The Night My Friend Caught Me Watching Them
It all started on one of those endless hospital shifts, the kind that never seem to end and leave you feeling hollowed out. Paula and I had spent so many sleepless nights dealing with emergencies that the trust between us had become something natural, almost physical. We leaned on each other for everything, and little by little our conversations stopped being about patients and became about ourselves.
One especially brutal early morning, we ended up in the break room. We poured ourselves coffee we barely even tasted. Instead of drinking it, we started talking about our lives, about the fears we never told anyone. Paula was always the more confident of the two, the one who had learned to live without asking permission. I listened to her feeling that her words were touching something that had been sleeping inside me for years.
It wasn’t a sudden decision. Over time I started opening up more, telling her things I had never said out loud. She listened without judging me, and I felt more myself beside her than I ever did in my own home.
That was why, when she invited me for a drink after our shift, I didn’t hesitate.
***
Her apartment was small and warm, with half-burned candles on the low table. Daniela was there too, her partner, a woman with an easy laugh and eyes that seemed to read right through you. The three of us sat on the floor on cushions and opened a bottle of red wine. Then another.
The hours dissolved into confessions and laughter. Paula told Daniela some of the things I had confessed to her at the hospital, including what I felt for David, that nurse with the trimmed beard and light eyes I sometimes worked alongside. She said it without malice, like someone sharing a treasure, and it didn’t bother me. On the contrary. The atmosphere grew intimate, heavy, as if the air in the room had thickened.
—And what else do you like, Silvia? —Daniela asked, playing with the stem of her glass—. I mean, besides David.
I laughed nervously and stared into my wine so I wouldn’t answer. But the question hung there anyway.
The wine was getting to them. And to me too.
Paula leaned in to Daniela and whispered something in her ear. Daniela let out a low, husky laugh, and the two of them looked at me at the same time with smiles that were anything but innocent. I felt heat rising up my neck.
—I think it’s late —I said, getting up clumsily—. I have a shift tomorrow.
Neither of them protested much. They offered to take the glasses to the kitchen while I looked for my jacket among the cushions. I found it under the table, slung it over my arm, and walked toward the entrance. But the kitchen was on the way, and the door had been left ajar.
I was only going to peek in to say goodbye.
***
What I saw nailed me to the floor.
Paula was sitting on the kitchen counter, her legs slightly apart, and Daniela was standing between them, pressed against her body. They were kissing slowly, with a calm hunger, as if they had the whole night ahead of them. Daniela’s hand had disappeared under Paula’s unbuttoned pants, and Paula’s fingers were tangled in her hair, pulling her closer, not letting her move away even a centimeter.
The sound of their breathing filled the kitchen. I watched Daniela’s wrist move slowly, and Paula throw her head back and let out a soft moan, almost a held-back sigh. I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to look away, with the jacket hanging uselessly from my arm.
My heart was beating so hard I thought they would hear it. A mix of shame and arousal ran through me, and the worst part—or the best part—was that I didn’t want to leave. I found myself breathing faster, mouth dry, my body reacting in a way I hadn’t felt in years. It was such an intimate scene, so open, that it hypnotized me. And I liked it. I liked it a lot.
Paula was the first to notice I was there. She opened her eyes and her gaze met mine. For a second she looked surprised, but she didn’t pull away or cover herself. On the contrary: she smiled, slowly, her eyes full of intent. Daniela followed her gaze and found me there, spying on them from the threshold. Far from being embarrassed, a spark of defiance lit up her face.
—You don’t have to watch from the door —Daniela said, without stopping her caress of Paula—. You can come in.
I let go of the jacket. It fell to the floor and none of us looked at it.
***
They got up and came toward me, each taking one of my hands, and led me to the adjoining bedroom. My nerves were tangled up with curiosity, and my skin prickled with every step. I don’t know what I’m agreeing to, I thought, and then realized it didn’t matter: I had agreed to it the very instant I didn’t leave.
Daniela started unbuttoning my shirt, button by button, looking me in the eyes. Paula stood behind me and slowly kissed my neck, right below my ear. I closed my eyes and let the sensation wash over me. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about what anyone would say, or about David, or about the routine that had dulled me. I was only there, in that room, giving myself over.
The caresses became more insistent, the kisses longer. They laid me down on the bed, and every gesture felt like an invitation to discover something about myself I had kept hidden even from myself. Paula whispered words in my ear that I could barely make out, while Daniela looked at me with an intensity that completely undid me.
I let myself sink onto the mattress. I felt the weight of my doubts dissolve as their hands moved over my skin. Daniela lowered her lips to my chest, her kisses getting bolder by the second, while her fingers explored my sides with the urgency of someone who wants to know every inch. Paula, behind me, stroked my back and waist with a tenderness that sent shivers through me.
—Relax —Paula murmured against my nape—. Let go. You’re with us.
Paula’s hands slid downward, between my legs, and she began to stroke me with deliberate slowness. Every movement drew a sigh from me deeper than the last. Desire turned into a hot current rising up from my feet. The three of us’ laughter mixed with our gasps, and I understood that each shared caress was freeing me a little more from the repressed woman I had been.
Daniela slipped lower and settled between my thighs. She looked at me for a moment, smiling, before lowering her head and beginning to work me with her tongue. Her mouth moved with a precision that made me arch my back and clutch the sheets. Paula, meanwhile, kept playing with my clit, tracing circles with her fingers, raising the temperature second by second.
I felt completely invaded. The heat of their tongues and hands made me lose all sense of time. Daniela alternated between licking and slowly sucking, and pleasure hit me in waves that forced my hips toward her mouth uncontrollably. Paula kissed my neck, my breasts, squeezed my nipples softly, and I didn’t know who to answer first.
In a sudden impulse, I turned my face and kissed Paula. I kissed her with an intensity that overflowed everything I had felt that night, and she answered with the same hunger, her tongue seeking mine while Daniela stayed between my legs. Three mouths, six hands, and me in the middle, lost.
—Like that —I gasped, no longer recognizing my own voice—. Don’t stop.
The pleasure became unbearable. My body tightened like a rope, my moans filled the room, and all I could do was let myself be carried along while the two of them, in sync, took me all the way. I felt the orgasm burst from my center and spread through every nerve, leaving me shaking, breathless, laughing and crying a little all at once.
Afterward the three of us stayed tangled on the bed, catching our breath, skin against skin. Daniela brushed a damp strand of hair off my forehead and Paula wrapped her arms around me from behind. No one said anything for a long while. There was no need.
***
When I finally said goodbye, it was almost dawn. The two of them surrounded me in a warm hug at the door, and I felt that something inside me had shifted, something that could never be undone.
On the way home, I walked slowly, caught between fear and wanting. I didn’t know what I was going to do with all of it, or whether I’d dare to repeat it. But one certainty stayed with me: the enormous urge to see Paula again at the hospital, in that white uniform that molded to her body, and look at her knowing what I now knew.
I wondered if I had been wrong my whole life. If for years I had denied myself a desire that had only needed a glass of wine and a slightly open door to wake up. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find out.
