The Night My Best Friend Kissed Me in Cartagena

My name is Renata. I’m a redhead with curly hair and I barely top five feet. I’ve been married for fourteen years and I have a daughter who’s my miniature double: the same milky skin, the same freckles on her shoulders, the same difficult temperament. I work in marketing for clients who pay well, so I spend half the month traveling and the other half pretending I don’t miss hotels.

What I’m about to tell you started on a trip to Cartagena with Lorena, my friend for life. We met in fourth year of high school, and since then there hasn’t been a birthday, divorce, or pregnancy we didn’t share. Physically, she’s the opposite of me: tall, dark-haired, with wide hips and a chest that’s been chasing her since she was fifteen. We got married around the same time to men who know each other, set up an agency together, and for the past decade not a single account has moved without both of us going through the boardroom.

The trip was for a meeting with a new client. The schedule said cocktail hour at nine, but the meeting ran long and we went down to the lobby late, still in our office clothes. We rushed upstairs to change. I put on a short mint-green skirt and a matching top that left my back bare. Lorena came out of the bathroom in a black V-neck dress that looked designed so no one would look at her face.

—You’re going to make the client choke on his drink —I told her when I saw her.

—That’s the idea —she answered, combing her fingers through her hair in front of the mirror.

The cocktail party was packed. More people than we expected, loud music, waiters with trays appearing every two minutes. Lorena drinks vodka like it’s water. I don’t. By the third drink I was already feeling the lights warmer than normal and my tongue a little sluggish.

—Has it hit you yet, Renata? —she laughed—. You’re a mess.

—Don’t start. Let’s dance.

—Coward. You change the subject instead of admitting you’re dizzy.

She pulled me by the hand onto the dance floor. The music was the kind that makes you move even if you don’t know how. We started off loose, laughing, bumping into people on purpose. Within minutes we were pressed together. The heat of the room, the drinks, and the brush of fabric did their work. Lorena grabbed me by the waist and slid her hands down to rest just below my hips. I didn’t pull away. I looked at her and kept moving.

—Does that bother you? —she asked in my ear.

—I’ll decide tomorrow if it bothers me.

We danced one more song, maybe two. My heels were killing me and my head was spinning. I motioned for us to sit down. We found a couch in a corner, far from the speaker. She collapsed beside me and kept looking at me for a second too long. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright.

—Are you okay? —I asked.

—There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for years, Renata.

—If you’re going to tell me my presentation tomorrow is bad, I swear…

—No. It’s something else.

She moved closer. Her bare thigh pressed against mine. She put her mouth near my ear and lowered her voice until I could barely hear her over the bass.

—You turn me on, Renata. You have for a long time. I spend my time thinking about your cunt, about how your mouth must taste, about how you’d moan if I ate you right.

***

If I’d been sober, I probably would have stood up and gone to the room to pretend to be offended. But the vodka had me soft, and the truth is the line didn’t surprise me as much as it should have. Something in the way she’d looked at me at the gym, or how long she lingered when she gave me two kisses hello, had already put me on alert months ago.

I didn’t answer. She took the silence as permission and kissed my neck, right below the ear. My skin prickled all over. I felt her hot tongue sliding up behind my earlobe and one hand moving down the side of my top until it found the edge of my breast beneath the fabric. My nipple hardened instantly against my bra.

—Lore, no —I whispered without much conviction.

—I’m not asking if you want to. I’m telling you what’s going to happen. I’m going to lick you clean, Renata. Every inch.

She kissed my jaw, then the corner of my mouth, and stayed there waiting. I turned my face and kissed her for real. Open mouth, tongue, hand on the back of her neck. A long, slow, filthy kiss, both tongues sliding into each other’s mouths without shame. Beneath the couch, her hand had already hiked up my skirt a handspan and was squeezing my inner thigh with spread fingers, measuring me, measuring how far I was going to let her go.

—Let’s go up —she said when we parted, her voice rough—. I’ll order a bottle to the room. I don’t want anyone seeing you like this.

I nodded. It was always her who looked after the agency’s image, who got me out of places before I said something stupid. Tonight she was getting me out too, but for different reasons.

In the elevator I leaned against her so I wouldn’t fall. She put an arm around my waist and held me up. She didn’t speak. Neither did I. The mirror at the back gave us a strange reflection: two married friends, rumpled, grabbing each other like they were about to dance another song that wasn’t meant for a floor. She slid her hand under my skirt, never taking her eyes off the mirror, and brushed my thong with her middle finger. I clenched my teeth not to moan. I was soaked, and she noticed it instantly.

—Look at you, redhead —she murmured—. All wet for me. And I haven’t even done anything to you yet.

—I’ve been looking at you for years —she added, without turning—. When you change in fitting rooms, when you come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. I thought I was the only crazy one.

—You weren’t the only one —I answered, surprised by my own voice.

We got out of the elevator. I walked to the room trying not to sway. The moment she shut the door behind us, Lorena gently pushed me against the wall and kissed me again. This time without pause. One hand on my back, the other hiking the hem of my skirt until half my thigh was bare and her fingers slipped under my thong without asking permission. She dragged them from back to front between my lips, soaking them, and opened my cunt with two fingers as if opening a ripe fruit.

—You’ve had this on all night —she said between kisses, while she rubbed my clit in slow circles—. Like you wanted to kill me.

—Maybe I did.

***

She pulled my top down without unfastening anything. I slid her dress straps down and stripped it over her head. When she was left in black lingerie, I understood why men tripped over their own feet when they saw her walk by. I unclipped her bra and her tits fell heavy, dark, with her nipples already hard. I bent down to take one into my mouth. I sucked it hard, tugging with my teeth, while my other hand squeezed the other breast until my fingers sank into the flesh. She trembled all over. She let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a moan and grabbed my hair with both hands, pressing me against her chest.

—Like that, yes, suck them hard —she panted—. Bite them, don’t worry.

I pushed her onto the bed. She fell seated on the edge and dragged me with her. I ended up astride her thighs, topless, with my skirt hiked up to my waist. She looked up at me with a smile I’d never seen before. She ripped my bra off in one tug and latched onto my small tits, sucking one nipple while her hand squeezed the other. Lorena’s pink nipples looked like two little stones in my mouth and I started moving against her, grinding my wet thong against her thigh.

—Turn over —she ordered, with her mouth still full—. On your back, now.

I did. She arranged me on my back on the mattress, pulled off the rest of my skirt and thong in one sharp yank, and spread my legs with both hands, resting them on my knees. She stayed there for a second, looking at me. Looking at my cunt, open, red-haired and drenched, with a hungry face I’d never seen even at the table in the best restaurant in Cartagena.

—Jesus, Renata, what a gorgeous little cunt you have —she said softly—. Reddish and everything, just like your hair.

She lowered her mouth slowly. First my belly, leaving a row of wet kisses. Then my hip, leaving a trail of cold saliva. Then the inner thigh, so slowly I ended up lifting my pelvis looking for her. She blew over my clit without touching me and tore a ridiculous moan out of me. Then she ran the tip of her tongue along my slit, bottom to top, slowly, sucking at whatever she found along the way, and finished by closing her lips over my clit.

No woman had ever done that to me. And no man had done it like that. Lorena knew exactly how to move, where to press, when to pull away so my head would explode with impatience. She sucked my clit with soft lips, then tapped it with the tip of her tongue, then went lower and slipped her whole tongue into my cunt, moving it in circles. When I saw her face smeared with me, shining all the way up to her brows, I realized I’d been moaning uncontrollably for minutes. I grabbed the sheet with one hand and buried the other in her hair. I forced her to stay there, pressing her head against me, grinding my cunt against her face without shame. She laughed without lifting her mouth and the vibration shot all the way up my spine.

—I told you —she murmured against my lips—. I told you I was going to eat you whole.

She slipped two fingers in while she kept sucking my clit. She curled them upward and found a spot that made my whole ass lift off the bed. She started moving them fast, in and out, making a wet sound that filled the room. I couldn’t hold out at all. The first orgasm hit me fast. Too fast. I arched all over, squeezed my thighs against her head, screamed something I don’t even remember —I think her name three times— and lay there with my breath shattered and my legs still trembling in the air.

She didn’t pull her fingers out. She left them inside, still, feeling me finish all around them. Then she climbed up, lay beside me, and kissed me. She had my taste in her mouth, on her cheekbones, even on her chin. She pushed my own juices into my mouth with her tongue and made me taste myself. Far from bothering me, it made me want to return the favor with interest.

—Now me —I said, still breathless.

—No rush, babe. All night.

***

I shoved her onto her back and climbed on top. I bit her left nipple. Slowly at first, then harder when I saw her close her eyes and arch her back. I left a red mark around the areola and moved to the other one. I licked her whole breast in a spiral, until I got back to the nipple and sucked it until she told me to stop because it hurt. With my free hand I spread her legs. She was soaked, with her black thong completely soaked through by a bright stain. She’d been like that since the dance floor, I suppose. I ripped the thong off at the side without ceremony and tossed it to the floor.

I ran a finger over her without going in, slowly, watching her face as she bit her lip. I parted her outer lips with two fingers and saw her clit, swollen, dark, shining beneath the hood. I lowered my mouth and gave her a long lick, tasting her. Lorena tasted strong, thick, like a woman who’d been aroused for hours. I licked my lips and went back down.

—Don’t tease —she begged, grabbing my hair.

—Didn’t you tease me all cocktail hour?

I sucked her clit eagerly, wrapping my lips around it and tugging it gently. She let out a sharp cry and lifted her hips against my face. I slipped two fingers in at once without stopping sucking her clit. She let out a rough moan and dug her nails into my shoulder. She was so wet my fingers went in to the knuckles without resistance, and I could hear the squelch each time I pulled them out and pushed them back in. I started moving slowly, watching her from between her legs. Every time I sped up she lifted her hips looking for me. I added my thumb to her clit when I left her mouth and went up to kiss her, and I saw her thighs stiffen around my hand.

—Say my name —I asked in her ear, my thumb still circling over her.

—Renata… Renata, please, don’t stop, keep doing that, like that…

—Harder.

—Renata! Oh, Renata, I’m coming, I’m coming!

I slid in a third finger. I felt her cunt open for a second and then clamp down tight, swallowing them. I devoured her mouth to quiet her a little. People in the next room had to be hearing her by then. I didn’t care. I went back down with my mouth on her clit without stopping pumping her with three fingers, and held the rhythm until I felt her close around my fingers in spasms, one, two, three, the whole body going hard and then suddenly limp. She came all over my face without shame, wetting my chin, biting her forearm so she wouldn’t wake the whole hotel. She stayed like that, forehead against my neck when I came up, panting, while I stroked her hair like she was a child and slowly pulled my fingers out, still shining, and sucked them one by one in front of her.

—Lore —I said after a while.

—Mm.

—I’m not telling Andrés about this.

—And I’m not telling Joaquín.

—Not one word.

—Relax. But don’t tell me this was because of the vodka.

She lifted her head and looked at me. Her hair was stuck to her forehead, her lips swollen, her eyes still cloudy. I thought about lying to her. I thought about blaming the vodka and the heat and the new client. I couldn’t.

—It wasn’t the vodka.

—Then there’s a next time.

—There is a next time.

We stayed like that for a while, naked on the tangled, stained sheets, her hand resting on my hip and her fingers absently playing with my pubic hair, while I stared at the ceiling. Outside, the cocktail music was still audible, muffled by two floors of concrete. I thought about Andrés, my daughter, the meeting the next day. I also thought about how many more trips we had ahead of us this year. The count came to fifteen, international ones included.

I turned off the bedside lamp. Lorena settled in behind me, pressed her tits to my back, slid her arm around my waist, and kissed the nape of my neck. Her fingers went down again, unhurried, between my legs, and stayed there, warm and still, as if to let me know the night wasn’t over.

—Sleep, redhead —she said softly, though her hand said the opposite—. In a bit I’ll wake you.

I closed my eyes. I knew perfectly well I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, and that that night in Cartagena had just opened a season we weren’t going to be able to close.