Cousins

When I saw her come down through the building entrance at six in the morning, with a suitcase bigger than she was, I knew that summer wouldn’t be like any other.

I closed my eyes to imagine him watching me. When hands grabbed my waist from behind, I thought I knew whose they were. I was completely wrong.

I’d spent months avoiding coming back, but that afternoon my sister put a video on the screen and nothing in our family was ever the same again.

What began as an awkward talk about toys in the back seat ended up becoming the darkest secret that family would ever tell.

I got off the train with one idea in my head, and when I crossed the door of his apartment I knew neither of us was going to pretend this was a family visit.

When my aunt asked if I already had a girlfriend, everyone laughed. My cousin Camila didn’t. Beneath the tablecloth, her bare foot slid up my leg and I knew the night was only beginning.

When I looked up and saw her sweeping the living room, I knew my cousin was the only one who could save me. I never imagined how far we’d go that afternoon.

Marisol thought her son was only watching his cousin. But that night, in the same dress and with the same curves, she learned the real temptation was her.

I thought I had the whole house to myself for four days. I didn’t count on him having keys, cameras, and a curiosity he’d never confessed.

For four days the little paper with his number burned in my pocket. Every night I remembered that wetness dripping out, and I knew I was going to call.

We’d spent years summering together, seeing each other topless without thinking anything of it. Until that first day at the beach, when her hand slipped inside my bikini and everything changed.

I left my father’s villa for my grandparents’ house in the village. I had no idea my aunt, the most devout woman in town, would end up naked in my bed for an envelope full of bills.

My niece climbed into my bed with an indecent proposal, and I never imagined my son would be spying on us from the hallway door.

When Valeria told me her three cousins were waiting to celebrate, I never imagined the celebration meant finding out whether I was good for more than balancing their accounts.

When Damián closed the door and left on a trip, Mariela already knew that a whole week alone with Rodrigo would change everything between them.

I found an old photo tucked away in a drawer, and all at once I knew exactly what I wanted to ask each of them for that vacation.

I was always a man of soccer and conquests, until the first thong brushed my shaved skin and I understood there was no going back.

She came out of the bathroom in lingerie, posed in front of me, and asked me from one to ten how hot she was. I already knew where that night was going to end.

I thought nobody had seen me that afternoon at my grandfather’s house. I was wrong: there were a pair of eyes behind the door, and they took fifteen years to speak.

I thought we were only going up to the pine grove to eat omelet and drink red wine. I never imagined my cousin would ask me to touch her among the trees that afternoon.