I Left the Door Ajar So My Cousin Could Hear Me

I leave my bedroom door slightly ajar on purpose. It’s not carelessness. I know this house’s schedule by heart, and I know that when my cousin Noelia comes back from outside and goes up to her room, she’ll have to pass right by mine. I’ve calculated everything.

I switch off the overhead light and leave only the little lamp on the table, the one that barely manages to cast shadows. I lie down on the bed, on top of the sheet, and start slowly. I’m in no rush. Rushing is for someone who wants to finish; I want it to last exactly as long as it needs to.

I think about her without the slightest shame. About that body that has spent the whole summer showing me everything without showing me anything, about her hips, the way tight jeans turn her into a walking torture. I imagine the things I shouldn’t be imagining about a cousin, and precisely because of that they drive me wild.

Then I hear it. The muffled sound of her shoes on the parquet, those tiptoe steps of someone coming home late and not wanting to wake anyone. It comes from the far end of the hallway. It’s getting closer.

Just in time.

I keep going, without speeding up, measuring every movement. When I figure she’s almost level with my door, I let out a long, deep sigh, perfectly audible. Not so exaggerated that it sounds fake, but enough that there can be no doubt about what I’m doing in here, in the dark.

The footsteps stop dead.

There’s a silence that says everything. That silence of someone holding their breath behind a door, motionless, trying to confirm a suspicion without daring to look. I picture her frozen in the hallway, her back against the wall, listening. And that idea, knowing she’s a meter from me, spying on me without seeing me, almost makes me finish too soon.

I force myself to slow down.

—Noelia... —I whisper, low enough to seem involuntary and clear enough to carry through the wood—. You’re so hot.

The silence grows heavier. Not a creak, not even a breath. I know she’s still there because I haven’t heard her steps moving away, and knowing that sets me on fire in a way I’d never felt before. I speed up a little, just enough for the sound of it to reach her too.

—I want you so bad... —I murmur through my teeth—. If you only knew what I’d do to you.

I’m talking to her even if I pretend I’m talking to myself. I tell her things I’d never dare say to her face, dirty and precise things, and every word I utter in a low voice is an arrow shot toward the hallway. I imagine her biting her lip, deciding whether to run or stay. And she stays. That’s what I like most: that she stays.

—I’m... almost there... —I say, and at last I let myself go, holding back the groan so the tension of the moment doesn’t break, finishing with the certainty that she has witnessed everything.

I lie there, spent, listening. An eternal few seconds pass in which I doubt whether she was really there or whether I’ve been talking to an empty hallway for a while. But then I hear the creak of a loose tile in front of her room, the one I’ve known all my life, and then the barely perceptible click of her door closing.

I smile in the dark. There was never any doubt. My cousin Noelia heard absolutely everything.

***

The next morning everything pretends to be normal, and that pretense is the most exciting thing in the house.

Noelia comes down to breakfast wearing jeans that look incredible on her and a T-shirt that shows nothing and suggests everything. It’s the last week of Christmas vacation and nobody suspects a thing. She says hello to my aunt and uncle, pours herself some coffee, comments on how cold it is. Life carries on peacefully around the table.

But she hardly looks at me.

She doesn’t speak to me once, and yet there’s more conversation in that silence than in any chat. When she says goodbye to go shopping with a friend, she kisses the whole family. The one she gives me lasts a tenth of a second longer than necessary, and her perfume clings to my face for a good while afterward. My heart starts racing like an idiot.

—I’m going to be a while —she warns from the door—. I still have to buy half the world.

By midmorning my phone rings. It’s her.

—Hey, can you help me out? —she says, with a voice that’s far too calm—. I’m at the mall looking for a gift for your mother and I can’t decide. You know her better.

She doesn’t have to ask me twice. Twenty minutes later I’m walking through the department store doors, and there she is, waiting with her friend Marina, a dark-haired girl with an easy smile who sizes me up the moment she sees me.

—So you’re the cousin —Marina says, stretching the word with an intention that doesn’t escape me.

Noelia elbows her, but the two of them laugh as if they share a joke I’m not quite getting. Or getting too well.

We wander through the perfume section. It takes us a while until I pick one I know my mother likes, and then, instead of going to pay, Noelia drags me toward another area.

—Wait, I want to see something.

The something turns out to be the lingerie section.

It’s the last week of the year and the shelves are full of red garments, tiny sets made for New Year’s Eve, bras that are almost a whisper of fabric. The two of them slip between the racks like little girls in a toy store, and I stay behind with my hands in my pockets, trying to look natural when I’m anything but.

—Do you like this? —Marina asks, holding up a red lace set that barely fits in one hand—. Do you think it would suit your cousin?

I feel heat rising up my neck.

—I... I don’t know —I stammer, and they both burst out laughing.

They know full well I’m shy, and that’s exactly why they push it. They keep showing me models, one after another, sheer panties, garters, sets tied with impossible bows, and each time they ask my opinion while blatantly watching how I react. And I can’t help imagining each one of those pieces on Noelia’s body. My head fills with images I shouldn’t be having, and my crotch betrays me without shame.

—Look how worked up he’s getting —Marina murmurs into my cousin’s ear, but loud enough for me to hear.

I want the ground to swallow me. And at the same time I don’t want this to ever end.

They’ve been playing with me for a while when Noelia comes closer, presses herself against my side with some excuse or other, and in one quick movement slips something into my jacket pocket.

—Hold on to this for me —she whispers into my ear—. And don’t take it out.

I discreetly put my hand in and it takes me a second to understand what it is. It’s a soft piece of fabric, still warm. It’s her panties. The ones she was wearing a moment ago, the ones she’s just changed out of for a new pair from the store that she intends to walk off with without paying.

I look at her in disbelief. She holds my gaze with a spark of mischief I’d never seen in her before, while Marina bites her lip to keep from laughing. Both of them are blushing, electrified by the idea of wearing stolen clothes, by the risk of getting caught.

—You do it too —Marina challenges me in a low voice—. Take a pair of briefs. Change the ones you’re wearing for a branded pair. If we dare, you can too.

I resist. I really do. But the two of them push me, put a pair of briefs in my hand and point me toward the fitting rooms with a smile that leaves no room for refusal. In the end I give in, more to go along with them than for anything else, and I step into one of the back cubicles.

***

I close the curtain, or think I do, and sit for a moment on the little stool to catch my breath. And then I realize my cousin’s garment is still burning in my pocket.

I take it out. I hold it in both hands as if it were something fragile. I can’t help myself: I bring it to my face and inhale deeply, filling myself with her intimate scent, that perfume I’ve been chasing all morning. My heart hammers against my ribs.

I know I shouldn’t. I know exactly what I’m about to do and I know it’s wrong in every possible sense. But my mind has gotten stuck on the image of Noelia behind my door last night, listening to me, and on the way she looked at me a moment ago when she handed me the garment. There’s no turning back now.

I pull down my pants and start, wrapping myself in the warm fabric, fast, without hiding it, letting myself go completely.

That’s when I notice it. The fitting room curtain isn’t properly shut. There’s a gap, a finger-width opening, and through it I make out two pairs of eyes. Noelia and Marina are out there, pressed together, following every one of my movements with a lust they don’t even try to hide.

And instead of stopping, I do the opposite.

I pretend I don’t see them. I act natural, look at the ceiling, keep doing my thing as if I were completely alone. But inside I’m burning, because now it isn’t a fantasy through a door anymore: now they’re really watching me, a breath away, both of them at once. I speed up. I want them to see, I want to give them exactly the show they came looking for.

I hear a ragged breath on the other side of the curtain. A whisper. A nervous laugh someone stifles immediately. And that finishes me off.

I come with my cousin’s garment in my hands, gathering everything up in the same fabric she so generously “forgot” in my pocket. I stay there a few seconds out of breath, forehead against the mirror, feeling the footsteps on the other side hurry away, pretending they were never there.

When I come out of the fitting room, the two of them are turned away, staring at a rack with exaggerated, completely fake concentration. I have the face of someone who has just had the best wank of his life, and there’s no human way to hide it.

—I don’t like these briefs —I say, with all the dignity I can muster—. Find me another pair.

Noelia turns slowly. She looks me up and down, reads my face, understands every detail. And then she exchanges with Marina one of those smiles full of complicity and mischief, the kind that say far more than any words ever could.

—Come on, let’s go —my cousin decides, taking me by the arm—. And without paying.

We cross the exit sensors with our hearts in our throats, the two of them wearing stolen clothes and me with a pair of panties full of evidence in my pocket. The alarm doesn’t go off. The thrill of getting away with it follows us out into the street, where the two of them burst out laughing.

But the truth is, as I walk between them under the cold December sun, the theft means nothing. Nothing compared to having come in front of my cousin and her friend, knowing I was watched, desired, caught. That, and not anything else, is the fantasy I’ll carry with me for the rest of the holiday.

And by the look on Noelia’s face every time our eyes meet for the rest of the day, I know this has only just begun.