What I Gave Him That Night at the Hotel

My name is Mariana, and I’m twenty-seven years old. I never thought I would write something like this, but there are nights that cling to you, and the only way to get rid of them is to tell them. This is one of those. It’s the night I gave Andrés the only thing I still had left for myself.

I met Andrés on a dating app almost a year ago. It wasn’t love, it never was, and we both knew that from the very first message. He was what people now call a friend with benefits, someone I saw now and then when my body demanded it and my mind let me be. I liked him more than I was willing to admit, and I think he knew it. That’s why he agreed to see me even if it was only to sleep with me.

There was only one thing I had always denied him. He had been insisting for months, in that way of his of asking for things that seemed like a game but wasn’t. He wanted more, he wanted what I had decided to save for someone who would one day want to stay with me. It was an old-fashioned idea, I know, but it was mine. I told him no and he laughed and tried again the following week.

That Monday I woke up restless. I don’t know how else to describe it: my body on fire from the morning on, my head everywhere except at work. By midafternoon I couldn’t take it anymore and wrote to him.

—I’ll see you at the usual place at seven —he replied right away, as if he’d been waiting.

—I’ll be there —I told him, and I turned off my phone before I could change my mind.

The hotel was the same as always, one of those discreet places on the edge of the city, with a white-lit reception desk and hallways that smelled of cheap disinfectant. I went up, opened the room with the key card, and sat on the edge of the bed to wait. An hour passed. Andrés still hadn’t arrived.

—I’m stuck in traffic, I’ll be there in five —he texted.

—Okay, I’ll be waiting and ready —I answered, and my own response surprised me.

Ready. Ready for what, exactly?

Ten more minutes passed before the door opened. He came in without apologizing, tie loosened, with that smile I knew by heart. He looked me up and down slowly, like someone checking something he already considered his.

—That’s how I like to find you —he said.

He kissed me before I could answer. It was a long kiss, unhurried at first and then ravenous, the kind that leaves you breathless. His hands ran down my back, lower, squeezing. He kicked a cushion onto the floor beside the bed and held my gaze until I understood what he wanted.

I knelt down. I knew him well, I knew his rhythm and what he liked, and for a few minutes I devoted myself to reminding him. He threw his head back and let out rough sounds that I liked dragging out of him.

—Keep going like that —he murmured—. No one does it like you.

He pulled me up by the arm and gently pushed me onto the mattress. He began to cover my whole body with his mouth, not skipping a single spot, and I writhed between shame and pleasure because there were areas I had never let anyone touch like that. It was a strange, almost uncomfortable mix of embarrassment and desire, and he noticed it right away.

—Tonight everything is mine —he said against my skin—. Say it.

—It’s yours —I answered, and I didn’t know where that voice came from, the one that sounded like it was surrendering.

***

What came after I remember in fragments, as if my memory had decided to protect some parts and leave others clear. I remember the weight of his body, the heat, the feeling of having no escape and not wanting one. He started slowly, or what he understood as slowly, and even so it hurt. I said it.

—Slower, please —I asked, my face buried in the pillow.

—You’re too tight —he replied, breathing hard—. Bear with it a little, relax.

He wouldn’t let me bite the pillow. He said he liked hearing me, that every sound I let escape turned him on more. I wavered between asking him to stop and asking him not to, because the uncomfortable truth is that part of me wanted to keep going, wanted to see how far that night I had chosen for myself would take me.

—You told me I was yours —he reminded me in my ear—. I’m not backing out now.

—It hurts —I insisted.

—It’ll stop hurting. Trust me.

And, against everything my head was screaming, I trusted him. I closed my eyes and stopped fighting the sensation. There was a moment, I couldn’t say when, when the pain began to turn into something else, into a dense, hot pressure that I no longer knew if I liked or feared, but that had me completely in its grip. He felt it. He knew it from the way I stopped tensing, from how my breathing changed rhythm.

—There it is —he whispered—. You’re already enjoying it.

I didn’t agree out loud, but I didn’t deny it either. My silence was all the answer he needed.

***

It went on for what was an eternity to me and, I suppose, a perfect instant to him. I had stopped thinking. There was no work, no Monday, no idea I had defended for so many months about saving myself for someone. There was only that hotel room, his voice, his body, and the feeling of having crossed a line I would never be able to cross again for the first time.

When he finished, he collapsed beside me and I stayed face down, feeling my body wrecked and a dull burn running through me. It was hard to believe what had just happened, what I had just allowed.

—You’re incredible —he said, stroking my back with a tenderness I hadn’t expected from him—. Are you okay?

—It hurts —I admitted in a faint voice—. A lot.

—It’ll pass —he answered, and kissed my shoulder—. I promise.

I got up with difficulty and went to the bathroom. I sat there for a moment, washed myself slowly, and when I touched myself I felt a burning that made me grit my teeth. I hadn’t enjoyed all of it, not in the clean, easy way he seemed to have experienced it. Mine was more complicated: a mix of pain, vertigo, surrender, and something like pride at having been able to let go of control. I looked at myself in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize myself.

When I went back into the room, he was stretched out on the bed with one arm behind his head, watching me.

—Come here —he said, and opened his arm so I could settle against his chest.

I hesitated for a second. Then I went.

We stayed like that for a long while, in silence, listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the cars that passed every so often on the road. His hand moved up and down my arm, slowly, and I thought about how strange it was to feel so cared for right after feeling so vulnerable. Andrés was not the man I was going to marry. He was nothing like what I had imagined for that moment I had protected for so long. And yet there he was, giving it to him.

—What are you thinking about? —he asked.

—About how I denied you this for months —I said—. And about how I don’t understand why today I said yes.

—Because you wanted to —he replied, without a trace of doubt—. The rest were excuses.

Maybe he was right. Maybe for months I had been building a romantic idea so I wouldn’t have to admit how simple it all was: that I wanted him, that I wanted him like that, and that the story I told myself about saving myself for someone special was just a way of not acknowledging it.

***

Later we showered together. The hot water eased the burn, and under the spray he held me from behind with a calm he hadn’t shown before. There was no rush, no more demands. Just his arms around me and his chin resting on my shoulder while the steam fogged the mirror.

—Next time will be easier for you —he said quietly.

—Who said there’s going to be a next time? —I answered, though we both knew there would be.

He laughed against my neck and didn’t press it. He didn’t need to.

He took me home when it was already night. The drive was quiet, with the radio on low and his hand on my knee at every traffic light. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to. When I got out in front of my building, he leaned toward the window.

—Text me when you get upstairs —he said.

The detail surprised me. Andrés never asked for things like that. I went upstairs, sent him a short message, and collapsed into my own bed, this time alone, my body still sore and my head spinning.

The burn stayed with me for almost two weeks. Every time I sat down, every time I walked too fast, I remembered it. And instead of regretting it like I thought I would, I found myself smiling at the most inappropriate moments, in the middle of a meeting or while grocery shopping, with the memory of that night appearing before me without warning.

It’s been months since then. Andrés and I still see each other, though something changed between us that neither of us dares to name. That night I stopped being the one who kept herself back and started being the one who allows herself. I don’t know if it was a good decision or a bad one. I only know it was mine, completely mine, and that for the first time in a long while I didn’t ask anyone’s permission to desire what I desired.

Another time, if I feel like it, I’ll tell you how it was the first time we were together. But that’s another story, and I’m not sure I’m ready to tell it yet.