My Husband Chose the Man Who Would Share Me

We had been married for fourteen years when everything changed. To tell this story I’m going to use names that aren’t ours: I’ll call my husband Daniel, I’ll call him Andrés, and I’ll be Lorena. We have two children and a life that anyone would call normal. Our intimacy had been good, with its ups and downs, like so many marriages. There were times when we sought each other out every night and others when we went weeks without touching.

That’s how the first years went. Then we decided, without quite saying it out loud, that we didn’t want to resign ourselves to that. We started fantasizing. At first it was something shy, almost a game for big children: we imagined other people while we were together. The neighbor from the fourth floor, the guy at the hardware store, someone I had seen that afternoon and found attractive. We changed names, took on those roles, and laughed afterward.

The turn-on grew on its own, without us forcing it. We liked it. You could see it on Daniel’s face, that mix of excitement and vertigo when I whispered in his ear about another man. When we met I was no longer a virgin, and I had told him everything before we married: the few men I had been with, what I liked, how they did it. That information, which for years had been nothing more than a fact from our past, suddenly became fuel.

—How did they fuck you? —he would ask me while he had me under him.

And I’d tell him. The positions, the places, the things they said to me. Hearing it turned him on, and telling him turned me on. It was a circle neither of us wanted to leave.

There’s no going back from this, I thought one of those nights. And I was right.

—Imagine another man fucking you like I’m doing now —he told me once, almost out of breath—. And me watching.

—Yes —I answered, and I was surprised by how much I liked saying it—. Let him fuck me and you watch us.

***

Those talks became routine. It didn’t just happen in bed anymore. We could be in a shopping mall and, if we crossed paths with a man worth noticing, Daniel would point him out with a smile and I’d play along. “That one looks like he’d do it well,” I’d say in his ear, and I could feel his pulse quicken beside me.

All of that unfolded over four years. Four years of raising the stakes little by little. Until one night, when we were done, I asked him what I had never dared ask outright.

—Do you really want another man to fuck me?

He was quiet for a moment, staring at the ceiling.

—Maybe yes —he said—. But with the right man. Not just anybody.

—And you? Would you go for it?

—I would —I said—. But with your permission and with you there. Otherwise, no. Never behind your back.

We made a pact that night, almost like signing a contract. We would look for the right man, together, without rushing. And we set about it, laughing at how absurd and exciting it was at the same time.

***

We started going out more. Bars, casinos, places where you can look and be looked at. I dressed carefully: tight jeans, a short skirt now and then, just enough neckline, never vulgar. There was no shortage of men staring at me, but of course, with my husband beside me, who was going to make a move? We understood that quickly. The fantasy was harder than it seemed in the darkness of our bedroom.

We spent a couple of months like that, without making any progress, until the solution appeared on its own, one Saturday, without us looking for it.

We were getting dressed for a family gathering when Daniel got a call from Andrés, a coworker. He wanted to borrow a tool. Daniel told him to come pick it up and, a little while later, the doorbell rang.

I remember it in detail. Tall, solid build, broad shoulders, chest defined under his T-shirt. We said hello, exchanged four polite sentences, and he left as quickly as he had arrived. But something stuck to me.

—What if it were him? —I blurted out to Daniel the moment he closed the door.

—You’re crazy —he laughed, nervous—. Not him. He’s from work. Anyone but someone from the office.

That was the end of the conversation. But I liked him, and I decided I would do whatever I could to convince Daniel. That same night, in bed, I replaced Daniel’s name with Andrés’s. I knew what was going to happen. He got hotter than ever, fell for the game, asked me to say it again. Over the following weeks I kept wearing down his resistance with patience, until one early morning he gave in.

—All right —he said, looking at me seriously—. Let it be him. But let him come after you. Let it come from him, not from you or me. If he wins you over, it’s because he wants to.

—That —I told him laughing—. Leave that to me.

***

That’s how the strangest stage of my life began. I had to win him over without it looking like I was winning him over. Daniel started inviting him over more often; they both liked chess, and that was the perfect excuse to get together, have a drink, and let the hours drift by. I dressed well, nothing spectacular, just enough to be there without being obvious. A T-shirt that fit where it should, lips barely colored.

After a few weeks, we took one more step. Daniel suggested going to a casino, the three of us, to relax. We started going once a week, and from the very first night my husband kept inventing excuses to wander off: he was going to try another machine, he preferred the tables in the back. He left me alone with Andrés.

And Andrés loosened up. I noticed it in the way he smiled at me, different from before, more open. In how he brushed my hand “accidentally” when he passed me a drink. In the way his gaze lingered a second too long when he thought I wasn’t noticing. Daniel played at a distance and watched us out of the corner of his eye, and knowing he was watching made my skin burn.

We went out like that three times. On the third, I decided it was time to cross the line. I told Andrés the cigarette smoke was making me dizzy, that I needed air, and that if he’d walk me outside.

—Of course —he answered, and stood up right away.

We went out to the parking lot and, without thinking too much about it, headed straight for his car. We got in. He in the driver’s seat, me beside him. I put on some music, more to have something to do with my hands than for any other reason. And then I felt him take my hand and stroke it slowly.

—Lorena —he said, voice low—. I’m crazy about you. These past few weeks I can’t stop thinking about you.

I didn’t answer. I just smiled at him. I was going to say something, I don’t know what, when he leaned over and kissed me. I didn’t resist. I let myself go, and I liked his kisses more than I expected, slow at first and then hungry. At that point there was no turning back: we kissed again and again, and I felt his hands slide up to my breasts. It was a strange and pleasant sensation at once, the touch of new, unfamiliar hands.

I lowered mine to his crotch and felt him over his pants. He was hard, and the very idea of what I was doing, with my husband a few meters away knowing it, made my head spin.

—There are security guards here —he murmured—. Let’s go somewhere else.

He drove to a secluded street, dark and unlit, and turned off the engine. We started again. Kisses, hands everywhere, breath coming in ragged bursts. He undid his pants and pulled his cock out. I stroked him first, slowly, while he told me in my ear how good I was doing it. Then I leaned down and took him into my mouth. All you could hear were his stifled moans and my name being repeated in a low voice.

I took him right up to the edge with my hands and mouth, alternating between them, until he warned me he was about to come. I didn’t stop. I felt him finish, and I thought of Daniel, at the casino, waiting for me, imagining exactly this.

We spent about forty minutes in that car. When we went back, Andrés told me on the way that he wanted me for himself, that he wanted all of me, but discreetly, that no one should find out.

—I want that too —I lied halfway—. And no one will know. We’ll both be discreet.

***

At the casino we met up with Daniel. He was anxious, and not very good at hiding it. Ten minutes later we said goodbye, left Andrés at his car, and went home. All the way there I told him everything: the kisses, his hands, how he had taken me out into the dark street, how I had sucked him until he came. Daniel was burning up, silent, both hands gripping the steering wheel. We got home and he took me as if he wanted to claim what he had just loaned out.

In the following days, Andrés and I started writing to each other in secret. He thought it was our secret; he had no idea that I showed every message to Daniel, and that it turned both of us on. We set a date to see each other for real. Five days later.

When the day came, I got ready as if it were the first time. I shaved, wore new delicate lingerie, made myself up for him. Before leaving I called Daniel, who was at work, just to let him know I was on my way out.

—Enjoy it —he told me—. And come back and tell me everything.

I waited for Andrés in a plaza parking lot. He was already there. I got into his car, we hugged, he kissed me, and told me I looked gorgeous. That day I was completely his for the first time, and I felt fuller than I expected to feel. But that’s another story, one that deserves to be told slowly and separately.

All I’ll say for now is this: we agreed to see each other often, to be regular lovers, to keep it secret. He thought we were hiding it from Daniel. Daniel, meanwhile, knew everything. And over the months that followed, that was our way of staying on fire, the three of us tied to a game none of us wanted to end.