The New Year’s Eve We Were Three in Bed

Elena has a habit I discovered the first winter we lived together: when something turns her on, she can’t keep quiet about it. She sits on the edge of the bed, lets down her hair, and starts to tell me. Sometimes it takes her half an hour to get to the detail that really matters, but she always gets there. And I, who am thirteen years older than her and thought I’d seen it all, learned that the best part of our relationship didn’t happen in bed, but in what she told me before getting into it.

That night she came back late from a work dinner. I heard her leave the keys, her heels, and I knew from the rhythm of her steps that she was carrying something inside.

—You’re not going to believe what happened with Marcelo —she said, dropping down beside me still wearing her coat.

Marcelo was a new partner at her firm. Older than her, calm, one of those men who speak little and look a lot. For weeks he had been showing up in her stories the way weather appears in a conversation: in the background, until one day it takes up the whole page.

—Tell me —I said, and switched off the bedside lamp so only the hallway light remained.

—He picked the place. A table in the back, almost in the dark. I had hesitated a lot about what to wear, you know? I tried on three outfits before I left.

—And which one won?

—The gray boat-neck sweater. Nothing underneath.

Of course I knew which one. It was the one that left her shoulders bare, the one that clung to her chest when she breathed deeply. The one she wore when she didn’t want to leave anything to the imagination and, at the same time, wanted to pretend she hadn’t thought about it.

—It wasn’t innocent —she admitted, reading my face—. I took it out of the closet ten times and put it back in ten times. When I got there, he stood up to greet me and went speechless. Two kisses, and he was speechless, Diego. I swear he looked at me as if he could see my skin through the wool.

While she talked, she began undoing her coat, slowly, without realizing it. I didn’t interrupt her. I had learned that interrupting her was like cutting the current.

***

—We talked about nonsense for a long while —she went on—. About the firm, a difficult client, an awful painting he has on the wall. Detours. We both knew we were taking detours. Until he asked me about us.

—About us?

—About you and me. About the age difference. I told him the truth, that I like men who already know who they are. That a guy my age takes you to bed the way someone answers an exam, desperate to finish. And that you lot... you lot know how to wait.

She undid the last button. Underneath, indeed, the gray sweater. The hallway light traced the contour of her breasts and the shadow of the nipples hardened by the cold outside, or by what she was telling me.

—I told him you knew —she added more softly—. That I hide nothing from you. That you let me do what I want and then I tell you everything.

—And how did he take that?

—He was speechless. His eyes were shining. I think he had never had a woman in front of him tell him, like that, without asking forgiveness, that her husband waits up for her so she can tell him. He liked it. It scared him and he liked it, both at once.

She rested a hand on my chest. It was warm.

—When I got up to find the bathroom, he followed me with his eyes until I crossed the whole room. And when I came back, instead of sitting across from him, I sat down beside him. Right up against him. Nothing more was needed.

—Don’t leave me hanging.

—He put his hand on my knee above the table. Casually. And he started moving it up. Slowly, Diego, very slowly, looking me in the eye the whole time to see how far I’d let him go. I opened my legs a little. Just a little. Enough.

I felt her breathing change as she said it. It wasn’t acting. She was reliving it.

—He got to the edge of my thigh and stopped there. Still. Waiting for me to say enough, or for me to say go on. I said neither. I just held his gaze. And then he smiled, took his hand back, and asked for the check.

—Did he leave?

—He took me home. In the car he didn’t touch me. He parked down there, at the door, and told me he wasn’t the kind of man who takes advantage of one drink too many. That when it happened, if it happened, he wanted me to be sure. And then we’d sort it out the three of us.

I propped myself up on one elbow.

—The three of us?

—That’s what he said. “The three of us.” —Elena smiled in the dim light—. I told you, he’s not like the others.

***

That word kept turning over in the house for weeks. The three of us. We never mentioned it again, but it was everywhere: in the way she looked at me when she poured the coffee, in what I kept to myself when she went out and in what I confessed when she came back. We had played with the fantasy a lot. I listened, I imagined, I got turned on by what others did to her and then I made love to her as if I wanted to reclaim territory that, deep down, I liked lending out. But always from the outside. I was the one who listened. The one who watched.

New Year’s Eve arrived. We had plans to go to a hotel with party favors and an orchestra, that kind of night when you pay a lot to be bored with manners. In the late afternoon, while she was doing her makeup, Elena caught my eyes in the mirror.

—What if we stayed home?

—The two of us?

—I invited Marcelo —she said, without stopping painting her lips—. For a change.

She said it with the same naturalness she would have used to say she’d changed the wine. She put down the lipstick, turned, and looked at me straight on.

—Only if you want to. Truly. If you tell me no, I’ll call him and say our plans got crossed up. But I’ve been thinking about it for weeks and this time I don’t want to tell you afterward. I want you there. —She came closer and adjusted my shirt collar—. This time you’re not staying outside.

I didn’t know what face I made. She laughed softly.

—He made that same face when I suggested it to him.

***

Marcelo arrived at eleven, with a bottle of cava and a steady hand when he handed it to me. There were a few awkward minutes, as there have to be, in which three adults pretend it’s just another dinner. We toasted. We talked about anything. And little by little silence took the place of words, which is what happens when everyone knows why they’re there.

It was Elena who cut through the pretense, as always. She set down her glass, stood up, and sat on the arm of my chair. She kissed me. Slowly, as if she wanted him to see it clearly. When she pulled away, she didn’t look at me: she looked at him.

—Come —she said.

What I remember from that night is not what I had imagined. I had imagined it would be hard. That I would see another man’s hands on her and feel like I was losing something. It wasn’t like that. Marcelo knelt in front of her and lifted her dress slowly, with that patience she so admired in him, and while he kissed the inside of her thighs, Elena wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at me. She had my hand in hers and dug her nails in and held my gaze, and I understood that I wasn’t the one who was surplus. I was the center. All of it existed because I was watching.

—Don’t stay there —she told me, her voice breaking—. I want you here.

I knelt too. I kissed her mouth while he stayed down there, and she panted into my kiss, and I could feel her pleasure on my own lips. I slipped the dress straps off her shoulders. He took off her underwear. We shared her body without discussing it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world: me in her mouth, on her neck, on her breasts; him between her legs. Elena laughed and moaned at the same time, one hand on my nape and the other in Marcelo’s hair, governing us both.

We took her to the bedroom. That’s where I stopped keeping track of who did what. There was a moment when she was on top of him, facing away, and I was holding her by the waist from behind, and the three of us moved, searching for the same rhythm. Another when she had me while holding his hand against the mattress. I heard her say my name, and say his, and stop saying names. I felt her trembling all over, clutching both of us, and from the way she went still I knew she had gone farther than any other night.

***

Marcelo got dressed while it was still night. He was discreet to the end; that had always been his virtue. At the door he shook my hand again, with the same firmness, and said two words I hadn’t expected: “Thank you, Diego.” As if I had been the guest. As if he understood that I was the one who was letting them in.

I went back to bed. Elena was awake, on her side, with that afterglow of hers. I rested my head on her shoulder.

—How are you? —she asked.

—Good. Better than good.

—Don’t you feel weird?

—I feel like you do when you come back from a dinner —I said—. Like telling someone all about it.

She laughed and snuggled up to me.

—Then tell me —she murmured—. Tell me what you felt when you saw me with him.

And I told her. Slowly, the way she had taught me, without skipping a single detail, because the best part of all that, I discovered that early morning, wasn’t having been in bed. It was telling it afterward, the two of us locked in each other’s arms, knowing I would never again be alone on the other side of the door.