The Club Where My Wife Stopped Being Only Mine

The night in Valencia had a texture unlike any other. The amber lights of the streetlamps reflected off the pavement still damp from the afternoon rain, and the air smelled of salt from the nearby port. We walked hand in hand through the narrow streets of the old quarter, unhurried, letting the tension grow between us like a rope someone was slowly tightening.

My wife, Renata, knew how to play with my desire better than anyone. That night she had chosen a wine-colored dress that clung to her body with an almost insolent naturalness. Every step she took drew a new line: the sway of her hips, the curve of her back, the neckline that hinted without fully revealing. I knew something the rest of the street ignored.

—Are you nervous? —she asked me, without looking at me, with that half smile I knew by heart.

—A little —I admitted—. Aren’t you?

—I’ve been ready since we left the house.

And she meant it. Under the dress she wore a black lace set, sheer, leaving little to the imagination. She had chosen it herself that afternoon, in front of the mirror, while I watched her from the bed without daring to interrupt the ritual.

The place was at the end of an unmarked alley, behind a dark-painted iron door with nothing but a discreet doorbell. We rang it. A peephole opened, then closed, and the lock yielded. A middle-aged woman welcomed us, took the cover charge without asking questions, and pointed us toward the cloakroom with a gesture.

Inside, the atmosphere was thick. It smelled of leather, sweet perfume, and that indefinable thing desire has when it floats through the air of a closed room. The lights were low, reddish, casting shifting shadows on the walls. Murmurs could be heard, restrained laughter, some breathless panting coming from the private rooms in the back.

—Let’s get a drink first —I suggested, more to give myself a minute than because I was thirsty.

Renata agreed, but barely touched the wine. Her eyes swept over the place with a curiosity I had never seen in her, sizing people up, measuring the atmosphere, deciding how far she wanted to go.

***

After the drink, she took my hand and led me toward a side corridor. It was narrow and almost dark, with several doors on either side. Behind one of them was a small booth, with padded walls, a low bench, and little else. We went in and I slid the bolt shut.

We kissed as soon as the door closed. Her lips were soft and urgent at once, with the taste of wine still on them. My hands climbed her waist, dragging the fabric of the dress until I felt the lace and the warm skin beneath. She gasped against my mouth, a low sound that ran all the way down my back.

—I want to try something —she murmured, barely pulling away—. Trust me.

Before I could answer, she knocked softly on the wall. Then I understood what kind of place this was: one of the walls had a discreet opening, and on the other side there was someone. A hand appeared first, hesitating. Renata looked at it, smiled, and guided it herself to her thigh.

I watched her go slowly mad. Those unfamiliar fingers climbed her leg, explored the edge of the lace, lingered where she wanted them to. Her breathing turned into a broken thread. She rested her forehead on my shoulder, clutching my shirt, while she let that anonymous caress light her up.

—Someone is touching me —she whispered in my ear, her voice trembling— and I like it too much.

I didn’t answer. I brushed her hair away from her face so I could see her better, so I wouldn’t miss a single expression. Her legs opened a little wider, her hips began to seek the rhythm of that hand. In a matter of minutes, her whole body tightened like a rope and then snapped open all at once.

—God… —she panted against my neck—. I came.

I felt intoxicated. Not with jealousy, as I had feared at first, but with a strange, hot pride. Seeing her enjoy herself like that, without reservation, was the most arousing thing I had ever witnessed.

***

We came out of the booth with our pulses racing. The wine-colored dress clung to her body, her cheeks were burning, and the smile she wore was anything but innocent. She walked ahead of me down the corridor, and I followed her like someone following a person who had suddenly become unfamiliar and fascinating.

The heart of the club was a larger room, with dark leather sofas scattered in the half-light and a screen at the back projecting images no one was watching. There the shadows moved in their own choreography. Some couples, some alone, all attentive to what was happening around them.

Renata chose a wide sofa in a corner and let herself sink onto it. She looked at me, patted the leather beside her, and then, without saying a word, slid down until she was kneeling on the carpeted floor, with that deliberate grace she used when she knew she was being watched.

And she was being watched. The dim light from the screen stroked her golden skin and brought out the shine on her forehead, her shoulders, the chest rising and falling with every deep breath. She ran her hands over her thighs slowly, as if she wanted to prolong the sensation of what she had just experienced in the booth.

We were not alone for long. One by one, several men began to approach, drawn to her like a magnet. They settled around the sofa, forming a silent semicircle in which she was, beyond any doubt, the absolute center.

—Are you sure? —Renata asked me, lifting her gaze to mine, seeking my permission one last time.

—I just want to see you enjoy yourself —I answered, and it was true.

The first one approached cautiously, almost respectfully, as if he still couldn’t believe his luck. She greeted him with a wicked smile and slid her hands over his hips, setting the rhythm herself, deciding how and when. Another took her by the waist from the side, drawing her toward him, and Renata gasped without taking her eyes off me, only me, as if all of it were, at the end of the day, a gift she was giving me.

***

Watching her like that, surrendered and in control at the same time, was a beautiful contradiction. She received the caresses of those strangers with a mixture of sweetness and hunger, but she never lost control. If she wanted to stop something, a gesture was enough. If she wanted more, she asked without words. Her body moved among them with a freedom I had never known in her, leaning, offering itself, pulling back only to come forward again.

I remained seated on the edge of the sofa, not touching anyone, not needing to. My pleasure was entirely in watching her. In the way she closed her eyes when a caress landed in exactly the right place. In the deep sound that escaped her throat. In how, every few seconds, she would open her eyes and pin them on mine to make sure I was still there, that she still belonged to me.

The black lace no longer covered almost anything, stuck to her damp skin. The shadows of the bodies surrounding her blended with hers in the dim light until they became a single mass of breaths and movement. The entire room seemed to hold its breath in time with hers.

—Look at me —she asked in a hoarse whisper, in the middle of everything—. Don’t stop looking at me.

—I couldn’t even if I wanted to —I answered.

The end came like a wave that rises slowly and then crashes all at once. Renata’s body tightened, her back arched, and a long, broken moan slipped from her lips as she clung to my hand like an anchor. She trembled once more, deeply, and then let herself fall back, toward me, exhausted and radiant.

The strangers withdrew in silence, like shadows returning to their place, giving her back to me. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against my chest. Her breathing was ragged, her skin shining, and she wore a smile of pure ecstasy that wouldn’t fade.

***

I brushed the hair stuck to her forehead aside and dried the sweat from her temples with my fingers. Her eyes, still blurred with pleasure, slowly focused on mine.

—Are you all right? —I asked her.

—I’m more than all right —she murmured—. Thank you for trusting me.

—You’re incredible —I told her, and I truly meant it.

She smiled, rested her head on my shoulder, and let out a deep sigh, the kind that only comes when the body is completely sated. We stayed like that for a long while, in silence, while the room kept pulsing around us with lives other than our own.

We gathered her things, I helped her settle the dress, and we left through the same iron door we had entered by. The street welcomed us with its fresh pre-dawn air and the distant murmur of the sea. We walked hand in hand again, in silence, but it was a different silence from the one on arrival: thicker, more complicit, full of everything that had just happened.

—Would we do it again? —she finally asked, glancing at me from the corner of her eye.

I stopped, kissed her slowly in the middle of the empty street, and against her lips I gave her the only answer I could give.

—Whenever you want.

Valencia had wrapped us in its night, and neither of us had the slightest intention of waking up yet.