The Mature Woman Who Learned How to Come in Málaga

The first sign wasn’t a message on the phone or a strange name in the address book. It was a perfume. Rodrigo came home that night in an impeccable suit, his hair in place, with that smile of a man who thinks the world belongs to him. He kissed me on the cheek, quickly, without looking at me. Without thinking, I leaned toward his neck. The scent of his cologne was there, the same as always. But underneath it was another: sweeter, younger, insolent as a visitor who doesn’t ask permission.

That night I said nothing. I waited in the kitchen with a half-drunk glass of water, staring at the tiles while my blood boiled inside me.

—Was everything okay at work? —I asked when he came upstairs.

—Perfect —he answered, not letting go of his belt—. A long meeting, but productive.

Lie. I knew it in that instant with the cold certainty of someone who has spent twenty-seven years reading another person.

***

He confessed three weeks later. A twenty-three-year-old girl from the marketing department. Rodrigo said it had been a mistake, a madness, that it meant nothing. I listened to him with the same face I make when people talk to me about renovations in the community garage: attentive, nodding, not interrupting. Afterward I asked for couples therapy and he said yes.

The psychologist saw us on Wednesdays in his office in the center of Las Rozas. A calm man, with a gray beard and a black-covered notebook where he wrote everything down. He asked us questions I had never asked myself: “When was the last time you felt seen by your husband?”, “What do you expect from this relationship in the next five years?” Questions I didn’t want to answer out loud because they meant admitting I had spent years being the furniture in my own marriage.

We saved the bond, as they say. But trust took longer to come back. And in bed, even longer. Rodrigo came looking for me once every three weeks, always the same: five minutes of clumsy groping, he climbed on top, came, turned off the light. I’d be left with a soaking pussy and rage gnawing at me inside, finishing myself off alone with my hand under my panties while he snored.

***

Laura and Sofía had been nagging me for months. Forty-somethings, single by choice, gym friends with more common sense than most of the married men I knew. Laura with her mantra that she answered to no one; Sofía convinced that marriage was an institution that was too much for almost everybody.

—Cristina, either you come to Málaga with us or we’re kidnapping you —Laura said in the gym locker room.

At first I made excuses as always. The house. The girls. Rodrigo’s work. Andrea, the eldest, had gone to Valencia with a journalist named Damián; Irene, the younger one, was finishing a master’s degree in nutrition and barely showed up at home. Excuses, all of them. One afternoon, while I was hanging Rodrigo’s laundry on the line, I looked at the gray October sky and wondered when I had stopped being the center of my own life. I opened the group chat and wrote:

—I’m in. Book for three.

I bought two new swimsuits and a long dress I’d been eyeing in the shop window for ages. My hairdresser lightened my dye a couple of shades. Rodrigo came with me to the airport and gave me a warm kiss on the lips, the first in weeks.

—Have a good time —he said. And it sounded true.

***

The hotel was small, white, four streets from the beach. Iron balconies, sheets that smelled of lavender, a terrace from which the Mediterranean seemed to be waiting for us. We spent the first two days without schedules: late breakfast, beach, vermouth, siesta, evening stroll. I started forgetting the bills, the neighborhood gossip, Rodrigo’s face staring at his phone. Málaga had that effect: it reminded you that you existed.

The third night we ended up in a bar in the historic center, high ceilings, whitewashed walls, the air thick with music and laughter. Sofía ordered three glasses of albariño before we even sat down.

—Tonight we’re not coming back before two —she announced.

The waiter was young. Tall, brown hair a little tousled, with that way of moving among tables that people who’ve been in the trade for years have. He took our order with a lopsided smile that automatically raised the tip.

—Another drink, ladies?

—Your mother’s a lady —Sofía cut him off, glass in hand—. Say that to me again and I’ll show you what a comb’s for.

—My apologies —he said, not losing his smile—. Ladies, then.

Sofía winked at me when he walked away.

—He likes you. Look at him.

—He’s twenty.

—At least twenty-something. And he’s hot as hell. He’d fuck you until you didn’t remember your own last name.

—Sofía, for God’s sake.

—What? It shows on your face that you haven’t had anyone eat your pussy properly in months.

I didn’t answer. But I looked. And it was true. You could see the hard bulge under his jeans when he bent to pick up glasses, and his hands, those big hands with long fingers, made me clamp my thighs together under the table.

I got up to pay at the bar and he came over to handle the register. When he handed me my change I felt something rigid in my palm. Coins. And under them, a folded piece of paper.

—It’s for you —he said in a low voice.

I unfolded it in my bag, once I was seated again. It said: “My name is Mateo. If you want, I’m at La Bocana tomorrow.” A phone number underneath.

I didn’t sleep very well that night. Not because of him, but because of me. I slipped my hand under my nightgown thinking about him, about his mouth, about his cock that I imagined hard and thick, and I came biting the pillow so Sofía and Laura, in the bed next to mine, wouldn’t hear me.

***

La Bocana was an unpretentious beach bar, nicely decorated, full of people under thirty. When the three of us got there, I wanted to turn around. What was I doing there? Sofía grabbed my arm before I could run off.

—Since you picked the place, you order the first round. And if someone asks you to dance, you say yes.

—I didn’t come here to hook up.

—Who said anything about hooking up? —Laura said—. Just fucking.

—Laura.

—What? That’s what you need. Someone to jolt you back to life. Rodrigo hasn’t touched your clit in years and you know it.

Mateo was with a group of friends at a table near the dance floor. Short-sleeved shirt, jeans, tanned skin. When our eyes met, he lifted his glass slowly, like a greeting. I felt something in my chest —and lower down, between my legs— that I hadn’t recognized in years.

—He’s seen you —Sofía whispered.

—I know.

—And?

—And I’m fifty-four.

—And you’ve got a pussy that works perfectly —Laura replied—. Stop making excuses.

The DJ turned up the volume. Sofía and Laura dragged me onto the dance floor. The beat, the salty air, the feeling of not having to answer to anyone: everything invited me to move. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

—Mind if I stay?

It was Mateo. He had come up slowly, without barging into my space.

—I’m not a good dancer —I warned him.

—Neither am I. We’re not in a competition.

We danced awkwardly at first, like two people learning each other’s language. His hands found my hips carefully, pulling me closer without squeezing. The space between us closed on its own, like water finding the path without anyone showing it the way. On one turn I felt his cock pressed against my ass, hard, straining through his jeans, and I froze for a second, breath caught.

—Sorry —he murmured against my ear—. I can’t help it with you this close.

—Don’t apologize —I said, and deliberately pressed a little harder against him.

—How long has it been since you danced like this? —he asked.

—Like what?

—Without thinking about what’s waiting for you at home.

I laughed, because he’d hit the nail on the head.

—A long time.

—It shows —he said, without judging me—. You move like you’ve been away from yourself for years.

We spent the rest of the night between questions and answers, me with a mojito in my hand, him with a cold beer. At some point I told him my husband was in Madrid, that things weren’t good, that I had come here precisely not to think. Mateo listened without that awkward look men get when a woman tells them something real.

—And what would you like to feel tonight? —he asked when the bar started emptying out.

The question wasn’t cheap. It was genuine.

—Available —I answered—. And fucked. Fucked properly, like I haven’t been in years.

His eyes darkened. He leaned toward my ear.

—I can fix that for you.

***

We walked through the harbor. The smell of the sea mixed with the sound of water against the docks and the murmur of people leaving the bars. We spoke little. Sometimes silence is the most honest conversation.

That was when he stopped.

—Can I ask you something weird?

—Go ahead.

—Are you Andrea Cortés’s mother?

It took two seconds for my blood to start circulating again.

—I’m Cristina Cortés Vidal. Andrea is my eldest daughter. Why?

—Because I was her boyfriend for almost a year.

The world stopped. I felt the ground under my feet was not quite firm. Mateo was the guy Andrea had dumped, the one who sometimes came up in table conversations as “that really nice guy she was seeing.”

—And what happened between you two?

—She cheated on me.

He said it without drama, with the calm of someone who has already digested the pain.

—My daughter cheated on you —I repeated slowly, as if the sentence needed time to land—. And now I’m here with you without knowing it.

—And I liked you before I knew you were her mother —he said with a smile that mixed irony and humor perfectly—. Life has a peculiar way of organizing itself.

Silence. The waves. The breeze moving the hem of my dress. I should have turned around. I should have gone back to the hotel, climbed into bed with Sofía and Laura, forgotten. Instead I thought: my daughter cheated on this guy. My husband cheated on me. And this body I’ve been living in for twenty-seven years is begging me to fuck it hard.

Then Mateo leaned in and kissed me: slow, firm, without asking permission but without frenzy. A kiss that didn’t ask but stated. He slid his tongue in without shyness, bit my lower lip, and I felt heat rising from my belly to the nape of my neck, and another heat sinking down to soak my panties.

I didn’t pull away.

***

His apartment was in the Palo neighborhood, fourth floor without an elevator, with a window looking out over the Mediterranean. A tiny studio: sofa bed, a table with books piled on it, a corner kitchen. What stopped me was that window: the white wood, worn by salt, open onto a wrought-iron balcony from which the sea could be seen moving in the dark like something alive.

—If you change your mind, I’ll call you a taxi —he said before closing the door.

—And if I don’t?

His eyes, that blue that in the dark looked gray, fixed on mine.

—Then I’m going to fuck you the way you’ve been waiting to be fucked for years.

I closed the door myself.

He threw himself on me against the hallway wall. He kissed my mouth, my neck, my collarbone, while his hands lowered the zipper of my dress with a calm that contrasted with the urgency of his lips. The dress fell to the floor. I was left in a black lace bra and panties, my heart pounding against my ribs as if I were twenty.

—Fuck —he said, stepping back to look me over—. You’re edible.

—Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.

—I mean it. Look at my cock. Look at it.

I looked down. The bulge in his jeans was impossible to ignore. I reached out and squeezed him through the fabric: hard, thick, throbbing under my fingers. A low moan escaped him.

I unbuckled his belt. I yanked his jeans and briefs down in one pull. His cock sprang out, bigger than I had imagined —and I had imagined quite a lot—: thick, straight, the head red and shining already with pre-cum. I grabbed it in my hand. My fingers couldn’t quite wrap around all of it.

—My God —I murmured.

—Do you like it?

—It’s huge.

I knelt without thinking. I licked the tip slowly, tasting the salt of his skin, and took him into my mouth centimeter by centimeter. I got to the halfway point and felt myself gag. I pulled back, breathed, and sank down further again. Mateo put a hand on the wall and looked down at me through half-lowered eyes.

—That’s it, fuck, just like that.

I sucked his cock hungrily, saliva running down my chin, looking him in the eyes as I took him in and out. I ran my tongue along the shaft, licked his balls, kissed them one by one while I worked him slowly with my hand. He gripped my hair with his fingers, not forcing me, but trembling.

—Stop —he said when I felt him starting to swell even more—. Stop or I’m going to come in your mouth right now, and I don’t want that yet.

He lifted me by the elbows. He carried me to the bed with little shoves, between kisses, tearing off my bra along the way. When I fell back onto the mattress, he ripped my panties away in one yank. The black panties, soaked, dangled from his hand for a second before he tossed them to the floor.

—You’re dripping —he said, looking at my open cunt—. Look how wet you are.

He spread my legs wide and lay down between them face-first. The first lick tore a moan from me so long I covered my mouth. His tongue found my clit with a precision Rodrigo had never had: slow circles, steady pressure, alternating with gentle suction that made my hips lift off the bed. He slid two fingers inside me, thick, and curled them upward, searching for that spot nobody had touched in years.

—Oh God, oh God —I panted—. There, there, don’t stop there.

He sped up his tongue. His fingers going in and out, wet, obscene, making a liquid sound that gave me more of a turn-on than I wanted to admit. I squeezed my own breasts, pinched my nipples, and came screaming his name, my legs clamping around his head and my hands clutching the sheets. A long orgasm, shaking me whole, leaving me trembling and my cunt throbbing out of control.

—Good? —he asked, climbing up to kiss me with his chin shining from my own fluids.

His taste in my mouth —salty, mine— lit me up again. I kissed him hungrily, sucking his tongue, savoring myself. I pushed his shoulder and put him on his back.

—Now it’s your turn.

I went down his body, bit his nipple, licked his belly, and had his cock in my mouth again. This time without mercy. I took him to the back of my throat, until my throat clenched, and held for a second before pulling him out with a strand of saliva. I gave him a long, noisy blowjob, closing my lips tightly around the shaft as I went up and down. I licked his balls and sucked one into my mouth. He had both hands in my hair and was groaning with his head thrown back.

—Come here —he said, voice hoarse—. Get on top. I want to watch you.

I climbed on top. I grabbed his cock and lined it up at my entrance. I was so wet the head slid in on its own. I lowered myself slowly, centimeter by centimeter, feeling myself open, feeling him fill me completely. When my ass touched his pelvis I had to stay still.

—Fuck —I panted—. You don’t fit in me.

—Yes I do. Look. It’s all in there already.

—You fill me right up.

I started moving. Up and down, slowly at first, riding him with my hands braced on his chest. He watched my tits bouncing, jaw tight, holding on. I sped up. I rode him harder, faster, feeling his cock hit a place I’d never been hit before, a place that made me clench my teeth and bite my lip.

—That’s it, slut, that’s it —he groaned—. Ride that cock. Don’t ever forget it.

The dirty talk sent me through the roof. I leaned forward and smashed my breasts into his face. He devoured them: sucked my nipples one after the other, bit them carefully, licked my cleavage. His hands grabbed my ass and he started thrusting up into me, driving his hips hard against mine, fucking me from below while I fell onto him.

I came again. Hard. With spasms that made me clamp down around his cock and scratch his chest without meaning to.

—Hold on —I begged when I could breathe—. Not yet.

—I can’t hold on much longer.

—Put me on all fours.

He pulled out, turned me, placed me face down with my ass up. I felt his hand on the back of my neck pushing me into the pillow, the other spreading my butt cheeks. He drove his cock into me with one long, slow thrust that tore an animal moan from me, and then he started fucking me for real. Hard. Without restraint. Blow after blow against my ass, his balls bouncing against my clit, his hands gripping my hips to drive deeper.

—Take it, take it, married cunt, take cock —he panted behind me—. Look at your married pussy swallowing it.

—Keep going, keep going, don’t stop, fuck, don’t stop.

He was fucking me with a contained fury that wasn’t rage, it was desire, pure desire. He put a finger in my mouth and made me suck it. Then he dragged it down my back, wet with saliva, and pressed my asshole with it while he kept pounding me. The double sensation —cock inside, finger pressing outside— made me tremble all over.

—I’m going again —I warned him, voice broken against the pillow—. Again, again.

—Come. Come on my cock.

I came screaming, biting the pillow, my whole body shaking. He kept thrusting a few seconds more and then suddenly stopped, grabbed my hips with both hands, and buried himself to the hilt, pressed tight against me. I felt his cock swell inside me and then the hot stream flooding me from within, long, thick, release after release while he groaned a rough “fuck, fuck, fuck” against my back.

He collapsed on top of me. We were both sweaty, gasping. His cock was still inside, still hard, and I felt his semen start to leak down my thighs when he finally slipped out.

We lay still for a moment, catching our breath. The window was cracked open and the sound of the sea came in.

—I’ve never come this many times in a row —I said when I could speak—. I didn’t even know I could.

—Well, we’re off to a good start.

—What do you mean, we?

—The night is young.

Mateo smiled and went to the bathroom. When he came back with a damp towel he wiped my thighs himself, slowly, with a tenderness I hadn’t expected after the brutality of five minutes earlier. He lay down beside me and held me. I felt his cock, still semi-erect, against my hip. I fell asleep before I could think of anything.

I woke up at four in the morning with his mouth on my neck and his fingers poking between my legs. He fucked me from behind while I was on my side, barely waking me all the way, fucking me slowly, with his arm around me and his hand closed over one breast. I came again, half asleep, moaning softly into the pillow, and he came after me with two deep, silent thrusts. We fell asleep again pressed together, sticky, without saying a word.

***

The next morning the sun was slipping through the window. Mateo was asleep on his stomach. I went to the bathroom, freshened up —my pussy was swollen, sensitive, with the marks of his fingers on my hips— and made coffee barefoot in my underwear. When he appeared in the kitchen, eyes half closed, he hugged me from behind. I felt his cock again, hard against my ass through his briefs.

—That smells so good.

—The coffee or me?

—Both.

He pulled my panties up over my butt and slid a hand in front, looking for me. He found my clit on the first try and started rubbing me while biting my neck.

—Not again, I can’t —I begged, laughing.

—One more. Quick.

He pulled my panties down to my thighs, bent me over the counter, took out his cock and fucked me from behind standing up, in the kitchen, with morning light coming through the window. He drove into me slowly, carefully, all the way to the hilt, and fucked me against the marble while rubbing my clit with two fingers. I came in two minutes, biting the edge of the counter, and he came outside this time, on my back, long hot ropes that dripped all the way to my ass.

—Good morning —he said, laughing, while he wiped me clean with a kitchen cloth—. Now, coffee.

We had breakfast at the little kitchen counter. In daylight, the studio was brighter than it had seemed at night. Shelves full of political science books, a world map pinned to the wall. I asked him about the books.

—I’m finishing International Relations —he said—. Two subjects left and the final project.

—I didn’t expect that.

—Why? You think waiters don’t read?

—No —I hurried to correct myself—. It’s just that you seem older than your age suggests. More settled.

—I’ve worked since I was seventeen. That ages you well, if you’re lucky.

He told me he had done everything: warehouse worker, children’s entertainer, waiter in Ibiza and on the Costa del Sol. He saved money in summer to pay for college in winter. Sitting for the European Union was his long-term plan. He studied English and French at night.

Mateo was like a box of chocolates: each layer hid something unexpected. The blue-eyed waiter turned out to be someone with more layers than he let on.

I left when the taxi arrived. No promises, no heavy conversations. I kissed him on the cheek.

—That was very good —I said.

—For me too.

***

At the beach, Sofía and Laura were waiting on their towels. I lay down between them, exhausted.

—You weren’t answering messages —Sofía said.

—I was busy.

—Busy how?

—Discovering multiple orgasms.

The two of them laughed so hard that the family next to us looked over disapprovingly.

—Tell us, tell us —Laura whispered—. Details.

—He’s big, isn’t he? —Sofía blurted out—. You could tell in his pants.

—Bigger than Rodrigo’s ever was, even right after he got married.

—Oh, God.

—He made me come five times. Five. With his mouth, on top of him, on all fours, in the kitchen this morning. Five.

—Welcome to the land of the living, beautiful —Laura said, handing me the sunscreen.

I told them almost everything. Almost: I left out the daughter. Not because I was ashamed, but because I still didn’t know what to do with that information.

—If your body wants to see him again, call him —Sofía said—. It’s better to do things than to torture yourself over not having done them.

I let a day go by. Finally I wrote:

—I’m Cristina. Are you still free tomorrow for lunch?

—For you, yes.

***

We met near the central market. He arrived on time, in linen pants and a blue shirt that made his eyes look lighter. We went to a tapas bar, one of those with tables pushed close together and the menu written on a chalkboard. Boquerones, garlic shrimp, a tomato salad that tasted like summer. We talked nonstop: about life, work, the sea, about what a woman wants when she no longer cares so much about what she’s supposed to want.

At five we were climbing the stairs to his apartment.

That afternoon was different from the first night. Calmer, surer of what I was doing. I undressed without rushing, folding my clothes on the chair. He looked at me naked from the bed, his cock already peeking out of the elastic of his briefs, and I didn’t feel ashamed at all. On the contrary: I walked toward him knowing what I wanted and knowing how to ask for it.

—Lie down —I told him.

I pulled down his briefs. I took him in my mouth without preliminaries, all the way, and gave him a long, slow blowjob, my hand gently squeezing his balls. I licked him from top to bottom, ran my tongue over the frenulum until his eyes rolled back. When I thought he was about to come, I climbed up to kiss him.

—Eat me —I asked him—. Like the other day.

I sat on his face. He grabbed my thighs and pulled my pussy to his mouth. He started eating me without restraint: full tongue against my clit, fingers going in and out, little sucks that made my hips lift on instinct. I braced myself on the headboard with both hands and rubbed against his face without shame, moving the way I needed to. I soaked his chin, his nose, his neck. I came on his mouth shaking, and he kept licking me slowly until I pulled his hair because I couldn’t take any more.

—Come here —I said, climbing down—. Put me on all fours.

When I got on all fours on the bed and looked at him over my shoulder, I saw he didn’t need any more explanation.

—Like that —I said—. And no condom. I want to feel all of you.

—Sure?

—Sure. I’ve been on the pill since I was thirty.

He got behind me. He grabbed my hips and went in bare this time, slowly, letting my body adjust before moving. I felt him completely, with no intermediary, every detail: the hot skin, the veins, the pulse of his cock inside me. When he reached the hilt he stayed still for a moment.

—Fuck, that feels good without a rubber.

—Fuck me —I asked him—. Fuck me slow.

He started moving. Long pulls out, slow pushes in, pulling almost all the way out and then burying himself to the hilt again. The pleasure grew with each thrust, built without hurry, brick by brick. I clung to the sheets. He leaned over my back and ran a hand over my stomach to my clit. He rubbed it at the same rhythm he was fucking me.

—Tell me you like it —he murmured in my ear.

—I love it. I love your cock.

—Tell me to shove it in harder.

—Shove it in harder. Ruin me.

He sped up. The thrusts turned dry, brutal, skin slapping against skin in a wet, obscene sound that filled the studio. He grabbed my hair, not hard, just enough to pull me back and change the angle. I felt his cock hitting from another place and screamed into the pillow.

—There, there, just like that, just like that.

I came twice before he was done. The first with short spasms that made me squeeze my eyes shut; the second, long, powerful, an orgasm of trembling legs and a pussy throbbing out of control around his cock.

—I’m going to come —he said, voice tight—. Where?

—Inside. Inside, inside.

When he did, I felt him empty himself inside me with a groan that went through my whole body. He gripped my hips with both hands and pushed to the hilt, holding there, spilling hot jets that I felt rise up to the mouth of my womb. He stayed inside me for a long half-minute, trembling over me, and only then slowly pulled out. I felt the semen leaking out of me, warm, running down the inside of my thigh.

I collapsed onto the bed with my arms and legs limp.

—So good —I murmured into the pillow.

—Yeah?

—Very.

He lay down beside me and ran a finger over my sweaty back. He turned me over slowly and kissed my mouth, long and slow, with the taste of sex between us.

—Cristina.

—What.

—You still get hard just looking at me, don’t you?

—Still.

—Show it to me again.

I knelt between his legs. I grabbed him, soft but not completely, still dirty with the two of us, and took him into my mouth. I gave him a blowjob cleaning him with my tongue, sucking every last drop he had left while he started swelling again inside my mouth. I looked up at him from below, with his cock buried in my throat, and saw him open his eyes with that mix of surprise and desire.

—Again —he said—. You’re not leaving yet.

—One more.

This time he mounted me. Me on my back, him on top, with my legs over his shoulders, fucking me folded in half, deep, his body crushing mine. He looked into my eyes the whole time, never once looking away, and drove into me to a place no one had reached before. I covered my face with my hands because I couldn’t handle that much intensity and he pulled them away.

—Look at me. Look at me while you come.

I obeyed him. I came staring into his eyes, mouth open and no sound coming out, my entire body locked in a spasm that seemed to last minutes. He held on for three more thrusts and came again inside me, his forehead pressed to mine, teeth clenched.

We showered together. Under the hot water he washed my back, soaped my breasts, slid his fingers between my legs to clean me with a care that made me feel things that had nothing to do with the moment. He walked me to the taxi door.

—I’d like to see you again —he said.

—I liked seeing you too. But I think it’s better to leave the memory where it is. Beautiful memories last longer when you don’t insist on them.

I gave him one last kiss. The taxi pulled away and I stayed watching the street from the window until the yellow-faced building disappeared.

***

I went back to Madrid. The weeks kept their rhythm. Andrea called from Valencia to say she and Damián were moving in together. Irene started internships at a clinic downtown. Rodrigo proposed a trip through Andalusia at the end of August, the two of us alone, like we used to do before mortgages and the girls ate away our time. I said yes.

It was better than I expected. Rodrigo was different: more present, more attentive, as if therapy and the scare had given him back something I thought was lost. On the last night, in a hotel facing the sea in Almería, I put on the nightgown I’d had sitting unworn for months. I lay on the bed and took his hand, placed it between my legs, without speaking. He was surprised but he understood. That night we fucked properly for the first time in years: I asked him to eat my pussy, something he hadn’t done in a decade, and he obeyed clumsily but eagerly. I showed him how, with my hand, keeping the rhythm for him. I came a couple of times, something I couldn’t remember managing with him in years. Then I got on top and fucked him myself, moving the way I had learned to move, looking him in the eyes. He came looking at me, surprised, almost frightened by what was happening between us. I didn’t know whether to thank Rodrigo or Mateo, who without knowing it had reminded me how my own body worked.

In October I enrolled in a cosmetology course. Something I had always wanted to do and never had, because there was always something more urgent: the girls, the house, Rodrigo’s job, the whole life I had built for other people.

***

Near Christmas, while I was reviewing skin biology notes, a message arrived:

“I’ve been in Madrid for two months. I’d like to see you, though I’ll understand any answer. Mateo.”

I smiled. I didn’t answer right away. But I didn’t delete the message either.

That week in Málaga had been many things at once: a betrayal, a liberation, a question without an answer, an answer without a question. I didn’t know whether I would see Mateo again. What I did know was that I was no longer the same woman who had climbed the stairs of that yellow-faced building believing desire was a museum she hadn’t entered in years.

I went to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and for the first time in a long time, I liked what I saw.