My Best Friend Kissed Me and Everything Changed That Night

We had been friends since school, and although we both liked boys—and still do—that night we discovered something between us that neither of us had expected. I had just turned twenty-one, and Carolina had too. We grew up together in a neighborhood in Seville, one of those places where you’re never alone if you have the right person by your side. And she always was.

We knew each other’s boyfriends, first kisses, heartbreaks. We had lost our virginity almost in the same month, two months apart, and we told each other absolutely everything. So when she came running into my house that June afternoon, out of breath and with bright eyes, I knew something big was coming.

—Marina, you have to come with me to Barcelona for the weekend! —she said, barely greeting my parents.

Some friends of hers played in an orchestra that was giving a concert at the Palau. She needed company, and I was the natural choice. My mother looked annoyed, my father folded his arms, but between the two of us we convinced them with that tactic that had always worked so well for us: kisses on the cheek, exaggerated promises, and the offer to take one of my father’s cars. In the end they gave in.

We left on a Friday at eleven in the morning, with two overnight bags in the trunk and an insane urge to eat the world alive. We were wearing shorts and T-shirts that left little to the imagination. In the trunk, hidden away, were the dresses for Saturday and a pair of shoes we had barely worn yet.

We arrived in Barcelona after five. The Hotel Mirador was right in the Gothic Quarter, with a view over a little square full of tourists. We went up to the room, dropped off the bags, changed quickly, and headed back down to wander the streets until we found a tapas bar. We ate, drank white wine, and laughed at three guys who spent half an hour staring at us from the bar without daring to come over. By one we were back at the hotel, asleep like two exhausted kids.

***

Saturday afternoon was different. At four we started getting ready. Carolina put on a short navy dress with thin straps that clung to her body like a second skin. She has legs that always made me jealous, long and tan, and that afternoon they were shiny with lotion. Her chestnut hair fell down her back, and her green eyes—her best weapon—were lined with a touch of brown. She was mouthwatering. I told her so, laughing, and she returned the compliment when she saw me in mine, pale blue, strapless, fitted tight over my breasts and waist.

The concert was beautiful. The dinner afterward, with the whole orchestra, was even better. There were five girls and two boys—our two friends’ boyfriends, of course—laughing in a restaurant until nearly midnight. After that, the others got tired, but Carolina and I didn’t. We went off alone to a nightclub in the center, determined to stretch the night until our bodies gave out.

That’s where three guys showed up. Handsome, I’ll give them that. Tall, well dressed, with that smile that warns you they know they’re attractive. They bought us drinks, we danced, we talked, we let them get close enough to understand that the night might lead somewhere. And then one of them started getting fresh, another began making comments that were completely out of line, and the third, instead of saving the situation, joined in the shipwreck.

—These guys don’t deserve another smile —Carolina whispered in my ear.

—Tell them we’re lesbians —I said, laughing—. Maybe then they’ll leave us alone.

I don’t know which one of us said it first, but the effect was not what we expected. All three stared at us like they couldn’t believe it. And Carolina, who had always been the bolder of the two, decided to finish the move.

She started dancing pressed against me. She took me by the waist, slid her hands over my hips, bent down slowly in front of me, and came back up brushing her whole body against mine. I laughed at first, but I played along. What we meant to do was a joke to scare off the three annoying guys, a five-second act. What happened was not part of the plan.

When our lips brushed for the first time, it was barely a peck. A quick caress. But when we pulled apart, we looked into each other’s eyes a second too long. And we kissed again. This time with open mouths, with tongue. A real kiss. The kind that lasts. The three guys had gone silent. A couple beside us applauded. We kept going.

When we pulled apart, Carolina was breathing hard. So was I. We looked at each other one more moment, without saying anything, and burst out laughing like two fools.

—Let’s go —she said—. We’re done here.

***

We went out onto the street around three. It had that pleasant warmth of July dawns in Barcelona, with the sea breeze slipping through the narrow streets. We walked slowly, linked arm in arm, talking about the three idiots we had just left behind.

—Maybe we were too picky —Carolina said—. Anyway, we were never going to see them again.

—No, come on. They were unbearable.

—Yeah, but a quick screw with any of them wouldn’t have been so bad.

We both laughed again. But the conversation didn’t stay there. It kept coming back to the kiss. To the kiss on the dance floor. To how it had been. To whether we’d done it only as a joke or if there had been something more behind it. And with every turn of the conversation, our voices got lower, our steps slower, our hands closer together.

We got to the hotel. We took the elevator up. Carolina, who can’t keep her mouth shut when she’s bored, started teasing me.

—You kiss well, huh, Marina? —she said with a crooked smile.

—And what do you know about it?

—You soaked my panties. Seriously.

—Shut up, will you? —I answered, laughing.

—No, really. Listen, I’m warning you. Even the girls start looking at me like that when I’m with you.

We got out of the elevator laughing, her behind me, pinching my ass. I took the key card from my bag. When I tried to open the door, Carolina hugged me from behind. I felt her breasts against me, her hands searching for mine over my dress, her pelvis pressing me against the door as if she were fucking me.

—There, there —she said in a deep voice, acting macho—. Take that dick.

—Hold still, I can’t get the card in —I protested, crying with laughter.

—I’m going to put something in you besides the card, Marina.

—You’re an idiot.

I stumbled inside, switched on the light, turned to say something— I don’t remember what— and found her there, in the doorway, looking at me differently. The smile was still there, but her eyes weren’t joking anymore.

I don’t know why I did it.

I don’t know whether it was to shut her up, to return the joke, to find out whether what had happened before was real or not. But I took her face in both hands and kissed her again. Slowly. Without an audience. Without anyone to provoke. When our tongues met, I knew we weren’t going to stop.

***

We stayed still for a moment, forehead to forehead, without speaking. Time stretched. She was looking at my lips. I was looking at hers. And we kissed again, this time with our whole bodies, our hands searching under the fabric, our dresses falling to the floor without either of us fully deciding it.

At the foot of the bed, with only the light from the open window over the square, we looked at each other in our underwear. Panties, nothing else. Carolina moved first. She put a hand on my chest, slowly, as if testing whether I was going to push her away. I didn’t. Her other hand slid up my side, over my waist, and stopped at my neck.

—Sure? —she whispered.

I nodded. I couldn’t find my voice.

We lay down on the bed. She was on top of me, her hair falling over her face. She started at my neck, went down over my cleavage, found a nipple and took it into her mouth with a softness I hadn’t expected. I closed my eyes. I grabbed her head, dug my fingers into her hair, tried not to moan and failed.

Her fingers slid down my belly, found the elastic of my panties, and slipped underneath. When she touched me for the first time, she knew exactly where and how. As if she’d known all her life. She moved her finger in slow circles, watching my face, measuring the effect. When she slid one all the way inside, I arched my back without meaning to.

I returned the favor. I pulled her panties off downward, without grace. She laughed. I pushed her down against the mattress and positioned myself between her legs. I kissed her on the mouth, on the neck, on the chest, and went lower. When I reached her with my tongue, she arched.

—Marina —she said, voice breaking.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to talk. I held her by the hips and kept going.

***

We spent hours like that. Changing positions, pace, who took the lead. At one point we got into an inverted position, one over the other, and licked each other at the same time. Then we sat astride each other, pressing our sex together, moving slowly at first and then faster, rubbing against each other until our moans came spilling out of our throats and bounced off the window.

When the orgasm came, it came for us almost at the same time. I could see her face, mouth open, eyes closed, one hand clutching the sheet and the other gripping my thigh. I felt the tremor in her legs just as mine started. I collapsed on top of her, sweaty, breathless, and we stayed there a while without moving, listening to our hearts beat against each other.

—Fuck, Carolina —I said at last.

—Fuck, Marina —she repeated, laughing.

We hugged. We kissed again, this time with a different tenderness, without urgency. We knew that night wasn’t going to end there, and that afterward, the next day, we’d think about what we were and what we weren’t.

The night went on. There were more caresses, more kisses, more orgasms. There were long silences in which we only looked at each other. There was a conversation at six in the morning, smoking by the window, about what had just happened and what might happen from then on.

***

We got back to Seville on Sunday afternoon, at five. My mother opened the door with that mother’s smile that wants to know everything without asking anything.

—How was the trip? Did you like the concert?

—Great, Mom.

—And how did they play?

Carolina and I looked at each other for a second. Only a second. But it was enough.

—Well… very well —Carolina said, holding back laughter—. They played wonderfully.

—The truth is we had a fantastic time… at the concert, of course —I added.

—Very, very much —Carolina chimed in—. Right, Marina?

—Right, Caro. Right.

We burst out laughing, and my mother didn’t understand, nor did my father. They stood there staring at us, perplexed, trying to figure out what joke we were both missing.

—Leave them be —he said at last, shrugging—. Those two are hopeless. They always have been.

Carolina looked at me. I looked at her. And how right he was.