That Dawn in Mila’s Room, There Were Three of Us

Mila made smoke rings with her cigarette, and the streetlamps at three in the morning tinted them a thick orange. At that color, she smiled with her little mouth and swung her feet over the edge of the bench. She took another drag and turned to look at her friends. In the early hours, everything takes on a different tone. Nadia’s neck grew more graceful in the shadows and her brown skin seemed like ancient metal; when she smiled, her teeth shone with a white impossible to find at that hour anywhere else. Renata, beside her, looked simply beautiful: her hair had settled as the day went on, and the lower lip, which by day had something fierce about it, at night was merely sensual. And then there was Tristán; his long, loose hair had something of a dethroned prince about it, and the darkness traced the muscles in arms that, in the sun, seemed thinner than strong.

They hadn’t been drinking. Well, not too much. And well, Mila and Nadia had smoked weed in secret in the bar bathroom, so everything was hitting them a little more slowly than the rest. But that wasn’t what made them happy and beautiful. Maybe it was what we called among ourselves “the moment”: that exact point when one realized one was young and that real life, the one that came after, would be much grayer and less grateful than that bench and that orange smoke.

And Mila couldn’t have known it, but a good part of the night’s charm was precisely her. Her short black hair fell in a little fringe over eyes that the light makeup only sharpened further. She wore a worn black jacket and fishnet stockings over almost men’s shoes. And, ah, the way she smoked! Everything about her seemed to be part of the atmosphere. Cold gusts of wind shook the trees and some violet flowers fell onto her friends’ heads. Mila always kept the flowers that fell on her, and she even got excited arranging them in Nadia’s and Tristán’s hair, so the three of them would look like playful nymphs. Renata was rougher, but Mila’s affectionate fingers almost always managed to calm her and she’d let herself be handled.

Far away, the irredeemably drunken voice of a plaza troubadour, some guy named Joaquín, sang over the rough strumming of a guitar something about a legend blowing through the leaves and a violin sobbing in the soul. Then Tristán hurried to grab his own guitar to see if he could work out the drunk’s song by ear alone, and sing it to Mila. Something in her told her that Tristán’s effort was looking for her, and she focused her hyperactive eyes on him as much as she could. Meanwhile, Nadia and Renata took advantage of Mila’s distraction to look at her. Yes. Much of that night’s charm belonged to her. And the thing is, her friends were hopelessly in love with her. With more or less eroticism, depending on the moment and each one’s openness, but they loved her.

Tristán was only just managing to pull out the melody when Mila decided she wanted a photo with her girlfriends.

—Pleease, Tris. Here —she said, handing him a phone that by that hour was almost useless.

Mila wrapped one arm around each of her friends. Tristán watched through the screen as the three girls’ cheeks pressed together and took the first photo. He noticed Nadia and Renata turning slightly to kiss Mila’s cheeks, and took the second.

—Now with Tris —Mila said.

Renata took the phone and Tristán took her place. Again, the pressure of Mila’s arm drew him close to her face. He felt Nadia’s lips land on his friend’s cheek.

—Don’t you have the slightest interest in symmetry? Kiss me! —Mila told Tristán, mussing his hair.

He let out a little laugh, trying to hide that he was melting, and kissed her on the cheek.

Once again the icy wind moved the branches, but there were no flowers left to fall. Mila tucked her arms into her jacket and rubbed her hands together.

—Can we stay with you? —asked Nadia, speaking for herself and for Renata.

—Yeah, like always! —said Mila, pretending she was sick of being asked that question. Deep down, she liked it.

Nadia tried to kiss her friend’s cheek in a gesture of gratitude. Distracted, Mila turned to look at her just before, and Nadia, by accident, kissed her on the lips. They pulled apart almost automatically. After a moment, they both laughed, with a mix of awkwardness and complicity. After another moment, they kissed again. Nadia was taller, more decisive and stronger-featured, so to Mila the kiss had something chivalrous about it. She rested the back of her hand against Nadia’s cheek to feel her firm, smooth skin, and didn’t pull it away until, a couple of minutes later, they stopped kissing.

When they opened their eyes, they noticed that Renata and Tristán were looking away, trying to see anything else so as to give them something like privacy. If they hadn’t been bewitched by how beautiful the kiss was, they might even have preferred to get ahead of things and leave them alone.

—This doesn’t get told —said Nadia, when they started walking to Mila’s house.

By then, the last bars had already closed and the night owls were starting to disappear, leaving the streets empty except for the shadows of some harmless drifter. Several times already the friends had been in Mila’s small room—not always all of them, not always together—but the streets deceived them: it always seemed like there was a little more missing than the last time. The cold was biting harder and the night’s dampness had begun to settle over Tristán’s hairy arms.

When Mila opened the door, the room welcomed them with the warmth of a home. She had forgotten to turn off the light before leaving and the smell of breakfast still hadn’t quite gone away. The place was almost entirely taken up by a huge mirror, in front of which she practiced her dances, by a big bed, and by two or three dressers full of keepsakes, like in an old grandmother’s house. Hanging from one shelf were an old fan and a rusted key; but that had been there for much longer, and at the time neither Tristán nor Renata knew what they meant.

Before getting there, Mila had promised them coffee to warm them up, but nobody remembered that. They fell onto the bed as soon as they could take off the most cumbersome of their clothes. Tristán took nothing off. For a second, which seemed like an eternity to them all, Mila took off her jacket and was left in a little lilac camisole that made her chest stand out. Then she put on a pink sweater and went into the bathroom to rinse her mouth and take off her bra. When she came back to talk to them about going out to eat in the morning, they all savored the mint smell her words carried, and hurried, embarrassed, to take turns getting the tobacco smell out of their mouths.

Nothing else happened: they turned off the light and lay down. There was enough space to sleep without touching, but the cold was a good excuse. Renata lay at the far left; Mila curled up against her, and Nadia curled up against Mila. Only Tristán, on the far right, slept with his back to them. It was the first time he’d stayed with the girls and he didn’t exactly know how it had happened.

Nadia heard Renata snore almost immediately.

—Tris? —she asked, and got no answer—. Mila?

—What’s wrong? —said her friend and hostess’s voice.

—Nothing. It’s cold —Nadia replied, hugging her with her arm.

—Yeah. It’s cold —said Mila, and Nadia felt that she was smiling.

Mila shifted, arching her back as if stretching to start the day. Her ass ended up, almost by chance, on Nadia’s legs. Nadia bent her knees to adjust herself to her friend’s body; she also began rubbing the sweater on her forearm to warm her up.

Nadia didn’t know how far she could—or wanted to—go. Renata’s snores cut her thoughts short. What if she just asked Mila? With all the subtlety she had, her arm settled over her friend’s waist.

—Hey… —she began.

—Shh —Mila interrupted her—. You’re going to wake Tristán.

Nadia didn’t know how to take that. Were they thinking the same thing? She found the hem of Mila’s sweater and slipped under it for a moment to feel the skin of her waist. Mila’s hand groped blindly until it found Nadia’s face and tried to caress it, just like when they had kissed. Nadia smiled and began stroking her friend’s waist, as if she wanted to warm her with little rubs; with just that, Mila’s breathing began to change.

Little by little, Nadia gained ground on the sweater, until she reached Mila’s tender navel, and started circling it with her fingertips. Meanwhile, she silently kissed her friend’s shoulder, over the duvet. They stayed like that for a long time, because Nadia needed to gauge her boldness. The diameter of the circles kept growing and was already passing over the diaphragm. When she brushed the middle area of the ribs, her fingertips felt Mila holding her breath. And at last it happened. Her nails grazed the lower line of Mila’s breasts, and Mila drew in air and shivered. Nadia abandoned the navel circles and chose the right breast, the one closest at hand. She traced the whole lower contour with her fingers, feeling the skin rise in goosebumps, but no longer from cold.

Very slowly, Nadia moved on to the rest of the breast, playing at barely squeezing it and gently stroking the areola. There Mila began to moan. Or not exactly moan. Have you ever been with someone who, at that little pleasure of being touched, starts to purr, to breathe like a balloon leaking air without anyone noticing? Well, that’s how she began to moan.

But Mila was beautiful, and beautiful people feel a little vulnerable when another person, whom they also like, gives them a quiet, discreet pleasure. So she teased her:

—You like them already, don’t you?… Renata’s the one with the best breasts. Don’t you want to wake her up instead?

—You’re such an idiot! —Nadia exclaimed, with a tender sigh.

Finally Mila turned to look at her and they kissed. They crossed their legs and started rubbing against each other. The noise and discomfort stopped them almost at once. As discreetly as they could, they unbuttoned their pants, pushed them down with their legs, and stayed in their underwear. Now they did wrap their thighs around each other and, almost by instinct, one hand moved to the other’s waist. Then they began making little affectionate circles over each other’s buttocks and legs.

Mila was the one who decided to move to the next level. She wanted to see how Nadia was doing. First she stopped what she was doing and placed three fingers over her friend’s pubis, above the underwear. There, feeling how the hair tangled beneath the fabric, she wanted to ask if she could touch her. Nadia understood and nodded desperately.

Mila began by stroking that hair, feeling its texture, tangling it a little between her fingers. Then she noticed that Nadia’s wetness had left a delicate dew on the inner side of her thighs. After that she began recognizing the differences in texture: the outermost part of the pubis, firm and cool; the outer lips, soft, heavy with moisture like a sponge, and at last the grand prize, the cause of everything, that deep, pliant, waterproof flesh, like a fish in a river current. Three fingers on the vulva, slowly, tenderly. That’s how her college friends had taught her a couple of years earlier. Nadia’s eyes closed tightly.

Then Mila did something nobody had taught her. She took the hand with which she had been fingering Nadia and brought it to her own sex. Nadia, confused because her friend had stopped touching her, suddenly realized that it was Mila she was fingering. Immediately, Mila returned that same hand to Nadia’s sex.

—Now we’re joined —she told her.

Nadia couldn’t take it anymore and kissed her on the mouth, brutally. They propped themselves up on their knees and began fingering each other. When one got tired, the other would get on top and do it harder. Nadia lost her blouse when Mila decided she wanted to see her breasts, small, dark, and firm; she was embarrassed, but her friend calmed her by touching them slowly and playing at kissing them.

At some point, when Nadia was on top, she wanted to know what Mila’s sex felt like beneath hers. She took one of her legs and laid it over her shoulder, looking to bring their sex together. The friction wasn’t as much as she would have wanted, but Nadia was incredibly turned on by feeling Mila underneath her, knowing that she was having sex with her. In that way, she was almost about to come when Mila told her:

—Oh, Nadia! You woke Tristán up already!

Terrified, Nadia stopped dead, climbed off Mila, and curled up in the place where she was supposed to be sleeping. But after a few seconds, she thought she had no idea why Mila had said that. Tristán was still the inanimate lump he had been all night, and not a sound came from his stillness. However, Mila switched places with Nadia and moved closer to him. She hugged him the way Nadia had hugged her, and began to caress him. Suddenly Nadia understood that she was masturbating him, and that filled her with filthy excitement.

If Tristán truly wasn’t awake, then at least now he was. Mila pulled down his pants until Nadia could see, in the dim light, his member. The glans was throbbing, trapped in Mila’s hand.

—He’s about to burst. He’s been listening to us —Mila told Nadia.

—That’s not true —said Tristán. From the tone of his voice, Nadia knew he was lying.

Mila seemed to be enjoying herself. She gave little taps on the tip of the glans, playing with the moisture coming out of it, and rubbed the most sensitive strip beneath it. Then she lay down over one of Tristán’s legs and, while she masturbated him a few inches from his face, she smiled at him with almost innocent tenderness. Does she want to turn him on, or are we really being innocent friends while having sex?, Nadia wondered. Suddenly she realized that Tristán was looking at her breasts. Her first instinct was to cover them, but seeing those tender eyes more clearly, she felt flattered and smiled at him.

—Do you want to kiss me? —she asked him.

Tristán said yes, and Nadia kissed him, first on the cheek, then at the corner of his mouth, and finally on the lips. He was almost about to come when Mila kissed the shaft of his member. But no. At that moment she stopped and started talking.

—Have you sucked one yet? —she asked Nadia.

—No! —she exclaimed, with a certain disgust.

—Then you’re going to have to put it in you —Mila laughed.

—That I can do. Better that —Nadia clarified.

Nadia was lying on her side. Mila lifted one of her legs up, opening the way a little toward her vulva. That way, from the side, Tristán entered. Nadia was pretty well lubricated and he needed nothing more than his own size. Halfway in, she put a hand on his chest, asking him to stop. Using that depth as the maximum point, Tristán pulled out and entered again, little by little. Nadia was stunned: from the outside it didn’t seem like he was going so much deeper than her. It must have been the position Mila had chosen. And yes: in the darkness she managed to see that her friend, who was still holding her leg, was smiling at the success of the position she’d set up for her. Realizing that, Nadia relaxed a lot, and her little pain began to turn into considerable pleasure. With her breathing, she signaled to Tristán to keep going, that little by little he could hold more.

Tristán was vigorous and precise. When he finally thrust all the way into her, he began picking up speed without haste. He looked Nadia in the eyes and she felt as though her friend felt honored to be with her, or “in” her. And Mila? Doing a kind of contortion, since she was still holding Nadia’s leg, she began to gently touch Nadia’s clit. The walls of her sex tightened, but Tristán didn’t slow down. He wasn’t going to let that tightness reject him. A moment before surrendering to the most irrational pleasure, Nadia wondered if this would be the best sex of her life.

The most athletic part lasted only about ten minutes. Tristán picked up speed and never slowed again. He came at her with all his weight on Nadia’s legs. At some point, Mila let go of her leg and the position fell apart. Tristán ended up missionary over her and at last could see her breasts. They were small and firm, and he bent down to kiss them tenderly. Meanwhile, he took hold of her ass so as not to lose the rhythm. His big hands began to govern the thrusts. Nadia had lost control of her own movements and that, in a very strange way, made her enjoy herself, abandoning herself to her friend’s strength. Beside them, Mila was masturbating herself, and the fruity smell of her wet skin, mixed with the acidity of her sex, was flooding the room.

At one point, Mila, who was still fingering herself, sat up on her knees, put a hand on Tristán’s chest, and kissed him. At that instant the tension gathered in Nadia’s legs, which she accidentally scratched against his ass. She felt herself melting; the walls of her sex clenched suddenly, three times, around Tristán’s member. Without meaning to, her eyes went wide open—the thing that would later embarrass her a lot—and her back convulsed for a moment before falling heavy and loud against the mattress. She was done.

But Tristán didn’t stop. While he kept kissing Mila, he gave Nadia even harder thrusts… and it’s not that she minded, but they were no longer on the same plane.

—Leave her, leave her. She’s going to fall asleep. Come with me —Mila told Tristán.

Sure enough, Nadia fell asleep almost immediately. In her dreams, she thought she could see Mila riding Tristán. He sat upright, bracing himself with his fists behind him against the mattress. Meanwhile, she wrapped him tightly around the neck, kissed him deeply, and bounced in and out of his member, making the whole bed bounce. Then, curtain down. Total black.

***

The next day, Mila finally made coffee. The roasted smell filled the room with cozy warmth and woke the others. Renata took her cup with both hands, blew close to it so the hot steam would hit her face, and exclaimed:

—God, I was so tired! And your bed is so good to sleep in!

Sensing a double meaning in that last line, the three friends laughed. Renata put on that annoyed face people always make when the joke is on them, and added with a groan:

—Don’t make fun of me! I just dreamed that the four of us were having sex.

Tristán and Nadia froze, not knowing what to say. Lucky for them, Renata was watching Mila’s reaction, and Mila laughed and said:

—Well, Renata, sweetie, you and I already slept together once.

—Shut up! —Renata scolded her—. You don’t say things like that.

Outside, the bread baskets were beginning their morning rounds and the pigeons were reclaiming the church roofs.