What We Saw Through the Crack in Aurora’s Room

At the private high school where Camila and Tomás met, they sold a homemade zine on the first Friday of every month. The teachers bought it out of obligation, the other students out of prurience, because one of the stories was almost always a piece of gossip barely disguised. As salespeople, they were opposites. Camila spoke too quickly and sometimes used profanity that made her seem untrustworthy. Tomás, on the other hand, had the deep voice of someone who had done theater, and he dressed in shirts that made him look like a university student already.

“You sell more because you’re handsome,” Camila told him one afternoon as they counted coins.

She said it so naturally that Tomás only laughed. They had been friends for so many years that any flirtation would have sounded like a joke. And yet Tomás thought Camila was beautiful. He admired her curvy body, her small glasses, the casual black blouses in which she had learned to feel comfortable after years of being called “chubby” in middle school. He never told her. Their friendship was too good to risk.

The group completed itself without anyone planning it. Mariela and Aurora ended up on their work teams, and before the first year was over, the four of them were inseparable. Mariela was dark-skinned, short, and fed up with everything. She said “asshole” affectionately and angrily alike, and quoted soap operas with astonishing memory. At a school full of spoiled girls, Camila identified with her, although Mariela never had much interest in classes, the zine, or Camila herself.

What did interest her from the beginning was Tomás. Through touches, compliments, and one inexplicable kiss on the cheek, Mariela won him over before the first spring. And from then on, she dominated him. She did his homework, saved him a seat in the cafeteria, and put up with his tantrums with a patience Camila couldn’t understand.

“I hope he rewards you properly after class,” Camila would say teasingly, hiding her concern.

“No comment,” Tomás would reply with a crooked smile.

Aurora was the fourth. She had lived abroad because of her parents’ work and now lived alone with a half-deaf grandmother in a house on the outskirts. She was the strangest one in the group. Tall and pale, with a thick fringe over two slanted eyes, she changed her hair color every two months and wore her school uniform even on days when it wasn’t required. Beneath her jacket she hid a tight blouse that, on the few hot days, revealed what the uniform concealed: a firm stomach, large, round tits she seemed determined to disguise.

Aurora’s room became the group’s center. It was at the back of a garden, behind a fence, and was reached by black, rusted iron stairs. It had its own bathroom, its own refrigerator, its own key. Aurora had asked for independence years ago, and now she could live practically without seeing her family. The four of them sprawled on the rug playing video games while Camila read drafts of the zine in ridiculous voices.

Around the same time Mariela and Tomás began kissing in front of Camila without the slightest shame, Aurora began dating Damián, a boy outside the group. Damián was tall, pale, with pink lips and meticulously styled hair, wearing a gray trench coat that always seemed freshly pressed. He barely spoke to them except to ask about Aurora: “Do you know where she is?” “Do you know if she’s angry with me?” Aurora didn’t need to dominate him the way Mariela dominated Tomás. It was enough for her to be nearby for Damián to remain magnetized, wearing a hungry-dog expression that churned something in Camila’s chest.

Camila was left alone within the group. She didn’t mind. She had plans, ambition, and a public university in her sights. Besides, men had made her distrustful ever since a relationship with a university student who had used her in middle school. What bothered her wasn’t being single, but that her friends made her get wet every time they kissed their boyfriends inches away from her.

“Get a room,” she would growl, spraying them with little drops of water while squeezing her thighs beneath the table to calm the pussy throbbing between her legs.

They finished high school. Mariela and Aurora stayed at the private university affiliated with the same school. Camila and Tomás achieved their dream and enrolled in journalism at a huge state university. Against all odds, the group survived. Every Thursday they still went to the same café; every Friday, the same bar. Camila couldn’t remember ever being happier.

Until one Thursday Mariela and Aurora didn’t show up at the café. They didn’t appear at the bar on Friday either. They didn’t answer messages. Camila and Tomás waited for them over beers, talking with false cheer, feeling that something was twisting beneath the table.

“If they don’t come next Thursday, I’m going to Aurora’s house,” Camila said.

Tomás nodded with a strained smile. That was when Camila realized he hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening with his girlfriend.

The following Thursday they went together. Tomás wore a shirt and vest, just as he had in high school. Camila wore denim shorts and a loose blouse. Are we the only ones who got stuck in time? she thought as they climbed the iron stairs.

The curtain over Aurora’s room was drawn, as always. Camila was about to knock when a wet, regular sound stopped them. The unmistakable splashing of a cock sliding in and out of a soaked cunt. Ragged breathing, and behind it, the wet smacking of hips colliding. Tomás opened his mouth to whisper something, but a cry from inside froze him.

“Keep going, asshole, keep fucking me!” a voice shouted, one neither of them could mistake. “Harder, harder, fuck me like I taught you!”

They looked at each other without breathing. They said nothing and decided nothing. Without thinking, they crouched down and searched for a crack between the curtain and the frame. They could barely make out contrasting skin tones on the bed: one lighter, one darker. The darker one was Mariela. She was straddling the man, her knees sunk into the mattress, impaled to the hilt on a cock that disappeared completely between her buttocks. She snorted, panted, letting insults spill like caresses. Now she rode him with little hops, letting the cock smack against the depths of her belly; now she rubbed herself in circles, her clitoris crushed against the other person’s pubis; now she arched her back in tiny curves so the penetration would touch precisely the spot that made her moan. She licked two fingers and lowered her hand to rub her clitoris while continuing to rise and fall, and every time she lifted herself, his cock appeared gleaming with her fluids, thick and crowned by a little blob of white cream from her wet pussy. It was impossible to see the man’s face.

“Suck my tits, you bastard,” Mariela demanded, grabbing her breasts and shaking them in front of his face. “Suck them hard, I’m about to come.”

And the man obeyed. He rose just enough to bite one nipple while Mariela rode him faster, her legs trembling. Her round ass bounced with every downward thrust, and a constant stream of half-choked filth came from her mouth: “That’s it, that’s it, deeper, oh asshole, you fuck me so good.”

Camila was wet. She couldn’t help it. She felt her shorts stuck to her pussy and a hot throb between her legs keeping time with Mariela’s sexual pounding. The body of Mariela she could barely make out aroused her, as did the panting, the smell of danger, and above all, Tomás’s closeness. She felt his shoulder pressed against hers, his accelerated breathing, and when she dared glance at his crotch, she caught sight of a hard bulge straining the denim. Her stomach tightened. Her pussy contracted. When she finally dared turn to look at his face, Tomás was expressionless, as though someone had switched him off inside, though his chest was rising and falling at frantic speed.

Inside, Mariela was already coming. She announced it with a long, filthy howl, swearing aloud that she was coming, that she was filling his cock with her milk, squeezing her clitoris with two fingers while her whole body shook in spasms. The man grunted beneath her, and she collapsed forward without pulling him out, moving her ass in slow circles to milk him dry.

Tomás went down the stairs without making a sound. Camila followed him. Two blocks later she found him vomiting against a wall. She felt guilty, dirty for having desired him while her friend was breaking apart, dirty because she could still feel the soaked elastic of her panties.

“I knew we were in trouble,” Tomás said, looking at the sky to hold back a tear. “I knew I had to talk to her. I didn’t think that…”

Camila hugged him for a long time. Tomás burst into tears for two seconds, cut them off sharply, and they walked home in silence.

***

The following week, Camila rehearsed in front of the mirror what she was going to tell him. That he should talk to Mariela. That he was the one who decided what would happen. That maybe it had only happened once. That maybe he wanted to stay with her, but needed to confront her. Tomás nodded at everything. He hugged her. He told her, “Thanks, Cami. You’re a great friend.”

Camila couldn’t wait. Something in her future-journalist instincts told her there was far too much information missing. Why was Mariela fucking at Aurora’s house instead of her own? Who was that man? While spying through the crack, she had managed to see a face with its neck twisted, half hidden among the pillows. It seemed to be Damián. But that destroyed all logic. How did Damián get into Aurora’s house without her being there? How did he dare fuck his girlfriend’s best friend in her own bed?

The following Wednesday, Camila went back alone. Unsurprisingly, she found Tomás a few blocks from the house.

“What brings you here today, partner?” she asked, pretending to be amused.

Tomás only smiled.

They crossed the garden and climbed the rusty stairs. The cream-colored curtains covered almost the entire windows. Neither of them was surprised to hear Mariela’s moans again, or the thick splashing of a cock sliding in and out of a streaming cunt. They crouched down again.

This time, a crack at the side let them see much more. Mariela was squatting, completely naked, on top of a man’s body. Her straight black hair fell over her face. She bit her lip as she rubbed herself, penetrated to the hilt, rocking gently back and forth. Every time she lifted herself, the hard, long cock gleaming with fluids appeared, sliding between the open lips of her swollen pussy; every time she lowered herself, she swallowed it whole with a wet sound. Her nipples, small and dark, quivered, tightened by the cold in the room, and she pinched them with two fingers, twisting them until pleasure made her grimace. The man—Damián, indeed—had placed his fingertips on her buttocks with almost devotional care, as if he didn’t want to impose any rhythm on her. Suddenly his hand rose, tracing her side until it cupped one breast with a gentleness that belonged not to a furtive lover but to someone who knew every inch of her. He traced her nipple with his thumb while his other hand lowered to spread her ass a little farther, revealing how the cock sank completely inside her whenever Mariela sat down fully.

“Suck my fingers,” Mariela whispered, putting three of them into his mouth while continuing to fuck him. “Suck them the way I sucked your cock earlier.”

Camila was about to turn toward Tomás when she noticed. Damián was moving his lips. He was speaking. But Mariela wasn’t answering him. She was looking at another point in the room, smiling with a mixture of provocation and embarrassment.

Then Aurora stood up from a chair against the wall, inches from the crack, where she hadn’t been visible before. She walked to the bed with her tits exposed, her tight blouse rolled up to her neck. They were enormous and white, with large pink nipples hardened by the air. She brushed Mariela’s hair from her face with a slow caress. She drew two circles on her shoulder with her fingertips. She ran her hand down Mariela’s back to the top of her ass, paused there for a moment, feeling how Mariela moved on Damián’s cock, and then leaned down to kiss Damián on the lips, her tongue thrust deep into his mouth. With her other hand she lowered it to Mariela’s pussy and worked her clitoris in soft, irregular circles, letting the motion of the penetration do the work. Mariela moaned loudly, a catlike moan, and grabbed Aurora by the nape to keep her hand from leaving.

“That’s it, Au, that’s it, don’t let go of my clit now, I’m coming,” Mariela panted with her mouth open.

Aurora let Mariela suck one of her nipples for a few seconds, draping her breast over her as if offering food, and then returned to her chair. She sat down, spread her legs, slipped her hand inside her pants, and began masturbating while watching them, biting her lower lip, her other hand playing with one breast.

Camila lost her breath. She felt her pulse pounding in her pussy, a heavy heat rising through her belly. Tomás beside her seemed to have stopped breathing too, and this time she didn’t need to look between his legs to know how he was: she could hear his ragged breathing pressed against her ear.

Inside, Damián came first. His thighs tensed, he gave a short moan, and Mariela rode him three more times viciously, until she drew a long groan from him as he emptied inside her. She rose off him, his cock slipping out with a thick white thread hanging between the lips of her pussy. Without wiping herself, she walked naked to Aurora’s chair, crouched in front of her, spread her legs, and began eating her pussy, burying her face until her nose disappeared. Aurora threw her head back. Camila could no longer make out the words, only a high-pitched purr, and Aurora’s hands clutching Mariela’s black hair as she rubbed her against her sex.

Tomás pulled away from the crack first. Camila followed a few seconds later, her panties soaked and her cheeks burning.

***

“She’s not going to answer me anymore, is she?” Tomás said on the way home.

“No. It’s better this way.”

“Better this way.”

Camila wanted to tell him everything she was carrying inside. That if this were a porn video, she would tell him, “Now it’s your turn, right? Haven’t you ever wondered what I look like naked, how my tits move when I fuck myself?” That she had spent the entire week imagining herself riding him, sucking his cock all the way down her throat, leaving her ass marks on his face. That she was willing to risk their friendship if he agreed. She said none of it. Tomás was too hurt, and she was too cowardly.

The following Thursday, Mariela and Aurora appeared at the café as if nothing had happened. Mariela ran to hug Tomás and planted a long kiss on him without explanation. Aurora began telling stories from her childhood abroad in a strangely intimate tone. Mariela’s hand rested on Tomás’s knee. Camila watched her through clenched teeth.

“Why are you telling us all this now, Au?” she asked at last.

“Because the four of us have hardly been at my house this past year,” Aurora replied, holding her gaze. “Come over Friday. I’ll even cook for you.”

On Friday, Aurora called her when she was already on her way to the subway. Aurora never called.

“Can you get a book for me from your university library? I need one urgently.”

Camila agreed. She texted Tomás, “Go ahead, I’m getting something for Aurora.” She spent twenty minutes searching for a book that seemed to be hiding among the shelves. When she finally found it, Aurora called her again.

“My parents showed up unexpectedly. I’m canceling tonight. Can you do Tuesday?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Camila. Thanks for the book. I already told Tomás. Have a nice afternoon.”

Something in Aurora’s voice sounded too gentle. And “I already told Tomás” didn’t fit with the rest of the conversation.

***

On Monday she found Tomás alone on a university bench, staring at a fixed point.

“You didn’t come,” he said when Camila approached.

Camila sat down without speaking. She closed her eyes.

“Tell me,” she asked.

“I arrived and Aurora opened the door,” Tomás began, staring at his hands. “She had pinned back her fringe with two barrettes. She looks different without her high-school jacket, Cami. She was wearing a brown vest and a white blouse. She told me you and Mariela hadn’t arrived yet. We sat on her bed to play some random video game. I only wanted to ask her about Mariela. I must have looked terrible, because she asked me to tell her what was wrong. I started stammering Mariela’s name, and she told me, ‘Don’t be silly, Tomás. She just needs her space. You two have been together a long time.’”

“And then?”

“She hugged me. It was strange. I felt one of her tits against my arm, heavy and braless, the nipple hard against the fabric. When we pulled apart, she took my hand between hers. She told me I had a beautiful smile. I told her the same. We were as close as you and I are now.”

Camila swallowed.

“She kissed me. Or I kissed her, I don’t know. It was slow at first, and then she shoved her tongue deep inside, sucking on mine, biting my lip. I thought I was going to cry, and before I knew it, I had a hand on her hip, then on her ass, squeezing it through her pants. She asked me if I liked her blouse. I said yes. She took off her vest. ‘With or without the vest?’ ‘Without,’ I said. She lifted her blouse to her shoulder blades. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her tits fell heavily, white, with huge pink nipples pointing at my face. ‘With or without the blouse?’”

Camila stood up, walked around a couple of times staring at the floor, then sat down again.

“Did you touch her?”

“Yes. I grabbed her tits with both hands. They were heavy. I sucked one nipple, and she pressed it into my mouth, pushing my head. Then she licked my ear and whispered, ‘They taste good too, don’t they, Tomás?’”

“And her?”

“She opened my pants. She put her hand inside my underwear and pulled out my cock. But she barely touched me. She gripped it three or four times, up and down, and ran her thumb over the head. It was as if she only wanted to see how I was.”

“What do you mean, how you were?”

“Camila, please.”

“Did you have it up?”

Tomás buried his face in his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was different.

“It was hard as a rock, Cami. And she noticed and smiled. When I tried to unbutton her pants, she grew serious. She asked me how long I had been spying on her.”

“She knows?”

“She knows everything. She asked me if I could forgive Mariela. I told her that at that moment I could forgive anything. She straightened her blouse and went to the bathroom. From inside, I heard her say, ‘I told you.’ I felt humiliated, but I didn’t move. When she came out, she was holding two condoms.”

“Did you fuck?”

“Not with her. Aurora kissed me again and asked if I wasn’t turned on anymore. I told her I loved Mariela. ‘The condoms aren’t for me,’ she said. And Mariela came out of the bathroom completely naked. I had never seen her like that. The two times we’d been together before, she had asked me for complete darkness.”

“Tomás…”

“She hung from my neck and began kissing me. She shoved her tongue in until it tickled the roof of my mouth and bit my chin. Then she went behind me and began masturbating me from the back. She pulled my pants down to my ankles, opened my underwear, and pulled out my cock with both hands. She did it fantastically, tightening her hand on the way up, opening and closing her fingers when she reached the head, spitting into her palm and sliding it up and down with her slick hand, her thumb brushing the tip every time she reached the top. I didn’t understand why she was behind me until I realized it was so Aurora could watch. So Aurora could see how I was, how my cock was swelling, how Mariela was handling it. Aurora came closer slowly, her blouse down again, those huge tits moving freely as she walked. I thought she was going to kiss me, but she didn’t. She stopped when I brushed against her, so close I could feel her breath on my mouth, and stayed there, feeling Mariela work me. She was staring at my cock. I could see her pupils dilated, her mouth open. She leaned over my shoulder and kissed Mariela on the lips, with her very long tongue. Then she sat in the chair against the wall, pulled her tits out of her blouse again, lowered her pants to her knees, and began masturbating while watching us. She put in two fingers, pulled them out gleaming, licked her fingers, and put them back in. Meanwhile Mariela kept working behind me, squeezing harder, whispering in my ear, ‘Look at her tits, look at how she opens up. That’s how she opened for you a little while ago. You’d like to eat her, wouldn’t you?’”

Camila couldn’t breathe. She was dizzy with rage and a heat she refused to acknowledge, her nipples pointed hard against the fabric of her blouse and wetness bursting between her legs.

“Aurora told us we could start whenever we wanted,” Tomás finished without looking at her. “But I had to be on top, and keep looking at her the entire time. If I looked away, everything was over. I had to let Mariela put the condom on me with her mouth, and then penetrate her slowly without ever stopping looking at Aurora, with Mariela on her back, so my face would be clearly visible while I fucked her. And that’s what happened, Cami. Mariela lay there open, her pussy swollen and glistening, and asked me to shove it in hard. I looked at Aurora, and Aurora nodded without stopping masturbating. I shoved it in all at once. Mariela screamed. I fucked her slowly, looking at Aurora, and Aurora fingered herself to the rhythm of my thrusts. When I sped up, she sped up. When Mariela came, squeezing my cock inside her, Aurora came too, biting her blouse to keep from screaming. And then she let me finish. I came while looking at her, Cami. Not at Mariela. At her.”

Camila leaned her head against the back of the bench. She remembered the crack. She remembered Damián’s twisted neck among the pillows. Aurora had been there the first time too. Aurora had always been there. And now she understood that Aurora had sent her to the library so she could keep her share of the plan.

What she didn’t dare confess to herself was the other thing. That while she listened to Tomás tell it, she imagined herself entering the room, finding them like that, and sitting in the chair against the wall. She imagined lifting her skirt, yanking down her panties, spreading her legs in front of Tomás so he could watch her open her pussy with two fingers, so he could watch her come while watching him fuck. She had spent years silently wishing to be the one watching from the wall.