The Barmaid Waited for Me After Her Shift Ended

It was Thursday, and the week had felt endless. Meetings with clients who didn’t know what they wanted, unfinished emails, and impossible traffic had left me with just one desire: a drink served by someone who wouldn’t talk to me about work.

The bar was three blocks from the office. I’d seen it hundreds of times and had never gone in. That night I pushed the door open without thinking too much about it. Inside, the lights were low, a jukebox was playing softly, and half a dozen customers were scattered among the tables. I sat at the bar and ordered a whiskey on the rocks.

The girl serving me turned her back while she poured it. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and she wore a black vest over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. When she turned to hand me the glass, the first thing that struck me was her eyes: light green, almost gray beneath the yellow light.

—Rough day? —she asked.

—Endless —I replied—. If I’m not mistaken, this whiskey is the first kind thing that’s happened to me today.

She smiled and lingered a second too long looking at me before going to serve another table. I took a sip of whiskey and, without meaning to, followed her with my eyes. She moved behind the bar with the ease of someone who knew every inch of her job. When she passed close by again, I gestured to her with my hand.

—Another one just like it, please.

—Coming right up.

—By the way, I’m Mariana —I said while she poured.

—Lucía —she replied, extending her hand over the bar. She had slender fingers and short, unpainted nails. The handshake lasted a second longer than necessary.

I drank the second whiskey more slowly. Every time she passed by, we exchanged a short sentence. Where I was from. How long I’d been living in the city. Whether she always worked Thursdays. Nothing important, but everything said with the intensity that slips into a conversation when both women know they aren’t talking only about what it seems.

At one point I leaned over the bar and blurted out without thinking too much:

—You have eyes that aren’t fair to the customers.

She let out a short, surprised laugh.

—That’s the first time anyone’s said it to me like that, without beating around the bush.

—I don’t beat around the bush when I’m tired. I’ll buy you a drink when you finish.

She glanced at the clock behind the register.

—I get off in forty minutes. If you wait for me, I’ll accept.

—I’ll wait.

***

The forty minutes dragged on endlessly. I ordered water so I wouldn’t keep drinking and took out my phone. I answered two work emails just to keep my hands busy. Every time she came over to set a glass on the bar, we exchanged a look that had already become a silent commitment. My pussy was already swollen beneath my dress pants, and I shifted on the stool every couple of minutes, trying to disguise how badly I wanted that green-eyed stranger to fuck me.

At the twenty-five-minute mark, I started to doubt myself. Maybe she’d only said yes so I wouldn’t keep pressing her. Maybe she’d leave through the back door and I’d be left there like an idiot, waiting for her with a bottle of mineral water. I decided to ask for the check and leave with my dignity intact. I was taking out my card when I felt fingers cover my eyes from behind.

—Guess who —a soft voice said, very close to my ear.

My breath caught.

—I thought you weren’t coming out.

—You thought wrong —she replied—. Is that drink still on?

She sat beside me on the stool. She had let her hair down and changed the black vest for a short leather jacket. She smelled dry and expensive, a perfume with woody notes I hadn’t expected.

—What do you drink when you’re not working? —I asked.

—The same thing you do.

I signaled to her coworker, who prepared us two whiskeys. This time Lucía leaned toward me as she spoke. The bar was high and the stools were very close together; our knees brushed several times as if by accident, until it stopped being an accident and they remained pressed together. At one point she put her hand on my thigh, over the fabric, and moved it upward a centimeter at a time, measuring me, until her fingers were almost brushing my crotch. I opened my legs a little wider without looking at her and took another sip of whiskey as if nothing were happening.

—Do you have someone to go home with? —she asked suddenly.

—No. I live alone.

—So do I.

I nodded slowly. Nothing else needed to be said. I brought my face close and kissed her. It was a short kiss, almost a question. She answered with a longer one, barely parting her lips, sliding her tongue into my mouth with a slowness that made me squeeze my thighs together. She tasted of whiskey and a soft cherry lip gloss. When she pulled away, her pupils were so dilated that barely any green remained.

—Follow me —she murmured.

***

I thought we were going to go outside, find a taxi, and head to one of our homes. I was wrong. She climbed off the stool and slipped down a narrow hallway at the back of the bar. I followed, trying not to let the urgency in my legs show. She pushed open the women’s restroom door, checked that no one was inside, and locked the bolt.

—Here? —I asked, my voice hoarse.

—Here —she replied, pushing me against the wall.

The cold tiles pierced through my shirt. Lucía took my wrists and held them above my head with one hand. She was stronger than she looked. With the other hand she ran over my neck, my collarbone, my cleavage. She didn’t kiss me yet. She was looking at me as if she wanted to memorize me before touching me.

—I’ve been thinking about fucking you all night —she said—. Since you ordered your first whiskey.

—Me too. My pussy’s been soaked since you shook my hand.

She smiled with her mouth closed, as if hearing that word from my lips had pleased her more than anything else I’d said before. At last she kissed me, and this time it wasn’t a question. It was a complete answer, with tongue and teeth. She lowered the hand that had traveled over my cleavage and tore my blouse open with a single pull. The buttons gave way without a sound. She pulled the cups of my bra down without unfastening it and bent to suck one nipple. Her tongue moved in very slow circles; then she barely bit it, then sucked it whole, tugging it outward until it hurt. I arched against her involuntarily and let out my breath through my mouth.

—Quietly —she whispered without releasing my hands—. I don’t want them to throw us out.

I nodded, biting my lips. I focused on breathing through my nose while she attended to my other breast with the same methodical calm, sucking and biting until my tits were red and my nipples so hard they hurt when the fabric brushed them as she moved away. She pushed one knee between my legs and pressed it there, right against my pussy, and I shamelessly began rubbing myself against her thigh over her pants. She noticed and smiled against my neck.

—Look at how you’re moving —she murmured—. You’re already getting my pants wet.

—Shut up and touch me already.

She released my wrists, only to push me toward the sink. She sat me on the cold marble. Then she opened my legs with both hands.

—Now it’s my turn to look at you —I said, tugging at her jacket.

She let me. I took off her jacket and pulled her shirt over her head. She wore a very simple gray cotton bra that, in any other context, wouldn’t have seemed like anything to me, but in that bathroom it looked like the most erotic object in the world. I pulled her cups down just as she had done to me and saw her tits: small, very white, with pink nipples already hard and pointing at me. I leaned in and sucked one whole, burying my face in it, and she grabbed the back of my neck and pressed me closer. I ran my tongue around it, bit it, and heard her breath catch. I undid her jeans and pulled them down to mid-calf. She wore simple black cotton underwear, too—also perfect.

I ran my hand over the fabric and felt the dampness. She was so wet that her panties gleamed beneath the ceiling light. I pressed two fingers in slow circles over her clitoris through the cotton, tracing its shape. Lucía let her head fall back and released a deep sound that she had to swallow halfway through.

—Quietly, you too —I told her.

We made eye contact and laughed with our mouths closed. I moved the fabric aside and saw her pussy, shaved and swollen, her lips gleaming with how wet she was. I slid two fingers along her slit, from bottom to top, and found her hard, prominent clitoris. I felt her tremble. I lowered my fingers and thrust them inside her all the way. She was hot inside and tight, closing around my fingers as if she’d made up her mind about this a long time ago. I began to move, slowly at first, then faster, fucking her with two fingers, pulling them almost all the way out and pushing them back in to the knuckles. She grabbed the hair at the nape of my neck and rested her forehead on my shoulder. My whole hand grew slick each time I penetrated her.

—Don’t stop —she murmured—. Please don’t stop, put them deeper.

I added a third finger. It took her a second to open around it, but then she loosened and began moving her hips against my hand, riding herself, fucking my fingers. I picked up the pace. With my thumb I brushed her clitoris on every thrust, pressing in fast circles. I felt her broken breathing against my neck, growing more and more ragged, and suddenly she began squeezing hard around me in spasms. When she came, she bit my shoulder so she wouldn’t scream. I felt her pussy contract in waves around my fingers, soaking them all the way to my wrist. The mark of her teeth was still there the next day.

She remained pressed against me for a moment, catching her breath, with my fingers still inside her. I pulled them out slowly, gleaming, and brought them to my mouth without thinking. She tasted strong, a little salty. She watched me do it, and her face lit up all over again.

—Now you —she said, kneeling between my legs.

She undid my pants, pulled them down along with my underwear, and left me sitting on the edge of the sink. The bathroom mirror gave me back an image that didn’t look like mine: tousled hair, open shirt, breasts exposed with nipples still hard, legs spread, and my pussy open before Lucía’s mouth. It was me, and at the same time it was someone else. I liked both of us.

She opened my lips with two fingers and looked at me for a second before lowering her face. Then she ran her entire tongue over me, from bottom to top, with excruciating slowness, savoring me. Lucía’s tongue drew the first wave of pleasure from me almost effortlessly. She had a strange instinct for finding the exact angle: she sucked my clitoris with her lips, then left it and moved down to slide her whole tongue inside me, fucking me with it, then came back up to suck me hard. Her left hand was on my hip, holding me firmly against the marble so I wouldn’t slide off, while her right hand was free. After a while, I realized why.

She took a small vibrator from her pants pocket, the kind that fits in the palm of your hand. She turned it on at its lowest setting. She looked up at me from between my legs, asking permission without words. I nodded. She pressed it against my clitoris while continuing with her tongue a little lower, licking the entrance to my pussy and then thrusting her tongue inside me. At the same time, she put two fingers inside me, very deep, and began searching for a spot inside with the pads of her fingers, pressing upward. The combination of all three sensations—the tongue, her fingers pounding that spot, and the vibrator pressed against my clitoris—brought me to orgasm in less than a minute. I had to cover my mouth with both hands to keep from screaming. My thighs clenched around her head, and I soaked her face.

—Quiet, quiet —she said softly, laughing against my thigh, her mouth still shiny with me.

—This is your fault —I protested breathlessly.

She didn’t let me rest. She sucked one finger and passed it very slowly over a place I hadn’t expected her to touch, in back, pressing lightly against my ass.

—Does it bother you? —she asked.

—No —I said, and it was true—. Keep going.

She began playing there with the pad of her finger, wetting it with what was dripping from my pussy and pushing in little by little. At first I tensed, and she noticed, lowering her mouth again to suck my clitoris until I relaxed. When I loosened up, she slid her whole finger inside. A long moan escaped me, one I barely managed to swallow. With her other hand she put two fingers inside my pussy again and began moving them at the same time, in different directions, feeling herself through the inner wall. The vibrator remained where it was, pressed against my clitoris. Between the three sensations—the finger in my ass, the fingers in my pussy, and the vibrator above—I felt my mind drift somewhere else. I came again, harder, with a tremor running down my legs and leaving my back against the mirror. Two bursts of air escaped me that were almost screams. Lucía held me until I stopped moving, without taking her fingers out, letting me clench around her until it passed.

When she finally pulled them out, they were gleaming to the knuckle. She cleaned them with her tongue without taking her eyes off me.

***

We sat on the bathroom floor, both of us half dressed, laughing like two teenagers. The sink’s marble had left our asses freezing cold. We spent a good while simply kissing, without urgency, our mouths still warm from whiskey and everything else. I tasted myself on her tongue, and she tasted herself on mine, and it amused us, so we kissed again.

Someone knocked on the door. We looked at each other and held back our laughter.

—One moment —Lucía called, perfectly composed despite wearing her shirt backward.

We dressed in thirty seconds. I fixed my hair in the mirror while she ran her hands over her face as if nothing had happened, though the moisture from my pussy was still visible on her chin; she wiped it away with the back of her wrist before opening the door. We came out as if we’d gone in to wash our hands. The girl waiting outside didn’t even look at us.

We went back to the bar and ordered one last drink. We no longer needed to talk about what had happened, but neither did we avoid it. I handed her a napkin with my number written on it and the address of my building underneath.

—Call me whenever you want to do this again. Or come straight over. I have a bed, a shower, and the whole night ahead of me.

Lucía tucked the napkin into her jacket pocket without looking at it. Then she looked at me with the same intensity she’d had before kissing me against the bathroom wall.

—This is happening again —she said—. And next time I’ll fuck you slowly, in a bed, until you don’t have the strength to go back to the office on Monday. I promise you.

I left the bar with a bitten shoulder, my hair still half-combed, my soaked panties clinging to my skin, and a strange sensation in my body, as if someone had lit me up from the inside and forgotten to turn me off. I walked to my car thinking that I already had something to do the following week, and that the bar three blocks away had become, from one Thursday to the next, the most important place in the city.