Two Couples, One Hotel, and a Night That Changed Everything
Lucía and I had been together for almost three years when we left the village behind. What we had was always an open secret no one ever said out loud: to everyone else we were the inseparable ones, the best friends, the girls who spent every weekend sleeping over at each other’s houses. We met at a painting workshop, both of us sixteen and holding a trembling brush, and within days we went from sharing a palette to sharing a bed without either of us really knowing how it had happened.
We were both far too sharp-minded for our age. We knew what we wanted, and what we wanted was not in that village. I drew comic strips for the county paper and dreamed of a real newsroom. Lucía modeled for the painting classes and saw herself in ads, on screens, anywhere but where we were. We held out until we turned twenty-one, saved what we could, and moved together to Barcelona as soon as we had just enough not to starve.
The first few months were hard. No one would open a door for me, and Lucía couldn’t land a single casting. In the middle of that summer we were both sinking, dragging each other down like two weights tied to the same cord. That was when we decided to do something crazy: spend part of our savings on a short trip, far away, where nobody knew us. Lucía picked the destination without a second thought.
—Tenerife —she said—. Sun, sea, and nobody asking us questions.
Since she’d always been the more party-loving one of the two, I let her organize the trip however she wanted. We booked a good hotel, one of those with an endless breakfast and sheets that crackle with cleanliness, and turned up on the island one morning in July with a single suitcase between the two of us and a huge desire to forget everything.
The room wouldn’t be ready until late afternoon, so we left our luggage at reception and went down to the restaurant for lunch. The dining room was half empty: a few hungover tourists, several older couples who seemed more interested in cathedrals than the beach, and, at the next table over, two guys our age.
—Those two are a couple —Lucía whispered without barely moving her lips.
—And what’s that to us? —I answered, even more softly.
Neither of them had anything obvious about them, but Lucía had a radar for that sort of thing and was almost never wrong. Before I could stop her, she’d already turned her chair toward them.
—Sorry, are you boyfriends?
—Lucía! —I scolded her, mortified.
The one sitting closer to her gave a crooked smile. The other, the one sitting across from me, let out a clean, easy laugh.
—Of course we are —said the latter—. I’m offended you’d even ask.
I was still giving Lucía a dirty look.
—Don’t look at me like that —she said, amused—. So? Are you or aren’t you? Because we are girlfriends.
I was surprised she said it so calmly, out loud, in front of two strangers. But nobody there knew us, and that changed everything. For the first time in years, saying it cost nothing.
—Yes, we’re boyfriends —the one opposite replied—. I’m Daniel and this is Hugo.
***
Lucía and Daniel hit it off instantly. They talked nonstop, laughed at the same stupid things, cut each other off mid-sentence. Hugo and I, quieter by nature, mostly exchanged knowing looks every time those two got carried away. They were from Valencia, though Daniel had been born in Cuenca and Hugo in a village in Huesca whose name I can’t even remember. They’d been on the island a couple of days and, according to them, had come to mix partying with culture, in that order.
That same afternoon, after a nap neither of us needed but took anyway, they dragged us out for a walk and showed us the places they’d already discovered. At night they took us out partying. During the three days we spent in Tenerife, we only separated from them to sleep, and not even always then.
Lucía, who was never shy, finally let herself go completely. She didn’t make a scene, but she didn’t hide either: she held my hand in the street, stole a kiss from me in the middle of a terrace. I looked at her and thought I wished our whole life could be that bright little pause, far from the closet we’d be going back into as soon as we got home.
On the flight back, Lucía flirted shamelessly with one of the flight attendants, the one she found most receptive. We’d had a fantasy waiting to be fulfilled for months, and she was determined to make it happen ten thousand meters up in the air. The attendant resisted at first, but Lucía knew how to win people over, and in the end she let us slip into the small pantry at the back of the plane, empty on that flight.
We locked ourselves in there, between drink carts and the smell of reheated coffee. Lucía pushed me against the narrow wall and kissed my neck while her hand found its way under my skirt. I returned the favor on my knees, my heart pounding with fear that someone might open the door. The flight attendant kept watch outside, and when we came out, flushed and with our clothes askew, we offered to let her join us next time. I saw the want on her face, but she shook her head and went back to her cart. When we landed, our relationship went back into the deepest drawer of the closet.
***
A couple of weeks passed before Daniel called us. He and Hugo had vacation days to burn and had decided to spend them in Barcelona. Since I was the one who knew the city, it fell to me to act as guide. They stayed near the park, and we repeated the formula that had worked so well on the island: museums by day, partying by night.
The first night the four of us ended up in the hotel room, buoyed by alcohol and laughter. In the early hours, Lucía got more carried away than she should have.
—You know something? —she told Daniel, dragging her words—. I’ve never touched one. A real one, I mean. I’ve never even seen one up close.
—I’ve never seen yours either —he answered, just as drunk—. I’m honestly curious.
Hugo and I, much calmer, watched in silence, sharing one of those looks that were already starting to become our own language. Lucía pulled up her skirt and slid her panties down a little, baring herself with a naturalness that left me breathless. Daniel did the same, loosening his trousers.
—Can I? —she asked, her hand halfway there.
—Go ahead —he replied—. But then it’s my turn.
—Don’t even doubt it —Lucía said, and threw herself at discovering that new body like someone unwrapping a toy.
What began as a curious joke turned into something none of the four had planned. Daniel’s breathing grew rougher and rougher under Lucía’s hand. Hugo and I looked at each other, not knowing whether to join in or take it as a betrayal, as if our partners were cheating on us right in front of our noses. In the end it was Hugo who brushed his knee against mine, a silent question, and I didn’t pull my leg away.
We let ourselves be carried along, clumsily imitating what the other two were doing. Lucía and Daniel ended up giving in completely, she laughing between gasps, he pretending at the uninhibitedness of a movie actor. Hugo and I were slower, more careful, almost asking permission with every move. Seen from the outside, it would have looked like a messy rehearsal: four bodies searching for each other in a bed too small for them, four people crossing a line they’d thought was solid.
The next day, Lucía and Daniel could barely remember any of it, as if the night had been a blurry dream. Hugo and I, on the other hand, remembered everything with an uncomfortable clarity. So we wouldn’t be the only ones carrying it, we told them everything in vivid detail, and their faces changed piece by piece as they listened. I didn’t regret it, but I confess saying it out loud burned my throat.
***
We kept the boys company for the rest of their stay, although the atmosphere turned strained, with a new current floating between the four of us. When they left, we stopped talking to them. Until, months later, near Christmas, Lucía and I made a decision that led us to look for them again: we wanted to become mothers, and the only men we trusted for that were them.
By then we lived in a tiny studio, but it was ours. I had landed a job as a radio host on a cultural talk show that aired late at night on a regional station; I wasn’t the presenter, but the pay wasn’t bad. Lucía picked up the odd commercial now and then. We got by on that, and by my calculations it was enough, at least, to try for one child each.
We called Daniel and Hugo and laid the proposal out bluntly: either they would be donors only, or they would commit to shared fatherhood, whichever they preferred. Daniel hesitated; Hugo, on the other hand, was open from the very first minute. After weeks of going back and forth, they both agreed to help us. They were a little older than us and more settled in their lives, but the idea of building something strange and ours, the four of us, finally won them over.
None of us said it out loud, but from the start we took the obvious division for granted: Daniel with Lucía, Hugo with me. The two of us were so eager that I asked for a few days off to travel to Valencia right in our fertile window. The boys welcomed us into their apartment and we agreed that each of us would start with our own partner to get warmed up, and that we’d switch when they were close.
Lucía and I were touching each other while Daniel and Hugo handled one another, the four of us watching, measuring each other, gradually losing our embarrassment. Soon the whole room was one single body with many arms. It was hard to follow any conversation because somebody was always moaning, and as soon as one person held back, another sound would slip out.
When Daniel said he couldn’t hold on any longer, Lucía dropped under him in one quick movement, determined not to lose a single drop. I, beside her, drew Hugo toward me and guided him, certain of what I wanted. He took a little longer, but in the end he gave himself over, and I lay there beside Lucía, the two of us with our legs raised and nervous laughter, convinced that that ridiculous position would bring us luck.
The next three days were nonstop. Something about that trip worked, because months later the lives of all four of us—Lucía’s, mine, and the two who would come—changed forever. But that’s another story, one that begins where this one ends: in a shared bed, far from home, where we finally stopped pretending to be who we were.
