What Sofía Confessed to Me That Afternoon at the Faculty

I hesitated quite a bit before writing this. It’s not the easiest story to tell, and for a long time I thought it wasn’t my place to do it because it wasn’t my story, but hers. But Sofía gave me permission recently, after years, because she thinks it might help someone who’s in a similar situation. So here it goes.

Sofía was always one of those people who drew attention without trying. She had a perfectly symmetrical face, dark eyes with something smart behind them, and a way of laughing that made everyone turn to look at her. But in her first years at faculty she was quite overweight, and that made her feel invisible. She looked in the mirror and didn’t see what the rest of us saw: she saw a girl who didn’t fit, who wasn’t desirable, who had to settle for whatever she was offered. So when Marcos paid attention to her, she received it like water after a long drought.

Marcos was twenty-seven when he started dating Sofía, who was nineteen. Right from the start, that age difference made me uncomfortable, even though back then neither of us knew exactly how to put that feeling into words. What we did notice was that Marcos never appeared in photos with her, never took her to places where people could see them together, and that whenever Sofía talked about him she always ended the sentence with some apology he had never asked for: “it’s just that he’s very private,” “it’s just that he doesn’t like drama,” “it’s just that he feels weird around people so much younger than him.”

For Sofía, all of that was tolerable because he desired her. And at that moment in her life, being desired was worth more than anything else.

***

One Monday in August, Sofía didn’t show up at faculty. Neither did she on Tuesday. On Wednesday, one of the girls in the group got a message from her saying she had a bad case of the flu and would be back in a few days. The message was strange: far too brief for someone who normally wrote in paragraphs, who sent long voice notes, who never used a single line to say what she could say in five. I didn’t say anything, but something clenched in my stomach in a way I didn’t like.

On Thursday she showed up.

She walked into the classroom slowly, with a stiffness in her body that wasn’t like her. She sat down near me, and at the exact moment she settled her body into the chair, her face twisted in pain. It wasn’t an exaggerated gesture. It was that fraction of a second when someone receives a pain they weren’t expecting and tries to hide it immediately. Her skin went even paler, and she looked forward again as if nothing had happened.

But I had seen it.

—Are you okay? —I asked in a low voice.

—I’m fine —she answered without turning her head.

Her voice was flat, the kind you use when you want to shut a conversation down before it starts.

I didn’t push it then. I waited for the break.

***

Between classes I found her by the lockers in the back hallway and took her by the arm to the back, away from the noise of the courtyard.

—Sofía. Tell me the truth.

She looked to the sides for a second, weighing her answer.

—I had a problem with Marcos —she said at last, very slowly—. But please don’t tell anyone.

I didn’t ask her anything else then. I told her that during the free period we’d sneak into the lecture hall and talk.

That afternoon we skipped the next class. It wasn’t the first time or the last: the professor took attendance at the start and then we disappeared without anyone saying anything. The large lecture hall on the ground floor was an enormous, cold place where there was never anyone at that hour. We sat in the back row. Sofía did it very carefully, easing her weight down slowly, and she made that grimace I already knew.

—Now tell me —I said.

Sofía took a deep breath. And began.

***

—On Friday night Marcos texted me saying he wanted to see me. That he wanted me to stay over, that he’d missed me. He’d been telling me those things for days and I was so excited. I put on the best underwear I had, a black lace set I’d bought especially for him, with panties so tiny they barely covered anything.

She paused. Looked down at the floor.

—The problem was he told me to come after midnight. My parents are pretty strict about schedules, so I made up that I was sleeping at a friend’s house. I left early with a small backpack and spent the whole time wandering around the neighborhood until it was time. I sat for a while in the plaza, walked around, checked my phone. I was so happy. I really wanted to see him, you know? I was already wet just thinking about what was going to happen.

—I got to his apartment almost at one in the morning. As soon as he opened the door he kissed me and took me straight to the bedroom. No dinner, no talking, straight there. I didn’t care at that moment. I felt really desired. He took my clothes off quickly, yanked off my bra, and just stood there staring at my tits for a long while before throwing me onto the bed. He spread my legs, ran two fingers through my pussy, and whispered in my ear that I was soaked, that I was a dirty slut, and those words set me on fire. He put his fingers inside me and moved them slowly while he sucked on my nipples. I was squirming. Then he asked me for something I know he likes a lot.

Sofía swallowed.

—He asked me to suck him off. I went down and pulled his dick out of his pants. It was hard, thick, the tip already wet. I took it all into my mouth, as deep as I could. He grabbed the back of my neck and started pushing my head so I’d suck him deeper. I was gagging but I kept going. I sucked his balls, ran my tongue all over his dick, looked him in the eye while I swallowed him because I knew that drove him crazy. I don’t actually like it that much, truthfully, but when I do it I feel special, you know? I feel like I really matter to him. Like for ten minutes I’m the only thing that exists for him.

I understood, though I didn’t want to understand it all the way.

—After that he pulled me on top of him and put me over him. I took him inside me slowly, felt myself opening, and started moving. I like that position because I can control the rhythm, because I can see his face while I fuck him. He grabbed my tits, squeezed my nipples hard, told me I was his little whore, that I felt amazing. I went faster and faster, riding him up and down, with his dick going all the way inside me. I remember that I came once like that, clenching around his cock inside me, shaking all over on top of him.

—But then at some point he turned me over and put me on all fours. He told me that’s how he likes it best, that that’s how he can finish. He grabbed my hips hard and started moving. At first nothing seemed strange. He shoved his dick all the way in and spanked my ass. I was really horny, my face pressed into the pillow and my ass sticking up for him. I told him to fuck me harder. And he fucked me harder. I could hear my ass slapping against his hips, the wet sound of his cock going in and out of my pussy.

Sofía took a deep breath before going on.

—But then he started pushing harder, like he was angry about something I didn’t understand. He squeezed my hips with his fingers until it hurt. He spit on my ass. I thought it was part of the game, that he liked seeing me dirty. And at one point he pulled all the way out and shoved back in suddenly, but not where he was supposed to go in.

Sofía stopped. Pressed her lips together.

—It was dry. Without warning. Without preparation, nothing. It felt like he split me in half. The pain was so strong and so sudden that I screamed, a real scream, not one of those ones you sometimes make in bed. I tried to pull away, I wanted to crawl forward to get it out of me, but he had me by the hips and pinned me there. He gave me two or three more thrusts, with his whole dick buried in my ass, and I was crying with my face smashed into the mattress. When he finally pulled it out, I curled up on the bed, shaking, unable to stop crying.

I didn’t say anything. I looked at her and waited.

—He started apologizing right away. He hugged me from behind and kept repeating that he hadn’t meant to, that it had slipped, that it was an accident, that I should forgive him. I couldn’t stop crying. Then he turned on the light and we saw there was blood on the sheets, a dark stain and some on his dick too. I completely freaked out. I asked him to take me to the ER and he told me he couldn’t, that it was late and his parents would find out if he took the car. He drew me a bath, helped me get in, made me tea when I came out. That calmed me down a little, but the pain didn’t go away. I stayed awake all night next to him, folded over, feeling it burn inside me every time I breathed.

***

The next morning Sofía went back home and told her parents she felt sick to her stomach, that she was staying in bed. When she went to the bathroom it hurt a lot and she saw blood again. That scared her even more.

When her parents left for work, she went alone to the emergency room at the nearest hospital.

—I got a female doctor. She asked me very calmly whether someone had assaulted me. I told her no, that my boyfriend had made a mistake. She called in a specialist who examined me and explained that I had a fissure. That it would take a few weeks to heal. They gave me a cream and sent me home to rest.

Sofía finished speaking and sat there looking at her hands for a long while.

I didn’t say anything right away either. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I understood that anything I said would sound like too much or too little. What she needed wasn’t my words: it was for someone to have listened to her without judging anything.

I hugged her. She let herself be hugged and didn’t cry, which was maybe the saddest part of all.

***

Sofía took almost a month to recover physically. During that time she kept seeing Marcos. She told me that with a calmness that hurt me more than if she had been crying. I asked her whether they had talked about what had happened, and she said yes, that he had promised it wouldn’t happen again, that it had been a mistake.

A mistake.

I didn’t say anything. I was nineteen and I didn’t have the words to explain to her that a twenty-seven-year-old man doesn’t put his dick in a girl’s ass without knowing exactly what he’s doing. That “it slipped” doesn’t exist, that a cock doesn’t accidentally miss the hole. That “I didn’t mean to” doesn’t exist when the other person’s body is crying and trying to get away. That the problem wasn’t that specific moment but everything surrounding it: the age gap, the invisibility he imposed on her, the desire offered as if it were a privilege she should be grateful for.

I learned those words later.

Years later.

***

Sofía stayed with Marcos for almost two more years. They never tried anal sex again, which she mentioned to me with relief, as if that were proof that things had improved. Eventually the relationship ended, not dramatically but in that slow, silent way that things end when they should never have begun.

Today Sofía is twenty-nine and has a sex life she herself describes as “finally mine.” She told me a few months ago, over coffee on a Tuesday for no particular reason, laughing at things that would once have left her silent.

She told me that eventually, with someone else and in another way, she had grown to like anal sex. That the guy she’s with now asked her one night, looking her in the eye, whether she’d like to try again. That he put on lubricant slowly, started with one finger, then two, while he ate her pussy until she came twice. That when he finally put it in, he did it so slowly Sofía barely even noticed, and that he asked her at every inch whether she was okay, whether she wanted him to stop, whether she wanted more. That the first time she came with a cock in her ass she cried from relief, not pain.

—That’s what I want you to tell —she said—. Not just the painful part. The afterward too. That there is an afterward. That you can enjoy it again. That the same act that once broke me, done by someone who respects me, now makes me come like crazy.

That desire doesn’t have to hurt to be real. That the body belongs to whoever inhabits it, and that nobody has the right to take it as if it were their own.

I told her yes. That I would tell it.

Here it is.