Four Friends, Three Strangers, and a Night Without Limits

Dinner ended at nine-thirty. Four dirty plates, four half-finished glasses of wine, and a conversation I took weeks to forget.

We had been in Galicia for five days, at Valeria’s summer house, in a coastal village that in September smells of salt and damp wood. There were four of us: Valeria, my twin sister Lucía, my husband Marcos, and me, Clara. For the first time in years, we had come without the children. We left them with the grandparents, with the exes, with whoever would take them, and headed north with only one instruction: don’t think about anything that wasn’t right in front of us.

Valeria and Lucía are divorced. I have been married to Marcos for twelve years. The four of us were turning forty that autumn, Lucía and I on exactly the same day: that Saturday.

That’s the group photo: four people with orderly lives, stable jobs, small children, and routines that repeat like a loop. Three women who couldn’t remember the last time they had done something that wasn’t on the calendar. One man who had gone to bed before midnight three hundred days in a row.

That night, Valeria broke the loop.

***

—We need to talk about something —she said, resting her elbows on the table.

No one answered. The wind was moving the shutters in the living room and the candle on the table flickered twice.

—We’ve spent forty years doing the right thing. The two of us have raised children alone after divorce —she pointed at Lucía and herself—. Clara has spent twelve years being the perfect wife. Marcos, twelve being the perfect husband. We all work nonstop, run from one place to another, and at the end of the day there’s nothing left for ourselves. And what? Is that it?

Lucía nodded slowly, looking at the table.

—I’ve been divorced for three years and I haven’t been with a man since then —Valeria went on—. Not because I haven’t wanted to, but because there’s never time. So tonight I want us to do something we can tell people about twenty years from now. Something that, if I said it at work, I’d lose my job.

—What do you have in mind? —Marcos asked.

—I don’t know yet. Something that means crossing a line.

We threw out ideas. Skydiving: too scary, and it would take planning ahead. Tattoos: Marcos said over his dead body, with that face he makes when something seems outrageous to him. Me too. Drugs: Marcos got serious in a way that didn’t allow for discussion. He knows people close to him whose lives it had destroyed, and he wasn’t going to budge. Then Valeria said what she had been thinking since we left the house.

—An orgy.

Silence.

—Not between the four of us —she clarified quickly, holding up a hand—. With people from outside. You two together, as always, but with others too. Lucía and I with several men. And you, Marcos, we’ll find you a woman.

—Are you serious? —I said.

—Completely.

Lucía leaned back in her chair with a smile I didn’t know she had.

—I don’t hate the idea —she said.

Marcos was staring at the tablecloth. Then he looked at me.

—I’m not going to sleep with another woman in front of you —he said at last, in a low voice.

—Why not? —Valeria asked.

—Because Clara is my wife.

—That’s not a reason. It’s a habit.

We went on like that for half an hour. Suggestions, objections, silences. We talked about what it would mean, whether it could be undone, whether it would change anything between us. Marcos listened, glass in hand, not drinking. In the end, something gave way. I don’t know if it was the wine, or the talk about turning forty, or the fact that all week I’d been looking at my husband and thinking we were too predictable. The thing is, I said:

—One night. Just tonight. And what happens here stays here.

Marcos looked at me as if my face had changed.

—I don’t like it —he said.

—I know you don’t like it.

There was a long pause.

—But I’m not going to sit there watching while the three of you go off to party and I gnaw my own hands off.

***

Valeria had a contact in the village. Rodrigo, a man our age she’d known since she was sixteen, who had grown up in that same coastal town and, according to her, knew where to get anything and knew everybody between the estuary and the cape. She called him, vaguely explained what we were looking for, and he showed up twenty minutes later with a woman named Natalia.

Natalia was in her mid-thirties, brunette, with slightly glassy eyes and a smile that adapted far too easily to any room. Rodrigo was a tall guy with a few days’ beard, who had once been very handsome and still was if you didn’t look too closely at the damage a bad night had done to him.

They were in without anyone having to explain twice.

—We’re short one —Lucía said—. There are six of us, but we’ve got one man too many. Rodrigo can’t cover for three.

Valeria and my sister changed clothes, put on two dresses they’d only bring out for special occasions, and went out to a cocktail bar at the end of the street. I stayed at the house with Marcos, Rodrigo, and Natalia, pouring myself a glass I didn’t need but that justified not knowing what to say.

Marcos was tense. I know him too well not to see it. He poured the wine very calmly, spoke politely, but every ten seconds he looked for me with his eyes to make sure I was still the same person who had arrived at that house five days earlier.

I was. Only that night I felt like not being.

***

Half an hour later they came back with three men.

I wasn’t expecting that.

They were young, about ten years younger than us. One shorter, with a kind face and the look of someone who had recently been given bad news. The other two were something else: one six foot three, broad-backed, with that way of moving that belongs to people who really work out; the other just as tall but leaner, with dark eyes and a presence that filled the room without asking permission.

—This is Mateo —Valeria said, pointing at the short one—. This is Sebastián, and this is Nicolás.

Marcos stiffened on the sofa. I felt my pulse speed up.

We introduced ourselves. All three were from the Basque Country, vacationers who had come that weekend to keep Mateo company after a recent breakup. Sebastián was a high school teacher in a town near Bilbao. Nicolás, an ER doctor. Mateo, an engineer.

—We’re normal people —I said, not really sure why I felt the need to explain that.

—We can see that —Nicolás said, with a half-smile—. And precisely for that reason it’s interesting.

There were drinks. There was music. The mood took a while to warm up, but when it did, it did so fast. Lucía put on reggaeton and started dancing in the middle of the living room without asking anyone’s permission. Natalia joined her. Valeria dragged Rodrigo up from the armchair. Sebastián stood up on his own and joined the dancing.

Mateo, the one with the recent divorce, stayed on the sofa with his glass.

I stayed too, but not on the sofa.

I was standing by the bookshelf, watching the room move, when I noticed Nicolás coming closer.

—Don’t you dance? —he asked.

—Not yet.

He stayed beside me without pressing, also watching the room.

—Was it your idea or theirs? —he asked after a moment.

—Valeria’s. Though I voted in favor.

—Why?

It took me a while to answer.

—Because I’m forty years old and I’ve never done anything that wasn’t in the plan.

Nicolás nodded slowly, as if that made sense.

—And your husband?

—He’s over there —I said, gesturing toward the sofa where Marcos had gone to sit next to Mateo—. He’s processing it.

—And you?

—Me too. Just differently.

***

Valeria had scattered condoms all over the house before going out to the bar. One box in each bedroom, one in the living room. When she did it, Marcos looked at her with that expression of not being able to believe this was really happening.

It was really happening.

After a while of dancing and crossed conversations, Valeria took Rodrigo by the hand and disappeared upstairs. From above came, a little later, the muffled sound of her laughing, and then not laughing anymore. Then nothing.

Marcos got up from the sofa and came toward me.

—Come upstairs with me —he said.

We went up.

***

As soon as I closed the door, Marcos turned me toward him and kissed me in a way he hadn’t done in months. With urgency. With something I recognized as jealousy turned into something else: into a kind of claim that I don’t know whether I liked more than it surprised me.

He took my clothes off without taking his eyes off me. I did the same with him.

We lay down on the bed and he went down slowly, without rushing, all the way to where I needed him. What he did during the following minutes made me close my eyes and grip the sheets in my fingers. Not only because of what he was doing, but because I knew that downstairs there were three young men who were not my husband and who could be tonight if I wanted them to be.

That thought lit something in me I hadn’t known I had.

—Don’t stop —I said.

He didn’t stop.

I came with my body arched and my breath broken, while he held me by the hips and kept going without pause. When I came back to myself, he was propped on one elbow, looking at me.

—Good? —he asked.

—Yes.

—Are you going back down after?

I didn’t answer right away.

—Do you want me to? —I asked him.

Marcos took his time.

—I want you to do whatever you want tonight. —He paused—. And I hate wanting that.

I laughed. So did he, in his own way.

We got into another position, him on top, the two of us talking while we did it, saying things to each other we’d normally be embarrassed to say out loud. The sex was good, it always had been, but that night it had a different weight, as if the situation had opened a valve that had been shut for a long time.

Marcos stopped before coming.

—I’m saving myself —he said.

—For who?

—For Natalia.

I made a sound with my mouth.

—You asshole.

—You’ve got three waiting downstairs.

—Two —I said—. Mateo looks like the kind of guy who stays on the sofa thinking about his ex all night.

We laughed again. We got dressed slowly, in silence, with that twelve-year comfort that doesn’t disappear even when the night is strange. Before we left, Marcos took my face in both hands.

—Tonight you’re free —he said—. One night.

—One night —I repeated.

***

Downstairs, the living room had changed. Rodrigo and Natalia had disappeared separately, each in a different direction. Lucía was dancing with Sebastián, pressed against him, eyes closed and with that expression people have when they know perfectly well what’s going to happen next and aren’t afraid of it happening.

Mateo was still on the sofa. He wasn’t looking at the floor anymore. He was looking at Lucía.

Nicolás was standing by the window facing the street, arms crossed, looking outside. When I came in, he turned around.

We didn’t say anything for a moment.

Marcos passed me by and went straight over to Natalia, who had come back into the living room alone and poured herself another drink. I watched them talk. I watched them laugh at something I couldn’t hear. Then they disappeared together down the hallway.

I was left alone in front of Nicolás.

—How are you? —he asked.

—Weird. —I paused—. Good.

—Those two things are compatible.

—I know.

He came closer slowly, not touching me yet, leaving it up to me to decide the distance. He stopped less than a meter away.

—What do you want to happen tonight? —he asked.

It was the first time in a long time that someone had asked me that question. Not what I needed. Not what was right. What I wanted.

—I don’t know yet —I said.

—Good. —He smiled—. We have time.

From upstairs came the sound of Valeria moving around, and laughter, and something hitting the headboard against the wall in a steady rhythm. Lucía and Sebastián were no longer in the living room. Mateo had finally gotten up from the sofa and was in the kitchen pouring himself another drink.

The house was breathing differently.

Nicolás held out his hand.

—Shall we go up?

I looked at the hand. I looked toward the hallway where Marcos had disappeared. I thought about twelve years of orderly life, of correct decisions, of nights that ended at eleven with teeth brushed and the alarm set for the next day.

One night, I told myself.

I took Nicolás’s hand.

And we went up.