Two Nights with Renata While My Husband Watched

After that threesome with Diego, my husband, and Mateo, my mind would not rest. Weeks of plenty of sex, plenty of wine, and long late-night conversations followed, in which we confessed things we had never put into words. We agreed that that shared night had been more than a fantasy come true: it had been the first step toward a different way of living what we had together. We stayed up talking until late with the lights off, both of us awake, making plans.

We decided that each of us would do our own research. I plunged into forums, private messages, club listings, and blurry photos online. Diego, more methodical, made lists in a notebook and compared places by price, reputation, and proximity.

I told Renata everything. She had been my friend since our school days in Cali, before each of us emigrated our separate ways. When she heard about the threesome, she laughed out loud on the phone and told me she was proud of me, that at last I was giving myself permission. We agreed to get together and talk calmly. She had an experience from many years ago that she had never fully told me about, and she promised to share it in person.

During those days, while I read about the swinger world, my mind drifted in another direction. I could not get Renata out of my head. And it was not just sexual curiosity: there had always been something between us, a way of looking into each other's eyes a second too long, an embrace that lasted a little longer than a normal hug. I called her on a Tuesday afternoon.

—What are you doing this weekend? —I asked.

—Working and resting. Why?

—I want to come see you.

There was a silence on the other end. Then I heard her laugh.

—Come.

I bought the ticket that same afternoon and let Diego know that I was spending the weekend with Renata in the capital. He looked at me over his glasses, with a smile I already knew.

—Got something in mind? —he asked.

—A surprise —I answered—. But I promise it’ll reach you too.

I had it all planned already.

***

On Friday at noon we met at a restaurant downtown, one of those bars with huge windows facing the river. Renata was even prettier than the last time I had seen her. Her hair was tied up, she wore a linen jacket and fine earrings that brushed her neck every time she laughed. We had lunch slowly, talked about a thousand things, and mentioned the night with Diego and Mateo in passing. We agreed to leave the serious conversation for later, with wine in hand. Before she left for the studio, she gave me the apartment keys.

—Make yourself at home. I’ll be back at seven.

I spent the afternoon wandering store windows. I’m a designer, I couldn’t pass up the big shops, the displays in the new houses, the fabrics that season that were showing up on every runway. I bought two things for myself and a ridiculous pair of panties for Diego, “so you can laugh together later,” I told myself without much conviction. The truth was the suitcase already held something else, something I had chosen much more carefully for that night.

I got to the apartment before she did. I set down the bags, poured myself some water, and looked out the window as the sun went down behind the buildings across the street. When I heard the key in the door, I felt a knot in my stomach I hadn’t felt in years.

Renata came in tired from the studio. She kissed me on the cheek and went straight to the shower. While she was showering, I prepared a spread with cheeses, olives, and toast. I opened a bottle of Malbec. When she came out of the bathroom, her hair still wet and wearing an oversized sweatshirt that hung on her like a dress, we sat down on the living room rug to eat and talk.

And she started telling me.

Her story was long. She had had a girlfriend for almost two years in Cali, before moving away, and no one in her family had ever found out. Then, living far away, she had been with two or three other women, in isolated encounters, with no names that stayed. I listened with the glass resting on my knees, feeling the heat rising to my face. I had known her since I was fourteen and she had never, not even in a drunken conversation, told me any of that.

—Why never tell me? —I asked.

—Because you weren’t ready —she said, and laughed softly.

It was close to ten at night when I realized I hadn’t called Diego. I went out onto the balcony with my phone. He had lost track of time too: he had been chatting with the owner of a private club that had two locations, one in the capital and another in a beach city. He was excited, speaking quickly. I barely listened. Through the living room window I could see Renata pouring herself another glass, barefoot, with that very way of hers of moving around the house as if the house were her.

We ordered delivery because it was too late to go out. We ate in comfortable silence, listening to an old record she put on the stereo. When we finished, we took the plates to the kitchen. One washed, the other dried, and the apartment kitchen was tiny. On one of those back-and-forths we ended up face to face, she with a plate in her hand, me with the dish towel. Neither of us thought twice.

The kiss started slow and then not so slow. I had to brace one hand on the counter so I wouldn’t lose my balance. When we pulled apart, I held her face in both hands and told her what I had been thinking.

—I want Diego to see us. From his computer. Without being here.

Renata was quiet for a second. Then she smiled as if the idea had already been in her head before mine.

—Easy, beautiful. We’re going to enjoy it.

***

I got into the shower with the suitcase open on the other side of the door. I had brought things for that night: a black corset with garters, matching sheer stockings, and a transparent robe I had already worn twice with my husband and knew he remembered. I got dressed slowly, dried my hair, and made my eyes a little darker than usual. When I came out, Renata was already in the bedroom. She had turned on a warm lamp, not the overhead light, and changed clothes: white thigh-high stockings, a very thin thong, and a short silk robe that slid off her shoulders.

The laptop was on the dresser, angled toward the bed. A single candle on the nightstand. I called Diego on video. When he answered, I brought my face close to the camera.

—Here’s your surprise.

I heard him laugh softly, that kind of laugh he does when something leaves him speechless. I stepped back slowly, let the camera follow me, and went over to where Renata was waiting, seated at the edge of the bed. I whispered in her ear that we should forget about the screen, that tonight it was just us.

She started. She kissed me as if she had permission for everything. Her hand traveled across my back, down over my hip, rested for a second on my ass, and came back up. In one quick movement she stood behind me. I felt her lips on my neck, her breath against my earlobe, and her hands sliding over the corset, tracing the shape of my breasts before slipping inside. She left my nipples exposed outside the fabric and gently pinched them between her fingers.

One hand went lower. First over the thong, then inside. She touched me slowly, the tips of her fingers tracing the lips, the clit, the opening. My head was resting against her shoulder and my eyes were closed. I had forgotten the camera. I had forgotten everything. When she slid one finger in and began moving it in slow circles, I leaned back into her a little more. The first orgasm hit me almost without warning, silently, my mouth open against hers.

I turned around. I pushed her softly until she was lying down and climbed on top of her. I moved my mouth down her neck, her cleavage, the space between her breasts. I unclasped her bra clumsily and she finished taking it off. It was the first time I had been like that with a woman and everything felt new: the weight of breasts in my hands, the different texture of the skin on her belly, the shape of her hip bones. I kissed her navel, nipped very gently at her waist. When I got down to the white thong, already see-through from dampness, I asked permission with my eyes before taking it off.

—Yes —she said, her voice husky—. But slowly.

I pulled off her thong and stayed there looking at her for a moment. The trimmed triangle of hair, her legs barely open, the curve of her thigh against the sheet. I began with long kisses on the inside of her thighs, moving upward little by little, until my mouth found the center. It was different from what I had imagined. It was better. Renata started moving, gripping my shoulders with her hands, guiding me with pressure I understood without needing words. When she came, she did it slowly, without shouting, with breaths that grew longer and longer.

We were both sweaty and flushed. She pulled me up in one swift motion until I was at her height and kissed my wet mouth. Then it was her turn. She took off my thong, played with the trimmed hair, ran her fingers over it as if measuring, and went down. She did it better than anyone. She worked her tongue over my clit in a rhythm that was not mine, and yet it took me exactly where she wanted me to go. With one hand she fingered me, with the other she pinched a nipple. There was a second when she moved her tongue a little lower, almost by accident, and brushed the entrance to my asshole. I jerked, but I didn’t move away. I had a second orgasm, and then a third, with no time to recover between one and the next.

She climbed up my body until our legs were intertwined. The rub of her thigh against my sex set me off again. We moved in silence, looking into each other’s eyes, until she spread my legs and settled on her side so our sex would meet. The friction was unlike anything else: soft, wet, slow. When we finished, we finished together, her holding my leg up and her forehead pressed against mine.

We stayed like that for a while, smiling, without speaking. Then I remembered Diego. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the screen. He was watching us with an expression I had never seen on him before.

—Did you like it? —I asked.

Renata rested her face against my shoulder from behind.

—Next time you come too —she told the camera.

Diego laughed softly and nodded.

***

The next day he confessed that he had masturbated twice while watching us. I didn’t doubt it.

The show was over for him, but the night for us had only just begun. When I turned off the laptop I went to the kitchen for two glasses of water. When I came back, Renata had taken out of the bottom drawer of the dresser what she called “the arsenal”: vibrators of various sizes, a couple of anal toys, and a flavored lubricant I had never seen before. We laughed like two teenagers. We tried everything. What I liked most was when I got on all fours and ran a vibrator over my sex, and she settled behind me and licked my asshole slowly, without rushing, until I was completely wet. Then she inserted a small metallic toy, one of those they call a bullet. I masturbated with one hand while she handled the other end. It was intense in a way I had never felt before.

That night we slept in each other’s arms. The next night too. In between there were more toys, more conversations, more wine, and long pauses in which we caressed each other without needing to get anywhere. Sometimes I would lie there watching her sleep, with the light coming in through the badly closed blind, and think how absurd it was that it had taken so many years to get here.

On Sunday morning we made coffee, ate warm medialunas from the corner kiosk, and went back to bed for a while, not to do anything, just to be. At one o’clock I left for the airport. We said goodbye at the apartment door with a long kiss and the promise that this would not be the last time.

I came back happy. I had fulfilled another fantasy, yes, but more than that I had found something new with Renata. Something that could no longer be called only friendship. And, strangest of all, I had found a way to share it with Diego without anything breaking between us. On the contrary: when I got home, he was waiting in the kitchen with a poured glass of wine and a question whose answer he already knew.

—So when’s the next time?