At 42, That Drink at the Bar Changed Everything

The breakup had been much less painful for Carolina than for Sergio. For her, the fifteen years of marriage had been a long downhill slide from almost the very first day. Sometimes, when she was alone on the sofa with a glass of wine, she wondered what the hell she had married for. Sergio was a good man, attentive, affectionate, incapable of raising his voice to her. Maybe that was what confused her.

At twenty-seven, the fairy tale of Prince Charming and the perfect wedding still weighed too heavily in her head. That was why she said yes to the man who would spend the rest of his life as the father of her only son. Lucas, without a doubt, was the best thing that story had left her.

For Sergio, however, the separation was hell. He considered her the woman of his life. An intelligent, funny woman, open by nature — too open sometimes, but he forgave her for it. And, above all, someone who radiated a magnetic sensuality effortlessly, without even trying.

That was why, when that winter morning she told him she couldn’t take it anymore, his world came crashing down. It was true that things had not worked between them for a long time. They barely did anything together, they hadn’t touched each other in months. Lucas was the only thread that still bound them.

—This is suffocating me, Sergio —she told him, without drama, almost with relief.

—We could try a little longer. For Lucas, for us.

—There’s nothing left to try for. And you know it.

He didn’t know what to say. Carolina felt a liberation that was hard to explain, as if she could finally breathe deeply after years with her chest clenched. They decided not to fight over anything so as not to drag the child into it. She stayed in the family apartment with Lucas; he moved into his parents’ chalet, far too big for just one person.

***

During the next six months, contact was daily and almost always in one direction. Sergio sent her constant messages and called her at least once a day. Carolina replied more out of politeness than desire. She felt nothing for him. If she ever had felt anything, she wasn’t even sure it had been love and not simply habit.

Any excuse served him to keep the line between them taut: Lucas’s school grades, the electricity bill going up, the pediatrician’s appointment, a leak in the bathroom. Pretexts not to let go completely of the woman he still loved, even though she didn’t love him back.

When Carolina started going out with her friends, Sergio took it very badly. One dawn he wrote her a message and deleted it a second later, realizing he was nobody to demand explanations from a free woman. But the trace of the “deleted message” was still there, at two in the morning, and it set her instincts on edge.

It was the only time she called him to make one thing clear.

—Don’t write to me in the middle of the night again, Sergio. It’s over.

—You’re right. Sorry.

He accepted the mistake, but the thought of Carolina sleeping in another man’s bed burned his stomach. A dull burning that ended up making him feel sick every night.

***

Almost a year later, although the messages had dwindled a lot, they still kept in touch strictly because of Lucas. They agreed that Friday his father would pick up the boy to spend the weekend with him, and that on Sunday they would see each other to settle the details for the next one.

With Saturday free, Carolina organized a dinner at her place with her friends to get ready for the night out. There were four inseparable women: two married, one single, and her, divorced. They hadn’t all been together for months, so that night they planned to tear the city apart.

At ten she left home packed into a black strapless dress, tight, which perfectly outlined her five-foot-eleven figure. The neckline wasn’t spectacular, but good lingerie worked miracles. The hours at the gym had paid off in her long, toned legs and, above all, in glutes that looked firmer than ever. Her loose mane and red-painted lips finished the look.

She wasn’t a cover-girl beauty, and she knew it. She was something else. She was a woman who exuded eroticism in every gesture, in every way she crossed her legs, in every way she brushed her hair back from her face.

After dinner they went to a well-known club downtown to dance. After a couple of drinks, Carolina moved on the dance floor as if the floor were hers. She had no shortage of suitors willing to dance with her. She declined with a smile the offer of two boys who were too young. At forty-two she was exactly at that age where she attracted both twenty-somethings and mature men in equal measure, and she enjoyed both.

When she decided to take a break and order something at the bar, her friend Marta jabbed her in the ribs with an elbow.

—Babe, look who’s at the far end. It’s Tomás.

Carolina turned her head instinctively. Tomás. An old acquaintance with whom there had always been a strange tension, never resolved, the kind that stays pulsing in the air for years without anyone daring to touch it. He raised his glass and said something to the girl at the bar. The girl came over.

—That man over there says order whatever you want, it’s on him.

Carolina looked at him again and arched an eyebrow. She ordered a whisky and soda, lifted it in a toast toward him, and held his gaze a second too long. Tomás left the company he was with and crossed the room toward her.

—Long time no see, gorgeous —he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

—Too long —she answered, copying the gesture.

As he came close, involuntarily —or not—, her breast brushed his arm. Neither of them moved away. They started talking about anything at all, those conversations that only serve to buy time while the body decides something else.

Little by little they broke the ice and watered the chat with more drinks. Carolina’s friends gradually filed out one by one, saying goodbye with knowing looks. The ending was inevitable and the two of them had known it since the first toast. Tomás offered to walk her home and she accepted as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

***

In the building entrance they looked at each other in silence. He wanted to spend the night with her; she simply didn’t want to spend it alone. They went up wrapped around each other, locked by the lips, stumbling on the stairs without stopping kissing.

As soon as she closed the door, Tomás cornered her against the hall wall. He held her face with both hands and kissed her slowly, deeply, while she slid her palms over his broad back. The black dress fell somewhere in the hallway. His shirt, somewhere else. They reached the bedroom leaving a trail of clothes behind them.

He lay down on the bed. She undid what was left on her and stood there for a moment, letting him look at her, knowing herself desired after so long feeling invisible. Then she knelt between his legs and took him in her mouth calmly, without rushing, enjoying every reaction, every ragged breath that escaped him. Tomás’s restrained groans betrayed just how much he had missed her without knowing it.

They went on like that for several minutes, her setting the pace, him surrendering to her mouth with his hands tangled in her hair. When Tomás could take no more, he sat up and rolled over her until he was on top. Their mouths sought each other hungrily, their bodies fitting together as if they had spent years rehearsing it.

With a firm movement of his hips he drove into her to the hilt, tearing from her a cry halfway between surprise and pleasure. Carolina wrapped her long legs around him and dug her nails into his shoulders. He sped up, plunging in again and again, and her sighs turned into moans, and the moans into almost screams, until a cramp ran the length of her spine, from neck to hips, and burst into an orgasm that left her trembling. Tomás celebrated it by tensing every muscle and letting himself go inside her with a rough grunt.

They were left exhausted, he on top of her, both with their skin beaded with sweat. They looked at each other, laughed for no reason, kissed again. She was already ready for more; he needed a little respite. Over the course of the night they repeated it two more times. Once, with her on top, riding him slowly until she wrung another orgasm out of herself. Another, on her knees, letting him enjoy himself while he held her by the hips.

They fell asleep at dawn, entangled, without having talked about anything other than the desire they had kept waiting all that time.

***

The blind was up when the sun poured in through the window and woke Tomás. He turned and lay staring at Carolina, asleep. He began to cover her with slow kisses, from her neck to her navel. A faint sigh from her confirmed that she was only dozing. He kept going lower, slowly, tracing a warm path over her skin, until he buried his head between her thighs.

She parted her legs almost without realizing it, still halfway between sleep and desire. Tomás took his time, attentive to every shiver, to the way she arched her back and clutched the sheets with tense fingers. Carolina finally held his head with both hands and moved her hips against his mouth, searching for the end that was approaching like a wave.

And then, seconds before she got there, the doorbell rang.

They both went still, silent, holding their breath. A second ring put her on alert and memory came crashing down on her like a bucket of ice-cold water.

—Shit. It’s Lucas with his father. I’d forgotten we were supposed to take him to the water park.

She jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, and whispered for Tomás to get into the bathroom and make no noise. She ran her hands through her hair, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Lucas ran to hug her around the waist. Sergio, behind him, asked with a half-smile if she had overslept.

—I’m not feeling too well to spend the day out —she improvised—. Sorry.

The boy put on a disgruntled face and Sergio took advantage of it to press a little.

—Come on, don’t do that to him. He was so excited.

—Go downstairs to the café and I’ll catch up with you for breakfast, okay?

Carolina didn’t want either of them to suspect she had spent the night with company. But Sergio insisted on having breakfast there, at home. He had even brought churros, like old times. There was no way to get rid of them without giving her away.

From the bathroom, Tomás could hear everything. And when he heard Lucas say he urgently needed the bathroom, he understood he had no choice but to come out.

He appeared in the living room trying to look natural. A tension built up that could have been cut with a knife. The child broke it, because as soon as he saw him he ran forward.

—Uncle Tomás! —he shouted, throwing himself into his arms.

Sergio’s face went the color of a corpse. His eyes filled with tears as he took in, all at once, what was in front of him. Never, in his worst nightmare, would he have imagined that his own younger brother had spent the night in the bed of his ex-wife.