The Night a Thief Stole My Innocence

Friday is the day I hate most in the week. Not because the weekend arrives, but because it marks the end of the cycle before everything starts over again. I work as a laborer in a distribution warehouse on the outskirts, afternoon shift, eight hours of boxes and forklifts. I did it out of habit, like almost everything else since Nori died.

Nori was my rabbit. Three kilos of ash-gray fur that had been my only company for four years. Before him there was my grandmother, who raised me from the age of eleven after my parents died in a traffic accident. Grandma held on until I turned thirteen, and then she was gone too. By seventeen I had already learned to live without anyone. At twenty-one I was still practicing.

Nori’s death, six weeks before this story, had turned the apartment into something that was no longer a home. It was just a space with walls, with plants drying out because nobody watered them with any care, with a sink full of dishes and the light off.

That night I got home at half past ten, as always. Backpack on the floor, dirty T-shirt into the hamper, work trousers hanging over the chair. I made myself instant soup because I didn’t have the energy to cook anything that smelled like my grandmother’s recipes. I left the bowl in the sink on top of two other plates that had been there since Tuesday. Tomorrow I’d wash them, like I’d been telling myself all week.

I collapsed onto the sofa. I didn’t turn on the television. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, waiting for sleep to have the kindness to show up without me having to hunt for it.

Then I heard something.

A scrape. Then nothing. Then the unmistakable click of the lock.

I froze. In the neighborhood, people had been talking about robberies for weeks: three apartments emptied in the same building, and one resident had ended up in the hospital after someone dosed his drink with something that made him remember nothing. The police didn’t really know what to do, or pretended not to.

The door opened slowly. A strip of streetlight cut across the living room for a second and then vanished. Someone had come in.

If I lie still and don’t move, maybe she’ll think nobody’s here.

I stretched out on the sofa carefully, not breathing. I saw the beam of a flashlight move across the walls, sweep over the furniture, stop for a moment on the sink full of dishes. Take whatever you want. I didn’t have anything valuable. My laptop was from 2019 and the TV was a white-label fifteen-inch I’d found in the trash from the guy in the fourth-floor apartment.

But then the flashlight hit me straight in the face and I blurted out the first thing that came out of my body:

—I refuse to die a virgin.

Silence.

—How old are you? —a woman’s voice asked.

A voice. A woman’s. I hadn’t expected that.

—I look almost thirty. I’m twenty-one.

A low laugh, barely held back, as if she didn’t want to wake herself up.

The flashlight moved away from my eyes. The girl set it on the wooden crate I used as a coffee table, pointing it at the ceiling so it lit the room without blinding anyone. A deliberate gesture. She knew what she was doing.

Then I saw her. Tall, dark-haired, hair down to her shoulders with the kind of messy volume some people get without trying. Warm-toned skin, leaning toward honey. A hoop piercing in the right nostril. Dark, loose, practical clothes. She looked at me with her arms crossed and an expression that wasn’t threatening so much as appraising, as if she were making a decision.

—Looks like I’m not taking much from here —she said, glancing around— except maybe one thing.

She came closer slowly and straddled my hips before I could process what was happening. I felt the warm weight of her ass crush down against my fly, right over a cock that was already starting to swell beneath my work trousers, and she noticed it a second later.

—With the condition that you don’t say anything. Deal?

—I suppose you mean you don’t want me to report you —I managed to say.

She didn’t answer with words. She kissed me.

I’d kissed a girl before, in high school, once. Her name was Débora and the memory was so vague I could almost convince myself it hadn’t happened. This was different. She took her time, unhurried, as if she had the whole night. Her tongue found mine with a precision that made me think she had done this before, many times. She tasted like mint with something fruity underneath, raspberry or something like that. She bit my lower lip when she pulled away and I was left with my eyes half open, not quite sure where to put my hands. She took them one by one, without breaking eye contact, and brought them to her tits over her clothes. She pressed my fingers against them so I’d understand they were allowed there.

—Relax —she said—. You’ve got a hard cock under me, not a gun. It’s fine.

Easy for you to say.

She rubbed her ass slowly against my bulge, two times, three, a long lazy friction that made me let the air out through my nose. I started kissing her neck. She smelled like something citrusy mixed with the night air. I moved her hair aside carefully and kept going down to her collarbones while she took off my shirt with practical movements, no fuss. Then she started undressing herself: first the light jacket, then the T-shirt. Black bra, plain. She unclasped it herself and let it fall to the floor without ceremony.

She had a tattoo running down her left side until it disappeared beneath the waistband of her pants. I couldn’t read it.

I started touching her tits, medium-sized, very firm, with dark nipples already hard like little pebbles. I pinched them gently and she made a guttural sound that ran down my whole back and straight to my cock. She grabbed the back of my head and brought my mouth to her without any roughness. I ran my tongue over her left nipple, felt it harden even more, felt it go rough against the tip of my tongue, and then I sucked it all the way in, tugging a little with my lips. She let out a muffled “fuck.” I moved to the right one, alternating, nipping, sucking, leaving them shiny with saliva. One of her hands was tangled in my hair and the other was trying, not very successfully, to untie my shoelaces from above while she kept grinding her pelvis against mine.

—I’ve got that —I said.

She stood up to give me room. She stripped off her pants in one jerk and then her panties. She stood in front of me, lit by the flashlight from the side, and I had to make a conscious effort to remember to breathe. The tattoo on her side reached almost to her hip bone. She was almost completely shaved, with a thin dark strip of hair just above it, and from where I was I could see her lips slightly swollen, glistening. She slid two fingers between her legs, never breaking eye contact, and showed them to me shining wet.

—Look how worked up you’ve got me and you haven’t even touched me —she said—. Take your pants off already.

She took the rest off me with a little more patience, tugging on my jeans and underwear at the same time. My cock sprang up, hard, the tip already wet. She looked at it with a half-professional smile, no scandal, and ran her thumb over the head, collecting the bead of pre-cum.

—There we go —she said, sucking her thumb—. But first, mine.

She pushed me gently back onto the sofa, positioned herself over me, and sat on my mouth without another warning. Her wet cunt smashed against my lips and chin, hot, with a scent that was at once heavy and clean.

I’d never done this. I’d read about it, seen it, but doing it was something else. I started with my tongue, slow movements, trying to orient myself. I traced the whole slit from bottom to top, noticing the different texture of the inner lips, thinner, slicker. She didn’t give me instructions at first, just adjusted her position a couple of times until she found the angle she wanted. When she found it, I knew because her hips started moving back and forth with a rhythm of their own, rubbing her pussy against my face. I could feel the wetness running down onto my chin.

—Get your tongue inside —she said—. Inside. Fuck me with your tongue.

I stiffened my tongue and shoved it into her cunt. She let out a long moan and clamped her thighs on both sides of my head. I went in and out several times, feeling her contract around me, tasting her. She had a strong flavor, salty, slightly acidic, and the more I licked her the more she spilled onto me.

—Now up top. On the clit. Suck it.

I did. Her moans immediately got louder.

—There. Just like that. Don’t change anything, asshole, don’t change anything.

I remembered what I’d read about the clitoris and moved my tongue upward, looking for the point where the lips meet. When I found it, she arched her back and squeezed with her thighs until she nearly cut off my breathing. I stayed there. I alternated sucking with quick tongue movements, then long slow ones, never losing the rhythm. With my hands I reached for her tits and pinched her nipples in the same beat. She started riding my face shamelessly, holding on to the back of the sofa, fucking my mouth.

She reached a hand back and found my cock, hard, pointing at the ceiling. She wrapped her hand around it and started jerking me off, a circular motion, slow, sliding the foreskin up and down, while I kept working with my mouth. It was the first time anyone had touched me like that, and the contrast between what I was giving her and what she was giving me felt almost unbearable. I felt that if I sped up even a little I’d come in her hand before I even got to fuck her.

—Keep going —she said—. Don’t stop now. Suck harder.

I sucked harder, lips sealed around her clit, tongue flicking over the tip at full speed. Her moans turned shorter, sharper, as if she were struggling to breathe. I buried my fingers in her hair and she pressed them against her head. I could feel her cunt pulsing against my mouth, clenching in waves. She squeezed my cock harder, lost the rhythm of her hand, and suddenly she went rigid over me, back arched, mouth open without sound, and then a muffled cry that came from deep in her chest.

When she pulled away, she did it slowly, catching her breath, her thighs still trembling. She kissed me with a different intensity from the beginning. More direct. Less patient. She licked the wetness off my chin without disgust.

—Good boy —she murmured against my mouth—. Very good boy.

She got up from the sofa and went to get something from the pocket of her jacket.

—Stolen condoms? —I asked.

—Of course —she replied with a smile that wasn’t apologetic—. Brand-name extra-thin ones are expensive, and I’m a professional.

She put it on me herself, with calm hands. She rolled the latex down the shaft with two fingers, pressing lightly at the base at the end to secure it. Then she climbed on top of me, took my cock in her hand, and guided it to the entrance of her cunt. She ran it first along her lips, up and down, soaking it before impaling herself.

—Look at me —she said.

I looked at her. She lowered herself slowly, millimeter by millimeter. Heat was the first thing I noticed, even before I processed anything else. An intense, enveloping, tight sensation that made me clench my teeth and dig my fingers into her hips. I felt her open around me, swallowing me whole until her ass touched my thighs.

—Fuck —I blurted out.

—Breathe —she told me, still and seated on top of me, eyes closed with a small smile—. We’re fine. Don’t move yet.

I breathed. She stayed like that for a few seconds, impaled all the way, letting me get used to the heat and pressure, squeezing my cock with her pussy now and then as if testing a new instrument. Every clench sent a shiver up my spine.

She began to move gently, up and down, unhurried. The initial pain, more tension than pain, dissolved in the first thirty seconds and what remained was something I had no name for. She rested one hand on the back of the sofa and touched my face with the other, running her thumb over my temple with a tenderness that didn’t quite fit the context but that I silently appreciated.

She gradually increased the pace. I matched her with my hips, awkward at first, then with more conviction, thrusting up every time she came down. I could hear the wet slap between our bodies, the slick sound of her cunt swallowing me and letting me go. I put my hands on her waist. Then on her tits, squeezing them, sucking on them when she dipped low enough. She made a deeper sound and sped up a little more, riding me without restraint now.

—Like that —she said—. Don’t stop. Fuck me like that, open me up.

She leaned back, changing the angle, bracing her hands on my knees. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. I saw her whole from below: neck thrown back, the curve of the tattoo on her side, hair falling in strands over her shoulders, tits bouncing in time, and in the middle, my cock going in and out shiny with her juices, appearing and disappearing between her swollen lips. I stored that image somewhere that didn’t have a name yet.

My right hand slid down to where we joined and I looked for the clit. I found it, slippery, swollen, and started rubbing it in circles with my thumb while I kept thrusting into her. She let out a broken moan and looked at me with half-lidded eyes.

—You’ve got good ideas —she said thickly—. Very good.

She kept moving while I used my fingers, faster and faster. Her moans became irregular, less controlled, chopped up by gasps. She started squeezing my cock in spasms that made me fear I might come at any moment.

—Wait —I said through clenched teeth—, wait or I’m going to…

She stopped, breathing fast, not letting me come out all the way. She stayed still for a few seconds, still mounted on me, letting the tide go down. Then she slipped off me carefully and knelt on the floor in front of the sofa.

—Sit at the edge.

I did, legs apart, cock pointed at the ceiling, shiny and still inside the condom.

She took the condom off with two fingers, tied a knot in it, and tossed it on the floor without breaking eye contact. She spat on my head, a thick clean thread, and started jerking me off slowly with her right hand while she ran her tongue around the base, moving up, licking me like someone savoring an ice cream cone they don’t want to drip. She licked my balls one by one, took them whole into her mouth, and kept going up the underside of the shaft to the tip. She did it patiently, without urgency, like someone who knows exactly where they’re headed.

When she took me into her mouth, time turned imprecise. She went all the way down the first time, almost to the throat, and I felt the tip touch the soft palate. She alternated the motion of her hand with the pressure of her lips, the friction of her tongue on the sides and then the tip focusing on the frenulum, with little quick flicks that made me groan without meaning to. She looked up at me from below with wet eyes, my cock in her mouth, and every time she came up she left a trail of saliva that ran from her chin to her tits.

She took me all the way down again, stayed there a few seconds with her lips pressed to the base, swallowing around the tip, and then rose slowly, sucking like she meant to pull the semen out of me by force.

—Warn me —she said without really stopping, mouth full, voice nasal.

—Almost —I managed to say. I could feel the current rising from my balls, unstoppable.

—Come when you want. On me.

She pulled away and took me between her tits, squeezing them around my cock with both hands, and kept jerking me off like that, moving her chest up and down, sticking her tongue out underneath to lick the head every time it peeked out. It only took four or five passes. What came after was inevitable: I filled her cleavage, her throat, her chin, her upper lip, with three or four bursts of hot cum that she took with a calm smile, no drama, never looking away. The last one I let fall directly onto her tongue, which she had stuck out, and she swallowed it, closing her mouth slowly.

She ran two fingers over her chest to gather the rest and sucked them one after the other.

—Tasty —she said, smiling as if she’d just finished a decent dinner.

***

She went to the bathroom. I heard the tap running. She came back thirty seconds later and was already picking up her clothes from the floor with the efficient movements of someone used to dressing fast.

—What’s your name? —she asked while buttoning her jacket.

—Marcos.

—And what are you going to say when they ask you about your first time, Marcos?

I thought for a moment.

—Burglary.

She smiled. A real smile, not the playful one from before. This one reached her eyes.

—Fine. I’ll leave you alive if you don’t give any more details.

—You have my word.

She picked up the flashlight. She looked at the apartment for a moment: the dry plants, the full sink, the darkness covering everything like a layer of dust.

—I don’t meddle where I’m not wanted —she said softly— but this isn’t a home, it’s a place to wait. What happened?

—They moved out on me. All of them, one after the other.

She nodded without asking for more. She understood enough.

—It’s been a pleasure, Marcos.

—What’s your name?

—Irene.

She headed for the door, opened it with the same care she’d used to close it when she came in, and before leaving she turned back.

—Next time you go into a dark place, turn on a light. —A pause.— And brush your teeth before bed.

The door closed silently.

I stayed on the sofa for a long while, in the same darkness as always, but something in it felt different. Not kinder, not exactly. Just different. As if the space had changed size without the walls moving.

For the first time in weeks, I went to sleep without waiting for sleep to come on its own.