My Husband’s Ex Ignited Something I Didn’t Know Was There

I thought my obsession began and ended with a suspicion. It took me months to understand that it wasn’t jealousy. It was something else. Something that still had no name.

I met Mauricio when I had two classes left before finishing my degree. He was the kind of guy my friends looked at suspiciously and the kind I couldn’t stop looking at. Dark-haired, tall, with those light eyes that never quite matched his dark skin. Tattoos climbed up his forearms and ran down his chest, drawing a map I traced with my tongue every night. In bed, he was rough when necessary and gentle when I asked him to be. I loved feeling his hard cock moving in and out of my pussy, feeling his weight on top of me, feeling that I couldn’t move while he fucked me all the way to the hilt.

During the first year, I thought luck had made a mistake with me. That a guy like him shouldn’t have noticed a woman like me. I’m not ugly, I know that, but there are women and then there are women, and through mutual friends I learned that his exes belonged to the second category. One in particular kept coming up in conversations, like a ghost he hadn’t quite managed to banish.

Her name was Mariana.

Mauri had been with her for five years before I came along. Five years is a long time. I started wondering what Mariana had that I didn’t, and at first I asked myself quietly, almost without wanting to hear the answer. Then I asked myself all the time. I wondered while he showered, while he drove to work, while he poured me coffee in the morning without knowing I was doing calculations in my head.

The first time I opened his computer was by accident. I was looking for a file from my thesis that had been saved incorrectly. I ended up looking for something else.

The folder was called “my life 2014,” and it was inside another folder called “old.” It wasn’t password-protected. There was no need to hide it, because I shouldn’t have been looking. But I looked.

Mariana at the beach, wearing a white bikini that showed against her skin and left the crack of her ass visible. Mariana in a kitchen that wasn’t this one, laughing with a wineglass in her hand. Mariana from behind, with incredibly long black hair swept to one side to reveal her shoulder. She had freckles on her shoulders. Little brown freckles, as if someone had sprinkled coffee grounds over her.

I closed the computer. I couldn’t sleep that night.

***

I opened that folder so many times I lost count. I did it when Mauri went out to train, when he left for a job site, when he took too long buying something at the market. I even calculated how many minutes his breaks gave me to slip into his study and get back to the kitchen before anyone noticed.

There were more pictures. Mariana on a bed I didn’t recognize, in black lingerie, her tits almost spilling out of her bra and her panties outlining her pussy. Mariana in a miniskirt that revealed long, incredibly white thighs without a mark on them. Mariana completely naked, lying on her side on a shaggy rug, covering one tit with her arm and nothing else. Her nipples looked pink between her fingers, and her pubic hair was a neat dark shadow that made me squeeze my legs every time I enlarged the photo.

I downloaded them all into a folder on my own laptop. I called it “university documents” and buried it among old notes.

At first I felt angry. A hot, dirty anger, as if someone had stolen something from me. Then I felt something different. Something that was tangled up with the anger but wasn’t anger. I started to enjoy opening those pictures. I started to enjoy looking at them for a long time. I started to enjoy slipping my hand inside my panties while I looked at them, rubbing my clit with two fingers and coming while biting my fist so no one could hear me, even though there was no one at home who could have heard me.

I cut my hair like hers. I dyed it the same bluish black. I bought a lingerie set that looked like the one in the bedroom photo and put it on for Mauri one night. He told me I looked beautiful, grabbed me by the hair, dragged me to the bathroom, and slammed me against the cold tiles. He pulled my panties down to my knees, whipped out his cock, and shoved it into me from behind without preamble, gripping my waist and thrusting with that strength of his that always made me moan. I planted my palms against the wall and arched my back to take him better. Every thrust made my tits hit the tile. He yanked my hair back, bit my neck, whispered my name between gasps, and while he filled my pussy with his cock I closed my eyes and thought of someone else. I thought of brown freckles on white shoulders. I came, squeezing him inside me, and when he came afterward, emptying himself inside me with a growl, I was already very far away.

That was the first sign. I ignored it.

***

I found her on Instagram one Sunday morning, with three glasses of wine in me and my trembling finger hovering over the phone. Her profile was public. Anyone could get in.

But the woman in the old pictures was gone. The Mariana of today had half her head shaved and the other half falling over one eye in a straight lock. Blue streaks ran through the black. A ring pierced her nose. Her arms were covered in delicate tattoos, different from Mauri’s—cleaner, more deliberate. She wore loose shirts, relaxed vests, ripped jeans. In one photo, a short-haired girl hugged her from behind. In another, she was in a bar with three other women, and they were all laughing as if they shared a joke I would never understand.

I hearted every one of her photos. Every single one. One after another, jabbing my finger at the screen with a desperation I didn’t recognize in myself. Then, frightened, I removed the hearts one by one and put them back more slowly. Let her think I was browsing her profile calmly. Let her not notice that I had spent two hours looking at her with my hand between my thighs.

I started saving screenshots. The ones she took in gym clothes, her ass sticking out beneath her leggings; the ones she uploaded from bed, wrapped in a sheet that opened at chest level; the summer pictures at some friend’s pool, wearing a tiny black bikini that left her tits nearly bare. I had a new folder now. I called this one “work” and hid it even deeper.

I still loved Mauri. But when he climbed on top of me and spread my legs, I wasn’t there. When his cock sank into my pussy, I closed my eyes and it was another tongue licking me. I was on top of Mariana, sucking her tits, biting her nipples. I was beneath Mariana, with her tongue on my clit, coming in her mouth. I spread Mariana’s legs on a bed that didn’t exist and ran two fingers over her pussy until she screamed my name.

***

She started it. Or I did. The boundary disappeared quickly.

I replied to one of her stories with an emoji, and she answered me. She knew perfectly well who I was; there was no need to explain. She asked how Mauri was, with a gentle irony, without malice. I told her he was fine. I told her she looked beautiful with her new style. I told her many things I shouldn’t have.

We talked for weeks. She was careful, polite, almost gallant. She never pounced. I was the one sending long messages at two in the morning. She was the one replying the next morning, slowly, without urgency. She knew what she was doing. I didn’t.

When Mauri told me he would be in another city for two weeks because of a major construction job, I wrote to her before he had even closed the front door.

—Do you want to come over one night? —I typed, deleted, and typed again.

It took her two hours to answer. She said yes.

She arrived Friday at nine. She wore a white shirt open over a black tank top, dark jeans, and combat boots that creaked as she walked. She smelled of something woody. When she hugged me hello, I buried my nose in her neck and had trouble pulling away. I felt her tits pressed against mine through our clothes, and something flared in my lower belly.

I bought wine, put on a movie neither of us watched, and we talked until three in the morning, sitting on the same couch. Closer and closer. Touching each other a little more each time, as if by accident. A hand on a knee when one of us laughed. A lock of hair brushed behind an ear. One leg resting against the other and neither of us moving it.

That night she slept in the guest room.

The next day I told her that, if she wanted, we could talk for a while in my room before going to sleep. I told her I had a big bed. I told her we would only talk.

Nobody wanted to talk.

***

We stayed in the same bed that night, and the next, and the next. Each night we got closer. Each night we wore less clothing. Each night we pretended nothing was happening.

The first time, we spooned. I had my back to her, her left arm extended beneath my head and her right arm around my waist. I felt her breathing on the nape of my neck. I felt the slow beat of her chest against my back. In the middle of the night, still asleep—or pretending to be—her pelvis began to move. Slowly, barely at all, as if she thought I hadn’t noticed. I had noticed. I pushed back against her with my ass, shoving it backward to feel her better. Her hand moved up a little, slipped beneath my T-shirt, brushed the skin of my stomach, and stayed there, still and burning. My breath caught. We both kept pretending to sleep, but my panties were soaked, and I knew she could tell.

On the fifth night I left my pajamas in the drawer. I went to bed in a red lace set, tiny panties that left my ass almost bare and a bra that barely held anything in place. She came in a silk nightgown, with nothing underneath. I knew immediately, because when she pressed against me there was nothing between her skin and mine but that thin silk, and I felt her hard nipples digging into my back like two hot little points.

That night the touching no longer pretended to be innocent. Her hand slipped beneath the lace, onto my hip, and stayed there as if asking permission. Then it moved lower. Her fingers traced the outside of my panties, barely brushing me, until I felt the tip of one slip between my lips over the fabric. A moan escaped me that I could no longer fake. She heard it and pressed harder, tracing my pussy with her finger over the wet lace until the fabric clung to my flesh. Her other arm rose and enclosed one of my tits beneath my bra; she pinched my nipple between her forefinger and thumb, tugging it with a delicacy that was worse than if she had bitten me. She thrust her pelvis against me hard, once, twice, three times. I returned every movement, rubbing my ass against her pubis. We were both awake. We both knew it. Neither of us opened our mouths. I came like that, silently, with her finger barely moving over my panties, biting my lip to keep from screaming. I felt her smile against the nape of my neck.

***

In the morning I turned my head and found her looking at me.

—Hi —she said very softly.

—Hi.

She kissed me without asking permission. And I wasn’t going to ask for it either.

We kissed as if we had been holding ourselves back for years, not weeks. Her tongue, her teeth against my lip, her hands on my face, my neck, moving lower. She ripped off my bra without unfastening it, pulling at the lace until my tits were free, my nipples erect and pointing at the ceiling. I heard her say “fuck” when she saw how badly I wanted her.

She moved down my chest with her mouth open, biting me slowly, sucking my nipples one at a time until they hurt and I still begged for more. She sucked them as if she were hungry, with her flat tongue first, then her teeth, then wrapping her whole mouth around the areola and pulling. I grabbed her head with both hands and pressed her against me, arching my back and offering her more. She laughed against my skin and moved lower.

She tore off my red lace panties with her fingers. The fabric gave with a sharp sound. She saw that I was soaked, my pussy open and glistening in the morning light. She smiled.

—I’ve been waiting for you —she told me. I don’t know whether she was saying it to me or to herself.

She slipped out of her nightgown in one movement. For the first time I saw her whole, and not in a photograph. More beautiful than in any photo. The freckles still dusted her shoulders, her body was firmer now, the new tattoos I had memorized from my phone covered her skin, her medium-sized tits had dark, erect nipples, and her pubis was shaved, with a thin line of black hair pointing downward.

She climbed on top of me and began to move. Her pussy against mine, both of us wet, both of us hot, both of us laughing and whispering things in each other’s ears. I felt her clit brush against mine, her wetness mixing with mine, that friction of slippery skin against slippery skin unlike anything I had ever felt. She whispered “slut, you’re so wet” in my ear and bit my earlobe. I dug my nails into her back and begged her for more.

She came like that, riding me, eyes closed and mouth open, pulling my hair. I felt her tremble over me, felt the hot liquid run between our thighs. And she didn’t stop. She moved down my body, leaving a trail of kisses that raised goosebumps on my skin, and settled between my legs.

She spread me open with two fingers. She looked at my pussy as if it were something precious. Then she licked me from bottom to top with a patience that made me cry with pleasure. Her flat tongue against my lips, the tip probing my entrance, her lips closing around my clit to suck it slowly. She inserted one finger, then two, and curled them inside me, searching for the spot Mauri had never known how to find. She found it on the third thrust. I screamed. My whole body arched, and I came in her mouth, soaking her face, my legs closing around her head beyond my control.

She kept sucking until I pushed her away, too sensitive, laughing and crying at the same time.

When I lifted my face from the pillow to look at her, she was already opening a bag beside the bed. She took out a black leather harness. She took out a thick, dark dildo with pronounced veins. She looked at me, asking permission with her eyes as she held it in her hand.

I said yes without speaking.

She strapped on the harness with a calmness that made me even hotter. When she stood beside the bed with that cock jutting out between her legs, my mouth went dry. I knelt without her asking. I gripped the shaft with both hands, brought it to my mouth, and began sucking it. She held the harness at the base to keep it steady and looked down at me, eyes narrowed, biting her lip. “That’s it, that’s it,” she said while I sucked her whole, taking it down until the tip touched the back of my throat, leaving strings of saliva dangling when I pulled it out. I knew she couldn’t physically feel anything, but watching her look at me while I sucked that fake cock was almost as hot for her as it was for me.

She put me on my knees on the bed, facedown, my ass raised. She ran the tip of the dildo between my buttocks, then over my pussy, soaking it in my own wetness. She penetrated me slowly at first. I felt her opening me, felt my flesh give way, felt her enter inch by inch until I felt it strike the back of me. I lost my breath.

And then she wasn’t slow anymore. She began thrusting with a rhythm that made me slam back against her, her hips striking my ass with a wet sound. Her hands were on my hips, strong, marking my bones. She pulled me backward as she pushed forward, driving that cock into me until I no longer knew where I ended. With one hand she grabbed my hair, yanked it back, and arched my neck. With the other she reached my clit and began rubbing it in circles while she kept fucking me.

—Tell me you like it —she said in my ear, leaning over me, her tits pressed against my back—. Tell me how I’m fucking you, slut.

—I love it —I moaned into the pillow—. Fuck me harder, don’t stop, please.

She didn’t stop. I clutched the sheets, bit the pillow, and told her not to stop. I came once, twice, three times. I lost count. I lost my head. I lost what little remained of the girl who had married Mauri. The last time I came screaming her name aloud for the first time, with her still inside me, her fingers squeezing my clit until the orgasm shook my entire body and I collapsed face-first against the mattress, trembling, unable to move.

She lay down beside me, sweaty, still wearing the harness, the dildo shining with me. She hugged me from behind, kissed the nape of my neck, and whispered “mine” against my hair. And I, for the first time in years, felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

***

I left him a month later.

Mauri didn’t understand. I told him a half-truth, that I wasn’t in love anymore, that I needed to be alone. I didn’t tell him with whom. He’ll find out on his own, if he hasn’t already.

Mariana and I see each other almost every day now. Sometimes I think about the girl who opened that old folder on someone else’s computer, and I don’t understand how she didn’t realize it sooner. How it took her so long to know what she was really looking for.

Sometimes I think the distance between admiring a woman and desiring her is very short. Barely a couple of photos. Barely a couple of nights in the same bed.