What I Did While Her Best Friend Watched

I arrived at Rodrigo’s apartment without warning, using my usual excuse: boredom, half a bottle of red wine left open at home, and no definite plans for a Tuesday night. We had lived in the same building for two years, he on the fourth floor and me on the third, and that comfortable proximity had turned into something resembling friendship: unfinished movies, shared snacks, conversations that stretched on longer than either of us had planned when they began.

He opened the door in a T-shirt, looking as though he hadn’t done anything all day. He gestured for me to come in and pointed at the sofa with his chin without saying a word.

There was someone else.

A girl with short dark hair sat with her legs tucked up on the cushion, holding a glass between both hands. She looked me up and down without any particular expression. She didn’t smile.

“Sofía, my friend from college,” Rodrigo said from the kitchen as he arranged the glasses. “Sofía, this is Valentina, my neighbor from the third floor.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she replied, with the same enthusiasm used to greet a cable technician.

I settled at the other end of the sofa. Rodrigo returned with three glasses, put something on Netflix that none of the three of us actually watched, and the night continued on its course: fragmented conversation, potato chips on the coffee table, low lights, and the television serving more as background noise than real entertainment. Rodrigo’s apartment was small and warm, with the kind of comfortable mess that accumulates when someone has lived alone for years.

Twenty minutes in, I already understood that Sofía didn’t like my presence. It wasn’t anything she said aloud. It was the way her eyes moved whenever Rodrigo and I exchanged something, the way she took part in the conversation just enough not to be left out, without ever dropping that expression of constant appraisal. As if she were measuring something I couldn’t see and nobody was telling me about.

I still didn’t understand why.

When she got up to use the bathroom, I took the opportunity to ask Rodrigo directly.

“Did something happen between you two?”

He furrowed his brow.

“No, not at all. I made a move on her about three years ago. She said no, and we stayed friends. She’s had a boyfriend ever since.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“And she still looks at you as if I’m the one who doesn’t belong here?”

He shrugged.

“Sofía’s just like that. Don’t pay attention to her.”

But the wine was already flowing easily through my veins, and explanations like that convinced me less and less as the night went on. When Sofía returned from the bathroom and settled back into her armchair with that same expression of a deliberating juror, something inside me finally clicked into place. She irritated me. And the irritation, mixed with the apartment’s warmth and the music Rodrigo had put on in the background when Netflix fell silent, gradually turned into something else.

***

By the second bottle, nothing had changed. Sofía still wore a slight frown whenever Rodrigo and I laughed at something, whenever the conversation took a direction that mainly included the two of us. She had the kind of look that seemed to constantly assess, classify, and judge, without allowing anyone to identify exactly what criteria she was using.

I made a decision that wasn’t entirely rational.

If my presence bothered her that much, then I would make it bother her completely.

I moved closer to Rodrigo on the sofa. Just a little. Enough for our thighs to touch.

Rodrigo glanced at me without saying anything.

I began running my hand slowly over his chest, as though I were thinking about something else. I felt his breathing change: slower, more controlled, the kind of breathing someone uses when trying not to seem as though they’re noticing something they’re noticing perfectly well.

I looked toward the armchair.

Sofía hadn’t taken her eyes off us. Her earlier frown had softened a little, replaced by something harder to name. She said nothing. She didn’t move. She only watched with a fixed, silent attention that was anything but casual.

Instead of stopping me, that quickened my pulse in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I kept moving my hand upward. Rodrigo held his breath. I noticed the unmistakable way his body responded, and I found that both amusing and utterly tempting at the same time.

***

I kissed him without giving him any warning. A direct kiss on the mouth, without detours or preliminaries. Rodrigo took exactly one second to respond, and when he did, it was with one hand on my cheek and a pressure that clearly told me he had been waiting for someone to take that initiative for a while.

The kisses escalated on their own. First soft, then longer, with tongues, our hands beginning to move over places that went far beyond what was appropriate in front of a third person. Rodrigo’s lips were warm and tasted of red wine and something slightly sweet that I never managed to identify.

“Hey,” he murmured against my mouth.

“What?” I whispered.

“Sofía’s right there...”

“I know.”

He fell silent for a moment. Then his hands kept moving.

He lifted my shirt. His hands were large and cold, and that contrast with the heat I already felt in my skin was enough to draw an involuntary sound from me. Rodrigo undid my bra clasp from behind without taking his eyes off my face, with the kind of skill evident in the fingers of someone who doesn’t have to think about what he’s doing. His hands found what they were looking for and took their time, squeezing and caressing firmly, his thumb brushing over my nipple until it was hard and sensitive.

I let out a sound louder than I had intended.

I glanced toward the armchair.

Sofía was still there. She had set her glass on the coffee table. Her cheeks had flushed a red the room’s scant lighting couldn’t disguise. Her legs were crossed in a different direction from before, and her hands were clenched on her thighs. She didn’t seem willing to leave. Nor did she seem willing to say anything.

And that—exactly that—made me wet in a way I hadn’t anticipated at all.

Instead of pushing Rodrigo away, I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled him closer.

“Like that,” I murmured, more to him than to myself.

Rodrigo kissed me more hungrily, and I buried my fingers in his hair, tugging just enough to force him to stay where I wanted him. I felt his erection hardening against my thigh through the fabric of his pants, and the certainty that Sofía was watching her best friend slip from her grasp because of me sent a hot lash of sensation between my legs.

***

Rodrigo’s mouth moved down to my neck. He lingered where my jaw joined my throat and took his time there, biting me lightly without rushing. His hands traveled over my back and sides, tracing the outline of something he had clearly been imagining for a while.

His lips moved lower. I lost track of any thought that wasn’t physical.

“Fuck me,” I told him.

I said it quietly, almost without realizing it, but in the apartment’s silence it was perfectly audible.

Rodrigo raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were dark, his expression half question and half decision already made.

“Here,” I added.

He didn’t need me to repeat myself. He stood, went to the bedroom, and returned in less than thirty seconds. He pulled off the rest of my clothes in one tug, laid me back on the sofa, and positioned himself between my legs.

I looked toward the armchair.

Sofía had leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. She no longer pretended not to be watching. Her eyes moved between the two of us with a sustained attention that was anything but accidental.

For a moment, just before Rodrigo moved, I felt something resembling embarrassment: being completely exposed in front of someone I barely knew, on her best friend’s sofa, with nothing covering me. From the outside, it was an absurd situation. But then Rodrigo parted my legs, and I stopped thinking about anything else.

He entered slowly, taking advantage of how wet I was. His first thrust drew a moan from me that vibrated in my throat. His hips probed at first, gauging the rhythm before deciding to go deeper. Every thrust came with a raw, forceful pressure, and I felt him opening me little by little, filling me in a way that made me arch my back helplessly.

“More,” I begged, my voice broken.

Rodrigo released a low growl and leaned over me, holding my waist as he fucked me with a mixture of control and hunger that left me breathless. The sofa creaked beneath us. The tip of his cock brushed deeper and deeper, striking exactly where the body turns into pure instinct.

But I kept looking at Sofía.

And Sofía looked at me.

Somewhere in that sustained gaze, with Rodrigo moving inside me, with the music in the background and the soft sound of fabric against the leather sofa, something passed between the two of us that I don’t quite know how to describe. It wasn’t anything said aloud. It was more a kind of mutual recognition, honest and without intermediaries. She shifted her legs again and pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Don’t stop,” I told Rodrigo.

He didn’t stop.

He gripped my hips more tightly, lifting me slightly to change the angle and sink even deeper. Every hard thrust shook my entire body. I felt the heat rise from my belly to my throat, and the friction began to become unbearable in the best way—that way in which pleasure stops being gentle and becomes a physical, almost painful necessity.

Rodrigo lowered one hand between us and found my clitoris with two fingers, rubbing me in clumsy circles at first, then more firmly, more confidently. I writhed beneath him, panting, my thighs trembling. The scene was obscene and precise: me naked on the sofa, him buried between my legs, Sofía still in the armchair, watching everything with an expression that could no longer be mistaken for disinterest.

“Look at her,” Rodrigo said suddenly, his voice rough, without stopping his movements.

I obeyed. I fixed my eyes on Sofía just as she swallowed.

“Do you like it like this?” Rodrigo asked, thrusting harder.

“Yes.”

“You like her watching you?”

“Yes.”

His breathing grew heavier. The hand on my hip tightened. I was already too close to think clearly, too immersed in the scene to distinguish where desire ended and provocation began. Sofía didn’t get up or look away. She only bit the inside of her cheek, red to the tips of her ears, holding the empty glass between her hands as if it were the only thing allowing her to remain in place.

***

The first orgasm arrived faster than I expected, driven by everything I had been building up since the beginning of the night: the wine, the tension, the annoyance turned into arousal, Sofía’s gaze fixed on us as if she couldn’t do anything else. I tensed, released the air in a long exhalation, and clung to Rodrigo’s shoulders as a hot wave swept through my entire body. I arched, trembling, and felt myself contract around him so forcefully that Rodrigo let out a brief, hoarse moan.

He kept going without pausing.

The second was different, deeper, building slowly from within. Rodrigo had changed the angle, searching for something specific that he found without my having to guide him. By then I wasn’t looking at Sofía anymore. I had stopped thinking about her altogether. I only felt: the friction, the pressure, his weight on top of me, the rhythm intensifying without either of us saying so.

He sucked on my neck, squeezed my ass, and kept fucking me with brutal consistency, driving deeper and deeper until I saw spots of light behind my eyelids. I hooked one leg around his waist, opening myself wider for him, and the change made him enter with a hard thrust that drew another moan from me, louder and more uncontrolled.

“That’s it, fuck,” Rodrigo muttered, his voice broken by effort and pleasure. “Like that.”

The third came when he sped up.

Rodrigo lost his controlled rhythm near the end. He began moving with greater urgency and less calculation, until he sank as deep as he could and went still with a deep sound that came from his chest.

Silence.

The two of us breathing.

He slipped out just a little, ran a hand over his face, and stared at me for a second as if he were only now remembering where he was. Then he clenched his jaw, leaned over me again, and finished with a couple of shorter, dirtier thrusts, until his whole body tensed and he came inside the condom with a shudder that ran up his back. He stayed motionless on top of me, breathing hard, his pulse beating in his neck.

My body was still burning, still sensitive, still open and trembling inside. I felt the warmth of his cum held in the latex, his final weight on top of me, and the insistent throbbing between my legs, as if my body refused to accept that it was over.

***

Rodrigo moved to one side after a moment. That was when he remembered Sofía was still there.

I sat up on the sofa and looked at her. She was exactly where she had been, the empty glass between her hands and an expression I wouldn’t have known how to sum up in a single word. Rodrigo murmured something that sounded like an apology while searching for his shirt.

Sofía cleared her throat.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “It was even interesting to watch you.”

I got up from the sofa with my clothes in my hand and went straight to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror while water ran from the faucet. My hair was tousled, my lips slightly swollen, a red mark on my neck that would last at least a couple of days. I dressed slowly, without hurrying, thinking of nothing in particular.

When I came out, Sofía was already putting on her jacket. We said goodbye with the same cold politeness with which we had greeted each other at the beginning, as if the previous forty minutes had never happened at all. Rodrigo walked me to the apartment door wearing his shirt inside out.

“Hey,” he said.

“What?”

“I mean... I don’t know. Everything okay?”

I smiled at him.

“Everything’s perfectly fine.”

I went down the stairs to my floor and entered my apartment. I fell asleep without difficulty. But before losing consciousness, the image of Sofía in that armchair returned one last time: her flushed cheeks, her wide-open eyes, the exact moment she leaned forward to get a better look.

The fact that I spent the rest of the night thinking about it is something that belongs to me alone.