What I Did with the Neighbor in My Mother’s Bed

I saw him for one afternoon only, on my way to the river, and that was enough. I had just turned twenty and was walking along the dusty path that ran beside the bank, with the sun beating down hard on the tall grass. Bruno had his back to me, by some willows, and he didn’t hear me coming. He was a lanky man, with tousled hair and an ordinary face, one of those faces nobody looks at twice in the neighborhood. But what I saw when he turned for a second stayed engraved in me like a red-hot iron.

He wasn’t handsome. He had nothing elegant about him. And yet that night, and every night after, I fell asleep thinking about him, with my hand between my legs, imagining a weight I didn’t yet know. It was one of those obsessions you don’t choose. They just settle in.

Back then I already had a certain reputation in the neighborhood. I’d dropped out of school, worked part-time at a notions shop downtown, and lived glued to my mother in a low-ceilinged house near the station. Let’s just say I had no trouble saying yes. One look, one promise whispered in the dark, and I could do anything. My body responded on its own, before my mind did: I was young, always hot, and desire drove me to seek out what other girls my age barely dared to imagine.

My mother was the same, only older and more experienced. Short, full-figured, she worked at the sausage factory and at night sometimes brought men home. I heard her through the wall: the sighs, the begging, the creak of the bed. I was never scandalized. On the contrary, in a way I understood her.

—Take care of yourself, daughter —she’d tell me when I came back with my underwear ruined—. Don’t let them treat you like a rag. And if they do, make sure it’s worth it.

That was her way of loving me: resigned and complicit all at once. More than once I came home with a torn garment, and she’d sigh, buy me another, and warn me I’d end up like her. She said it without reproach, almost tenderly.

***

It was my friend Carla who tipped me off. Carla was skinny, with very long black hair and a laugh you could hear from the other end of the square. One afternoon, while we were smoking in the shade of the wall by the store, she blurted out the news between laughs.

—Bruno’s been asking about you —she said—. He says he saw you bend over the other day and can’t get it out of his head.

As soon as she named him, that image by the river came back to me. I didn’t think twice.

—Tell your friend to let Bruno know —I told her, feeling the heat rise up my neck— that I’m wanting him too. That I’m ready.

Carla looked at me wide-eyed and then laughed.

—You really don’t waste any time.

No, I didn’t waste time. Life was too short to pretend I didn’t want what I wanted.

***

A few days later, Bruno ran into me on the street at dusk. The neighborhood was still: dogs barking in the distance, the air smelling of damp earth and firewood. He didn’t beat around the bush.

—I like you, Marina —he said, standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets—. I’ve wanted you for a while now.

My heart was pounding against my chest. I decided to play a little.

—And what were you planning to do about it?

He laughed, a slow, self-assured laugh, and took a step toward me.

—Whatever you want me to do.

I looked at his mouth, then his eyes, and lowered my voice.

—My mom won’t be back until nightfall. Want to come over?

He didn’t say a word. He just nodded, and that stillness of his made me more nervous than any words could have. We started walking toward my house, through the dusty streets, without touching, with a tension hanging between us like a storm about to break.

—I should warn you of one thing —he said along the way, without looking at me—. I’m not the kind who coddles. When I like a woman, I don’t hold back.

I’m not going to lie: it scared me a little. But the fear mixed with excitement in a way I’d never felt before, and by the time we got to the door I was already wet, my nipples showing through my yellow T-shirt.

***

I was wearing a short red skirt, and when we got there I came up with a silly little game. I dropped the key on purpose and bent slowly to pick it up, turning my back, letting the fabric ride up. Bruno didn’t wait. He put a hand between my legs with a firmness that almost sent me pitching forward, and I let out a moan I couldn’t hold back.

—So it was true what they said about you —he murmured against my nape—. You’re easy.

—Open the door —was all I could say.

We went inside. The cool evening air was slipping through the windows. Bruno hugged me from behind, pressing against me, his hot breath brushing my neck.

—I’ve been thinking about this for days —he said—. Where do you sleep?

—Let’s go to my mother’s room. The bed’s bigger.

It was a double bed, the only decent one in the house, where my mother received her men. I had imagined it occupied by others so many times that taking him there seemed like the most natural thing in the world, almost like destiny.

Bruno unbuttoned his pants and freed himself in front of me. I took him in my hand, hot and hard, and led him to the bedroom without letting go, as if he were on a leash. The smooth skin under my fingers made me hotter with every step.

When we got there, he shoved me face down onto the mattress and dropped on top of me. He bit my earlobe, licked my neck, spoke into my ear with that rough voice that made my skin prickle.

—They say you’re just like your mother —he whispered—. That neither of you ever gets tired.

I felt a little ashamed, because part of it was true, and another part of me —the one under him, opening for him— wanted him to keep talking.

***

He pushed himself up, took me gently by the hair, and turned me toward him. I took him in my mouth, and though I could barely take him in, I did it eagerly, slowly, looking up at him from below. Bruno closed his eyes and let out a growl. I liked that power: having a man like that, surrendered for a moment, at my mercy.

When he was satisfied, he put me on all fours on the bed. He yanked down my skirt and my underwear with even less delicacy; I heard the sound of fabric tearing and, for one absurd second, I thought about what my mother would say. Then I stopped thinking.

He opened me with a slow, deep thrust that tore a long moan from me. He held there for a moment, letting me feel everything, and then he started moving. He gripped my hips, squeezed my breasts under my T-shirt, talked nonstop.

—Is this what you were after? —he panted.

—Yes —I admitted, my face buried in the sheets—. Since I saw you.

The mattress creaked, evening was fading outside, and I was melting against him, letting myself be carried along by a rhythm I couldn’t control. He gave me a slap on the ass that left my skin burning, kissed my back between thrusts, alternating brutality with an unexpected tenderness that undid me more than any blow.

Suddenly he pulled out, turned me over, and came over my chest and my mouth in warm spurts while I looked him in the eyes. I swallowed what I could, licked the rest, and the two of us lay there soaked, out of breath.

***

He didn’t let me rest for long. After a while, still breathing hard, he asked me about my mother. He wanted to know if what people said about her was true, if I’d ever heard her, what she said. I understood at once what he was after: feeding on those images to get himself worked up again.

I played along. I made things up and told him things, a mix of what was real and what I imagined, and I saw him harden again as he listened. I even showed him one of my mother’s garments I found in the laundry basket and told him she’d worn it the night before with a man. It was a lie, but it worked. Bruno’s eyes lit up.

—Turn around —he told me then, in a different voice.

I knew what was coming, and my stomach clenched with fear and desire at the same time. I’d been with several men, but none like him. Even so, I didn’t back down. I got into position, trembling, and he took his time: he prepared me slowly, patiently, with saliva and fingers, until my body stopped resisting.

When he finally pushed in, I let out a cry that I muffled against the pillow. Bruno was slow at first, attentive to every reaction of mine, and only when he felt me give way did he allow himself to go deeper. He held me by the hips, spoke in my ear, begged me to hold on a little longer.

I confess, thirty years later and still with heat in my face, that that afternoon Bruno made me cry and beg him. But not from pain alone. It was something more confusing, more intense, that mix of surrender and vertigo you only feel once in a lifetime and never forget. When he finished, I collapsed onto the rumpled bed, empty and full at the same time.

***

He left a little before my mother came back, leaving me exhausted among the tangled sheets. I barely had time to tidy up the mess a little: the twisted bedspread, clothes on the floor, my body still marked by his hands.

My mother came home accompanied, as so many other nights, by a tall bearded man who smelled of tobacco and the factory. From my room I heard her discover the commotion in her bedroom.

—Marina —she called, half amused and half resigned—. Girl, again? Look what you’ve done to my bed. What’s the gentleman going to think of us?

I didn’t answer her. I stayed still in my narrow bed, my body sore and a foolish smile on my face, while through the wall the usual sighs started up again. I closed my eyes and, instead of feeling ashamed, let myself be lulled by them, thinking of Bruno, of the river, and that sooner or later I would go looking for him again.

Of all the confessions I keep, this is the one I’m least brave enough to say out loud. And yet it’s the one I remember most tenderly. We were young, we were alive, and for one afternoon the whole world fit inside my mother’s room.