My Neighbor Knew I Was Alone and Rang the Doorbell

Marcos had been away on work for ten days. Ten days of an empty bed, of eating dinner alone in front of the TV, and of falling asleep hugging his pillow to feel something like his scent. But that Friday night, with two glasses of Malbec in me and a series I didn’t care about playing in the background, I decided that at least I was going to pamper myself a little. I put on the black silk robe he’d given me for my birthday, the one that fell to mid-thigh and opened with the slightest movement. Underneath, just a pair of lace panties.

It was past ten when the doorbell rang.

I wasn’t expecting anyone. I looked through the peephole and my stomach tightened. Ernesto. The neighbor from the fifth floor. Fifty-something, broad back, salt-and-pepper beard that he always kept neatly trimmed. He’d lived alone since his wife left three years earlier. We ran into each other in the elevator, in the lobby, sometimes at the corner supermarket. Always polite. Always with that gaze that lingered a second too long on my legs, my neck, the curve of my hips.

Marcos didn’t know anything. Marcos thought Ernesto was just a polite neighbor who sometimes brought our mail upstairs when it was left downstairs.

I opened the door.

Ernesto was wearing a gray T-shirt that showed off his chest and dark jeans. He smelled of soap and something woody, as if he’d gotten ready to go out but had changed his plans at the last minute.

—I saw Marcos hasn’t come back —he said, leaning on the doorframe. It wasn’t a question—. I wanted to see if you needed anything.

His gaze slid down my robe and slowly back up, lingering. He didn’t pretend otherwise.

—I’m fine —I answered, but I didn’t close the door.

He smiled crookedly. That smile I’d seen many times and that made my pulse quicken even though I didn’t want to admit it. He took a step forward and I took one back. Just like that, he was inside my apartment. He shut the door with his heel and threw the bolt.

The sound of the bolt made something tighten in my chest. I knew what it meant. I knew what was coming. And the worst part was that I’d been fantasizing about exactly this for weeks.

—You know what I like most about you, Abril? —he said, coming closer. His voice had dropped a tone, had turned deep, rough—. That you play at being that boy’s perfect girlfriend, but when you look at me in the elevator your hands shake.

I swallowed. He was right.

—I don’t know what you’re talking about —I lied.

—Of course you do.

He grabbed my wrist firmly. Not violently, but with the certainty of someone who knows he won’t meet resistance. He pulled me toward him and I felt his erection against my hip through the denim of his jeans. Hard. Heavy.

—I’ve been waiting for months for your boyfriend to be away long enough —he whispered against my ear—. And you’ve been waiting for months for me to dare.

He was right. God, he was right.

He let go of my wrist and brought his hand to my chin. He tipped my face up so I’d look him in the eyes. His were dark, almost black, and there was something in them that made me feel completely naked even though I was still wearing the robe.

—On your knees —he said.

It wasn’t a request. It was an order spoken in a calm voice, like asking for the bill in a restaurant. And that was what turned me on the most: the ease of it, as if it were something we’d both known was going to happen for a very long time.

I obeyed. My knees hit the cold floor of the entryway and I lifted my eyes to him. From below, he looked bigger, more imposing. He unbuckled his belt without rushing, lowered the zipper, and took out his cock. Thick, with visible veins, already fully hard.

—Open your mouth.

I opened it. He shoved it to the back of my throat without warning and held me there for three seconds that felt eternal. I gagged, my eyes filled with tears, but I didn’t pull away. When he let me go, a strand of saliva hung from my lower lip.

—Good girl —he said, and the words shot through me like an electric current.

I started sucking him with gusto, using my tongue, my hand, everything I had. Ernesto grabbed my hair and set the pace, fucking my mouth with slow but deep thrusts. Every time he reached the back of my throat I made a wet, obscene sound that made him tighten his grip even more.

—Your boyfriend doesn’t treat you like this, does he? —he said without stopping—. He makes love to you carefully, whispers sweet things in your ear. But this is what you really need.

I couldn’t answer with my mouth full, but he wasn’t expecting an answer. He knew he was right. Marcos loved me, treated me well, respected me. And I loved him for it. But there was a part of me that needed exactly the opposite: someone who wouldn’t ask permission, who would use me, who would make me feel dirty and desired at the same time.

He pulled his cock out of my mouth and hauled me to my feet by the arm. He turned me around and pushed me against the dining table. My chest was crushed against the wood and I felt him lifting my robe up over my hips. The cold air hit the bare skin of my thighs.

—Fuck —he muttered when he saw me—. I knew you were beautiful, but this...

I felt his hands running over my ass, parting it, exploring. He pulled my panties down to my ankles and his hand found my cock, already hard, trapped between my stomach and the edge of the table.

—Look at how soaked you are —he said with a deep laugh—. Dripping with need.

He spat on his fingers and started prepping me. First one finger, slow, circling inside me. I clenched my teeth and let the air out slowly. Then two. The stretch tore a moan out of me that I tried to smother by biting my lip.

—Don’t be quiet —he ordered—. I want to hear you.

—Ahh... fuck... —I moaned when he pushed in a third finger.

—Does it hurt?

—Yes.

—Do you want me to stop?

—No.

I heard him chuckle under his breath, satisfied. He pulled his fingers out and I felt the head of his cock pressing against me. Hot. Thick. Insistent. He pushed in slowly, centimeter by centimeter, and every millimeter of penetration tore a different sound from me: a whimper, a broken sigh, something like a sob.

When he was all the way inside, he paused for a moment. I felt his weight over my back, his hot breath on my nape.

—Tell me what you want —he whispered.

—Fuck me —I said, my voice breaking—. Fuck me hard.

And he did.

The first thrust made me scream. The second made me grip the edge of the table with both hands. By the third I stopped counting and surrendered to the brutal rhythm he set. The sound of his hips slamming into my ass filled the whole room, mixed with my moans and his heavy breathing.

He held the back of my neck with one hand, keeping me crushed against the table. With the other he spanked me, leaving my skin burning. Each blow made me clench around him, and each clench drew a growl from him.

—Tell me what you are —he ordered between thrusts.

—I’m... I’m yours... —I gasped.

—Louder. Let the neighbors hear you.

—I’m yours! —I screamed, and something inside me broke when I said it. Something I’d been holding back for a long time.

He pulled me off the table and took me to the sofa. He put me on all fours and entered me again with a hard thrust that made my face sink into the cushions. From this angle the penetration was deeper, more intense. I could feel every centimeter of him forcing its way inside me.

His hand slid under my hip and found my cock, hard and wet with pre-cum. He started jerking me off to the same rhythm he was fucking me: hard, without tenderness, without consideration. It wasn’t a caress, it was a claim.

The orgasm began building from somewhere deep inside, like a wave growing far from the shore. I felt my whole body tense, my toes curl, my breathing cut short.

—Ernesto... I’m gonna cum... —I moaned into the cushions.

—Cum —he said, speeding up both hands, the one jerking me off and the thrusts of his hips.

I came with a long, broken cry I didn’t recognize as my own. My whole body shook, my muscles spasmed, and I felt hot semen shooting in spurts onto the sofa fabric. The contractions of my orgasm tightened around his cock and he groaned, speeding up even more.

—Fuck, you get so tight when you cum —he said, his voice ragged.

He kept fucking me for what felt like minutes, each thrust shaking my entire body, already sensitized by the orgasm. Then he pulled out suddenly, grabbed my hair, and put me on my knees in front of him.

—Open.

I obeyed. He jerked himself off with quick, short strokes and came in my mouth with a deep groan from the bottom of his chest. Hot, thick, bitter. I swallowed as much as I could. The rest slid from the corner of my lips and down my chin.

He stood in front of me, catching his breath. I was on my knees, my robe open, hair messed up, with traces of his semen on my face and my own on my thighs. It was probably the most pathetic and most honest image I had ever given in my life.

—This stays between us —he said as he pulled up his pants and fastened his belt—. Marcos is a good guy. He doesn’t need to find out.

I nodded without speaking.

He bent down and wiped my chin with his thumb. It was the gentlest gesture of the whole night, and for some reason it was the one that hurt me the most.

—You’re incredible, you know that? —he said with something that almost sounded like affection—. You drive me crazy.

Then he walked to the door, opened the bolt, and turned back one last time.

—Wednesday Marcos gets in late from the airport, right? Around eleven. —He smiled—. I’ll stop by at eight.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He closed the door and his footsteps disappeared up the stairs.

***

I stayed a while on the living room floor, my back against the sofa and my gaze lost on the ceiling. My body hurt in ways I didn’t want to examine. My robe had slipped off one shoulder and I didn’t even bother to pull it up.

I thought about Marcos. About his smile when he tucked my hair behind my ear. About how he had accompanied me to my first appointment with the endocrinologist, nervous but determined to be there. About the first time he called me Abril in front of his family, without hesitation, as if that had always been my name.

Marcos loved me well. Marcos loved me the right way.

And I had just let his neighbor fuck me against the dining table.

It won’t happen again, I told myself as I got up from the floor and walked to the shower.

It won’t happen again, I repeated as the hot water slid over my body and washed away the remains of everything.

It won’t happen again, I promised myself as I dried off in front of the fogged-up mirror and saw the red marks of his fingers on my hip.

I climbed into bed with damp hair and my phone in my hand. I had a message from Marcos: a heart and a “good night, beautiful.” I replied with another heart and left the phone on the nightstand.

I closed my eyes.

Wednesday at eight. That’s what he had said.

I tried not to think about what I was going to wear.