That’s How My First Threesome with the Neighbors Across the Hall Began

We moved into the apartment for my new job. Third city in five years, and this time the building was old, with thin walls and an inner courtyard where everything echoed. In the apartment across from ours lived a retired couple: Elena and Ricardo. Elegant both of them, the kind of people who no longer need to prove anything.

The first night I woke up at three to her moans on the other side of the wall. They weren’t gentle moans. They were the moans of a woman who has spent decades going to bed with the same man and still enjoys it to the fullest.

Laura was asleep. I wasn’t. I imagined her without having seen her yet: the face, the mouth, the legs spread open. I had to get up and go to the bathroom so I wouldn’t wake my wife. I jerked off against the sink staring at the wall that separated us, and I ended up biting my hand so I wouldn’t cry out.

I got back into bed sweaty, and Laura didn’t even move.

In the mornings I left at six. That morning, when I opened the door, I almost ran into Ricardo, who was coming down the stairs in sweatpants. He was in his sixties, tall, with very short gray hair, shoulders that hadn’t given in to age. We greeted each other with a smile and an outstretched hand.

—You’re the new guy —he said.

—Martín. We moved in yesterday.

—Ricardo. Welcome to the henhouse. If you ever need anything, we live across the way.

I carried that hand in my memory for half an hour. It was the hand of someone who knows how to squeeze without hurting.

When I got home that afternoon, I ran into the two of them together in the entrance. Elena was wearing a trench coat and low heels. Her hair moved as if it had a life of its own. We introduced ourselves quickly. She held my gaze a second longer than necessary, and I knew she knew what I had heard that night. Or I imagined it. It didn’t matter.

I went upstairs with a hard cock and found Laura in the kitchen.

—I’ve met the neighbors —I told her.

—And?

—She’s still very much worth looking at. And he has something. I don’t know. He looks like an actor.

—You like her.

—A lot.

—Well, I’d love to see what that man does in bed.

I looked at her. We’d been together seven years and we’d had this conversation before, always in theory, in bars, after a few drinks. It had never gone beyond that.

—Seriously? —I asked.

—Seriously. Wouldn’t you like to see me with him?

I swallowed.

—Yes.

—Then we invite them to dinner. And whatever happens, happens.

***

The next morning Laura rang their doorbell. Elena opened it wearing a loose T-shirt and with wet hair. Laura told her we wanted to invite them to dinner on Saturday, that we’d like to get to know them better. Elena smiled and accepted immediately. Laura came home trembling.

—And how did she leave you? —I asked.

—Like she already knew.

That night we fucked in the kitchen, standing against the counter, and Laura asked me in my ear while I came whether I’d like to have Elena. I told her yes without thinking. And she told me she wanted to see it. That she wanted to see me fuck another woman.

It was the first time we said it out loud.

***

On Saturday we set up a round table for four. Roast chicken with potatoes, salad, lemon tart. Nothing fancy. What was fancy was the tension we all brought in with us from the very first doorbell.

Ricardo sat to Laura’s right. Elena to my left. We arranged ourselves that way naturally, without planning it, as if the building’s walls had done the planning and we were only obeying.

The conversation was normal during the first course. Work, moves, the neighborhood. Ricardo said they’d retired three years earlier and still traveled whenever they could. Elena spoke little and looked a lot. Mostly at me. At Laura sometimes.

When Laura served the tart, she put her left hand on Ricardo’s thigh. No hesitation. No excuse. He set his fork down on his plate and looked at her.

—Are you sure, Laura? —he asked.

—Ask Martín.

I already had my hand under Elena’s skirt. I knew because of how she’d stopped breathing. Her eyes were half closed and her chest rose in long pauses. When she inhaled again, it came out as a short moan she couldn’t hold back.

I brushed her panties through the fabric and they were soaked.

—Can I kiss her? —I asked Ricardo.

—Kiss her.

I kissed her slowly, unhurriedly, as if I’d spent the whole dinner calculating it. Elena wrapped one hand around the back of my neck and with the other found my zipper straight away, without even feeling around.

Laura had bent down over Ricardo. I heard her open his pants and then Ricardo’s harsh groan when she took him into her mouth.

—Fuck, Laura —I heard him say.

—Do you like it?

—A lot.

—Then don’t come yet. I want to sit on top of you.

I watched her strip right there, between the plates and glasses. Elena did the same beside me, letting me pull her bra down with my teeth. Her breasts were whiter than I’d imagined, with dark nipples and that skin women have when they’ve taken care of themselves all their lives.

Elena straddled me. The first thrust came from her as she lowered her weight, and I let out a stupid growl against her neck.

A foot away from us, Laura was sinking onto Ricardo. The two of us moved in parallel, and every so often Elena turned her head to look at her husband. Ricardo looked at her too. I didn’t know what excited me more: Elena moving on top of me or Ricardo’s face watching his wife pinned on another man’s cock.

—Do you like what you’re seeing? —I asked Elena in her ear.

—It’s killing us both.

—Then look closely.

***

We stayed like that for ten, fifteen minutes. Time falls apart when four people are breathing at the same rhythm. At some point Laura leaned forward and reached for Elena’s hand across the table. They squeezed each other. It was the strangest and most intimate gesture of the whole night.

Then Laura had an idea. She got up, carefully dismounted Ricardo, and told him to jerk himself off. That she wanted to watch him come without anyone’s help.

—Without you touching me?

—Without me touching you. Watch us if you want. Or watch her.

Ricardo took his cock in hand and started moving slowly. Elena, on top of me, twisted her torso so she wouldn’t miss it. I saw his jaw trembling, the veins in his neck, that thing that happens to men when they’ve been holding back for too long. He didn’t last. He let out a short, sharp cry, and came on his own hand while looking at his wife pinned on another man’s cock.

Elena let out a moan just from seeing it.

—And you? —she asked me, still riding me—. Are you going to come?

—No. I’m going to fuck my wife. And you too, if you let me.

—I let you.

Ricardo wiped himself with a napkin, dressed without rushing, and went over to Elena. He gave her a long kiss on the mouth, another on the forehead, and whispered something I couldn’t hear. She nodded.

—I’m heading home, guys —Ricardo said—. That’s all I can do today. But Elena’s staying if she wants.

—I’m staying.

The door closed and the three of us were left in the dining room, with the table half cleared and the taste of dry wine in our mouths.

—Let’s go to the bedroom —Laura suggested—. It’s better in bed.

***

The three of us naked on the mattress was something different. Elena sat on the edge and asked us to look at Laura and me while we got started. She told us she’d never been able to watch anyone fucking in front of her. That Ricardo had never allowed it.

Laura understood immediately. She pushed me back into the pillow and climbed on top of me, starting slowly, whispering in my ear as if Elena weren’t there.

—You’d been hard the whole time looking at her tits —she whispered.

—The whole time.

—That’s why I gave him a blowjob first. To see what you’d do with her.

—Good idea.

Elena was masturbating in silence a foot away. She came twice like that, without touching us. The third time, Laura pulled away from me, took her by the hand, and kissed her on the mouth without warning. Elena tasted of wine and smeared lipstick.

—Can I now? —I asked.

—You can.

We swapped without ceremony. I got on top of Elena and Laura stayed beside us, with her hand between Elena’s legs while I fucked her. Elena looked Laura in the eyes and wordlessly asked her not to stop touching her.

—Come inside her —Laura told me.

—Say it again.

—Come inside Elena. I want to see it.

I came. Elena did too, in the same wave. Laura stayed silent, her fingers still between her legs, feeling how Elena tightened and loosened against them.

The three of us lay there, the ceiling far away, our breathing slowly easing. Elena stretched out an arm, found Laura’s hand, and squeezed it.

—Ricardo and I had wanted this for a long time —she said—. We just never dared.

—And now?

—Now we know we do.

—The next dinner is on you —I said from the other side of the bed.

Elena laughed for the first time all night. A laugh from a woman who has just set down a heavy weight.

—The next dinner is on us.