What Happened in Santa Monica Should Never Have Happened

I left Sarasota at nine in the morning with the strange feeling that something was ending. It was the last stretch of my package tour: five days in Santa Monica, that stretch of California coastline I had been promising myself for years. A flight to Los Angeles, a car transfer to the coast, and suddenly I found myself facing the Pacific with my suitcase at my feet and a strange mix of exhaustion and euphoria.

My name is Romina Castellanos. I’m forty-two years old, I’ve been widowed for three years, and after raising two children on my own, I treated myself to this trip. What I’m writing next I never told anyone. Not my friends, not my sister, not even myself until today.

The hotel faced the boardwalk avenue, third floor, wall-to-wall window. I left my things, went up to the glass, and then I saw it: an enormous ocean liner, grounded in front of the harbor, with a red-painted smokestack and the unmistakable silhouette of the nineteen-thirties. I went down to the lobby to ask about it. The receptionist, who didn’t speak a word of Spanish, explained in quick English that it was the Caledonia, a first-half-of-the-twentieth-century museum ship converted into a hotel. My mangled English was enough to understand the basics.

I don’t like being shut up in hotel rooms. I ate something at a stand on the promenade and, by early afternoon, I was already walking along the pier toward the Caledonia. I paid the entrance fee, went up the gangway, and found myself in a world frozen in time. Dark-wood cabins, lounges with bronze lamps, black-and-white photographs of passengers who no longer existed. I was hypnotized.

I was reading a plaque when her voice startled me from behind.

—Are you enjoying the tour?

I turned around. It was a tall blonde woman, dressed in a white collared shirt and a short skirt of the same color. She wasn’t wearing a museum badge, but she had the posture of someone who knew every inch of the ship. I answered in halting English. She smiled.

—I can speak to you in Spanish, if that’s easier —she said, without an accent, as if it were her native language.

I laughed, surprised. She introduced herself: Sienna. Twenty-eight years old, California-born and raised, daughter of a Mexican mother who brought her up in two languages. She worked as an independent guide on the Caledonia on weekends and as an office administrator at an agency the rest of the week. She took me along the promenade deck, then through the lounges, and told me the ship’s history with details no brochure ever included: the maiden voyage in nineteen thirty-six, the two crossings as a floating hospital during the war, the nineteen fifty-nine fire that nearly sent it to the bottom. I listened to her without really listening. I watched her mouth when she spoke.

***

The afternoon turned into night without my noticing. I left the Caledonia with my head full of dates and English names, ready to eat something light before going back to the hotel. At the entrance I ran into her again. Sienna was leaning on the railing, smoking.

—Got plans? —she asked.

I didn’t. She took me to an Italian restaurant two blocks inland, where the pasta tasted like truth and the white wine went down without asking permission. We ate slowly. We talked about everything: my tour of both coasts, my life in my country, my children, her work at the museum, the ridiculous tourists who came asking whether the ship still sailed. When we went back out onto the street, she took my arm and suggested a drink at a place nearby. I said yes without thinking.

The club was small, with dim lights and soft electronic music. I hadn’t set foot in a place like that in years, and for the first ten minutes I felt awkward. Then two drinks and Sienna’s company loosened me up. We danced together, a meter apart, without touching. But she looked at me in a way I, at that point, still didn’t understand.

Near midnight she said she needed to sleep, that the next day she had to open the museum early. I offered to walk her home. We went out onto the boardwalk avenue. The night was warm, windless, and the Pacific whispered to our left like a big sleeping animal.

We walked in silence for a couple of blocks. Suddenly Sienna stopped in front of a bench facing the sea and sat down. She gestured for me to join her.

—Are you okay? —I asked.

—I don’t want to talk about that, Romina. I haven’t had good experiences in love.

—Easy. No obligation.

She was quiet for a long while. I didn’t push. Then she sighed and began to speak.

—There was a guy. Cute, attentive, everything a mother wants for her daughter. I left him for no apparent reason. Well, there was a reason, but I took a while to accept it.

—Did he cheat on you?

She shook her head. She looked me in the eye and, for the first time all night, hesitated before saying anything.

—Romina, I’m a lesbian. I don’t like men. I like women.

And she burst into tears. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only thing I knew how to do: I hugged her. I felt her shoulders shaking against my chest and I whispered in her ear that it was okay, that she didn’t have to apologize for anything. When she pulled away, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen from her all afternoon.

—I need to tell you something else.

—Tell me.

—I fell in love.

I smiled, relieved the mood had changed.

—That’s good, Sienna. With whom?

—With you.

I froze. Too solemn a word for a situation like that, but it’s the only one that describes what I felt. Forty-two years old, two grown children, a dead husband, several tourist flings, and no woman had ever told me what she told me on that bench facing the Pacific.

—I like mature women —she went on, softly—. And you’re exactly my type. I’ve been telling myself that since the first time I saw you come onto the ship this afternoon.

I stammered something. Something clumsy, something defensive. I like men, Sienna. Hard cocks, guys who fuck me without asking permission. I said it out loud, without reproach, simply like someone stating a personal truth. I stood up, intending to go back to the hotel.

—Sorry if I made you uncomfortable —she murmured.

—You didn’t make me uncomfortable. You surprised me. That’s different.

I gave her a hug, a long one, more goodbye than comfort. And then, before I saw it coming, she kissed me. On the mouth. Barely a brush at first, then firmer pressure, then her tongue seeking my lips with a question that became an assertion the moment I opened my mouth. I stayed still for a second and then, without deciding to, I kissed her back. Her tongue slid in and found mine, wet, warm, softer than any I had ever tasted. She sucked my lower lip slowly, and one hand moved down my back until it settled at the base of my ass. I felt my nipples harden under my bra. Why don’t I pull away? I thought. And the question, by the mere fact of being asked, was already an answer.

The kiss lasted longer than I would later admit. When she pulled away, a thread of saliva hung between our mouths, and she wiped it off with her thumb, looking me in the eye. She said “I love you” in Spanish and walked quickly off in the opposite direction from the hotel. I was left alone on that bench, with the taste of another woman in my mouth, my nipples hard against the fabric, and a strange wetness between my legs I didn’t know how to name.

I walked the six blocks to the hotel without feeling my legs. That night I didn’t sleep. I got into bed naked, and without meaning to, my hand slipped between my thighs. I touched myself thinking of Sienna’s tongue, her short skirt, the way her hand had rested on my ass. I came twice, biting the pillow, and still afterward I stayed awake until dawn, with sticky fingers and a new curiosity, old and new at the same time, turning over and over inside me until the sun came up.

***

The next day I went down late for breakfast. I stretched out in a hammock by the pool and slept two more hours, face down, until the sun woke me with my back burning. I went up to the room to take a shower. When I came out of the bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror and said out loud what I’d been thinking all morning.

—I’m going back to the museum.

I put on a light cotton blue dress, springlike, one I had bought in Sarasota. It reached mid-calf and hugged my hips in a way I had, until then, reserved for men. I looked at myself again and wondered, this time in silence, who am I dressing up for? I didn’t answer myself. I left the hotel.

It took me forty minutes to cross the boardwalk to the Caledonia. I paid admission again, as if I were just any tourist. I asked the staff member at the desk for Sienna. He told me she was handling an errand outside and would be back in an hour. I spent the time wandering through the lounges and cabins I had already seen, pretending to be interested, checking my watch every five minutes.

—Mrs. Romina, good afternoon.

The voice came from behind me and sent my pulse racing in a way I hadn’t even expected from myself. I turned. Sienna was there again in white, with the short skirt and bright eyes. She came closer, gave me a small kiss at the corner of my mouth, almost a formal greeting, but enough to strip away my last excuse.

—I thought you wouldn’t come back —she said.

—I thought that too.

I kissed her back. Not a peck. A full kiss, eyes closed, in the middle of a Caledonia lounge with three tourists walking past us. Sienna pulled back quickly.

—Come —she whispered—. Not here.

She grabbed my hand and led me through a service corridor to a storeroom on the ship, a small room with boxes, shelves, and a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. She locked the door from the inside. Before I even understood what we were doing, she gently pushed me against the wall and kissed me the way she had wanted to kiss me since the day before.

I wrapped my arms around her neck. Her lips were thin, soft, unlike any mouth I had ever tasted. She kissed my mouth, then my neck, then my ear, and licked my earlobe with the tip of her tongue while she spoke softly to me.

—I’ve been thinking about your cunt since yesterday, Romina. About what it’s like.

My heart jumped. No one had ever said the word cunt that close to my ear, so sure they were talking to me. She lifted one leg and set it on her hip, and I, pinned against the wall of a storeroom on a museum ship, felt more exposed than I ever had in any hotel bed. Her thigh slid between my legs and pushed upward against my panties, and I moaned without being able to stop myself. She laughed against my neck.

—What legs you have, Romina —she said in my ear—. That’s why I like mature women. You’re wet, you know that?

I laughed, nervous. I took her face in both hands and kissed her myself, biting her lip the way I hadn’t bitten anyone in years. One of her hands slipped under my dress, went inside my bra, and caught my nipple between thumb and forefinger. She pinched it slowly, then harder, and I cried out against her mouth. The other hand squeezed my ass over my panties, then slid fingers under the elastic and felt my bare flesh. I felt my nipples hardening against the fabric as if they were about to tear through it. When her fingers circled my hipbone and moved toward the front, and finally brushed my underwear right over my clit, I moaned, not quietly, and she covered my mouth with her other hand.

—Shh. They’ll hear us.

She pulled my panties to the side with two fingers and touched me directly. I was soaked, so much that I felt the slickness the second she brushed me. Her fingers traced my clit in slow circles, then slid down to the entrance, made a turn there as if testing it, and went back up. My legs were trembling. The leg I had braced against the wall could barely hold me.

—Tonight —she whispered, pulling away all at once, taking her hand out and bringing her fingers to her mouth to suck them in front of me—. I can’t stay any longer, they’re going to look for me. See you tonight.

—Where?

—At the same bench. Ten-thirty.

She gave me a kiss on the forehead and left the storeroom before I did, leaving me braced against the wall with my panties out of place and my breathing in tatters. I stood there panting, my heart pounding in my throat, and a hot vibration between my legs that refused to go away. It took several minutes before I could walk. I straightened my dress, adjusted my damp underwear, and left the ship trying not to look anyone in the face.

***

I went back to the hotel shaking. I ate very little. At nine forty-five I showered, put on the same blue dress, and before zipping it up decided not to wear anything underneath. No bra, no underwear. I looked at myself in the mirror: my nipples stood out hard against the cotton, and if I ran my hand up my thigh under the dress, my skin was already warm. I left the hotel at ten-twenty.

I reached the bench on time. She didn’t. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, then twenty. I was about to stand up twice. At five to eleven I saw her coming from afar, jogging slowly along the boardwalk. White T-shirt, short skirt, hair loose. She arrived out of breath.

—Sorry, Romina, they delayed me at work. I hate keeping people waiting.

—It’s fine. Now come here.

I put my arms around her neck and kissed her without trying to hide it. She answered as if she’d been holding back for hours. The moment she slid her tongue into my mouth, her hand went down my back and discovered what I had hidden beneath the dress.

—Romina —she murmured against my mouth—. You came without anything on.

—Nothing.

She laughed, half disbelieving, half hoarse. She took my hand and led me down a street parallel to the sea. She lived two blocks from the bench, in a small house with a balcony, white shutters, and bougainvillea climbing up the wall.

We went in. She turned on a low lamp. She led me to the bedroom without saying a word. She lay me down on the bed, climbed on top of me, and kissed me with a new intensity, different from the storeroom, different from the bench. This time there was no hurry. Her tongue entered slowly, without fighting, looking for mine as if she had all night to do it. And she did.

—You’re not wearing anything underneath? —she asked again, sliding her hand up my thigh, the tips of her fingers traveling along the inner side until they brushed my pubic hair.

—No.

—You’re a surprise, Romina.

She pulled my dress down from my shoulders, slowly, tugging at the straps until it gathered at my waist and then around my hips. When she finally got it off my feet, I was left naked on the quilt, and she leaned back to look at me. With her eyes only. She ran her gaze over me from top to bottom, paused on my breasts, continued to my pussy, down my legs. She wasn’t looking at me the way men had looked at me. She was looking at me like someone about to eat something slowly.

—God, you’re gorgeous —she said—. You’ve got killer tits.

She pulled her T-shirt over her head. Under it she had a white sports bra, which she took off too, and for the first time I saw another woman’s breasts up close. Small, high, with very light nipples already hard. She stripped off her skirt and panties in one motion and was naked above me, with her blond cunt and flat stomach, and tanned skin that smelled like the sea. She let herself drop onto me, skin to skin, tits to tits, and that first full contact made me moan before anything else had even happened.

—I’m going to eat you whole —she whispered in my ear.

She explored my body with her mouth, unhurried. She licked my neck, sucked the collarbone, went down to my breasts and took one nipple whole into her mouth. She sucked it slowly, then bit it without force, then licked it with the tip of her tongue until I broke out in goosebumps. She moved to the other one. Repeated it. I was already panting and she still hadn’t gone past my navel. She went down. She put her tongue in my navel, bit my hipbone, licked the crease of my groin. She worked the inner thighs with kisses, moving slowly upward until her mouth was a centimeter from my cunt and still didn’t continue. She blew on me, barely. My legs trembled.

—Sienna, please.

—Please what, Romina?

—Lick me.

—Say it better.

—Lick my cunt, please.

She opened my legs with both hands, spread my lips with her thumbs, and brought her tongue down. The first lick was slow, bottom to top, flat and broad, and it ripped a cry out of me that I tried to swallow and couldn’t. Every inch of skin reacted as if it were the first time. In fact, it was. No man had ever touched me with that precision, with that patience, as if he knew exactly where to stop and where to keep going.

Her tongue worked with a calm that bordered on cruelty. She sucked my lips one by one, then licked my entrance, circled the clit without touching it, came close, moved away. When she finally put her whole mouth over my clit and started sucking it with short pulls, I arched my back and grabbed her hair with both hands. She slid two fingers inside me at the same time, all the way, and curved them upward while she kept sucking. I no longer controlled the sounds coming out of me. I didn’t want to control them either.

—I’m coming —I said, and it wasn’t a warning, it was a confirmation.

—Come in my mouth.

I came with an intensity I hadn’t felt in years, gripping her head between my thighs, pushing my pelvis against her face. I felt the spasms deep inside around her fingers. She didn’t stop. When I thought it was over, her tongue was still there, easing off a little but not leaving, and a minute later she was already taking me to another one. I came again, longer, rougher, with my legs closing on their own over her shoulders. And then still a third time, smaller, almost painful, in which I begged her please to stop because I couldn’t take any more.

She climbed up my body, her mouth shining, and put it over mine. She kissed me and I tasted myself on her tongue. It didn’t disgust me. I liked it. I kissed her deeply, licking her, and she laughed softly.

—Now me —I said after, when I had something close to breath again.

—Now you.

I laid her on her back and stared at her for a moment, not knowing where to begin. She took the back of my neck gently and guided me to her breasts first. I sucked them the way men had sucked mine, trying to imitate what I had always liked: the tongue around the nipple, the sudden closed mouth, the light bite. Sienna moaned and arched her back, and I had my first confirmation that I was going to be able to do this.

I went down her stomach, kissing it, biting the skin of her lower belly, and reached the pubis. I stayed there for a second, breathing. I had never had another woman’s cunt so close. It smelled different from mine, saltier, cleaner, newer. I opened her legs with my hands, the way she had done to me, and ran my whole tongue over her, bottom to top, with fear and desire at the same time. She let out a long gasp and pressed my nape.

—Like that —she murmured—. Like that, Romina, don’t stop.

I tasted her slowly, carefully, with fear, with curiosity. She murmured to me what she liked: higher, with the tip, now suck it, take it in, two fingers. I did everything she said. I slipped in two fingers, the way she had done to me, and searched for the rough texture inside, upward, until I felt her responding. I sucked her clit with my mouth closed while I moved my fingers. She began to tremble in a new way.

—Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

When she came, she did it almost silently, biting her lip, her hips rising against my face. I felt the spasms in her inner walls squeezing my fingers, and a hotter wetness flooding my mouth. I stayed there, licking slowly, until she asked me to stop with a defeated moan. And I felt absurd, ancient pride, like a teenager passing a hard exam.

She climbed up her body, kissed me, tasted me in my mouth the way I had tasted myself in hers, and smiled.

—You learn fast.

—I have a good teacher.

We fucked again, this time on our sides, facing each other, our legs tangled so our cunts pressed against one another. Sienna taught me how to move. We pushed our hips, rubbing against each other, soaking one another, with our clits brushing on every movement. We grabbed each other’s breasts, bit each other’s mouths, moaned against each other’s skin. I came like that, pressed against her, her tongue inside my mouth and her hand gripping my ass to pull me closer. She came a minute later, trembling all over, squeezing one breast hard enough to hurt me a little.

Then a third time, almost at dawn, slower, more tired, with her behind me spooning, her hand between my legs from the front, touching me slowly while she licked my nape. I came again, a long soft orgasm, clamping her hand between my thighs, and fell asleep like that, with her fingers still on my cunt and her breasts against my back. We slept wrapped around each other, with the window open and the sound of the Pacific in the background.

***

I left her house at five-thirty, with my dress wrinkled and my bare feet inside my sandals. I walked back to the hotel looking up at the sky, which was already beginning to lighten. In the shower I realized I was swollen inside, the way you are after a long night with a man who knows what he’s doing. Except this time it hadn’t been a man. And when the hot water hit me between the legs, I had to brace myself against the wall because my skin was still sensitive, throbbing, as if my body still hadn’t finished.

I slept until two in the afternoon. When I woke up, sunlight was coming through the window and I, still in bed, thought of my dead husband, my grown children, the lovers I had had during the first two weeks of the trip —the cocks, the hands, the weight on top of me— and of Sienna, of her tongue, of her two fingers curved inside me. All of them at once. All of it without contradiction.

Then I understood it, and I’m writing it now for the first time: I like men and I like women. Equally. And it took me forty-two years to discover it.