My Friends’ Friend Followed Me into the Shower

I hadn’t gone out in four months. Four months locked away with a new job, a move, and a silent breakup that still hurt, without me really knowing why. When Damián texted me that they were getting together at El Vagón, a bar open on Wednesday nights, I convinced myself it was time to loosen up.

I arrived late, as always. The place was dimly lit, with that low music that makes you want to talk loudly. I ordered a tropical with ginger at the bar, my favorite drink, the one that mixes citrus with something sweet and then bites at the end. I let it sweat in my hand for a second before looking for the table.

Damián waved at me from the back. There were six or seven of them, some familiar, others not. They introduced me quickly and I settled at the end of the bench, still a little stiff. They were talking about a trip to the coast, a movie I hadn’t seen, a job someone had just quit. I took a long sip and made myself breathe.

And then I looked at her.

She was across from me, two seats to the left. Dark hair tied back in a messy ponytail, a white shirt open to the second button, a ring on her thumb that she kept twirling while she listened. I had seen her a hundred times in Damián’s Instagram photos. Renata. I always thought she’d be warmer in person; instead she held my gaze like someone assessing me, not smiling even out of politeness.

—You the one from the new studio? —she asked, without lifting her glass.

—That’s me —I said, trying to smile.

She didn’t smile back. She barely nodded, as if making a note of it, and went on talking to the guy beside her. I felt that small humiliation you feel when someone decides you don’t matter before they know you. I ordered another drink.

The bar filled up. At eleven they turned off the main lights, switched on some red strips on the ceiling, and started shoving the tables against the wall. Bodies appeared where there had been chairs. The music got louder. By then I was on my fourth glass and felt light, happy, shameless in a way I didn’t recognize in myself.

I danced with Damián. I danced with a curly-haired girl who kept tossing her head. I danced alone for a while, eyes closed, letting the bass take me. When I opened them, Renata was looking at me from the bar. That same judge’s stare again.

Fuck her.

I held her eyes. Raised my glass in greeting and took a long, unhurried drink. She didn’t blink. She got off the stool, set down her glass, and walked toward me through the bodies. Before I could think anything at all, she had my hand in hers and was pulling me toward the back hallway.

The bathroom was narrow, with white tile and a sweet pine smell that didn’t cover the smoke. She closed the door behind us and leaned against it.

—That’s enough —she said—. Don’t drink any more.

—Excuse me? —I said.

—I’m not playing mother to you. I’m telling you because I saw you come in and because I’ve been watching you for an hour. You’ve had five drinks and you’re going to end up badly.

I got angry. Or something like anger, mixed with embarrassment for having been so easy to read. I looked at her: that tight mouth, that long neck, the shirt button that couldn’t hold on much longer. And before she could say anything else to me, I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her.

It was a clumsy kiss, too fast, too hard. I tasted the rum and lime on her mouth, felt her lips part for a second and then close again. Then she shoved me back.

—What are you doing?

—That’s what I wanted —I said, with a smile that didn’t belong to me.

Renata dragged the back of her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t scared. She was furious.

—You’re an idiot —she said, and left.

The bathroom door kept vibrating for a while. I stayed leaning against the sink, staring at myself in the mirror: smeared mascara, swollen lower lip, shining eyes. You just kissed a woman. The thought arrived late, as if the drunkness had been given time to stumble before it. I washed my face. I went out.

***

At three in the morning the bar closed and someone suggested we continue at Damián’s. He lived three blocks away, in an apartment with high ceilings, an open-plan kitchen, and an endless sofa. The seven of us walked there, our voices a little hoarser and our steps a little clumsier. Renata came behind, talking to the curly-haired girl, not looking at me.

Damián put on soft music, opened a bottle, and threw cushions onto the floor. I still had my hair stuck to my forehead from the heat of the bar and asked if I could shower. He said yes without thinking, pointed me to the bathroom with his thumb, and handed me a clean towel.

Damián’s bathroom was spacious, with a tempered-glass shower screen and a shower big enough for two. I locked the door, undressed slowly, and folded my clothes on top of the toilet. The water came out icy at first and I adjusted it little by little until the steam fogged the mirror. I pressed my forehead to the tiles and let the spray hammer the back of my neck.

I thought about her. About how she had grabbed my hand. About the look on her face when I kissed her. You fucked up. And at the same time, a part of me, much older than the drunkenness, knew I hadn’t ruined anything. I slid one hand between my legs almost without realizing it, barely brushing my clit with the pads of two fingers, and felt a wet throb that wasn’t from the water. I was wet for her. For the memory of her mouth parting for a second against mine, for the invented image of that mouth opening fully, without anger, biting my lip, sucking my tongue. I pressed a little harder and forced myself to pull my hand away. I didn’t want to come alone. Not after having tasted her.

I heard the latch.

I lifted my head so fast it hurt. The door opened a crack and closed again with the same care. Through the tempered glass I saw a white silhouette: Renata’s shirt, her hair still tied up. She walked to the toilet, looked at my folded clothes, and then looked toward the shower screen.

—How did you get in? —I asked.

—Damián gave me the other key.

—Liar.

—Fine, he didn’t give it to me. But it was left in on the other side.

I laughed, a short, nervous laugh. Without thinking, I covered my breasts with my arms, as if I had forgotten that she was the one who had chosen to come in.

—Get out —I told her.

—No.

—Renata.

—You’re not drunk anymore —she said—. You’re freshly showered, awake, and you’re looking at me the way you were looking at me at the bar.

It was true. It was such a precise truth that it offended me. I let my arms drop. The water kept falling down my back.

Renata unbuttoned her shirt without rushing, two buttons, three, and let it fall to the tiled floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. Her breasts were small, her nipples dark and hard from the cold air. She took off her pants with a calm skill that made me understand she had already been there, that she had already done this, that I was the clumsy one. She slid her black panties down her thighs, stepped out of them, and left them bunched on top of the shirt. For the first time I saw her cunt: almost completely shaved, with a short strip of dark hair just above, and tucked lips already shining a little between her legs. She was wet too.

She opened the shower screen and got in.

The space was tight. Steam wrapped around us at once. She pressed my back against the tiles, the same tiles that had chilled my forehead a minute before, and held my jaw with her right hand.

—If you want me to stop, tell me now —she murmured.

I said nothing. I shook my head just a little. She smiled, a smile she hadn’t been able to give me all night, and kissed me. This time it was slow, controlled, hers. I felt her tongue stroke mine with a patience that melted my legs. She sucked on my lower lip, bit it, pushed her tongue all the way into my mouth and I sucked on it like it was a little cock, hungry, until I heard her moan softly against my teeth.

She grabbed one breast with her free hand. She pinched my nipple between her index finger and thumb, first gently, then with a twist that made me open my eyes.

—Look at me —she asked—. I want to see your face when I start.

She lowered her mouth along my neck. She bit me under the ear, right where nobody ever remembers to kiss. She ran her tongue over my collarbone, over the hollow between my breasts, over one side and then the other. She spent a long while on my nipples, alternating, sucking with a persistence that made me arch against the tiles. She sucked them whole, mouth open, tugging them just enough to let them spring back before catching them again. She bit them while her free hand went lower, slipped between my thighs, and found my cunt without searching. One finger went in dry, slipping only from the water and my own juice, and she let out a sound of satisfaction against my breast when she felt how wet I was.

—Look at you —she said, and showed me the finger shining under the shower light before putting it in her mouth and sucking it clean—. You were like this in the bar bathroom. That’s why I left.

—Please —I said.

—Please what.

—I don’t know.

—Yes, you do. Say it.

—Suck it —I whispered, and blushed at hearing myself.

—Louder.

—Eat my cunt, Renata. Please.

She gave a soft laugh against my skin. She kept going down. She ran her tongue over my navel, over the line of my pelvis, over the inner thighs. And she knelt.

The water ran down her back and over my belly. She took my hips in both hands and pushed me gently toward her, as if asking permission one last time. I buried my fingers in her hair. That was all the permission she needed.

She opened my cunt lips with two fingers and looked at it for a second, like someone looking at something that was hers, before sticking out her whole tongue and licking me from bottom to top in one long, firm stroke. I felt the breath leave me. It was different. It was different from everything I had tried before with a man. There was no rush, no ego, no mechanical motion that I so often had to guide with my hand. She knew. She knew exactly where to stop, how much pressure to apply, when to pull back a millimeter and start again.

She licked me slowly at first, tongue flat along the whole length of my cunt, collecting what was running down the inside of my thigh. Then she drove the tip of her tongue into the entrance and worked it in and out, in and out, like a miniature cock fucking me in slow motion. I was shaking. I dug my nails into her scalp. She moved up to my clit and wrapped her lips around it, all of it, and started sucking with a steady insistence that tore a hoarse moan from me, echoing off the tiles.

—Like that —I said—. Like that, don’t move from there.

She sucked my clit as if she had studied me, as if she had been listening to my body before she ever touched me. I closed my eyes. I pulled her hair and shoved her harder against me, shamelessly, and she answered with a muffled sound that reverberated through me. I felt her tongue vibrating against the swollen flesh, felt how she opened her mouth wider to suck my sex all at once, how she returned to the tip in a rhythm that gave no mercy.

Jesus.

I felt two of her fingers go in, slowly at first, then with a rhythm that matched her tongue. She curved the tip upward in exactly the right place, as if she had a map, as if I had drawn that map myself and mailed it to her. She pulled them all the way out to the first knuckle and pushed them back in to the knuckles, with a wet sound blending into the water. She added a third finger. She opened me a little more and filled me, and I thanked her with a long moan that rose from my stomach. I rested the back of my head against the tiles. My left leg started to shake.

—Don’t stop —I begged.

—I’m not stopping. Come in my mouth. I want to taste you.

She didn’t stop. She picked up the pace just a little, just enough, moving her fingers like she was calling me from the inside, tongue locked on my clit without letting go for a second, and I stopped belonging to anything. The orgasm came long, sustained, with shudders that made me slide a handspan down the wall. I felt myself pouring into her mouth, onto her chin, into the water, felt her close her lips around me so she wouldn’t lose anything and swallow, twice, while I was still trembling with her fingers inside me. Renata stayed down there for as long as I kept shaking, not letting go, water running onto the back of her neck, and only pulled away when she understood I couldn’t go on.

She stood up. She was soaked and had a smile that now, finally, seemed to belong to her. She kissed me again. She let me taste myself in her mouth, thick, salty, mixed with the old rum on her teeth.

—Now you —she murmured, and took my hand.

She guided it between her legs without taking her eyes off me. Her cunt was hot even under the water, swollen, and her clit rose between my fingers as soon as I brushed it. I stayed still for a second, learning, feeling her under my fingertips. She squeezed my wrist so I wouldn’t hesitate.

—Put them in me —she said—. Two. Hard.

I slid two fingers into her and she dropped her head onto my shoulder with a moan that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. She was tight, slippery, alive against my hand. I started slowly, searching for the angle she had given me. I curved the tips upward. Right away I found the spot: I felt her open a little more, heard her let out an “there, there, like that” against my neck. I increased the pace. With my thumb I found her clit and rubbed it in circles, never stopping pumping my fingers in and out. She bit my shoulder, sank her teeth into the flesh, and started moving her hips against my hand as if she were fucking me herself.

—Faster —she panted—. Faster, don’t ease up.

I drove my fingers deeper, added a third the way she had done with me. I felt her yield, widen, contract. I bit one nipple, pulled her hair back so she’d give me her neck, and sucked it from top to bottom while I kept thrusting my fingers into her. Renata came against me with a short, rough cry that drowned out the sound of the water, and I felt her cunt clenching around my fingers, throbbing deep inside several times before letting go. I stayed inside her until the last shiver. Then I pulled them out slowly and brought them to my mouth. She had been right: it was worth tasting yourself.

She stayed leaning against me for a while, breathing into my collarbone, until the water started to turn cold. She held me a few seconds longer while I tried to remember how to breathe.

—It was you —she said, in a whisper against my temple—. All night I knew it was you.

Then she opened the shower screen, picked up her clothes from the floor, and left without drying off. I heard her open and close the bathroom door, footsteps in the hallway, Damián’s voice asking her something, the apartment door.

***

When I came out of the bathroom, wrapped in the towel, the others were still in the living room as if nothing had happened. Damián offered me a cold beer. The curly-haired girl asked me to put on some music. I asked as neutrally as I could:

—And Renata?

—She left —Damián said with a shrug—. Said she had an early start tomorrow.

I nodded. I sat on the sofa with the towel still damp and my hair dripping. I accepted the beer. I smiled when someone made a joke I didn’t hear.

Inside, though, I wasn’t there. I was still under the water, with my back against the tiles, feeling two firm hands holding my hips, a tongue working my clit nonstop, three fingers opening me from within. I was discovering, with a clarity no drink had ever given me in thirty years, that my body had been waiting for something like that long before I knew it.

I didn’t have Renata’s phone number. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see her again. And yet, that night I understood something simple: that the first time isn’t the first time something happens. It’s the first time you dare to look it in the face.