The gallery owner waited for me with the shutter half lowered

Inés still tasted Marina on her tongue when she came into her apartment that first dawn. The kiss at the gallery had been only the beginning; the studio in Gràcia had become a forbidden refuge where her body learned to speak a language it had kept silent for twelve years.

The next morning, while Andrés ate breakfast in silence in front of the news, Inés felt the phone vibrate under the table. She read the message three times before deleting it.

“I close at eight-thirty. Come. Bring only your desire. M.”

Andrés looked up, but only to ask whether something was wrong at the publishing house. She lied with the ease of someone who had been practicing for weeks: a last-minute correction, don’t wait for her for dinner. He nodded, went back to his coffee and the news. Twelve years of marriage had taught him not to ask twice.

She arrived on Verdi Street with her pulse racing. Evening was falling over Gràcia and the bars were starting to fill with people laughing without hiding from anyone. Inés crossed the square without lifting her gaze, her bag clutched against her side, as if everyone could read on her face where she was headed.

Marina was waiting with the metal shutter half lowered and the dim light from the display spotlights outlining only the edge of her profile. She locked the door with two turns of the key and, without saying a word, shoved Inés against the exposed brick wall.

Their mouths collided with the urgency of two people who had spent the entire day counting the hours. Marina slid her hand under Inés’s pencil skirt, pulled aside the cotton panties she had put on without thinking that morning, and found that she was already wet to the thighs.

—You’ve been like this since you walked in —she murmured against her ear, her fingers tracing slow, firm circles over the clit.

Inés gasped. Her knees gave out. Marina held her against the wall with the weight of her body and slid two fingers into her in one motion, curling them upward, searching for that spot that made her arch and dig her nails into Marina’s shoulders.

—Come fast, darling —she ordered in a hoarse voice—. Then I’ll fuck you slowly on the table.

Inés obeyed almost at once. A short, brutal orgasm tore through her belly like a current. Marina pulled her fingers out, brought them to her mouth, and sucked them without looking away, as if it were a small rite she had been anticipating all day.

—Good girl. Now take everything off.

Inés undressed, trembling under those eyes that went over her centimeter by centimeter. When she was left in only her shoes, Marina turned her and bent her over the large wooden table where she usually reviewed catalogs. She spread her buttocks apart with both hands and, without warning, sank her tongue between them while two fingers entered her again from the front.

Inés screamed. The double sensation caught her off guard. Marina alternated: she licked with a flat, broad tongue, then focused the tip right where Inés had never let anyone touch her before. Her fingers pumped with a sure, knowing rhythm. Inés came a second time, this time with a hot gush that soaked the sheets of paper spread over the wood and dripped down to the polished concrete floor.

Marina straightened up. Inés heard her moving behind her, opening a drawer, the sound of a belt being adjusted. When she turned around, Marina was wearing a harness with a thick, slightly curved black dildo. She had lubricated it with saliva and with what was still dripping from her.

—Open your legs a little wider.

Inés obeyed. Marina entered her slowly, millimeter by millimeter, until her hips crashed against Inés’s. Then she began to thrust: first slowly, deeply, letting her feel every ridge of the toy; then faster, gripping her hips with a force that would leave marks the next day. The wet sound of flesh against flesh filled the empty gallery. Inés pressed her palms against the wood, moaned shamelessly, forgetting about Andrés and the silent apartment waiting for her and the ring she had taken off when she came in.

—Tell me —Marina demanded.

—I… I love it —Inés stammered—. Don’t stop, please.

Marina sped up. The harness struck her own clit with every thrust. They both came almost at the same time: Inés trembling against the table, Marina growling against the nape of her neck, pressing herself to her back while pleasure reverberated through her.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, panting, sticky. Marina kissed her neck, not pulling all the way out.

—This is only the appetizer —she said—. Come to my place tomorrow. I want you all night.

***

The second night in the Gràcia studio was even longer.

Marina had prepared everything with the deliberation of someone who knows exactly what she wants: burned-wood candles, an open bottle of Penedès red breathing on the table, a jazz record spinning on the turntable, and, on the low coffee table in the living room, an unsettling assortment. A clitoral suction toy, a faceted glass plug, soft leather cuffs, cherry-scented lubricant, and a transparent double dildo.

They started on the sofa, naked, with their glasses still half full. Marina sucked her nipples until they were red and swollen, nibbling them carefully while she opened her thighs with her knee and rubbed her with four splayed fingers, as if she wanted to encompass her whole. Inés moaned against her mouth, her hips moving on their own, seeking more contact.

—Tonight I want you tied up —Marina whispered.

She took her to the bedroom and laid her on her back. She fastened the cuffs around her wrists and clipped them to the iron headboard. Then she spread her legs apart with two cushions under her knees and positioned herself between them, looking at her like someone about to take her time.

—You’re going to come so many times you’ll beg me to stop.

She started with the suction toy. She turned it to the lowest setting and carefully placed it over her clit. Inés writhed at the first pulse; the suction was merciless, like a hot mouth that would not let go. Marina slid in two fingers, then three, and began fucking her with circular movements while the device kept working without pause. Inés came in less than three minutes, her body convulsing, a clear stream shooting out under pressure and soaking the sheet.

Marina did not stop. She moved the suction toy away, set it aside, and lowered her head. Her tongue replaced the toy: she licked the swollen, hypersensitive clit with cruel patience, while her other hand pushed the glass plug in with just enough slowness for Inés to feel each facet entering inch by inch. Inés was screaming. Half pleasure, half overload.

—I can’t anymore —she sobbed—. It’s too much.

—Yes, you can —Marina replied without lifting her head—. And you’re going to.

She went back to sucking hard. Second orgasm. Third. By the fourth, Inés was already crying without being able to help it, her body trembling in a way she didn’t know how to name. Marina freed her from the cuffs, stroked her wrists, marked by the straps, and brought a glass of water to her lips before continuing.

—Look at me —she said after that.

Inés opened her eyes. Marina had taken the transparent, flexible double dildo. She slipped one end into herself slowly, never taking her gaze off Inés as she did. Then she moved closer and guided the other end inside Inés. They stayed like that, connected, for an instant in which neither dared move.

And then they started moving together. Chest to chest, nipples brushing, mouths seeking each other between gasps. Every thrust made the toy strike both of them at once. Inés could feel Marina’s rhythm, her broken breathing, the pulse between her thighs. They kissed with the urgency of people afraid that dawn’s light might return at any moment and dissolve the spell.

They came embraced, screaming into each other’s mouths, their bodies shining with sweat under the yellow light of the bedside lamp.

Afterward, defeated, they lay on their sides, still tangled together. Marina brushed a damp lock of hair off her forehead and kissed the tears that had stuck to her lashes.

—I love you —she said for the first time, without disguising it as a joke.

Inés took a while to answer. She thought of Andrés, of the silent apartment on the other side of the city, of the twelve years of dinners with nothing to say, of the woman she had been before the first kiss in the gallery. She thought of how easy it would be to tell Marina yes, that she was staying, that she wasn’t going back. She also thought of her mother, of their mutual friends, of the publishing house where no one looked at her twice. All of that weighed even more than Marina’s arms.

—I do too —she whispered at last—. But I’m not free yet.

Marina didn’t answer. She slid an arm around her waist and pulled her against her chest. She switched off the lamp with her free hand. In the dark, Inés heard Marina’s breathing fall into step with her own and knew, without needing to promise it, that she would come back the next day. And the next. And every day necessary until “yet” stopped weighing more than her name.