My Girlfriend Accepted the Challenge at the Club and I Just Watched

We had been together for almost three years. Camila was twenty-five, I was twenty-seven, and I still found myself surprised every time I saw her cross a room. She’s just over five foot three, slim, with shoulder-length black hair and hips that don’t seem like they belong to someone so petite. Wherever we went, men turned their heads. I had gotten used to other people looking at her, and over time I had learned to enjoy it.

Camila knew it. She liked dressing to be seen. Bras-less tops, deep necklines, tight skirts, heels that drew out the line of her calves. She wasn’t an exhibitionist, but she didn’t pretend not to notice the way men looked at her. We had talked about it more than once, in bed, laughing, those conversations that stay in the dark and never make it into the daylight. Until one April night when they stopped being just a conversation.

A friend invited us to his partner’s birthday. A small gathering, in a venue with a garden, at two in the afternoon. The night before, she asked what she should wear. I told her something cool, since it was going to be hot, and to trust her judgment. She smiled at me from the bed with that half-smile of hers I never quite manage to decipher.

Saturday dawned hot. I showered, trimmed my beard, put on a lightweight jacket, beige pants, a shirt open at the neck. I went downstairs to wait for her with the keys in my hand. She took her time. When I finally heard her coming down the stairs, I looked up and lost my breath.

She was wearing a white dress. Very short. Cut low, down below the sternum, fitted at the waist, so short that any sudden movement could have exposed the lilac thong that barely peeked out when she turned. High heels, the kind that wrap around the calf. And red lips. Too red.

—Do you like it? —she asked.

I didn’t answer with words. I stepped in to kiss her and she turned her face away.

—The lipstick —she said, laughing.

—They’re going to eat you up with their eyes —I muttered, still staring at her.

—That’s the idea —she replied, and walked toward the door.

On the way to the party we stopped for gas. The guy at the station lingered at her window a little longer than necessary, staring at her legs while he processed the payment. Camila didn’t even flinch. I took it all in and felt, for the first time that afternoon, the heat rising in my chest.

We got to the venue. When I opened the car door and she got out, the dress rode up two fingers above her thigh and the guy in the car next to us tripped over the valet’s umbrella. I couldn’t stop smiling. We greeted the birthday girl, dropped off the gift, and sat down at a table with people we knew. I could feel half the garden following us with their eyes.

The afternoon went by calmly. We ate, toasted, talked. Every time she got up to go to the bathroom with a friend, male heads turned in slow motion. Under the table, I stroked her thigh. She spread her legs a little, without looking at me, and kept talking. When they asked me about the weather, I didn’t know what to say.

***

At eleven at night, the birthday family had left, and what remained was a group of young friends who wanted to keep going. Someone suggested a nearby club that stayed open late. We left as we were, without going home first. In the car, Camila adjusted her dress and touched up her lips without saying a word.

The club had purple lights, that typical electronic beat vibrating in your chest, and too many people for that hour. We got drinks at the bar. Camila finished the first quickly, then the second. By the fourth, she was already dancing in the middle of our group, twerking with the girls, laughing, letting the dress ride up every time she bent forward.

I danced beside her, but I couldn’t stop noticing the men passing close by. One brushed against her as he went past and touched her waist. Another, pretending to cut across to the bar, put his hand on the small of her back. She said nothing. She smiled, dodged them, kept dancing. But she didn’t move away.

In the crowd there was one guy who couldn’t take his eyes off her. Mid-thirties, tall, tattoos from shoulder to wrist, a tight black gym shirt. Leaning against a column with a drink in his hand, he watched her as if no one else in the place existed. Camila looked at him once. And again. The third time, she didn’t look away.

Something tightened in my stomach. It wasn’t exactly jealousy. It was something more confusing, hotter, a mix of discomfort and desire I struggled to make sense of.

Our friends started leaving around two in the morning. The birthday boy was wrecked and his girlfriend was dragging him toward the door. Camila told me in my ear that she wanted to leave too. I told her no. I wanted to stay a while longer. She looked at me, puzzled, and kept dancing.

When we were alone at a side table, with the music a little lower, I spoke into her ear.

—Do you remember what we talked about a month ago? —I said.

—About what? —she answered, but from how still she went I knew she remembered perfectly.

—About you picking up someone sometime. Just dancing. Me from over here.

She looked at me steadily, lips parted. The music wrapped around us. It took her five seconds to answer.

—You want that?

—You’ve got a free pass —I told her—. Do whatever you want.

She didn’t hesitate anymore. She stood up, adjusted her dress, and walked onto the dance floor without looking back. I leaned into the back of the couch, ordered another drink, and waited.

She chose the guy with the tattoos, of course. She passed three feet from him dancing slowly, looked at him over her shoulder, and he needed no more than that. In less than a minute he had her pressed against his chest, both hands on her waist, his face buried in her neck. Camila threw her head back against his shoulder, eyes closed, hips pressed to his. From the table I could see his hand sliding down her hip, grazing the hem of her dress, riding it up another inch every time the music changed.

I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot.

But I was already hard.

***

They danced for almost half an hour. At some point she leaned toward him, said something in his ear, and gave him a kiss very close to the mouth, but not on the mouth. Then she pulled away, walked to my table, and sat down beside me. Her cheeks were flushed and the neckline of her dress was damp.

—I’m really wet —she whispered to me—. Sorry. I didn’t think it would go this far.

—You don’t have to apologize —I replied, in a voice that didn’t sound like mine—. I asked for it.

She kissed me. I tasted the trace of the other man on her lips. We got up to leave.

At the club door, the guy with the tattoos caught up with us. He didn’t know I was her boyfriend, of course. He looked at me without recognizing me, came closer to Camila, and asked her to come to his apartment with him. Three blocks away, he said. Just for one last drink.

Camila looked at me. I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her, then at him. Before I could react, she answered:

—I’ll go, but with my friend.

And she pointed at me.

The guy hesitated for a second. Then he shrugged.

—Whatever you want —he said, and slid an arm around her waist on the way to his car.

We followed him in mine. I could barely focus on the traffic lights. Camila sat silently in the passenger seat, looking out the window. I didn’t ask anything. I didn’t want to break whatever was happening.

The apartment was in a new building, seventh floor, overlooking the avenue. He invited us to sit on a three-seater couch in front of a sound system. While he poured wine, he came up to me and said, quietly:

—Brother, what a woman you’ve got beside you. If I were you, I’d have fucked her a long time ago.

I swallowed. I didn’t answer.

Camila accepted the glass, took a long drink, and set it on the table. He sat next to her, placed a hand on her knee, and slowly slid it upward. She watched his hand, not his face. Then she looked him in the eyes, and he kissed her.

I was five feet away. Sitting on the other end of the same couch. Watching.

—If you want to join in, no problem —he said, without letting go of her waist.

I shook my head. I felt like my voice wouldn’t come out all the way.

—Even better for me —he said, laughing. And kissed her again.

Camila looked at me over his shoulder. She didn’t ask my permission. She also didn’t ask me to leave. She just looked at me for a second, and turned back to him.

***

What happened next I remember in cuts, like a dream that was extremely clear and very slow.

He pulled her dress down off her shoulders and it hung at her waist. Her breasts out, nipples hard, the lamp light hitting her from the side. He leaned in and started sucking one nipple while she tangled her fingers in his hair and pushed his head closer so he’d take more of her. I saw Camila’s face from the side and didn’t recognize it. Or maybe I did. I recognized it too well.

He hiked the dress all the way up. He pulled the lilac thong down to her ankles. Camila stepped out of it and left it on the rug. She knelt in front of him and pulled down his zipper. When she took out his cock, she made a sound in her throat, something like a sigh. It was big. Bigger than mine. Big enough for me to notice it and not be able to stop noticing it.

She started sucking it slowly, holding him by the base, looking up at him from below. He held her by the hair and pushed carefully at first, then harder. I watched Camila’s back move, the curve of her waist, the red marks the dress left on her skin. And I watched my own hand gripping the arm of the couch, white from the pressure.

He lifted her. Turned her around. Bent her over the back of the couch, a foot from where I was sitting, and fucked her without a condom. Without asking. Camila bit her lip and clutched the fabric of the couch. I heard the muffled cry and felt it in my chest.

—Look at her taking it —he said, laughing, without looking at me—. Look at her sucking me off.

He fucked her like that, against the couch, for what felt like an hour. Then he turned her again and told her to get on top. Camila did it with her back to him, facing me. And as she rose and fell on him, with her hands on her own breasts, she didn’t take her eyes off mine for a single second.

I didn’t touch myself. I didn’t need to. When he finished —on her stomach, her breasts, her throat, all over— and she collapsed forward with an exhausted smile, I felt the wet heat inside my pants. I had come without touching myself. Without even realizing it.

I bent down. Camila looked at me from the couch. Her hair was stuck to her temple.

—Look at my friend —she told him, still breathless—. He didn’t want to take part. But he loved it.

The guy laughed, stroked her leg, and asked her to stay the night. She shook her head. She looked for the dress, the lilac thong, the heels. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom and came back newly made up, her lips still red, though not as red as before.

—Let’s go, friend —she said from the door.

***

The drive back was silent. Not an awkward silence. The kind of silence that comes after something you know you’re never going to tell anyone about.

At home, I got into the shower without saying a word. When I came out, Camila was in bed, still in the wrinkled white dress and barefoot. She waited for me to sit on the edge.

—Your turn —she said, very softly—. After the whole day. Come here.

I went over. I touched her face, her neck, her breasts. I kissed her slowly, feeling the trace of everything I had seen. When I slipped my fingers inside her, she was hot and open in a way I didn’t know her body could be. She made a noise in my ear, a new noise.

—It’s yours —she said—. It always was yours. I just lent it to you for a while today.

I fucked her with a mix of rage, relief, and a desire I had never felt before. I didn’t last long. It didn’t matter.

Afterward, in the dark, with the air conditioner humming, she curled against my chest and fell asleep without saying anything else. I stayed awake a long while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the night frame by frame, trying to understand what all of it had been.

I didn’t reach any clear conclusion. Just one: it wasn’t going to be the last time. And from the way she was breathing against my chest, I knew it wasn’t the first fantasy we were going to let slip out of our hands.