I Asked for a Different Gift, and My Wife Went Further

Sunday dawned with that weak January light that slips between the slats of the blinds and draws warm stripes across the sheets. I stirred in bed and felt Lucía’s heat pressed against my back, her tangled hair tickling my nape. I was turning thirty-six. Before, that date used to make me melancholy; that morning, with her breathing against my neck, I felt only a strange calm, almost dangerous.

—Happy birthday, sleepyhead —she murmured in her rough voice, hugging me tighter.

—Thanks, baby.

I turned to look at her. Lucía is petite, with narrow shoulders and narrow hips, and even so there was something in the way she moved under her nightgown that made me lose the thread of any conversation. I kissed her slowly, feeling her smile against my lips.

—What do you want me to give you? —she asked, resting her chin on my chest—. Anything. Today I’m not really in charge.

I stayed quiet longer than I should have. I had everything I needed. What had been turning over in my head for months wasn’t an object, it was an idea, and the idea embarrassed me to say out loud.

—I want to show you off —I finally blurted out.

—Show me off how?

—Let them look at you. Let them imagine you. Let them know you’re mine and they can’t touch you. It’s stupid, but it drives me wild like a kid.

Lucía raised an eyebrow. There was no surprise on her face, more the satisfaction of confirming something she already suspected. She propped herself up on one elbow and studied me for a couple of seconds with those green eyes that always win me over.

—Okay, Marcos —she said slowly—. It’s your day. Whatever you want. You tell me how.

—I’ll handle that.

That easy way of hers, that no-strings-attached “okay,” took my breath away. I got up under the excuse of making coffee and stayed in the kitchen for a while, trying to drag my head back down from the clouds. The rest of the day disappeared into a family meal, toasts, and a cake with too many candles. But inside, I was already somewhere else, writing impossible scripts.

***

On Monday I was working from home. The ten o’clock video call caught me shaved and in a tie, with my head everywhere except the sales plan. Every time I closed the camera, I opened an anonymous chat in an incognito window. Test messages, half-written ideas. I felt like a teenager stealing his brother’s console.

I tossed out a hook in one of those rooms that have survived since the early 2000s: “I get turned on by showing off my wife. Just chatting, no bullshit.” The avalanche of replies was pathetic. All-caps lines, demands, insults. I was about to close the window when a different message appeared.

“I’m interested. But no nonsense. If you’re up for it, we can talk by video and get to the point.”

The tone caught my attention. There was no rush, no demanding. I answered without thinking too much.

—Who are you?

—Rubén. I work security, weird shifts. If you want, I’ll send you a username for a video call. I’ll turn my camera on, so we don’t waste time.

I agreed. Two minutes later I had his face in a small window on the left side of the screen: early thirties, a sharp jaw, a calm smile that didn’t look like someone worried about getting caught.

—Hi, Marcos.

—Hi.

—Is it real?

—Is what?

—This thing with your wife. That you want to show her off.

—It’s real.

I sent him a photo. Not the first one I found, but one I’d taken the night before, almost by chance: Lucía barefoot next to the fridge, wearing one of my T-shirts that came down to mid-thigh, laughing because I’d just caught her hunting for cake scraps at two in the morning. She had the face of the woman I live with, not the face of an ad. That’s why I chose it.

Rubén took a few seconds to reply.

—She has a gorgeous face. That laugh is the kind that stays in your head. Do you know what you have?

I expected the crude comments that are common in those places. I was surprised that he started with her face and her laugh. I sent a second photo, also not showing too much: Lucía from behind, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, in black underwear, tying her hair up. An image I’d saved from a trip and hadn’t looked at again.

—Fuck —he whispered, and the word came out low, almost to himself—. Marcos, I don’t know what taught you to look at her like that, but you took that picture carefully. You can tell.

I wasn’t going to admit it, but that man was saying exactly what I needed to hear. The fantasy wasn’t that some stranger would spit vulgarities about Lucía. The fantasy was that someone would look at her with the same attention I did, and understand the privilege.

—Want to see more? —I asked.

—Whatever you want to show me.

We went on like that for almost an hour. I kept pulling up selected photos and he kept giving them back to me with phrases that mixed desire and respect in a proportion I would never have known how to ask for. When I hung up, I hadn’t come. It wasn’t necessary. My body was lit up in a new way, slower, denser.

***

That afternoon I told Lucía what I’d done. I told her while she was taking off her shoes, with no theatrics, looking at the floor. I braced myself for everything: anger, hard questions, one of those conversations that hurt.

I had the wrong Lucía.

—You sent photos of me to him? —she repeated, with a slow smile I’d never seen before—. And what did he say?

—That you have a face that stays with you.

—That’s what he said?

—More or less. And that I know how to look at you. That it showed in the picture.

Lucía went quiet for a second. Then she came closer, cupped my face in her hands, and kissed me like she’d just come back from a long trip.

—You’re the strangest and most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me —she murmured—. Tell me everything. From the beginning. In detail.

I told her. She listened sitting on the edge of the bed, without interrupting. When I finished, she bit her lip the way she does when she’s about to do something naughty.

—Okay —she said—. So if that’s the gift you wanted, you’re going to get a gift. But I’m writing the script.

***

The following Saturday she drove me to the car without telling me where we were going. She was driving, one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh, not squeezing, just resting there. I tried asking twice. The third time I shut up.

We parked in the underground garage of a huge shopping center, on the lowest level. The area was almost empty: two or three cars at the far end and rows and rows of free spaces. Lucía turned into a secluded corner, where the emergency lights blinked every few seconds and everything else was concrete gloom.

She didn’t turn off the engine. She lowered the radio. Then she turned to me with a calm that scared me a little.

—This is your real gift —she said.

She leaned in and kissed me slowly, holding the back of my neck. Her free hand went to my belt without hurry. The car was freezing and I was sweating at the same time.

—Anyone can see us here —she whispered against my mouth—. And I like that idea. Do you?

—I do too.

I still didn’t understand how far she had planned the scene. I understood when, while she was kissing my neck, I heard footsteps. Not one or two. Several, approaching with a strange calm, like people who know exactly where they need to go.

Three figures stopped at a prudent distance, about five meters from the car. Men, of different ages, dressed like anyone else. They were looking without hiding it, but they didn’t come any closer than that. Lucía lifted her head and, instead of getting scared, smiled.

—We’ve got company, baby.

—Lucía…

—Relax. Just breathe.

Behind the three, a fourth silhouette appeared, taller, with a switched-off flashlight in one hand and a dark uniform. When he came up beside the car, the ceiling light hit his face and I was left breathless.

It was Rubén.

The same Rubén from the screen, the same one from the calm messages. He worked security, he’d told me. That was exactly true. His eyes met mine for a tenth of a second and I saw in them the same spark of complicity I’d been carrying all week.

—Marcos —he greeted me, nodding slowly—. Don’t worry. You can keep going.

—You…?

Lucía squeezed my knee.

—We’ll talk later. I organized this part. I wrote him from your account. I asked him to come and bring people he trusted. He brought these three. If you want, we stop. One word and we leave.

I didn’t say the word.

***

Lucía moved between the seats as if she’d rehearsed it. She climbed into the back seat, took off her pants without hurry, and ended up in black panties pressed against the rear side window. The four men took a few steps closer. Their hands went to their pants, and they began touching themselves slowly, without theater, without yelling. She had made it clear somehow, before I arrived, what was allowed and what wasn’t.

—Roll the back windows down a little, Marcos —Lucía asked in a calm voice—. Just a little. I want to hear them.

I lowered the rear windows a couple of inches. Cold air rushed in, slapping against the smell of rubber and concrete. The men got closer, but they didn’t put their hands in. They spoke among themselves, broken phrases, comments about the curve of her back, about the shadow of her breasts against the bra. Lucía listened with half-closed eyes, one hand between her legs over the fabric, masturbating very slowly.

Rubén stayed off to the side, not touching himself, making sure the other three didn’t cross the line. Every so often he looked at me, not at her. He checked that I was okay, that the game wasn’t getting away from us. That look anchored me more than anything else.

—You okay? —Lucía asked me between two breaths.

—I’m with you.

—Does it turn you on?

—A lot.

—Then come here.

I moved into the back with her. We hugged in an impossible angle, her back against my chest, her legs open toward the window where they watched us. I caressed her belly and thighs with both hands, open-palmed, slowly, never pressing too hard. She gave a soft laugh every time some comment from outside startled her.

—Don’t let him go, asshole —one of them said in a rough voice—. You can tell she’s yours.

—Take care of her —another one asked.

That was what finally threw me off balance. They weren’t shouting insults. They were asking me, almost respectfully, to take care of her. I pulled Lucía against me and kissed her neck, and felt her laughter in my mouth.

We made love like that, almost still, half our clothes off, while four strangers breathed hard on the other side of the glass. No one reached a hand through the window, and no body got into the car apart from ours. That was the pact. Look and be looked at. Nothing else.

Lucía came first, biting my shoulder so she wouldn’t cry out. I followed right after, holding her by the waist, and kept her in my arms a long while, until her breathing loosened.

Outside we heard a couple of short, controlled groans, and then the footsteps of three men leaving separately, each by a different ramp. Rubén stayed until the end. He waited for Lucía to get dressed, for me to switch the heater back on, and then he came up to the driver’s window with the flashlight clipped back to his belt.

—Stop by the booth when you leave —he said—. I’ll raise the barrier. You’re not paying for parking today.

—Thank you —I murmured.

—Thank you —he replied, and for the first time he smiled for real, not for the camera, not for the game—. If you want to do it again, we’ll talk it through properly.

Lucía took my hand and squeezed it. Her look told me yes, that at some point we would talk about it again. But not that night.

We left the parking garage in silence. She drove, again with one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh, and again without squeezing. Before merging onto the highway, she glanced sideways at me.

—Happy birthday, Marcos.

I didn’t answer with words. I just rested my head on her shoulder for a second and breathed, for the first time in hours, all the way down.