I Woke Up Hugging My Neighbor on New Year’s Day

I was fifty-four when this happened, though now it feels like it belonged to another life. The previous two years had been the worst I can remember: Elena had been in and out of clinics for almost all of that time until, in August of that year, she stopped fighting. We’d been together for nineteen years. Losing someone like that can’t be described; you only survive it.

After the grief, my working life changed overnight too. I stopped working as a maintenance technician for hospitality companies and joined an event production company in Valencia. The following months I spent setting up stages, running sound boards at fairs and conventions, from neighborhood parties to the ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel. But the paychecks started arriving late, sometimes very late, and the rent on my apartment in Ruzafa began to weigh too heavily.

That New Year’s Eve in 2013 I celebrated first at my mother’s place. Nothing special; she tried, but Elena’s absence hung over every conversation. When I said goodbye, instead of going home, I went up one floor: to Amparo’s apartment.

Amparo had lived in that building since before I was born. I’d known her all my life from the entryway, from those conversations that begin as politeness and end up something like friendship. She was sixty-seven, with a deep voice, a quick laugh, and hands that were always moving when she talked. Her sons—Roberto and Marcos—lived in other cities and barely showed up. She’d been on her own for more than five years, since her last partner died.

When I rang the bell, she opened the door with a can of beer in her hand and a look of genuine surprise on her face.

—Well, look who it is! Come in, come in—there are already three of us in here.

The third was Patricia, a friend of hers, about thirty-three, with a baby a few months old in her arms. We spent the first few hours talking about a bit of everything: the year that was ending, prices, how Valencia emptied out in winter. I drank iced water. Amparo and Patricia kept on with the beer, opening can after can.

At some point in the early hours, Patricia confessed her troubles.

—If it weren’t for Amparo, the kid and I would be sleeping in an ATM.

Amparo let out one of her hoarse belly laughs and gave me a sideways look with that cheeky glint she got when she’d been drinking.

—Don’t talk nonsense. We help each other here—she said, bringing the can to her lips—. Although money, son... money flies, and happily so.

—How much do you fly, Amparo?—I asked, trying to keep up with the joke, though my mouth felt dry.

—Whatever it takes!—she said, slapping the table with her open palm—. Look, at my age there’s no modesty left. For four hundred euros I’d let anyone fuck me however they wanted, right now if necessary! Mouth, cunt, ass, whatever. At this point I don’t give a damn.

Patricia laughed until the baby stirred. I tried to laugh too, but something inside me registered those words differently. It had been more than two years since I’d had any physical contact with anyone. And Amparo’s voice, deep and careless, shook something I thought I’d buried for good. I felt my cock stir inside my pants, timid at first, and had to shift position so it wouldn’t show.

When Patricia left with the baby, Amparo and I were alone in the living room. She poured herself another beer and started talking about real money, without jokes.

—Between three cards, I owe twelve thousand euros—she murmured, setting the can on the table and covering her face with her hands—. Every month they take more than six hundred in payments, between interest and late fees. With my pension, after paying the rent and helping Patricia, I don’t even have enough to breathe.

A sob escaped her, and she tried to drown it with a long swallow. I felt enormous helplessness; my situation wasn’t much better, but seeing her like that, so vulnerable, was unlike anything I’d seen in months.

—You need to talk to the bank—I told her—. There are legal limits to what they can garnish. You don’t own property; they can’t take anything else from you.

—No—she replied with old, stubborn pride, shaking her head—. Debts are debts. I don’t want my children to inherit my mistakes when I’m gone.

Then she cried with a quiet sadness, the kind that only comes loose when alcohol and night weigh together. I didn’t know what to say, so I told her about my own misery: the late paychecks, the uncertainty of the contract, the rent threatening to swallow me whole. Not to comfort myself, but so she wouldn’t feel alone in her pit.

While we talked, my mind started drifting into territories that made me ashamed. I remembered Elena, those late-night conversations when the two of us would quietly fantasize about Amparo, about what we would do to her one day if the chance ever came: how we’d strip her between us, how we’d spread her legs, how I’d fuck her from the front while Elena licked her tits. Those memories dragged me under with guilt at the same time as they made my cock hard against the zipper.

At six in the morning we decided to end the evening. When Amparo got up, leaning on the chair arm, she could hardly hold herself steady. Her body swayed. I jumped up to support her under the arm, and as I did my hand brushed her breast through the robe. It wasn’t big, but it was generous, warm, alive. Under my palm I felt the nipple, hardened by the cold or by whatever else, pressing through the fabric.

—I need to use the bathroom—she murmured.

Almost carrying her, I took her there. I sat her on the toilet. Then I realized she wasn’t wearing anything under the robe; she’d spent the whole night like that, with her cunt and tits bare under that thin rag. I stepped into the hallway, but before I reached the living room I heard a dull thud.

—Amparo... are you all right?

I found her on the floor, kneeling in front of the toilet, trying to get up. I put her on her knees in front of the bowl and held her forehead until her body finished emptying itself. When she was done, she muttered that she wanted bed.

I carried her in my arms, surprised by how heavy she was. I took her to the bedroom and sat her on the edge of the bed; she let herself fall backward. The robe had traces of vomit on it. I couldn’t leave her like that.

Carefully, moving her slowly, I managed to get the robe off. Underneath she was only wearing the top of an old pajama set, which had also taken a hit. I started taking that off too, and it was at that moment that my eyes stopped where they shouldn’t have.

Her pubic mound, almost white now, was sparse and soft, with thin, wispy hairs through which you could make out the slit of her cunt, closed like a silent mouth. Her hips, broad and heavy with time. And her tits, once freed, struck me as unexpectedly beautiful: large, drooping to the sides, with dark, long nipples that the room’s cool air slowly hardened until they stood up like little stones. I stared at those nipples longer than I can justify, feeling my cock fill inside my pants until it hurt.

I stood up. I covered her. I turned toward the door.

Get out of here. Right now. Get out.

I found the little gas heater in the hallway and brought it into the bedroom, turning it on without making a sound. The room was cold; that was my excuse, though I knew it was a lie.

When I turned back, Amparo had uncovered herself as she moved. She was on her side, completely exposed, with her ass turned toward me. White. Big. Marked by an old vaccination scar on her thigh. Real. The position, with one leg slightly raised, opened her cunt just enough for me to see, in the heater’s yellow dimness, the dark shadow of her hole and, lower down, the pink bulge of her cunt with the lips tucked in.

I came closer with hands that didn’t seem to be mine.

I separated them slowly. I saw what was behind: pink, symmetrical, intimate, with a quiet perfection that caught my breath. The wrinkled hole, dark at the center, pale at the edges, pulsing almost imperceptibly with her breathing. Lower down, the lips of her cunt, small, worn by years, abandoned in her unconsciousness. The slit opened in the middle and revealed the deeper pink, the inner flesh, and the shy little bulge of the clit peeking between the folds.

And I cried.

I cried as I leaned down and kissed it. First her ass, a long, wet kiss, with my lips pressed against that soft, wrinkled flesh. Then I brought my mouth down to her cunt and stuck out my tongue. I ran it from bottom to top, slowly, very slowly, tasting for the first time in years the salty, slightly bitter flavor of a woman’s sex. I traced the lips one by one, licking them carefully, and then pushed my tongue between them until I found the clit. I licked it slowly, drawing circles, while tears slid down my cheeks and wet her thighs. Amparo didn’t move. She was breathing slow and heavy, far away from there. At some point her cunt began to release a warm wetness, a thick juice that I lapped up with the hunger of a thirsty man, sucking it straight from the flesh. I spread her cheeks wider with my hands and buried my nose between the folds, breathing in the intimate smell, getting dizzy on it. I ran my tongue over the hole too, unable to help myself, one long lick from her cunt to her ass, and I went down again, and back up again, possessed by something that had no name.

I pulled myself together. I covered her again. I sat in the chair in the corner, in the darkness, and wiped my tears with the back of my hand. Out there the New Year’s drunks kept going, the world was celebrating. I was in here, with my cock hard as a stone inside my pants, submitting to a torment that in part seemed fair to me and in part absurd and unnecessary.

I smoked three cigarettes in a row, calmly. When I put out the last one, something in me cracked.

I undressed with a slowness that scared me. Each garment, slowly, as if I were doing it in slow motion. When I finished, I went up to the bed and uncovered her just enough to see what I had already seen. Amparo was now on her back, her legs slightly apart, her tits falling to the sides with her slow breathing, the dark nipples pointing at the ceiling, and between her thighs that whitish mound still shining with my saliva.

I knelt beside her. My cock, swollen, the tip red, throbbed between my legs with a force I hadn’t felt in years. A sticky bead escaped from the tip and fell onto the sheet.

I kissed her nipples, one first, then the other, unhurried. I took one fully into my mouth and sucked it slowly, feeling it harden even more between my tongue and palate. I bit the tip gently and she let out a sleeping sigh, long, that chilled me and burned me at once. I moved to the other nipple, licked it in circles, tugged at it with my lips, left it shining with saliva. Her tits, soft but heavy, shifted with every breath, and I stayed anchored there, unable to leave, one hand squeezing the tit I wasn’t sucking and the other sliding on its own toward my own cock.

I didn’t get time to touch it. The sight of her body stretched out, the taste of her nipples on my tongue, and the smell of cunt still lodged in my nose broke the last dam. I felt the pull in my balls, the pinch from the base of my cock, and I came. I ejaculated without touching myself, in thick hot spurts, splashing her stomach, her tits, her pubic mound. It simply happened, with an intensity I hadn’t known in years, while sobs shook my own chest and my semen ran into the wrinkles of her skin. It was five, six long jets, one after another, and I stayed there on my knees with my cock dripping, breathing in short gasps, not knowing whether this had been a crime or a prayer.

I cleaned everything with my underwear, hers first, slowly, with more care than necessary. I ran the fabric over her tits, over her belly, over her pubic mound, following every fold, every wrinkle. I could feel her warm beneath my hands, docile, surrendered by the alcohol to the stranger I had become. Then I lay down beside her, naked, cursing myself in silence until sleep overcame me.

***

I woke up hugging her.

My right arm was beneath her head. My left hand was on her chest, pressing it gently. My body was pressed against hers from behind, warm and snug, as if we’d been sleeping like that for years. My cock, hard again, was marked between her ass cheeks, lodged in the crack of her ass as if it belonged there. For a second I had no idea where I was. Then I remembered everything at once.

I let go of her chest. I looked at the clock: twelve forty in the afternoon. I had to be at my father’s house by two.

My body, oblivious to any shame, had reacted during sleep. Without thinking, almost automatically, I put my hand back on her chest. Just to feel that softness again. That stolen warmth that shamed me as much as I needed it. I pinched her nipple between two fingers, very gently, and felt it harden again beneath my fingertips. I slid my palm over her belly, downward, downward, until I brushed those sparse hairs with my fingers. I didn’t dare do more.

Almost an hour passed like that, me stroking her in silence, promising myself I’d tell her when she woke up. That there would be no way not to tell her.

That was when, during one of my strokes over her belly, Amparo spoke.

—What are you doing?—she asked, in a voice that didn’t sound reproachful but curious, almost tender.

I froze. My hand was still on her chest, feeling her heartbeat. The silence lasted seconds that felt like hours.

—Sorry, Amparo... I...—I began, trying to pull my arm away, but she put her hand over mine and pressed it gently against her skin.

—You tickle me—she said softly—. Are you that alone, son?

The tears came before the words. With my voice broken by shame, I told her everything.

—Last night you were really bad. I helped you in the bathroom, brought you here. And when I saw you... I couldn’t help myself. I undressed. I touched you. I sucked your tits. I ate your cunt and your ass while you slept. And I came all over you, Amparo, fuck, I came all over you like an animal. I’m truly sorry. It’s the loneliness, I think of Elena and go crazy. I failed you, your home, and your family.

She slowly turned toward me. There was no trace of anger on her face. Only infinite tolerance, like someone who has already seen everything in life. Her tits shifted with the movement and settled against my arm, warm, soft.

—And that’s why you’re crying?—she asked, stroking my cheek with her fingers—. Do you think I care that you looked at me or kissed me, or that you came all over this old woman? On the contrary. It had been years since anyone touched me with desire, son. Years. Not a finger, not a tongue, nothing. I needed to feel that someone can still want me, that someone can still get hard looking at me, even if it’s in the middle of a drunken night and without me asking for it.

—Aren’t you angry?—I asked, unbelieving.

—At this point, anger is a luxury I can’t afford—she replied with half a smile. Her hand slid under the sheet and found my hard cock, throbbing. She closed around it without hesitation, like someone recovering something lost, and squeezed it two, three times, with a calm that took my breath away—. And what are we going to do with this now?

Her gaze dropped to the sheet, which couldn’t hide anything. I felt a mix of relief and a new knot in my chest, while her fist moved slowly up and down my cock, milking me with that natural ease of a woman who has nothing left to prove.

—I have to go to my father’s house—I said, making a superhuman effort to recover my sanity—. I’ve got plans with my sisters and I’m already late.

—Then go on—she said, without reproach, without letting go of my cock—. But before you leave...

She ducked under the sheet before I could understand what she was doing. I felt her breath first, and then her lips closing over my glans. She took me fully into her mouth, very slowly, as if getting to know me, and sucked me with an old, patient technique, dragging her lips along the full length of me, pressing me with her tongue against her palate. I clutched the sheet in my fists. In less than a minute I was coming again, this time into her mouth, in thick spurts, and she swallowed every drop without lifting her head, sucking me to the last drop as if her life depended on it. When she pulled back and sat up against the pillow again, she ran her tongue over her lips and smiled at me.

I put my mouth on hers. It wasn’t a goodbye kiss. It was a long, wet kiss, where our tongues met under the still light of New Year’s Day, and I tasted myself in her mouth without the slightest shame. When I pulled away, her eyes were closed and her expression was something I couldn’t quite name.

—I’ll be back—I told her.

—I know you will—she replied.

And she was right. Over the following six months, that room became my refuge and my confessional. What happened each of those times has its own story, and I’ll tell it to you.