The Mature Seamstress Who Had Been Alone for Ten Years

Carmen was fifty-seven years old and had a roof that groaned every time it rained. Her husband Francisco had died twelve years earlier of a heart attack that left him no time to say goodbye, and since then the brick house at the end of Nogales Street was hers alone: the big bed was hers, the silence was hers, the sewing machine that rattled like an old heart every time she pressed the pedal was hers.

A seamstress all her life. The neighbors brought her pants to hem, dresses to alter, shirts missing buttons. Money was never abundant, but it was enough. What wasn’t enough was something else. Winters felt long to her, nights even longer, and sometimes, when she lay staring at the bedroom wall before falling asleep, she thought desire was like seasonal flowers: it came, bloomed, and went away. And hers had gone with Francisco. Sometimes, very late, she slid a hand between her legs and found her cunt dry, asleep, too lazy to answer her. She would turn toward the wall and fall asleep.

Until Rodrigo arrived.

***

Mr. Palacios, from the corner grocery, sent him. A young man with good trade skills, he said. He fixed roofs, pipes, whatever was needed. Carmen opened the door one morning in November and found a twenty-year-old man, tall and broad-shouldered, with short dark hair and a calm smile that asked for nothing.

—Good morning, ma’am. I’m Rodrigo. They told me you’re having trouble with the roof.

—Come in —said Carmen, stepping aside.

She took him to the back bedroom, where damp stains had drawn maps across the ceiling. Rodrigo looked up, nodded, and asked a few brief questions. He was the kind of person who listened before speaking. Carmen noticed that and liked it.

While he climbed onto the roof with his ladder and toolbox, she stayed in the kitchen making coffee. Through the window she could see Rodrigo’s silhouette moving among the sheets of tin. The November sun was beating down hard, and twenty minutes later the boy took off his T-shirt. Carmen wasn’t looking at him with any intent. Or that’s what she told herself.

He had the torso of someone who has worked with his body since he was young: defined shoulders, a long back, a line of dark hair running down the center of his stomach until it disappeared into his belt. And there, tight against the denim, the bulge of his cock showed, thick even guessed at beneath his clothes. Carmen felt something she hadn’t felt in a very long time: heat in her belly, a pulse between her legs, her cunt waking up like an animal that had slept for twelve years. She ignored it. Or tried to. When she bent down to get the pitcher of lemonade, she noticed her panties were damp, and part of her, the old part, felt ashamed; the other part, the one that no longer listened to mirrors, smiled to herself.

She made him a glass of lemonade and carried it up to the edge of the roof.

—For the heat —she said, without raising her gaze much.

—Thank you, Mrs. Carmen.

He came down at noon with the job half finished and dust on his face. She invited him to stay for lunch because Mr. Palacios had said he was a good kid and because the house sounded like too much silence when she was alone. They ate milanesas with salad in the small kitchen. Rodrigo didn’t talk much, but when he did, he was direct. He asked about her sewing machine, how long she’d been alone, whether she liked the neighborhood.

—Why are you asking me that? —said Carmen.

—Because it seems like no one’s asked you anything in a long time —he replied, without malice.

Carmen didn’t answer. She looked at the oilcloth tablecloth with its embroidered flowers and thought he was right.

***

Rodrigo came back the next day to finish the job. And the day after, with the excuse of checking a leak in the hallway. By the fourth day there was no excuse, but he called anyway. He arrived around five in the afternoon, when the light came in low through the blinds and the house smelled of ironed fabric.

Carmen heard him knock and felt her heart give a small leap, and another one lower down, one she was no longer pretending not to notice. She opened the door and let him in without asking anything. He didn’t explain either. He sat in the kitchen chair and she set coffee in front of him.

—Did you come to check something else? —she asked.

—No —said Rodrigo—. I came to see you.

Carmen looked at him for a long second. He was half her age. There were nights when her knees ached and she fell asleep reading. She had gone twelve years without anyone touching her. And this twenty-year-old boy was telling her, with that calm of his, that he had come to see her.

She stood up. Went to the window and came back. Sat down again.

—Rodrigo…

—You don’t have to say anything, Mrs. Carmen.

He moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. Slowly, like touching someone who hasn’t felt that weight in a long time. Carmen closed her eyes. She felt the hand sliding down her arm, his fingers brushing hers, then moving up the side of her breast over the robe and lingering there, weighing it in his hand.

—Tell me to go and I’ll go —he said.

Carmen said nothing. She took his hand and pressed it against her chest, so he wouldn’t pull it away.

He kissed the corner of her mouth, waiting. She turned her head and kissed him for real. It was a long kiss, clumsy at first, then surer. He put his hands on her face and she grabbed his wrist, not to stop him but so she wouldn’t lose her balance. The boy’s tongue slipped into her mouth and Carmen felt her stomach tighten the way it had when she was young. She bit his lower lip by accident, and he let out a small growl that soaked her through. She slid a hand to his belt and felt over the denim how his cock was already hard, thick, lengthened against his thigh.

—Come on —murmured Carmen against his mouth.

They went to the bedroom without hurrying, but without letting go either.

***

Rodrigo undressed her slowly. He unbuttoned her robe button by button, slipped the bra straps off her shoulders, pulled her panties down to her ankles and nudged them aside with his foot. Carmen had the body of a woman who had lived: wide hips, a soft belly, heavy breasts with dark, large nipples, and skin marked by time in its own way. She didn’t try to cover herself. It had been a long time since she cared what the mirror said; what mattered was what she felt. And what she felt at that moment was someone looking at her as if there was nothing else in the room to see, with a bulge hard under the fabric and eyes dark with pure desire.

—Take your clothes off too —she told him, and her voice came out rougher than she expected.

Rodrigo obeyed. He pulled off his T-shirt, shoved down his jeans and briefs in one tug, and Carmen found herself staring at the cock that sprang out: thick, with a prominent vein along the side, the head red and swollen, a shiny thread of wetness at the tip. Twelve years without seeing a cock and now there was one in front of her like that, young, hard, pointing at her belly. Her mouth watered.

She sat on the edge of the bed and took him in her hand. He was hot, hard as stone inside and smooth as silk on the outside. She weighed him, lifted and lowered him, and Rodrigo let out a breath through his nose. Carmen leaned down and ran her tongue over the tip, tasting the salty flavor of the liquid already leaking out. Then she opened her mouth and took him all the way in, as far as he fit, sucking him slowly, feeling him grow against her tongue. She grabbed his balls with her other hand and caressed them while she moved her head up and down.

—Mrs. Carmen… —Rodrigo panted, putting a hand on the back of her neck, not pressing.

She sucked him for a long while, unhurried, looking up at him from below. She loved seeing him like that, head thrown back and belly tight. When she felt him close, she let him go with a wet little sound and lay back on the bed, spreading her legs.

—Come here —she told him—. But do something for me first. Twelve years.

He needed no more than that. He climbed onto the bed, kissed her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. He ran his tongue over her nipples and Carmen clenched the sheet in her fingers and arched her back. He sucked one and then the other, nibbling them carefully, tugging them with his lips until they stood hard as little stones. Too many years had passed without anyone paying attention to that part of her.

—Don’t stop —she said softly—. Go down. Go down with your mouth.

Rodrigo went lower. He kissed her belly, her navel, her hips, the inside of her thigh. Carmen let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She felt the boy’s breath on her cunt before she felt his tongue. When it came, warm and broad, licking her from bottom to top, she opened her legs wider and put her hands on his head. Rodrigo parted her lips with his fingers and ran his tongue over her clit, in circles, sucking it between his lips like it was candy. Carmen let out a long moan she hadn’t practiced.

—Oh, fuck… like that, like that…

He took his time, unhurried, learning every reaction of her body. He slid two fingers inside her and moved them slowly, curling them upward, while continuing to suck her clit. Carmen clutched the sheets and shook. Her thighs trembled. She came once, biting her hand so she wouldn’t scream, and he didn’t stop: he kept licking her, gentler, until she arched again and came a second time, her cunt gushing around the boy’s fingers.

—Up —she asked breathlessly—. Put it in me already. I can’t take it anymore.

Rodrigo climbed over her body, kissed her on the mouth—she tasted herself on his lips and liked it—and settled his cock at the entrance of her cunt. He pushed in slowly, and Carmen let out a sound she had been keeping stored somewhere in her body for years. Deep, almost relief, almost a cry. She felt herself open, yield, accommodate that thick cock filling her little by little.

—Oh, God —she panted—. Yours is huge, my love.

He moved slowly at first, watching her, searching for what made her close her eyes and what made her open them. He came almost all the way out and shoved back in to the hilt. Carmen felt his balls slap against her ass with each thrust and bit her lower lip.

—Harder —she said—. Like that. Don’t stop. Break me.

He obeyed. He braced himself on his hands and fucked her with real hunger, each thrust making her breasts bounce against her chest. Carmen dug her nails into his back and pulled him deeper, wrapping her legs behind him. The double bed began to knock against the wall. The room smelled of sex, sweat, wet cunt. She looked up at him and talked to him, something Francisco had never fully let her do.

—Fuck me —she begged—. Fuck me hard. Twelve years, Rodrigo, twelve years without a cock inside me.

—Hold on, I’m gonna come —he panted.

—Not inside —she said, with the last bit of sanity she had left—. Come on top. I want to see it.

He held on a few seconds longer, fucked her with two, three deeper thrusts, and she came again with an intensity that surprised even her, shaking from shoulders to ankles, tightening her cunt around the boy’s cock. Rodrigo pulled out in time, grabbed his cock, and came over Carmen’s belly and breasts, thick hot streams of semen spattering her all the way up to the neck. She ran her fingers over her stomach, brought them to her mouth without thinking, and smiled at him.

They stayed in bed until the sun disappeared and the room fell into shadow. Rodrigo caressed her arm without saying anything, his cum already drying on her skin.

—How long has it been? —he asked at last.

—Twelve years —she said.

Rodrigo didn’t say what someone else might have said. He only squeezed her arm a little tighter.

***

From that afternoon on, Rodrigo came two or three times a week. Sometimes he arrived early, when she was still sewing, and put his hands on her shoulders from behind and kissed her neck until she turned the machine off. Many times they didn’t even make it to the bedroom: he would seat her at the kitchen table, hike up her skirt, pull her panties aside, and shove it in right there, standing, with Carmen gripping the edge of the table while he drove his cock into her to the hilt. Sometimes he came at night and they stayed in bed talking as much as doing everything else.

Carmen learned things about herself she hadn’t known. That she liked being taken from behind while she was still half-dressed, her skirt bunched at the waist and the cold air contrasting with the heat of his body pressed against her ass. That she liked watching herself in the wardrobe mirror while Rodrigo fucked her doggy-style, seeing the face she made and seeing his cock going in and out of her cunt, wet and shining. That pleasure could come from places Francisco had never explored, not for lack of love but for lack of curiosity. That she could come with one of the boy’s tits in her mouth and two fingers inside, without his cock even touching her.

One night, bolder, she asked Rodrigo to take her in a way she had never tried with anyone. She got on all fours on the bed, face against the pillow and ass raised, and told him:

—From behind. I want to try from behind.

Rodrigo took his time. He licked her asshole first, long and wet, loosening her up. He slid one finger in slowly, then two, while his other hand kept rubbing her clit. When he felt her ready, he spat on it and pressed the tip of his cock against her hole. He went slowly, asking permission with every centimeter, never rushing. The pain was brief—a burn that made her moan into the pillow—and what came after lasted much longer. Rodrigo fucked her ass slowly and deeply, gripping her hips, and used his other hand underneath to keep touching her cunt. Carmen, pressing her face into the pillow so she wouldn’t wake the neighbors, felt a new kind of pleasure filling her body, closed-in, denser, as if it came from deeper inside. She came with his cock in her ass and Rodrigo’s fingers in her cunt, biting the pillowcase. She thought she was fifty-seven and only now learning certain things about her own body.

Then she laughed to herself.

—What? —asked Rodrigo, still inside her.

—That I got to some things late —she said—, but I got there.

Rodrigo kissed her temple without saying anything and pulled out slowly.

***

One afternoon, while they were dressing, Carmen said something she had been thinking about for weeks:

—Do you have any friends your age who like older women?

Rodrigo stopped with his shirt half on and looked at her.

—Why are you asking me that?

—Because I’m thinking about it —she said, with a calm that surprised even her—. I’m not asking you to do it. I’m asking whether it exists. I want to try two.

Rodrigo finished putting on his shirt. He looked at the wall for a moment.

—I have a friend. Sergio. Straightforward, not much of a talker. But he’s a good guy. And he’s big, if that matters.

Carmen laughed.

—It matters.

—Then I’ll talk to him —said Rodrigo—. If he comes, he comes. If not, no big deal.

***

Sergio arrived on a Saturday at six in the evening, with Rodrigo. He was shorter but stockier, with an open face and big hands. He looked Carmen in the eye when she opened the door and said “good evening” with a politeness she hadn’t expected from someone coming for what he was coming for.

—Rodrigo spoke well of you —said Sergio.

—I hope that’s true —Carmen replied, and served coffee for both of them.

There was no long awkwardness. Carmen had mentally prepared herself for how strange the moment would be, but the strangeness lasted less time than she expected. They went to the bedroom without rushing. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at both of them: Rodrigo, who already knew her; Sergio, who didn’t yet.

—I’m not really sure how this starts —she said, honestly.

—However you want —said Sergio.

Carmen smiled. She started it herself. She stood and pulled her dress off over her head in one motion, and stood before them in her black bra and the old panties she had put on at the last minute because they were the ones she liked. She took off the bra too, letting her heavy breasts fall free. The two boys kept looking.

—Take your clothes off —she told them.

They obeyed. Rodrigo already had a hard cock; Carmen knew it by heart. Sergio’s was shorter but thicker, with a very red head and tight balls against his body. She knelt in front of both and kissed them in turn, unhurried, learning the differences. Sergio smelled different from Rodrigo, more impatient, his hands more direct. He wasn’t better or worse. He was different, and that difference had its own appeal.

She took both of them in her hands, one cock in each, and moved them slowly, looking at them. Then she started sucking them in turn. She took Sergio into her mouth until he hit the back of her throat and he put a hand in her hair, holding her without forcing. She pulled him out with her mouth full of saliva and took Rodrigo’s, sucked him too, and went back again. She sucked both of them until the veins stood out and their balls were tight. She loved the position: on her knees, both cocks within reach, feeling desired by two men at once, she who had spent years thinking no one would ever look at her again.

She brought them both to the bed. She lay on her back and asked Sergio to get on top of her. He entered her slowly, and Carmen let out a low gasp when she felt how thick he was: he opened her differently, more forcefully, fuller. Sergio started fucking her with short, fast thrusts, while Rodrigo, kneeling beside her face, brought his cock to her mouth. She took him and swallowed him, and stayed like that for a while: fucked from below and mouth full, moving her head to the rhythm of her ass, making throat noises that in another time would have embarrassed her.

They changed positions several times. She got on all fours and Rodrigo came in behind her while Sergio gave her his cock in her mouth. Sergio knew Rodrigo and they laughed for a moment when one elbow hit the other’s shoulder and the three of them ended up laughing at once. Then Carmen straddled Sergio, his thick cock entering her from below, while she clutched Rodrigo’s shoulders, Rodrigo standing on the bed in front of her and pushing himself back into her mouth. She moved up and down, fucking Sergio and sucking Rodrigo, and for the first time in her life feeling the full pleasure of being between two men at once.

There were moments when the three of them found a rhythm and the whole room seemed to pulse with it. Carmen had orgasms that left her speechless and moments when she asked them to wait, panting with her breasts rising and falling and her hair stuck to her forehead. All three of them were shining with sweat.

They took her in turns and also together, each finding his own angle, his own rhythm. Sergio was rough where Rodrigo was patient; Rodrigo looked her in the eyes where Sergio looked away. Carmen gave them what they asked for and took what she wanted, without asking permission, without apologizing. She asked them to come on her face, and they both did, one after the other, and she stayed on her knees with her eyes closed and mouth open, feeling the hot spurts on her cheeks, her lips, her tongue. She ran her fingers through it and tasted it, and smiled at both of them with semen hanging from her chin.

In a moment of stillness, with both of them beside her and the streetlight coming in through the blinds, Carmen looked up at the bedroom ceiling—that ceiling that no longer leaked thanks to Rodrigo—and thought life was a strange and sometimes generous animal.

When Sergio left, after midnight, Carmen and Rodrigo were left alone. She was tired in a way that felt good, her cunt still burning.

—Was it good? —asked Rodrigo.

—More than good —she said—. But I’m glad he left.

Rodrigo smiled and said nothing. He hugged her from behind and slid one arm over her breasts.

***

Sergio came back a few more times in the months that followed. But most nights it was just the two of them, Carmen and Rodrigo, in the brick house where there had once been only silence.

One March night, with rain pounding on the new sheets of tin—now leak-free, something that gave Carmen a practical satisfaction she couldn’t fully explain—Rodrigo said something to her:

—Does it bother you that people in the neighborhood talk?

—Do they talk? —asked Carmen.

—The woman at the grocery asked me if I was fixing something at your place.

—What did you tell her?

—That I was.

Carmen laughed. It was a real laugh, the kind that comes from the stomach.

—Then you didn’t lie.

Rodrigo laughed too. Then they grew serious for a moment, in that kind of seriousness that doesn’t make things awkward.

—It doesn’t bother me —said Carmen at last—. I spent too many years worrying about what people said. What happens between these walls is mine.

Rodrigo squeezed her hand. Outside it kept raining. The tin didn’t leak. The sewing machine was turned off in the next room. Carmen thought that it had been a long time since she felt so completely present in her own life.

She turned off the light and moved close to him, reaching for his cock beneath the sheet.

—Stay tonight —she said.

—I always stay —Rodrigo replied, and he was already getting hard again in her hand.

And it was true.