The Married Neighbor Who Came Upstairs to Test My Projector

Mariana was twenty-nine, had an immaculate studio apartment on the eighth floor, and owned a home-cinema projector she had used three times in two years. She had bought it in a burst of enthusiasm, convinced it would transform her nights. In the end, she watched series on her phone, lying on her side, with the white screen hanging on the wall like a reproach.

So she put it up for sale. She posted the photo in the building’s residents’ group and in her work chat, along with a short, straightforward message.

“Selling full HD projector, barely used, immaculate. $150,000 or open to interesting trades. Pickup in the building. More photos by private message.”

The replies came immediately, and almost all of them were useless: emojis, jokes, ridiculous offers from people who had no intention of buying it. She was about to mute the group when a private message came in.

It was from Esteban, apartment 8A. The one next door.

“Hi, Mariana. I saw the notice in the group. I’m your wall-sharing neighbor, the guy in 8A. Is it still available? If it’s convenient, I can stop by to see it this week. Regards.”

She replied almost without thinking.

“Yes, it’s still available. Does tomorrow afternoon work for you? Around seven.”

“Perfect. I’ll be there at seven.”

***

The next day, at five past seven, the doorbell rang. Mariana had changed her shirt twice without fully admitting why.

Esteban came in with a calm smile, the kind of composure you don’t learn at twenty. His linen shirt was rolled up to the elbows, his cologne discreet, a gold wedding band reflecting the light from the hallway. He was fifty-two, with silver at his temples and large hands that moved without haste. She took it all in at once: his deep voice, the way he looked her in the eye when he greeted her, the confidence of someone who had stopped being in a hurry a long time ago.

“Come in, I’ve got it set up in the living room,” she said, making room for him.

The projector sat on the coffee table, the cable coiled beside it and the screen still unfurled on the wall. Esteban leaned in to examine it, ran a finger over the lens, and checked the connectors with the attentiveness of someone who knew what he was looking for.

“It’s like new,” he remarked. “Why are you selling it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t use it,” Mariana admitted, arms crossed, leaning against the back of the sofa. “I work late, and when I get home I prefer something else. Something quieter.”

He looked up, wearing half a smile.

“Something quieter? Now you’ve got me wondering.”

She laughed, a little nervously.

“A glass of wine, a book, going to bed early. The glamorous life of living alone.”

Esteban straightened.

“Want to test it before you decide? That way you can make sure everything works. I brought a flash drive with a couple of test videos, if you don’t mind.”

Mariana hesitated for a second. Then she nodded.

“Sure. Let’s hook it up.”

***

The two of them plugged in the cable and aimed the projector at the wall. She lowered the blinds so the image would show better, and the living room fell into half-darkness. They sat on the sofa, side by side, a little closer than the sofa required. Esteban played a video of landscapes: waves breaking in slow motion, mountains, saturated colors filling the white wall.

“Look at that definition,” he said, leaning forward.

Mariana leaned forward too. Their shoulders brushed, and neither of them moved away.

“It’s better than I remembered,” she murmured.

They talked while the video played. About the building, the elevator that had been under repair for a month, how gossipy the residents’ group was. At one point he asked, almost as if it were unimportant:

“How long have you been living alone?”

“A couple of years. At first I missed the sound of another person in the house. Now I love the silence. Nobody telling me what to watch or what time to get home.”

Esteban nodded slowly, looking at the illuminated wall.

“I understand you more than you might think. There’s noise at home, but it isn’t always the good kind. My wife goes to sleep early and I stay awake. Sometimes I watch something alone. Sometimes I lie there staring at the ceiling, thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Mariana asked, turning slightly toward him.

He looked straight at her, not smiling this time.

“About things I miss. About how everything was when it was just beginning. That kind of electricity you had without looking for it. Fucking without watching the clock.”

The video kept playing, waves breaking silently against the wall, but neither of them was looking at the screen anymore.

Mariana felt her pulse in her neck and, lower down, a hot throb between her legs.

“And you never tried to get it back?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said. “But right now I feel like I could. With you sitting there, I’m getting hard just looking at you.”

She didn’t pull away. She only moistened her lips and dropped her eyes for a second to the bulge beginning to show in his trousers.

***

Esteban raised a hand and brushed her arm with the backs of his fingers. It was a light touch, almost an excuse. Mariana didn’t move. He came a little closer, until their knees touched in the projector’s bluish half-light.

“Does this bother you?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered. “Do whatever you want.”

The first kiss came slowly, barely more than lips seeking and testing each other. Mariana responded by leaning toward him and placing a hand on his thigh, moving up until she brushed his cock through the fabric. She felt it pulsing beneath her fingers, and he released a short moan against her mouth. The second kiss was no longer cautious. Their tongues met without shame, their breathing mingled, and he held the back of her neck with one large hand while the other slid down her back to her waist and then to her ass, grabbing the whole of it.

They separated for a second, both breathing hard.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mariana replied, climbing astride his legs.

Esteban took her hips and guided her to move slowly against him, rubbing her pussy through her clothes against the hardness already clearly outlined beneath his trousers. She felt his cock pressing against her clitoris through the two layers of fabric, and she began to gush.

“There’s no rush,” he murmured against her neck. “I want you slowly. I want to open you up properly.”

He removed her shirt calmly, unclasped her bra with a single movement of his fingers, and stared at her tits for a long second before taking them in both hands.

“What beautiful tits you have, goddamn,” he said, bending down to suck one nipple while his other thumb made slow circles around the other.

Mariana moaned softly when he bit her, then she unbuttoned his shirt, running her nails over his chest and down to his belt. Each button was a decision that had already been made. When she finished, she opened his trousers, slipped her hand inside, and grabbed his cock through his boxers. It was thick and hot, throbbing against her palm.

“Look how hard you are,” she whispered. “And we haven’t even started.”

She got off the sofa and knelt between his legs. She tugged his trousers down to his ankles, pulled down his boxers, and his cock sprang free, hard, its tip already glistening. She took it in her hand, looked at it for a second as if studying it, and put the whole thing in her mouth in one movement.

“Ah, fuck me,” Esteban growled, throwing his head back.

Mariana began to suck him slowly, sealing her lips around him, moving up and down with her tongue pressed to the glans. Then she sped up. She pulled him completely from her mouth only to spit on him and swallow him again, all the way to her throat. With her free hand she caressed his balls, squeezing them gently. He grabbed her hair with one hand and began setting the pace, pushing her head down while she let him fuck her mouth all the way to the back.

“That’s it, suck me like that,” he panted. “You suck so well, you slut.”

The word struck Mariana between the legs like a lash. She felt her panties grow even wetter and sped up, letting saliva run down her chin. When she noticed him beginning to tremble, she pulled him from her mouth with a wet sound and smiled up at him.

“Not yet. I want you to give it all to me inside.”

He lifted her by the hair delicately, took her by the waist, and laid her back on the sofa. He pulled down her trousers and panties in one patient movement, kissing every inch of skin he exposed: her belly, her hipbones, the insides of her thighs. When he opened her legs and saw her pussy, he stared at it for a second.

“You’re soaking wet.”

“That’s your fault,” she whispered.

He knelt on the floor between her legs and buried his face in her. He started slowly, his flat tongue licking her entire slit from bottom to top, sucking her lips, pausing at her clitoris to make precise circles. Then he slid in two fingers and curled them, searching for her spot inside while continuing to suck her clitoris without stopping. Mariana arched her back, closed her thighs around his head, and buried her fingers in his hair, no longer holding back her moans.

“Oh, yes, like that, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop…”

He quickened his tongue and curled his fingers harder. She felt her orgasm rising from the base of her spine. She came trembling all over, squeezing his fingers inside her in spasms, repeating his name against the silence of the apartment.

“Esteban, I’m coming, I’m coming, goddamn it…”

He kept licking her slowly until she gently pushed him away, too sensitive to continue.

***

When she caught her breath, she pulled him up and kissed him, tasting herself in his mouth. She took hold of his cock, still hard and dripping at the tip, and stroked it while looking into his eyes, slowly, until he let out a restrained growl.

“I want to feel you inside me,” she told him. “Now.”

She climbed back on top of him, straddling him, took his cock in her hand, and placed it at the entrance to her pussy. She rubbed the tip against her clitoris a couple of times, wetting it thoroughly with her own juices, and then lowered herself little by little, feeling it open her inch by inch.

“Uh, you’re so big…” she panted.

“Lower yourself slowly. Take all of me,” he replied, gripping her hips.

They both held their breath at the exact same moment when she finished lowering herself onto him, taking him all the way to the bottom. She stayed still for a second, feeling his cock throbbing inside her, filling her completely. Then she began to move. At first her rhythm was slow and deep; he set the pace with his firm hands on her hips while she rotated her pelvis, searching for the exact angle that rubbed inside her and made her moan louder.

“Ride me like that,” Esteban murmured, sucking her tits as she moved up and down. “Look at how you’re taking my cock.”

“You’re destroying me,” she panted, bracing her hands on his shoulders for leverage.

The kisses became urgent. Soft bites on the neck, nails in the back, half-finished words neither of them completed. At one point he grabbed her hard, rose from the sofa with her still impaled on top of him, and turned her around, bending her facedown over the backrest. He kicked her legs apart and thrust into her from behind again.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” she cried out against the sofa.

Esteban began fucking her hard, gripping her waist with both hands and driving into her all the way to the balls each time. The sound of their bodies colliding filled the living room above the projector’s hum. He delivered a sharp slap to her ass, and she clenched all over.

“Again,” she begged.

He slapped her again, harder, then grabbed her hair, winding it around his hand to lift her head. He spoke into her ear without stopping his thrusts:

“You like it like this, don’t you? Having me drive all the way inside you. Tell me you like it.”

“I love it. Don’t stop, fuck me, fuck me harder…”

The pace quickened without either of them deciding to do it. Mariana felt her second orgasm approaching like a charged, taut wave, deeper than the first. Esteban wrapped himself around her from behind, put one hand on her clitoris, and kept thrusting, again and again, faster and faster, until they broke almost at the same time: she squeezed him with violent spasms, screaming against the sofa, while he emptied himself with a long moan, coming inside her in hot spurts that she felt pulsing one after another.

They stayed there without separating, she still bent over the backrest, he pressed against her back, while his cock continued throbbing inside her and his semen began running down the inside of her thigh. The projector went on painting forgotten landscapes across the wall.

***

A few minutes passed in silence as they caught their breath. They collapsed sideways onto the sofa, embracing, sweaty. Then Esteban kissed her forehead.

“I think I’ll take it,” he said with a tired smile, nodding toward the projector. “But only if you let me come back to test it again… and test you, too.”

Mariana smiled, still pressed against his chest, feeling his come continuing to seep between her legs.

“Take it,” she replied. “But bring the flash drive again. And next time, stay longer. I still have a couple of positions left to try with you.”

He chuckled softly, gave her one last slow kiss, ran his hand between her legs one more time as if saying goodbye to her pussy, and began dressing without haste, the way he did everything. Mariana watched him button his shirt in the half-darkness, his wedding band shining once again on his finger, and felt no guilt. She felt only that the silence of her apartment would no longer seem quite so peaceful.

The projector changed owners that night. And they both knew it wasn’t the only thing that had just changed hands.