I Came Down Nine Floors in a Towel With Everyone Watching

The shaking started a little after seven-thirty in the morning. I’d been under the shower for two minutes, still with shampoo in my hair, when the phone I’d left on the sink started blasting that shrill alarm nobody wants to hear. For a moment I thought it was a mistake. The next second, the bathroom tiles began to tremble.

I’m twenty-seven years old, five-foot-five, fair-skinned, with honey-colored eyes and reddish-brown hair down to my shoulder blades. I live alone on the ninth floor of a new tower in the north of the city. When I signed the lease, what I liked most was the view, the balcony, and the air that comes in in the morning. That morning I also learned how much it weighs to be nine floors off the ground in a real earthquake.

There was nothing clean in the hamper. The night before I’d come back from the parties with everything dirty, even the underwear I was wearing. Before getting in the shower I’d tossed it in the washer with the rest, and I’d only left a small towel within reach, one of those you use for your hands, because the big towels were in the cycle too. Anyway, I’m the only one in my place, I’d thought.

The building rocked like a ship. I shut off the water in one swipe, jumped out of the shower with my feet slipping on the wet floor, and yanked the towel from the hook. I wrapped it around my body just below the armpits. It reached halfway down my thigh if I stretched it as far as it would go, but I couldn’t let go of the ends, because then it would open up in front.

—Oh my God, oh my God —I kept repeating, while trying to shove my feet into the flip-flops by the bathroom door.

The shaking went on. I could see my apartment keys hanging on their hook by the door out of the corner of my eye. Take them, take them, take them. But instinct took me straight for the exit, without thinking. The door was one of those that slam shut on their own. I didn’t hold it open.

The emergency stairs were smooth, cold concrete. I went down two steps at a time, holding the handrail with my left hand while my right tried to keep the knot in the towel in place. By the seventh floor I felt the cloth loosening. I had to stop for half a second to retie it, and at that exact moment someone passed me.

—Excuse me, excuse me —said a broad-backed young man, rushing past me downward.

He didn’t look at my face. He looked at everything else. I kept going, feeling the concrete under my feet and the guy’s eyes pinned on my back. Please don’t let it fall, please don’t let it fall.

***

When I got to the street, a dozen people were already outside. Some in pajamas, others dressed. Me, with less fabric on than would cover a dish rag. The towel was just enough to cover half my ass from behind, and in front it barely reached below my navel. My nipples were inside by millimeters. I could feel it with every breath.

I crossed my arms over my chest and pressed myself against the building wall. I could feel the eyes. The eyes of the man from the corner store, the eyes of the guy from the seventh who had passed me on the stairs, the eyes of the couple already busy nosing around with the neighbors. Three cars went by on the avenue and all three honked. One even braked. I didn’t look up.

Five endless minutes passed. People started moving around, talking, calling their families. When a security guard announced that we could go back up, I felt relief mixed with dread. I had to return to the ninth floor. In a towel. And then realize —not yet, but realize— that the apartment door was shut with the key in the lock on the inside.

I went back up clutching the handrail, head down. Two other people were behind me. An older woman who said nothing and a man around fifty, bald, wearing a silk robe. I could feel his gaze on the backs of my thighs every time I took a step. The building lights were out. The stairs were lit only by the windows at each landing, and the rest was dim. My heart was in my mouth.

When I reached the ninth floor, the older woman kept going up. The bald man stopped at his floor, two levels down, but before continuing he turned on his heel.

—If you need anything, young lady, I’m in seven-oh-two —he said.

I nodded without answering. I turned my back to him, walked to my door, and pushed. Nothing. I tried the knob. Locked. I wanted to scream.

—This can’t be happening —I muttered.

***

The phone had been left inside. So had the key. I was outside, in a towel the size of a rag, with no one on my floor answering the bell —they’d gone down or weren’t home— and the darkness of the power outage falling over the hallway. I went down two floors barefoot, because the flip-flops had been left inside too. I couldn’t even remember when I’d taken them off.

I knocked on the door of seven-oh-two. Three hard knocks.

The bald man opened it, still wearing the silk robe. His name was Bernardo, I found that out later. At that moment he was just a man in his fifties, with small, alert eyes, who spent a couple of long seconds looking me up and down before speaking.

—Yes?

—Sorry, I got locked out of my apartment. I need you to help me get in, please. I don’t have my phone, I don’t have my keys.

He nodded slowly, as if weighing the situation.

—Come in for a moment, I’ll get some tools.

—I’ll wait here, thank you.

—It’s chilly in the hallway. Come in.

He said it without smiling, almost like a gentle order. I hesitated, looked over my shoulder toward the empty stairs, and decided being inside was better than standing there in the dimness. I crossed the threshold. His apartment smelled like fresh coffee. He pointed me to the sofa and I stayed standing, still holding the towel with both hands.

Bernardo took five minutes to come back with a toolbox and a long screwdriver. He looked at me again, and this time he took his time. I felt the heat climbing from my neck to my ears.

—Let’s go —he said.

We went up the two floors. Me in front, him behind. I knew perfectly well he had his eyes fixed on my back. The towel rode up with every step. I couldn’t do anything about it, because if I pulled it down, my nipples would be out above.

We reached my door. Bernardo knelt in front of the lock, tried a couple of picks he had in the box, and after a few minutes shook his head.

—This one doesn’t give to finesse. We’d have to break it or wait for the locksmith, and today, January second, I don’t know if he’ll come quickly.

—And breaking it?

—It can be done. But it won’t be easy. And it’s going to be difficult for me, so… I’d ask for something in return.

—Something?

He lifted his gaze to me from the floor. There was something in his eyes that wasn’t exactly lust, but a kind of patient calculation.

—Take off the towel while I try. That’s all. I’m not going to touch you.

I lost my breath. I looked both ways down the hallway. No one. No bell I could ring on my floor, no repairman, no locksmith. The power was still out and the morning was already well along. The idea of staying on the landing for five hours in a towel, waiting for a locksmith who might not even show, was even worse than the alternative.

—That’s all? —I asked.

—That’s all.

I swallowed, untied the knot, and let the towel fall to my feet.

The hallway air touched my skin as if it had fingers. I felt the cold of the floor under my soles and Bernardo’s eyes slowly traveling over me, from my shoulders to my thighs. He didn’t make a move, didn’t stand, didn’t come closer. He just looked. My body, which usually lives between the bathroom mirror and the sheets, that morning was exposed in a hallway lit by a skylight, in front of a man I’d seen three times in the elevator.

—Thank you —said Bernardo, and went back to the lock.

***

He started wrestling with the screwdriver, driving the tip between the frame and the door, twisting his wrist. I crossed my arms over my chest out of instinct, but he raised his head again.

—Don’t cover yourself.

I lowered my arms. I could feel the blush climbing from my sternum to my cheeks. Bernardo worked, but with more and more pauses, and he used the pauses to look at me. His eyes moved slowly over me, as if taking measurements: the curve of my breasts, the nipples standing hard from the chill in the hall, the curve of my stomach, the pubic hair I kept trimmed into a thin strip, the thighs I didn’t know how to place.

—Open your legs —he said, without stopping the screwdriver.

—What?

—A little. So I can see. Otherwise I can’t concentrate and I won’t open your door.

I looked down the hallway. Empty. I looked at my own locked apartment door. Locked. I looked at the small eyes of the man kneeling there. I spread my legs to shoulder width. I felt the cold air against the lips of my cunt, and he let out a sharp breath, as if he’d just poured himself a glass of water after a walk.

—That’s it. Very good.

He went back to the lock for a minute, two. Then he set the screwdriver down carefully, as if he no longer needed it.

—This lock isn’t giving with this. I’m going to need something else to open it.

—What do you need?

—For you to do something else for me.

—I already took off the towel —I said, my voice trembling—. You said that was all.

—And it was all while it was working. It’s not working. Do you want to stay out here till night waiting for the locksmith, or do you want to get into your house?

I swallowed. The word locksmith in his mouth no longer sounded like anything. It sounded like hour after hour on the landing, naked, with the light coming back on, neighbors coming and going, the guys from the twelfth floor showing up at any moment.

—What do you want?

—I want you to touch yourself. Your nipples first. With both hands.

I raised my trembling hands and pinched my nipples between thumb and forefinger. I could feel them hard, hot, throbbing between my fingers. Bernardo settled himself better on the floor, the screwdriver forgotten off to one side, and opened his silk robe in front. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His cock was hard, thick, slightly curved to the left, and he wrapped his right hand around it and started stroking slowly, never taking his eyes off me.

—Keep going. With the other hand, lower.

I lowered my left hand. I ran my fingers through the pubic hair, and from there to the slit of my cunt. I was wet. I didn’t know when I’d started getting wet; I only knew my fingers slipped inside without resistance and a gasp climbed up my throat before I could swallow it back.

—That’s it. Put one finger inside. Let me see.

I pushed my middle finger in to the knuckle. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them Bernardo was jerking himself faster, his thumb circling the head of his cock. A thread of pre-cum glistened at the tip.

—Come here. Kneel down.

—No, please…

—Kneel down or I’ll go back to my apartment and leave you here exactly as you are.

I took two steps toward him and knelt on the cold hallway floor. His cock was right in front of my face, smelling of soap and something older, more intimate. Bernardo put his hand on the back of my neck without squeezing, just resting it there, and guided me forward.

—Open up.

I opened my mouth. He put the tip in first, rubbing it against my lips, wetting them with the drop already shining on the head. Then he pushed all the way in, and I felt the cock striking my palate and then my uvula. I gagged once, twice, and he eased up on the pressure at the back of my neck just enough to let me breathe.

—Suck it properly. Use your tongue. And look at me.

I closed my lips around his cock and started sucking him, moving up and down, my tongue tracing the thick vein running underneath. Bernardo let out a rough groan. I put my right hand at the base and my left searched for his balls, squeezing them softly in my palm. He breathed deeper.

—That’s it, you slut, that’s it. You suck so well.

I didn’t protest the word. I was focused on not choking, on loosening my jaw, on swallowing the saliva slipping from the corners of my mouth and dripping in heavy drops onto my breasts. The whole hallway smelled like us. Every so often, between sucks, I looked up at him, and he smiled without removing his hand from my neck, guiding me a little deeper each time.

—Swallow all the spit. Don’t spit it out.

I swallowed. I felt the thread going down my throat and another overflowing from my chin. He brought two fingers to my mouth, around his cock, and with those fingers he gathered the saliva running off me and smeared it over my breasts and nipples, soaking them as if he were getting me ready.

After a few minutes he yanked his cock out of my mouth. It was shining, throbbing, the veins swollen.

—Stand up. Against the door.

I rose with my legs trembling. He turned me toward my own locked door and gently pushed me by the back until I was bent over, hands pressed to the wood and my ass sticking out.

—Open.

I spread my legs wider. I felt the air, I felt his thick fingers opening my cunt lips, checking how wet I was. One, two fingers went in and out with a liquid sound that echoed through the whole landing. I pressed my forehead to the door and closed my eyes.

—You’re soaked, filthy girl. It’s running out on its own.

—Shut up —I whispered.

He chuckled softly behind me. I felt the tip of his cock pressing at the entrance of my cunt, rubbing up and down along the slit, and then the thrust. He went in all at once, to the hilt. A cry escaped me that I tried to swallow by biting my lower lip until it hurt.

Bernardo started fucking me against the door with long, slow thrusts, holding my hips with both hands. I could feel his belly slamming into my ass each time he sank all the way in, feel his balls hitting my clit, feel the wet sound of my cunt dripping filling the whole hallway. The door creaked with every shove.

—Look how it goes in —he murmured against my ear, bending over my back—. Look how it swallows it whole.

I wasn’t looking. My eyes were closed and my face was pressed against the wood. He squeezed one breast from behind, twisting the nipple between his fingers until another moan escaped me, and sped up. The thrusts got shorter, harder. He drove his cock into me to the hilt and pulled out only the tip, as if he were measuring me from the inside.

—Say you like it.

—…

—Say you like it or I stop and don’t open anything for you.

—I like it —I muttered against the door.

—Louder.

—I like it, I like how he fucks me.

—Good slut.

He ran his hand over my stomach, found my clit with his middle finger and started rubbing it in circles without stopping fucking me. My knees buckled. I had to brace my forearms against the door so I wouldn’t collapse. After about a minute like that, with his cock going into me to the hilt and his finger circling my clit, I came with my mouth open against the wood, biting my hand so I wouldn’t scream. I felt my cunt clenching around his cock in waves, sucking it, soaking it even more.

He snorted.

—Ah, filthy girl. You came all over my cock with it still inside you. Now it’s my turn.

He grabbed my hair with his right hand and yanked my head back. His left hand squeezed my throat without choking me, just holding me in place. The thrusts turned brutal, his whole cock going in and out, the sound of my ass against his belly echoing down the whole landing.

—I’m going to come inside.

—No, not inside…

—Inside. Or I don’t open it.

I dug my nails into his forearm. He fucked me three more times, his open hand gripping my neck, and on the fourth thrust he sank all the way in and came. I felt the hot semen flooding me, thick spurts, one, two, three, sliding inside me. When he finally pulled his cock out, a heavy thread ran down the inside of my thigh to my knee.

He stayed there a second behind me, panting. Then he stepped back, wiped the tip against the edge of my ass, smearing me with the rest of his load, and adjusted his robe.

—Now then. Now I’ll open the door.

—Before that, bring something —I said, my voice broken, still bent over the wood—. A cloth. Something.

—You’re fine like that. I’m going down to get the good pick.

He went back down to seven-oh-two leaving me against the door, my legs still apart and Bernardo’s semen trickling down the inside of my thighs in a shining trail. I slid down until I was crouched, back against the wood, trembling from the cold and from something else. I picked up the towel from the floor with my shaking hand and tried to wipe between my legs. When I pulled the cloth away, it was stained white and pink. I threw it in a corner.

And then I heard voices.

Male laughter, multiple footsteps, someone saying something about a hangover and another answering. They were coming up the stairs. I grabbed the used towel and wrapped it around myself as best I could —the knot wouldn’t hold, the cloth kept opening in front, and it was warm and damp in exactly the wrong place— and pressed myself against the door.

They appeared around the bend of the landing: four guys no older than twenty-two, with faces from a long night, two in pajamas and the other two in jeans. They stopped dead when they saw me. One sniffed the air, and his face changed. The tallest looked at the stained towel, the shining trail still running down my thigh, and smiled slowly.

—Hey, neighbor. Everything okay?

I nodded. My voice wouldn’t come.

—A neighbor... is trying to open my door —I managed to say at last—. He’ll be back in a minute. I got locked out with the quake.

The four looked at each other. They didn’t move a single muscle except their eyes, and they moved those a lot. My nipples, my navel, the triangle between my thighs the towel no longer managed to hide. One of them, the shortest, pointed with his chin at the stream running down my leg.

—Neighbor, you’ve got…

—I know. Don’t make me say it.

The tallest cleared his throat, but the smile didn’t leave him.

—We’ll help you, neighbor. Four or five of us can definitely knock the door down.

Before I could answer, they were already surrounding me. One pulled out his phone, and at first I thought he was calling a locksmith. Then I realized he had the camera pointed at me, and at the floor, and at the stained towel that kept opening in front of me with every breath.

—Are you recording? —I asked.

—Just passing by, neighbor, don’t worry.

I didn’t press him. Bernardo appeared on the stairs with the good pick, took in the scene without moving a muscle, and looked down with a half smile, like someone finding the table already set. The guys were talking among themselves, discussing options, trying cards, picks, a hinge. Five, seven, ten minutes passed. I stood there, arms crossed but without covering anything important, feeling five pairs of eyes every time some plan failed and they all turned at once. The one with the camera never lowered it. The tallest stood behind me at some point, under the pretext of looking at the hinge from that angle, and I felt his breath on my neck and his knees brushing the back of my thighs.

After a while, the broadest one stepped out of the group.

—I’m going to ram it. Move aside.

They left him alone in front of the door. He took a one-meter run-up and slammed his shoulder into it. Nothing. He took a two-meter run-up and hit it again. Nothing. On the fourth hit, the wood of the frame gave way. On the fifth, the door flew wide open.

The relief was so enormous that tears slipped out of me. Without thinking, I launched myself at the big guy and hugged him. He hugged me back, hands wide open, one at my waist and the other sliding straight down to my ass, squeezing one whole cheek in his open palm. I felt his fingers brushing the slit still sticky back there. He gave my other cheek a short, firm slap. It took me longer than it should have to let go.

—Thank you, thank you, thank you.

—Anytime, neighbor. We’re in twelve-oh-three. Swing by when this shaking business is over. Want to give me your Instagram, or better yet your WhatsApp?

I gave him both without thinking, without really understanding what I was doing, just wanting them to leave already. I picked up the stained towel from the floor, wrapped it around myself clumsily, and stepped inside backing up, not turning my back on them. Bernardo was looking at me from the landing with a small, almost resigned smile. The guys smiled at me without hiding it.

—Hey —I said, remembering suddenly—. You, the one recording, delete that video.

The one with the phone shoved it into his pocket.

—Gladly, neighbor. We’ll come by your apartment tonight and see how we delete it together.

I shut the door as best I could —the frame was shattered but the leaf still fit— and stood there leaning against it, panting, Bernardo’s semen still dripping inside my thighs and the wet imprint of the big guy’s hand on my right ass cheek. I had given Bernardo the apartment number. I had given the guys my social media and my WhatsApp at some point in the commotion I could no longer remember clearly. And they had the video.

What happens tonight in twelve-oh-three I’ll tell you later. Wish me luck.