The Mature Neighbor on the Fifth Floor Kept Me Awake

Lucía liked older women, and ever since she moved into the building she had had eyes only for the neighbor on the fifth floor. Her name was Renata; she lived alone and always came and went at the same time, never with anyone accompanying her. She was forty-seven, though anyone who caught even a sideways glimpse of her would have guessed ten years less.

She was tall, fair-skinned, and freckled, with black hair she always wore loose, falling over her shoulders. Big blue eyes, strong brows, a mouth with full lips. She dressed with exquisite taste, in skirts that showed off her legs and necklines that hinted without ever fully revealing. Those freckles on her cheekbones made her, to Lucía, completely irresistible.

Every morning Lucía made sure she was in the lobby when Renata came down. They exchanged good mornings with a polite smile and nothing more. In the evenings, the same. Lucía was young, blonde, with ivory skin, a braid that gave her an almost childish air, and a body that turned heads in both men and women. She had more suitors than she knew what to do with. But none of them interested her.

She could be my mother, she sometimes thought, and still she’s the only one who keeps me up at night.

Lucía had always known she liked women, and very young she discovered she liked older ones. It had been at school, one afternoon when she walked unannounced into a friend of her mother’s bedroom and found her half-dressed. She couldn’t get that image out of her head for months. From then on she knew exactly what stirred her, and she learned that seducing a mature woman was an art that demanded patience.

So she didn’t despair. The few women who had passed through her life had done so after months of patient courtship. Renata would be no different. The problem was breaking the ice.

***

What Lucía didn’t know was the history Renata carried with her. Six months earlier she had come home to fetch something she had forgotten and found her partner writhing on her own bed with a coworker. Since then, she hadn’t wanted anything to do with relationships.

That betrayal had struck her to the core. It made her stop feeling desirable, shattered her confidence. Little by little she began switching off her phone, dodging friends, locking herself away at home with a glass of wine and a book. She only went out to work: she was an interior designer, and there she managed to forget everything for a few hours. But the happiest moment of the day was still coming back home to shut herself away again.

And yet there was something Renata couldn’t escape. Her body still wanted. She had bought a vibrator in the hope of calming the hunger, but no matter how much she used it, she never felt satisfied. She missed the touch, the kisses, a real mouth on her skin. At night she watched videos and imagined it was her being touched, and she came two or three times in a row, and still there remained that emptiness no device could fill.

What she missed most was a tongue. She had a large, very sensitive clitoris, and she remembered that with the right mouth she could come again and again, without pause. The vibrator, even at maximum power, didn’t come close to that sensation.

***

As the saying goes, persistence pays off. One afternoon Renata was coming back from the supermarket loaded down with bags and, just as she passed in front of the lobby where Lucía was waiting, a couple slipped from her hands and spilled across the floor.

—Let me help you —Lucía said, bending down to gather them up.

She carried the bags up to the fifth floor. Renata, who had always seen her so attentive during the morning greetings, felt she couldn’t just send her away like that.

—Would you like to stay for a glass of wine? —she offered.

They finally introduced themselves properly and started talking. They discovered they had more in common than they expected: the same music, the same books, the same films. The more they talked, the more they realized how alike they were.

—I love the way you dress —Lucía said—. You have incredible taste.

—Thank you. My job makes me pay attention to that; I’m an interior designer.

—That explains it. Every morning you come down looking gorgeous.

—Do you really think so? —Renata asked, and something in her voice trembled.

—Absolutely. I wish I had half your style.

The words sank into Renata more deeply than Lucía realized. Each compliment was a crack of light in six months of darkness. She felt her battered ego slowly begin to swell again. She refilled their glasses.

The conversation grew more intimate with each drink. Renata ended up telling her about her partner, the betrayal, the isolation. Lucía listened without interrupting and then told her, with a sweetness that didn’t seem her age, that she couldn’t shut herself off from the world or she would end up alone and bitter. To Renata those words sounded like the most sensible thing she had heard in months.

—I’ve been alone for two years —Lucía confessed—. So I know a thing or two about loneliness.

The glasses emptied and were filled again. They were both pretty tipsy by the time the conversation drifted, almost on its own, toward sex. Renata, feeling a kind of trust she didn’t remember ever having with anyone, told the truth: that desire wouldn’t leave her in peace, that the vibrator wasn’t enough, that she was desperate to feel something real.

Lucía let her finish. And then, in a low voice, she told her she understood better than anyone, because her life was exactly the same.

***

—Show me that vibrator —Lucía asked.

Renata brought it out and switched it on. Lucía pressed it against her own clothes, over the fabric, and let out a sigh.

—That feels so good. Now I want to see how you use it.

—Like this —Renata murmured, pressing it over her underwear.

—No, that’s no fun. Take that off and show me properly how you put it on yourself.

Renata hesitated for a moment. Then she took off her underwear, lifted her skirt, and showed her how she touched herself. Lucía didn’t look away. She took off her pants and started touching herself while she watched.

What came next was almost inevitable. Renata put the vibrator down and rested her fingers on Lucía’s sex; Lucía did the same, and the two of them began to moan softly, stroking each other. Renata brought her mouth closer and they kissed, slowly at first, then hungrily, for long minutes, as if it were the last kiss of their lives.

Lucía took her by the hand and led her to the bed. They undressed each other amid nervous laughter, and for a moment they stayed still, looking at one another. Renata’s body was more imposing than Lucía had imagined in all those mornings in the lobby. Lucía’s, on the other hand, seemed to Renata something delicate that had to be handled with care.

***

Lucía laid her back on the bed, climbed on top of her, and kissed her again while caressing her breasts. Renata began to moan. Lucía’s mouth moved down her neck, kissed it slowly, continued to her nipples and lingered there while her fingers played between her legs. Renata arched her back, moaning harder and harder. At last she was feeling something real.

Lucía could hardly believe what was happening, what she had wanted so badly. She silently congratulated herself on the patience of all those mornings. Renata’s body was beautiful, incredible for her age, and her nipples felt perfect in her mouth. She slowly slid her tongue down over her belly until Renata guessed where she was going and shuddered in anticipation.

When Lucía’s tongue finally reached her sex, Renata let out a long moan. She licked her all over, unhurriedly, and then focused on the clitoris, teasing it, circling it. Renata clutched the sheets and curled her toes. This, exactly this, was how she needed to feel. The first wave hit her almost immediately; she let out a short cry and her whole body tensed.

Lucía realized right away how sensitive she was. And she decided she wasn’t going to stop. She kept working her tongue without mercy, and Renata came a second time, and then a third, each orgasm separated from the last by barely two or three minutes, the shocks running through her body from head to toe. She had lost control. Every time she managed to relax, a new wave pulled her tight again.

Renata was soaked in sweat from the effort. Lucía fingered her without stopping using her mouth, faster, deeper. Renata arched her whole body, lifted it off the bed, came a fourth time, and, with no strength left, gently pushed Lucía’s head away. She couldn’t take any more. Then she sat up and gave her a long kiss.

—I don’t have words to tell you what you’ve made me feel —she murmured.

—I enjoyed it as much as you did, believe it or not —Lucía replied.

***

—Now it’s my turn —Renata said, with a mix of desire and shyness—. Though I don’t know if I’ll know how. I’ve never done it with a woman.

—Just think about what you like done to you. That’s enough for me.

Renata lay her down on her back, kissed her, and began moving down with her mouth as she had just learned, pausing at her breasts, at her navel. When she reached Lucía’s sex, she stopped to look at it for a moment, almost reverently. It was the first time she had one like this, right in front of her, entirely at her disposal. She kissed it softly and began to trace it with her tongue.

For the first time in her life she was trying another woman, and the sensation turned her on more than she could remember ever being. Is there anything braver than this, with a stranger, the first time? she thought, and she liked the idea. Lucía was young, beautiful, the perfect companion for a first experience she had not sought out but didn’t want to end now.

Renata put her tongue on the clitoris and began to stimulate it. Lucía didn’t stop moaning. It seemed impossible that the woman she had spent months silently wanting was now between her legs. She began fingering her without taking her mouth away, and her fingers slid in without resistance. Lucía moaned louder and louder, waves of pleasure chaining together without giving her a break, to the point that she could hardly breathe.

—Don’t stop —she managed to say—. Please, don’t stop.

Renata kept going, growing more confident with every moan. Knowing she was capable of making another woman come gave her back something she thought she had lost. And she discovered, too, how much she enjoyed doing it. She thought that this was the end of the vibrator, the end of lonely nights in front of the screen. She sped up, sucked harder, and Lucía, who had been holding back to stretch out the pleasure, couldn’t take any more and came in her mouth, trembling from head to toe.

When she caught her breath, Lucía sat up and kissed her.

—Why did you take so long? —Renata asked, insecure again—. Weren’t you enjoying it?

—On the contrary. I was holding back on purpose, to feel as much as I could. I could barely breathe.

—I’m so stupid. Always thinking the worst of myself.

Lucía gently pushed her back down so she would lie back. This time she wanted to take her time. She moved her tongue slowly, with barely any pressure, tracing her all over from below up to the clitoris again and again. Renata trembled with every pass, moaning nonstop, astonished that a stranger would care so much about her pleasure. No one had ever made her come like that, for so long. When Lucía decided it was time, she pressed her tongue harder, sucked firmly, and Renata came again, clutching at her.

Renata then gave her the most sensual kiss of the whole night.

***

There was one question hanging in the air, and Renata, who had learned the hard way how costly silence can be, decided to be direct.

—So what does that make us? Was this just for tonight?

—I’m glad you asked, because I was thinking the same thing —Lucía replied—. I like you a lot. If it were up to me, I’d keep seeing you.

—You have no idea how happy that makes me. I was terrified you’d disappear tomorrow.

—Then there’s nothing to think about. From now on, you and me.

And they kissed again, slowly, as if that kiss sealed a pact neither of them intended to break.