The Day the Gardener Looked Toward the Terrace

They say gardeners have a bad reputation, that more than one ends up tangled up with the owners of the gardens they tend. Marcos had always laughed at that idea as if he were hearing an old joke. Until that windy afternoon from the south, when the hilltop chalet showed him that some legends exist because once upon a time they were true.

The house stood at the top of a slope, facing the sea, completely exposed to the sun. He had been working for almost three hours straight, and his shirt stuck to his back like a second skin. Blades of cut grass clung to his forearms, his neck was soaked through, his hair plastered down with sweat. The warm wind brought no relief; it only carried the smell of freshly cut lawn and the briny scent rising from the coast.

The owners were a married couple in their mid-forties. That afternoon they were on the upstairs terrace, stretched out on matching loungers, sunbathing without a stitch on. Marcos noticed almost by accident. The garden climbed up the slope, and from the upper part, where he was working, the terrace was exactly at eye level.

At first he looked away. It was none of his business. But his body needed a break, so he leaned against the trunk of the only tree giving shade and stayed there, catching his breath, holding the bottle of lukewarm water in his hand.

And then he saw.

The man had propped himself up a little and was rubbing cream into his wife’s skin, unhurriedly, as if they had all the time in the world and no one for miles around. His hands moved over her shoulders, down across her chest, lingering on her stomach. She was sprawled on the lounger, eyes closed, letting herself be touched with her mouth slightly open.

You shouldn’t be watching this, Marcos thought. And he did not move.

The husband’s hand drifted lower, slid between her parted legs, and the woman reacted by arching her back ever so slightly. She reached one arm out to the side, groped blindly, and closed her fingers around his cock, already hard. They stayed like that for a good while, stroking each other in broad daylight, hiding nothing, while the wind tousled their hair.

Marcos swallowed. The shorts he was wearing concealed absolutely nothing, and he knew it. He felt his pulse in places where he should not have been feeling it during a workday.

All at once they both got up and went inside. The terrace was left empty, the loungers in disarray, and he stood there like an idiot, breathing hard, with the uneasy certainty that inside was happening what he could no longer see.

***

It took him a few minutes to force himself back to work. He finished putting away the machines with his mind elsewhere, imagining what was happening behind those walls. When he put the last tool away, he did what he always did: rang the bell to let them know he was leaving.

The husband took a couple of minutes to come down. His hair was damp and he had a towel tied around his waist. He looked Marcos up and down, noticed the sweat, the dirt, the soaked shirt, and smiled naturally.

—You’re a mess —he said—. Don’t leave like that. Have a shower before you go.

Marcos hesitated for a second. It was a normal offer, the kind of kindness anyone would show to someone who had worked under the sun all afternoon. He accepted.

—The downstairs bathroom is under renovation —the man added—. Go upstairs, to the right of the staircase.

He headed into the kitchen and Marcos went upstairs. He did it slowly, without making a sound, still barefoot as usual, carrying his sneakers in his hand so he wouldn’t get anything dirty. The staircase opened onto a large living room with high ceilings and a huge window that let in the last light of the afternoon.

And he saw her again.

The woman was on the sofa, alone, with an open robe that covered nothing. One leg was propped on the backrest and the other was stretched out, and she was slowly touching herself, her gaze fixed on the television. On the screen, two men and a woman were tangled up in a scene that left little to the imagination. She bit her lip, oblivious to everything, lost in her own world.

Marcos froze. He knew he should look away, turn around, do anything but stay there. But his body would not obey, and desire kept gaining ground with every passing second.

—Enjoying the show?

The husband’s voice from the foot of the staircase made him jump. Marcos spun around at once, red to the ears, searching for an excuse that would not come.

—Sorry, I… —he stammered—. I didn’t mean to… the door was…

But the man did not seem annoyed. Quite the opposite. He climbed the steps calmly, never losing his smile, and put a hand on Marcos’s shoulder.

—Relax. Take that shower. And if you feel like it, you can join us to watch the movie afterward.

The woman got up from the sofa. Just as she was, with nothing on, she crossed the living room and approached Marcos without a trace of shame. She held his gaze for a moment and laid the palm of her hand on the bulge he could no longer hide.

—You’ve still had it like that since the terrace? —she asked softly, almost amused.

And then Marcos understood. They had known all along. They knew he was watching them from the garden; they had known it while they were touching each other in the sun, and the whole scene had been for him as much as for them.

***

He went to the shower trembling like a leaf. He had been in a threesome before, a few, and he recognized perfectly the invitation they had just made him. The water hit him and gave him time to think, though thinking was not much use at that point. He washed thoroughly, unhurriedly, trying to calm a pulse that would not calm down. He got out, dried himself, and stood for a moment in front of the steamed-up mirror, looking at himself as if he were seeking his own permission.

When he went back into the living room, the movie was still playing, but no one was watching it anymore.

The husband was lying on his back on the sofa. She was on her knees on the floor, bent over him, with his cock in her mouth and her ass raised in a curve impossible to ignore. They did not stop when Marcos appeared. If anything, she lifted her eyes only slightly and went back to what she was doing.

He came up behind her, slowly. He crouched down, slid his hands down the woman’s back, circled her breasts with his palms and lingered there, feeling the warm weight in his hands, the nipples hardening between his fingers. She responded by parting her knees, opening herself, offering herself without words. Marcos lowered one hand and found her completely wet, slick, ready.

They stayed like that for a good while, the three of them fitting into the same slow rhythm. Then Marcos slid downward, lay on his back on the carpet, and moved between her legs until he reached her with his mouth. He tasted her without haste, working from bottom to top, playing with the tip of his tongue where he knew she shuddered most. She rocked her hips, grinding against him, without letting go of the husband.

At some point she stopped tending to her husband and leaned back, opening herself completely, giving Marcos the exact position he was looking for. The man then stood up, positioned himself in front of her face, and offered her his cock again, which she took eagerly. The scene had something hypnotic about it: him above, filling her mouth; Marcos below, working her with his tongue; and her in the center, caught between the two, moaning with her throat full.

When he came, he did it clenching his thighs around Marcos’s head, shaking with an intensity that was no pretense. He stayed like that for a few seconds, trembling, before letting him go and collapsing to one side, out of breath.

But the husband gave her no respite. He grabbed her by the hips, turned her around, put her on her knees on the sofa, and took her from behind in one thrust. He was too aroused to last; within a few minutes he finished, burying himself to the hilt with a rough grunt.

Marcos had watched all of it from an armchair, stroking himself, his body on the verge of bursting. When the woman recovered some composure, she found him with her eyes and held out a hand.

—And you? —she said—. I can see you’ve got a problem there.

—A pretty serious one —he admitted, with a half smile.

She straightened up, still breathless, and came closer. She dragged a fingernail slowly down his chest, savoring the moment.

—We don’t have condoms handy —she said—. So nothing inside. But that doesn’t mean you’re leaving the way you came in.

And she knelt down in front of him.

What came after that Marcos would remember for a long time. She took her time with him, alternating mouth and hand, looking up at him so she wouldn’t miss a single expression on his face. The husband sat beside them, watching, one hand resting on her neck, barely marking the rhythm. Marcos held out as long as he could, which was not very long, and when he finally let go, he did so with a force he had rarely felt, clinging to the edge of the sofa so he wouldn’t fall.

***

He dressed in silence, still dazed, while they laughed softly at something he never caught. The husband walked him to the door as if nothing that had happened before had happened at all, with the same courtesy as before.

—The garden looks immaculate —he said, shaking his hand—. We’ll be expecting you next week.

—I’ll be here —Marcos replied.

And there he was, all right. From that windy afternoon from the south on, his work at the hilltop chalet stopped being just mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges. Every so often, when all three of them were in the mood and the sun was beating down hard on the terrace, they ended up tangled together again, unhurried, unashamed, fulfilling a fantasy none of them had confessed out loud but that all three had recognized in the other’s gaze.

Marcos never laughed at gardeners’ bad reputation again. Now he knew, better than anyone, where it came from.