Cousins

For months I’d been pretending not to look when he came out of the bathroom in his underwear. That Christmas, alone in the flat, I opened his dirty laundry bag.

She came back from training still in uniform, looked down at me from above, and I understood that afternoon that something between us was going to change forever.

I’d spent years pretending I didn’t stare at her feet. That night, barefoot on the bed, she ordered me to kneel—and there was no turning back.

She fell asleep in front of the TV, and I knew I shouldn’t get close. But her bare feet on the sofa were an invitation I’d been waiting for months to accept.

When the bathroom light suddenly came on, I froze, bikini bottoms in my hand and her eyes locked on mine. I knew I wasn’t in charge anymore.

I went down to the garden in the dark, not knowing that this time she wouldn’t leave me alone with her underwear: she had something of her mother’s saved for me.

She had something hidden in her hand, and that smile promised nothing innocent. “Stick out your tongue,” she ordered, and I already knew I would obey.

Carla appeared barefoot among the shadows of the garden, with that good-girl face that hid the most perverse girl I had ever known.

She swam toward me without taking her eyes off me, and in the warm evening water I understood that what we had felt as kids had never really gone away.

I arrived at the farm with my designer tees and my city attitude. They had callused hands, a sharp knife, and a real talent for cutting me down to size.

He always made the important decisions. So when he said he needed someone else in the house for those weeks, I knew it had already been decided.

I always knew my mother was different from the others, but not until that dawn did I understand how different — or how far I was willing to go.

I knew those two hadn’t invited me fishing just to fish. And if I’m honest, I hadn’t said yes for the river alone either.

I pulled the curtain aside in fear, thinking they were burglars. What I saw in the patio left me breathless and trembling between my legs.

When she came out of the bathroom with her robe tied carelessly and her nipples pressing against the fabric, I knew I could never look at her as just the cousin from summer beach trips again.

Mariana asked me whether I’d ever been curious about kissing another woman. I answered with an impulse that changed what we were forever.

When we turned off the lights and climbed under the same blanket, I never imagined that silly question about kisses would end with her fingers seeking mine in the dark.

There are things I never said out loud. This is one of them: what my cousin planned with me that January, before I realized it was too late.

The first time I knelt before my cousin, I stopped being who I was. What came after changed my body forever.

Four years ago, her mother walked in just in time to stop the sin. This time, with everyone gone and the band booming below, no one was opening that door.