I met Maria* in the bathroom of a student bar that was blasting cheesy pop songs from the aughts. We struck up a tipsy conversation complimenting each other’s outfits and soon found ourselves gushing over our mutual love of anime, dystopian fiction and all things nerdy. And thus, the perfect nerdy friendship was born.
I was 18 and had just moved out of my family home to attend college in a different city. Both shy and an introvert, I felt like a fish out of water for much of freshman orientation until Maria came along. A few years older than me, she had gotten the partying out of her system and had a boyfriend back home in Spain—from where she’d traveled to spend a semester abroad at my school in the UK.
Bonding over movie nights fueled by cheap wine and dubious experiments with packet ramen, we made the perfect pair of homebodies. We learned a lot about each other too—Maria was born and raised in Granada, her boyfriend was her first high school sweetheart, and her parents had divorced when she was a kid, so she lived with her dad in her home city.
I was bummed when the semester ended, but Maria and I stayed in touch through socials and I made some new friends at school. A few months later, she suggested I come to Granada for a week during summer break—I could stay with her at her dad’s and we’d go sightseeing.
I wasn’t going to say no to a European holiday, so I booked the budget airline tickets and landed in Spain sooner than you could say hasta luego. After we caught up on the drive home from the airport, Maria introduced me to her dad, Marco*.
When she’d mentioned her dad previously, I’d always imagined a beer belly and receding hairline (not that there’s anything wrong with a dad bod). But Marco had the physique of a Hemsworth brother with a strong jawline and muscles practically bulging through his shirt.
He was probably in his mid-forties and had the same dark curls and chocolate eyes as Maria, but stood a foot taller at 6’3 and flaunted a deeper tan. The flecks of grey peppered throughout his hair and the smile lines around his eyes just made him look even sexier. As a serial dater of guys my age, I hadn’t really understood the appeal of older men until that exact moment.
“Hello Arya, it’s lovely to meet you,” he said in a Spanish accent.
“H-Hi, thanks for hosting me,” I stuttered in response.
Marco had made dinner for us, so I spent the evening engaged in small talk at the kitchen table while trying—and failing—to hide how enamored I was with this Greek God of a man. He caught me glancing at him a few times and flashed me a cheeky, dimpled smile.
Was he flirting with me? I wondered. Don’t be stupid. He probably just found my painfully obvious crush hilarious—after all, I was practically a kid to him, being even younger than his daughter. Besides, even if he did reciprocate the all-consuming obsession that had me blushing over my seafood paella, I couldn’t possibly sleep with my friend’s dad—that had to be some kind of girl code, right?
But Marco had a talent for testing my moral boundaries. Every night, he’d come out of the bathroom—located across from the couch I was crashing on—dripping wet and donning nothing but a white towel from the waist down. He would turn towards me with that dangerous smile and a husky, “Good night, Arya,” before heading to his room.
I tried to distract myself from my spiraling lust by focusing on the trip. Maria and I walked through the rustic streets of the city’s spice market and took in the stunning Moorish architecture of its cathedrals and parks. But Marco was getting bolder each day—nothing so obvious that Maria would notice, but enough to rile me up. It was the little things—letting his fingers linger on mine while passing me a glass of Rioja or stroking my hair under the guise of fixing a stray strand. He was attentive and soft-spoken in a way none of my exes had been; he asked me about my family and what I wanted to do in the future with genuine interest, but never came across patronizing despite the age gap.
The night before I was supposed to fly out, Marco came out of the bathroom after his routine shower. He turned to me, smiled and said, “Good night, Arya,” marking what I realized would be the end of this secretly sexy nighttime ritual. But instead of heading to his room, he stood where he was a moment longer.
I don’t know what came over me in that split second, but I got up and walked over to him. My hands were shaking with anticipation as I grabbed his towel but I managed to undo it, letting it fall to the floor. His dick was intimidatingly big. I got on my knees and kissed it, starting at the tip and working my way down with kitten licks.
I felt him get hard under my tongue as he let out a muffled groan—Maria was just a door away in her room—followed by a string of whispered curses. I took as much of him as I could in my mouth and looked up into his eyes while blowing him; seeing his face contorted in pleasure just turned me on more.
Marco pulled me up by my neck, somehow rough and tender at the same time, and dragged me in for a kiss. His hands roamed my waist and ass as our tongues collided. I was already heaving for air when we finally pulled apart, but he wanted more.
He flipped me around and bent me over the couch, kissing me from the nape of my neck down my spine. I’d never had sex without someone going down on me first, but I was literally the wettest I’d ever been when Marco entered me from behind.
A moan escaped me and his palm flew to cover my mouth as he started moving inside me, teasingly slow at first but building to a faster rhythm. I closed my eyes and doubled down on the sensation of his dick until I came, my pussy tightening so hard he spilled into me a few seconds later.
For a few moments, we just lay there in disbelief, him draped over me. When we finally got up, he planted a last kiss on my forehead and walked away. The next morning, I bid my farewells and flew home as if nothing had happened.
Maria and I are still in touch and she’s visited me in London a few times since then, so I don’t think she’s clocked what went down. (Thank God!) But I’m still eagerly awaiting another invitation to a steamy Spanish holiday.
*Name has been changed.