The Neighbor From the Fourth Floor Who Could Have Been My Mother

I had been fantasizing about Amparo for months, and she had no idea. She was the neighbor from the fourth floor, a woman with generous curves and an easy smile who was more than twenty years older than me. Every time we crossed paths in the lobby she’d greet me with that neighborhood warmth women in Zaragoza have, and I’d stand there watching her sway until the elevator doors closed. That afternoon I saw her come in with her husband and followed them without either of them noticing.

Ramón went in first, dark-skinned and weathered, with that permanently bad-tempered face he carried everywhere. He smelled of tobacco and wine from the after-lunch drinking session, grunted a curt “hi,” and pressed himself against the back of the elevator with his phone in one hand and a can of beer in the other. By that time of day he was already half drunk, as usual. Amparo stood in the middle, with her back to me. Me, right behind her.

The elevator was old and narrow, with that smell of metal and damp old buildings. She pressed the button for the fourth floor, I pressed seven. The doors shut slowly and silence fell.

I didn’t think twice. I slid my right hand around behind her and brushed the hem of her skirt. I went slowly up her thigh, warm and firm beneath the fabric. Amparo stiffened like a spring: she gave a little jump, her bag shifted on her arm, and she turned her head a quarter toward me, eyes wide.

“What…?” she whispered, barely audible, her voice choked with disbelief.

She tried to step sideways to move away, but the elevator was so small she only managed to press herself closer to me. Her body brushed mine. I kept going, slipped my hand under the skirt from the inside of her thigh, and reached her underwear, already warm and damp. I moved the fabric aside with two fingers.

Amparo let out a short gasp and disguised it as a cough. She clamped her thighs together, but I slid my knee between her legs to hold my place. With her other hand she grabbed the handrail as if she were about to fall. She glanced sideways at her husband—absent-minded with his phone, sipping beer, oblivious to everything—and then at me, with a mix of panic and something darker.

“No… Iván… please…” she murmured very softly.

She didn’t say “stop.” She didn’t say “no.” Just “please,” as if begging desire not to betray her.

I slid a finger in slowly and felt her soaked inside despite everything. She tightened around it, hot. She pressed her lips together until they went white, breathed hard through her nose, tried to twist her body away and only managed to push the finger deeper. With my thumb I brushed the right spot, in slow circles.

“Fuck… we shouldn’t…” she said through clenched teeth.

But her hip moved a millimeter backward, pushing against my hand. She tried to pry my wrist away with her free hand, a loose grip, almost symbolic, which ended up dropping so she could cover her mouth and stifle a moan.

The elevator passed the second floor, then the third, slow and endless. Ramón coughed, changed songs on his phone without looking up. Amparo was trembling all over: legs weak, face flushed, eyes glassy. I felt her clench hard around my finger and a sudden heat soaked my hand. She came in absolute silence, biting the back of her other hand, a shiver running down her spine.

Right when we reached the fourth floor and the doors opened, I pulled my hand out slowly. She staggered out, adjusting her skirt with trembling fingers. Ramón went out first, muttering something. Amparo stayed in the doorway for a second and looked at me over her shoulder: shame, confusion, guilt, and a glint of desire she couldn’t hide. She said nothing. She swallowed, bit her lip, and went out after him.

I stayed inside, my fingers smelling like her and my groin hard as stone.

***

I stepped out onto the landing a moment later, trying to act casual. As I passed her in the narrow hallway, Amparo—with that usual smile of hers, now edged with guilty mischief—stretched out her hand and gave me a quick, firm squeeze over my zipper. A playful grab, almost a “thanks for earlier,” but with so much force it made me stumble backward. She let out a rough little laugh, the laugh of a woman who hadn’t laughed like that in years, and turned toward her door as if nothing had happened.

Ramón came out last, swaying with the beer. He looked at me with cloudy eyes and said in a thick voice:

“See you later, kid.”

He took two clumsy steps, stopped short, and turned back, pointing at me with his finger as if he had just remembered something important.

“You weren’t the electrician, were you?”

Still half somewhere else, I answered calmly:

“Yes, I am.”

Ramón’s face lit up, or whatever that bad-tempered face of his did when he cheered up.

“Look, Amparo, the kid can fix our outlets! The one in the living room keeps flickering and the kitchen one trips every other day.”

Amparo froze in the doorway, key in hand, suddenly pale. She stammered:

“No, no, Ramón… don’t bother the boy, he’ll be busy…”

I smelled an opening and jumped on it without hesitation.

“It’d be a pleasure. If you’ve got them handy, I’ll leave them sorted out right now. It’s nothing.”

She swallowed, trying to buy time.

“It’s just that… I don’t have any money at home…”

“We’re neighbors, woman. A beer is enough for me.”

“There aren’t… there aren’t any beers left either…”

Ramón gave a hoarse laugh and took a long swig.

“Well, we can’t run out of beer, fuck’s sake. I’ll go down to the Chinese place, see if it’s still open.”

He turned without waiting for an answer and stomped down the stairs, muttering about the slow elevator. The echo of his steps faded below.

***

Amparo stood rooted to the spot, the door ajar, staring at me in pure panic. She was breathing fast, her chest rising and falling under her blouse. She knew perfectly well what was going to happen if she let me in.

“Iván… don’t come in… please… if he comes back and catches us…” she whispered.

But she didn’t close the door. She didn’t tell me to go. She stayed there, half blocking the entrance, her legs trembling slightly, one curly lock stuck to her forehead with nervous sweat. She stared at me, biting her lip, and I saw her pupils widen: terror and hunger in equal parts.

I stepped forward and spoke softly, close to her ear.

“I’m only going to check the outlets, Amparo… but if you want, I can also check whatever’s got you trembling since the elevator.”

She closed her eyes for a second, let out the air slowly, and stepped aside, opening the door all the way. She went in first, swaying without meaning to, or meaning to, and murmured in a hoarse voice:

“Just… just the outlets… and you leave before he gets back…”

We both knew that was a lie. The hallway smelled of reheated food and her perfume, and the living room was dark except for the dim streetlight outside.

I took the keys from her hand gently but firmly. She let out a quiet “hey!” in surprise, without any real resistance. I slammed the door shut; the latch clicked like a shot. I turned the key twice from the inside.

Amparo turned around and tried to head for the kitchen, as if running could avoid the inevitable.

“Iván… let me go… Ramón will be back any minute…”

I caught up to her in two strides and wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, next to the old velvet sofa in the living room. She kicked a little, with nervous little laughs, but she didn’t truly scream: she didn’t want to wake the neighbors. I turned her with ease—tall but soft, with no strength in the struggle—and sat her on the edge of the sofa while I knelt in front of her.

“You’re crazy!” she exclaimed between gasps.

I lifted her skirt up to her thighs. Her underwear, still damp from the elevator, clung to the heat of her. I pulled it down slowly, dragging it over her thick legs until it was bunched around her knees. I parted her thighs with my hands and felt her opening, shining with fresh moisture. She smelled like a mature, aroused woman, like forbidden desire.

Amparo stopped fighting. She stayed still for a second, breathing hard.

“Don’t keep going… if he comes back he’ll kill us… but… fuck…” she whispered, and didn’t finish the sentence.

She began to move her hips just a little, a subtle sway, asking for more without admitting it. I slid two fingers in slowly and felt her tighten instantly, hot and slick.

“God… no… yes…” she moaned, muffling her voice against the cushion.

The wall clock read quarter to nine. Ramón could come back at any moment. The risk beat in me like my pulse.

***

Suddenly Amparo’s phone vibrated and rang loudly in the pocket of her skirt, bunched up at her waist. One of those shrill tones that echoes through a silent living room. We both froze: we thought the same thing, that it was him, downstairs, at the door.

She went rigid and tried to sit up, but I held her steady with one hand on her lower back.

“Let me go… it’s Ramón!” she whispered hysterically.

I didn’t let her go. With the other hand I kept going in and out slowly, feeling her clench from pure nerves and excitement at once. She reached back, pulled out the phone with trembling fingers, and looked at the screen: yes, it was him.

“Hello…?” she answered, trying to sound normal and failing.

I didn’t stop. I kept the pace steady, the soft but audible wet sound filling the silence. She pressed her thighs together to close her legs and couldn’t, biting her lip with her eyes closed.

On the other end, Ramón sounded thick-tongued, with street noise in the background.

“Listen, the Chinese place is closed already. I’m going to the supermarket, they’ve got a special until ten-thirty. I’ll be an hour or so. Don’t wait up if you get sleepy.”

His volume was way up, and every word could be heard from where I was. Amparo answered in monosyllables, her voice trembling, every “yes” coming out with a sigh at the end that any sober man would have recognized instantly. I sped up a little, curling my fingers, and she let out a longer “sssssyes…” that she disguised as a cough.

“Are you okay? You sound weird,” he said, half drunk, not suspecting a thing.

“Nothing… a cold… okay… see you later…”

She hung up abruptly, tossed the phone onto the sofa, and buried her face in the cushion to smother a moan.

“Fuck, Iván… you’re going to kill me…” she gasped, but she didn’t stop pushing her hips against my hand.

I spoke into her ear, close to the back of her neck, without stopping my movement.

“An entire hour, Amparo. No one’s going to interrupt us. Tell me to stop… or tell me to keep going.”

She lifted her head from the cushion, face red, curly hair stuck to her forehead, eyes glassy with pure guilty vice. She didn’t say “stop.” Her voice came out hoarse, broken.

“Iván… please… if you could be my son’s age… my son used to play with you when you were little… don’t do this to me… this is madness…”

The words came out like a last attempt at sanity, but her body betrayed her: her hips moved back, seeking more, and fresh heat slid down the inside of her thigh.

I didn’t answer with words. I slowly got up, helped her sit on the edge of the sofa—she let herself be moved, her legs limp as jelly—and stood in front of her, at eye level. I yanked my pants down.

Amparo’s eyes went wide and she stared fixedly, mouth slightly open. She swallowed. Her hand rose as if to cover her mouth and stopped halfway, trembling in the air. She didn’t look away. She was breathing fast, her nipples hard beneath the thin blouse.

I looked her in the eyes, my voice low but firm, not touching her yet.

“I won’t do anything you don’t ask for. Tell me to stop and I’ll pull my pants up and leave. But if you want… all you have to do is say it. Or touch it. You’re in charge.”

Heavy silence in the living room. Only her ragged breathing and the ticking of the clock. Ramón was at least an hour away. She looked at me again, then toward the hallway, as if expecting him to suddenly appear.

She bit her lip hard. A tear—of shame or pent-up desire—slid down her cheek, and she didn’t wipe it away. Very slowly, she raised her right hand and brought it toward me. Her fingers brushed first, timidly, feeling the heat. Then she closed her hand and gave a soft, almost reverent squeeze.

“Fuck, Iván…” she whispered, her voice cracked but with a new edge of raw desire. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop.”

She didn’t say “stop.” She didn’t say “no.” And with the trembling hand of someone who had spent decades waiting, she began to stroke me slowly, never taking her eyes off me, while her other hand went down to her own body. Outside, somewhere between the closed Chinese place and the supermarket, her husband was looking for beer. We had an hour, and neither of us intended to waste it.