The Secret Vibrator She Kept for Her

Natalia called me when she was leaving her meeting with the boss. I could tell by the tone the moment I answered: that mix of contained fury and exhaustion that only comes out when she’s had to keep smiling she didn’t want to keep on for too many hours in a row. With that guy who’d been hitting on both of us for months ever since he found out we were a couple.

—I’m sick of it —she said without preamble—. Can you meet me at Paloma’s Corner? I need beer and something from you that isn’t pity.

—Twenty minutes —I said.

I hung up and looked at the nightstand drawer. I grabbed the black pouch without thinking too much about it. If there was a situation designed for that little device, this was exactly it.

Paloma’s Corner was a neighborhood bar in Lavapiés that served decent draft beer and unpretentious tapas. I got there first, ordered a beer, and sat on the terrace facing the street so I could watch her arrive. It was a Tuesday in May and it had that mild heat that makes you want to stay outside even when there’s no particular reason to.

I saw Natalia from far away. The work at the boutique meant she always had to look put together, so even when she came out of a rotten day she still had something on that suited her. That day she was wearing a navy linen dress that hit her at the knees, flat brown leather sandals, and her chestnut hair pulled up into a messy bun with several strands escaping. She walked fast, with that tense energy she gets when something has driven her up the wall and she hasn’t quite gotten over it yet.

She sat down across from me without kissing me. Maximum warning sign.

—Tell me —I said.

—I don’t want to tell you. I want you to distract me.

She called the waiter over, ordered a beer, and leaned back in the chair with her arms crossed over her chest. She closed her eyes for exactly three seconds, as if she were rebooting something inside.

I took a sip of my beer and watched her. She had that little line between her brows that only showed up when she was truly pissed off. Under the improvised bun, a strand fell across her forehead and she didn’t even bother to move it aside. We’d been together almost two years and I still fell apart a little when I saw her like that: uncomfortable and real and completely herself.

—Hey —I said, sliding the black pouch across the table—. I’ve got something for you.

Natalia opened her eyes. Looked at the pouch. Then at me.

—You brought it? —A small smile, almost despite herself.

—Just in case.

—You’re awful —she said, and took the pouch.

She stood up and went to the bathroom without saying anything else. I finished my beer slowly and waited, imagining her putting on the vibrating panties and adjusting the little egg right against her clit, biting her lip in the stall so she wouldn’t let out a gasp while the fabric stuck to her pussy already wet just from thinking about what was coming.

***

She came back three minutes later and sat beside me, not across from me. That was also a sign, but of a completely different kind.

—Comfortable? —I asked.

—For now, yes —she answered, raising one eyebrow.

I had the remote in the pocket of my jacket. I waited until the waiter set the beer in front of her and she took it to her lips. At that exact moment, I pressed the button once, briefly.

Natalia swallowed the sip without letting go of the glass. Only her eyes gave her away: they parted slightly, as if something had surprised her from the inside.

—That was very dishonest —she said.

—You were distracted.

—Liar.

She rested her elbow on the table and turned her torso slightly toward me. She smelled of that perfume of hers that mixes sandalwood and something citrusy, the same one she’s worn since she found it at a street market in Malasaña and that I find impossible to ignore in any context. I ran my fingers over her forearm, slowly, from elbow to wrist, following the line of a small blue-ink tattoo she’s had there since before we met.

—Has your anger worn off a bit? —I asked.

—Ask me in ten minutes.

I pressed the remote again. This time I held it longer.

Natalia set the glass down on the table more carefully than necessary. Her fingers stayed on the rim. She was breathing just a little differently; I noticed it in the way her chest moved under the linen, in how her nipples suddenly showed through the fabric, hard, giving her away. Behind us, a man with a briefcase checked his phone without looking at us. Or so it seemed.

I turned the intensity up a notch and put my hand on her thigh under the table, squeezing the firm flesh through the fabric. She crossed her legs slowly, trapping my fingers against her groin, and I felt the wet heat already seeping through the linen.

—Bitch —she murmured, hardly moving her lips—. You’re soaking me in the middle of a bar.

—That’s the plan.

—Carmen —Natalia said softly.

—Yes?

—Take me to the bathroom. Now. Or I’m going to come right here and I swear I won’t shut up.

***

The bathroom was in the basement, down a staircase of white tiles with a black iron handrail. It smelled clean and of old wood. Three stalls, two sinks, a mirror with stains around the edge. Empty.

Natalia went into the back stall, the biggest one, and nodded at me. I shut the latch behind the two of us.

The space was tight: we could move without discomfort, but there wasn’t extra room. There were grab bars on the cold tiled walls, and Natalia leaned against one of them with her back to the wall.

—Come here —she said.

I went to her. I brought my mouth to her neck and rested my lips there, without pressing, just feeling the heat of her skin and the pulse beating fast under her ear. Natalia let out a slow breath.

Her hands went to my waist first, then moved up my back to the nape of my neck. She wasn’t pushing me; she was just resting her fingers there, as if she needed something to hold on to.

I kissed her neck. Her jaw. The corner of her mouth. She turned her head and found my lips, and the kiss stopped being slow in three seconds: she shoved her tongue in deep, biting my lower lip, gripping the back of my neck with a force that had nothing restrained left in it.

—Fuck me —she said against my mouth—. I don’t care where we are. Fuck me now.

—Keep your voice down.

—Then keep mine down with your tongue.

I bit her neck just under the ear while I yanked her linen dress up to her waist. I grabbed one breast over the bra and squeezed hard, feeling the nipple press through the lace. With my other hand I found the vibrating panties, soaked, stuck to her pussy like a second skin. The little egg was still buzzing, pressed against her clit, and I felt her jerk at the touch of my fingers.

—Look at how you are —I whispered in her ear—. All wet from a little time at the table.

—Shut up and take them off me.

I slid my hand inside the panties before taking them off. I ran two fingers between the lips of her pussy, bottom to top, gathering all that thick wetness running down her thighs. She bit her fist to keep from moaning. I brushed her swollen clit with my thumb and felt her knees bend for a second.

—Put them in —she gasped—. Please.

I shoved two fingers into her at once. They went in all the way, with no resistance, and she let out a muffled groan against my shoulder. I finger-fucked her slowly at first, curling my fingers upward, looking for that spot of hers I know by heart, while my palm pressed on her clit and the vibrating egg at the same time. Her cunt clenched around my fingers in little spasms, sucking them in every time I pulled them back.

—More —she asked—. Another one. Put it all the way in.

I added a third finger and quickened the rhythm. The wet sound of the penetration bounced off the stall tiles, impossible to hide. I grabbed her hair with my free hand, tipping her head back so I could bite her neck while I kept fucking her with my fingers, harder, faster, feeling her hand get soaked all the way to the wrist.

—Wait —she said suddenly, grabbing my wrist—. Wait, wait. I want your mouth. Kneel down.

I pulled my fingers out, shining with her juices, and brought them to my mouth without looking away from her. I sucked them clean. She tasted like herself, like salt and something sweet, like that particular flavor that doesn’t resemble anything else.

—Fuck —she muttered—. You’re going to kill me.

I knelt on the bathroom floor without hesitation. I pulled the vibrating panties down her legs, switched off the egg, and put it in the pocket of my jacket. Then I looked up at her. Natalia was watching me with dark eyes, her lower lip slightly swollen from the kiss, her naked pussy level with my face, glossy, swollen, waiting. She nodded once, slowly.

I lifted the hem of the dress with both hands and kissed the inside of her thigh. She tightened her fingers on the grab bar. I moved up little by little, keeping my mouth where I felt the most heat, taking the time I needed, not going straight to the center because that was never the best thing even if it seemed like it in the moment. I licked her groin, bit the thin skin on the inner thigh right beside her cunt, blew slowly over the wet hair.

—Stop playing —she growled—. Eat me already.

When I finally brought my lips to her sex, Natalia let out a soft sound that broke off halfway, as if she’d swallowed it in time.

She was soaked and smelled like always: like herself, like heat, like an already horny cunt, like something with no exact name but that I recognize anywhere and that always makes me want to stay longer than I have time for.

I ran my tongue flat, slowly, from bottom to top, from the opening of her pussy to her clit, collecting everything. She shifted her hip slightly, a small movement that was a clear instruction. I repeated the path, even slower. Then again, with the tip of my tongue hard, marking every centimeter.

—Like that —she said, in a strangled whisper—. Right like that.

I concentrated. I spread her pussy lips apart with two fingers and pulled her clit out fully, that swollen, shiny little button that gets bigger when she’s close. I wrapped my lips around it and sucked slowly, pulling, letting it slip out, sucking it again. She jolted and pressed my head with her free hand against her cunt.

—Put it in. Your tongue. Inside.

I shoved my tongue in as deep as I could, fucking her cunt with it, feeling how she tightened inside around my muscle. My nose buried itself in her clit with each thrust. She started moving her hips against my face, fucking my mouth, with no decency left at all, and my chin got completely soaked with her juices.

—The fingers again —she gasped—. And don’t stop sucking.

I slipped in two fingers and found that rough spot inside, pressing it with my fingertip while I sucked her clit with my whole mouth. The bathroom muffled the sound, but didn’t erase it; there was the distant hum of the street, the noise of the extractor fan in the ceiling, and that wet, obscene splashing of my hand going in and out of her soaked cunt.

Her thighs tightened slightly on both sides of my head. Not to block me, but to anchor me there, to tell me without words to keep going.

I found the exact spot and circled it with my tongue. Slowly. Carefully. Natalia clutched my hair without pulling, just holding me there. Then she did pull, then she arched her back against the tiles.

—Don’t stop. I’m coming. I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t stop, don’t stop.

I didn’t stop.

Her breathing grew shorter, more erratic. I felt the muscle in her thigh contracting under my hand. I picked up the pace a little, responding to what her body was telling me, calibrating the pressure of my tongue, the angle, the speed, fucking her with my fingers faster and faster, searching for that spot and hammering it without mercy. She pushed her hips against my face, rubbing her cunt into my mouth.

And then, in a moment that lasted longer than I expected and less than I wanted, I felt everything release at once: the tension in her legs, the rigidity of her back, that broken whisper trying with all its strength not to become a scream, and her cunt clamping down on my fingers in violent spasms, gushing over my hand, over my chin, over the floor. She came with a long gasp, biting her forearm so she wouldn’t wake the whole bar.

I stayed still until the last spasm passed, lapping her clit with a very soft tongue, barely brushing it, stretching her orgasm out until she pushed my head away because she couldn’t take it anymore. Then I pulled my fingers out slowly, soaked to the knuckles, and sucked them clean again in front of her.

—Whore —she murmured with an exhausted smile—. You’re a beautiful whore.

—Your whore.

I lowered the hem of the dress and stood up slowly, placing my hands on her hips to rise.

Natalia had her eyes closed and her back still against the tiles, her legs still trembling. It took her a few seconds to open them.

—Hi —I said.

—Hi —she replied.

She was laughing. That small, silent laugh she only lets out when she’s completely relaxed and has forgotten everything else.

I kissed her mouth, letting her taste herself, and she kissed me back with a slowness that had nothing urgent about it, only presence, sucking my tongue to take back everything that was left of herself in me. I savored that kiss more than I should have for a bar bathroom.

—Has your anger worn off? —I asked.

—What anger? —she said.

***

We put ourselves back together in front of the mirror: she fixed her bun, I wiped my mouth and chin with wet paper because her juices were drying on my skin. Neither of us said much. It wasn’t necessary.

When I opened the stall latch, from the first of the three stalls I heard something. A sharp, contained movement. A breath trying not to be a breath. A wet, rhythmic sound, very familiar: someone jerking off in there with their whole hand.

Natalia looked at me. I looked at her. A half-smile slipped out of her.

We left without making a sound. Back on the staircase, she squeezed my hand and burst into laughter that she had to cover with the palm of her other hand.

—We’ve got a witness —she whispered—. And he was jerking off like a pig.

—A very participative witness, I’d say. I hope he came with us.

—Dirty girl.

—Look who’s talking, the one who just soaked herself in a Lavapiés bathroom.

We went back up to the terrace. The table was as we’d left it, with both beers half-finished. The man with the briefcase was no longer in his seat.

I sat down and looked at Natalia. She had that color in her cheeks that lasts a while after she comes, that warmth I like more than any makeup. She drank the rest of her beer in one gulp and ordered another with a gesture to the waiter.

—Better? —I asked.

—Much better —she said—. Though the boss is still going to be the same asshole tomorrow.

—We’ll see how we handle that. Tonight at home I’m putting it in you with the harness and tomorrow you won’t give a damn about anything.

—Deal.

She took my hand on the table, between the beers and the little plate of olives, not caring whether the waiter saw or the table next to us was watching. That was her: discreet until she wasn’t, always on her own terms.

—I love you —she said, without drama, the way you say something that’s simply true and doesn’t need any embellishment.

—I know —I replied.

And we ordered another round.