Her Daughter’s Best Friend Had Her Gone

Camila had the mother of her best friend completely gone, and Marisol knew that better than anyone. She never missed a single chance to see her whenever she showed up at the house. She had nothing but smiles for her, greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, held her hands a second too long, found excuses to talk to her. Marisol lost control the moment she saw her walk in. For her it had been something like love at first sight, and she still remembered clearly the first afternoon that girl crossed the threshold of her living room.

It wasn’t that Camila was a magazine beauty. She was an utterly ordinary girl, the kind who goes unnoticed in a crowd. Her greatest appeal was her eyes: dark, slightly slanted, with an air of mystery that made you want to keep looking too long. It was easy to get lost in that gaze. She had tan skin, an average height, straight black hair brushing her shoulders. A broad body without being thick, small breasts, firm legs.

At a glance, she wasn’t the kind of woman who stopped traffic. But she dressed with a careless sensuality that made her irresistible: short dresses, bare backs, almost never pants. And she had a husky, low voice that sounded like a confession even when she was talking about the weather. She was smart, talkative, with a contagious laugh and very white teeth, the two front ones just a little longer than the rest, so her lips never quite closed and she always seemed on the verge of smiling.

No one would have known how Marisol saw her, but she was smitten. Camila was chatty, and since Marisol treated her like a queen, she gave her conversation whenever she could. And Marisol would fall into a kind of trance, listening to her talk about anything at all. The moment the girl set foot in the house, she went overboard with attention: she offered her juice, coffee, and if she arrived at lunchtime she didn’t even ask, she served her a plate and sat her at the table.

—Why are you so attentive with her and not with my other friends? —her daughter asked one day, half amused and half suspicious.

—I have a special affection for her —Marisol replied without looking her in the eye—. I love her like a daughter.

A lie she repeated to anyone who dared ask.

***

The truth was that Marisol was a married woman and, in secret, in love with her daughter’s best friend. She wanted to hold her in her arms, run her hands all over her, cover her with kisses from head to toe. She enjoyed that feeling like someone guarding an impossible treasure, though not entirely impossible: every time Camila sought her out to talk, she made her feel important, and that small bit of attention was enough to feed her hope.

Unlike the girl, Marisol was a beautiful woman, a textbook Latina. She had more curves than a mountain road, everything in just the right proportion. Tall, always sun-kissed, light brown hair falling to the middle of her back, large honey-colored eyes. Full, provocative lips, and dimples that appeared when she laughed. Generous breasts speckled with freckles that she liked to show off with wide necklines, a narrow waist, wide hips. She wore tight clothes because she loved provoking looks, and she got them.

She was not, however, a repressed lesbian. When she was young she’d had a single fling with a friend, one drunken night she barely remembered, blurred and pleasurable, and never repeated. She married very young and had been faithful to one man all her life, happy with her husband, with no intention of betraying him, no matter how many suitors she had. But for Camila, she would. For Camila she would have thrown everything overboard.

At first the feeling confused her and came with a dull guilt that saddened her. Then she got her head straight and surrendered to that love without arguing with it anymore. She wasn’t obeying reason but something older and more stubborn. And when she finally stopped fighting it, she felt something like liberation.

***

She was realistic. She knew the chances of winning Camila’s heart were almost nil. But instead of getting depressed, she decided to be happy with the scraps of time she could share with her, which were not few: the girl was practically living in her house, she saw her almost every day. She would slip into the kitchen while Marisol was cooking and keep her company, and Marisol would listen to her enchanted.

What Marisol didn’t know was that Camila felt something different for her too. She never bothered analyzing it —she wasn’t one to rationalize her feelings—, but she liked the way that woman treated her, the attention, the way she listened without interrupting, as if what she said really mattered. Not even the boyfriends she’d had had looked at her like that. In her own way, Camila loved her too, and Marisol occupied a place no one else had ever occupied.

One afternoon the girl arrived and found Marisol alone. Her daughter had gone out to deal with an urgent matter and wouldn’t be back until nightfall. Camila decided to stay anyway. It was a chance they’d never had: most of the time she looked for her in the gaps, while her friend was showering or getting ready, and a few minutes later she’d be left alone again. That afternoon she had her all to herself, without interruptions.

They sat in the living room talking. Marisol looked into her eyes in silence while she spoke, lost in that dark gaze. They went on like that for almost an hour. At some point Marisol stopped hearing the words and started looking at her lips, those lips that never quite closed. The idea of kissing her lodged in her head and wouldn’t let go. If not now, when? And if she rejected her, at least she would be calm, knowing she had tried.

She moved closer slowly, measuring the distance. She calculated how much she’d have to lean in to reach that mouth and, without thinking twice, gathered herself and kissed her.

Camila didn’t pull away. On the contrary, she kissed her back. Without knowing it, she wanted it too. No one had ever treated her with that kind of devotion, and so when Marisol’s lips landed on hers, she found herself answering instead of running. It was a long, slow kiss that neither of them dared break.

Marisol took her hands and stroked them with the pads of her fingers. Neither of them said a word. It was a fragile moment, and neither knew what came next. She kissed her again, now hungrier, a kiss longer than the last, tongues seeking each other. Marisol raised her hands to Camila’s breasts and Camila did the same, gently squeezing hers. For Marisol, it was the final sign: the girl was turned on too, and neither of them dared break the spell by speaking.

She took her by the hand and led her to her bedroom. She laid her down, climbed on top of her, and kissed her again. Camila wrapped her arms around her and began to lift her blouse. They sat up just enough to take it off, and Marisol returned the gesture, unfastening her bra with clumsy fingers. The two of them were left half-naked, looking at each other.

Marisol could hardly believe it. She had never imagined having her like this, real, warm beneath her hands; she had thought of her as unreachable, a love of the kind you love from afar. And there she was. Camila, for her part, just let herself be carried along. With that first kiss she had suddenly understood how much she wanted her, and desire did the rest.

***

They took off the rest of their clothes and once again ended up frozen, not knowing where to go from there. Neither of them had any experience with another woman. Marisol, in theory, ought to have known something, but from that night in her youth all she had left was a haze of alcohol. They kissed again, and Marisol decided to go by the only thing she knew well: what she herself liked done to her.

She lowered her mouth to Camila’s breasts and ran her tongue over her nipples again and again until she felt them harden. She sucked them slowly, paying attention to every reaction. The girl started to moan softly, and those sounds were for Marisol the best of guides. While her mouth stayed busy, she slid her hand between Camila’s legs and found her soaking wet. She traced all that dampness with her fingers and began rubbing her clit in slow circles. The moans grew louder.

But Camila wanted her turn. She lifted Marisol’s head by the chin and kissed her. She wanted to taste those big breasts too, to run her tongue over the freckles scattered across them. She stared at them for a moment, uncertain, not knowing where to start.

—Do to me what you like done to you —Marisol whispered.

That was all they said. Camila thought it made the most sense in the world. She started by lightly biting her nipples, because she loved having hers bitten. Marisol arched her back. Then Camila took them into her mouth and sucked them like candy, in and out without stopping the suction. The pleasure tore a long moan from Marisol, and she didn’t know whether it was from what she was feeling or from wanting to give it back.

She lowered her hand again and slid her fingers down over her own sex until she buried them inside. Camila copied her, penetrating her at the same time. The two of them were pleasuring each other at once, both moaning without shame, learning in real time what the other enjoyed.

Marisol, who had carried the fantasy for months, wanted more. She wanted to know what she tasted like. She pulled her fingers out, brought them to her mouth, and let her tongue drag along all the trace of Camila. The taste drove her wild. She pushed the girl onto the mattress, spread her legs and looked her over from head to toe —how beautiful she looked like that, open and surrendered— before lowering her head and running her tongue over her entire cunt.

She was so wet that each pass dragged her moisture along. Marisol repeated the movement several times, then caught her lips with her mouth and sucked them, and finally found the clit and gave it little bites, just as Camila had done with her nipples. The girl moaned louder and louder, twisting, her hands tangled in the sheets, until she couldn’t take it anymore and came against Marisol’s mouth with a shudder that shook her legs.

Marisol could not have been more satisfied. She had made her come, finally satisfied that months of curiosity, had had her in her hands. But Camila wanted to taste her too. She sat up with all her energy focused on one thing: laying her down and returning the favor.

She had never tasted another woman, not even herself, but the time had come. She pushed Marisol onto the bed, knelt on the floor, parted her legs, and licked her lips without thinking, determined to feel the taste that had intrigued her so much. She didn’t let go until she had drained them dry. It seemed to her like a strong but pleasant taste, sweet at the end and a little sour at the beginning, something she would definitely seek out again.

Then she went for the important part: making her come, getting Marisol off the way she had gotten off. She put her mouth on the clit and began to bite it lightly, let go, ran her tongue over it and started again, nonstop, just the way she liked it herself. Marisol enjoyed it like never before. What turned her on most was knowing that that pleasure was coming from Camila’s mouth, that anything coming from that mouth would undo her.

The girl stopped biting and started sucking hard. Marisol understood the method: first the bites to make everything sensitive, then the pressure to make it explode. And while she was thinking that, the sucking dragged her under without warning. She came in Camila’s mouth with a muffled moan, her hips lifting off the mattress on their own.

***

They kissed and lay side by side in silence, staring at the ceiling. Neither dared speak, as if words could undo what they had just done.

For two women who had the slightest idea about sex between women, they had done astonishingly well. Both of them had applied the only logical thing: give the other what made each of them come, and let instinct dictate the rest. Outside it was beginning to get dark, and there were still hours left before Marisol’s daughter came home.