The Night We Left the Door Ajar

In other stories I’ve already told how I met Mateo and how we ended up tangled in something neither of us knew how to name. This one is different. It’s short, but it’s the one I remember most often, because it was the night I discovered how much I liked being watched.

Back then his girlfriend was still living in Spain, and although that should have stopped me, it didn’t. Some of his friends already knew about us. They knew without anyone spelling it out for them, by the way we sought each other out when we thought nobody was looking. Sometimes the three of us or the four of us would go out together for a drink or to a party, and I felt like part of a secret everyone carried with a smile.

That night there were five of us at first. Mateo, me, a couple of his friends, and a guy I barely knew, Sergio. We’d arranged to meet at a bar a couple of blocks from his apartment, one of those places with dim light and music loud enough that you had to lean in close to hear each other speak. I’ve always loosened up in places like that. Knees brushing under the table, the excuse of bending in to listen, a hand lingering a second too long on your thigh.

—Another round? —Mateo asked, already wearing that look I knew too well.

—One more and we’ll go —I said, though neither of us had any intention of going to sleep.

The couple said goodbye on the way out of the bar. They had to get up early, they said, or maybe they just read the room and understood we were headed for something else. So it ended up being the three of us: Mateo, Sergio and me, walking down the empty street with that loose, tipsy laughter alcohol gives you when it’s still too early to regret anything.

We stopped at a shop and bought a little more to keep drinking at the apartment. Sergio insisted on paying, the way men do when they’re not quite sure what role they’re supposed to play on a night like that. I watched him from the corner of my eye. He was quiet, attentive, with a way of looking at me that wasn’t quite brazen but wasn’t innocent either.

***

Mateo’s apartment was small and warm, with only one lamp on in the living room and a blanket thrown over the couch. We put on a movie none of the three of us were going to watch. The three of us sat on the same sofa, me in the middle, Mateo on my right and Sergio at the other end, leaving a polite distance between us that wasn’t going to last.

The problem with Mateo and me was that we could never be close without touching. It started as always, with his hand resting on my knee, slowly moving upward while we pretended to pay attention to the screen. I tried to hold back. I really did try, out of respect for Sergio, who was sitting right there drinking his beer as if he noticed nothing.

But alcohol and desire are a bad combination for caution. At some point I turned my face toward Mateo and we kissed. It was a slow kiss at first, the kind that tests how far you can go, and almost immediately it stopped being slow. His fingers tangled in my hair, my hand found his leg, and the movie became a background murmur that didn’t mean anything anymore.

We shouldn’t, there’s someone else here. The thought crossed my mind and, instead of stopping me, it turned me on.

—Do you mind if we leave you alone for a while? —Mateo asked Sergio, with a voice rougher than he meant it to be.

Sergio stood up with a crooked smile and said no problem, that he was going for another beer. I watched him walk to the kitchen and for a second I wondered what he was thinking, what he was imagining as we disappeared down the hall.

***

We went into the bedroom and the darkness swallowed us. We were so focused on each other that neither of us noticed the door had not been fully closed, a thin crack where the light from the living room slipped through.

We started taking our clothes off without hurry and with hurry at the same time, that contradiction that only exists when you want someone badly. I was kissing his neck, biting slowly just below the ear, where I knew his skin would rise in gooseflesh. I pressed my chest against his so he could feel my nipples hard through the last piece of clothing I still had on, and he answered by gripping my hips, pulling me against him with a firmness that stole my breath.

I knelt in front of him. There was something about that position I liked more than anything else, the feeling of control that comes from being on your knees when in reality you’re the one in charge. I heard him hold his breath, felt him look for support on my shoulder, and for a moment the world narrowed to his voice breaking into a low moan that made me hotter than any caress.

When I straightened up and turned my head, I saw him. The door had opened a little more and Sergio was there, in the hallway, watching. Mateo had his back to the door, so he hadn’t noticed a thing. Only I knew. My gaze met Sergio’s in the half-light, and instead of getting scared, instead of covering myself, I winked at him. A silent invitation: stay, watch.

I kissed Mateo with new urgency and told him in his ear to lie back, that I wanted to ride him. I pushed him gently onto the bed and climbed on top of him, holding his gaze as I slid over his body until I felt him all the way inside me. I lowered my weight slowly, to the very bottom, and let out a long sigh I didn’t fake for anyone.

He took my hips and started setting the rhythm from below. He could see my breasts moving with every thrust, and he propped himself up a little to reach them with his mouth, kissing them, barely biting. While he did that, I turned my face back toward the crack in the door, where Sergio still didn’t miss a single movement. Knowing I was being watched, feeling those eyes fixed on my back while Mateo filled me again and again, was too much. My first orgasm hit me like that, looking at a stranger looking at me, my body trembling in a way it hadn’t in a long time.

***

When Mateo pulled his mouth away from my breast and opened his eyes, he discovered Sergio in the doorway. He didn’t start. On the contrary. Something in his expression changed, a spark of pride, of wanting to show what he was capable of now that he had an audience.

—Get on all fours —he said in my ear—. Facing the door.

I obeyed without thinking. I positioned myself so Sergio would have a full view, hips raised, face turned so I wouldn’t miss a detail of his reaction. Mateo spread me open with his hands and came into me in one hard thrust that tore a groan from me I didn’t control. He started moving with force, deep, relentless, and I begged him for more between gasps, not caring that the other man could hear every word.

He yanked my hair and gave me a slap that rang out in the room. He knew how much I liked that, and Sergio’s presence lit him up just as much as it did me. He fucked me with an intensity I didn’t know in him, as if every удар were a declaration aimed at the man watching us from the shadows. He made me moan like never before, loud, shameless, letting my voice fill the entire apartment.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sergio wasn’t pretending anymore. He’d opened his pants and was stroking himself slowly, hypnotized by the show we were giving him. That image, of someone getting off just from watching me, pushed me to the edge once more. The second orgasm left me weak in the arms, my face buried in the sheets, my whole body trembling.

***

Mateo was close; I could tell by the way his breathing turned uneven. And from what I could see, Sergio wasn’t far off either.

—Do you want to see something in particular? —Mateo asked, almost out of breath, speaking to him for the first time.

Sergio took a second to answer, as if he didn’t believe he had permission to ask.

—I want to see her when you finish. On the face, or on the breasts. Wherever she wants.

I liked that he left the choice to me. I knelt in front of Mateo, in profile to the door so Sergio would have the best angle possible, and took him back into my mouth. I worked slowly, glancing toward the hallway every so often, enjoying the power of being the center of two gazes at once. When I felt Mateo was about to come, I pulled back just a little, and with a few more caresses I felt the heat spill over my skin. I closed my eyes and smiled.

Sergio didn’t last more than a few seconds after that. I heard him let out a muffled moan from his corner, and then silence, that thick silence that remains when desire cuts off all at once and awareness of what just happened returns.

A few minutes later the three of us came out into the living room, already dressed, with that awkward sweetness that comes after. Sergio said he had to go, that it had gotten late. We walked him to the door amid half-finished laughs and looks that promised not to say a word.

Pity, I thought as I watched him go down the stairs. We were going to invite him to stay. Next time, maybe, he wouldn’t be content with just watching from the hallway.