The Blonde from the Bar Took Me to Her Bed That Night

My name is Marina. I’m thirty-six, brunette, with short hair and eyes that are too big for my face. People think I look serious when really I’m just tired. That spring, I was more tired than ever.

I’d been separated for two months. I loved my husband, I really did, but he cheated on me whenever he got the chance, and I was so naive it took me years to see it. I found out in the worst possible way: the woman he was sleeping with was who I considered my best friend. After that, I stopped trusting anyone. I thought any one of the women around me might have been through his bed. I was left alone, without a husband and without friends, trapped in a tiny routine: from work at the bookshop to home, from home to work, and back again.

One Saturday afternoon I went to my nephew’s birthday party. I didn’t feel like it, but I wasn’t going to let my sister or the boy, whom I adore, down. I endured the snack, blew out the candles with the others, and as soon as I could, I said goodbye. I was walking home when I suddenly had a desperate need to use the bathroom, so I went into the first bar I found.

When I came out of the restroom, instead of leaving, I sat down at a table in the back and ordered a coffee. I wasn’t in any hurry to go back to an empty apartment. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice the place was almost deserted, with nearly every table free. If I’d been more awake, I would have realized how strange what happened next was.

A blonde woman, with long hair and a tight black dress, crossed the entire bar and stopped right beside me.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” I replied, more out of politeness than because I wanted her to.

There were empty tables everywhere and she’d chosen mine. Even then, it didn’t seem odd. She set her beer down on the wood and settled across from me with a calm that didn’t fit someone who had just arrived.

“You look sad,” she said bluntly.

“That’s life,” I answered.

“Life can be hard sometimes. But the bad things always pass.”

“I wish. Though right now I seriously doubt it.”

“You shouldn’t lose hope. Even when everything seems lost.”

I smiled despite myself. She was the first person in weeks who had spoken to me as if she truly cared. She took my hands over the table, slowly, and I stayed still. I should have pulled away. I didn’t.

“My name is Eva,” she said. “And yours?”

“Marina.”

“Marina.” She repeated my name as if tasting it. “I’m buying you another drink. You don’t look like you want to go home yet.”

She was right, and that made me uncomfortable. For the first time I really looked at her: sharp cheekbones, a full mouth, eyes of a gray that seemed to look straight through me. She was beautiful in an intimidating way. I had never noticed a woman like that before, or at least never allowed myself to think it.

“Just for a while,” I said, and my own voice surprised me.

***

We talked for more than an hour. Or rather, she talked and I listened, because she had a way of asking questions that left you defenseless. I told her about my husband, about my friend, the depression, not trusting anyone. Things I hadn’t even told my sister. She never pitied me for a second; she only nodded and looked at me as if I were the only interesting thing in the city.

“Your husband was an idiot,” she said at one point. “He had a woman like you in his bed and went looking elsewhere. Do you know how uncommon you are?”

I felt my face grow hot. I lowered my eyes to the coffee, already cold.

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Don’t say anything.” She leaned over the table, lowering her voice. “I live two streets from here. I have a bottle of wine that’s better than this beer and a sofa that’s much more comfortable than this bar. Come.”

Say no. Get up and go home. That was what I thought. But I’d spent two months feeling invisible, and this woman looked at me as if I were a fire. I nodded before I’d fully decided.

Her apartment was small and smelled of something sweet I couldn’t identify. She poured me wine, sat down beside me on the sofa, very close, and rested a hand on my knee. She didn’t move it away. Neither did I.

“You’ve never been with a woman,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“No,” I admitted. “It had never even crossed my mind.”

“And now?”

I didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t wait for me to. She took the glass from my hand, set it on the table, and kissed me.

***

The first kiss was slow, almost a question. I stayed rigid, not knowing what to do with my hands or my mouth. But Eva wasn’t in a hurry. She kissed me as if we had the whole night, nibbling my lower lip, letting me decide the pace. When I felt her tongue seeking mine, I opened my mouth almost without thinking, and something inside me let go. I kissed her back, and I heard her laugh against my lips.

“There you are,” she murmured. “I knew you were in there.”

She took me by the hand to the bedroom. She switched on a dim lamp and began to undress me without hurry, one piece at a time, looking me in the eyes the whole time instead of at my body, which was what unmade me most. When I stood naked before her, I felt the urge to cover myself. She gently held my wrists and stopped me.

“Don’t hide. You’re gorgeous.”

Then she undressed herself. Beneath the black dress she wore dark lingerie, lace and a garter belt I would never have dared to put on myself. She stayed like that, half undressed, and pushed me in the chest with two fingers until I fell back onto the bed.

She climbed over me. The first touch of her skin against mine tore a sigh from me I couldn’t control. I felt her breasts pressing against mine, her nipples brushing mine, and a shiver ran through me from head to toe. She kissed my neck, my ear, the line of my jaw, while her hands traveled over my back, my hips, my thighs, edging toward my sex and pulling away before reaching it, over and over, until I arched my back in search of her.

“Ask me,” she whispered in my ear.

“Please,” I said, and I didn’t even recognize my own voice. “Touch me.”

Her fingers finally brushed my sex, already completely wet, and the sensation was so intense I had to grip the sheets. I don’t know how long she played with me like that, with two fingers tracing slow circles, pressing exactly where I needed it, reading my body better than any man ever had. I moaned without shame, something else that wasn’t like me at all.

“No man has ever touched you like this,” she said, and it wasn’t a question but a truth.

“None,” I admitted between gasps.

***

She worked her way down my body, kissing my sternum, my breasts, stopping at each nipple to lick it and tug at it with her lips. She continued over my stomach, my hip, nipping the inside of my thighs carefully, until her breath was right where I wanted it most. I lifted my head to look at her. She held my gaze for a second, smiled, and lowered her mouth over me.

The first touch of her tongue made me cry out. She moved up and down slowly, sometimes trapping my lips between hers, sometimes stopping at my clit to suck it until I was shaking and dug my fingers into her hair. She never stopped looking at me, and that drove me crazy, feeling watched and devoured at the same time. I pressed her head against me, not wanting to let her go.

“Don’t stop,” I begged. “Please, don’t stop.”

Far from tiring her, my pleas seemed to ignite her more. She added two fingers, entering slowly while her tongue kept working, and then I could think of nothing at all. Pleasure rose in waves until the orgasm split me in two, with barely any warning, a jolt that bent me over the bed and left me trembling, clutching the sheets, while a long moan escaped my throat.

When I came back to myself, Eva climbed up to kiss me. This time I didn’t wait for her to take the lead: I was the one who kissed her, who turned her onto the mattress and got on top. I wanted to do to her what she had done to me. I had never done it before, but I’d spent the whole night learning, and suddenly I wasn’t afraid of anything.

I unhooked her bra, kissed her breasts, moved down her stomach with my mouth while she tangled her fingers in my short hair and gently pushed me lower. When I reached between her legs and tasted her for the first time, I was surprised by how much I liked it: her taste, her smell, the way her body responded to the slightest movement of my tongue.

“Like that,” she panted. “Just like that, don’t stop.”

I obeyed her. I listened to her moan, felt her move against my mouth, rising and falling, until her voice broke and her whole body tensed beneath mine. She came with a rough cry, holding my head, and I stayed there until she stopped trembling, proud of something I wouldn’t have even imagined three hours earlier.

***

We lay there in silence, tangled together, our breathing gradually returning to normal. I expected her to say something, for it to continue, for there to be a morning after. But Eva sat up sooner than I wanted, perched on the edge of the bed and started gathering her clothes from the floor.

“Stay as long as you want,” she said, dressing. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Lock up when you leave, the door swings shut on its own.”

“You’re leaving?” I asked, not understanding.

“I have to go, Marina.” She buttoned up her dress and turned toward me with a smile that was hard to read. “Don’t take it the wrong way. It was perfect just like this. Let’s not spoil it.”

“Will I see you again?”

She leaned down, gave me one last kiss, long and slow, and brushed a lock of hair off my forehead.

“The city’s small,” she said. “Who knows.”

And she left. I heard the door close and I was left alone in a bed that wasn’t mine, in the apartment of a woman whose last name I didn’t know, with my body still vibrating and a smile I hadn’t felt in months.

I dressed slowly, washed my face, made sure I hadn’t left anything behind, and went out into the street. I didn’t really know where I was. I walked until I found the name of a familiar avenue and, while I finally made my way home, I could only think of one thing: that I hoped the city was, truly, small enough for me to run into her again.