My Ex’s Best Friend Awakened Something in Me

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

I saw Renata for the first time one November afternoon, at Martín’s birthday party. It was the kind of sticky heat that makes you regret the clothes you put on. He had organized a gathering in his family’s backyard: relatives, neighbors, friends from the neighborhood. He introduced me as his girlfriend with a mixture of pride and nervousness that I found endearing.

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 fair-skinned, with natural red hair falling to her shoulders. Her green eyes were almost translucent, and she had full lips that stood out without needing any lipstick. She was wearing a short, strapless dress, tight against her body. When she leaned over to greet Martín’s mother, the entire backyard ceased to exist 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, kissed me twice, and said she’d really wanted to meet me, that Martín talked about me all the time. She smelled of something citrusy and fresh, and had that way of looking straight at you without blinking that forced you to hold her gaze.

That night, after midnight, the parents and the older people gradually left. We kids were left in the backyard, with warm beer and music no one was really listening to anymore. Since there weren’t many girls, I ended up sitting beside Renata on a deck chair, talking about anything and everything.

She told me she had known Martín since she was five, that their parents had become friends at college, and that they had 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 an open smile that I felt stupid for being jealous at first.

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

***

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

The curious thing was that nothing ended with Renata. On the contrary. I sent her a message telling her we’d broken up, almost as a formality, and that same night she replied, inviting me out for a drink.

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

One night, at a bar downtown, the two of us ended up at a secluded table with half a bottle of Malbec between us. We had talked about everything, as usual. Then suddenly, with the kind of naturalness only wine can bring, she told me.

—There’s something I’ve 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 had no idea what expression crossed my face. I felt heat in my neck, a strange mixture 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 raised her eyes and fixed me with that green gaze I already knew far too well.

—Have you never been curious?

I laughed. Late and nervously.

—I don’t know. Sometimes.

—Sometimes when?

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

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

—And what do you watch? Two girls fucking? One eating the other’s pussy?

I lowered my eyes to my glass. I nodded without speaking. I felt my panties getting wet right there at the table, at the mere image she had put in my head.

—It’s always better with a friend —she said afterward, without smiling—. Think about it.

That early morning, I walked home alone. I didn’t want to take a cab. I needed the cold air on my face to sort out everything that had been thrown into disorder inside me.

***

After that conversation, without saying anything to each other, we stopped seeing one another for a while. College had completely swallowed me up. I got a part-time job at a bookstore and moved into a tiny apartment by myself: a one-bedroom place with a balcony overlooking a blank side wall and a kitchen the size of a closet. But it was mine.

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

“Hey, friend! Are we never going to see each other again?”

Three seconds later, another.

“Do you want to meet up?”

I sat up among the sheets. I stared at the screen longer than necessary.

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

“Send me the address. I’m on my way.”

I jumped out of bed. I threw the clothes I was wearing into the hamper and changed into something more presentable: a black T-shirt and cotton shorts. I straightened the cushions on the couch and hid two dirty cups in the sink. Ten minutes. Ten minutes and the doorbell rang.

When I opened the door, there she was. A white T-shirt so thin I could see the outline of her black bra, leggings tight around her hips, her red hair pulled into a half-done bun, no makeup. In her hands were two bottles of wine and a pizza box.

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

—I wanted to see you —she replied, wearing the same smile as that night at the bar.

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

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

It was an awkward kiss at first. I bit her lip by accident. She pulled away for a moment, surprised, her eyes wide. But before I could apologize, she was the one who kissed me again, slowly this time, her tongue sliding deep inside, seeking mine and winding around it. She grabbed the back of my neck with both hands and pressed me against her mouth until I felt her teeth against mine.

—I’ve been thinking about this for months —she whispered in my ear, biting my earlobe—. Months of touching myself while thinking about you.

—Me too. Me too, you idiot.

We made it to the couch without stopping our kissing, stumbling against the coffee table. My black shirt flew off first. Renata stared at my breasts as if she were hungry, then bent down and sucked an entire nipple into her mouth, wrapping her lips around it while she squeezed the other one with her hand. I grabbed her hair and pulled her bun loose in one tug. Her red mane spilled over my chest like a curtain, and I felt her lick me slowly, tracing me with her tongue, nibbling at me until my nipples grew so hard they hurt.

Then hers came off. I unclasped her bra with hands that weren’t entirely obeying me. Her breasts were just as I had imagined them so many times: white, firm, their nipples more pink than dark, already hard before I touched them. I climbed on top of her. I ran my tongue slowly over them, drawing circles around each nipple, sucking one and then the other, tugging at them lightly with my teeth. She tipped her head back and let out a long, hoarse sigh that made me squeeze my thighs without realizing it. I was already soaked, my shorts stuck to my pussy, and she still hadn’t touched me.

Her hand moved down to the edge of my shorts. She looked me in the eyes, asking permission without words. I caught her wrist and pushed it inside myself. I slipped her hand beneath my panties.

—Touch me. Now, touch my pussy —I said, in a voice I didn’t recognize.

When her fingers touched me for the first time, I understood that everything I had imagined for months fell short. It was different from a man. It was precise. She knew exactly where, exactly how much pressure. She spread my lips with two fingers and began rubbing circles over my clitoris with her middle finger, gently at first, then firmly, getting wet with my own moisture. She brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked them while looking at me, then lowered them again. Now two fingers slid inside me, curling, while her thumb kept working me above.

—You’re dripping —she whispered in my ear—. I can hear you, idiot, hear the sounds your pussy’s making.

I arched against her hand, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream. She pushed her fingers deeper, faster, and with her free mouth she sucked one of my breasts.

—I want to do the same to you —I panted—. I want to eat you whole.

I yanked down her leggings. Her panties, black and plain, were already wet, with a dark stain right in the middle. I ran my tongue over the fabric before moving it aside. When I spread her pussy with my fingers and ran my tongue directly over it, she clung to my shoulder and dug her nails in until she hurt me. She was hot and swollen, her clitoris peeking out between her pink lips. I licked her all over, from bottom to top, savoring her for the first time, that salty-sweet mixture I wouldn’t be able to get out of my head afterward.

—Like that, don’t stop, just like that —she begged, her hand clenched in my hair.

I slipped two fingers inside her while continuing to suck her clitoris with the tip of my tongue. I felt her squeeze me, closing around my fingers like a fist. We stayed that way for a long while, discovering each other on the couch as the kitchen light filtered across us at an angle. Until she panted something that sounded almost like my name and went completely limp against me, coming in my mouth and on my hand with a shudder that began in her hips and climbed all the way to her neck.

—Come here —I said, standing up, my face still shining with her wetness.

***

I took her to the bedroom, pulling her panties off as we went down the hallway. The bed was unmade, but neither of us cared. I made her get on all fours on the mattress. Seeing her like that, kneeling with her white ass raised and her pussy open, still glistening with my saliva and her own fluids, left me standing still for a few seconds, just looking at her. I ran my open palm over one cheek, then the other. I gave her a gentle slap, and she buried her face in the pillow with a moan.

I knelt behind her. I ran my tongue slowly from bottom to top, just once, all the way from her clitoris to her asshole. I felt her whole body shudder.

—Don’t stop —she begged, her voice muffled by the pillow.

I didn’t stop. I ate her pussy from behind, my nose pressed against her, my tongue reaching as far inside as it could, then back out, then up, tormenting her clitoris with the tip. I put two fingers inside her, then three, while continuing to lick her everywhere. I ran my tongue over her asshole, and she moaned louder, pressing herself against my face. In that hour I learned more about a woman’s body than I had in all the years before it combined. I learned where to press, where to barely brush, where to hold my tongue still until she began moving on her own, fucking my face with her hips. When she came, she did so with a tremor running down her legs and a sound that wasn’t exactly a scream, more like a muffled growl. I felt her clench around my fingers inside her, felt her wetness run down my wrist to my elbow.

Then she turned over, still breathless, her cheeks flushed and her chest rising and falling, and looked up at me with a crooked smile.

—Now it’s your turn. Take off your shorts.

I took them off. I tore off my panties too, already nothing but a soaked rag. She gently pushed me onto my back and opened my legs with both hands, without any delicacy. She sat on top of me, fitting one of her legs between mine and the other outside, pussy against pussy, skin against skin. When she moved for the first time against my pelvis, her clitoris pressing against mine, the friction made me open my eyes wide and arch my back.

—Easy —she said, with a calmness that was almost a threat—. You’re going to come like you never have before.

She began slowly, setting a lazy rhythm, rocking on top of me and looking me in the face the whole time. Her breasts moved with every thrust. I stared at them, mesmerized, feeling both of us getting wetter, our combined fluids sliding between our legs. My hands found her hips, at first to follow her rhythm, then to squeeze her harder, to press her more firmly against me. She picked up speed, grinding shamelessly, and I felt every brush of her flesh against mine, every movement of her lips opening against mine down there.

—Look at how we fuck —she panted, looking between her legs—. Look how soaked we are.

I sat up a little to look and almost came just from the sight: our two pussies pressed together, glistening, her on top of me, rocking as if she were fucking an invisible cock. She leaned forward so I could reach one of her nipples with my mouth, and that was what finally broke me. I took it deep into my mouth and sucked it, biting it, while she drove her hips against the mattress, grinding faster and faster, moaning louder and louder, not worrying about the neighbors or anything else.

—Come with me —she begged—. Come with me, come on.

I came for the second time that night with her fingers tangled in my hair, her breasts against my mouth, and her voice telling me things I never wanted to forget. I felt her come on top of me almost at the same time, with a long shudder, squeezing me between her thighs and soaking me all the way to my groin. We stayed like that for a while, her collapsed on top of me, both of us trembling, unable to speak.

***

We stayed in bed until dawn. We ate cold pizza at four in the morning, sitting with our legs crossed and a sheet carelessly thrown over us. We talked about Martín, college, the girl she’d been with, me, and what I hadn’t known I was until that night. Then we fucked again, more slowly, taking our time, licking each other until our tongues hurt.

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

—Should I call you? —she asked.

—Call me.

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

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