I Invited a Reader to the Movies and She Accepted My Game

I don’t write as often as others do. I’m not one of those who post a story every week; I need the idea to burn inside me until letting it out is the only way to find peace. Almost everything I tell is real, except when I say otherwise. This time it isn’t. And yet, since yesterday, I can’t think about anything else.

The best thing about publishing is not the story itself. It’s what comes after: the comments, the emails from people reading me alone, in bed, with one hand busy. It’s those words that make me come back and write again. One of those messages, received a few days ago, said something that stuck in me.

“Hi. I’m a huge fan of yours. I found you this morning and I haven’t been able to stop touching myself while reading you. I’m from Granada, just like you, as far as I can see. What a coincidence, right?”

Being as horny as I am, my mind didn’t take long to build scenarios. Out of all of them, there is one that comes back again and again. One specific way of meeting that reader whom, to protect her identity, I’m going to call Lúa.

I go to the website of one of the multiplexes downtown and look for a movie that, while it may have some name recognition, won’t fill the theater on a Tuesday afternoon. Something discreet, something that will leave us alone. I find one that seems perfect for the plan. I buy two tickets and the system shows me the seat map so I can choose. As I expected, there are only a few reservations and almost nobody in the back rows. I pick two seats together, in a secluded corner, and download both tickets.

I write to Lúa.

“Hi, Lúa. There’s something I didn’t tell in the last story: when I met that girl for the first time, I was eaten alive by nerves. It’s possible you’ll feel the same, and I’m sure it’ll happen to me again. So I’ve got an idea. I’m giving you this movie ticket. If you feel like it, come, sit next to me in a neutral place, and let’s let things unfold at their own pace. No rush. We can get to know each other.”

I attach the ticket that matches mine. I get no reply.

On the appointed day, I arrive at the cinema a bundle of nerves. I don’t know whether she’ll come, or even if she’s read the email. Doubt churns my stomach and I’m not sure this is a good idea. Worst case, I tell myself, I’ll have wasted an afternoon watching a bad movie alone. I go into the theater. There are more people than I expected, although half the seats are empty, especially along the sides and near my seat. Time goes by and the start time draws near. Every woman who comes in arrives with someone or in a group, and no one comes to my row. I start to assume Lúa isn’t going to show up.

The trailers begin, one after another, while the last stragglers come in. I’ve already stopped waiting, so I lean back, ready to watch the film. And then she appears.

Young, with generous curves, with a long, curly chestnut mane falling over a dress with a wide skirt. She’s carrying a sweater folded over her arms and a small black bag slung over her shoulder. She looks at her phone, then the row numbers, then the phone again. And she sees me. I know she’s seen me, because she looks away immediately. I think she’s just as embarrassed as I am, and still she keeps walking.

I don’t know what she thinks of my graying beard, or of the long hair I wear tied back in a ponytail. Maybe she hasn’t even noticed, because she comes almost straight toward me, avoiding my eyes. With a lot of nerves, and barely opening her mouth, she sits down beside me. I hear a soft “hi” hidden among the sounds she makes as she sets her bag and sweater on the empty seat on her other side. I catch a wonderful scent of shampoo. Lúa is nervous, but she looks at me, smiles, and looks away again.

We stay silent, staring ahead. I whisper in her ear that I’m very nervous and thank her for coming. She smiles and answers “you’re welcome” without turning all the way toward me. I realize she’s scanning me from head to toe as discreetly as the dim light allows. I do the same when she isn’t looking: eyes that seem green, restless lips she keeps biting, and nervous hands intertwined in her lap. I also notice her breasts, huge, impossible not to look at.

I’m starting to feel hot just as the movie begins. Neither of us dares take the first step. Minutes that feel endless pass before I move my leg and press my knee against hers. She answers by pressing hers back against mine. I bring my hand closer to hers and she turns it over, leaving the palm facing up.

That posture invites me to trace her palm with one finger, from the knuckles to the wrist, in long, slow strokes. We both sigh. It isn’t desire yet, it’s relief: that tiny gesture releases all the tension we’ve been holding. She places her other hand over mine and strokes it while I keep the slow rhythm, sliding beyond her wrist, a few centimeters up her forearm, and back the other way with my fingertip until I brush her knee.

Lúa adapts to the game. She takes her hand off her leg and starts stroking my arm, climbs to my shoulder and then down the inside of my arm to my wrist. These are gentle movements, hers and mine, the ones that slowly begin to heat us up. My fingers are already traveling from her knee to her groin and probing over the dress. She brushes my chest whenever she can, finds my nipple hardened under my T-shirt and toys with it.

I return the gesture by moving from one knee to the other, passing through the middle. In doing so, my wrist brushes her breasts: seated as she is, the contact is almost inevitable. I don’t take long to turn my hand to feel their weight. The first time she lets out a barely audible moan; the second she presses my hand against them over the fabric. She’s hardly wearing any bra with cups, so the feel of her skin is unmistakable. She slides her hand down my belly, toward my legs, and squeezes. I’m so hard it hurts, I need to readjust, but I feel too heated to move.

I keep stroking her thighs and, when I reach the middle, I feel her part her legs a little. That lets me go lower and feel the wet heat beating beneath the dress. She brings her hand to my crotch and, feeling me, squeezes gently. I start pressing her with my palm and she covers my hand with hers so I can press harder. I do the same, holding the hand she has on me. The two of us are crossing a point of no return in our arousal.

I move my hand away from her crotch and take it to her knee to gather the skirt with my fingers, slowly, until I reach bare skin. She goes for the button on my pants and tries to unfasten it without much success. I take a deep breath, give her a little slack, and at last it gives. I’ve already lifted her skirt enough to feel her thigh under my fingers. She’s burning hot. She’s wet. I feel her lowering my zipper and slipping her hand through the opening in my briefs, until she finds what she’s looking for, hot and dripping.

I let out an almost soundless sigh, because her fingers are soft, curious, exploring every inch and playing without hurry. Lúa sighs too: my fingers have reached the end of the journey, find the hair, and beyond it, the swollen clit, asking for attention. We both push our hips forward a little to make access easier. I stroke her lips, play to make them slick with the spring that rises from her, juicy and heady with an intoxicating scent, and I bring my fingers to my mouth again and again to go back for more of her taste.

She works me her own way. Sometimes she only circles the tip with slow rotations; other times she runs her hand over me from top to bottom; other times she masturbates me slowly, with a patience that drives me insane. I enter her with two fingers and feel her heat wrap around me, while she opens her legs so much she almost slides off the seat. With her free hand she frees one breast, squeezes it and pinches the nipple, which stands out in the center of a wide areola.

The movements become rougher with every minute that passes, and she starts moaning louder than she should. I cover her mouth with my free hand while she keeps gasping against my palm. I’m no longer stroking her only with my fingers: I press with my whole hand, from the hair to the end, and then comes the first spasm, and another, and another. She clamps her thighs together hard and traps my hand in a delicious torture, not letting me out but not wanting to lose the contact that makes her shudder. When she calms down, I take my fingers to her mouth and she licks them, mixing her taste with her saliva.

That tongue promises things I’d rather not imagine right now. And it’s precisely that image which, added to the speeding up of her fingers, pushes me to the edge. I come gritting my teeth, feeling myself spill between her hands while she watches my trembling with a smile of pleasure and keeps moving until she empties me completely.

We breathe. We give ourselves a few seconds’ rest. No one around us seems to have noticed a thing. She hands me a tissue to clean myself, but doesn’t take another for herself: she licks her hand clean, without taking her eyes off mine. It turns me on again. If we weren’t here, I’d tear her dress off to devour her whole. But I just look at her, with a face that says it all.

She pulls herself together. She leans in close to my ear.

—The movie is shit —she whispers—. But I’d watch it again without thinking twice.

She gets ready to stand and, before doing so, says goodbye with a kiss in which tongues, saliva, and the taste of what we’ve just done are mixed together.

—Next time we’ll meet in your car —she tells me.

She stands and leaves. A few minutes later, giving her space, I leave too. It’s true the movie was awful. But I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to watch it again.