The Mature Café Lady I Never Forgot

A few years ago I worked as a sales advisor in a neighborhood of Seville. The office was small and hot, and my only excuse to get out each morning was the café on the corner, where there was always a noisy group of women in their sixties and up. They met at nine, ordered their café con leche, and talked for hours about everything and nothing, with that particular energy women have when they no longer have anything to hide.

I started by saying hello from the doorway. Then I worked up the nerve to sit at the counter near their table. And then, without really knowing how, I ended up becoming a kind of mascot for the group. They saved me a chair. They asked about my wife. They told me neighborhood gossip as if I were one of their own.

Among them all there was one who caught my eye more than the others. Her name was Mercedes, though everyone called her Merche. She must have been about sixty-eight or seventy; I never asked. She was slender, wore her white hair cut to ear length, and had a way of looking at you when she spoke that made you feel like you were the only person in the room. She was not a woman who went unnoticed.

One day she said to me, with a smile that was not entirely innocent:

—With thirty years less, I’d have eaten you alive, handsome.

The others laughed. I laughed too, though I blushed a little. That night, at home, I kept thinking about her longer than I would have liked to admit.

I was thirty-six then. I’d been married four years, no children yet, with a job that bored me enough for those twenty minutes at the café to be the most interesting part of my day. I started noticing things I hadn’t noticed before: the way Merche adjusted her dress when she stood up, the neckline that peeked out when she leaned forward to reach the sugar bowl, the deep tone of her voice when she laughed at something she genuinely found funny.

The nights after that I masturbated thinking about her. It was absurd and I knew it, but that didn’t stop it.

That year summer came early, dry and brutal. The women at the café started coming in lighter clothes: thin blouses, cotton dresses, sandals. Merche usually showed up in sleeveless tops that clung to her body in the heat. I became an expert at pretending to look elsewhere.

One Thursday in July I left the office at three in the afternoon and the sun hit me head-on like a slap. I was walking toward the bus stop when I turned a corner and almost ran into her.

Merche. Standing in front of a bakery, a paper bag in hand and a white blouse so thin the afternoon light passed straight through it. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I saw it immediately: the full curve of her breasts, heavy and real, and the dark circles of her nipples pressing against the fabric. She seemed completely unaware of it, or maybe completely aware and not caring in the slightest.

—My God, it’s hot! —she said when she saw me, as if we had met that same day at the café—. Did you just get off work?

We talked on the sidewalk for a good while. She lived two streets away, she told me, pointing vaguely north. Then she added, almost in passing, while glancing back toward her street:

—If you feel like a cold drink, I’m going home now. I don’t mind company.

I was in a hurry. Or so I told myself. The truth is I panicked, felt guilty, the cowardice of a married man caught off guard. I told her I had a meeting, another day, that I was sorry. I left with my head full of images I should not have had.

During the following days I kept waiting for any sign of her. I looked for her when I left the office. I looked for her in the mornings at the café, though she didn’t always come. The urge to sleep with that woman who was twice my age grew in a way that was no longer rational. It was the last thing I thought about before sleeping and the first thing when I woke up.

Almost three weeks passed before I saw her again.

She showed up on a Monday morning at the café, alone, without the rest of the group. She wore a navy blue sleeveless dress and her hair freshly done. She greeted me as if nothing had happened, as if that afternoon in the street had been any ordinary conversation, with no hidden meanings. We ordered coffee and talked about the heat wave, the neighborhood, a neighbor of hers who had just had a grandchild.

When she got up to leave, she stood for a moment beside the chair and looked at me in a way that left no room for interpretation.

—Do you feel like that beer you owe me? My daughter won’t be back until seven.

I said nothing. I left some bills on the counter and followed her.

Her apartment was on the third floor of a building without an elevator. We went up the stairs slowly, her in front. I noticed her legs: thin, tanned, with that firmness some women keep well into old age. The dress reached her knees and moved with her on every step. I had to make an effort not to reach out and touch her.

The apartment was small but tidy, with the blinds pulled down to keep in the morning cool. It smelled of lavender and something else I couldn’t identify. She went to the kitchen and I stayed standing in the living room, looking at the photos on the shelf, trying to seem calm when inside my heart was in my throat and I had an erection that was already hard to hide.

She came back with two cold beers and a small tray with olives and a few slices of cheese. She sat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. I sat down.

We talked. Or tried to talk. The conversation was clumsy, full of long pauses neither of us knew how to fill. She knew perfectly well why we were there. So did I. The difference was that she seemed comfortable with it and I still wasn’t entirely.

Then she adjusted the neckline of her dress with a completely casual gesture and her breasts came into view.

They were sagging, large for her slender frame, with dark, wide nipples. She kept looking at me without moving, without covering herself, with that calm that belongs only to those who no longer have anything to lose or anything to prove.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I moved toward her, put a hand on her face and kissed her. She responded at once, with an intensity I hadn’t expected, biting my lower lip, gripping the back of my neck with her fingers. When we broke apart to breathe, she whispered in my ear:

—I’ve been waiting for this for weeks.

I slipped the strap of her dress down one shoulder and then the other, slowly, never taking my eyes off her breasts. The fabric fell away and they were left bare, heavy, with skin that was thin and a little wrinkled with time, but still firm in their fall, round and full in my hands. I squeezed them carefully at first and she let out a low, hoarse moan, as if a little air had escaped her throat. Then I let myself go, buried my face between her tits and licked them one by one, first one nipple, then the other, sucking the dark edge, feeling her skin rise under my tongue.

—Like that —she murmured—. Don’t be shy, for fuck’s sake.

I pulled down her panties with my fingers, feeling the wet heat already leaking between her thighs. The fabric was soaked through at the crotch. I found a mature cunt, open and slick, with soft lips and flesh sensitive to the touch. I parted it with two fingers and saw her moisture gleaming in the living room light. She spread her legs wider, rested her head against the back of the sofa, and let me look at her while I slid the tip of my tongue into her slit, tasting the salty, strong flavor of her arousal.

—Lick me properly —she said, grabbing my hair—. That’s it, bastard.

I licked her eagerly, my whole mouth over her cunt, licking from top to bottom, digging my tongue into her clit until she started to tremble. Her thighs tightened around my head, and she moved against my mouth, rubbing herself shamelessly, letting go with brutal confidence. I slid in one finger, then two, entering slowly at first and then deeper, hearing the wet sound of her sex opening for me. She was hot, tight at the core, squeezing my fingers while I kept licking her insistently.

It didn’t take long for her to come. She did it with a deep, long moan, gripping my head with both hands while her belly arched and her cunt clenched around my fingers. I licked her all the way through it, swallowing all her wetness, and when I lifted my face my breathing was ragged and my eyes were shining.

—Now it’s your turn —she said, smiling with a wet mouth.

She undid my belt with surprising haste for someone so calm. She pulled down my zipper, took out my cock, already hard and heavy, and put it in her mouth without ceremony, as if she knew exactly what she wanted. She ran her tongue along the shaft, sucked the head slowly, encircling it with her lips, and then took it deeper, halfway in, until it nearly touched her throat. I watched her from above, hypnotized by the way she sucked me with that blend of patience and hunger that made me lose control in a matter of seconds.

—You’ve got a huge dick, you motherfucker —she murmured, letting my cock go with a wet pop—. You’re going to wreck me good.

I lifted her from the sofa without stopping kissing her. We stumbled to the bedroom, bumping into the wall, laughing under our breath like two teenagers. The blue bedspread was still spread across the double bed. I laid her on her back and knelt between her legs. Her cunt was open, wet, shining between swollen lips. I licked it again, slowly, opening the flesh further with my tongue, sliding two fingers in while I sucked her clit with short, precise movements. She writhed on the sheets, begged for more, told me not to stop, to do it again.

—Come on, stick that cock in —she panted—. I want to feel you inside me now.

I positioned myself between her thighs and guided my cock with my hand. The tip slid over her cunt, pushed at the entrance and drove through in one slow, deep stroke, until I was buried in her heat. The sensation was brutal: mature flesh, wet, gripping me with a force I hadn’t expected. She spread her legs wider, dug her nails into my back, and let out a long moan when I started moving.

We fucked slowly at first, her looking at my face while I tried not to come too soon. But there was no way to go slowly for long. Her cunt grabbed me like a wet fist, massaging me every time I pulled out and pushed back in. We changed rhythm, angle, position, with her turning a little so I could lift her hips, and me going deeper, hitting all the way in each time, hearing the filthy sound of our bodies slamming together. I brushed the hair off her forehead and saw her mouth half-open, her breasts bouncing with each thrust, the skin of her neck damp with sweat.

—Yes, like that, harder —she told me, with complete shamelessness—. Give it to me all the way.

I put her on all fours on the bed and grabbed her hips. From behind she looked even better: her thin back arched, her ass parted a little from the tension, her sex swollen and red from so much use in so little time. I went in again and started pushing with short, hard strokes, sinking into her cunt with firm thrusts that made the whole bed shake. She moaned with her face buried in the pillow and returned every thrust by pushing her ass back, wanting more, opening herself to me without any reserve.

The second time it was harder for me to hold back. She came again while I fucked her from behind, clamping her cunt around my cock so tightly she almost made me lose my balance. She shouted my name, or something like it, and then went still, panting, her legs trembling beneath her body.

I couldn’t last much longer. I pulled out of her, grabbed my cock with my hand and jerked it off in front of her ass, watching her glance sideways at me, still shaking. She told me to give it to her on her face. She sat up a little, opened her mouth and looked straight at me, never taking her eyes off mine. I came over her lips and chin, over her sagging tits and her neck, spilling hot jets of semen onto her wrinkled, soft skin, and she ran two fingers down her cheek, scooping up a little and taking it into her mouth with total naturalness.

—It was obvious you’d end up like this —she said, still breathing hard—. You’ve made a right mess of yourself.

We rested. We drank what was left of the beers. She asked about my job with a naturalness that threw me off a bit, as if we were in the café on the corner and not naked on her sofa.

—Don’t worry —she said before I could say anything—. I don’t complicate anything.

The second time was in the bedroom, in her double bed with the blue bedspread. She made me put my head back between her legs before climbing on top of me, and I ate her cunt patiently, feeling how wetter and wetter her slit became, how her hips loosened while I pushed my tongue deep inside. Then she leaned over me, asked me to lift her ass, and let me slide my cock into her again with a slow, deep motion, feeling once more that tight heat that took me to the edge of losing control.

I took her from behind and she rested on her elbows, back arched, and let me set the pace. Her skin shone with sweat, her white hair stuck to her face, and every time I drove in harder she clenched her teeth, bit her lip, and told me not to ease up. When we were done, she turned and gave me a short kiss on the mouth, the kind you give someone you’ve known well for a long time.

It was almost six-thirty.

I dressed quickly while she stayed on the bed, not bothering to cover herself, looking at me with that expression she had and that I had never quite known how to decipher. She walked me to the door wrapped in a silk robe she picked up from the chair.

—You know where I live —she said, and closed the door before I could answer.

I went down the stairs feeling my legs tremble a little. Out on the street, the July heat was still the same as before, but I was a slightly different version of the person who had walked through that door.

I kept seeing her for a few more months. A few times, always when her daughter was out, always with that same calm of hers that balanced me out. We never talked about what it was. There was no need. By the end of the year work took me to another city and the contact naturally faded away, without scenes or promises anyone could have kept.

Years have passed since then. There are encounters that need no name or explanation. That was one of them, and I still remember it with the same clarity with which I remember the heat of that Sevillian July.