Rescue and Awakening: Play with Fire, #6

By Andrew Kovel

Sixth and final installment of this story in which Pablo and María will seek the salvation of their relationship.

After the shocking ending of the fifth book, Pablo will undergo a change, the awakening of something in him, different, previous, for which he will try to clarify things with an almost forgotten integrity, and he will find himself with a surprising strategy proposed by María.

Said plan will undergo variations as a consequence of Edu's unpredictability and the appearance of new characters, reaching a situation of extreme lack of control for the couple.

Begoña will also look for a way to access Pablo and be able to explain what happened with Víctor, and with Edu himself, but Pablo will be wary of his true intentions.

This novel is intended for people over 18 years of age
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Kovel
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215323519

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Something deep inside me knew that this moment would come. Not the one of betrayal, but the one in which he stopped fighting in an external conflict and an internal one, to give way to a new state in which he only had one rival. My other enemy, myself, was suddenly in tune with me.

He didn't have to stop being that Pablo. It just wasn't anymore. Sometimes something traumatic has to happen for change to take place, or rather a return to oneself. A moment in which your own being does not say enough, does not say anything, it simply reaches such an extreme point that it appears on the other side, going from a straight line to a perfect ellipse: and that other side was me, the me before all that.

Behind that door, hidden, I didn't feel bad or good, I just felt myself. And I filled my lungs while listening to them, even though I wasn't listening to them anymore.

That machination behind my back made me see that it was not an injustice or an attack on me, but on that Pablo that I had created and who deserved that and much more.

I didn't break into the bedroom. I did not enter accusing violating his peace. I did not look for his activity to be altered by surprise. I didn't even care about their gestures when they were discovered. They responded to my appearance with sudden silence, and I began to gather my things. Maria didn't take long to speak, perhaps to maintain control, perhaps to find out how much and what she had heard. And asked in a soft whisper if she was coming from the bathroom.

I would open the doors of the old closet, which danced unsteadily, aware of the strange situation: of that Edu in his underpants and María in a nightgown, of that intimacy, of that unfair trust, but I did not feel an iota of nervousness. I told María, without turning around, without showing off and without being a victim, that I had come from first listening and then seeing how Víctor fucked Begoña.

María believed me with little surprise and questioned Edu instantly, and I didn't know whether to trust her ignorance or whether to think that this was a here you play from Captain Renault. Edu didn't give him answers, but tried to counterattack, seeking my attention, calling me by that dominant diminutive, pretending that I wouldn't leave and at the same time worried, like Maria, about what I might have heard. He needed me.

Maybe it took them a few moments to figure it out, but once they saw my clothes inside the suitcase and the suitcase on the bed, they had to deduce that I had discovered their miserable maneuver. It was so starkly clear that there was nothing to ask. María and Edu knew that I was going to leave there, alone or accompanied.

Have you really put all this together...? Are those two really upstairs? What did you want... an orgy here...? María asked him, perhaps pretending that she understood my escape because of her trapping him, and not because of his betrayal, of her. And Edu didn't respond and I still didn't know if it was all a farce, but I cared less and less.

You're crazy... she continued, getting off the bed. Outraged with him, sympathetic with me, or faking it all.

Ed protested. But how to defend yourself if you don't know if you are being attacked. And Maria left the bedroom in the direction of the bathroom.

I was left alone with him then, but I didn't care, for the first time. And he wanted everything to be as always:

—Come on, Pablito, don't put on a... show... Let's see... what have you heard? I know you. I know what you want.

You don't know me at all, I replied.

-Oh no? Come on. Everything is going well. Don't fuck up now," he said, coming closer, wanting to intimidate me.

But his attempt was in vain, perhaps because I no longer had anything to lose, and I didn't respond to his next sentence. And I started to get dressed, ignoring his presence.

I ended up going to the nightstand and saw on my phone that María had just written to me, and while I was thinking that I hadn't realized that she had taken her mobile, and the strangeness of all that, of that game of cat and mouse among the three, added to the madness, now silent, that was above, I read:

I have to tell you what's really going on. And yes, let's go. Wait for me in the car. I am coming right away.

I was not convinced by her request, and even less to give her an extension, which after all was time for her to be alone with Edu, but I agreed and began to get dressed. And Edu smelled that she had given me some directive and didn't speak anymore, and waited in silence for the relief to take place there.

I left that house with my suitcase and under a strange light, because the night was absolute but you could see even the clouds go by, like an afterglow that had never decided between ending dusk or beginning to dawn.

I got to the car and told myself I wouldn't wait too long. Each minute that passed was an ultimatum, but at the same time it meant another minute of postponement in my decision to leave alone. And if I didn't, it was because a part of me still thought that it was explainable. He was dead and alive, skeptical and believing, but they weren't uncertain doubts, they were ripe possibilities.

Two, three, four minutes, and I heard Maria's footsteps approaching the car from behind. She left her luggage in the trunk and, wearing sandals, a nightgown and a sweater over it, she ended up sitting next to me.

And I did not want to look at her, knowing that she would soon relate her justification, and I did not want her beauty, or my love for her, to make me accept an insufficient explanation.

And I started the car.

CHAPTER 2

I was lucid, clear. The drinks taken next to that hillside were a vague memory, without repercussions on my body. I wasn't even sleepy despite the ungodly hour.

My discomfort was curious, because I knew that Maria's justification would begin, but I didn't feel that I had to answer to me, but to herself.

As soon as we came to a wider road and stopped winding she said:

—Were Víctor and Begoña really upstairs?

You know I do, I replied.

-Well no. I didn't know. This is crazy, Pablo. But crazy. Everything," she whispered, raising a hand to her face.

-Tell me.

And Begona? What does he paint in all this?

I didn't answer, but I had my suspicions.

Maria finally cleared her throat and continued:

—I'm not going to tell you that it bothers me that you're thinking what I know you're thinking. Because now, at the moment we are in, I can't blame you for thinking anything crazy. I'm going to tell you very schematic, okay? Last night Edu released the barbarity of the pregnancy. I didn't know anything. Obviously. And I take it for what it is, like he's crazy. But at the same time it is... another... another possible proof of something that I have been... doubting. Because strange things you will have seen too. Like it's not like before. I believe. Not for the crazy things. Because despite their disappearances, which I think are also due to that... Maybe to hide it, I don't know. But the way, the way that...

I'm not following you, Maria. Nothing, I interrupted.

-Wait to see...

—Schematic it will be, but you haven't said anything... —I said, already intrigued, although always with that residue and background of faith in her.

-Let's see. I go to the facts, better. What I'm saying is that we went to bed last night. I am as hallucinated as you. And you fell asleep, and he began to write to me. He asked me how I saw the subject, and I had the first... reflex... to tell him that I was sick in the head, but... I wanted to play along, to see where he was going, because that barbaric thing is that it's even too stupid even for he. And... well... it comes from strange things... like... dressing Begoña like me... or... well, you don't know this, but he told me that it bothered him that I did it with Rubén... or about... well, that, on the beach... that night... that in the end I did it with him... in a way... let's say not normal...

I was trying to follow her. He didn't want to interrupt her again. I was concentrating on the road and on his tone, which was not conciliatory or seeking justification, but as if he were ordering his ideas and his cabals out loud.

And... that... he continued. That to all those weird things, that aren't really for someone... who... just wants to fuck you... she suddenly added the pregnancy thing. So I ended up telling him that well... that I was seeing him in the long term, that is, well, I have it written down, but come on, I kind of didn't just see him badly at all. I don't know. Something like that. And I also told him that it had seemed crazy to you, but that speaking calmly you could end up seeing it as I did.

Wait, I interrupted. Are you telling me that you set him up that...that trap...or whatever...to see if he has feelings for you?

—Hmm... Well, yes. You have outlined it better, look.

-Maria...

-That?

You're kidding me.

-No. Not at all.

And why do you want to know that? I asked her, and at the same time I was asking myself if it was possible that Edu had feelings for her.

Well, I want to know. Of course I want to know.

-Because?

-Well I do not know. And in fact I told you to go to the car, to stay with him and try to see... or find out if I could get something out, but I didn't quite know how either.

—What was he going to declare to you? But if it has happened to us all summer. I do not understand anything.

-Well no. declare no. But... if he asked me to stay... without you... I don't know. I wanted to see... in his gaze, I don't know. See the look I saw on the beach.

What look?

—Well, I already told you... that that... dust... It wasn't... It wasn't like the night of the wedding or like when Carlos... —she explained while I remembered how Edu had penetrated her there on the sand, certainly more calmly and even almost sweetness, although I had not seen any look.

-And? I asked, curious, but not feeling fully comfortable in my inquisitive role.

What of what?

What if when you were alone with him... now... you discovered something.

-No. I didn't really know how to do it either.

—He didn't implore you to stay to have a romantic night... While upstairs, Víctor was making out with Begoña.

-Well no. But that does not mean anything. He became cool, well, as always, and he said something to me... well, bitchy, like he is. But nothing. And Paul. I tell you. Really.

-That?

That I don't recognize myself. That we get married... the day after tomorrow. Or tomorrow already. And that this is over. I've told you a thousand times. I know. But this Edu thing is over. And more if he feels things for me.

—With Edu or without Edu... I don't know if our sexual life has salvation —I said, sensible again, without victimization.

—Yes, it does. Yes, if I go back to being the one before. That I look crazy... damn... -she blamed herself in a snort.

There was then a silence. And while I was driving I felt that María wanted to touch me, that she wanted to seek forgiveness through touch, but a strange forgiveness, because I believed her. I was looking for a caress on my leg, of complicity, because Maria, underneath, underneath everything that she showed outside and that we carried on us, was loving, she was affectionate, and she often needed contact, that reciprocity.

And I realized that maybe, and just maybe, if the original me was back to stay, it could be the beginning of something. But, in turn, I felt that we would continue in Edu's hands, although, yes, in an inverse way, because I understood that, contrary to what I had always thought, that Edu felt things for her benefited me, it could benefit us.

I thought that the fact that Edu felt things for her humanized him, demystified him. So it made me feel like I had something that he really wanted and couldn't have.

And while he continued talking, he sensed why María was so interested in knowing if that was true: and it was because, if it were, that unapproachable and indomitable Edu would fall, he would suddenly constitute a farce in himself, since he would be nothing more than another he saw in Maria something more than sex.

An Edu in love with María would be the end of Edu. And our possible salvation.

After a few more minutes in silence, Maria checked her phone. Surely looking to see if Edu had written to him. And then I gave my reasoning another turn, and I thought: An Edu in love with María would be our salvation, but, yes, as long as it was not reciprocated.

CHAPTER 3

From that moment we were swept away by a wave of reality, of the already and now. We lived an intimate and perfect wedding in which there were looks that sought to retain the present moment and phrases promised for eternity. As if that other world, that other life, did not exist. It was not a pact to look for a time out, but such joy emanated from the situation that we managed to achieve a happy escape.

And in the same way that I didn't deceive myself in my happiness, I could deduce that she didn't either. What's more, the pure, empathetic Maria, who didn't care about her or us, but about me, about how I was, reappeared.

There were no calls in extremis or shady messages from that other life of ours. Nothing except a brief text from Begoña on my phone that offered me some explanations that I rejected.

Close friends, family; an oasis of peace and a recoverable past that made us feel more complicity, because the negative, or rather, the intense and fickle, unites more than linear happiness.

And the wedding night was not sex, it was worship. And perhaps we set an imitable precedent there. I realized that if she hadn't lied to me, I didn't have a reason not to love her more than ever. And she realized that if she didn't feel guilty, she no longer had to look for it in me.

Naked, in bed, that September night, the eve of a sober trip through Italy, we discovered that it was in the calm where we found ourselves. And between kisses and caresses we promised, like runaway adolescents, a kind of unity and stillness, a change of pace in our lives that would make us not fall back into the speeds in which Edu was comfortable.

And it is that Edu was still there, and our uncertain sexual life too, and the need for other men surely as well, and the need, especially in María, to know what Edu felt as well. But we would face that fight differently.

This change of pace included the fact that María took the pill again; I did not want to point out that that primary decision had never seemed appropriate to me. And the issue of buying a house was also set aside. We would go step by step, and the first was to understand Edu, and for that we decided to lie to him, we decided that, given his imminent reappearance, María would tell him that I was almost convinced to accept his proposal. We had and wanted to keep the deal to get to HIM.

I felt delighted by that new sensation of not trailing behind, but ahead of Edu, and I also felt that I couldn't have a better accomplice. Although, in a way, he was still afraid of that indecipherable man.

Curiously, and on purpose of fear, I longed as much as I feared for the context in which our sexual uncertainty would be exposed again, which did not take long, and it happened at dinner, on a splendid and warm terrace, on hot cobblestones, in Rome .

Maria's yellow satin dress seemed to retain the luminosity, making the dusk more sustained and late here than in any other part of the city. Their smiles were for me, and the cleavage was for me and for whoever wanted to look, showing that the adorable and affectionate Maria that I had known was true, but that positive liberation was now inalienable. And hands on the table, and caresses, and a tender love that I knew was magical but insufficient. And when she envisioned me back at the hotel, imagining me lacking, or at least lacking for what she deserved, precisely the one who had proven her extraordinary aptitude like no one else... reappeared.

It was in the private chat between the two of them, and she showed me her calm and even affectionate phrases, her questions about the wedding and the trip, and she answered comfortably with our co-authorship, in an equally friendly way.

Not long ago, she would have thought that this was a paripé prior to her true being, but if María's suspicions about possible feelings were true, that could not be a show but reality. And I knew that I was interested in the dedicated Edu, but at the same time I knew that he could be even more dangerous than the cold and impassive Edu.

And, despite his possible feelings, we both expected an attack in the form of a complaint about our escape, or in the form of a question about the situation his proposal was in after my anger, which was not such, since the deceived person was not I. But it did not happen, causing us some disappointment, as we were anxious to perform our performance.

And after dinner the walk, the thick air, the silences and my doubts. And my ripe misfortune of knowing that what for others was the sweet moment, for me was the uncertain one.

We arrived at the hotel. Mutism in the elevator. Walking slowly and somewhat drunk on the corridor carpet. Ancient semi-darkness and charged smell in front of the door. And after the threshold and arrival at the room, a small kiss on the lips, and María wanted to take the pressure off me with the search for the umpteenth attempt at salvation, or with the umpteenth self-deception:

Tell me what you saw... About Víctor with Begoña... Lie down and tell me, she whispered sweet and powerful, illuminated only by an ancient lamp and by a strange light, almost amber, emanating from the street lamps and coming in through the window.

CHAPTER 4

I lay down on the bed, in front of her, who was still standing, and I asked her for a little time to remember it, to tell it well. And she turned then, her back to me, and she looked at herself in front of a mirror that was next to the television. And the time that should be used to remember was better invested in seeing her silhouette against the light, her greatness, her femininity, and that almost unreal and impossible mixture of exuberance and slenderness.

The problem with that just admiration was the inevitable later comparison.

I began to undress, in silence, while she looked at her face in search of some imperfection that never surfaced; and the heat finally convinced me to undress completely, revealing that member, genesis and origin of everything.

Maria ended up turning around, looking into my eyes, brushing her bangs out of her face, and then a hand went to one of the delicate straps of her yellow satin dress, and then to the other, and the straps fell to the sides and the dress dropped a little, showing a few inches of bust that began to change everything. And my member throbbed, and she whispered:

Have you remembered yet?

-Yeah.

—To all this... The other day I was with Amparo... wasting time... I don't know, with my cell phone, and we were looking at photos, and in many of them you were, of course, with me... and she told me that she had always seemed very handsome.

I was somewhat surprised, perhaps always condemned to look for the reason for everything, while the dress continued to fall and a blunt bra came to light.

—Well, it would be to comply. To look good," I replied.

-Not at all. You should value yourself more. I've told you many times —she answered seriously, with the dress already lowered to her waist and with her breasts ostentatiously filling that elegant and demanded lingerie.

Maria crouched then, and I crawled backwards. Half of his face, and of his body, was illuminated, and the other half was not, in a kind of picturesque image, almost unreal.

My member throbbed again, and I felt her scent, her perfume, and I didn't want to think about her motives, her attempts, and then she, climbing onto the bed and kneeling between my legs, took her hands behind her bra clasp. And suddenly something came loose and there was a surge, the relief, and her breasts expanded, springing, and then she released them completely, making an impact that was always like the first time.

The bra was placed next to me and her tits pointed at me, large and attractive, and her nipples and areolas seemed to always ask for some lips to moisten them first, and then some teeth to overdo it.

Let's see, what? Tell me? he insisted, leaning over me. What... to all this... I don't know what they painted there.

I think Víctor knew, but Begoña didn't, I said, noticing how part of María's hair caressed my thighs. Well, really..." I continued. Begoña didn't look surprised when I saw her either.

-So? Maria asked, placing her hands on both sides of my body and placing a warm and powerful kiss on my belly.

I don't know... the truth is that it was... incredible, amazing... I sighed, between spasms, for another and another kiss, which were deposited on my abdomen, which was shivering with excitement.

––––––––

They've been giving it to him for a while now... how strong... whispered María, between kisses, without raising her face. Because when we were drinking

outside and I went into the bathroom, I had already heard them. Well her. I really don't know what it looks like... I just don't know...

—Maybe Edu's disappearances this summer had more to do with Begoña than with the redhead —I answered at the same time that one of his kisses already landed subtly on my pubic hair.

For an instant you could only hear his kisses and my heart beating... and his hair tickled me uncomfortable while I longed for his mouth to calm what, although small, I felt like the others, and wanted like the others.

You like him, don't you? she asked, and my silence made her want to explain.

It's not a...trick question, he continued. What happened between you... I swear I see it very far away.

Me too... Not that. All. Everything that has happened in the last year and a half, everything loose, is as if it had happened 5 years ago, I told him, voluntarily ignoring his first question.

At that moment one of his hands was slow and generous to caress my balls, producing an involuntary start, an exaggerated spasm, almost comical, throughout my body. And then she brushed her hair out of her face herself, and finally raised her face and fixed my member with her other hand. Kneeling between my legs, with one hand in her hair and the other holding my cock at the base, she looked at me... and she pulled the skin of my member downwards with two fingers... and she stuck out her tongue... and struck that pink glans making me shudder... and I wanted to look at her... but at the same time surrender... and I ended up succumbing, closing my eyes and letting my head fall back... and that was the sign she was looking for; and suddenly I felt immense heat and brutal humidity... and I felt, and I trembled... and my hands went to her head, to her hair, and my outstretched legs trembled as she filled me, engulfed me, killed me... She She would put my cock in her mouth without getting upset... and I could feel her lips brushing against my pubic hair... telling me that I was eating it whole... And then her mouth came out, slowly, liking herself and leaving a trail soaked all over my trunk. And then again. To the bottom. Until the end. And I opened my eyes. And I looked at the ceiling. And my hands went up and down, with his head. And the liquid and watery sound... and the most immense pleasure... And I didn't want to think about her, but about me... and I felt that I could explode almost at any moment.

And when he accompanied her mouth with two fingers, pleasure mixed with danger, and each suck, each rise and fall, were an almost spasm. When then she moved further away, and I looked down, and saw my extremely hard member, small but swollen, and her soaked lips and her saliva communicating her lower lip with my member... and then, surprising me, she said:

Do you want to think about her?

In Begoña? Now? I asked surprised.

Yes... he whispered.

-No.

And she started masturbating me. Slowly. Looking at me... And her glazed eyes... Tearful... And I tried not to be suspicious... but I ended up asking:

Do you think we have...a solution? —I managed to change the last word in extremis, since the one I was going to use was salvation.

-Of course.

And another silence. And the liquid sound of straw. And already his intention to finish with me without finally listening to what he had seen in that house... And I asked another question:

—Do you think that Edu is... in love... or caught by you?

-Don't know.

And if I were, would I stop attracting you?

—If he likes me in that plan... I don't know. I would be disappointed. Maybe that would be the word.

And after another silence, Maria whispered:

—I see that you don't want to tell me... about Víctor and Begoña.

-No not at all. Whenever you want I start.

It's the same... You'll tell me tomorrow... she said and then tilted her head, and her hair waved and she held my member a little higher, taking me at the exact point, wanting to finish. And I closed my eyes and let myself go, I let myself be defeated, and I didn't think, I didn't want to think about anything, whether it gave me pleasure out of love, to comply, or if there was some desire in moments of less excitement. And I didn't want to think, or imagine other men fucking her. I simply let her fingers shake me until I squeezed myself... And she, knowing my body, squeezed just enough and her frequency was exact and precise... with such mastery that at my first big spasm her hand stopped... for a couple of seconds, and there was my whimpering and then she restarted the handjob, and I felt something spurt out of me, and her handjob slowed down, pacing my splashes with her movements... and she emptied me and I gasped... And I felt immense pleasure as I felt that his sublime knowledge of my body showed a comforting confidence... arriving, in my last spasms, to feel a mixture of pleasure, love and affection.

I kept my eyes closed and making an effort not to think about anything, while I felt how Maria left and went to the bathroom. Then I heard the sound of a tap, and then Maria reappeared, silent, to clean me up, which she did diligently and tenderly.

-Do you want to...?

What... what... she smiled, sitting next to me, her wonderful breasts exposed, as if nothing had happened.

That... I work a little down there too... I said, curiously a little shy.

-Work? -river-. No... no need... I'm tired, really.

—If it's not a bother... —I answered smiling and knowing that melting my mouth with Maria's sex would not be a consideration, but rather what I wanted most in the world.

But she didn't respond, taking that sexual encounter for granted, and soon I found myself involved in the dynamic of getting ready to go to bed and sleep.

Already in bed, and with the television in Italian in the background, Maria turned off the light and I was left with the responsibility of turning off the TV when we were sufficiently asleep. And that came quickly, and, like other times, searching for the exact button on the remote kept me awake a bit, enough to notice an annoying glow emanating from Maria's bed area. And I soon learned that that glow was Maria writing to someone.

CHAPTER 5

Something startled me, pulling me out of a deep sleep that promised to be restful. And the uncomfortable stimulus did not alert my sight, but my hearing. It took me a few moments to locate myself, to feel that hotel room even without seeing it. And then harsh, rumbling voices and laughter told me exactly why my peace had been broken. And after placing those sounds on the other side of the wall, behind the TV, behind the mirror where Maria had looked at herself, I noticed that she was also awake, and that she had probably been awake for longer than me, and I could feel her annoyance, or even fed up, almost on his breath.

Restless, she knew that now she had a sleepover partner:

Fuck... they've been like this for half an hour, he whispered.

I was going to check my phone to see the time, but Maria embellished her complaint with information, telling me it was past two in the morning.

Besides, you can only hear one of them...fucking...fucking heavy, she insisted, angrier than I thought appropriate, even though she had always had worse sleeping, and waking up, than me.

Well, they'll shut up, I said at the same time as one of them laughed exaggeratedly again.

-You see? It is also the same all the time. And he laughs without desire, in a false plan —she would protest again, and later she would show me that, intentionally or unintentionally, she had been studying them for a long time, since she had found out that they were three boys.

They are Spanish, too. Always giving the note - he clarified just before turning on the lamp on his bedside table and heading towards the bathroom.

It wasn't something I had been anticipating, I wasn't even suspicious, I was convinced of our catharsis, but it came out like that, just like that... and I instantly saw myself reaching out my arm and grabbing Maria's phone. I unlocked it with the correct password and I didn't go looking for who had written a couple of hours before, but what had been written, since the interlocutor was obvious. With one ear pending the toilet and with the other suffering the certainly false laughter of that neighbor, I took my eyes to a written conversation in which I saw the same tone and form of the penultimate one; the same treatment, correction, closeness, harmony... in what could be a trap of hers to find out... or in what could be mutual fooling around. They kissed goodbye, which implied a double or nothing of either option.

I put down the phone and immediately Maria returned to the bedroom. She was wearing the same sky blue nightgown as the last night we had seen Edu... and that I had also seen Víctor and Begoña. The silk of the nightgown seemed to be coming undone, unable to contain the latent femininity of the body it outlined below. The silhouette of the boobs and the exact location of the nipples were a deceitful incitement to the eye, as this called for touch, making the sight insufficient, creating an abusive ambush.

-That? she asked, standing up, disheveled, hot, and if not furious at least permanently annoyed by the noise that was coming through the wall.

What of what? I answered, even though I knew he was asking me to go and tell them to shut up.

Are you going or am I going? she clarified nervously.

-Wait. I'm going to call the reception... Although... I don't know... they're talking normal, really. No music or anything.

Yes, normal... well, what a normal tone... she protested while I looked at the number and called.

Maria standing up, me lying down, and one, two, and several tones, and no one answered. I ended up hanging up and suggested trying to sleep. The truth was, it wasn't that bad.

"I can't sleep like this.

"Okay, they'll shut up.

Look, if you don't want to go, I'll go, he said, making as if to go, without giving it another thought.

And you're going like this? -I asked for.

And what's up? Are they going to rape me or what?

With the look at least, I answered, reviewing that incitement to crime again.

There was then a silence and I didn't know if she thought they were quiet, if she was hesitating whether to go, or if she was hesitating whether to put something on top. And then a particularly unpleasant and uninhibited laugh ripped through my chest and had to do more damage to Maria, who turned around, outlined a I'm freaking out and began to walk towards the exit of the room.

The door was opened with a loud decision while in my mind the image of Maria's fine legs was still kept, and her ass barely covered by that fine nightgown that could only cause a stir in the next room. Then I heard his knuckles rapping on the nearby door and a sudden silence in that unpleasant cackling. And when all my senses turned to what was about to happen there, suddenly I found myself alerted because another whiter light was added to the bedside light, the light from María's telephone.

Simultaneously hearing a door open, I picked up his phone and read:

Edu: By the way, I was thinking that I suppose you didn't have sex when you were just married. It would be nice if you convinced Pablo and debuted me.

He had felt many things because of Edu's various outbursts, but perhaps the feeling had never been so clear of disgust. And I even hesitated to write, to pretend to be María, asking her why it would be beautiful... but then, voices on the other side of the wall told me that María was talking to them. The tone seemed neutral and conciliatory, and the voices grew closer each time, as if several people were suddenly in the corridor. They were talking, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

I got up a bit, with the phone in hand, with Edu harassing him in that way so typical of him and with María fighting, or provoking, half-naked, a few meters away. And they kept talking. And Edu remained online, knowing that his interlocutor had read him. And more talk, and my cold hands... and I came to doubt María; not of his loyalty, but that he enjoyed his exposure to those neighbors. Exhibition and showing off that had always constituted a latent and transversal ramification during the last year.

And the sound of a door closing was heard, and Maria was talking to someone, in whispers. And my restlessness was accentuated. And the desire to know, to see, became oppressive. María in front of that room, marking her breasts and nipples, heated, angry, asking for explanations, from a boy who perhaps agreed with her or perhaps refuted her, but who surely looked at her and re-looked, delighting in her body that called for sin and with its beauty that called to nervousness.

And then there was silence, and then I heard footsteps, and Maria coming in, snorting, and closing the door behind her. Her entrance was impressive, her nipples were two exaggerated bumps and her breasts danced free and striking to the rhythm of her discreet walk.

-Nothing. Good," he said immediately. The truth is that... nice. I think they freaked out and everything. It didn't seem like they even noticed they were making noise.

-Well. Better," I said as she stood up next to me, noticing that I had her phone in my hand. And I, immediately, and aware of our new situation of full cooperation, offered him his cell phone and said:

—Edu wrote to you.

She received it. He read immediately. And whispered:

What an asshole is...

Well, it's the original Edu... the one you like, the one you're attracted to, I said.

Maria didn't answer. I reread it and shook my head. And I, suddenly, felt that I had nothing clear about things that two days ago I had seen clearly.

—This is a mess, Maria... I don't even know what's going on. If he likes you... you give me to understand that he will stop attracting you. If he's not in love with you... things are as always... but at the same time we want to tease him that I'll accept his pregnancy with you... to... to gain time? To make sure he likes you or not? The thing is...

A snort from Maria interrupted me.

-That? -I asked for.

-Nothing.

-OK. Well. Well nothing. And besides, what he says is true, that we didn't do it as newlyweds.

-AND?

-I don't know. Do you want me