The Saturday Amparo Welcomed a Younger Man

The first drops of rain were pattering on the car roof when Tomás turned off the engine in front of the building entrance. He checked the number she had texted him for the third time and drew a deep breath. It was the right one. Behind one of those lit windows was Amparo, waiting for him.

His hands were a little shaky on the steering wheel, and not because of the cold. They had been talking for weeks, first in cautious phrases, then with a confidence neither of them had really sought out. A mutual friend had introduced them almost in passing, knowing exactly what she was doing. “Tomás is the kind of man who knows how to listen to a woman,” she had told her. Amparo needed nothing more.

A nervous smile slipped out as he made the missed call they had agreed on. One ring, two, and he hung up. Almost immediately the message came through with the apartment and the door code.

Relax. It’s only a glass of wine.

But neither of them truly believed that sentence.

He rode the elevator up, checking his reflection in the mirror. Forty-four years old, a freshly ironed blue shirt, his hair still damp from rushing to get ready. When the door opened on the fourth floor, she was already waiting for him in the doorway.

—You came —Amparo said, as if until the very last moment she had doubted he would.

—Of course I came —he replied.

She took off his jacket with a delicate gesture, taking care to close the door properly behind him. She was wearing black leggings and a cream blouse that fit her as if it had been sewn onto her body. She had to be in her mid-fifties, her hair gathered in a loose bun from which a few silver strands escaped, and eyes that smiled before her mouth did.

—Welcome to my little refuge —she said, and led him toward the living room.

The apartment smelled of candles and something sweet baked hours earlier. A small dog lifted its head from the sofa, gave them a bored look, and settled back down. Amparo disappeared for a moment into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of red wine.

—To Saturdays that stop being like all the others —she toasted.

Tomás clinked his glass against Amparo’s and drank without looking away. The conversation began lightly: the weather, the neighborhood, how hard it was to fill the evenings of a weekend when you live alone. But beneath every word ran something else, a contained tension that showed in the soft laughter, in the careful gestures, in the looks that held a second longer than necessary.

The dog got up from the far end of the sofa and came to curl up between them. As they stroked it, their hands brushed. It was a tiny contact, almost imperceptible, but enough for both of them to feel the same impulse, close and electric.

—Time teaches you to value moments like this —Amparo murmured, looking him in the eyes.

—Yes —Tomás replied—. And it makes them more necessary. More intense.

They leaned in at the same time, almost without realizing it. The distance between them shrank and silence filled the living room with a new tension, palpable, made of held breaths.

—I think… —he began, without finishing the sentence.

She gave the barest smile, with a mischievous, determined glint.

—I know —she whispered.

Without another word, they moved closer. The first brush of lips was brief, delicate, loaded with an emotion they had spent the whole evening holding back. It did not break the calm, but it sealed it. They pulled away a few centimeters, breathing one in front of the other, smiling with the certainty that something was about to happen.

The living room remained wrapped in that warm, silent light, where the distant murmur of the street barely managed to slip in through the gaps in the blinds. Seated very close to Tomás, Amparo studied the softness of his features, the line of his freshly shaved jaw, and surprised herself by wanting to taste that mouth again.

The second kiss was different. Deeper, slower, with the tongue seeking the other’s and hands losing their shyness. The world shrank for both of them to one simple, absolute truth: they were burning. Not from heat, but from something that had been asleep far too long.

***

Tomás slid his hand along Amparo’s thigh, feeling the taut fabric of the leggings beneath his fingers. She did not stop him. On the contrary, she parted her legs a little and let out a sigh that was worth a thousand words. When he bent down to kiss her neck, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

—It’s been a long time since anyone touched me like that —she confessed in a low voice.

—Well, I’m in no hurry —he replied against her skin.

And it was true. Tomás took his time, tracing the line of Amparo’s neck with his mouth, pausing in the hollow of her collarbone, learning where her breath trembled. She, who had spent years convincing herself that that chapter of her life was closed, discovered that her body remembered perfectly how to respond.

—I’m embarrassed —she laughed softly—. At my age, feeling like this.

—You have no age right now —he said, pulling back just enough to look at her—. You’re just a woman I like. And I like you a lot.

It was Amparo who took the initiative. She placed her hand over Tomás’s crotch and felt, through his trousers, that he was already more than ready. With a skill that surprised even her, she opened his belt and freed his member, still half-erect, an invitation she had no intention of refusing.

She began stroking him slowly with both hands, watching him grow with each movement. Tomás breathed more and more deeply, and his muffled groans kept pace with those slow caresses. A transparent drop appeared at the tip, and Amparo’s mouth went dry with anticipation.

She leaned in without taking her eyes off him. The first touch of her lips was shy, barely a caress, like someone testing something forbidden. Then she took him fully into her mouth and felt the heat of his skin against her tongue. Tomás shuddered from head to toe.

—Sweet Jesus, Amparo… —he gasped, gripping the edge of the sofa.

She did not answer. She did not need to. She moved her mouth up and down with deliberate calm, savoring every centimeter, pausing at the tip before starting again. Her red-painted nails pressed softly into his thighs, anchoring herself to that younger body like someone clinging to something she had thought lost.

—Not so fast —murmured Tomás, burying his fingers in her hair and undoing her bun—. I want this to last.

Amparo took him out of her mouth for a moment and lifted her gaze, her lips wet and shining, a wicked smile forming on her face.

—Do you like it like this? —she asked—. Has anyone ever done it to you with this much desire?

—Never —he admitted, his voice breaking.

That word lit her up more than any caress could have. She bent down again, this time without restraint, licking him from the base to the tip, lingering on his testicles, while Tomás breathed in short bursts and bit his lip to keep from shouting. Every groan from him was a reward, proof that she still knew how to drive a man out of his mind.

There was something almost tender in the way he guided her, gripping her hair firmly but not roughly, setting a rhythm that gradually became deeper. What began with a certain clumsiness, with a few barely concealed gag reflexes, turned into a measured dance in which the two of them seemed to read each other’s thoughts.

Without knowing why, Amparo was struck by a childhood memory: the smell of roasted chestnuts in the village square, that sweet burn warming her frozen hands on winter afternoons. She felt exactly like that. Alive. More alive than in the last ten years, since she had been widowed and the world seemed to decide it no longer saw her.

—I’m close —Tomás warned, almost breathless—. Very close.

She did not pull away. On the contrary, she took him deeper, decisively, without a grain of fear. When he let go, Amparo felt the heat travel through her mouth, and she swallowed with serene calm, like someone sealing a pact. An intense, powerful sensation ran down her throat and settled in her chest like a lit coal.

Tomás collapsed back onto the sofa, undone, looking at her with a mixture of gratitude and astonishment. Amparo licked her lips slowly, ran a finger along the corner of her mouth, and brought it to her lips, gathering the last trace of that encounter.

—For years I felt invisible —she said, her voice rough and her eyes shining—. And look at me now.

—I see you —Tomás replied, stroking her cheek—. I see you perfectly.

For the first time in a long while, Amparo felt desired. Desired and able to drive, at her age, a much younger man crazy. She settled beside him, stole his glass of wine, and took a long sip while the dog once again curled up between them, oblivious to everything.

Outside it was still raining. Inside, the night was only just beginning.

Will I tell Pilar about it?, she thought, holding back a smile. Her friend would never believe it. Or maybe she would. Maybe that was why she had introduced them.

—Are you in a hurry? —Amparo asked, resting her head on his shoulder.

—None —said Tomás—. The whole night is ours.