The Fantasy My Stepfather Never Dared to Confess

I live in Mérida, where the heat never lets up, not even at night. I’m a nurse, around thirty, and I still live with my mother and Gerardo, my stepfather, in a big house with an inner courtyard and high ceilings. I’m telling you all this because I want you to understand the air that hung in that house: heavy, damp, charged with things no one ever said out loud.

Because of the weather, I got used to walking around the house in very little clothing. Short shorts, loose blouses, my hair tied up so it wouldn’t stick to the back of my neck. I didn’t do it with any intention, but I know the effect my body has. I take care of it, I go to the gym, I like the way it looks, and I’m not naive: I’ve felt the way men look at me since I was very young.

Gerardo came into my life when I was already a teenager, so I never fully saw him as a father. He was affectionate, though. He’d hug me when he passed by, tell me he loved me, brush a lock of hair away from my face. And there was something in those hugs that lasted an extra second, a tension neither of us ever named. He knows it, and so do I, I thought. But there was my mother, there was the house, there was everything you can’t touch.

One Sunday afternoon, fresh back from the beach, I put on a short skirt and flopped onto the sofa to watch a movie. Gerardo sat down beside me while my mother was in the shower. He draped his arm over my shoulders, whispered in my ear that I was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and I kissed him on the cheek. I felt his hand so close to my knee I could almost count the seconds until it would creep a little higher. It didn’t. It never did.

That same night I woke up thirsty. I went barefoot down the hallway without turning on a single light, and as I passed in front of my parents’ room I heard my mother. She was moaning softly, rhythmically, and the sound of bodies hitting the mattress could be heard. I froze in the dark, with an empty glass in my hand and a different kind of heat rising inside me. I wanted to touch myself right there against the hallway wall, but the fear of being caught stopped me. I went back to bed trembling.

I spent that whole week falling asleep while imagining things I shouldn’t have been imagining. It wasn’t Gerardo exactly; it was the idea of an older man, of big hands, of someone who knew what he was doing. I’d gone months without anyone. The fantasy had gotten under my skin and wouldn’t leave.

***

The following Friday, Gerardo brought over Rubén, a lifelong buddy of his, about the same age, around fifty-five. He was broad-shouldered, with gray at his temples and a deep voice that filled the room. They stayed to watch football. When I went into the kitchen to get something for dinner, I felt Rubén’s eyes fixed on me, blatantly roaming over my body. I said hello, sat with them for a while. My mother served us coffee and went to bed early.

By midnight, one of those storms that just won’t stop had broken out. The rain came down as if it wanted to tear the house down. Gerardo told Rubén to stay, to take the guest room, and he agreed without thinking. I went up to my room with my heart in a strange state, as if I knew something that hadn’t happened yet.

I couldn’t sleep. I went down again for water and found him awake, stretched out on the living room sofa, watching the rain through the window.

—Beautiful night —he said softly.

—Good night, Mr. Rubén. I came down for some water.

—Can’t you sleep?

—Truth is, no. And neither can you, from the looks of it.

—So that makes two of us —he smiled—. Your parents?

—Sleeping. From here all you can hear is Gerardo snoring.

He stood up slowly. He was much taller than I remembered.

—Want to go out to the patio for a bit? It looks like the rain’s letting up. You remind me of my daughter, you know? You’re very beautiful.

—Okay —I said, and I didn’t know why I said it.

As soon as I stepped onto the wet patio tiles, his hand caught my waist with a firmness I hadn’t expected. I stood still, not knowing whether to pull away or stay. My heart shot up into my throat. He backed me against the wall, under the eaves where the light couldn’t reach, and his other hand slid beneath my shorts.

—Easy —he murmured—. You’re a woman now. There’s nothing wrong with it.

His fingers found my clit and began moving in slow circles. I wanted to protest, opened my mouth, but what came out was something else. I thought of my mother moaning that morning, of the whole week imagining exactly this, and my body gave in before my head did.

—We shouldn’t —I managed to say.

—Do you want me to stop? —he asked, without stopping.

I didn’t answer. I rested my forehead on his shoulder and let him go on. I felt his erection pressed hard against my hip, solid through the fabric of his pants, and something in me decided for me.

—Let’s go to your room —he whispered—. No one’s going to find out.

—You promise you won’t say anything to Gerardo?

—I swear it.

—Then come on. Fast and quiet.

***

We went up hugging the wall, stepping on the hallway carpet like two thieves. Gerardo’s snores kept marking the silence. We went into my room and I left the door barely ajar so it wouldn’t make noise when it closed. Rubén took off his shirt and pants without hurry, like a man who’d done this many times. I slipped out of my shorts and blouse with trembling hands.

He lay down on top of me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and felt him enter me, slowly at first, filling me in a way I hadn’t felt in months. I bit the pillow so I wouldn’t scream.

—Slowly —I panted—. My dad is on the other side.

—I’m going to confess something to you —he said, without stopping—. Once, when he was drunk, Gerardo told me he was dying for you. That he didn’t even dare look at you too much.

—Did he really say that?

—He said a lot of things. I don’t know if I believe all of them.

The idea hit me like a current. I didn’t know whether it was true or whether Rubén was saying it to turn me on, but it didn’t matter anymore. The fantasy of the whole week had become real and there was a man inside me.

We changed positions. I got on all fours, with my back to the door, and felt him enter me again, deeper this time. My hands clenched the sheets.

—I think your stepfather is outside —he told me in my ear, almost voicelessly—. I can see a shadow through the crack in the door.

My breath caught. I couldn’t look back; only he had that angle. What if it was true? What if Gerardo was out there in the dark, watching another man his age do to me what he never dared? Instead of scaring me, it set me on fire. The filthy thrill of knowing I was being watched, desired from the shadows, pulled me in completely.

—Let him watch —I said, and my own voice surprised me—. Let him see everything he could never do.

—That’s it —Rubén growled—. Move that body like that, he’s watching you.

I moaned louder than was prudent, knowing every sound was crossing through the crack in the door. I imagined Gerardo breathing hard in the hallway, holding himself back, only half-fulfilling the desire he’d carried for years. The idea of being the center of that scene, of both men at once, carried me into an orgasm that folded me over the bed.

***

We didn’t stop there. I climbed on top of him, facing away, toward the door, so the shadow in the hallway could see the way I moved. Rubén held my hips and I set the rhythm, lost in pleasure and in the game of knowing I was being watched.

—I’d love for your mother to enjoy this someday —he panted.

—Shut up —I laughed between moans—, don’t tempt fate.

When he came, it was with a long shudder and a muffled grunt against my nape. I collapsed on top of him, sweaty, heart racing. We stayed like that for a while, catching our breath, listening to the rain start pounding again outside.

—You’re incredible —he told me, brushing the wet hair from my face—. I’m going to do what I can to see you again.

—Only for tonight —I answered, though we both knew that was a lie.

We settled into a spooning position, him behind me, his breathing growing slow. For his age, for his big hands and deep voice, for one instant I felt like that was the body I’d been imagining for weeks. I fell asleep pressed against him, satisfied in a way I didn’t remember feeling before.

Close to five in the morning I felt him getting up. He kissed my shoulder.

—See you soon —he murmured.

When I woke up, he was gone. The house smelled of coffee and the storm had passed.

***

That morning Gerardo didn’t say a word to me. Not a good morning, not a gesture. He ate in silence, eyes fixed on his plate, and for the first time he didn’t hug me when he passed by. My mother noticed and, without knowing anything, told me that sometimes he got up in a bad mood, that I shouldn’t pay any attention.

But I knew. I knew why he avoided my eyes, why his hand trembled a little when he poured his coffee. It wasn’t until two days later that he spoke to me normally again, as if nothing had happened, as if that crack in the door had never existed.

I never asked him whether he’d really been there that night. No need. Every time he hugs me a second too long now, every time he looks away when I walk in wearing very little, I know. And, I confess, I like knowing it. Some fantasies aren’t meant to come true all the way, precisely so they can keep burning, silently, on the other side of a half-open door.