What I Felt with My Stepmother on That Motorcycle

I’d been in the living room for nearly an hour when I heard her come down the stairs. Not the first sound—before that had come the hair dryer, footsteps on the parquet, a drawer opening and closing—but that definitive sound, the heel against the first stair. I sat up straight on the sofa.

Valeria appeared in the doorway.

She was wearing leather pants that molded her hips with an almost indecent precision and a matching jacket that barely managed to conceal what she had underneath. The white shirt was open as far as decency allowed. A red scarf around her neck. And that long brown hair, wavy at the ends, that more than justified the hour it had taken her to come down.

She was my father’s wife. I had to remember that.

—Are we going? —she said, as if she didn’t know exactly what she was doing.

—You’ve got the classic biker look —I replied, because it was the most neutral thing I could think of.

—It’s just that I knew you weren’t going to give up the bike —she said, crossing the living room toward where I was standing—. So I looked for something... appropriate.

There was something in the pause before that last word that I found hard to ignore.

I pulled the cover off the Kawasaki and the bike emerged under the garage lights: black with dark green details, with that almost menacing look I’d always liked. I heard Valeria draw in a soft breath when she saw it.

—Is it as dangerous as it looks? —she asked.

—More —I admitted.

I got on first, put the key in, and started it. The engine roared with that deep voice that vibrates through the ground and your chest at the same time, and I saw Valeria’s skin rise in goosebumps on her forearms. I held out a helmet. She took it slowly, as if it might explode.

—Relax. I’ll go slow.

—I hope so —she said, though she no longer seemed entirely convinced she wanted that.

It took her longer than necessary to get on. I don’t know if it was clumsiness or something else, but when she settled behind me and her arms wrapped around my waist, the firmness with which she did it was anything but shy. I felt the pressure of her hands through the jacket, her thighs closing against mine, her whole body pressed to my back as if she’d been fitting into that hollow for a long time.

This was a very specific kind of mistake.

We rolled slowly out of the garage. The road sloped down between pines and houses with gardens, and the night smelled of resin and hot asphalt. On the first straightaway, I eased open the throttle and the engine answered with a roar that filled everything. She tightened her arms more.

—You said you’d go slow! —she shouted as we came out of the first curve.

—I am going slow! —I shouted back.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. For what that bike could do, we were practically strolling. But the curves on the hill had their angle, and every time we leaned into one, her body adjusted to mine with a fluidity that couldn’t have been entirely involuntary. By the time we reached the bottom, she had stopped complaining. I felt her head rest against my nape, barely a touch, probably without her even realizing it.

Probably.

At the traffic lights downtown, I gave it little bursts of throttle and felt every vibration of the engine travel through her body and into mine. The noise, the lights, the people watching us as we went by. Her with the helmet on and me unable to see her face. Only feel her.

We reached the harbor and I parked. I got off first and waited. When she dismounted, Valeria had to cling to my arm so she wouldn’t wobble.

—Dizzy?

—A little —she admitted, still not letting go of me—. But not in an unpleasant way.

I didn’t feel entirely steady either. But it wasn’t because of the motorcycle.

***

We started walking along the moorings. The smell of salt, dark water moving against the hulls, the murmur of people in the terrace bars along the promenade. Valeria walked beside me with that ease people have when they know they’re being looked at. At one point she lifted her hand toward my arm, held it there for half a second, and let it fall on my elbow.

I said nothing. We kept walking.

—How long have you had that bike? —she asked.

—Six years. It was the first thing I bought when I started making real money.

—You can tell you love it.

—It’s the least complicated relationship I have —I said.

She laughed. A short laugh, almost private, as if I’d caught her by surprise.

That was when I saw Diego coming toward us through the crowd: six and a half feet of bulk and a shaved head, with that way he had of taking up space. Behind him, Yuki, his Japanese girlfriend, small and luminous, smiling before anyone said a word.

—Mate! You get here yesterday and already you’re arm in arm with such a beauty! —he blurted the second he saw us.

Valeria stopped. I felt her tense.

—Hey, I’m not his girlfriend —she said—. I’m his... —she trailed off halfway through the sentence.

His stepmother? The second wife of his father, who was also younger than the stepson himself? There were several ways to finish that sentence, and they all sounded equally scandalous.

—She’s my friend —I cut in—. Valeria, meet Diego.

—Yeah, sure, “friends”! —Diego shot back with that exaggerated wink of his.

—Diego —Yuki said calmly—, that’s enough.

—Sorry, Valeria —he said, wrapping one huge arm around her before anyone could stop him.

She replied politely, extricated herself discreetly, and shot me a look that mixed irritation with something harder to name.

We turned down their invitation to dinner but agreed to grab a drink later. When they walked away, Valeria waited exactly four steps.

—So, “friend,” huh? —she said.

—Would you have preferred the full version? —I replied—. “No, Diego, she’s my gorgeous stepmother. She arrived at my father’s house yesterday. She’s twenty-nine.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She didn’t quite manage it.

—I suppose “friends” is a reasonable description —she said.

—The most reasonable one I can think of tonight —I replied.

***

I told her Diego’s story as we kept walking. His mother in a wheelchair after an accident, his father who left, the women who drifted away as soon as they learned the situation. Until Diego met Yuki in the hospital where his mother had been admitted. Yuki’s father had been living the same reality for years. Sometimes life connects people in the most unexpected places.

Valeria listened without interrupting. When I finished, she squeezed my arm lightly.

—You don’t seem like the kind of person who pays attention to that sort of thing —she said.

—What kind of person do I seem like?

She looked at me for a moment before answering.

—Someone who goes too fast to notice other people.

It was a clean hit. I didn’t take it badly.

—And you seem like someone who cares too much about appearances —I replied.

—Because of social media?

—Because you hesitated before grabbing my arm.

Her fingers loosened, but she didn’t let go.

That was when I saw her. Tall, blonde, with that kind of beauty that doesn’t go unnoticed anywhere. She crossed the street toward us before I could decide anything.

—Marcos! —she called from the other side.

—Lucía —I answered, with a lot less enthusiasm.

She hugged me without looking at Valeria. It was one of those long hugs that say too much about things that should already be over.

—Long time no see! —she said as she stepped back—. And who’s your friend?

—Valeria —I said—. This is Lucía.

—You’re lucky —Lucía told Valeria with that smile I knew too well—. He’s worth it, seriously.

I got us out of that situation in under two minutes. I took Valeria by the hand to lead her away and kept holding it longer than necessary before letting go.

—Another friend? —she said once Lucía was far enough behind us.

—Something like that. There was a time when I really liked someone who wasn’t good for me. When I understood that, I stepped away.

—How did you know she wasn’t good for you?

—Because she made me feel good in all the wrong ways.

We walked half a block in silence.

—What ways are the wrong ones? —she asked at last, looking ahead.

—The ones that only work as long as you don’t think —I said.

Another silence. This one longer.

—You’ve been surprising me for hours —she said.

—In a bad way?

—No —she replied—. Not at all.

***

We sat on a terrace facing the water. The waiter brought wine without us having to ask much. The harbor noise kept going around us, but the table had that bracketed feeling some places create when the night is good and you’d rather not move.

—Do you really have more than a hundred thousand followers? —I asked.

—One hundred and forty-two thousand, if we’re going to be precise —she said.

—And do they all know who you are?

—They know who I show them I am —she replied. And she said it without thinking, which meant she’d been thinking it for a long time.

—What’s the difference?

Valeria turned her glass between her fingers.

—This morning I called my mother. I didn’t tell her I’m in for a complicated weekend. I told her everything was fine.

—I heard you —I admitted—. I was on the other side of the door by accident.

I expected her to get annoyed. Instead she said:

—I know.

—And you don’t mind?

She looked straight at me, without the calculated distance from before.

—I mind less than I should.

There was a silence. The kind of silence both people feel at once and neither quite knows how to break. The harbor noise, the conversations at neighboring tables, the water lapping against the boats. All of it existed on a different plane from the meter that separated us.

Valeria lowered her gaze first.

—This is a bad idea —she said softly.

—I know —I replied.

—And?

I lifted my glass.

—And the wine is good.

She lifted hers too. They touched softly.

—To complicated weekends —she said.

—To complicated weekends.

Diego and Yuki showed up half an hour later, as we’d agreed. We ordered another round. The night became easy and open, the way summer nights by the sea do when you decide to stop overthinking. Diego talked nonstop and Yuki watched him with the kind of patience that must have cost her something. We laughed. We ordered another round.

But beneath the conversations and the laughter, our elbows brushed on the table and neither of us did anything about it.

It was a long night. When we finally stood up to go back, the city had dropped several decibels and the harbor reflected only the last lights from the closed terraces.

We got on the motorcycle.

And when Valeria wrapped her arms around my waist this time, she did it completely differently from the way she had on the way there. Without the fear of the first time. Without the stiffness of someone holding back because she knows she should.

She did it like someone who has made a decision and still doesn’t know whether she’s going to regret it.

Her hands rested flat on my stomach. Her chest against my back. Her cheek finding my nape almost before I started the engine, and this time it wasn’t involuntary, nor was it a fraction of a second.

I started off slowly. The night was warm and smelled of sea and something that didn’t have a decent name.

Halfway up the hill, her hands began to move. First just a slide, from my stomach downward, as if the engine’s vibration were guiding them without her having to decide. Then more deliberately. Her fingers spread flat over the fabric of my pants, going down until they found the bulge that had already been half-awake ever since she’d pressed herself to my back. When she noticed it, she didn’t pull her hand away. She closed her hand over it, squeezed once, and slowly lifted it again, as if she’d just checked something she needed to check.

I felt her laugh against my nape. Low, husky, barely audible over the engine.

I said nothing. I sped up a little and the curves once again forced us into each other with that persistence inevitable things have.

We rolled into the garage almost in silence. I shut off the engine. The echo of the roar kept vibrating in the walls for a few seconds and then all that was left was the click of Valeria’s helmet as she unfastened it. She got off first. I followed. When I turned around, she was already there, a breath away, her hair messed up by the helmet and her eyes much darker than the garage light could justify.

—Marcos —she said.

—Valeria.

—If we go upstairs to the house, this can still be undone —she said, very slowly—. If we stay here, it can’t.

—It can’t be undone anymore —I replied.

She grabbed my jacket with both hands and pulled me toward her. I kissed her before she finished pulling. It was a kiss that skipped every intermediate step: open mouth, direct tongue, the taste of wine still on her palate and her breath coming into mine. She dug her fingers into the back of my neck, went up on tiptoe, pressed her whole body to mine. I felt the leather pants against my thigh, the firmness of her breasts flattening against my chest, her whole body saying she’d already decided hours ago and had just been waiting for the moment.

I shoved her back against the bike. The Kawasaki was still radiating engine heat and she let out a short moan when the hot metal hit her ass. I yanked open her jacket and my hands went straight to her shirt. The buttons held for two and the rest popped off. Under it she wore a very thin black bra, so sheer her nipples were already hard, pushing against the fabric.

—Fuck —I muttered.

—Shut up and keep going —she said through her teeth.

I lowered my mouth to her neck, then her collarbone, then her breasts. I pulled her bra up without unfastening it and her tits came free, compressed against the lifted band, more exposed by the position than she herself would have chosen. I sucked one nipple whole, first with my tongue flat and then with my teeth, and I felt her left hand clutch my hair while her right searched for my pants.

She yanked open my fly. Put her hand in, found my cock already hard, pulled it out of my boxer briefs, and when she closed her fingers around it I almost dug the nails of my other hand into her shoulder.

—You’re soaking —she said, her voice roughened, sliding her thumb over the tip.

—So are you —I replied.

I opened her leather pants. It was hard work. The zipper jammed and she laughed with her teeth clenched and pushed my hands away to do it herself. She shoved the pants down to mid-thigh, clumsy, hurried, and underneath she was wearing tiny red panties that were already darkened at the crotch.

I slid my hand over the fabric. She was hot, swollen, the cotton seam slick. I moved the panty aside with two fingers and touched her directly. Her cunt was dripping. My fingers slid in without resistance and she jolted forward, seeking more, with an obviousness that made me even harder.

—Like that —she panted into my ear—. Put them in me.

I put two in. All the way. She let out a long moan that bounced off the garage’s concrete walls.

—Shhh —I whispered—. My father.

—I don’t care —she said—. I don’t care at all.

I covered her mouth with my other hand while I kept fucking her with my fingers. I curved my fingertips upward and searched for that spot inside, the one that swells before anything else, and when I found it she bit down on my palm to keep from screaming. I felt her tighten around my fingers, start trembling in her thighs, her whole body straining like a rope about to snap.

I pulled her off the bike before she could come. Turned her against my father’s car, parked beside it. I pushed her by the nape until she bent forward, her tits flattened against the cold metal and her ass lifted toward me. I pulled her leather pants down a little farther, to her knees, and ripped off her red panties in one yank that tore the side seam.

—Marcos —she panted—. Marcos, fuck me already.

I lined myself up. My cock slid along the wet slit from top to bottom, searching for the opening, and when I found it I shoved all the way in with one thrust. She let out a broken guttural moan, her cheek pressed against the hood, and I had to grit my teeth not to come on the first push of how hot and tight she was inside.

—Fuck, what the hell do you have —I growled—. Fuck, fuck.

I started moving. Slow at first, all the length of my cock sliding out and in so she could get used to it. She pushed her ass back on every thrust, seeking more, her back arched and her hands spread over the hood. I grabbed her hips with both hands and started fucking her for real: hard, dry thrusts that made her slide a few centimeters over the metal each time and bump back when I pulled her toward me.

The sound filled the garage. Flesh slapping flesh, her moans muffled against the hood, my rough breathing, the occasional gasp that escaped her when I changed the angle. I caught hold of her hair and pulled. She lifted her head and arched her back even more, and over her shoulder I could see her tits bouncing against the hood to the rhythm of my thrusts.

—Tell me you’re a slut —I hissed in her ear, never stopping.

—I’m a slut —she panted, without hesitation.

—Say it all.

—I’m my stepson’s slut —she said, and her voice broke halfway through—. And I’m letting him fuck me against his father’s car.

I felt her clamp down hard around my cock when she said it. That turned her on. It turned her on as much as hearing her say it turned me on.

—Again —I growled, bringing my hand down to her clit while I kept thrusting—. Say it again.

—I’m his —she panted—. I’m his all fucking night, Marcos, don’t stop, don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop...

I rubbed her clit with two fingers, fast circles, without stopping fucking her. I felt her break against my hand in three seconds. She came with a long cry that she muffled against the hood, her whole body trembling, her cunt clenching around my cock in waves that almost dragged me with her.

I pulled out before I came. I don’t know why. Instinct or cowardice or both.

I turned her around. Lifted her by the hips and sat her on the hood, her legs still trapped by the leather pants. I pushed her knees up toward her own chest and drove into her again, looking at her face. She was wrecked. Hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, mouth open, mascara smudged from some tear that had slipped out with the first orgasm.

—Again —I told her, starting to move slow and deep.

—I can’t —she panted, and she was trembling again already—. I can’t, Marcos, it’s too much...

—Yes, you can.

I kissed her while I fucked her. Dirty kiss, with tongue, while I kept driving into her all the way with long thrusts and she dug her heels into my back over the rolled-up leather. I bit her lower lip. She sucked my fingers when I slid them into her mouth. I grabbed her breasts with both hands and squeezed her nipples between thumb and forefinger until she moaned louder.

—Marcos —she panted—. Come inside me. I want you to come inside me.

—You sure?

—Yes. Now. Now. Now now now.

I sped up. Hard. My cock going in and out of that wrecked cunt that no longer offered any resistance, all slick, all hot, all mine for the few seconds left. She came again under me, quieter this time, almost inward, her mouth open without a sound and her whole body taut as a wire. Her cunt spasmed around my cock and I couldn’t hold on anymore.

I came inside her. Long, thick spurts that filled her completely while I groaned against her neck and she scratched my back over the jacket neither of us had taken off. I kept pushing until the last drop, my hips moving by instinct, my forehead pressed to hers.

We stayed like that for a few seconds. Her legs still bent against me, my cock still inside, both of us breathing like we’d just run up a hill at full speed.

When I finally pulled out, we both noticed the hot stream running down the inside of her thigh and onto my father’s car hood.

Valeria let out a soft laugh. A tired, broken laugh, with no guilt in it at all.

—We’re going to burn —she murmured.

—Both of us —I said.

I lowered her from the hood. Pulled her pants up just enough so she could walk. She closed her jacket over her torn shirt, with the buttons scattered all over the garage floor, and looked up at me with those very dark eyes.

It was going to be a very, very long weekend.