Mireia Kissed Me Underwater and Disappeared with Someone Else

The water was still running when Mireia kissed me one last time before turning off the tap. Her wet hair stuck to her back, the bathroom’s yellow light carving out her collarbones. We didn’t say anything. There was no need. We still had each other’s taste on our lips, the salty flavor of the other woman’s cunt mixed with water, I could still feel her fingers between mine and the mark of her teeth on my right shoulder, there where she had bitten me when I shoved my tongue all the way into her ass and made her come against the tiles with three fingers buried in her cunt and my thumb rubbing her swollen clit.

She got into the car with her hair damp and the scent of my soap on her skin. I drove slowly, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her thigh, feeling the tremor that still lingered under the fabric of her uniform. I slid my fingers a little higher, toward the inside of her leg, and felt her muscles tighten and her lips part slightly without meaning to.

—I have to change fast —she murmured, looking out the window—. My shift starts in an hour.

—I’ll wait.

My hand moved another centimeter. She closed her legs, trapping my fingers right where I could already feel the wet heat through her pants.

—Aitana —she whispered—, if you keep going, I won’t make it.

—That might be true.

—There’s nothing left inside me. You left me dry and full at the same time, I don’t even know how you did it.

I squeezed a little harder and watched her bite her lip. I pulled my hand away only when I parked in front of her building and glanced at the street out of the corner of my eye. Peeling paint, bars on every window, a graffiti tag painted over with brush strokes. Orange zone. I knew it from the reports that landed on my desk every week at the Prosecutor’s Office, I knew it from the number of bodies my team had recovered within a five-block radius. The fact that she lived there squeezed my chest like a badly fastened belt.

Mireia got out alone. She didn’t invite me up, and I understood why. She was in a hurry, had a roommate to avoid and a neck to hide beneath the high collar of her coat. The mark still burned in my mouth.

The car kept running. My eyes stayed fixed on the entrance.

This place isn’t for her.

I called Rocío without thinking.

—Are you okay? —she asked after hearing my silence—. Where are you?

—Waiting.

—For who? Where?

I hesitated. I didn’t want to say it, but I didn’t have the strength to hide it either.

—For Mireia.

There was a brief silence on the other end. I could picture the huge smile spreading across her face.

—So now you wait for her too? —she said, mocking.

—Uh… yeah.

—Wow. Your voice sounds different. More alive.

I managed a half-smile.

—Shut up, Rocío, I need your help.

—What did I just hear? You need my help? Look at what love does.

—Rocío…

—Easy, darling. I’m glad to hear you like this, I don’t know what they did to you this morning, but it must have been very good.

—Hey! Behave yourself.

—I knew it. You’re not denying it. But tell me, why did you call me?

—The building where Mireia lives. I want you to find out if the area is safe. I have a bad feeling. If this is what I think it is, I don’t want her staying here.

—Aitana, you don’t worry like this about just anyone. I’m glad to hear you in this new mood.

—She’s not just anyone, Rocío. I’ll tell you later.

—You’ve got subtitles on your face, I don’t need the details. Send me the location, I’ll handle it.

—Thanks.

I hung up with a small, foolish smile. For the first time in years, someone had awakened something in me I’d already thought buried. I still didn’t dare give it a name. But it looked a lot like love. And it looked a lot like hunger too: every time I closed my eyes I saw her again on all fours, ass tipped up, cunt open, dripping between her trembling thighs while I licked her from back to front until she screamed my name against the fogged-up glass.

Mireia came back down within minutes, already in a clean uniform and her hair gathered into a low bun. I watched her cross the street and something inside me twisted. The feeling of seeing her was different. Deeper. More dangerous. More mine.

We drove to the hospital through trivial conversation and complicit silences. For the first time in my life I wished there was traffic. I wanted to stretch out every red light, every corner, every minute I had her beside me. The hospital was three blocks from the Prosecutor’s Office. A distance that felt like a promise.

At a long traffic light I put my hand back on her thigh. She took my fingers and brought them to her mouth, sucking them slowly, one by one, watching me with half-lidded eyes. She sucked my index finger up to the knuckle, her tongue coiling around it, and I had to clamp my thighs against the seat to keep from moaning in the middle of the intersection.

—You still taste like me —she murmured against my hand—. I still have you in my mouth.

—Mireia, for God’s sake.

—You did things to me no one ever had, Aitana. No one. You sucked me all the way to my ass. You fingered me until I saw stars. And now I have to put on a coat and spend twelve hours with my cunt throbbing for you.

My vision blurred for a second. When the light turned green I had to breathe deeply not to turn the car around and drag her into some alley.

—What time do you get off? —I asked, trying to sound calm, while I opened the passenger-side door for her.

—Tomorrow morning. I’m on call.

—And if I come by? Or at least… will you text me when you’re done?

She seemed to hesitate. She smiled, nervous, as if she were about to say something important. But before she could, a voice cut us off.

—My dear Soler!

The tone was male. Firm. Way too self-assured.

I looked up. Dr. Reyes was approaching with a determined stride, his coat open and a smile I hated immediately. Mireia’s expression changed completely. It wasn’t fear, but something in her eyes went out.

—Doctor… —she said, lowering her voice just a little. She stepped forward, placing herself between him and me, as if she wanted to hide me.

He didn’t stop. He reached her and hugged her as if he had every right in the world. It was not a professional greeting. It was too close. Too long. And the hand resting on the small of her back, exactly where mine had been an hour earlier when I held her against the tiles and shoved my tongue into her cunt until she trembled.

In that instant, the woman who had whispered my name under water that morning became my dear Soler to another man.

I didn’t see her shoulders go rigid. I didn’t see her jaw tense. I only saw that she didn’t pull away.

—You’re a star, Soler. You deserved first place, but we’ll celebrate that second place too. You’re not getting away from me today, and I’ve got cases to discuss with you.

He took the bag from her shoulder with disgusting familiarity, grabbed her arm and led her away as if she were his.

She turned her head for an instant. Just an instant. As if she were looking for me through the noise in the hallway, as if she wanted to explain something to me. She didn’t. She only extended her hand a little.

—Thanks for bringing me —she said, moving her lips, shaping the words so he wouldn’t hear.

—Sure… —I murmured, feeling my chest close up.

And they left.

Without a kiss, not even on the cheek. Without a hug, not even a quick gesture. Just a “thanks for bringing me,” as if I were a taxi.

Without a number to talk again. Without a promise.

I sat behind the wheel with my fingers clenched on the leather. I had to start the car. I had to leave. I had to do something before I broke down in front of the hospital entrance.

And I forced myself to do it.

***

The barracks were quieter than usual. The air smelled of dried sweat, metal and old dust. Of routine. Of shelter. I crossed the gate with a firm step, like someone returning to the only place where no one asks questions.

I changed in a hurry, pulling on the uniform with an urgency that came not from duty but from pain. In the locker room, when I lowered my pants, I found the dampness still clinging to the inside of my panties. Her wetness, my wetness, tangled together. I closed my eyes for a second and saw her again in the shower, astride my thigh, rubbing her soaked cunt against my skin, leaving a hot trail that climbed up to my hip. I had made her come three times that morning. Three. And even so, now she was with him.

I went straight to the track. To run. To wear my mind down through my body.

One, two, one, two.

Every stride was an attempt to rip out from inside me what I didn’t want to feel.

It wasn’t Mireia’s body. It was everything she woke up in you.

But I didn’t want to think. So I ran harder. At the fourth kilometer, sweat was streaming down my face like warm rain. By the sixth, my muscles started screaming.

Don’t fall in love. Don’t repeat the story. Don’t hand your heart to someone who can leave without saying goodbye.

But it was already too late.

I stopped at the edge of exhaustion, hands on my knees, heart galloping wild and air burning in my lungs.

—At least it doesn’t hurt in silence anymore —I whispered—. Now it screams every time I breathe.

Like some cruel twist of fate, the colonel appeared on my left. Without announcing himself, as always.

—That’s how I like seeing you, Hernández —he said in a dry but sincere tone—. Steady and focused on your duty.

I only nodded. I didn’t have enough air for more.

—The tournament was a success. You’re back at the level we expected. Now focus. You can’t afford to falter. Not you. Even less with what’s coming.

I knew it. I’d known it all my life. Duty comes before feeling.

I went back to the showers. This time it was ice-cold water, to put out what even a thousand laps around the track couldn’t cool. But my body wasn’t obeying. Under the freezing stream, my hand slid down on its own, between my legs, and found me soaked. My fingers slipped between my swollen lips effortlessly. I closed my eyes. I saw her on her knees in front of me that morning, mouth open, tongue flat against my cunt, looking up at me while she licked my clit hungrily. I had grabbed her wet hair and ground her face against my cunt until I came in her mouth, and she swallowed every drop without letting go of me.

I rubbed myself fast, with rage, with helplessness, braced against the cold tiles. Two fingers inside, thumb up top, my mouth biting my own forearm so I wouldn’t moan. I came hard, with a sharp shudder that bent my knees, and a sob came out mixed with the gasp, because as I finished I was seeing her, and I was seeing him with his hand on her waist.

The memory of Mireia biting my shoulder under the warm stream mingled with the image of Dr. Reyes touching her waist. The two images fighting inside me like two knives on the same skin.

When I came out, my phone vibrated. And so did my heart, with the absurd hope of someone waiting for a message that probably wouldn’t come.

It wasn’t Mireia.

Rocío:

“We’ve just been assigned a double case. Two female bodies. Same pattern. Same location. I’m heading to the Prosecutor’s Office. I’ll see you there.”

I stood still, fingers trembling. A premonition shot through my spine.

Women. Same pattern.

Now it was time to bury any feeling. Just like we bury the bodies no one claims.

***

The Prosecutor’s Office morgue smelled different from the barracks one. More metal. More ammonia. More old death. The lights were colder, almost blue. Rocío was already in her coat, gloves on. She looked at me without saying anything and handed me a folder.

I opened it without breathing.

Two photos. Two bodies. Young. Marked. Mutilated. As if hell had a signature.

—Who brought them in? —I asked in a low voice.

—Delta Unit. They found them this afternoon. Same perimeter as the cases from three months ago.

I looked down.

—Any witnesses?

—None. But there’s something else, Aitana.

Rocío paused. She watched me as if she could see beyond my neutral expression. She knew me. She knew something was eating me alive inside. But she said it anyway.

—The cuts have the same pattern as Damiana’s case.

The silence inside me was like an explosion. I didn’t blink. I only tightened my grip on the folder as if I could keep my past from slipping through my fingers.

Damiana. That name should never come back. That case was buried. Or so I’d wanted to believe.

Rocío came closer. She said nothing. She just put a hand on my shoulder.

—I’m with you —she said.

I swallowed. And I knew, at that moment, that there was a new battle to fight. More personal. Deeper. More dangerous. And in the middle of all of it… there was Mireia.

Mireia, whom I didn’t know whether to protect or let go.

Mireia, the only one who had managed to get through my walls without asking permission.

Mireia, the one who never wrote back.

When Rocío stepped out of the room for a moment, I was left alone with the bodies. The morgue’s silence was as dense as the memory of the last time I had seen those same marks. The past, uninvited, sat down in front of me again.

I took off one glove. I rested both hands on the metal gurney. The cold was comforting, almost tender. I breathed once. Again. As if each breath were an attempt to hold myself together without collapsing.

What do I do if this isn’t a coincidence?

What if feeling again also means losing again?

What if Mireia isn’t ready for what I can’t hide anymore?

I lowered my gaze. The ice-cold metal under my palms reminded me what was at stake. Death. My calling. My duty. But my soul… my soul was still burning in the exact place where Mireia had kissed me that morning. And my body too: my nipples were still sensitive beneath the fabric, I still felt the echo of her tongue circling them, biting them, sucking them until they hurt.

Her soft laugh. Her uncertain voice. Her honey-colored eyes after the shower. Her naked body against mine under the warm water, her mouth tracing my neck, her fingers tangled in my wet hair. The way she had opened her legs against the wall and gone down with her tongue to my clit, how she had trapped it between her lips and sucked slowly, her gaze locked on mine, until she made me tremble like a novice. How I then flipped her over, pressed her against the glass and slipped in two fingers first and then three, curling them forward, until her cunt started clenching rhythmically and she drenched my wrist while moaning dirty words in my ear: fuck me, Aitana, harder, don’t stop, make me come, my love, make me come. The way she had whispered my name just before turning off the tap, with ragged breathing and half-lidded eyes, drops sliding down her hard nipples.

For the first time in a long time, I knew that the war I feared most was not the one being fought out there. It was the one that had just begun inside me.

Because there are silences that go unnamed, but burn. And there are truths that, even unsaid, hurt just the same. That was Mireia now: the wound and the cure, desire and fear, the light that shone brightest right where it hurt most. The mouth that had made me come three times and the hand that I now let another man squeeze at the waist.

And the silence… that one that burns when it isn’t spoken, could no longer be silenced inside me.