What Happened in the Workshop That Dawn

Tomás and Diego had been working in the workshop half a block from my building for more than a year. I saw them every time I passed by, and they saw me. It was one of those silent neighborhood dynamics: a wave of the hand, a smile, sometimes a comment I pretended not to hear but kept in my head for later. I was thirty-eight, had been divorced for eighteen months, and lived alone on a third floor overlooking another building’s courtyard. My life was orderly, reasonably calm, and, if I was honest with myself, pretty boring.

That night I was coming back from my friend Cecilia’s birthday dinner. Two hours of conversation, three glasses of wine, and an excuse to dress up that I take advantage of whenever I can. I had put on a black dress that wasn’t exactly casual and ankle boots with heels that clicked against the pavement. It was late, close to midnight, and the street was almost empty.

As I passed in front of the workshop, I saw there was light inside. A white van with the hood up took up half the space, and Diego was perched over the engine with a flashlight in his hand. Tomás appeared in the doorway just as I was passing, his hands still dirty with grease and a gray T-shirt he had been wearing for hours.

—Lorena —he said, with that calmness that irritated me a little and that I liked a lot more—. Out alone at this hour?

I stopped. I hadn’t planned to, but I stopped.

—I’m coming from dinner —I replied—. I live half a block away, nothing’s going to happen to me.

—Want to have a beer with us? —he asked, nodding toward the inside.

I had been walking past that workshop for months without stopping. That night, for some reason I still don’t quite fully understand, I decided not to keep walking.

***

Diego climbed down from the van when he saw me come in. He was taller than Tomás, with arms marked from all the manual work and a way of smiling that made you forget what you were thinking. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek that lasted a second longer than strictly necessary.

—I thought you’d never come in —he told me.

—Me too —I admitted.

Tomás brought three beers from a small fridge they had at the back of the workshop. We sat in folding chairs around a worktable covered with wrenches and gray rags. The smell was of oil and metal, but it didn’t bother me. I took off my ankle boots, tucked my feet under the chair, and opened the beer.

We talked for a while about unimportant things: the neighborhood, the heat these last few days, a construction site on the back street that wouldn’t let anyone sleep. But there was something beneath that conversation, a current the three of us noticed and none of us had named yet. Tomás looked at me in a way that wasn’t rude but wasn’t neutral either. Diego listened and smiled with the patience of someone who knows he only has to wait.

It was Diego who pulled a deck of cards from a side drawer.

—You know how to play? —he asked me.

—Depends what —I answered.

The two of them looked at each other.

—The usual. Cards. Whoever loses pays.

—And what do they pay?

—Whatever the winner says.

He said it naturally, as if it were a rule that had been in place for a long time. Tomás didn’t add anything, just watched me with his hands on the table and his beer half-finished. I stayed quiet for a few seconds.

—Deal —I said.

***

The first rounds were without declared stakes. We each won one, and that was how we got to know each other’s style: Diego played fast, almost without thinking. Tomás was more calculating, waiting, observing. I had learned from my father as a child, and I wasn’t bad.

After the fourth round, Tomás set his keys on the table as if he were betting casino chips.

—I bet that in the next one you draw the lowest card —he said.

—And if you lose? —I asked.

—I’ll take off my shirt.

He said it without a shred of shame. Diego let out a short laugh and looked at me, waiting for my answer. I felt the heat of the beers comfortably settled in my chest.

—Play —I said.

I lost. Tomás looked at me with a smile that wasn’t mocking, but something considerably different.

—You owe me something.

—What do you want?

—Take off your jacket.

I took it off. Diego clapped once, theatrically. The black dress without the jacket was much less ambiguous about what was underneath, and neither of them pretended not to notice.

The following rounds were slower, more charged with something no one named but everyone felt. Tomás took his shirt off before the tenth hand, and I tried not to look at his chest too brazenly. Diego lost and had to take off his shoes, then his socks. I lost twice in a row, and the result of those losses ended up draped over the back of the chair: first the jacket, then the belt I wore over the dress, then the dress itself. By the time I finished my third beer, I was only in my underwear and they were in boxers, and through the tight fabric on both of them their hard cocks were clearly outlined with no attempt to hide them.

At one point, Diego put the cards down on the table with both palms face down.

—Do we keep playing? —he asked.

No one answered. No one picked up the cards either.

***

Tomás stood up first. He came closer slowly, unhurriedly, and put his hands on my shoulders. I looked him in the eyes. He was in his forties, with fine lines around his eyes and the hands of someone who works with them every day. He wasn’t the kind of man you look at twice on the street, but in that workshop, at midnight, with that beer and that look, he was exactly the kind of man I needed.

—Are you okay? —he asked softly.

—Perfectly —I said—. I want both of you to fuck me.

A short laugh slipped out against my mouth and he kissed me. It wasn’t a tentative or questioning kiss: it was direct, with his hand at my nape and his tongue going in without asking permission. I felt Diego stand up behind me, his hands on my waist, his mouth on my neck, and almost immediately the hard shape of his cock pressing against my ass over my underwear. I was between the two of them, with my back against Diego’s chest and Tomás’s mouth on mine, and the workshop smelled of work and cold beer.

Tomás slid his hands down my sides until he found my waist and from there moved up to my tits over my bra, squeezing them with both hands, finding my nipples with his thumbs and pinching them until a gasp escaped me. Diego unhooked the bra clasp at my back with a ease that made me think it wasn’t the first time. When it fell to the floor, the two of them paused for a moment and looked at me. Tomás bent down and sucked one nipple, then the other, biting a little, while Diego slipped his hand under my panties from behind and opened the lips of my cunt with two fingers.

—She’s soaked —Diego said against my ear, and he didn’t say it to me but to Tomás, as if passing a report.

Tomás yanked my panties down to my knees and knelt on the workshop floor without caring about the grease. He spread my thighs with his hands and shoved his tongue between my legs in one go, without preamble, sucking my clit with an insistence that made me grab Diego’s shoulder so I wouldn’t lose my balance. Diego held me from behind, one hand on my throat without squeezing and the other on a breast, and I had Tomás eating my pussy on his knees while the other bit my neck. I came like that, for the first time that night, with Tomás’s mouth glued to me and my legs trembling between the hands of the two of them.

I looked at myself: thirty-eight years old, two attentive mechanics, a workshop at midnight, and the climax still throbbing inside me. I thought about eighteen months of an empty apartment and decided that this was exactly right.

***

—To the van —Tomás said, getting to his feet with his mouth still shining.

We finished inside the van. Tomás opened the back doors: there was a thick blanket folded over the metal floor, probably used for working under cars. Diego climbed in first, yanked his boxers down, and his cock sprang up, thick, the tip already wet. He held out his hand to help me.

Before climbing in all the way, I knelt at the edge and took him into my mouth. Diego threw his head back and let out a rough groan when I closed my lips around the tip and went down slowly until I gagged a little. I grabbed the base with one hand and his balls with the other, sucking him all the way, hearing him breathe hard. Behind me, Tomás had also stripped. He crouched between my open legs and pushed into me for the first time right there, in one thrust, with the van’s back doors open to the empty street. It was so abrupt that Diego’s cock slipped out of my mouth and I let out a muffled cry against his thigh.

—Fuck, you’re so tight —Tomás said behind me, grabbing my hips.

He started fucking me like that, on all fours half inside the van, while I sucked Diego’s cock again with more hunger. With every thrust from Tomás I took Diego deeper into my mouth, and Diego ended up gripping my hair with both hands and setting the pace, fucking my mouth at the same time the other was fucking my pussy. I could feel my own juices running down my thighs, saliva dripping from my chin, and I didn’t mind one bit. On the contrary. I wanted more.

I climbed fully into the van when Tomás pulled out for a moment to change position. I got on top of Diego, with my knees on either side of his hips, and shoved his cock inside myself with my hand, guiding it. Diego closed his eyes and squeezed my ass with both hands when he felt me take him all the way in. Tomás stayed behind me, on his knees, his hands roaming over my back, his cock dripping and pressed against my ass.

I leaned over Diego’s chest to give Tomás more room. I felt one of Tomás’s fingers get wet with my own slick and then slide slowly into my asshole, one first, then two, opening me up. I put my hands on Diego’s chest and leaned over his neck, trembling from both ends at once, and he took my hip with both hands while Tomás adjusted slowly to the space left and pushed his cock against my ass until it gave.

I screamed. The two of them froze for a second.

—Keep going —I told Tomás over my shoulder—. Put it all in me.

I set the pace myself. They both followed without protest, and I liked that more than I had expected. The inside of the van echoed with our breathing and with the sound of metal under the blanket, with the obscene slapping of my pussy around Diego’s cock and the guttural moans of Tomás every time he thrust into my ass. Diego had his eyes open, watching me, mouth open, and I held that gaze as I moved, rising and lowering myself on him and pushing back onto Tomás in the same motion.

There was something about being in control like that that turned me on more than anything else. The two of them waited for my movements, followed my rhythm, adjusted their intensity to whatever I decided to give. I had spent eighteen months living for myself, and at that moment the two men in front of and behind me depended on what I wanted to do next. I could feel the two cocks inside me brushing against each other through the thin wall separating cunt and ass, and every touch shook me from the inside out.

—Faster —I panted, and I sped up.

At one point Diego grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me hard, sucking my tongue like he wanted to rip it out, and that was what set everything off. The orgasm came from the base of my spine and spread in slow waves toward my thighs, and I felt myself clench around both cocks at once, squeezing them inside me. Tomás wrapped his arms around me from behind when he felt my spasms and thrust three or four more times, fast and hard, until he growled against my shoulder blade and came inside me, filling my ass with a hot load I could feel start to drip as soon as he pulled out. Diego held on a few seconds longer, his hands sunk into my hips so I wouldn’t move, and he came too with a deep, contained sound, spilling inside my pussy with his hips pushed upward and his neck tense.

The three of us stayed still, panting inside the metal shell of that van, the neighborhood night coming in through the open doors and the cum from both of them running down my thighs onto the blanket.

***

Tomás lived three blocks away. He said it while looking at the van’s ceiling, almost as if he were saying it to himself.

—I’ve got whiskey —he added.

—And a hot shower —Diego finished.

They both looked at me at the same time. I gathered my clothes from the van floor and dressed again, holding my panties in my hand because they were unusable.

—I’m going to get my ankle boots —I said.

***

Tomás’s apartment was exactly what I expected: functional, sparse, clean in his own way. A bottle of Jameson on the kitchen bar, a television too big for the living room, and clothes folded over the back of a chair. Diego knew the place from before: he went straight to the bathroom cabinet to find towels without anyone telling him to.

We showered in turns. The whiskey circulated among the three of us while we waited, and there was a moment, while Tomás and I waited sitting on the sofa for Diego to come out of the bathroom, when he put a hand on my knee without saying anything and I put mine over it. It wasn’t a gesture of seduction. It was something closer to a confirmation. Then I slid my hand up his thigh under the towel and grabbed his cock, which got hard again in a few seconds between my fingers. I stroked him slowly while he drank whiskey with his eyes closed and said nothing.

When all three of us were clean, we went to the bedroom.

On Tomás’s bed, with more space and less urgency, things took on another rhythm. I knelt at the edge of the mattress and took Diego’s cock all the way into my mouth, down to the throat, while Tomás positioned himself behind me and opened my cunt with his tongue from the back, sucking me slowly, licking all the way to my asshole and then back down. I could feel his tongue going inside, finding my clit with the tip, sucking my lips one by one. My mouth was full of Diego and I could do nothing but moan around his cock every time Tomás found the exact spot.

Diego ended up laying me on my back on the bed and parting my legs with his knees to push into me himself. He moved slowly this time, with that patience he had shown with the cards: each thrust was long, all the way in, coming almost completely out before going back in. Tomás climbed onto the bed on his knees beside my face and brought his cock to my mouth. I grabbed it with my hand and took it in without looking away from him, and he started fucking my mouth at the same slow pace with which Diego was fucking me below.

The two of them together were something different from anything I had experienced before. Diego was methodical, each movement measured to touch me where he needed to touch me; Tomás was more physical, more direct, the kind of man who grabs you with both hands and makes the rest of the world disappear for a while. Tomás squeezed one breast while he fucked my mouth, his balls brushing my chin with every thrust, and Diego spread my thighs and pressed his thumb into my clit at the same time he thrust inside.

—Get on all fours —Tomás said at one point, pulling himself out of my mouth with a string of saliva hanging from him.

We changed positions without stopping touching each other. Diego lay back on his back and I rode him as before, this time with my back to him, riding him with my hands braced on his knees. Tomás stood at the edge of the bed in front of me and took my cock into his mouth from above while Diego slammed into me from below. With one hand he held me by the hair and with the other he pinched a nipple.

There was a moment when Diego took my hips with calm firmness and I pushed back to meet him. Tomás was in front of me and I slid my arms around his thighs as we moved, sucking him with my whole mouth open, letting him fuck my throat at his pace. When we found the rhythm from before, the three of us went quiet, as if talking would break something we didn’t want broken. All you could hear was the wet smack of my mouth around Tomás and the dull slap of Diego’s hips against my ass.

I came again, this time almost silently, trembling all over with Diego’s cock inside me and Tomás’s in my mouth, squeezing my legs around the body beneath me. Tomás came first, with a sound that was almost surprise, and most of it went down my throat though some of it dribbled from the corner of my mouth and fell onto my tits. Diego took a few minutes longer. He pulled me off him, put me face down with my face against the mattress, and pushed into me again from behind with both hands gripping my ass, fucking me hard for the last few minutes until he suddenly pulled out and came over my back with a long groan, leaving a hot trail from my ass up to my shoulder blades.

Afterward he hugged me from behind with his arms crossed over my chest, still breathing hard, his cum cooling on my skin. The three of us stayed like that, not moving, breathing.

I closed my eyes.

It had been eighteen months since I had felt like that: not completely satisfied, not exactly at peace, but something harder to name. As if the body had suddenly remembered what it was made for.

***

I left when the sky was beginning to lighten in the east. Tomás walked me to the door of my building with his hands in his pockets. In the street there was that silence that comes before the neighborhood wakes up: some delivery truck on the avenue, a cat on the hood of a parked car, the light of a bar that still hadn’t closed all the way.

—Come by the workshop tomorrow —he said. It wasn’t a question.

—Maybe —I answered.

He smiled. He gave me a brief, almost formal kiss, and stayed there watching as I climbed the three flights on foot because the elevator made too much noise at that hour.

In my apartment, without turning on the light, I sat for a moment on the edge of the bed. My thighs were sore, my cunt was swollen, and my neck smelled like someone else’s soap. In the mirror on the wardrobe I saw a thirty-eight-year-old woman with tangled hair and a borrowed T-shirt, and what I saw didn’t bother me at all.

I lay down and fell asleep in exactly four minutes.

The next day, I went by the workshop.