That Night I Went Into My Brother’s Room

I’m writing this now, almost four years later, because there are things you don’t say out loud. You keep them in a folder without a name inside your head and sometimes, on some ordinary night, you open them back up. This is one of those.

I was twenty-two that summer and the two of us had come back to our parents’ house in a mountain town called San Javier. Mateo, my brother, had just finished university and needed a couple of weeks away from the city. I wanted that same silence. My parents had gone to the coast with Aunt Ema, so the house was empty except for us and an old dog that slept in the veranda.

The first day was normal. So was the second. We made barbecue at noon, read in separate hammocks, ran the living room air conditioner as if it were a sacred object. We barely talked, but with that old easy confidence brothers and sisters have when they grew up sharing a room. Nothing strange. Nothing to warn of anything.

On the third day, something changed.

I don’t know if it was the heat or the boredom or whether I suddenly looked at him as if he were someone else. Mateo had come out of the bathroom with a towel tied around his waist, still wet, looking for something in the kitchen. I saw him from the side, leaning against the counter, drinking water straight from the mouth of the bottle, and I thought one very clear, very ugly thing. I thought it all the way through, without hiding it, and then I tried to erase it quickly.

—Want toast? —he asked, not looking at me.

—Sure —I said, my voice sounding a little strange.

Nothing is happening to you. It’s just really hot.

That same afternoon we sat watching a movie on the long sofa in the living room. He sat close, not pressed against me, but close. At one point he stretched his arm over the backrest and brushed my shoulder. It was a touch without intention, one of those anyone would make and forget. I didn’t forget. Every time I breathed, I felt the tip of his fingers as if they were five small warm marks.

When the movie ended I got up before he did, said good night without turning around, and locked myself in my room. I didn’t turn on the light. I stayed sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clenched over my knees, trying to convince myself I wasn’t thinking what I was, in fact, thinking.

***

The house breathed that warm silence of January nights, when the heat stays floating in the walls and everything seems to beat more slowly. Outside, the crickets wove a steady music. Inside, every closed door held something no one was going to name the next morning.

I couldn’t sleep.

I turned over on the bed one more time, the sheet tangled between my legs and my mind far too lit up. There was something in the air that night, in the way he had looked at me in the afternoon, in that casual closeness that hadn’t been so casual after all. A faint, persistent electricity, as if the density of the air had changed while I wasn’t looking.

I got up.

The floor was cool under my feet and I moved slowly down the hallway, with that mix of certainty and vertigo that only comes when you know you’re crossing an invisible line and still take the step. His room door was half-open, just a whisper of darkness inviting me in.

I pushed it gently.

The dimness wrapped everything. Mateo was sleeping on his side, or so it seemed, the sheet slipping halfway down his body. The faint light coming in through the window drew soft shadows over his skin and marked outlines that went unnoticed during the day: the curve of his shoulder, the hollow beneath his collarbone, the line of his back to his waist.

I stayed in the doorway longer than I should have.

I could have gone back. That was the uncomfortable truth. At any point in the next few minutes I could have turned around and gone back to my bed and nothing would ever have happened. I thought about it several times. But I thought something else too, and that second thing won.

I approached without making a sound.

My pulse was beating in my throat, in my wrists, in every step. I sat on the edge of the bed, barely touching the mattress, as if I were afraid of waking him… or as if, deep down, that was exactly what I wanted. I watched him for a moment that stretched longer than normal. His chest moved with each breath, slow and long, and I wondered whether he was truly asleep or only pretending to be.

Then I moved my hand.

First hesitant, just a brush over his arm, testing the reality of the moment. His skin was warm. Real. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t move. Only a nearly imperceptible change in his breathing, a tiny break in the rhythm.

That little detail was enough.

I went on more confidently, tracing slowly, without hurry, letting each centimeter be a conscious decision. Mateo reacted then, not waking fully, but turning slightly toward me, as if his body knew before his head did. The sheet slipped and got tangled at his hips.

—What are you doing? —he murmured, with the thick voice of sleep and something else.

—Nothing —I said, and felt the absurdity of the word the instant it left my mouth.

—Liar.

He didn’t say it angrily. He said it almost smiling, without opening his eyes all the way, and that single word was what finally pushed me over the edge. If he had said “get out,” I would have left. If he had said “are you insane?” I would have left. He said neither of those things.

***

I leaned down slowly and found his mouth. He opened it just a little, with that just-woken slowness, and returned the kiss with a hot tongue, still tasting of sleep. I ran my hand over his chest, over his stomach, feeling his skin tighten under my touch, and lowered it to the edge of the sheet. He drew a deep breath. So did I.

—Lu… —he murmured against my mouth.

—Shut up.

I yanked the sheet down and stayed looking at him. He was in boxer shorts, and the bulge pressing under the fabric told me everything I needed to know. He’d been hard long before I got there. He had been pretending to sleep with a hard cock, waiting for me.

—You son of a bitch —I told him, almost laughing—. You were awake.

—You came in.

—You didn’t kick me out.

I laid my hand over the boxers and felt the hot length throbbing against my palm. I closed around it and squeezed softly, not taking it out yet, measuring it over the fabric. Mateo let out a low sound, a cut-off groan that came from deep in his chest, and he dug his fingers into my hip.

I pulled his boxers down to his knees and his dick sprang free, hard, thick, with the head red and a clear drop already peeking at the tip. I stared at it for a second in the dimness. It was the first time in my life I had seen my brother’s cock and I didn’t think it was wrong. It seemed exactly like what I needed to have in my hand that night.

I took him by the shaft and squeezed. He was hot and hard as a stone wrapped in silk. I started moving my hand up and down, slowly, feeling him swell even more and the skin slide over his glans. Mateo threw his head back against the pillow and his mouth opened in a silent gasp.

—Fuck —he whispered—. Lucía, fuck.

—This isn’t… —he started after he could speak again.

—I know —I cut in, without stopping my hand.

—We’re not talking about this tomorrow.

—I know.

And then we didn’t talk anymore. I bent down between his legs and ran my tongue from the base to the head in one long lick. I tasted the salty, almost sweet flavor, that flavor of hot, clean man. Mateo grabbed the sheets and said my name again, his voice broken. I took the head into my mouth. I sucked his glans with tight lips, playing with my tongue underneath, while my hand kept moving along the shaft. I worked it deeper little by little, letting it reach the back of my throat, pulling it out, taking it in again, covering all of it in saliva.

—No, wait —he said, pulling my hair—. Wait, I’m gonna come. Wait.

I pulled it out of my mouth with a wet sound. It was all slobbered over, shining, and he looked at me from the pillow as if he couldn’t believe the one between his legs was me. He hauled me up with both hands, gripping me under the arms, and pulled me down on top of him, mouth to mouth. He tasted himself on my tongue and didn’t care. He kissed me hard, desperately, while sliding his hand under my long T-shirt.

I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Just the T-shirt.

When his palm found the bare skin of my ass, he made an animal sound against my mouth and squeezed hard, digging his fingers in. He lifted my shirt up over my breasts and pulled it off over my head. I ended up over him completely naked, on all fours, my tits hanging in his face. He took one in his mouth. He sucked the whole nipple, hard, and nipped it lightly. I felt the tug go straight down to my pussy and realized I was soaked. I was leaving his stomach wet.

—You’re all wet —he murmured against my breast—. You’re dripping.

—I know.

—Come here.

He turned me without stopping sucking and laid me back on the mattress. He spread my legs with his hands and settled between them. He looked at my cunt in the dimness, really looked at it, and then lowered his head and ate me out without warning. I almost arched off the mattress. He shoved his whole tongue inside me and then took it up to my clit and sucked it with his lips the way he’d sucked my nipple. I grabbed his head with both hands, yanked his hair, and begged him not to stop. Mateo was eating me with hunger, his nose buried in my mound, breathing me in, licking me from top to bottom. He slipped two fingers inside me and moved them slowly while he sucked my clit, and I felt my first orgasm of the night rise all at once, without asking permission.

—I’m coming —I said—. Mateo, I’m coming.

He didn’t stop. On the contrary, he sucked harder and curled his fingers inside me and I ended up closing my legs around his face, biting my forearm so I wouldn’t scream, coming in his mouth in endless waves. When I finally let go, his face was shining with me, and he ran his tongue over his lips like someone who’d just eaten something good.

—I’ll eat your pussy whenever you want —he said.

—Shut up and fuck me already.

He opened my legs even wider and settled between them. His cock bounced hard against his stomach. He took it in his hand and ran it along the lips of my cunt, up and down, wetting the head in my juices, touching my clit with his glans until he made me tremble. Then he rested the tip at my entrance and pushed.

I felt him open me slowly. He was thick and it hurt for a second, just a second, a lovely burn that turned to pleasure once I had him all the way in. He filled me completely. Mateo stayed still on top of me, his elbows beside my face, breathing hard, as if he were holding back from coming right away.

—Fuck, Lu —he said—. You’re so tight.

—Move.

He started fucking me slowly, long strokes, pulling almost all the way out and pushing back in to the hilt. Every thrust ripped a gasp from me. I wrapped my arms around his back, dug my nails in, and bit his shoulder so I wouldn’t scream. I remember strange details. I remember the ceiling fan clicked every few turns and that click ended up setting our rhythm. I remember a dog barking far away outside and both of us freezing for a second, his cock buried all the way inside me, waiting, and then continuing as if nothing had happened. I remember the exact temperature of his chest against my nipples, how he smelled of white soap and nap-time sweat, the way his hand held my neck when he started driving into me faster.

—Harder —I begged—. Give it to me harder.

He drove into me harder. He lifted one of my legs and rested it on his shoulder, and from that angle he got even deeper, hitting a place that made me see lights. The bed started making a rhythmic sound against the wall, dull and heavy, and neither of us did anything to stop it. My brother was fucking me and it was the most incredible thing I had ever felt in my life.

—Tell me what I am —I said, and I didn’t even know why.

—You’re my sister —he said, never stopping—. You’re my sister and I’m fucking you.

—Again.

—I’m fucking my sister’s cunt. You, Lucía. You.

I came right there, without warning, with his cock inside me and his words in my ear. I clenched around him whole and he felt me tighten on him and had to stop his hips for a second, eyes shut, so he wouldn’t come with me.

There was a moment when I opened my eyes and found him looking at me. Not with guilt. Not with shame. With a strange kind of concentration, as if he wanted to memorize my face so he could deny it later. I held his gaze while he kept fucking me, slower now, almost solemnly. It was the most intimate part of the whole night, more than anything else. Watching him fuck me without looking away, both of us knowing this was what was happening and that it was happening between us.

—Turn over —he told me after that, his voice hoarse.

I turned over on all fours and lifted my ass. He grabbed it with both hands, spread me open, and shoved back inside in one single motion. From behind he got even deeper. He started fucking me with hard thrusts that shook me whole and made my head knock against the pillow. I could hear his heavy breathing, his thighs hitting my ass, the wet sound of my cunt speared on his cock.

He grabbed my hair. He wound it around his fist and pulled my head back, arching me, and kept fucking me like that, one hand in my hair and the other dug into my hip. I was clutching the pillow with both hands and biting my lips so I wouldn’t wake the dog in the veranda, the whole town, the dead.

—I’m gonna come —he said, his voice ruined—. Lu, I’m gonna come.

—Not inside —I managed to say—. In my mouth. Give it to me in my mouth.

He pulled out two seconds later and I turned around just in time. I knelt in front of him on the bed and he rose onto his knees, his bright red cock pointing at my face. I took it in my hand and put it in my mouth just as his first load exploded. I felt the hot stream slap the roof of my mouth, then another, and another, and I swallowed as much as I could while the rest ran down his shaft and over my fingers. Mateo clung to my shoulder so he wouldn’t fall. His voice trembled when he finished.

—Fuck —he said—. Fuck, Lucía.

I kept his cock in my mouth for one more second, sucking the last drops, cleaning it with my tongue. Then I let it go and wiped the back of my hand over my lips. There was warm semen on my chin. I wiped it off with my finger and licked it off while looking him in the face.

Time blurred.

***

When everything calmed down, when the silence settled back over the room, I stayed a little longer, breathing slowly, trying to understand what had just happened… or maybe not wanting to understand it all the way. Mateo had an arm resting over my waist and I hadn’t even realized when he’d put it there.

—You have to go back to your room —he said, very quietly.

—I know.

—Not for me. For you.

I nodded in the dark, even though he couldn’t see me. I sat up carefully, picked up the long T-shirt I had come in wearing from the floor, and pulled it over my still-hot body. Before leaving, I turned around. He was lying on his back, one arm over his eyes, as if trying to cover something that was already too late to cover.

—Mateo.

—What?

—Nothing. Good night.

—Good night, Lucía.

It was the first time all night he’d said my name like that, and he said it differently from the way he always did. I can’t explain it better. He said it as if he were saying something else, something we were never going to be able to say in words.

The hallway was still the same, quiet, untouched. The old dog in the veranda didn’t even move when I passed. I went back to my bed with my body still lit up, my cunt burning, and my head full of images I already knew I wouldn’t forget easily. I lay on my back, looked at the ceiling, and laughed to myself, a very short laugh, no humor in it, almost a sigh. Then I covered my face with the sheet and stayed like that for a long while.

***

The next morning, everything was normal. Or that’s what we pretended.

I came down to the living room late, my hair still damp from the shower. Mateo was already in the kitchen, making coffee, wearing an old university T-shirt and sweatpants. He barely looked at me. He poured me a cup without asking and handed it to me over the counter.

—Did you sleep? —he asked.

—More or less.

—It’s really hot.

—Yeah —I said—. It’s really hot.

And that was that. We didn’t talk about it that morning, or that afternoon, or the rest of the vacation, or in the years that came after. It never happened again either. There were other hot nights, other empty houses, other moments when anything might have been possible, and yet it never happened again. Not because we didn’t want it. I think precisely because of that.

Mateo got married two years ago to a girl named Carolina, and I like her. They have a small apartment in Villa Crespo and a fat cat and plans to buy something bigger when they can. I’m with someone too, someone calm, someone who will never read this. We see each other on Sundays at my parents’ place. We hug hello like any brother and sister in the world.

But sometimes, at Sunday barbecues, when someone tells a joke and everyone laughs, I look up and find him looking at me from across the table. Not much. Just a second. Enough for both of us to remember that there was that night in the mountains, that room, that ceiling fan clicking.

And then one of us looks away and the conversation goes on, as if nothing had happened.

As if.