The Night I Let My Wife Go with My Best Friend

Anyone would have bet it would be the other way around, that I would make the first move. But it was them, Lucía and Andrés, who couldn’t hold back any longer. My wife got invited to a dinner organized by a bank, one of those events she almost always turned down without thinking. This time she said yes, and we both knew why: Andrés was going as his company’s representative.

Lucía played it down, brushing it off with a wave of her hand whenever I brought it up. But Andrés had been my friend since university, and Andrés told me everything. That very afternoon he had shown me the messages they were exchanging: hints, half-sentences, the way they were sketching out a meeting around that dinner without ever quite naming it.

—Are you sure you want me to tell you? —he’d texted me.

—Tell me everything —I replied—. Every last detail.

That night, Lucía got ready in front of the bedroom mirror. She always looked beautiful at those events, but this time there was something different, a light I didn’t know in her. She moved around on very high heels, still without a dress on, just in black lingerie that left her back bare. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her.

—You look gorgeous —I told her—. Is there a special reason?

—Like always, aren’t I? —she answered without turning around, looking for my reflection in the mirror.

She finished her makeup calmly, painting her lips red, and slipped into a tight black dress that traced every curve. She came over, gave me a long, warm kiss, and as she pulled away she held my gaze a second too long.

—Don’t wait up —she murmured—. You know how these things run late.

The door closed and I was left alone in the living room, my heart pounding in my chest and a strange mix churning through my body. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something else, something I struggled to name but that had me completely turned on, imagining what was going to happen with the lucky Andrés.

I poured myself a drink and sat by the window. I thought about how we’d gotten here. It started as a bed conversation, one of those fantasies you let slip in a low voice in the dark, believing they’ll never come true. She had confessed that she liked the idea of being desired by other men, of my knowing it, of her telling me about it afterward. The thought alone burned me up. And among them all, the name that always came back was Andrés’, my friend for life, the one who had been looking at her a second too long at every dinner for years.

I turned off the television and left my phone on the table, face up, waiting. I hadn’t asked her to text me. There was no need. I knew Andrés would tell me sooner or later, step by step, the way we always did with everything. And that waiting, the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when their bodies would meet, was a kind of pleasure I’d never felt before.

***

The event was being held in a downtown theater. He told me all of this later, that very same night and then more calmly, sparing nothing, exactly as I’d asked him to.

They greeted each other while keeping up appearances, but with a kiss that lasted longer than a kiss between two friends should. Andrés put a hand on her hip, pretending to pull her closer for a photo, and took the chance to slide along her side with a slowness only the two of them understood.

—I think I’m already hard —he whispered in her ear.

Lucía didn’t lose her smile. With the most discreet gesture, almost imperceptible to those around them, she lowered her hand and brushed his erection through his trousers. Then she bit her lower lip and gave him a look that said everything.

The dinner unfolded as planned. Speeches, glasses circulating on silver trays, introductions to strangers whose names they forgot instantly. Beneath the politeness, their hands sought each other out and brushed with an almost teenage clumsiness. Whenever he could, Andrés traced with his fingers the line of Lucía’s thong under her dress, and she offered herself to that touch like prey that has already decided to let itself be caught.

Three glasses of wine later —neither of them usually drank that much—, the lack of inhibition was as obvious as the desire. Lucía leaned toward him, gorgeous in her short black dress, and whispered:

—Come on. Will you come with me?

She dragged him by the hand with no clear destination. In an old theater there are always corners where the light doesn’t reach, and they found one sooner than they expected: they went up a flight of stairs behind some heavy curtains separating the boxes from the amphitheater. As soon as the dimness covered them, their tongues tangled in a long, wet kiss, held back all night.

Andrés pressed her against him, lifted her dress from behind, and played with the tiny strip of her thong. Lucía’s breathing came in broken bursts between kisses.

—This wasn’t what we talked about —she told him softly—, but I want it too much.

His hand found the zipper of his trousers. When she freed him and felt his size, a muffled moan escaped her. She guided him herself, right there, standing behind the curtains, and as soon as he was inside her she begged in his ear:

—Take me somewhere else. Please. But don’t stop.

***

They left the theater as best they could, almost without thinking. There were several hotels nearby and they headed to the closest one, but they couldn’t even make it three hundred meters without stopping twice to devour each other right there in the street, indifferent to the few glances from people passing by at that hour. They checked in in a flurry, went up to the room, and as soon as the door closed they tore their clothes off with their teeth.

He bared her torso and bit her nipples while she sat on top of the dresser, which would be the first stage of the night. He laid her back there, moved the thong aside, and checked how soaked she was. He lowered his head and ate her out slowly while Lucía buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him against her, arching her back against the mirror.

When she couldn’t take any more, he set her on her feet and turned her to face the glass. He stood behind her, and he didn’t need to help himself with his hand: he slid in with one movement, easy, because of how wet she was. He fucked her while looking at her through the reflection, kissing her neck, repeating over and over how much he wanted her.

—Don’t take off your shoes —he asked her.

She smiled. Those were the little whims she never asked for at home, for fear of having to give explanations she didn’t owe anyone here. They moved to the bed and came together again, this time slowly, in long, deep motions, caressing each other as if they’d spent years searching for exactly that moment and were finally granting it to themselves.

Lucía got on top. While he fucked her, she stroked her clit with the tip of her fingers, setting the rhythm herself, until she came twice in a row, one after the other, without a break. Andrés held out as long as he could, until he couldn’t anymore. He came so hard that the two of them ended up laughing, surprised by how much there was, tangled up and sweaty on the rumpled sheets.

They stayed like that for a while, catching their breath, their legs still entwined. Andrés was stroking her back with his fingertips and she was telling him, with soft laughter, that she had spent weeks imagining that night, that it was hard for her to look me in the eye at home without thinking of him. There was no guilt in her voice. Only a new frankness, naked, which he would repeat to me word for word the next day and which would stir something deep inside me like few things ever had.

***

They checked the time: one in the morning. They showered in a hurry and went downstairs to share the same taxi back. At parting they gave each other a restrained kiss, almost chaste for everything the night had been, in front of a taxi driver who looked at them without understanding a thing. They promised to call each other during the week.

I was still awake when Lucía came home. I heard the key, her footsteps, the rustle of the dress as it fell onto a chair. She got into bed smelling of hotel shampoo, curled up against me, and noticed I wasn’t asleep.

—Same old, same old —she said softly, playing it down.

I lay there for a moment in silence, smiling in the dark. I knew it hadn’t been “same old, same old.” I knew Andrés would tell me everything the next day, slowly, and that she would pretend not to remember the details while I recited them into her ear.

—Same old, same old —I repeated, and hugged her.

She fell asleep right away, peaceful, as if nothing had happened. And maybe, deep down, for the three of us nothing extraordinary was happening anymore: just another night in that game we had chosen to play with our eyes wide open, without lies, without guilt, and with a desire that only kept growing every time I saw her walk out the door in that black dress and those words, “don’t wait up,” on her lips.