fast. Put the phone away.

—We continue —she said, without looking at me—. Next time.

—Next time.

—I’ll let you know.

—Let me know.

She came closer, gave me a short kiss on the lips —still with my taste in her mouth— and opened the door. Before she left, she squeezed my hand for a second. Then she went, the bag slung over her shoulder, walking quickly down the corridor toward the elevator.

I stayed inside the storage room one minute more. Closed my eyes. Breathed. I was still hard, pressed against my thigh, throbbing inside my pants. I hadn’t come. My balls hurt, full, but that pain was part of the game too. Better to leave it like that, I thought. Better to stay hungry. Hunger is what makes you come back.

***

I took the stairs so I wouldn’t run into her in the elevator. When I got to my floor, I bumped into one of the nosy neighbors she always talked about. The lady from 4B, who lives with three dogs and a permanent suspicion.

—Good afternoon —she said, looking me up and down.

—Good afternoon.

—Where are you coming from?

—From the laundry room.

—Without clothes?

I looked at my hands. Empty. I smiled.

—I left them upstairs —I said—. They’re spinning.

She nodded as if she believed me and as if she didn’t. I went into my apartment, closed the door, leaned against it. My heart was still racing. I lowered my pants right there in the hallway, took out the cock that was still hard and dripping, and grabbed it with the hand that still smelled like her, like her cunt, like her saliva. I stroked myself thinking about how she had looked up at me with open eyes, mouth full, tongue under the crown; about how she had asked me to put it deeper; about the noise her throat made when she gagged. I lasted thirty seconds, maybe less. I came with a dry heave, thick ropes splashing into my hand and onto the floor, and I stayed there for a while with my breathing broken, my pants around my ankles, and my hand full of semen. Then I sat on the sofa for a long while without moving.

The phone rang. A message from Mariela.

“Thanks for helping me with the boxes.”

I smiled. I answered her.

“Whenever you want to move things around again, let me know.”

It took her a minute to reply.

“My husband leaves for a trip on Thursday. And this time I’m really going to let you put it in all the way.”

And that was all.

***

All this was some time ago now. More happened after, of course, and other things happened before that I haven’t told either. The storage room wasn’t the first or the last. But that afternoon, in that little room that smelled like dust, with the badly placed lightbulb and the door barely shut, is the one I remember best. Maybe because we didn’t finish. Maybe because what doesn’t quite close never truly ends.

You? Anything with neighbors? Any storage room, any elevator, any hallway? I’m listening.