The Desire I Kept for Twenty-Five Years in My Shop

Marisol had kept exact count. Twenty-five years since she came down from the village with a suitcase and a single-minded idea in her head: to open her own clothing shop in the capital. She was nineteen then, with a boldness she couldn’t explain. The first person to walk through the door of that freshly painted shop, before she had even hung the first garment, was Eduardo, the rep who brought her the season’s stock.

He was already nearing fifty then. Marisol remembers how she kept looking at him longer than was proper while he spread catalogs out over the counter, with those big hands and that voice that seemed to be telling a secret even when he was talking about bulk discounts. That same afternoon she learned two things: that she was going to sell a lot of clothes, and that she liked that man in a way that had nothing to do with business.

Years passed and nothing ever happened. He had his life, she had hers. Marisol married Andrés, another shopkeeper from the neighborhood, and together they built something unusual for the time. They were an open couple before they knew that had a name. They were both bisexual, both enjoyed men and women, and both understood early on that hiding things from one another would only make them miserable. They told each other everything. Sometimes they even shared it.

But she had never touched Eduardo. He was the only name she had kept for herself, like someone leaving a bottle unopened while waiting for an occasion that may never come.

That occasion came on a Tuesday in March.

—I’m retiring at the end of the month —he told her that morning, leaving the last order on the counter—. After so many years, it’s over. I won’t be coming by anymore.

Marisol felt the news like a tug in her chest. Twenty-five years of catalogs, of coffee shared, of brushes against each other that she had fed in her imagination every night. And now he was leaving without her ever having said what she felt.

If it’s not now, it never will be.

—Come back this afternoon, when I close —she said, surprised by her own firmness—. I want to say goodbye properly.

Eduardo looked at her a moment longer than necessary. He nodded. They both knew “say goodbye properly” meant something else.

***

At eight she pulled the metal shutter down halfway and turned off the display lights. She left only the warm lamp in the back room on, that corner where she used to receive trusted clients for alterations. That afternoon she had prepared it differently. She had cleared the cutting table, brought over a couple of cushions from the old sofa, and left a bottle of red wine breathing beside two glasses.

Eduardo arrived on time. Marisol slid back the bolt, let him in, and locked the door again. The click of the latch left them both silent, alone for the first time in twenty-five years with no counter between them.

—I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here —he said, but he didn’t move toward the door.

—I do —she answered.

She held out a glass to him. Their fingers brushed as he took it, and neither of them pulled away. Marisol felt her pulse in her throat, that anticipation she had spent half a lifetime postponing. They drank while looking at each other, unhurried, measuring the ground like two people who had waited too long to make mistakes now.

—I need to confess something —she said at last—. The day I opened the shop, you were the first one in. And from that day on, I’ve wanted this. I’ve wanted it for twenty-five years.

Eduardo set the glass down on the table. He lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair from her face with a tenderness that didn’t match his size.

—I thought it was just me —he murmured—. That I was making it up so I wouldn’t get bored on my trips.

—You weren’t making it up.

She kissed him first. She had imagined that kiss for so long that reality almost undid her: he tasted of wine and old tobacco, and he kissed slowly, without rushing, as if he too had rehearsed that moment many times alone.

***

—And Andrés? —Eduardo asked when they pulled apart, his voice rough—. I don’t want to step where I shouldn’t.

Marisol smiled. She liked that he was concerned. It said a lot about him.

—Andrés knows everything. We’ve been that way from the start. We each have our own things and we tell each other. He has his own too, believe me. —She ran a finger over his chest, over his shirt—. Tonight I’m not taking anything from anyone. This is mine. I’ve owed it to myself for twenty-five years.

She saw the tension leave his shoulders. The last scruple dissolved in the warm air of the back room.

—Then I’m not going to waste it —Eduardo said.

He unbuttoned her blouse button by button, unhurried, pausing at every inch of skin that came into view. Marisol closed her eyes and let him. There was something intoxicating about being undressed by those hands she had known all her life but that had never touched her like this. The blouse fell to the floor. Then the bra. The shop’s cool air raised goosebumps on her skin.

He looked at her the way one looks at something long awaited. He said nothing sentimental, no need. He lowered his head and kissed her neck, the hollow of her collarbone, and kept going down until he closed his lips over one of her nipples. Marisol held her breath. She buried her fingers in his gray hair and held him there against her while he played with his tongue until she felt it tighten.

—Slower —she asked— or this will be over before it starts.

Eduardo laughed softly against her skin. That laugh ran down her whole spine.

He undressed her completely without stopping kissing her, and Marisol ended up braced on the edge of the cutting table, completely exposed under the warm light. He knelt. He parted her thighs with his hands and kissed her between them, slowly, until he found the exact spot. Marisol threw her head back and bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream in a shop with the shutter halfway down.

—There... just like that —she murmured, gripping the edge of the table.

He wasn’t in a hurry. He had twenty-five years of patience built up and he spent every bit of it in that moment, taking her to the edge and letting her rest, over and over, until Marisol could no longer hold anything in. Pleasure gathered in her belly like a tide and broke all at once. She shuddered all over, her thighs closing around his head, gasping out a name she had gone half a lifetime without saying aloud.

***

It took her a while to catch her breath. When she opened her eyes, Eduardo had stood up and was looking at her with a mixture of desire and amazement, as if he still couldn’t quite believe they were actually there.

—We’re not done —she said.

She sat up, unbuttoned his shirt, and took it off. She loosened his belt with fingers that were no longer trembling with nerves, only with pure urgency. She wanted him whole, she wanted him now, with no more preamble. She lay back down on the table and drew him toward her by the hips.

—Twenty-five years, Eduardo. Don’t make me wait any longer.

He positioned himself between her legs and eased into her slowly, holding her gaze the whole time. Marisol let out a long sigh, the sigh of something that at last fits where it belongs. She felt him all the way in, felt him real, far from any nighttime fantasy. The world outside —the street, the shutter, the years— vanished. Only the two of them remained, and the soft creak of wood under their bodies.

They moved together, at first carefully, then with none at all. She dug her heels into his back, asked for more with her body and her voice, and he answered every demand. The cutting table, where she had measured so many meters of fabric over the years, held their rocking as if it had been waiting its whole life for that use.

—I’m not going to last much longer —he panted into her ear.

—Neither am I —she answered—. No need to last at all.

The second orgasm surprised her in mid-sentence, deeper and slower than the first. She felt it rise from somewhere very deep while he emptied himself at the same time, both of them trembling, both clutching each other over the warm wood. They stayed like that for a long while, not separating, listening to each other’s hearts.

***

Afterward, half-dressed, they finished the bottle of wine sitting on the floor, with their backs against the counter. Eduardo put an arm around her shoulders and Marisol settled against him as if they had done it a thousand times.

—Twenty-five years for this —he said—. We’ve been fools.

—Not fools —she corrected—. Patient. Some desires taste better when you keep them a long time.

He looked at her sidelong, with a half smile.

—And now what? I’m retiring. I won’t have any excuse to come by anymore.

Marisol shrugged and took a sip.

—Excuses can be invented. Now that I know what it tastes like, I’m not waiting another twenty-five years. —She brushed his cheek with her lips—. And Andrés is going to love the story. He may even want to meet you.

Eduardo burst out laughing, startled, and for the first time all afternoon Marisol saw something like a future on his face. They toasted in silence, with the shutter halfway down and the city humming outside, unaware that in that small clothing shop a woman had just settled the oldest debt she had with herself.