Forbidden

Marcos said it without beating around the bush in that café: he wanted to leave everything and be with Valeria. What happened last night was too real to pretend it didn’t.

Everyone was sleeping a few feet away when I leaned against the cold patio wall. That night, my brother-in-law would do something to me no man had managed before.

Rodrigo knew stealing his own son’s wife was unforgivable. But when Valentina first looked him in the eye, he understood there was no turning back.

We were doing crunches and then I saw him. He wasn’t my son in that moment, he was a man. And that thought haunted me for days.

The house was empty and I had all the time in the world. I never imagined that looking for a charger would lead me to my father’s and stepmother’s secret life.

I went to drop off a package for my mother-in-law and ended up with my hands on something that wasn’t her ankle. I can’t regret a thing.

She went into the confessional to talk about her dreams. When she left the sacristy, she was no longer the same. She was eighteen and had just discovered what her body had been asking for for months.

When Valeria asked, “When do we start?” with that smile, I knew the night would have no turning back. And I no longer wanted it to.

The living room camera switched on just as she crossed her legs on the sofa. I only had to watch and wait for my turn.

She came home from the hospital with both arms in plaster up to the elbows. And I discovered, watching how she depended on me, how little I knew how to look at my own mother.

That afternoon I found one of his movies. That night he came back drunk, opened my bedroom door, and I knew something was going to break forever.

I heard him pull up in the driveway and I didn’t cover myself. I spread my legs on the sofa, moved my thong aside, and started touching myself before he even came in.

I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps with strangers in a club bathroom. Or I wasn’t. That night in Barcelona, a short skirt and a mistake changed everything.

I crossed the threshold of the palace with the gold mask and my heart racing. That night, several masked hands waited for me while he watched from the shadows.

We got to the ninth floor almost out of patience, she drunk on desire and me ready for anything. What I didn’t expect was to find her mother awake, with the screen lit up.

I dialed his number with trembling hands. Three rings. When he answered, I knew there was no turning back, even if I hung up before speaking.

When I opened the door to my uncle that afternoon, no one else was home. What I confessed to him later, on his sofa, I had told no one.

They came down to the kitchen with serious looks on their faces. I thought it was over. What they said next turned that night into something none of us could undo.

I found her underwear on top of the laundry basket when I went into the bathroom. She hadn’t put it away properly. And from that moment on, I could never see her the same way again.

We were having dinner like any other Sunday when my father dropped the line. Three hours later, my brother and I were closing the door to their bedroom, not knowing what we’d be by morning.