The Mature Man I Found in the Kitchen That Night

Sofía and I met in our first year of secondary school, when we both arrived late on the same day and ended up sitting together at the back of the classroom. Since then, inseparable. Fifteen years of friendship, shared birthdays, secrets carefully kept. Her house was mine, and mine was hers.

Her family lived in a big two-story house, one of those with a backyard garden and a sitting room that smells of firewood in winter. Sofía’s parents both worked, her grandmother had died years ago, and Don Alberto, the grandfather, had occupied the back room for as long as I could remember. I had seen him grow older, in a way. He had seen me grow up.

Don Alberto was in his sixties, though I never asked his exact age. He looked after himself well, in that way that isn’t the result of the gym or any visible effort, but simply of a body that has lived an active life. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with completely white hair combed back and a neatly trimmed beard that gave him a distinguished air. He had the hands of someone who had worked with them all his life: large, knuckled, with a firmness you noticed in every handshake.

To me, he was Sofía’s grandfather. He called me “Clarita,” made a joke or two when we all had dinner together, and hugged me when I arrived and when I left as if I were his own granddaughter too. I loved him in that way you love the elderly people in your friends’ families: with quiet affection, without thinking too much about it.

Or so I thought.

That night I stayed over because my parents had gone on a trip and I didn’t feel like being alone at home. It was October, it had cooled down during the day, but by dawn the heat was absurd for the time of year. Sofía and I stayed up late watching a series, finishing the leftovers from dinner, and laughing about something I can’t remember now. Past one, she fell asleep in the middle of a scene with her phone slipping from her hands. I covered her legs with the blanket, turned off the TV, and went up to the guest room.

There was no way to fall asleep. The mattress was too soft, the pillow had a strange smell that wasn’t unpleasant but wasn’t mine, and something in my head kept turning over for no clear reason. I tossed and turned for over an hour. Counted breaths. Tried everything.

At a quarter to three I got up. I put on Sofía’s long T-shirt, the one I had worn to sleep, cotton panties, and nothing else. I went downstairs, stepping on the corners of the stairs to make no noise, and pushed open the kitchen door.

The light was already on.

Don Alberto was sitting at the table with a cup between his hands, his gaze lost toward the window. He was wearing only dark gray pajama pants. Bare-chested. It was the first time I’d seen him like that, without a shirt, and for a second I froze in the doorway. He had a broad chest with a little white hair, shoulders still firm for his age. He lifted his eyes to me and smiled with that usual calm.

—Clarita. Can’t sleep? —he asked in a low voice. The same voice as always, but in the silence of the kitchen at three in the morning it sounded different.

—The heat —I said—. And the mattress isn’t helping.

He nodded toward the chair across from him.

—Sit down a while. It happens to me too. At this age, the body doesn’t care about schedules anymore.

I poured myself a glass of water and sat down. He said nothing for a moment, just looked at me with that measured attention people have when they’ve learned to truly notice others. I noticed the T-shirt was too short when I moved to grab the glass, and that my panties were barely covered. I sat down quickly and crossed my legs. His eyes had dropped there, just for a second, enough for me to notice and for him to know that I had noticed.

—What are you thinking about at this hour? —he asked.

—Nothing specific. Everything at once. —I took a sip—. And you?

—That age doesn’t forgive the back —he said, and chuckled softly—. And that it’s far too hot for October.

We talked for a while about nothing important. About the neighborhood, how it had changed in recent years, about a movie he’d seen that afternoon. It was easy to talk to Don Alberto. It always had been. He had that ability some older men have to not interrupt, to listen before giving an opinion.

Then he got up, came slowly around the table, and stopped behind me.

—Your shoulders are completely knotted —he said—. I can tell from here.

Before I could answer, his hands were already on my shoulders. I felt how big and warm they were. He began pressing with his thumbs on both sides of my neck, with a confidence that left no room for discomfort. I closed my eyes without thinking.

—God —I murmured.

—See? Completely tense.

His hands worked the muscles with a slowness that had something deliberate about it. They went up my neck, down my shoulders, back up again. I felt the tension truly start to give, but also something else beginning to grow in its place. A heat different from the weather. Something settling low in my belly and having nothing to do with insomnia. I noticed my nipples hardening under the thin T-shirt, without a bra, and the moisture starting to seep into my panties.

I should tell him to stop.

I said nothing.

—Come here —he said, and dragged his chair closer to sit beside me—. Otherwise I can’t reach your back properly.

He sat so close his knees brushed mine. His hands continued, now with more room, moving down my back. I felt the pressure of his fingertips through the thin fabric of the T-shirt. It wasn’t the impersonal touch of a physiotherapist. It was something else.

When his hands reached my sides and then the outer part of my thighs, I tensed. Not in fear. Something else.

—Relax —he said very softly.

It wasn’t an order. It was more like a promise.

His hands moved slowly toward the inner part of my thighs and I leaned back against his chest without thinking. I felt the pressure of his fingers inching upward, millimeter by millimeter, without hurry. Each movement waited for a reaction before continuing. I didn’t stop him. When the pad of his thumb brushed over the fabric of my panties, right there, I let out a sigh I couldn’t swallow.

—You’re soaking wet, Clarita —he murmured against my ear, in a voice so low it was more breath than word—. I can tell your cunt from here.

The word in his mouth, said like that, went through me completely. I had never heard him speak that way. Not him, not anyone his age. And precisely because of that, I pressed myself against his hand.

I turned toward him. I don’t know who moved first. His mouth found mine the way people kiss when they have nothing to prove: slowly, deliberately, without the slightest clumsiness. He tasted of tea with honey. He closed his lips over mine, then opened them, and his tongue entered my mouth with the same patience he’d shown in everything else. I closed my eyes. His hand was still between my legs, pressing in the exact spot, and the already wet fabric rubbed my clit every time he pressed.

—Lift up —he whispered.

I raised my hips and he slid my panties down my thighs, over my knees, until they fell to the floor around my ankles. He kissed me again and his hand, now with nothing between us, slipped between my open legs. Two thick, calloused fingers parted the lips of my cunt and found my clit with a precision that had no right to exist at three in the morning in my best friend’s kitchen.

—Open your legs wider —he said, and I obeyed.

He began stroking me in slow circles, with his palm resting on my pubis and his fingers moving slowly. I had my mouth open against his shoulder so I wouldn’t moan. When he slid his middle finger into me, very slowly, I had to bite his skin so I wouldn’t make a sound.

—You’re so tight —he murmured—. And so wet.

He pulled the shiny finger out, brought it to my clit, spread the wetness over it, and slid it back in. This time with two. And this time deeper. The palm of his hand slapped against my pubis with every thrust and the friction on my clit was almost unbearable.

***

His hands were the most different thing I had known up to then. Not the kind of hungry hands that go straight to the destination without bothering with the road. Don Alberto took his time with every inch. He pulled his fingers out of me, brought them to his mouth, and sucked them slowly, looking me in the eyes. Then he lifted my T-shirt slowly and waited. I raised my arms.

He looked at me for a long moment without touching me, with the yellow kitchen light falling on half his face. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite name. Hunger, yes, but also something calmer, more settled. He put his hands on my waist and pulled me toward him. Then he moved up to my breasts, weighed them in his hands, and pinched my nipples with his fingertips until a gasp escaped me.

—You’re beautiful, Clarita —he said, and he said it like someone stating a fact, not trying to convince anyone of anything—. I’ve been looking at your tits under your sweater for years, and they’re better than I imagined.

I didn’t answer. I was breathless. His lips went down my neck and kept going until they closed over one of my nipples. He sucked it slowly, biting just enough, and his tongue circled the areola before tugging upward. He switched to the other one. I rested my hand in his white hair, surprised by how soft it was, and pressed his head against my chest. Somewhere along the way I remembered that Sofía was asleep two floors above, that her parents were in the back room, that anyone could come down at any moment. That should have stopped me.

It didn’t.

He lifted me out of the chair with ease and sat me on the table. The wood was cold against my bare thighs. He stood between my knees, pushed my shoulders back with one hand until I was propped on my elbows, and with the other spread my legs as far as they would go. He knelt on the floor in front of the table. He looked at me for a second. He looked at my cunt open in front of his face and drew a deep breath, like someone preparing to eat something they’d been waiting for a long time.

—Shhh —he said, though I still hadn’t made a sound.

When his mouth got where I wanted it to get, I buried my fingers in his hair and pressed my lips together hard. He began at the top, with his tongue flat, slowly dragging it over the clit from bottom to top. Then he shaped it to a point and circled it. Then he sucked my inner lips, one first and then the other, as if testing each part separately. His hands held my open thighs firmly, thumbs dug into the flesh. His tongue was exact, patient, relentless.

—Jesus, Don Alberto —I whispered, and tugged his hair without meaning to.

—Chhhh, Clarita. The whole house will hear you.

He went back down. Now he drove his tongue into me, in and out, and with his thumb he rubbed my clit in short circles. I had my heels braced on the edge of the table and my legs trembling. When he returned to the clit and trapped it between his lips to suck it, he pushed two fingers into my cunt again, and this time he curled them upward until they found a spot that made my whole back arch.

—There —I said without meaning to—. There, there, don’t stop.

He knew how to read a body in a way that had nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with experience. He knew when to speed up and when not to. He knew how to wait. And now he knew exactly that he didn’t need to stop.

I came biting my lip hard enough to hurt myself, with my thighs clamped around his head, trembling without making the noise I wanted to make. I felt my cunt clenching around his fingers in long waves, and he kept sucking my clit through the orgasm, softer but without letting go, drawing out every last contraction. He didn’t stop until the trembling had passed completely and I pushed his head back because I couldn’t take it anymore.

When he lifted his face and looked at me, his mouth and beard were shining with me. I still couldn’t form a single word.

—Better? —he asked.

—Shut up —I said, and laughed very quietly despite everything.

He smiled. He stood up, took my face between his palms, and kissed me again. He slid his tongue into my mouth still carrying my own taste, and I sucked it without a trace of shame. I felt against my leg that he wanted to keep going too. Very much against my leg. Hard, thick, pressing from beneath the pajama fabric. I climbed down from the table, knelt on the floor in front of him, and loosened the knot of his pants.

The fabric fell. His cock sprang erect toward my face, bigger than I had expected, thick at the base and the head already shining. I took it in my hand and felt it throb. I lifted my eyes to him without letting go.

—Slowly, Clarita —he murmured, resting his hand on my head—. It’s been a long time.

I ran my tongue along the underside, from the base to the tip, and paused there to lick the bead of moisture that had formed. It tasted salty. I took it fully into my mouth in one go and he let out a low groan that escaped him despite everything. I started sucking him by moving my head up and down, my hand following what my mouth couldn’t reach, and with the other hand I caressed his balls. He held my hair back from my face so he could watch me.

—Like that, like that, look how well you do it —he murmured—. What a pretty little mouth.

Every so often he would pull it out of my mouth to lick the full length of it, to suck each testicle one by one, and then he would push it back into my mouth to the back of my throat. When I felt him start throbbing harder and gripping my hair, I took him out. I didn’t want him like that. Not yet.

I stood up.

***

What came after was different from anything I had lived until then. Not exactly for physical reasons, though those too. Don Alberto had nothing to prove and nothing to show. There was no haste, no awkwardness, no nervousness of first times. He was someone who had spent decades learning how to pay attention to a woman, and it showed in every gesture, every pause, every moment in which he chose not to rush.

He turned me against the table. He placed my hands on the wood, opened my legs with his knee, and pressed himself against me from behind. I felt his cock resting between my ass cheeks, sliding slowly up and down, getting wet with what was coming out of me. His left hand pinched one of my nipples. His right hand went down to my cunt and opened my lips with two fingers.

—Ask me for it —he said against the back of my neck.

—Put it in me —I whispered—. Please.

He pressed at my entrance and pushed. Very slowly. Very deep. I had my forehead pressed to the cold wood of the table and my mouth open against my arm. When he was all the way inside me, he stopped for a moment, breathing into my neck, one hand on my hip and the other around my waist to hold me steady.

—You feel so good inside —he murmured—. So tight.

He started moving. Coming almost all the way out and going all the way back in, without hurry, finding the angle. Each thrust drew a short sigh from me that I tried to swallow. His hand slid from my waist to my clit and began circling it at the same rhythm as he fucked me. The other held me by the shoulder so I wouldn’t bang my hip against the edge of the table.

—Don Alberto —I said without meaning to, almost voiceless.

—Shhh, little one —he answered, and covered my mouth with his free hand—. Nobody needs to know.

I sucked the fingers that covered my mouth. He took me with a slowness that at first drove me crazy. I had him as close as I could possibly have him and still he moved slowly. Then he turned me again, sat me back on the edge of the table, spread my legs, and entered me again looking me in the eyes so he wouldn’t miss anything. When we finally came together face to face, he covered my mouth with his hand before I could make the sound I had ready, and I felt him silently laughing against my neck.

—Easy, little one —he murmured—. Nobody needs to know.

We moved slowly at first, adjusting, finding the rhythm. His hands never stopped: my waist, my hips, the curve of my ribs, the breasts that bounced with every thrust. He bent down to suck my nipples and came back up to kiss me. He kissed me when he wanted and pulled away when he wanted to look at me. There was no performance in any of his gestures. He did everything with that same calm he had when he talked, when he drank his tea, when he watched me cross the kitchen.

He sped up when he noticed I was ready. Not before. I gripped the edge of the table with one hand and his shoulder with the other. His hips started hitting mine with a skin-on-skin sound that, in the silence of the kitchen, was a scandal. The creaking of the wood was minimal but real, and we both ignored it. Each thrust drove me harder against the table and each withdrawal left me feeling empty a second before he filled me again.

—Look at you swallowing my cock, Clarita —he murmured—. Look how well I’m fucking you.

I looked down. His whole cock going in and out of me, shining with everything that came out, the base slapping against my ass. The sight made my cunt clench around him without my being able to stop it.

—Like that, squeeze —he growled—. Squeeze it good.

I came with my face pressed against his shoulder, biting my lip until I bled, feeling the heat of his skin and the weight of his hand on my back. My thighs shook, my cunt tightened in waves around his cock, and he kept thrusting through my orgasm, deeper, slower, until I couldn’t take it anymore. He came shortly after, with a low, restrained groan that barely made a sound. I felt him pulse inside me in warm bursts, one after another, while he held me tight against his chest with both hands.

We stayed still for a moment, still joined. The fridge kept humming. Somewhere in the house a beam creaked. He withdrew slowly, and I felt his semen begin to slide down the inside of my thigh.

***

I got down from the table and picked up the T-shirt from the floor. He tore off a piece of paper towel, crouched in front of me without asking, and carefully cleaned me between the legs before letting me get dressed. He buttoned his pants unhurriedly, went to the sink to wash his hands, and sat back down in his chair as if nothing had happened, with the same calm I’d found him in half an hour earlier.

—Want some tea? —he asked.

I laughed. It was absurd. It was completely ridiculous. It was exactly the right reaction for that moment.

—No —I said—. I think now I’ll actually be able to sleep.

He nodded with that half-smile of his.

—Good night, Clarita.

I went up the stairs stepping on the corners so as not to make noise. I got into the guest bed with my panties in my hand, without putting them on, and the mattress no longer seemed so uncomfortable. I could still feel the throb between my legs and the pleasant sting of having been fucked well. The heat was still the same, but I no longer noticed it.

It took me exactly two minutes to fall asleep.

The next day we all had breakfast together. Don Alberto passed me the bread without looking at me in any special way, I drank my coffee like on any other Sunday, and Sofía talked about her plans for the week. Her parents read the newspaper. The sun came in through the kitchen window, over the same table where everything had happened, over the same wood on which he had spread my legs barely five hours earlier.

No one said anything. Everything the same as always.

Except it wasn’t.

I went back to Sofía’s house two weeks later. And three weeks after that. Always with some perfectly reasonable excuse to stay the night. And Don Alberto always seemed to have insomnia exactly when I went down to the kitchen. Sometimes I’d let him fuck me standing up against the fridge, one hand over my mouth. Other times I’d kneel and suck him until he came on my tongue. Once he sat me astride him in the chair and made me ride him in silence, his mouth pressed to my nipple, while the whole house slept upstairs.

We never talked about it in daylight. There was no need. He knew it, I knew it, and that was enough.

There are things that only exist at night, in someone’s kitchen, when the rest of the house is asleep. Things that have no name for the next day and don’t need one. Only the touch of hands that know what they’re doing, a cock that knows how to enter, and the silence that comes after.