My Ex’s Best Friend Awakened Something in Me

I met Martín in my final year of high school. He was a good guy, cheerful, with that easy laugh that disarms you without trying. Ours lasted a little over nine months, long enough to get to know his family, his dog, and, above all, to get to know her.

I saw Renata for the first time one November afternoon, at Martín’s birthday party. It was sticky-hot, the kind of heat that makes you regret the clothes you put on. He’d organized a get-together in his backyard: family, neighbors, kids from the neighborhood. He introduced me as his girlfriend with a mix of pride and nerves that I found sweet.

Renata arrived late, with her parents. And when I saw her, I felt something I mistook at the time for simple jealousy.

She was tall, very pale, with natural red hair that fell to her shoulders. Green eyes, almost translucent, and full lips that stood out without any makeup. She wore a short strapless dress, tight to her body. When she leaned down to greet Martín’s mother, the whole backyard stopped existing for a moment.

I looked at him, still holding his glass.

“Is that your friend?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah. But she’s like my sister. We grew up together.”

Like my sister, I repeated in my head. I wanted to believe him.

Renata came over, gave me two kisses, and told me she was really looking forward to meeting me, that Martín talked about me all the time. She smelled citrusy and fresh, and had that way of looking straight at you, without blinking, that forces you to hold her gaze.

That night, after midnight, the parents and the older ones started leaving. Us kids were left in the backyard, with lukewarm beers and music nobody was really listening to anymore. Since there weren’t many girls, I ended up sitting next to Renata on a lounge chair, talking about anything and everything.

She told me she’d known Martín since she was five, that their parents had become friends in college and that they’d practically grown up in the same house. That she was an only child and he was the brother she’d never had. She said it with such a clean smile that it made me feel silly for my initial jealousy.

Before she left, we exchanged numbers. “So we can go out some Saturday,” she said. And I, still not understanding why, saved her number with a slight tremble in my thumb.

***

The months passed. Things with Martín deflated the way all relationships that start in high school do and don’t survive the first year of college. There was no scandal, no betrayal, no shouting. One afternoon we just looked at each other in a café and we both knew it was over.

The curious thing was that nothing ended with Renata. On the contrary. I texted her to tell her we’d broken up, almost as a formality, and she replied that very night to invite me out for a drink.

We went out several times. Small bars, basement concerts, birthdays of people we barely knew. Renata danced with her eyes closed, not caring who watched her. I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop watching her.

One night, in a bar downtown, we ended up the two of us at a table off to the side with a half-finished bottle of Malbec. We’d talked about everything, as always. And suddenly, with that kind of naturalness only wine can bring, she told me.

“There’s something I never told you.”

“What?”

“I’m bisexual. I dated a girl for more than a year. We broke up two months ago and it still hurts a little.”

I didn’t know what face I made. I felt heat in my neck, a strange mix of surprise, tenderness, and something else I preferred not to name. I took her hand across the table.

“I had no idea,” I murmured.

“Nobody does. I’m tired of explaining it.”

We sat in silence for a while, both of us looking at our glasses. Then she lifted her eyes and pinned me with that green gaze I already knew far too well.

“And you, have you ever been curious?”

I laughed. Too late and nervous.

“I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes when?”

“When I watch porn,” I blurted out, without thinking. And I turned red all the way to my ears.

She laughed hard. That deep, low laugh that was her signature.

“It’s always better with a friend,” she said then, not smiling—“think about it.”

That dawn I walked home alone. I didn’t want to take a taxi. I needed the cold air on my face to straighten out everything that had gotten tangled up inside me.

***

After that conversation, without saying anything, we stopped seeing each other for a while. University had swallowed me whole. I got a part-time job in a bookstore and moved into a tiny place on my own, two rooms, a balcony overlooking a blank wall, and a kitchen the size of a closet. But it was mine.

One Thursday night, already in bed, I got a message.

“Girl! Aren’t we seeing each other anymore?”

Three seconds later, another.

“Do you want to see each other?”

I sat up in bed. I stared at the screen longer than I needed to.

“I’ve got a million things going on, but I live alone now. Want to come over for a bit?”

“Send me the address. I’m on my way.”

I jumped out of bed. I tossed the clothes I was wearing into the hamper, changed into something more decent: a black T-shirt and cotton shorts. I straightened the couch cushions, hid two dirty mugs in the sink. Ten minutes. Ten minutes and the doorbell.

When I opened the door, there she was. A white T-shirt so thin you could make out her black bra, leggings that hugged her hips, red hair gathered into a half-done bun, no makeup. In her hands, two bottles of wine and a pizza box.

“You came prepared?” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

“I wanted to see you,” she replied, with the same smile from that night at the bar.

I let her in. I closed the door slowly, as if any noise might break what was happening. When I turned around, she was already setting the things on the kitchen table.

I looked at her from behind. Her shoulder blades outlined beneath the thin fabric, the curve of her waist, the hair slipping out of the bun. I walked over to her. I didn’t think. I took her by the elbow, turned her, and kissed her on the mouth.

It was an awkward kiss at first. I accidentally bit her lip. She pulled back for an instant, surprised, her eyes wide. But before I could apologize, she was the one kissing me again, now slowly, with tongue, her hands at the nape of my neck.

“I’ve been thinking about this for months,” she whispered in my ear.

“Me too.”

We moved to the couch without stopping kissing. My black T-shirt flew off first. Then hers, the white one. I unclasped her bra with hands that didn’t quite obey me. Her breasts were exactly as I’d imagined them so many times: white, firm, the nipples more pink than dark, already hard before I even touched them.

I bent down and kissed them. Ran my tongue slowly over them, drawing circles. Bit just a little. She threw her head back and let out a long, rough sigh that made my thighs clench without me noticing.

Her hand slid down to the hem of my shorts. She asked with her eyes. I nodded. I let her in.

When her fingers touched me for the first time, I understood that everything I’d imagined for months fell short. It was different from a man. It was precise. She knew exactly where, exactly how much. I arched against her hand, biting my lip so I wouldn’t make too much noise.

“I want to do the same to you,” I told her.

I pulled down her leggings. Her underwear, black and plain, was already wet. I ran my fingers over the fabric before sliding it aside. When I touched her directly, she clutched my shoulder and dug her nails into me.

We stayed like that for a long while, discovering each other on the couch with the kitchen light slanting in diagonally. Until she gasped something that sounded a lot like my name and went completely slack against me.

“Come on,” I said, getting up.

***

I took her to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, but neither of us cared. I had her get on all fours on the mattress and knelt behind her. I ran my tongue over her slowly, from bottom to top, just once. I felt her shiver all over.

“Don’t stop,” she begged.

I didn’t stop. In that hour, I learned more about a woman’s body than in all the years before put together. I learned where to press, where to barely graze, where to keep my tongue still until she started moving on her own. When she came, she did it with a tremor that ran down her legs and a sound that wasn’t exactly a scream.

Then she turned around, still breathless, and looked at me from below with a crooked smile.

“Now it’s your turn.”

She gently pushed me so I’d lie back. She sat on top of me, slotting one of her legs between mine and the other outside. When she moved for the first time, against my pelvis, the friction made my eyes fly open.

“Easy,” she said, with a calm that was almost a threat.

She started slowly, setting a slow rhythm, watching my face the whole time. Her breasts moved with every thrust. My hands found her hips, first to go along with it, then to hold her tighter. She leaned forward so I could reach one of her nipples with my mouth, and that was what finally broke me.

I came for the second time that night with her fingers tangled in my hair and her voice telling me things I never want to forget.

***

We stayed in bed until dawn. We ate cold pizza at four in the morning, sitting cross-legged with a badly arranged sheet over us. We talked about Martín, about college, about the girl she’d been with, about me, about what I didn’t know I was until that night.

At ten she got dressed, tied her shoelaces in the living room, and before leaving she kissed me at the door, unhurried.

“Do I call you?” she asked.

“Call me.”

Since that night, we’ve been friends with benefits. We see each other every two weeks, sometimes every week. Neither of us wants to put a name to what we have, and for now that’s fine by us.

What I do know is that every time I hear the doorbell on a Thursday night, my pulse still races just like it did that first time.