What Happened on the Ferris Wheel with My Cousin That Night

The arrival of their uncles and aunts at the coast had always been a nuisance for Tomás. His cousin Camila came with them every summer and, although they usually stayed only a weekend, it was more than enough time for him to remember why he avoided her. The family’s spoiled favorite, the one who got what she wanted with a pout, the one who had never heard a “no” in her life.

That year, to make things worse, it happened to coincide with her birthday. Camila was turning thirty-two, and the gift boxes invaded the guest room as if she were moving in. Tomás tried to dodge any responsibility, but his mother cornered him in the kitchen and ordered him, with no room for argument, to take his favorite niece to the newly renovated amusement park that very night. While the rest prepared the surprise dinner, that would be his gift: babysitting an adult woman.

—She’s your cousin, Tomás. A couple of hours, that’s all —his mother concluded.

Camila came down the stairs wearing worn jeans and a long-sleeved rust-colored sweater, far too warm for the sticky heat of the night. Her brown hair hung loose, cut to jaw length, and a tiny piercing gleamed in her nose every time she passed under a streetlamp. She had a habit of biting her lip when something amused her, and that night she seemed to be enjoying herself very much.

He tried to come up with an excuse, call some friend, invent an alternative plan. No one answered the phone. The only thing he managed was to get his parents to pay for both tickets.

***

The park was a boil of lights, shrill music, and the smell of burned sugar. Camila dragged him from one ride to another, euphoric, while Tomás took advantage of the few minutes when she went on alone to sit on a bench and breathe. His cousin was expensive: two hot dogs, a giant soda, a bag of cotton candy she devoured in three bites. And when he thought they could finally leave, she pointed at the Ferris wheel.

—That one. I want to go on that one.

It was one of the few attractions whose price was not included with admission. Twenty-five euros just to make slow circles in a cabin that looked like it was from another decade. Tomás gave in just to stop hearing her complaints.

The cabin smelled of old metal and chewing gum. They climbed in slowly, swaying, while Camila finished off the last hot dog with almost childish greed and wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. They had barely made it past half the height when the lights on the entire Ferris wheel flickered twice and went out all at once.

The silence was immediate. The park music still played far below, distant, as if from another world. Ten seconds later, a male voice crackled over the loudspeaker, apologizing and announcing a mechanical breakdown.

—Great —Tomás muttered—. Just what we needed.

Camila sprang to her feet and the entire cabin swayed with a metallic creak that raised goose bumps on her cousin’s skin.

—Well, I’m in the mood for something else —she said, and began moving from one window to another, peering into the void without the slightest concern for the dangerous rocking.

—Will you stay still? You heard the guy, they’ll fix it in a few minutes and we’ll get down.

—I don’t want to get down yet. —She wrinkled her nose, and the piercing caught the only reflection coming from the distant lights of the seafront.

Tomás looked toward the neighboring cabins, desperate. In the one beside them he could barely make out a hunched silhouette, someone absorbed by a phone screen. They were alone, suspended in the air, trapped for what was already becoming far too many minutes.

Suddenly Camila forced open one of the window latches, swung it wide, and leaned out, putting half her body outside.

—Camila! —Tomás lunged at her and grabbed her by the waist with both hands, pinning her against his chest—. What the hell are you doing?

—I wanted to see the people down there —she replied, flashing one of her fake-innocent expressions, making the least possible effort to pull away from him.

Then Tomás became aware of how close they were. His cousin’s breath against his neck, the heat of her body seeping through the fabric. He let her go as if she were burning him, sat back down, and pressed his head against the cold glass with his eyes closed.

—Sit down and wait. It’s not that hard.

—I’m still hungry —she said, dropping down beside him.

—Up here there’s nothing I can do about that.

—That’s not entirely true —Camila murmured.

Tomás felt the cabin sway again, this time with a much slower, more deliberate motion. Before he could react, his cousin’s hand landed without any pretense on his crotch. He slapped it away sharply.

—What the hell is wrong with you?

—You’ve got quite a big one right there. —She kissed the back of the hand that had just been struck, never taking her eyes off his in the dim light—. I saw it last summer, when you were changing by the pool. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.

This isn’t happening, Tomás thought. But his body had already begun to betray him.

—We’re cousins, Camila.

—I know perfectly well —she answered with a low laugh—. That’s why no one ever needs to find out.

***

The air inside the cabin had grown heavy. Tomás knew he should stop this, stand up, bang on the glass and shout for someone to fix the breakdown. Instead, he remained motionless, watching his cousin’s light eyes shine fixed on him with a determination he had never seen before.

Camila leaned in very slowly and started kissing him. At first it was only the faintest brush at the corner of his mouth, a timid caress that did not match the boldness of her hands. She moved toward the center of his mouth patiently, millimeter by millimeter, until Tomás parted his lips and answered. Their tongues sought each other in the darkness, slow at first, then more and more urgent, while her hand found the bulge under his jeans again and stroked it over the fabric with growing pressure.

—Since that afternoon I haven’t stopped imagining this moment —Camila whispered, pulling back just a few centimeters, with a half smile.

Tomás brushed her cheek with his thumb. Whatever resistance he had left had evaporated.

—Then stop imagining it —he said hoarsely.

She unzipped him unhurriedly, enjoying the metallic sound in the silence of the cabin. Tomás sank back against the seat, unable to do anything but watch her. The white fabric of his underwear peeped through the opening, and Camila’s fingers slid inside to caress him, sending a shiver down his whole back.

—I see you’re still not fully convinced —she murmured—. That can be fixed.

She slid off the seat and dropped to her knees between her cousin’s open legs, on the filthy cabin floor. She freed his cock with one tug and stayed still for a moment, watching him in the half-dark with parted lips.

—It’s huge —she said, and her voice cracked a little.

—I thought you were very hungry —Tomás replied, sliding a hand gently over the back of her neck.

Camila bit her lip and the gleam returned to her eyes just before she lowered her head. The first wet touch of her tongue over the tip made Tomás let out a restrained groan against the glass. She began to circle it slowly, never taking her gaze off his face, recording every sign of pleasure as if it were a trophy she meant to collect slowly.

The pads of her fingers played below while her tongue continued its patient work. Suddenly she let out a low laugh and took him into her mouth halfway, setting a rhythm that went back and forth, each time deeper. The entire cabin swayed with her movements, suspended high above the Ferris wheel like an iron cage on the verge of giving up.

Tomás clutched the edge of the seat with one hand and tangled the fingers of the other in his cousin’s brown hair. His hips began to follow her with small, restrained thrusts, while pleasure gathered at the base of his spine like a storm about to break.

—Don’t stop —he gasped—. Please, don’t stop.

Camila had no intention of doing any such thing. She traced all of him with her tongue, lingered at the bottom with quick, precise licks, and came back up to swallow him again in the warm darkness of her mouth. When she felt him tense all over, she sped up mercilessly, determined to take him all the way.

Tomás came with a muffled grunt, biting his fist so he wouldn’t shout and give them away to the neighboring cabin. Camila took everything without pulling away, swallowing slowly, moaning each time she did until she was satisfied. Then she rose, wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand, and gave him a feline smile.

—That’s the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time —she said.

—We still have the rest of the weekend —he replied, trying to catch his breath.

She only looked at him with blazing eyes while Tomás pulled up his zipper with clumsy fingers.

***

—Look at the state of your knees —he exclaimed, noticing for the first time the grease stains crossing her jeans—. The floor of this thing is disgusting.

He took a tissue from his pocket and started wiping the dirt off her with a slowness that was anything but innocent, his fingers lingering longer than necessary over the taut fabric of her thighs. When he lifted his gaze to throw the tissue away, he discovered that the jeans were damp in a very different place.

—And this needs fixing too —he said in a low voice.

Without giving him time to react, Camila unbuttoned her pants herself and let the edge of a tiny thong peek out. Tomás leaned in and began kissing the edge of the fabric again and again, while his cousin started trembling once more, this time for a reason very different from cold.

But just as he was beginning to go lower, the cabin lights came on all at once and the Ferris wheel’s gears screeched as it started moving again. The breakdown was fixed.

Tomás immediately leaned back against the seat with a crooked smile.

—We’d better save the changing for when we get home, little cousin.

He winked and watched the park floor draw closer again, turn by turn.

—Don’t you dare leave me hanging —she protested, buttoning her pants reluctantly.

—I don’t plan to —Tomás replied, and for once in his life he didn’t care at all that his cousin had come to spend the weekend.

Camila pressed her forehead to the glass and looked toward the park lights, already calculating in which fitting room, which secluded corner, which dark nook she might collect what the Ferris wheel had interrupted. They had the whole night ahead of them, and summer had just begun.