The Getaway Where I Ended Up Between the Three of Them

It had been two years since that afternoon when I turned my brother-in-law’s convalescence into my own little experiment. Two years in which Adrián kept his distance, taking refuge behind the excuse of work, routine, and visits that grew more and more infrequent. Until, a couple of weeks ago, the bomb finally went off: Nuria and he are getting divorced.

Bruno, in his role as protective brother, immediately threw himself into pulling him out of the hole, completely oblivious to the fact that the real reason for that marital shipwreck carried my first name, my last name, and the memory of my mouth burned into his brother’s mind.

Since the news became official, our house turned into his forced refuge. My husband had practically adopted him: improvised dinners, afternoons of football, weekends of games so he wouldn’t sink into the loneliness of his new reality. For Adrián, each one of those visits must have been exquisite torture, having to swallow and pretend everything was normal while sharing the sofa with the woman who had turned his life upside down.

That afternoon we set up cards and beers at home. The atmosphere was thick, not only because of our guest’s obvious discomfort at avoiding my gaze, but because of the leaden sky threatening to come crashing down on the city since midday. We were playing poker at the dining table and Adrián was losing without remedy, unable to focus on his hand every time I leaned over the table to pick up the chips, letting my neckline and my perfume do the rest of the work.

—You’re miles away, man —Bruno scolded him—. Keep this up and I’ll strip you bare before dinner.

—Sorry, my head’s somewhere else —he excused himself, rubbing his eyes with those long, firm hands I liked so much.

—It’s normal, Adrián. You’re going through a rough patch —I chimed in with my sweetest tone, secretly savoring the irony of my own words.

Just as I was about to deal the next round, a shrill beep startled the three of us. The phones, resting on the table, began to vibrate and emit an almost deafening alarm, lighting up the screens with an emergency warning.

—Red alert —I read aloud—. Torrential rain and extreme risk of flooding. They’re asking people not to leave home or take the car under any circumstances.

Bruno looked out the window. As if the alert had been a direct order to the clouds, the first drops began to batter the glass with unusual violence, turning the street into an almost opaque gray blur. He turned to his brother with a resolute expression.

—You’re not going anywhere —he declared—. I’ll get the guest bed ready right now. You’re not leaving this house until tomorrow.

The guest room. The same room where, two years earlier, I had driven him to the edge with my mouth only to leave him hanging. Adrián nodded slowly, swallowing hard, and I just stacked the cards on the green felt, convinced that his biggest problem that night was going to be insomnia.

***

While I cleared the glasses in the kitchen, I let my mind drift to the getaway that had started it all, the one neither brother knew in full. The one Bruno kept in a hidden folder on his computer, believing it was our secret alone.

It had been his idea. My husband had always had that streak, that barely admitted desire to see me with other men, to watch. One night, after a couple of drinks, he laid it out bluntly: he had two friends from the gym, Iván and Marco, young, just turned twenty-five, and he wanted to organize a weekend in a cabin in the middle of the mountains. Just the four of us. No signal, no neighbors, no one to interrupt.

—And what exactly are the four of us supposed to do locked up there? —I asked him, though I already knew the answer from the glint in his eyes.

—Whatever you want —he replied, sliding a hand along my thigh—. I just want to see you enjoy yourself. And you want me to watch.

I didn’t need anything else. I said yes before he finished the sentence.

***

The cabin smelled of firewood and forest damp. Iván and Marco arrived at dusk, nervous, laughing too loudly at everything, throwing furtive glances my way when they thought I wasn’t noticing. Bruno introduced them with a complicit smile and, before the first bottle of wine was finished, I knew that night wasn’t going to end with me being the same person I had been going in.

I had dressed for the occasion: a short black dress, nothing underneath. They knew it the second I crossed my legs in front of the fireplace and the two young men fell silent halfway through a sentence. Bruno sat apart, in the armchair, a glass in his hand and the expression of someone who had set the stage and was just waiting for the show to begin.

I was the one who made the first move. I stood up, walked over to Marco, the shyer of the two, and took the glass from his hand. I ran one finger along his jaw, slowly, feeling him swallow hard.

—I don’t bite —I whispered in his ear—. Unless you ask me to.

I kissed him in front of everyone. Marco answered with clumsy hunger, held back for hours, while Iván came up behind me and placed his hands on my hips with a confidence the first one didn’t have. I closed my eyes and let them handle me, trapped between two young bodies that smelled of desire, feeling the dress ride up my thighs.

From the armchair, Bruno didn’t say a word. He just watched. And knowing he was watching made everything burn twice as hot.

I knelt on the rug, in front of the fireplace, and had them take positions on either side of me. Having them like that, both of them for me, was a feeling of power I had rarely experienced. Iván tangled his fingers in my hair, setting a slow rhythm; Marco, on the other hand, let me lead, trembling every time my tongue swept over him. I moved from one to the other without hurry, alternating, prolonging the tension, listening to both of their breathing grow heavier.

—Fuck —Iván muttered, voice breaking—. I can’t take it anymore.

—Yes, you can —I told him, deliberately stopping—. You’re going to hold out as long as I say.

I lifted my eyes to Bruno. My husband had leaned forward in the armchair, his glass forgotten on the table and his knuckles white on the armrest. I held his gaze while I kept my mouth busy, and I understood that this, more than anything else, was for him. For both of them.

Marco was the first to give in, with a rough groan he tried and failed to smother. Iván held out a little longer, until resisting no longer made any sense. I remained kneeling between the two of them, catching my breath, my heart racing and a smile I didn’t bother to hide.

That night Bruno took dozens of photos. I allowed it. I knew exactly what he wanted them for, and I knew that one day those images would be worth far more than any of the three of us could imagine.

***

In the middle of the night I woke to the sound of water pounding hard against the window glass, or at least that’s what I thought in the first seconds of consciousness. It took me a couple of blinks to realize the real reason for my waking wasn’t coming from the street, but from the hallway.

They were voices. Whispers charged with electric hostility.

I stayed still beneath the duvet, straining to hear in the darkness. I recognized Bruno’s tone instantly, deep and sharp, lowered to a furious hiss so as not to make noise. Adrián answered him, with a hurried, almost defensive stammer. I tried to isolate a single sentence that would make sense of the argument, but the storm drowned out the consonants and they were taking great care not to raise their voices.

I heard quick footsteps, the rustle of something moving abruptly and, a couple of minutes later, the soft click of our bedroom door handle.

My husband came in in the dark. He didn’t switch on the light, but the faint glow slipping through the blinds was enough for me to make out his silhouette. He got into bed slowly, though the way he dropped onto the mattress betrayed his state. He was stiff as a board, radiating an anger you could almost touch.

—Hey… —I whispered, reaching for his arm under the sheets—. What’s going on? What were those voices?

He let out a broken sigh, rubbing his face with pure frustration.

—Nothing. Go to sleep, okay?

—But I heard him. Are you arguing? Did something happen?

—We’ll talk tomorrow —he cut me off sharply, in an inflexible tone that left no room for argument—. Now try to rest, please.

He rolled over, turning his back to me, and silence fell. A heavy silence, broken only by the relentless drumming of the rain. I lay staring at the ceiling, my pulse slightly quickened, wondering what the hell could have happened in the guest room to unleash such a storm between the two brothers.

It was hell trying to fall asleep again. I watched every damn hour go by on the red digits of the alarm clock: three, four, five. I only surrendered to exhaustion when the clock struck six.

***

At eight, a sharp unease forced me awake. It was our day off and there was no need to get up early, but the tension hung in the air in an almost suffocating way. Bruno wasn’t beside me.

I went out into the hallway. The guest-room door was wide open; the bed perfectly made, with no sign of my brother-in-law. I headed to the kitchen, guided by the sound of the Italian coffee maker. My husband was standing with his back to me, leaning against the counter, staring blankly at the hob. He looked terrible, with dark circles under his eyes and his jaw clenched.

—Did he leave? —I asked from the doorway, crossing my arms to protect myself from the morning chill.

He turned slowly, running a hand over his face in sheer exhaustion.

—Yeah. He left first thing, as soon as it eased up a bit. I told him I didn’t want to see his face this morning.

—But how could you tell him to leave? The red alert was still in effect! —I exclaimed, coming closer with a frown—. What happened last night for you two to get like this?

—I caught him, Lorena —he replied in a hoarse voice, pinning his eyes on mine.

—Caught him doing what?

—It was almost three. I heard a weird noise coming from his room. I thought he might’ve gotten dizzy or needed something, so I went in without knocking.

—Bruno, you’re scaring me —I lied, feeling a spark of absolute arousal ignite in the pit of my stomach.

—He was sitting in front of the computer. In the dark, lit only by the glow of the monitor. He was jerking off —he spat, with a mix of disgust and disbelief—. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is what he was looking at.

My brain was racing a mile a minute.

—What was he looking at?

—He’d dug through my hidden folders. And he found the photos from the cabin getaway.

Bruno swallowed hard, unable to hold my gaze, his face twisted by the image burned into his retina.

—He had the photos from that weekend full screen. The ones of the two guys I took there by surprise. He was looking at you on your knees between the three of them.

The level of his obsession was fascinating. Adrián already knew perfectly well what those galleries contained, because I had shown them to him myself a couple of years earlier in that very same office, but Bruno was unaware of that. And this was the exact moment to play my part.

I let my arms fall, pretending I was short of breath. I took a step back and leaned against the edge of the counter, looking at him wide-eyed, as if I were processing a devastating blow.

—Tell me that’s not true… —I murmured, my voice trembling, injecting pure disappointment and vulnerability into every word—. He invaded my privacy. He dug through your things to masturbate while watching me like that, in our own house. How could he do something like that to us?

—I know, I’m so sorry. Forgive me… —he apologized at once, closing the distance to wrap me in a protective hug, full of guilt for not having secured his files better.

—It disgusts me to even think about it. I don’t want to see him here again. I feel dirty —I whispered against his chest, hiding my face.

And there, resting my chin on my husband’s shoulder while he stroked my hair to comfort me, I drew an invisible smile. How predictable Adrián was. And how scandalously easy it was going to be for me to play this new hand, now that I had the perfect excuse and both brothers exactly where I wanted them.