The Unknown Woman from the Bookstore Who Took Me to Her Apartment

My name is Andrés, I’m forty-nine years old, and I’m still in the same apartment in Lavapiés that I rented far too long ago. I work as an office clerk at a management firm near Atocha: office hours, a steady paycheck, watery machine coffee, and coworkers who only talk about football and mortgage payments. Nothing special. But at night I write. Stories. Things that come out of my body when the city finally falls quiet. And I run. I head out at six in the morning, go down to Madrid Río, up through Casa de Campo, and come back soaked before dawn has fully broken.

I keep my body more or less in shape: broad shoulders from home workouts, a flat belly, my head shaved down to the skin ever since my hair decided to leave me. I’m not saying that to brag, it’s just what there is at this age if you take care of yourself.

It was a Thursday in October, one of those days in Madrid when it’s still warm in the afternoon but cools down as soon as the sun goes down. I left the management office at seven-thirty, backpack over my shoulder, in no hurry to go home yet. I passed through Antón Martín market, already half closing its shutters, and went into a secondhand bookstore on Argumosa Street. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just killing time leafing through dusty books.

There she was. Irene. Twenty-six years old, though from behind I would have guessed older by the way she moved: confident, unhurried, like someone who owed no one any explanations. She worked in a customer service center near Sol, one of those places where they answer calls all day and deal with other people’s paperwork. Straight-up middle class: parents in Alcorcón, shared apartment in Vallecas with two friends, a salary just enough for rent, cheap gym, and the occasional beer on Fridays.

She was a few kilos overweight, nothing extreme. Enough for her hips to show round under her jeans, for her belly to hint softly when she sat, for her chest to move with a natural weight under the oversized gray sweatshirt that covered half her hand. She wasn’t some magazine-thin girl or one of those Instagram-filter curves. She was a normal twenty-six-year-old who eats pasta on Wednesdays and doesn’t starve herself to fit a size.

Light brown hair, straight, just above her shoulders, with the ends a little split from the blow dryer. Round face, cheeks with that softness that still hasn’t quite gone away, green eyes that narrowed when she smiled, faint freckles across her nose. Worn white sneakers, sport socks peeking out, and a backpack full of stickers from festivals she probably got to by night bus.

She caught me looking at her while I pulled a Cortázar from the shelf. She didn’t flinch. She looked back, held my gaze for three seconds, and smiled crookedly.

—Are you looking for something specific, or just killing time like me? —she asked in a soft voice, a little hoarse from talking on the phone all day.

—A bit of both —I said—. And you?

—A cheap book for the metro. And to get away from my phone for a while.

We talked for ten minutes right there, between shelves that smelled of damp and old paper. About books, about Madrid becoming impossible, about how hard it is to find an apartment without giving up half your salary. She told me her name was Irene, that she had just gotten off work and that on Thursdays she usually browsed bookstores before taking Line 1. I told her my name, my age without hiding the number, that I wrote things at night that I almost never showed anyone.

In the end she bought the Cortázar and I bought an old volume of sea stories I’d been looking for for years. We left together. I walked her to the Antón Martín metro entrance. Under the orange glow of the streetlights she looked even prettier: cheeks flushed by the cool air, lips unpainted, body loose and comfortable after eight hours sitting down.

Before she went down the stairs, she turned around.

—Do you feel like having a beer one of these days? No strings attached. Just… talking.

I gave her my number. That very night I got a text: “It’s Irene, the bookstore girl. If you’re not a serial killer, let me know when you’re free :)”

***

We met the following Tuesday in a small bar in La Latina, one of those places with high tables and expensive craft beer. She showed up in black jeans, a fitted white T-shirt, and a denim jacket. She had put on a little mascara and lip gloss. You could tell she’d made an effort, but not too much. She was still herself: those soft curves, the thighs that brushed together when she sat on the stool, the round ass that filled the entire seat.

We talked for two hours. About everything and nothing. About her job, which was wearing her down call by call; about my stories, which I never quite finished publishing; about how at twenty-six she already felt too old for some things and too young for others. We each drank three beers. When we came out, it was cool. We walked toward her neighborhood without having planned to. On a narrow street near Retiro, I stopped.

—Do you want to come up to my place for a while? —she asked in a lower voice—. My roommates are out until tomorrow.

We went up. Typical young-people apartment: Ikea sofa, half-wilted plants, travel maps stuck on the wall, the smell of coffee and cheap air freshener. She closed the door and stood still in the entryway, as if she’d suddenly started to doubt herself.

—I’m not the kind of girl who does this, you know? —she said—. In fact, almost never. But I like you. And… I don’t know. I want someone to look at me without expecting me to be perfect.

I stepped closer and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. You have no idea how I’m looking at you.

She took off her jacket. The T-shirt outlined her heavy chest, the simple black bra underneath. She slid her jeans off unhurriedly, struggling a little with one ankle, and laughed at herself. She was left in gray cotton panties. Thick, soft thighs, with those dimples at the back that I like more than she imagined. Wide hips, a few fine silver stretch marks on her sides that the floor lamp barely traced.

She came closer and kissed me slowly. Soft lips, her tongue timid at first and then more determined, as if she were remembering how it was done. I pulled her T-shirt over her head. Her chest shifted when it was freed from the bra: big, natural, the weight falling to the sides, the nipples hardening in the cool air of the living room. I ran my hand over her warm, soft belly and felt her shiver.

I slid her panties down to the floor and she kicked them aside. I gently pushed her back until she sat on the edge of the sofa. I knelt in front of her. I parted her thighs with both hands, slowly, looking into her eyes as I did it. She was already wet, open, waiting.

—Fuck… —she whispered, burying her fingers in my shaved head—. Slow… I love it like that.

I started with my tongue flat, from bottom to top, with no hurry at all. Then I closed my lips over her clit and drew slow circles, listening to her breathing break up. I slipped in one finger, then two, and curled them toward that spot that tightens the whole body. She arched, her thighs trembling on either side of my face.

—There… there, don’t stop —she said through clenched teeth.

It took her a while, but when she came, it hit deep: her back arched, a rough moan she tried to swallow, her pelvis pushing against my mouth until she collapsed against the backrest, panting and laughing at the same time.

—Jesus Christ —she murmured—. Now it’s my turn.

She pulled my pants down without fully getting up. She stared for a second, with a mixture of surprise and desire that made me smile. She took me in her hand, first carefully, measuring, and then leaned in. She wasn’t any expert, but she put in an effort that was worth all the technique in the world: tongue, hand following the rhythm, saliva, green eyes lifting every so often to check whether I liked it.

—Stop —I told her, gently moving her face away—. I don’t want to finish like this. I want to be inside you.

I put her on her knees on the sofa, holding onto the backrest. I caressed her back, her wide hips, the ass that opened round when she leaned on it. I entered her slowly, centimeter by centimeter, feeling her hot, tight body close around me. She pushed back before I’d finished getting in.

—More —she begged—. I want to feel all of it.

I started slow, letting her get used to it, and then I picked up the pace. The sharp slap against her ass filled the empty living room. She moaned without restraint, her face buried in a cushion, letting out half-formed phrases she no longer controlled. I held her by the hips and guided her against me, setting the rhythm.

Then I turned her onto her back, legs open, one knee resting on my shoulder. I entered again, deeper from that angle, and found her clit with my thumb while I moved. I watched her come a second time: she clenched hard around me, dug her nails into my forearm, and swallowed a cry by biting her lip.

I couldn’t hold out much longer. I pulled out at the last second and finished on her belly, with a couple of slow thrusts, while she held my gaze and stroked my thigh with a limp hand.

We lay there on the sofa, sweaty, catching our breath. She ran her hand over my shaved head slowly, almost affectionately.

—I don’t know if this is going to happen again —she said softly, looking at the ceiling—. But I needed this today. Someone looking at me exactly as I am, with my extra kilos and my desire and all of it.

I kissed her slowly, without promising anything I couldn’t keep.

—Whenever you want, Irene. Lavapiés isn’t that far.

She curled up against my chest and closed her eyes. Through the window came the distant noise of a city that never quite falls silent. I thought that night, for once, I wasn’t going to need to write anything to get her out of my body. I already had her here, breathing slowly against my skin, not asking me to be anything other than what I was.