My Best Friend Kissed Me and We Could Never Go Back

I still don’t understand the exact moment everything went wrong, and even less how I could have been so blind not to see it coming. To make sense of it, I have to start at the beginning.

Just over a year ago, I moved alone to a new city. I didn’t know anyone, and honestly, it never bothered me much: I’ve always been the quiet type, the kind who prefers a book to a table full of people. So it was almost a miracle that I ran into Renata on my first day at the café where I started working. She was the one who explained how everything worked: the dress code, the break times, and, above all, the corners without cameras for when you needed to breathe away from pushy customers “or from this cruel world,” in her own words.

From the very first minute, I thought she was hilarious, one of those people who make you want to keep them close without quite knowing why. She was everything I wasn’t: outgoing, loud, always with a ready smile. And beautiful, too beautiful. At first it was an effort to take my eyes off her. Every gesture of hers felt hypnotic, and if you added the fact that she had a body that looked hand-drawn, I knew right away she was going to be my downfall.

Luckily, that kind of fever faded over the first few months. I started to see her as a friend, my best friend, actually, so I never tried anything else. I was new to having someone that close and I was terrified of ruining it. I was never lucky in that area: every time I got close to a girl, I assumed she had ulterior motives. I don’t think of myself as the stereotype, but my unfeminine way of moving and dressing always gave me away.

In any case, I needed a break from relationships, and Renata didn’t seem interested in meeting anyone either. We were on the same page. Or so I thought.

Everything was perfect until that night. That stupid game. If I could turn back time…

“Well, Lucía, are you taking the dare or not?” Bruno asked me, with that half-smile of his, like a big kid.

“Don’t you think we’re a little too old for this?” I replied.

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy,” he said, rolling his eyes.

And there I was, cursing the moment I agreed to go to that party with people I barely knew. Renata’s friends acted like we were still in high school. And why did I have to choose dare, when it would have been so easy to make something up if I’d picked truth?

The dare was to kiss the person on your right for five seconds. And, with my luck, she was on my right.

“Relax, it’s not that big a deal,” Renata told me in an easygoing tone that, I don’t know how, calmed my nerves a little.

“Okay,” I said, turning toward her.

When I looked into her eyes, I felt the air leave my lungs for a second. I took a deep breath and tried to kiss her as innocently as possible, just a brush of lips, no contact beyond that. It didn’t work.

I got lost. We got lost. The kiss deepened, became more desperate, wetter. I slid my hands down to her waist and pulled her even closer to me, as if my body had decided on its own.

We broke apart suddenly when the timer beeped, with everyone’s stunned eyes fixed on us.

“Wow, imagine if they actually wanted to,” Bruno said teasingly.

“It’s not that big a deal, I did what I had to. Who’s next?” I said, fighting to keep my voice from shaking.

From that moment on, Renata never looked at me again. She dodged my eyes as if they burned. That night we rode back in the taxi in such awkward silence that I only wanted the earth to swallow me up.

“Good night, Renata. Let me know when you get home.”

“Good night,” she replied, barely audible.

I stayed there waiting for that message, anxiety rising in my throat. I couldn’t get the kiss out of my head, the softness of her lips, the chocolate taste of her balm, her breath entering my mouth. It was only a game. I can’t mix things up. That kiss meant nothing… or did it?

***

All week we barely exchanged a word. Had I made her uncomfortable? Had I broken her trust? But she had kissed me back too. She must have done it so she wouldn’t look bad in front of the others. My insecurities and the fear of losing what we had were driving me crazy. We couldn’t go on like this.

Renata kept ignoring my messages or answering with one-word replies, so I had to take drastic measures. The following Sunday I went to her place unannounced. We both had the day off. I didn’t know whether she’d be there, but it was worth the risk.

When I rang the bell, my heart was pounding and I had a stab in my stomach that was tearing me apart inside. It took her a few minutes to open the door, and when she did I felt as if a hole had opened in the floor and I was falling with no bottom. She was in pajamas, nothing special, but her hair was dripping and the half-buttoned blouse gave away that she had just come out of the shower. And again, that chocolate scent invaded me, blocking my senses. This time it came from her hair.

I reminded myself that I had come to sort things out with my friend and apologize in case I’d gone too far. Not to think about kissing every inch of her neck. Not about making her come over and over until she had no strength left.

“Hi. Sorry I took so long to open, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she said, embarrassed, as we went inside.

“No, I should have warned you. But I wasn’t sure you’d answer me,” I replied calmly; I didn’t want it to sound like a reproach. “We need to talk and you know it. What’s going on? Did I do something wrong?”

“I’ve been really busy these past few days, but we’re fine.”

“Renata… if it’s about the kiss, really, forgive me. It was a mistake.”

“That stupid kiss and that stupid game have nothing to do with it!” she suddenly shouted, losing the calm she’d kept until then. “Not everything revolves around you!”

“Well, I’m not a mind reader!” I shot back, desperate. “One day you ignore me and I don’t even know what I did wrong!”

I watched her expression shift from anger to sadness, and her eyes begin to fill with tears. She was right. Maybe something else was bothering her and I, selfishly, had been thinking it was about me.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You can tell me anything, that’s what friends are for, right?” I said, calmer now, taking her hands.

She squeezed my fingers and looked straight into my eyes.

“I know I didn’t handle my feelings well, and I know I’m the only one responsible, but…”

“What’s the problem, Renata?”

“The problem is…” she said, her voice trembling, “that I don’t want to be your friend.”

“What? Why?”

“I never wanted to be. From the first time I saw you, I liked you. But when I started getting to know you and realized you weren’t available, that you had put me in the friend zone overnight, there wasn’t much I could do. I don’t even know how to flirt with a woman, for God’s sake. I’ve had to rethink a lot of things.”

She wouldn’t stop talking and I couldn’t process any of it. A whole year. A whole year and I hadn’t noticed. All the signs right in front of me and I’d been blind.

“…but when you kissed me I knew I couldn’t keep pretending, that I couldn’t take it anymore,” she went on. “I’m not expecting you to feel the same. I know you see me as a friend. I just want you to understand why I need to stay away, before it gets harder.”

“Renata!” I cut her off. “I don’t kiss my friends like that.”

Her eyes flew wide open, and before she could react I grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. I felt her whole body trembling under my hands. Nothing else needed to be said; our tongues took care of clearing up the misunderstanding.

We stayed like that for a good while, unable to pull away from her. A new force possessed me, an insatiable hunger for her mouth. Our lips were already red, swollen, and little gasps escaped hers, leaving me with jelly for legs and an impossible wetness gathering between my thighs. Her hands slipped under my blouse and tortured my nipples; the heat of her touch burned my skin and I stopped holding back. I yanked her blouse open, so hard that the buttons flew off. If she wanted more, I was going to give her more.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, surprised.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No… but I want you to.”

I was speechless. How do you answer something like that? The sweet girl I thought I knew had transformed into someone who was begging to be dominated. Everything went hazy. I only wanted, only needed to pleasure the beautiful woman in front of me.

I started kissing her breasts while my hands made their way between her legs. I pushed her against the wall and pulled her pajamas down to mid-thigh. I took a second to look at her: her ragged breathing, flushed cheeks, her body half-dressed and half-naked, so exposed to me. With that one image alone, I felt like I was going to come without anyone touching me.

I kept kissing, licking and biting her neck, her chest, her stomach, until I slid one finger all the way through her pussy. She was soaking wet.

“And this? Why are you so wet?” I whispered in her ear while one hand circled her throat carefully and the other fingered her, again and again, without pause.

Her only answer was a long, loud moan.

“Open your legs wider, beautiful,” I ordered.

Less than two minutes passed before I felt her insides pulsing, tightening around my fingers.

“Don’t tell me you’re already done. Is that all you can take?” I said, quickening the pace until her body arched and she came with a muffled cry.

I had to hold her up so she wouldn’t fall.

“This isn’t over yet,” I murmured.

As best I could, I laid her face down on the dining table. I had at my disposal that body that had been undoing me for a year. I stroked her slowly, kissed the nape of her neck, and went back to working her with my mouth until she was soaked again and her sobs warned me she was close once more.

“I can’t anymore…” she whimpered, trembling all over, before collapsing onto the table.

I held her up again. When she had recovered a little, I took her by the chin.

“You have such a pretty face,” I told her.

“And now what…?”

“Kneel.”

She understood instantly. She wanted to throw herself at me, but I stopped her.

“Wait. I’ll tell you how. Stick out your tongue… and keep looking at me.”

I tangled her hair in my hand and guided her the way I liked. First slowly, then with fury. The tension I’d been carrying since the day of the kiss was too much, and her hot tongue finally pushed me over the edge.

“Just like that, just like that… don’t stop,” I panted.

My body convulsed in spasms and, as I came, I didn’t look away from her for a single second. I wanted her to see every expression, I wanted her to understand what she had stirred in me all that time.

“Yours,” she said softly, getting up slowly, and gave me a gentle kiss. “You taste exactly like I imagined.”

“Not as much as you,” I replied.

That was the beginning of our story. Of how my best friend became, without warning, my best lover.