The Widow I Always Liked Came Back Into My Life

My Aunt Pilar is the widow of my father’s younger brother. Antonio died four years ago, taken by an illness in a matter of weeks and leaving her sunk in a house far too big for one person. Carmen, her lifelong friend, was widowed almost at the same time. Her husband, Ricardo, faded away one winter and left her equally alone, though she dealt with it differently.

Pilar and Carmen have been friends since they were children, since the village. Carmen is two years older; today she’s around sixty-four and my aunt sixty-two. A whole lifetime together, first there and then far away.

The two of them emigrated to France in the late seventies, when they were very young. Carmen was twenty-one and my aunt nineteen when they got on that train without knowing a word of the language. The first times were brutally hard, as they are for anyone who leaves home, their people, and their language behind to earn a living in a foreign country. But they, armed with courage, learned quickly and stayed in Lyon for almost forty years, until their husbands retired and they moved back to the village.

There, in France, they had their first affairs, when they were very young. At that time France was a liberal, advanced country compared with Spain back then, which was still dragging along the aftereffects of so many years of repression. The girls and boys of us who came from the countryside suddenly discovered a new world in every sense, including the sexual one. French youth fucked without shame, talking about cocks and cunts at the bar table, while we Spaniards seemed like complete prudes who didn’t even know where our clitoris was.

They fitted in quickly. They worked as live-in maids in the homes of wealthy people in the nicer neighborhoods, and on Sunday afternoons, their only free time, they went to a Spanish club where there was dancing. That was where they crossed paths with boys from our village, and that was where they started going out with the men who would later become their husbands.

My aunt with Antonio, who was fifteen years older than her. Carmen with Ricardo, a friend of my uncle’s and almost the same age as him. They were both very naive and the two men, who had already been in France for years, knew all the tricks. It cost them nothing to get into their knickers. A few years later they both got married; my aunt was barely twenty-two.

I remember Pilar from that time as a fragile doll, with very white, delicate skin, a beauty my uncle bragged about in front of his brothers. Carmen was different. More of a woman, more solid, with dusky skin and jet-black hair that she always wore very short and that caught everyone’s eye. Well built, with big, firm tits that showed under her blouse and that I, when I went back to the village on vacation, found hard to stop looking at. My eyes kept drifting to her cleavage whenever she bent over, and at night, in bed, those two brown breasts came back to me like an obsession.

And here I have to confess something. In those summers, shut away in my room, in the solitude of a lesbian who still didn’t dare say it out loud, I masturbated thinking about her. About Carmen, about her neckline, about how her bra showed beneath her blouse when she leaned down to pick something up off the floor. I slid two fingers into my soaked cunt imagining it was her tongue, and I bit the pillow so my mother wouldn’t hear my moans from the hallway.

It was a secret that burned me from the inside.

Not just with her, to be honest. Almost every woman in the village passed through my head, married women too, women who came back from abroad dressed up differently. Things of youth hormones, which were in full boil. But Carmen held a special place. With her I imagined specific things: her hands kneading my tits, her mouth sucking my nipples until they stood hard as stones, the weight of those two brown globes in my palms while I licked them one by one. I imagined spreading her legs, burying my face between her brown thighs, and eating her cunt until she came in my mouth. I ended up rubbing my clit so many nights thinking of her, with two fingers inside and my palm grinding over the bud, that her image was etched into me forever. Many dawns I fell asleep with my hand still between my legs and the smell of my own orgasm stuck to my fingers.

When Antonio and Ricardo retired, all four came back to Spain, to the village. And there, already retired, the husbands died within a few years of each other.

Now that I’ve laid out who my Aunt Pilar and her friend Carmen are, I’m going to tell what happened not long ago.

***

I knew that Carmen, when she was widowed, hadn’t been left completely alone. Her youngest daughter, Sandra, lives with her, an out-and-proud lesbian everyone in the village knows. All I know about Sandra is that she’s never had a steady partner: plenty, yes, but none have lasted. People say she’s fucked half the region and that no woman lasts more than two months in bed with her. In any case, Carmen has her by her side, and that made getting over Ricardo’s death a little less cruel.

My aunt, on the other hand, was left completely alone in that huge house. From what I know, she’s had a terrible time: always depressed, always crying. Pilar has only ever known one man in her life, lived with him for forty years, and Antonio was her hands and feet. She has two children, but they live abroad, married to foreigners, and visit their mother once a year for only a few days.

From time to time she would call me asking for some advice, because she knows I also went through a similar pit and knew how to climb out. Carmen, meanwhile, spent almost every day at my aunt’s house, trying to comfort her, repeating that she couldn’t shut herself away, that they were still young, that life had good things if you let it.

Pilar agreed with her, told her yes, that she had to listen to her, but she didn’t react. And from that dead end everything that came later was born.

***

One night, while Nuria and I were watching television on the sofa, my mobile rang. Unknown number. I picked up almost without looking.

—Good evening, hello? —I answered.

—Good evening. It’s you, right? —said a woman’s voice, somewhat uncertain.

—Yes, it’s me. Who’s this?

—It’s Carmen. Ricardo’s widow, your Aunt Pilar’s friend, your uncle Antonio’s wife.

Something tightened in my stomach when I heard her name. And lower down too, between my legs, I felt a wet tug that took me by surprise. I hadn’t spoken to her in years.

—Oh, yes, Carmen, of course I know who you are —I said—. Tell me, what’s wrong? It’s late and you sound tense.

—The truth is I don’t even know where to start —she faltered—. It’s about your aunt. She’s in a very bad way, she doesn’t stop crying, ever since Antonio died she hasn’t lifted her head. She’s gotten stuck in a loop and she can’t get out.

She paused for a long time, as if taking a breath.

—Sorry to be so direct, but I think you’re the only one who can help her out of there, if she’ll let you. I know she trusts you a lot, because of the relationship you had with your uncle.

—Yes, my uncle and I had a special connection —I admitted—. Despite how rough he was, he never said a word to me about my condition, though I know full well he didn’t like it. He had no choice but to accept it, after everything I went through.

—That’s exactly why I’m asking you —she insisted—. Maybe between the two of us we can pull her out of the pit. If you want, I can go to Valencia, to your house, and we can talk in person. I’d rather be honest with you face to face, not over the phone.

As she talked, I imagined her on the other end. Older, of course, but with that black hair and that deep voice that when I was young used to make my skin crawl and soak my panties. Thirty years later, that same voice was stoking a fire in me I thought had gone out. I felt my nipples harden under my pajamas, felt my cunt pulse slowly, obscenely, without permission.

Can it be possible she can still do this to me?

—Carmen, my wife is here with me, listening, but she doesn’t catch half of it —I said, glancing sideways at Nuria, who was still focused on the screen—. I’ll explain it to her now. I’m sure she’ll love it if you come and the three of us talk it over. What do you think?

—Thank you —she sighed, relieved—. Then let’s do that. I’m coming to Valencia on Saturday, okay?

—Okay. We’ll be expecting you Saturday. I’ll send you the address by message and you can come for lunch.

We said goodbye until Saturday and I hung up.

***

I explained the reason for the call to Nuria. She, who is the most patient woman in the world, only said that of course, that Carmen would be welcome, that together we’d think about how to help Pilar. Then she curled up against me and went back to the film. I sat there with the phone off in my hand, staring at the ceiling, unable to focus on anything.

I was truly worried about my aunt. I understood her better than anyone, because I had also been in that hole. When I thought there was no way out, it was Nuria who held out her hand and pulled me free. I owed Pilar that same hand.

But I’d be dishonest if I said I was only thinking about my aunt. That night, in bed, with Nuria asleep beside me, I was twenty years old again. I was back in that village room, in summer, in the sticky heat of the sheets, in the image of Carmen bending down in the yard while I spied on her from the window. I closed my eyes and saw her again, with her blouse half open, with those two brown tits that had kept me company in silence so many nights, with the white bra showing through the fabric and sweat running down her cleavage.

I caught myself sliding my hand under my nightgown, slowly, holding my breath so as not to wake my wife. I hadn’t planned it. It just happened, as it had before, as if the body remembered better than the mind. My fingers found my nipples already hard and I pinched them one by one, imagining it was Carmen’s mouth sucking them. I ran my hand down my belly, very slowly, and when I reached my mound I found my panties soaked, drenched from top to bottom, as if I’d been wetting myself in the dark for hours.

I pulled the fabric aside with two fingers and spread my cunt lips. It was swollen, hot, slick. I rubbed my clit and had to bite my lip not to moan. I thought of her voice on the phone, of how she’d said my name, and the embers turned into fire. I pushed one finger inside, then two, all the way in, and began to fuck myself slowly, curling my fingertips against the spot that made me lose my head. With my other hand I squeezed one breast over my nightgown, imagining it was Carmen’s brown hand kneading it, the one that would drag my nipple out with her teeth.

I imagined her on top of me, sixty-four years old and still with those heavy tits hanging from her, rubbing them all over my face, forcing me to suck them one by one. I imagined her moving down my belly, prying my legs wide open, burying her nose in my soaked cunt and licking me from bottom to top with her tongue flat. I imagined her whispering in my ear, in that deep voice: “Eat, girl, eat my cunt like you’ve been wanting to do for thirty years, come in my mouth.”

A gasp slipped out of me. I froze for a second, terrified, glancing at Nuria out of the corner of my eye. She was still asleep, her back to me. I went back to it, slower, quieter, with two fingers moving inside and my thumb circling my clit in tight strokes. The sounds of my own cunt in the dark sounded obscene to me, like a confession.

I’m fifty years old and I’m still that hidden girl.

I bit my lip until it bled and let the memory do the rest. I imagined Carmen sitting on my face, pulling down her already worn panties, putting her mature cunt over my mouth, and me opening my lips and sticking out my tongue to lick every last bit of her. I imagined her orgasm dripping down my chin while I buried two thick brown fingers in my cunt. That image set everything off. My legs clenched, my belly tightened, and I came in silence, with my mouth open against the pillow, pressing my thighs against my hand so I wouldn’t shout. The spasms went on forever; I felt the liquid sliding all the way to my ass crack and soaking my nightgown.

When I finished, I lay still in the dark, heart racing, fingers shining with slick stuck to my thigh, and a strange mix of guilt and arousal, listening to Nuria’s calm breathing. Without thinking, I brought my fingers to my nose, smelled my own orgasm, and felt the throbbing between my legs again.

It wasn’t right to fantasize about my aunt’s best friend. A woman who was coming to ask me for help, who trusted me, who was carrying her own grief. I repeated that to myself several times, as if repeating it were enough. But the body doesn’t understand reason, and mine had spent thirty years keeping that desire in a locked drawer, the key hidden under my tongue.

I spent the rest of the week restless, counting the days. Every time a message sounded I thought it was her confirming, changing the plan, backing out. She didn’t back out. I touched myself two more nights, always thinking of her, always with my hand moving fast under the sheets and Nuria breathing beside me, suspecting nothing. On Friday night she wrote me just one line: “Tomorrow at noon I’ll be there. Thank you for everything, Ángela.” I read my name written by her several times before sleeping, and I shoved my fingers in again to the hilt, coming once more with her name on my lips.

I was anxious for Saturday to arrive. To hear from her own mouth what was really happening with my aunt. To understand why she had chosen me out of everyone. And, though it was hard for me to admit it, to have her in front of me again after so many years, to see whether the real woman still resembled the one I had invented so many nights with two fingers inside me.

Three days were left until Saturday. Three days that felt endless, with my cunt wet at all hours and my head full of images of her.

To be continued…