Listening to the Neighbors Was the Best Aphrodisiac

It had been barely three months since the couple upstairs moved in when we started to understand what kind of neighbors we were going to be living with. It wasn’t that we really knew them yet — we had only crossed paths with them in the elevator a couple of times — but rather from what we heard before there was ever a chance to introduce ourselves.

We had seen them. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with short hair and a three-day beard that always looked freshly trimmed. He had that physical presence that fills a room without effort. She was thin, moved slowly and deliberately, with her hair almost always tied up in a messy bun that left her neck exposed. The first time we ran into each other at the pool, on a ridiculously hot Sunday, Sofía and I looked at each other in the same way: that look we have between us, with its own private code, and which can mean several things at once.

Sofía and I have been together for six years, and in that time we’ve learned that talking plainly about what you want saves a lot of misunderstandings. We shared fantasies — some already explored, others still just conversations for the nights when sleep wouldn’t come — and one of the most recurring always circled around the same thing: sharing a night with another couple. No commitments, no complications. Just seeing what it felt like to be close to other people while everything happened.

We had never taken the step. Not for lack of desire, but because the situation had never presented itself in a way that seemed right to both of us. And so the fantasy remained what it was: a conversation for after the light went out.

***

It was a Tuesday at the end of November.

We had eaten dinner without much ceremony and were sprawled on the bed with the screen propped between the pillows, unable to agree on what to watch. Sofía had her legs crossed over mine and was wearing the oversized gray knit pajamas that hang two sizes too big on her. It was almost two in the morning and we were both in that in-between state, caught between exhaustion and not wanting to sleep yet.

Then we heard it.

At first it was just a background noise, rhythmic, something that could have been anything. Sofía was the first to identify it: she lifted her gaze from the screen and went perfectly still, listening. When our eyes met, we both had to hold back laughter.

The sound was anything but discreet. Her voice came through with a clarity that made you wonder whether, at any point during the move, they had considered that this building’s walls are a joke of architecture. The bed frame’s rhythm was unmistakable: steady, constant, leaving no room for other interpretations. And over the thumping, the neighbor let out a “yes, like that, harder, shove it all the way in” that came through as clearly as if she were saying it into our pillow.

Sofía turned off the screen.

—What do we do? —I asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

She turned toward me slowly. She had that half-smile I know better than my own face. She rested her hand on my chest and slid it slowly downward, over my navel, until it stopped right on the bulge already pressing against my pajama pants. She squeezed, calmly, measuring.

—We listen —she said—. And we do.

***

From the ceiling came another moan, longer than the previous ones, cut off at the end by a “I’m coming, I’m coming” from the neighbor that didn’t quite come yet — it was still warning, still promise. Sofía received it with narrowed eyes. I pulled her toward me, brushed her hair off her neck, and put my lips right there, on that spot that I know changes everything for her. I felt her breathing shift the second I did it, and her thighs tighten instinctively.

—Picture them —I told her in a low voice, my teeth grazing her skin.

—I already am —she replied—. He’s got her against the wall, for sure. With that cock he must have, he’s hammering it into her to the hilt.

I bit her neck without warning when I heard her say that. Sofía doesn’t say much outside the bed, but when she gets warmed up her mouth loosens and there’s no filter left to speak of. I slid my hand under her pajamas, straight to her breasts, and found her nipples already hard. I pinched them, one and then the other, while she arched her back against me and came looking for my mouth.

We kissed hungry, with tongue, with that desperation that hadn’t shown up in weeks. I yanked her shirt up and pulled it over her head. Her breasts were bare, small, with dark areolas and nipples so taut they seemed to be asking for a mouth. I went down and took one in my mouth, then the other, sucking hard, tugging with my lips, leaving saliva marks all around them.

—Keep going, keep going —she whispered, her hand already inside my pants, gripping my cock with the pressure that knows the exact thickness I have by heart.

She ran her hand up and down it slowly, measuring me. I was hard as a rock and she knew it. A thread of precome stuck to her thumb when she brushed her fingertip over the head, and without taking her eyes off me she brought it to her mouth and licked it off.

—Down —I asked her.

—I’m going —she said, smiling—. But don’t rush me, because tonight I want to do it right.

What followed was slow, deliberate, carefully built. There are nights when sex between us has urgency and leaves no time for anything else. That night was different: it had the quality of something that rises patiently, aware of every detail. Sofía was moving almost in parallel with what came from upstairs, as if there were a common tempo neither of us had proposed but both were following.

I pulled her pajama pants down over her hips while she undid mine and shoved them down to my ankles. We stripped each other naked in rough tugs, never taking our eyes off one another. There’s something about that sustained look that always unseats me, in the best way. As if Sofía were reading something I don’t know is written on my face.

—Are you thinking about them? —she asked, her hand already around my cock again.

—Yes —I said. It was true.

I pictured them exactly as we had seen them at the pool: him behind her, her hands braced on the edge of the bed, her ass lifted, and that cock of his sliding in and out of her with a wet sound. It was a fantasy without defined edges, just a presence, a heat, the abstract idea that pleasure could extend beyond the two of us if we let it.

Sofía went down slowly. When she got where she got, she didn’t go straight for it: she circled, waited, took her time. She licked me from the base, slid up over the vein underneath to the tip, then stayed there blowing hot air. It’s her particular way of torturing me and we’ve both known it for years. I put my hand in her hair and said nothing, because saying anything at that moment always ruins something.

Then she opened her mouth all the way and took me in one go, all the way down, until I felt the tip touch the back of her throat. She gagged for a second, swallowed, and kept going. Sofía’s blowjob has its own rhythm: she sucks tight-lipped on the way up, and on the way down she relaxes and uses her tongue to wrap around the whole circumference. Saliva ran from the corners of her mouth down to my balls, and she didn’t wipe it away: she used that wetness to jack me off at the same time with the hand she had free.

—Fuck —I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

From upstairs came a scream that was anything but restrained. It sounded like a real orgasm, a sharp “I’m coming, don’t stop, don’t stop” that stretched on for several seconds. And Sofía, almost without pause, pulled my cock out of her mouth with an obscene pop and let out a sound of her own, half laugh, half moan.

—She’s come —she whispered, looking at me with shiny lips—. Now it’s his turn.

—Now it’s your turn —I replied, and pushed her onto her back.

I spread her legs with both hands, without gentleness, and went straight between them. Sofía has a small pussy, with the inner lips barely showing, and when she’s really turned on she gets slick and open without needing much touching. She was like that. I ran my tongue over her from bottom to top, flat, without going for the clit yet, just testing how wet she was.

She was soaked. I stayed there for a while, eating her out calmly, slipping my tongue inside, pulling it back out, going up to the clit to suck it between my lips and letting it go again before it could get used to it. I slid two fingers in and searched for the spot up top, the one that swells when she’s close, and started curling them toward me without stopping.

Sofía gripped the sheets with both hands and lifted her pelvis against my mouth. She started talking, first softly and then less and less.

—Like that, don’t stop, there, there, eat it all, fuck, Diego, don’t stop…

And I didn’t stop. I sucked her clit with steady pressure, nibbling it softly, while my fingers went in and out of her with a wet sound as scandalous as anything coming from the ceiling. She came with her legs closing around my head and a long cry that made no attempt to keep the volume down.

***

At some point we changed positions. Sofía took out the vibrator she has from the bedside table — one with a curved stimulator that requires some coordination but produces results hard to ignore — and in just a few words asked me for what she wanted. We’ve made that request enough times not to need to spell it out: she got on all fours with the vibrator fitted in front, pressed against her clit, and her back arched in a way that is always hard for me to describe without sounding like I’m exaggerating.

It wasn’t exaggeration. Her ass was up, her legs spread, and her pussy was open and dripping already without anyone touching it. I knelt behind her and dragged the tip of my cock along the whole slit, from top to bottom, wetting myself in her slick before I pushed in.

—Put it in already —she said, teeth clenched—. Don’t play around.

I drove it in with one thrust, all the way. Sofía let out a guttural moan that came from her chest, not her throat. I grabbed her hips with both hands and started moving hard, setting the pace, pulling almost all the way out and slamming back in until her balls were knocking against her clit along with the head of the vibrator.

What was coming from upstairs was already continuous, without pauses, with that quality something has when it’s reaching its highest point. And Sofía, when she lets herself go completely, has no filter. She started talking. At first softly. Then not at all.

—Harder, Diego, fuck me harder, break me apart…

I gave it to her harder. The bed frame creaked and the headboard started hitting the wall in a rhythm that sounded identical to the one from the ceiling. I put my thumb in her mouth and she sucked it like it was another cock, coating it with saliva. I pulled it out and ran it along the rim of her ass, pressing there, not going all the way in, only hinting.

—Diego —she said, her voice broken—. Diegoooo…

My name, with that drawn-out final vowel she only uses when she’s losing control of everything else.

And that was exactly when the upstairs apartment fell silent.

We looked at each other. Sofía turned her head toward me with an expression that mixed surprise with something very close to amusement, never taking my cock out of her.

—They heard us —she said, almost out of breath.

—Yeah —I said.

There was a second of pause. Maybe two. The kind of silence in which you hold your breath without really knowing why. And then, from upstairs, the noise started again. Different. Faster, louder, with a desperation it hadn’t had before. The neighbor’s “yes, yes, yes” had lost any trace of decorum; it sounded like someone being fucked senseless, and the bed frame above us was moving at a pace that shamelessly competed with ours.

Sofía let out a short laugh that cut itself off when I started moving again, deeper, slower, marking each thrust.

—Good —she said—. Let them hear us. Let them find out how you fuck me.

And the two of us stopped keeping our volume down.

I flipped her onto her back, put her legs over my shoulders, and drove into her again all the way. In that position my cock reaches a place in her that drives her crazy; her face goes red and she stops speaking in full sentences, only single words. The vibrator stayed trapped between us, buzzing against her clit with every thrust. I grabbed her tits with one hand, squeezing hard, and with the other I put two fingers in her mouth. She sucked them without thinking.

What followed was different from everything before. Because it was no longer just our fantasy about them: it was the awareness that they had their own fantasy about us, at the same time, on the other side of a few centimeters of concrete. An exchange with no contact, completely absurd and completely electric. Four people in two separate beds, listening to one another, imagining one another, using one another as fuel without having agreed on anything in advance. Every moan from the neighbor made me fuck harder, and every scream from Sofía —I could tell— made the neighbor grit his teeth and slam his cock into his with more fury.

—I’m going to come, Diego, I’m going to come —Sofía said, pressing her thighs against my ribs—. Come with me, come inside me, don’t stop, don’t stop…

Sofía came with the vibrator buzzing between us and my cock buried to the root, and she did not do it quietly. Her whole body shook, her pussy clenched around me in spasms, squeezing, milking me. From upstairs came the neighbor’s cry almost at the same time, long and unapologetic, and a deep roar that could only have been his. And a few seconds later I came too, emptying myself inside her with a series of short, deep thrusts, feeling my orgasm shoot out in spurts and mix with hers.

I stayed on top of her for a few seconds, breathing against her neck, my cock still throbbing inside. When I pulled out, a thread of semen slid down her slit to the sheet. Sofía laughed softly, without opening her eyes.

We lay there for a while without speaking. The ceiling was white and utterly ordinary. Nothing came from upstairs anymore.

—Blessed competition —Sofía finally said, her voice still a little broken.

I laughed. I didn’t know what else to do.

***

The next day we called the elevator at nine in the morning. When the door opened, they were inside.

The time it took for us to recognize one another was about half a second. You don’t have to be very clever to read a situation like that: four adults in a two-square-meter elevator, all four knowing exactly the same thing, with no protocol whatsoever for this specific case.

No one said anything.

We got in. The doors closed.

I saw them both in the mirror at the back: he was looking straight ahead with a half-smile that made no attempt to hide itself. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were fixed on the button panel, even though the elevator was already moving and there was nothing to press. Sofía, at my side, reached for my hand without looking.

On the ground floor, the doors opened. They got out first.

—See you later —he said without turning around, in a completely normal tone that was comical in context.

—See you later —I replied, matching his tone.

When we got to the street, Sofía and I looked at each other at the same time and burst out laughing together. One of those long laughs you’ve been holding in and that come out all at once.

—We should invite them to dinner —I said once I could speak again.

—Yes —she said—. Once we’ve recovered our strength.

We meant it. Or at least I meant it, and I know Sofía well enough to know she did too. The fantasy of Tuesday nights had acquired faces, voices, a context. And also the certainty that, if one day we knocked on their door with a bottle of wine, they weren’t going to shut us out.

What we would do with that was, for the moment, another conversation still waiting to happen.