What I Lived Through Beneath the Throne That Holy Wednesday

I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my friends, who were a meter away from me and never realized a thing. Not the women I share a pew with at church. I’ve kept it for years like one keeps a sweet sin, the kind a woman knows she’ll never confess.

But if that man were ever to read this, I know he’d remember those five minutes when the whole world stopped for the two of us. And above all, he’d remember what came after, when it was no longer five minutes, but an entire night fucking as if the world were going to end at dawn.

It was April. In my city, one of those small southern capitals, April means one thing only: Holy Week. Nothing compares to it here. My grandparents and my parents made sure I learned the traditions from childhood, not only to know them, but to live them, to feel them in my skin.

I, like every year, waited for those days with an excitement I hadn’t lost with age. I went out with my friends, all of us raised in the same neighborhood values and customs. We went from brotherhood houses to chapels and confraternities, spending the days leading up to the great processions.

When the good part started, there we were.

Dressed in our best clothes, because above all you had to look good, but without heels. So many hours standing and so many runs from one street to another weren’t done in stilettos. For the occasion, comfortable Converse solved the problem without ruining the outfit.

That night was Holy Wednesday.

From early on we were out in the streets of the old quarter. There was a lot to see and, if we wanted to take it all in, we had to start early. We went to meet the first brotherhoods, right at the front, watching the entire cortege from the guide cross to the last penitent walking behind the throne.

I had always been impressed by the passage of the thrones through the narrow alleys. My devotion came from far back, from my grandmother, from when, as a little girl, we waited in her neighborhood for the confraternity to come back. I still remember the thunder of the drums in my stomach, that tingle that left me restless.

Over the years, the restlessness changed nature. It was no longer a tingling in my stomach. It was something else, lower down, wetter, harder to hide under a dress.

I couldn’t help it. Those throne bearers, perfectly shaved, with their white shirts peeking out beneath the robe, arms crossed over their chests and the marks of exertion on their necks, so masculine, managed to soak my panties despite everything in front of me. I looked at them and imagined what they had under the faldón, the hard cock of a guy that strong, the big hands gripping my ass. It’s not that I didn’t admire the women who carried under the pole; my respect for them was total, it’s just that they didn’t awaken in me what the men did.

God forgive me, I thought, but I wasn’t praying for restraint exactly. I was praying for one of them to notice me and fuck me against a wall in the first dark alley.

That Wednesday finally gave a face and eyes to that desire.

We were watching the procession of the Christ of Forgiveness, one of the oldest brotherhoods in the city. It was moving along a street so narrow people could barely fit single file. My friends and I pressed ourselves against the wall to let the procession pass.

The nazarenes marched past us, handing out wax to the kids who begged for it at the top of their lungs. I found a fair-haired little girl with light eyes amusing; she stayed back from the group and, without moving, was the one they gave the most wax to. The others complained, being left, as we say here, with two candles to their name.

Behind the dalmatics came the throne, and I hadn’t noticed it until Marta, one of my friends, nudged me.

—Girl, stand straight, this one passes close by here.

The bell sounded. The smell of incense and the music wrapped around the moment. The costaleros were making an almost inhuman effort to keep the sway short and avoid hitting the walls. The throne moved slowly, with a steady rocking motion, and the street surrendered in applause.

My heart was pounding. It was one of those moments the city gives you without warning.

Then the foreman gave two bell strikes and stopped the throne right at our height. The third meant they were lowering it so the men could rest before taking the curve.

Given how narrow the space was, it was easy to guess what was going to happen: once it stopped, we would be trapped between the wall and the throne bearers. That made me nervous. I felt my pulse race, anticipating something I still didn’t know how to name.

The last bell sounded and the throne descended.

I hadn’t noticed the man standing right in front of me. When they stepped down from the pole, a scent wrapped around me all at once, a mixture of rosemary and wood, an expensive perfume I couldn’t identify. What I did know was that that presence was undoing me, making me feel things that had nothing to do with the sacred image behind him. My nipples hardened under the dress all at once, and I felt a hot tug go straight down to my cunt.

I tried to move aside to make room for him, but he didn’t seem to need it. He planted both hands on the wall, one on each side of my head, above my shoulders, trapping me between his body and the cold stone. And he smiled.

I didn’t want to look him in the eyes, so I fixed my gaze on the ground. With a gesture that had more of a gentleman than a bold man in it, he took my chin and lifted my face toward his.

—Let me see those eyes.

I knew what he was asking for. And when I met his gaze, I felt the world stop.

Green eyes, deep as a well, caught me harder than the scent, harder than the music, harder than the whole night. I lost myself in them. I stopped hearing the band, stopped noticing any smell that wasn’t his. I forgot where I was, forgot the Christ, forgot my friends. Only he existed.

The same thing was happening to him. He had his eyes fixed on my mouth, as if he’d been hungry to devour it whole for hours, to shove it down my throat.

I swallowed, wishing he would. Wishing time and space would vanish and we wouldn’t be there, right in the middle of the procession. We both wanted it. But it couldn’t be.

His hand slid down my side and brushed my waist, right at the small of it, pulling me toward him. Through the dress I could feel his hard cock pressing against my stomach. Hard, thick, clenched inside the dark trousers. I almost let out a moan. A scant few centimeters from my ear, he whispered:

—For the Christ behind you… don’t move, because I can’t be held responsible. I swear I’ll shove it in right here if you move even an inch.

I held my breath. And against everything reason was asking of me, I moved my hip a little, barely anything, just enough to rub against that hard cock. He closed his eyes for a second, as if I’d shocked him.

—Whore, he whispered, with a half-broken smile, you’re going to make me come in my trousers in front of the Christ.

When the first exit bell rang, my body clung to his without permission, sensing he was leaving. I felt his hand slide over the curve of my ass, following the line my thong was making beneath the dress. He squeezed my ass with his open hand, shamelessly, and held me there for a long moment, marking me. It wasn’t a casual touch. It was a warning, and a promise. Before letting go, his fingers dropped a little lower, found the wet fabric of the thong between my legs and brushed it over the dress.

—You’re soaked, he whispered.

—Shut up, I answered, my voice trembling.

He laughed softly, very close to my ear, and nipped my earlobe for an instant before stepping away.

It was five minutes. Five minutes that stopped time for us alone.

After that, the throne was lifted and carried him up the street, and I stayed trembling against the wall with my heart about to burst out of my chest and my thong so wet I could feel it stuck to my skin. Marta asked if I was okay. I lied. I told her it was the emotion of the moment.

The rest of the night was never the same. We finished watching the processions, but with every throne that passed, I looked for him. Those men under the poles no longer moved me. I needed him, the stranger with green eyes who had bewitched me in five minutes, who left my cunt throbbing under the dress with every step I took.

***

After the procession of Forgiveness ended, there I was. On a corner opposite the brotherhood house, away from the noise, waiting with the foolish hope that it had been something more than a coincidence.

I waited for the crowd to thin out. When the doors of the throne hall closed, I felt my hopes go out along with the lanterns on the façade.

—Don’t be stupid, Lucía, I told myself. That was just flirting, a product of the situation.

And then, when I turned after one last look, I saw him.

He was standing in front of me, already dressed in street clothes, with the exact same smile he’d had when fate stopped that throne. He was holding a flower. He gave it to me just before kissing me.

—I was waiting for you, I told him, stroking his cheek.

—I would have looked for you all night, he replied, brushing my lips with his.

The kiss wasn’t shy. It was the kind that starts slowly and ends with you breathless, with his tongue deep inside and him tasting my mouth as if it belonged to him. He held the back of my neck with one hand while the other returned to my waist, dropped again to my ass and pulled me against him so I could feel properly what he had hard between his legs. I let myself go against him, indifferent to who might be watching us in that empty street.

—You haven’t told me your name, I murmured against his mouth.

—Daniel, he said. And I live right over there. Come with me. If I don’t take you to bed right now, I’ll go crazy.

I didn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I took his hand and let him lead me.

***

The apartment was two streets away, in an old building with iron balconies. We went up in silence, with that tension you can almost chew when both people know exactly what’s going to happen and neither dares say it out loud. On the landing he kissed me again, gently pushing me against the door while he fumbled for the keys. His hand slipped under the dress, squeezed one thigh, then climbed without asking permission to the thong and ran his fingers over it.

—You’re still soaked, he murmured against my neck. You’ve been soaked since the procession, haven’t you, slut?

—Yes, I admitted, barely able to speak. Open the fucking door.

Inside it smelled of the same wood as he did. He didn’t turn on all the lights, only a low lamp that left half the room in shadow.

—I’ve been thinking about this all night, he confessed, taking off his jacket. About how you were going to come for me.

—And I, I admitted, surprised by how little it cost me to say it. I’ve thought about your cock ever since I felt how hard you had it against my stomach.

His eyes darkened. He drew me to him by the waist and kissed me again, this time unhurriedly, taking his time. His hands slid down my back to the hem of the dress and began to lift it slowly, his fingertips brushing my thighs. I raised my arms and let him take it off over my head.

He looked at me for a moment, in my underwear, with that same hunger in the green eyes I’d seen in the street. I was wearing a black lace bra and a matching thong, ridiculously small, soaked at the crotch, with the dark stain showing without mercy.

—You’re beautiful, he said, and it didn’t sound like a cliché. And you’re so fucking wet. Look at what you’ve done to that thong.

He ran two fingers over the fabric, pressing exactly where I needed him, and I pushed my hips toward him without realizing it.

—I can’t take it anymore, Daniel.

—Yes, you can, he replied. You’re going to take whatever I want you to.

I unbuttoned his shirt button by button, with clumsy fingers. Underneath was the body I had imagined beneath the pole: broad shoulders, a firm chest, the marks of having carried the throne. I ran my hands over him, feeling him breathe deeper under my touch. I dropped one hand to his belt, unfastened it, and undid the button of his trousers. When I slipped my hand into his briefs and grabbed his cock, thick, hard, hot, throbbing in my palm, a gasp escaped him.

—Fuck, Lucía…

I knelt without thinking. I yanked down his trousers and briefs and looked at it for a second, fat, rigid, the head shining with the droplet that had already escaped. I took it by the base and shoved it into my mouth as far as I could, sucking the whole length, hollowing my cheeks, and he let out a curse that echoed off the walls.

—Ah… like that, like that… take it deeper…

I sucked him slowly, sliding him over my tongue, pulling back to lick the head in circles, to run the tip of my tongue underneath, to swallow him again until he was pressing into my throat and tears sprang to my eyes. I looked up at him from below, mouth full, and he grabbed my hair with both hands, setting the rhythm, fucking my mouth slowly.

—You suck it so well, fuck, you suck it so well… but stop, stop or I’m going to come and I don’t want to come yet.

He pulled his cock out of my mouth almost by force, with a wet sound. He hauled me up by the hair, kissed me like an animal, tasting himself on my tongue, and carried me to the bed and laid me down on it. He started at my neck, moving his mouth down my collarbone, down the center of my chest, pausing to unclasp my bra with one hand. When his tongue found one nipple, I arched my back and a sound escaped me that I didn’t recognize as my own.

He sucked my nipples one after the other, bit them just enough to make me writhe, tugged them between his teeth until I heard myself moaning his name under my breath. He kept going down. He kissed my stomach, my hips, the insides of my thighs, taking his time to make me wait. He pulled off my thong, the same one he had brushed in the middle of the procession, dragging it down my legs, and let it fall to the floor.

He opened my thighs with both hands, without delicacy, looking at my pussy spread open in the dim light.

—You’re dripping, Lucía. It’s run all the way down to your ass.

He ran one finger through the entire slit, bottom to top, gathering my slick, and took it into his mouth without taking his eyes off me.

—My God, I murmured.

—God has nothing to do here.

And he buried his face between my legs.

When his mouth got where I needed it, I stopped thinking altogether. He was patient, he knew what he was doing, and he read every reaction in my body to keep insisting exactly where it mattered. He sucked my clit with his lips, circled it with his tongue, let it breathe for an instant and attacked it again. He slipped two fingers into my cunt and started moving them inside, curved, seeking the spot that made my hips lift off the bed on their own. I grabbed the sheet with both hands. I begged him not to stop, and he didn’t. He licked me, sucked me, fucked me with his fingers while devouring me, until pleasure coursed through me like a jolt and I had to bite my lip not to wake the whole building. I came in his mouth trembling, crushing his head between my thighs, and he kept sucking me softly through the last spasm.

—Now you, I said, still breathless, pulling him upward. Now I want that cock inside.

I finished taking off his clothes. I shoved him backward onto the mattress and climbed on top, straddling him, feeling him hard against me. I took a moment, looking into those green eyes that had been chasing me all night. I took his cock in my hand, rubbed it for a moment against my soaked pussy, ran it over my clit making him groan, and finally placed it at my entrance and sank down slowly, letting it enter centimeter by centimeter.

We both held our breath at once. It was so thick it hurt a little at first, in the best possible way, opening me, filling me to the bottom. When I was seated all the way down on him, with his entire cock inside, a long moan escaped me.

—Fuck… it’s so big…

—Move, he panted. Ride me.

I moved slowly at first, setting the rhythm myself, going up and down gradually to feel it slide out and go back in whole. I watched his face, how his jaw tightened every time I came all the way down, how he clenched his teeth when I deliberately squeezed my cunt around his cock. I leaned forward, hands braced on his chest, and began to bounce harder, faster, my tits jumping in front of his face. He watched my tits and stuck out his tongue to lick one nipple while I rode him.

—Like that, like that, don’t stop, slut, ride that cock —he growled. You fuck so well, fuck, you fuck so well.

He held my hips, guiding me, digging his fingers into my skin, until he couldn’t take it anymore and rolled us so he was on top. He spread my legs wide, threw them over his shoulders, and sank all the way in with one thrust.

—Aaah, Daniel… —I screamed.

Then the rhythm changed, becoming deep and steady, like the sway of that throne that had brought us together. He fucked me with long thrusts, pulling almost all the way out and driving back in to the hilt, his pelvis slamming against mine with every push. The bed protested against the wall and neither of us cared. He bent down, kissed me while he moved, drowning my gasps in his mouth. I dug my nails into his back until I left marks.

—Get on all fours —he ordered suddenly, pulling out.

I obeyed without thinking. I turned over, braced myself on my hands, arched my ass toward him. I felt him get behind me, grab my hips and slam back into me with one push. From there he reached deeper, more brutally. I heard him spit and felt the spit land where we joined, and then one of his fingers probing my ass, pressing it just as his cock entered.

—You’re killing me, I moaned, my face against the pillow.

—Not yet, he said, slapping my ass hard enough to make me squeeze his cock inside without meaning to. You’ve still got plenty left for tonight.

He drove into me like that, hard, dry, his fingers squeezing my ass and never stopping fucking me as if he hated me, until he tore my second orgasm out of me with my face buried in the pillow. I screamed into the fabric, trembling all around his cock, clenching it with spasms.

—Now you, come now —I begged when I could speak. Come inside, Daniel, I want to feel it.

He turned me again, laid me back on my stomach, slipped between my legs and kept going, faster, more desperate, pounding me without rhythm, looking for the end. I wrapped my legs around his back, dug my heels into his ass to pull him all the way in, so he would stay buried to the hilt when he blew.

—Come for me, my love, come for me, I whispered in his ear. Fill me up completely.

And he let go with me, with a rough groan against my neck, holding me so tightly that for a moment I felt the world stop again, just like in the street. I felt his cock throbbing inside me perfectly, pulse after pulse, filling me with hot semen until I overflowed.

Afterward we lay still, tangled together, catching our breath in the dimness, with him still inside me and his cum running down my thighs.

—What if the throne hadn’t stopped right there? —I asked, tracing a line across his chest with my finger.

—I would have found you anyway, he said. I saw you from the pole long before the bell. And I swear I was going to drag myself after you even if I had to leave the throne lying there.

I laughed against his shoulder. Outside, far away, the marches of other brotherhoods crossing the city were still sounding. That night I didn’t hear them the same way anymore. The truth is I barely heard them, because he was already hard again inside me, starting to move very slowly, and I was opening my legs once more, with no intention of sleeping.

That was years ago. Daniel and I didn’t end up together, life and all that, but every Holy Wednesday, when the Christ of Forgiveness passes through that narrow street and a throne stops to catch its breath, I press myself to the wall and close my eyes.

And for five minutes, time stops again just for us.