What Happened That Afternoon on the Beach Between the Three of Them

The midday sun beat down hard on the almost empty cove. The sand burned under their feet, the sea was smooth as an oil slick, and not a breath of wind was stirring. They had come down with their boards over their shoulders, convinced they were going to surf, and had spent two hours staring at a horizon with not a single wave.

Diego and Rubén had known each other since university, from those years when they shared an apartment, hangovers, and a mute rivalry neither of them ever quite admitted. They were sprawled on their towels, half-naked, sweat shining on their chests and their breathing slow in the heat. Beside them, Carla was fanning herself with a folded magazine, the tight red bikini tracing every line of her body.

—What a shitty afternoon —Rubén muttered, opening a beer that was already warm—. No waves, no wind, nothing to do.

Carla let out a husky laugh and glanced at him sideways over the top of her sunglasses.

—Nothing to do? —she said, dragging out the words—. You’re complaining with a bored woman right next to you. What a waste.

She slowly propped herself up on her elbows. The movement shifted the top of her bikini just enough, barely a couple of centimeters, and neither of them looked away. She knew it. That was the point.

—I’m bored —she went on, lowering her voice a little—. And it’s so hot you can’t stand it. In every sense.

Diego turned his head toward her without trying to hide it. He could feel his heart battering against his ribs and, worse, he could feel his swim trunks starting to feel tight.

—In every sense how? —he asked, his voice rougher than he meant it to be.

She bit her lower lip. Then she crawled slowly over the sand until she was between the two of them, and laid an open hand on each of their thighs. Diego’s skin prickled under her fingers.

—The kind that makes a woman want to forget the rules for an afternoon —she said. Her fingers slid a few centimeters, barely brushing the taut fabric of their trunks—. What do you say? Shall the three of us get rid of the boredom?

The silence lasted two long seconds. Diego looked at Rubén. Rubén looked at Diego. And then Rubén laughed, a low, charged burst.

—Fuck, Carla… —he murmured—. If you mean it, I’m not going to say no.

Diego didn’t answer with words. He leaned in, cupped Carla’s nape, and kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss: it was hunger accumulated over years of half-jokes and glances that lingered one second too long. She kissed him back with the same intensity, opening her mouth, digging her nails into his shoulder.

There’s no turning back, he thought. And I don’t want there to be.

***

Diego’s hands found the knot of Carla’s bikini at her back and pulled. The fabric fell onto the towel. Rubén had moved in behind her, kissing her neck, the curve of her shoulder, while his fingers traveled down her stomach to the edge of the bottom piece. Carla threw her head back, resting it against Rubén’s chest, and let out a moan when he slid it down and left her completely naked under the sun.

—Sit down —she ordered, with a crooked smile.

Both of them obeyed. Carla knelt in the sand, facing them, and looked from one to the other for a moment like someone choosing between two dishes. Then she lowered both hands at once, one for each of them, and began to stroke them unhurriedly, weighing the heft, the heat, the response of each body. Diego clenched his teeth. Rubén muttered a curse under his breath.

She leaned in and started using her mouth, moving from one to the other, alternating, giving neither of them time to get used to it. Saliva gleamed on her chin, her hair fell over her face and, every time she lifted her gaze, she found the two friends staring at her with taut jaws.

—Stop —Diego said at last, his voice broken—. Stop or this’ll be over before it starts.

Carla laughed, pleased with her own power. The two of them turned her until she was on hands and knees, facing Rubén. Diego took position behind her. He held her by the hips, ran his hand over her sweat-damp back, and slowly, without taking his eyes off the way she arched, sank into her.

—God… —Carla moaned, letting her forehead drop to the towel.

Diego began to move with a slow rhythm that gradually gained force. Each thrust drove her forward, toward Rubén, who held her face in his hands and offered her his mouth. She took it, moaning, trapped between the two bodies, and for an instant the three of them found a cadence, a shared breath that filled the heavy cove air.

***

But there was something else in the air, something that had been floating between Diego and Rubén for years without either of them naming it. The looks in the locker rooms after playing paddle. The “accidental” brushes in the gym. The way they held each other’s gaze a second too long when they drank at night. Carla, between them, noticed it before they did. She noticed it in the way they sought each other out over her body.

—Don’t look at me —she said suddenly, panting, with a dangerous smile—. Look at each other.

Rubén lifted his gaze. He found Diego’s eyes just above Carla’s shoulder, and for once he didn’t look away.

—I want to try —he said softly, almost a whisper—. With you. I’ve always wanted to.

Diego went still for a moment, still inside Carla, his chest rising and falling.

—Do it —he replied, and the word came out as if it had been stuck in his throat for years.

Carla turned her head to look, and what she saw tore a different, deeper moan from her.

—Yes —she murmured—. Do it. I want to see it.

Rubén positioned himself behind Diego. He took his time, one hand on his friend’s lower back, reading every reaction, waiting for the signal. When he advanced, he did it slowly, attentive, stopping at the slightest sign of tension. Diego closed his eyes and let out a deep sound, a mix of discomfort and a new pleasure he hadn’t expected, and he felt his own arousal swell inside Carla, who cried out when she felt him harder.

And then the three of them moved in sequence. Rubén set the pace from behind, each of his thrusts transmitted to Diego, and Diego passed it on to Carla’s body. It was a current flowing from one to the next, a single movement running through three different bodies. Carla slipped one hand between her legs and touched herself, moaning louder and louder, no longer caring whether someone on the other end of the beach might hear them.

***

Sweat covered all three of them. The towel beneath them was soaked through. They changed position without words, guided only by instinct and hands. Diego lay back and Carla climbed on top, setting the pace herself, her hands pressed to his chest, her hair stuck to her face. Rubén knelt behind her, kissed her vertebra by vertebra, and asked her something in her ear. Carla nodded, biting her lip.

What came next left her breathless. Both friends filling every part of her at once, moving with a care that contrasted with the brutality of the heat and desire. Carla squeezed her eyelids shut, mouth open, trapped between the two male chests, feeling herself the exact center of everything.

—I’m not going to last —Rubén panted first, driving himself all the way in.

—Me neither —Diego growled from below, his hands sunk into Carla’s hips.

Rubén was the first to finish, with a long shiver that ran down his whole back and a muffled groan against Carla’s nape. That dragged Diego over the edge, and he arched beneath her with a hoarse sound. And Carla followed them both, undone between their bodies, shaken by an orgasm that left her trembling, clinging to one man’s arm and the other’s leg, no longer knowing where she began and where they ended.

***

They collapsed onto the towel, all three at once, their breathing ragged and their bodies sticky with sweat and sand. For a long while no one spoke. Only the lazy lap of the wave-less sea and the distant hum of a speedboat could be heard.

Carla was the first to laugh, a weak, satisfied laugh.

—Goodbye to boredom —she said, eyes closed—. Now that was a plan.

Rubén stretched an arm over her and ran his hand through Diego’s hair, without the rush or embarrassment from before. He gave him a slow kiss, almost calm, unlike anything that had happened minutes earlier.

—This was… —he began, and couldn’t find the word.

—Yeah —Diego answered, wrapping one arm around each of them—. No need to say it.

And this won’t be the last time, he thought. The three of us know that too.

The sun kept beating down hard on the cove. The sand kept burning, the sea stayed smooth, and not a single wave rose. But none of the three of them was complaining about the heat anymore.