The Night My Husband Wanted to See Me with Another Man

We had been married for just over two years when Bruno confessed his fantasy to me. It didn’t come out all at once or in a rough rush; he let it slip one night, slowly, after making love, with his head resting on my stomach and his fingers drawing circles on my skin.

—I’d like to see you with another man —he said, almost in a whisper.

I stayed perfectly still. He had been my first, the only one, and the mere idea seemed absurd to me. It took me weeks to understand that it wasn’t a passing whim, that he truly wanted it, that he thought about it as much as I pretended not to.

—What if I like it too much? —I asked him one dawn.

—Then we’ll have discovered it together —he answered.

That response disarmed me. He wasn’t asking me to betray him; he was asking me to share something with him. It took me months, but one day, without drama, I told him yes.

***

We met the couple almost by chance, in a conversation that started off light and grew intimate without either of us planning it. We met for dinner at a small place with warm lighting and cloth tablecloths, far from anywhere someone might recognize us. Her name was Daniela; his, Marcos.

Marcos was older than my husband, I noticed it the moment he stood up to greet us. His temples were just lightly silvered, and he carried the kind of calm that only comes with years. He spoke softly, looked people in the eye, and when he laughed he did it without hurry. Daniela was the opposite: quick, bright, with a laugh that filled the table.

—We’ve never done it either —she confessed halfway through dinner, playing with her glass—. It’s our first time too.

That sentence reassured me more than I had expected. We weren’t the only ones crossing a line for the first time. We were four strangers sharing the same vertigo.

The conversation loosened with every glass. We talked about how we had gotten there, about the fears, the sleepless nights spent turning the same doubt over and over. Marcos said Daniela had struggled just as much as I had; that he too had learned patience. Bruno, across from me, kept looking at me now and then, as if silently asking whether I was still okay. I answered him with the slightest of gestures: yes, I was still here.

What was strange was realizing, halfway through dinner, that I was no longer thinking about running. I studied Marcos’s hands on the tablecloth, the way Daniela rested her chin on her fingers. I imagined things that half an hour earlier would have shocked me.

After dinner we walked aimlessly through empty streets. Bruno was a few steps behind, talking with Daniela, and I, without realizing it, ended up beside Marcos. He asked if I was nervous. I told him the truth: yes, very much so.

—Nothing has to happen that you don’t want —he said—. You’re the one in charge here.

It was that, that sentence and no other, that made me agree when they invited us to their place.

***

The apartment was warm, tidy, with plants in the windows and books stacked in every corner. Daniela made us something to drink while the men put on low music. I sat on the edge of the sofa, my knees together, my heart in my throat.

No one had to say anything. There came a moment, after the second drink, when glances weighed more than words. Daniela took Bruno by the hand. Marcos extended his to me. And each couple headed to a different room, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The door closed behind us and silence turned dense. Marcos didn’t lunge at me. He sat on the bed, looked at me, and waited. I had to be the one to take the first step.

I undressed slowly, without taking off my underwear, and turned my back to him. Not exactly out of modesty, but because looking him in the face seemed too real. He came up behind me.

His lips began at the nape of my neck. They traveled down my spine in a slow line of kisses that raised every hair on my body. His hands moved up to my breasts and he stroked them as if he had all the time in the world, without squeezing, teasing the tips until a sigh slipped out of me that I didn’t want to hold back.

—You have a beautiful back —he murmured against my skin.

He kept going down. He traced each vertebra, lingered at the curve of my waist, left a damp trail that the room’s air cooled instantly, making me shiver. When his tongue reached the edge of my thong and nudged it aside with just his teeth, my whole body tensed. He kissed me there, where no one except Bruno had ever touched me, and instead of pulling away I arched my back. I was getting wet without meaning to, betrayed by my own desire.

His fingers kept working my breasts, rolling my nipples between his forefinger and thumb, and I didn’t know where to lean: toward his mouth or toward his hands. Every nerve ending in my skin seemed awake at once. A long moan escaped me, unrecognizable even to myself, and I heard him laugh softly, satisfied, against my skin.

I shouldn’t like this so much.

I turned around. I needed to see him, needed him to stop being an idea and start being a real man. I lowered my hand and found him hard, different from my husband’s: similar in length, but thicker, heavier in my palm.

He lay down on top of me and kissed me on the mouth, slow, deep, while I kept stroking him. Then it was his turn to go lower. He traced my stomach, my hips, the insides of my thighs, and when his tongue found my sex he licked it with an intensity that made me clench my fists in the sheets. I had never felt anything like it. He was only the second man in my life, and my body was responding as if it had known him forever.

When I couldn’t take any more, I made him come up. I knelt and took him in my mouth, discovering his taste, his size, how much effort it took to take him in. It was the second time I had ever done that with anyone, and even so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed giving pleasure, by how much it excited me to hear his breathing change because of me.

I couldn’t hold out at the game for long. I pushed him onto his back and climbed on top. When I felt him enter me, slowly, filling me, I had to bite my lip not to scream. I was with a man who wasn’t mine, in a bed that wasn’t mine, and I was enjoying it without a trace of guilt. I moved on him at my own pace, with his hands firm on my hips, until the whole world shrank down to that back-and-forth motion.

***

Afterward, while he caught his breath, I got up to look for the bathroom. The hallway was dark, except for the sliver of light coming from the other bedroom. The door was half open. It wasn’t my intention to spy; I froze in the doorway unable to move.

Daniela was on top of my husband. She had him in her mouth, was stroking him with both hands, alternately looking up at him as if she wanted to memorize every expression on his face. Bruno had his eyes closed and wore the expression I knew so well, the one he got when pleasure overflowed him.

I should have felt jealous. I waited to feel it. But the only thing I felt was a wave of heat between my legs, a new and shameful excitement that left me breathless. Without realizing it, my hand had slipped down and I was touching myself as I watched them.

What kind of woman am I?

I saw Bruno sit up, turn her gently, and position himself behind her. He entered her slowly, taking each centimeter, and Daniela let out a deep moan that traveled all through the hallway. I was still there, spying, touching myself, unable to leave.

Marcos appeared beside me without my hearing him come. I startled, but he said nothing. He followed my gaze into the room, understood what was happening, and instead of moving me away, he wrapped an arm around my waist.

—Don’t hide —he whispered in my ear—. There’s nothing wrong with watching.

He kissed my neck, passionately this time, without the patience from before. Daniela saw us from the bed and smiled at me without stopping moving against my husband. Bruno opened his eyes, found me in the doorway, and for a second we both looked at each other as if we were discovering at the same time that neither of us had imagined how far that night would go.

Marcos guided me into the room. There were no walls left separating anything. Daniela stretched out her hand toward me, I took it, and the four of us found ourselves in the same space, in the same shared skin. She kissed me, softly, tasting me, and to my surprise I disliked it at all; on the contrary, it was as if one final door had opened.

What happened next deserves its own story. That dawn I learned that desire knows nothing of rules, not even the ones I thought were mine. Bruno had wanted to see me with another man, and without knowing it he had shown me a version of myself even I didn’t know.

We went home at dawn, in silence, our hands intertwined. The city was slowly waking around us, oblivious to everything. No words were necessary. In the car, Bruno looked at me at a red light and squeezed my hand, and I understood that he too was not exactly the same as the night before. We both knew that would not be the last time.

And for the first time, I was already longing for the next.