The Club’s Mature Woman Chose Me at the Annual Gala

Every respectable club holds a grand evening at least once a year. Ours, the Círculo Valdés, was famous for two things: the awards given to the most outstanding members and what happened afterward, when the formality loosened and the ballroom turned into something else. Dress was mandatory. The wine flowed freely. And no one who had been once ever missed the next one.

I was the youngest man in the room that night. Twenty-three years old, newly admitted thanks to a patron I’d rather not name, and with the feeling that I’d somehow slipped into a party too big for me. I wore a borrowed tuxedo and a glass I barely touched, watching from beside a column as the veterans greeted one another with the easy familiarity of people who share secrets.

Dinner began with the awards. A woman named Renata received the award for entrepreneurial member of the semester. She was intelligent, slight of build, but with a gaze that betrayed enormous appetites. In her speech she looked at only one man, Mr. Belmonte, as if all her gratitude belonged to him and no one else.

I was given the award for youngest member. I went up to the lectern not knowing what to say, let my eyes travel over the room, and stopped, unintentionally, on a woman seated at the first table.

It was Daniela Belmonte. Blonde, tall, about forty, carried with a confidence no girl my age had. The dress hugged her curves without vulgarity, and when she crossed her legs and held my gaze, I felt the blood rush to the wrong place at the worst possible moment. I stepped down from the lectern quickly, praying the cut of my trousers would hide what my body had decided for me.

—Nice speech —someone said at my side. It was her. She had gotten up and walked over to me without my noticing—. Though you barely said anything.

—I’m not good with words —I admitted.

—Better —she smiled—. Words are usually unnecessary.

***

Dinner went on like all such dinners: too much wine, conversations growing louder, laughter turning filthy. By the time the desserts were cleared away, almost no one was completely sober. Congratulations began moving from table to table, and Mr. Belmonte approached Renata to congratulate her on her award.

What happened next I saw from a distance, and I wasn’t the only one. Renata wasn’t listening to what he was saying. Her eyes were fixed elsewhere, her lower lip trapped between her teeth, and then suddenly her hands went to his waist and pulled him toward her. She dropped to her knees in front of him, there, in the middle of the ballroom, with a determination that cut through the nearby conversations like a knife.

No one was scandalized. It was that kind of night. Some people looked away out of politeness; others slowly drifted closer, drawn in. Belmonte tipped his head back and let that woman, usually so proper, devour him with a hunger she had been holding back for months.

—I knew this would happen sooner or later —a voice murmured near my ear.

Daniela had appeared at my side again. She watched the scene without the slightest hint of discomfort, almost tenderly.

—Doesn’t it bother you? —I asked, nodding toward her husband.

—Years ago we stopped belonging to each other —she replied—. We only remain accomplices. It’s different.

She turned to me. Up close she smelled of something expensive and dark, and the chandelier light softened her face without taking away a single one of her years. Those years, precisely, were what had me hypnotized.

—You’re not like the others here —she said, studying me—. You still feel embarrassed. I like that.

—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do —I confessed.

—Nothing. That’s the fun of it. —She took my hand. Her fingers were cool and firm—. Come with me.

***

She led me down a side corridor, away from the hum of the ballroom, to a small room with wood paneling and an antique desk. She locked the door. The noise of the party was reduced to a dull throb on the other side of the wall.

—Relax —she said, coming closer—. I don’t bite. Well. Not always.

She kissed me before I could answer. It wasn’t a timid kiss, or a tentative one. It was the kiss of someone who knew exactly what she wanted and how long it had been since she’d taken it. I braced myself against the desk while her hands loosened my tie, the first button, the second, with a calm that made me more nervous than any haste would have.

—Easy —she repeated against my mouth—. We have all night.

She smelled of expensive perfume and red wine, and beneath the absolute control of her gestures there was something that betrayed her: her breathing, a little faster than she wanted it to seem. Then I realized she wanted this too, and that her confidence wasn’t coldness but experience. Knowing that calmed me more than any words.

I felt her unfastening my trousers without taking her eyes off mine. When she touched me, she let out a small, satisfied laugh.

—Well. The rumors about the new member were true.

My face burned. She knelt on the carpet with an elegance she never lost even in that position, and what followed left me breathless. It had nothing to do with the clumsy fumbling of girls my age. Every movement was precise, deliberate, designed to drive me mad and keep me right at the edge without letting me finish. I had to plant both hands on the desk not to lose my balance.

—No, no, not like that —I gasped—. You’re going to make me finish.

—That’s the point —she said, standing up—. But not yet. I want something first.

She put her hands behind her back and pulled down the zipper of her dress. The fabric fell to her waist, then to the floor, and she stood in front of me with that absolute confidence of women who have long since made peace with their bodies. I, on the other hand, didn’t know where to put my hands.

—Touch me —she ordered, taking my wrists and guiding them—. Here. Slower. Yes, like that.

It was a proper lesson. She taught me where and at what rhythm, corrected me when I rushed, rewarded me with a sigh when I got it right. No one had ever directed me that way, and I discovered I loved letting myself be led. When I finally lifted her onto the desk and entered her, she let out a long moan and closed her eyes.

—Slowly —she said, digging her heels into the small of my back—. I want to feel everything.

I obeyed. I learned to read her breathing, to hold back when she tensed, to drive harder when her voice broke. The party kept playing on the other side of the wall, oblivious to us, and I was only aware of the heat of her body and the way she said my name as if she had invented it that night.

—Harder —she asked after a while, abandoning all previous calm—. Enough with slow. Now make me forget my name.

And that was what I tried to do. I took her by the hips and stopped thinking. Her nails traced my back, her voice rose until it became something beyond words, and when she came she squeezed me so hard she dragged me with her. We stayed still, panting, she stretched out over the old wooden desk and I on top of her, unable to move.

—For someone new —she said once she’d caught her breath, with a half-smile—, you learn fast.

***

When we returned to the ballroom, the evening had completely changed nature. Protocol was a memory. Renata was still with Mr. Belmonte in one corner, and in the center of the room a group of members had lost any trace of restraint. Two women were caressing each other sprawled on a sofa while others laughed nearby, glasses in hand. One man was the center of attention for three guests taking turns with practiced complicity.

I looked at all of it like someone witnessing a world he hadn’t known existed. Daniela watched me, amused by my astonishment.

—The first time is shocking —she said—. After that, you get used to it. Some too much.

I recognized Renata, the award winner, among the group, unrecognizable from the proper woman who had given the speech. Her shyness had fallen off her like a coat at the door, and now she laughed with a freedom that was a pleasure to see. Looking at her, I understood that the ballroom wasn’t a place of senseless excess, but a kind of truce: people who spent the rest of the year carrying surnames, titles, and marriages, and who once a semester allowed themselves to stop pretending.

—And you? —I asked.

—I choose. Tonight I chose you. —She gave me a short kiss at the corner of the lips—. And I doubt it’ll be the last.

One of the women on the sofa called to her by name, inviting her to join them. Daniela shook her head and held my gaze, as if to say she already had enough to keep herself occupied. I felt a ridiculous pride, out of place in the scene, but real.

We sat on a distant armchair, her hand on my thigh, watching together as the party ran its course. We didn’t touch again that night more than necessary. It wasn’t needed. There was something more intimate in staying like that, with her telling me in a low voice who each person was, what histories they carried, while the ballroom burned a few yards away.

—Come back next semester —she said when dawn was already breaking and the guests were starting to leave—. Ask for me. Don’t make me have to look for you.

I promised I would return. And return I did. But that, as the club veterans say, is a story for another night.