The Beers on the Beach and the Threesome We Imagined

They had spent four summers going together to the same beach, always the same apartment on the seafront, always the same rituals: the first day’s grocery run, the nighttime walk along the promenade, the obligatory argument over which beach bar had the least unbearable music. Marcos and Diego had known each other since secondary school. Eloísa and Valeria had become friends later, almost by inertia, and by now it was impossible to imagine August any other way.

Four people who know each other too well have a peculiar way of relating on holiday. In October, when the year went back to its usual course, each of them became a more orderly version of themselves: work, commitments, the discreet routine that keeps things in place. But August dissolved all that. Schedules disappeared. Clothing was minimal. And certain looks that went unnoticed for the rest of the year here became harder to ignore.

That midday the four towels occupied the same spot as always, a little away from the shoreline, with the umbrella tilted to the left so the shade fell where it was needed most. Eloísa and Valeria had been in the water for quite a while already, farther out now, with the waves reaching their shoulders. They moved with the ease of people who no longer have any spectator in mind, talking to each other with a concentration that needed no witnesses.

Marcos watched them from his towel without realizing he was doing it. The beer can he was holding had gone several minutes without reaching his mouth. When he noticed, it was already warm.

—This one’s no good anymore —he said, sitting up abruptly and shaking the sand off his forearms.

Diego opened one eye from beneath the fabric hat he wore every summer, now in an advanced state of disrepair.

—What?

—The beer. It’s warm.

Diego assessed the effort involved in moving and seemed not to find any solid arguments against it.

—Shall we go to the beach bar?

—I’m going to get something cold. You coming?

Diego sat up without saying anything else. Both of them looked toward the water for a moment before standing. Eloísa and Valeria were still there, indifferent to the sun and the passage of time, completely oblivious to the beach around them. They moved in sync, as always, as if they had spent their whole lives speaking the same language and never needed to catch up.

—We won’t be long —murmured Diego, almost to himself.

Marcos was already on his feet.

—I don’t think they’ll miss us.

They walked over the hot sand with that relaxed gait of people in no hurry, but perhaps with an intention they still hadn’t fully put into words.

***

The beach bar was called El Ancla. A wood-and-canvas structure that had been in the same spot for several summers and somehow held out against everything: storms, tourists, the slow wear of the seasons. There were four high tables outside and a long shaded counter where several bathers were consuming their drinks unhurriedly. Behind the bar, a man in his late fifties, with graying hair and a T-shirt with the place’s name embroidered on the pocket, served them as soon as they stepped onto the wooden deck.

—Two very cold beers —Marcos ordered—. If possible, the kind that make you want to stay.

The man, whose nametag said Gerardo, nodded without making any unnecessary comments. He took two bottles from the fridge and set them on the counter with the precise gesture of someone who has done the same thing for decades without ever losing the craft.

Marcos took the first sip almost before the bottle touched the wood. The difference from the can before was like the difference between a cold shower and a tap that only runs warm water.

—That’s better.

Diego drank more slowly, with his elbows on the counter and his gaze fixed on the stretch of beach visible from the bar. From there you could see almost everything: the shore, the constant movement of the water, the two figures they had left behind among the waves.

The silence between them lasted as long as a first sip.

—They’re not bad today —Marcos said suddenly.

Diego didn’t ask who he meant. It was one of those sentences that need no subject when you’ve known each other long enough.

—They never have been.

—Yeah. But today there’s something different.

Diego set the bottle down on the bar for a moment, looking out at the sea.

—The context —he said at last.

—Exactly. Everything looks different here.

—Or you let yourself see it differently —Diego added.

Marcos nodded slowly.

—Same thing.

***

Gerardo pretended to rearrange glasses at the end of the bar with that discreet skill bartenders have when they’ve learned how to be there without being there. He didn’t intrude, but he wasn’t the sort of man who missed the nuances of a conversation when he was working half a meter away.

—Have you noticed how Eloísa was moving today? —Marcos asked.

Diego took a moment.

—Yes.

—That swimsuit.

—Yes.

—It’s no accident. She knows exactly what she’s doing when she chooses something like that. Everything shows. Her cunt, her tits, her whole ass. And she knows it does.

Diego didn’t deny it. He took another swallow of beer and then set the bottle carefully on the bar.

—She’s always known —he said—. Since I met her, that hasn’t changed.

Marcos nodded. There was a pause of the kind that settles in when a conversation has crossed a line without anyone needing to cross it explicitly.

—And Valeria…

Diego turned slightly toward him.

—What about Valeria?

Marcos shrugged, with a half-smile that wasn’t apologetic.

—That she seems not to. But she does too.

—Be more specific.

—That she has an ass I’ve spent four years trying not to look at and failing. And that when she comes out of the water and her panties stick to her cunt, anyone with eyes can see what’s underneath. It’s not the most obvious thing in the world, but when you watch her move, or when she laughs in that way she has, glancing at you sideways…

He let the air out slowly.

—There’s something there. And it turns me on.

Diego didn’t answer at once. He looked again toward the beach, toward that vague point among the waves where the two figures moved slowly.

—I know —he said finally.

Marcos looked at him.

—Of course you do.

The silence that followed was not uncomfortable, quite the opposite. The kind that confirms two people are thinking the same thing without needing to say it.

—We’ve spent a lot of time being very proper about this —Marcos said.

—Proper?

—Correct. Measured. —He made a vague gesture with his hand—. Very much within the lines.

Diego gave a short laugh.

—And that’s a problem?

—I didn’t say it was a problem. I said it was an observation.

—What’s the difference?

Marcos thought about it for a moment.

—A problem needs a solution. An observation only needs honesty.

Diego drank. Marcos did too.

—Do you think Eloísa doesn’t know how you look at her? —Marcos asked.

—Eloísa notices everything —Diego said—. Always. She’s the sort of person who misses nothing even when she pretends to.

—Exactly. —Marcos set down the bottle—. And if she notices and says nothing, it’s because it isn’t as uncomfortable for her as we assume.

Diego looked at him for a moment with that expression of someone deciding whether to keep going or stop.

—Or because it is uncomfortable and that’s exactly why she ignores it.

—That could be too.

—Then we know nothing.

—We know enough. —Marcos leaned slightly toward him, lowering his voice without any real intention of hiding—. We know they’re two intelligent women. And that they’ve spent four years coming here with us every August without anyone saying a word out loud. That’s a fact too.

Diego considered it for a moment.

—Or it’s a fact. Or it’s simply that nobody wants to ruin something that works.

—And if it worked better? What if it worked with the two of them spread open on the same bed and the two of us fucking them?

Diego didn’t answer right away. He took a long sip. Then he set the bottle down on the bar with more care than necessary.

—Nobody knows that until it happens —he said.

—No. But nobody knows it if it doesn’t happen either.

***

Gerardo came over under the pretense of clearing away a glass that didn’t need clearing away.

—Another round? —he asked.

—Yes —said Marcos.

Diego nodded without saying anything. The bartender put two new bottles on the counter and was about to walk off, but he stopped for a second.

—There are things —he said, in a neutral tone that sought neither to advise nor to judge— that are better left where they are.

Marcos looked at him.

—Why?

—Because once they come out, they no longer fit where they used to.

Marcos nodded slowly.

—The same thing happens when you don’t say them. What’s left unsaid still takes up space. And sometimes that space fills up so much there’s no room for anything else.

Gerardo considered that for a few seconds with an expression hard to classify. Then he shrugged and moved away without adding anything else, with that practical elegance of someone who knows when a conversation no longer needs him.

Diego waited until he was out of earshot.

—He’s not entirely wrong.

—No —Marcos granted—. But he’s not entirely right either.

—So what exactly do you propose?

—For the moment, nothing concrete. —Marcos looked toward the beach—. I propose we stop pretending we’re not thinking what we’re thinking. That’s all. The rest will show itself.

—And if they don’t think the same?

—Then we’ll have been wrong with elegance —Marcos said—. But if they do think the same and we say nothing, we’ll have spent another August being very proper and very boring.

Diego looked at him for a moment.

—When did all this occur to you?

—I think I’ve always known. —He shrugged—. Today I’m just hot, the beer is cold, my dick has been pulling at my pants all afternoon and I don’t have the energy left to pretend otherwise.

Diego let out a short, genuine laugh.

—You’re a very strange person.

—And you’ve spent four years on holiday with a very strange person. So that says something about you.

***

They asked for the bill. Gerardo left it on the counter without saying anything, though when Marcos turned to leave he had the sense the man was watching him with that slightly ironic expression of someone who has seen all this before and knows, more or less, how it ends.

They stepped out into the sun.

The afternoon was already at that golden point those last hours have before people start thinking about the shower and dinner. The light came in from the side and made everything seem a little more cinematic than it was: the sand, the umbrellas, the slow movement of the shore. There was something about that kind of light that made certain things that would have seemed exaggerated in the morning feel, instead, completely reasonable.

They walked without hurrying.

—There’s a whole afternoon ahead —Marcos said.

—And dinner after that —Diego added.

—And a night.

Diego didn’t answer, but it wasn’t necessary.

***

When they approached the towels, they saw that Eloísa and Valeria had already come out of the water. They were lying side by side, their wet hair spreading over the fabric and their eyes closed. From a distance they looked asleep, but Marcos knew Eloísa too well to believe it.

Sure enough, when he stepped onto the sand beside her towel, she opened her eyes. And the look she gave him was one second slower than an ordinary Tuesday-October look would have been. It wasn’t a look of reproach or innocent curiosity. It was the look of someone who has been thinking about something for a while and has just confirmed the other person has been thinking about it too.

—You took your time —she said.

—We got distracted.

—By what?

—Talking.

Eloísa watched him for a moment without answering. Then she looked at Diego, who was sitting down beside Valeria. And then she looked at Valeria, who had also opened her eyes. Something passed in that exchange of glances that Marcos couldn’t quite decipher, but which didn’t seem to need immediate translation either.

—What were you talking about? —Valeria asked.

Diego put on his sunglasses before answering.

—The heat.

Valeria smiled very slightly, with one corner of her mouth, without fully opening her eyes. Eloísa did too. It was the kind of smile two people share when they’ve just confirmed something they already knew, something they had been waiting for without knowing exactly whether it would come.

—The heat —Eloísa repeated, in a tone that wasn’t a question.

—The heat —Marcos confirmed.

Eloísa nodded slowly. Then she turned over on the towel, her back to the sun, and closed her eyes again. But there was something different in her posture. A relaxation that wasn’t the relaxation of someone falling asleep, but of someone deciding to wait.

The afternoon was still there, long and golden, with hours left ahead.

***

They stayed that way until the sun really began to go down. Every small gesture silently confirmed what had already been said without being said at the beach bar: Eloísa changing position so her hip stood out more against the swimsuit, Valeria stretching with her arms above her head until her tits lifted a finger’s width beneath the wet fabric, Diego spreading bronzing oil with a new delay over each of their backs, pausing at the curve of an ass a second too long before withdrawing his hand.

They went back to the apartment when the light started to tint orange. The four of them went up together, towels over their shoulders and salt drying on their skin, with that soft laughter that appears when the body already knows something the mouth still hasn’t said.

—I’ll shower first —Valeria said.

—I’ll go after —said Eloísa, not looking at anyone in particular.

The water ran for quite a while. The two men stayed in the living room, each with a beer fresh from the fridge, saying very little. There was no need. The bathroom door opened and closed, and every time one of them came out —wrapped in a towel, with wet hair sticking to her neck, with skin slightly reddened by the afternoon sun—the pending conversation between the four of them grew a degree denser.

They had dinner on the terrace. Someone opened a second bottle of red wine without discussing it. A warm breeze came in from the sea. Eloísa was wearing a short white dress, with nothing underneath that Marcos could make out beneath the fabric when she leaned forward to serve. Valeria had put on a long tank top that reached mid-thigh, and every time she crossed her legs Diego followed the gesture with his eyes without hiding it, searching for the gap between her thighs.

At some point —when the second bottle was halfway gone— Eloísa rested her chin on her hand and looked at the three of them, one by one, very slowly.

—Are we going to keep pretending until September —she said—, or are we going to talk at last?

Valeria gave a brief laugh, unsurprised.

—I thought you’d take longer.

—I thought I’d take less —Eloísa said.

Marcos set down his glass very slowly. Diego leaned back in his chair, not in defense but like someone accepting what he already knew.

—What exactly do you want? —Valeria asked, looking at both of them.

—I think the same as you —Marcos said.

—Be more specific —Eloísa said.

Marcos thought about it for barely a second.

—I want to fuck you —he said—. And I want Diego to fuck Valeria. And I want the two of you to watch. And then I want to switch. That’s it. That’s the specific.

There was a very short silence. Eloísa pressed her lips together slightly, not in scandal but like someone who has just heard exactly what she was waiting to hear. Valeria looked at Diego. Diego nodded without saying anything.

—Okay —Eloísa said.

—Okay —Valeria said.

And there was no more discussion.

***

They got up from the table leaving the plates half-finished. Eloísa was the first to go into the main bedroom, and the other three followed behind. The bed was large, with white sheets tangled from the heat of the day. Valeria turned on the bedside lamp and left it at its lowest setting, that warm yellow light that makes skin look like a different material.

Eloísa pulled the dress off in one movement, tossing it to the floor without caring where it landed. She was naked underneath, as Marcos had suspected all through dinner, with her nipples already hard and the hair of her pubis trimmed into a fine line pointing straight to her cunt. She came up to Marcos, took his face in both hands and pushed her tongue into his mouth without ceremony, shoving him toward the edge of the bed while she unbuttoned his trousers.

—Everything off —she told him against his lips—. Now.

Marcos stripped off his shirt and trousers without stopping kissing her. His dick had been hard since before he climbed the apartment stairs, and when she pulled down his briefs and took him in her hand, squeezing him from base to tip and giving him a couple of slow shakes, he let out a gasp Diego heard perfectly from the other side of the bed.

—Fuck —murmured Eloísa, looking at it—. You’ve got a better one than I imagined.

—You imagined it?

—Many times.

On the other side, Valeria had taken off her T-shirt and panties and was kneeling on the bed in front of Diego, who was also undressing while standing. Her tits were smaller than Eloísa’s, with dark, very erect nipples, and a patch of dark blond hair between her legs that Diego had been imagining for four summers without allowing himself to imagine it. When he pulled down his trousers and she saw his cock already hard, she licked her lips without a trace of shame.

—Come here —she told him, tugging his wrist.

Diego climbed onto the bed and Valeria took his dick in both hands, looking him in the eyes as she brought her mouth to it. She took him in slowly, first just the tip, sucking with closed lips, bringing out her tongue to lick the head in slow circles. Then she took him farther and farther, until halfway, until the base, choking only slightly and coming back up with a thread of saliva hanging from her lip. Diego put a hand on her nape, not pushing, just feeling how she set the pace. Every time she took him all the way and squeezed his balls with her other hand, he let out a short growl that mixed with the sounds coming from the other side of the bed.

Because on the other side Eloísa had made Marcos lie on his back and climbed on top of him, astride his face, with her knees on either side of his head. Marcos grabbed her ass with both hands and pulled her down, burying his tongue between the lips of her already wet cunt, sucking her clit hungrily, pushing it in, coming out, going back up. Eloísa threw her head back and moaned without shame, moving her hips against his mouth, fucking his face at the rhythm she wanted.

—Like that —she gasped—. Just like that. Don’t stop, fuck, don’t stop.

Marcos didn’t stop. He licked her cunt all over, top to bottom, lingered on the clit making circles with the tip of his tongue, slipped two fingers inside her while continuing to suck. Eloísa braced herself on the headboard with one hand and with the other grabbed a tit, squeezing it, pinching her nipple. When she lifted her gaze, it met Valeria’s, who held her eyes with Diego’s cock still in her mouth. They smiled at each other, complicit, without stopping what they were doing.

—I’m going to come —Eloísa announced after a while, her voice broken—. Marcos, fuck, I’m going to come in your mouth.

And she came, her legs closing around his head, her thighs trembling, pressing her cunt to his mouth until Marcos could almost not breathe. She kept him there a few seconds longer, soaking his face, before collapsing beside him, panting.

—Now you —she told him, almost voiceless—. Now you, I want you inside me already.

She turned onto all fours, ass raised and back arched, offering herself. Marcos knelt behind her and grabbed her hips. He ran his dick a couple of times along the lips of her cunt, wetting the tip, and then drove it in all at once. Eloísa screamed, clutching the sheet with both hands.

—Yes, fuck, yes. Fuck me like that. Hard.

Marcos held her properly by the waist and began to move. At first with long thrusts, pulling almost all the way out and then driving back in to the hilt. Then faster, without pause, with the wet sound of flesh slapping flesh and Eloísa’s moans growing sharper and sharper. He grabbed her hair with one hand, yanking her head back, and with the other slapped her ass, leaving a red mark.

—More —she begged—. Again. Like that.

He slapped the other cheek too, and again, and kept fucking her without slowing.

Next to them, Valeria had turned on her back and Diego had spread her legs wide open. He was eating her out hungrily, his face buried between her thighs, licking her cunt with long strokes and pushing his tongue inside her. Valeria writhed on the bed, grabbed his head, pulled his hair.

—Put it in me —she asked at last—. Diego, put it in me now, I can’t take it anymore.

Diego sat up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and positioned himself between her legs. He slid into her slowly, looking her in the eyes, and Valeria opened her mouth in a soundless gasp when she felt him all the way in. He began to move with deep thrusts, resting his elbows on either side of her head, his face pressed to her neck. Valeria dug her nails into his back and bit his shoulder.

—Fuck me —she whispered in his ear—. Fuck me like you’ve wanted to for four summers.

Diego growled something unintelligible and sped up. The bed started banging against the wall with a steady rhythm that joined the blows coming from the other side, the moans, the gasps, the sounds of skin against skin.

At some point —neither Marcos nor Diego would have known exactly when— both of them stopped almost at once and looked at each other over the women. Without needing to say anything, they switched. Marcos pulled away from Eloísa, who stayed on all fours gasping, her cunt open and dripping. Diego slipped out of Valeria, who moaned in protest at the loss.

They changed places.

Marcos positioned himself between Valeria’s legs, lifted her thighs onto his shoulders and shoved his cock in at once. She gasped at the difference —thicker, at another angle—, clutching the sheets.

—Fuck —she said—. Fuck, Marcos.

—Do you like it? —he asked, starting to move.

—Yes. Yes. More.

—How long have you wanted this?

—Four fucking summers —Valeria answered, arching to take him better—. Four fucking summers watching you out of the corner of my eye. Fuck me harder.

Marcos grabbed her tits and squeezed them while he thrust, eyes fixed on the way his whole cock sank into her cunt and came back out shining. He ran his thumb over her clit and she let out a sharp cry, closing her legs around his waist, digging her heels into his ass to ask for more depth.

Diego, meanwhile, had positioned himself behind Eloísa, who was still on all fours. He grabbed her hips and drove in without preamble. Eloísa let out a long, guttural moan and turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.

—Took you long enough —she said, almost with a smile, almost with a reproach.

Diego answered with a thrust that shut her up. He started fucking her hard, gripping her tits from underneath, squeezing them, pinching her nipples. Eloísa let him, moving her ass against him, seeking him, taking his whole cock in with each push.

—Deeper —she asked—. Break me.

Diego grabbed her hair, pulled her back and pushed as deep as he could. Eloísa’s cunt gripped him so tightly he had to clench his teeth to keep from coming too soon.

The two couples moved at different but coordinated rhythms, as if they had rehearsed that choreography for four summers without knowing it. Valeria reached out and stroked one of Eloísa’s tits, and Eloísa returned the gesture by pinching her nipple. Then Eloísa leaned to one side, without letting Diego keep fucking her from behind, and kissed Valeria on the mouth, slow, with tongue, while Marcos kept driving into her from the front. The two of them moaned into each other’s mouths, tongues tangled, sucking each other’s lips as if they had months of accumulated hunger.

—Fuck —murmured Marcos, watching them—, I’ll never forget this.

—Shut up and keep fucking me —Valeria answered without fully breaking away from Eloísa’s mouth.

—I’m going to come —Diego warned a moment later, his voice tight.

—Me too —said Marcos.

—On top —Eloísa asked, pulling her mouth away from Valeria’s for a second—. Come on top of us. Both of you. On our faces.

They came out almost at once. Eloísa and Valeria knelt together, shoulder to shoulder, mouths open and eyes closed and tits offered upward. Diego came first, with a long groan, shooting thick streams of semen over Valeria’s tits, over Eloísa’s cheek, over the valley between the two sets of breasts. Marcos came right after, gripping his cock and unloading over Eloísa’s open mouth, over her tongue, over her chin, while Valeria moved in and licked up the extra, sucking it off the other’s nipple with a little laugh.

When they were done, Eloísa and Valeria looked at each other with their faces and tits soaked and kissed again, slowly, passing semen from one mouth to the other without any hurry. Eloísa caught with her finger a thread hanging from her chin and brought it to her mouth, never taking her eyes off Marcos.

—Four summers —she said—. Four summers wasting time.

No one answered. There was no need.

The four of them flopped down onto the bed, tangled, legs crossed any old how and breathing still hard. The sea breeze came in through the open window and dried their sweat. Outside, the night stretched all the way ahead, with the murmur of the sea in the background and the shared certainty that this would not be a one-time thing.

And nobody was in a hurry.