What Happened on the Last Loop of His Shift

That Thursday in February was unseasonably hot, and the city center was the usual chaos, only multiplied. I have no idea who thinks it’s a good idea to go out shopping at that hour, but I was the guilty one. I hate crowds, I hate that people don’t know where they’re walking, that they stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk as if the world were ending right there. I was in a rush, crossing items off a mental list, dodging shoulders, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was him. On my screen I’ve got him saved as “Honey Eyes,” because he has that impossible color that seems lit from within. I met him months ago and since then we’ve been that kind of people who understand each other with half a sentence. I answered without stopping.

—Where are you? —he asked.

—Right in the center, fighting half the city —I shot back.

—Stay there. I’m three blocks away.

Mateo drives one of the trams on the line that crosses downtown. At that hour he was finishing his route, with only a little left before he got to the terminal, turned around, and headed back to the starting point. On top of that, I’d been horny since morning, one of those urges that settle in without warning and don’t go away no matter what. So I quickened my pace, tucked away my bags as best I could, and planted myself at the stop just as his unit came into view around the curve.

I got on and sat near the cab, in that side seat where I could see him in profile. We started talking about anything and everything, about the day, the work, how unbearable the weather was. Mateo is just like me: direct, mocking, with that easy laugh that undoes you. At one point he nodded toward a passenger who had started flirting with a girl two seats ahead, clumsily as hell, and we both burst out laughing under our breath.

—Look at the pro —he murmured without moving his lips, eyes fixed on the track.

—Leave him be, he’s doing his best —I played along.

I love that about him. That we can be dying of laughter one second and the next I can have my breath cut off just from looking at his hands on the controls. He has big, calm hands that do everything with a precision that makes me nervous for reasons that have nothing to do with the tram.

We kept talking nonsense while the tram rolled on, but something in the air was different. Every so often he would catch my eye in the rearview mirror and I’d hold his gaze a second too long. No need to say anything. We’d been at it for a good while, sizing each other up, like two people who know perfectly well how this is going to end and decide to stretch the anticipation because it’s the best part.

The route emptied out. At each stop people got off and fewer got on, until by the time we reached the terminal we were practically alone. Mateo stopped the unit in the maneuvering yard, that closed-off area where the cars wait before going back into service. He took off his uniform cap, ran a hand through his hair, and looked at me through the mirror.

—I’ve got twelve minutes before I head out again —he said.

It wasn’t an innocent invitation. I knew it from his tone, from how his smile went loose. I’d known it too since the moment I got on.

***

There was another operator in the yard, one who had to take the unit back onto the line while Mateo took his break. Mateo spoke to him over the internal radio, in that half-coded language they use between them, as if I didn’t perfectly understand what he was saying. He asked him to move the car a few meters farther back, where the light was poorer and the platform cameras couldn’t quite focus properly. The other guy answered with a “copy” and a pause that said a lot more than the word.

We walked toward the back of the unit, where the windows were fogged up from the heat and no one outside could see us. My heart was pounding in my throat. It wasn’t exactly fear; it was that mix of shame and excitement that leaves your skin hypersensitive, as if your whole body were listening.

—Are you sure? —he asked in a low voice, even though he already had a hand on my waist.

In answer, I shoved him against one of the seats and knelt down in front of him. I slowly lowered his zipper, looking up at him from below, enjoying the way he clenched his jaw. I know what he likes. I know he likes it slow at first, to be teased, to be made to wait. I started with my tongue, unhurried, tracing him in full before taking him in my mouth.

—Like that —he exhaled, head thrown back—. Slowly.

I did as he wanted for a good while, until I noticed his legs tightening. Then I changed the rhythm, deeper, faster, until he couldn’t hold on to the posture of the calm man anymore. He grabbed my hair with both hands, not forcefully, with that urgency I know.

—Come here —he said, and lifted me off the floor with a gentle jerk.

He turned me around against the backrest of one of the double seats, shoved my clothes aside, and entered me in one go. I had to bite the back of my hand not to cry out. Pleasure hit me mixed with the raw adrenaline of knowing we were a few meters from a platform full of people, separated only by fogged-up glass and the luck of a camera blind spot.

—Shut up, shut up —he whispered in my ear, and the command only made me hotter.

He started moving with thrusts that alternated, some quick and others slow and deep, calculated to drive me insane. One of his hands held my hip and the other slid up under my T-shirt, finding my breast, playing with a slowness that contrasted with everything else. I could barely breathe. Truly, adrenaline weighs more than anything else: it turns every minute into an eternity and every touch into something electric.

I felt everything gathering in my belly, that tension that rises and rises without asking permission. I clenched my teeth on my own wrist and came silently, with a tremor that ran from the nape of my neck to my heels. My reaction lit him up; I could feel it in the way his breath caught against my neck.

—Turn around —he asked me.

No need to explain anything. I knelt again and finished him off with my mouth, looking at him, until he came with a muffled groan he tried to hide and couldn’t quite. I stayed still for a second, savoring the moment more than anything else, that strange intimacy of having shared something forbidden in the most unlikely place in the world.

***

Then came the part that always makes me laugh: the reconstruction. Mateo straightened his pants, put his uniform cap back on, and in a matter of seconds he was once again the spotless operator of the line. I ran my fingers through my hair, smoothed out my clothes, and took a deep breath so my face would stop giving me away. We looked at each other and both burst out laughing, that nervous laugh of people who have just pulled a huge prank and gotten away with it.

—You’ve got a look on your face —he told me, amused.

—So do you, and you’re the one who has to drive —I shot back.

We walked to the front of the unit as if nothing had happened. The other operator, the one who had moved the car to the back, was already there waiting to hand over the shift. He fell silent, with a half-smile he didn’t know or didn’t want to hide. He must have seen something on the monitors, or imagined it—doesn’t matter. Mateo patted him on the shoulder as he passed.

—Any day you’re feeling stressed, she can help you relax —he tossed off, nodding toward me, with a face full of innocence.

The poor guy turned red to his ears and I elbowed Mateo, dying of laughter and secondhand embarrassment. I got off at the next stop, picked up my bags from the seat where I’d abandoned them, and waved goodbye as the tram started up its route again, on time, as if the last twelve minutes had never existed.

I walked the remaining blocks with my legs still trembling and a smile I couldn’t wipe away. I passed the produce store, the pharmacy, finished the shopping I’d gone out to do. And while I waited in the checkout line, with people jostling each other and the heat clinging to my skin, I thought that no one around me could possibly imagine where I had just come from or what had just happened.

A woman in front of me was complaining about the price of tomatoes. A boy was arguing on the phone. A couple was picking out cookies as if it were the most important decision of the day. And there I was, right in the middle, my body still hot and the memory still fresh, feeling like I owned a huge secret in the middle of the most banal routine in the world. There’s something about that double life that fascinates me: being able to be, in the same body and on the same day, the ordinary woman who goes shopping and the one who drops to her knees without thinking in the most forbidden place.

That’s what I like most about him, I thought. That he turns an ordinary day into something I later don’t dare tell anyone about.

I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. I know that every time the phone rings and I see “Honey Eyes” on the screen, my pulse speeds up just like it did that Thursday. And that if he asks me again where I am, I’m going to answer the same as always: where I am, and wait for him to appear around the curve.