My Best Friend’s Sister Waited for Me in Bed

Camila was turning twenty-five and, according to her, there was nothing to celebrate. She had spent three weeks sunk in that sort of anticipatory mourning some friends get into when they feel time slipping through their fingers. “I don’t want a party, I don’t want gifts, I don’t even want cake,” she’d told me over the phone. I, of course, heard exactly the opposite.

Organizing a surprise for someone who hates surprises is a high-risk sport. I roped in her sister Renata, her boyfriend Mariano, three school friends, and two cousins who’d come down from Mendoza for the weekend. Everyone had a job: flowers, cake, sound, alcohol, lights. I got stuck with the least grateful role, keeping her entertained while everyone else invaded her apartment.

—Come have a coffee, come on, it’s been months since we sat down and caught up properly —I insisted that afternoon.

—You? Coffee? You hate coffee —she shot back.

—Fine, tea. Whatever you want. But I need to talk to someone before I do something stupid.

I invented a love crisis that could have lasted three hours of analysis, made her believe some guy from work had sent me a weird message, and kept her trapped at a café table until I got the signal. “All set, bring her.” I lied and said I was cold and hungry, and suggested crossing over to her building, which was three blocks away.

—Let’s go to your place, make some toast, and keep gossiping.

We went up in the elevator in silence. When she put the key in the lock, her hands were almost shaking from exhaustion. She pushed the door open, groped the wall looking for the light switch, and the moment the living room flooded with light, twelve people shouted “Surprise!” in unison.

She froze, rigid in the doorway, with an expression that mixed panic and embarrassment. For a thousandth of a second I thought she was going to turn around and run down the stairs. Then she burst out laughing nervously, dropped her purse on the floor, and let everyone hug her. When it was my turn, she squeezed me so hard my ribs hurt.

—I hate you. I hate you so much —she whispered in my ear—. But thank you.

The party started the way these things usually do: bad wine, low music, and small clusters of conversation. Two hours later people were dancing in the middle of the living room, someone had opened the cheap champagne, and Camila was leaning against the kitchen counter, laughing with her eyes closed.

Renata, the older sister, had arrived late. She was thirty-two, two years older than her sister, and had one of those presences that fills the whole room without effort. Shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, a wide mouth that smiled like she knew something you didn’t. She worked at an art gallery downtown. I’d seen her three or four times at family birthdays, always from a distance, always with that uncomfortable feeling of not quite knowing what to say to her.

That night she was wearing a short black dress, sheer stockings, and knee-high boots. She greeted me with two kisses instead of one, and lingered a second too long on the second.

—So you’re the accomplice to the crime —she said, nodding at her sister—. Nice work. She needed to be shaken up a little.

At two in the morning people started leaving. By three-thirty there were four of us left: Camila, Mariano, Renata, and me. I’d had enough to drink that I couldn’t drive, and my place was almost an hour away by taxi at that dead hour.

—Stay over, idiot, don’t be dramatic —Camila said, hanging off Mariano’s neck—. Renata’s sleeping in the guest room. There’s room to spare.

—I don’t bite —Renata added, pouring herself the last finger of Fernet.

Camila and Mariano went into their room. I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth with my finger, and stared at myself in the mirror for too long. I was a little drunk, not much, just enough for the apartment to sway slightly when I turned my head. I hadn’t brought pajamas. I stayed in my panties and bra and slid under the comforter on the wall side.

Renata came into the room a few minutes later. She switched off the bedside lamp, let something fall —her dress, I assumed— and got into bed on the free side. The bed was a double, but not huge. I felt her search for a position, exhale slowly, adjust the pillow.

I thought she was going to stay there, on her side. I closed my eyes.

***

Her arm went across my waist first. I registered it as an affectionate gesture, almost unconscious, the kind someone makes when they sleep beside another person and shift by instinct. I didn’t move. My heart was beating a little faster than it should have been.

Her hand moved up. Slowly, without urgency, as if testing whether I was really asleep. She covered one breast over the bra, squeezed it gently, let go. Squeezed again. I wasn’t breathing.

—Renata? —I murmured as quietly as I could.

—Shhh.

It wasn’t an aggressive command. It was almost a caress, an invitation not to break the mood. Her hand kept sliding down my stomach until it reached the elastic of my panties and stayed there, still, waiting for a response I wasn’t quite giving.

—I don’t… —I started, and didn’t finish.

—You don’t what? —her mouth was against my neck now, and her breath smelled like herbs and something sweet.

—I’m not into women. I never have been.

I felt her smile against my skin.

—Great. I wasn’t a virgin all my life either.

I laughed despite myself, and the laugh broke something. The tension dropped a notch. Her hand slipped under the waistband and her fingers found what they were looking for before I could decide whether I wanted them to.

—Would you look at that —she said, almost to herself—. So closed-off in your speeches and down here you’re saying something else.

She was right and we both knew it. I’d gotten wet at some point between the first squeeze on my breast and this one, and there was no point pretending otherwise. Renata moved her fingers with the calm of a professional, unhurried, reading what my body gave her in return for each touch.

I turned toward her slowly, still unsure, and found her with her eyes open, gleaming in the dark lit faintly by the hallway light. She kissed me. Her mouth was warm, her lower lip fuller than the upper one, and she kissed with a patience no man I’d been with had ever shown me.

—The only thing I’m asking —she said, pulling back for a second— is that this stays between us. Deal?

I nodded without fully knowing what I was agreeing to.

Renata sat up, took my bra off with one hand —the clasp was in the front, lucky me— and knelt between my legs. She had small breasts, pink nipples, a faint bikini tan line. She lowered herself to my neck, and from there began a slow route downward: collarbone, sternum, the edge of each rib, the navel, the pronounced line of the hip.

Her fingers parted my legs with calm determination, without roughness, as if she already knew I wasn’t going to resist for very long. The first time her tongue brushed my sex it was barely a touch, a wet hello that made my back arch all at once. The second pass was firmer, broader, licking from bottom to top with cruel patience. The third tore a muffled moan out of me, forcing me to cover my mouth with my forearm.

—That’s it —she murmured—. Like that, don’t hide.

Her tongue didn’t wander blindly. She lingered on my clit until my legs trembled, then moved down to the folds, sucking, spreading, returning to the center with a precision that left me defenseless. One hand stayed on my stomach to hold me still and the other was flat against my thigh, pushing it a little higher to have me exactly how she wanted. The wet sound of her mouth on me aroused me more than any moan.

—Look how worked up you’re getting —she said, lifting her face just enough to speak—. And we’ve only just started.

I looked for air, found only half of it, and gave it back in a whimper. The room had gotten small. Every time she sucked harder I felt the mattress throw my body back at me, as if the bed were taking part too. She held my thighs open with both hands and shoved two fingers in at once, without warning, deep enough to make me shudder immediately.

They weren’t clumsy fingers. They went in and out at the exact rhythm her tongue set, and when she noticed I was tensing too much, she eased off just enough so the sensation wouldn’t slip away from me. She had me completely, between her mouth and her hand, and I could barely keep myself in the world without losing my balance.

—Easy —she whispered when I arched against her face—. We’ve got all night.

She stretched an arm toward the bedside table drawer. I’d assumed a guest bed wouldn’t have anything interesting tucked away. I was wrong. She pulled out a small silver bullet vibrator and pressed it against my clit with a delicacy that didn’t match the power of the toy.

—Don’t scream, okay? Camila’s sleeping right next door.

The vibration went through me in one sharp rush. I bit the back of my hand to keep from making noise while Renata’s fingers pumped in and out to the rhythm of the vibrator. Her mouth returned immediately, closing over me with a hunger that was more open now, less patient than before. She wasn’t testing anymore. She was eating me out shamelessly, licking and licking, sucking with her tongue firm against the center, adjusting my pelvis with one hand so I wouldn’t escape even a centimeter.

—You look so pretty like this —she said between one lick and the next—. All open for me.

I felt the blood pounding in my ears. The vibrator kept buzzing against the exact point where everything started turning unbearable, and her tongue drove me toward the edge from below. Every time she pushed her fingers deeper, I clenched my legs to keep from twisting too much. Every time she eased up, I tensed again, asking for more. I was listening to her with my whole body, and my whole body was asking me not to stop ever.

—I’m going to… —I managed to say, without finishing the sentence.

—Not yet —she answered, flatly, and sucked harder right after, as if she wanted to make me fight one more second against the orgasm.

The friction between her mouth and the device undid me. I felt the orgasm rise like a rough wave, first in the lower belly, then through the whole vagina, then down the legs, and at that moment I knew that if I didn’t hold on to something I’d come apart for real. I dug my fingers into the sheet and buried my face in the pillow to bite back the sound. The release shook me from head to toe, long, dirty, undeniable.

Renata didn’t let go until my pelvis stopped trembling.

I collapsed onto my side on the mattress, wrecked. My legs were numb and I had that strange feeling of not knowing exactly where my body ended. She switched off the vibrator, set it back on the bedside table, and settled over me with practiced slowness, as if to remind me she wasn’t done, that we had only changed pace.

—I told you you’d have a good time —she said, lying down beside me with a smile she didn’t bother hiding.

It took me a while to be able to speak. When I did, the only thing I could think of was:

—Your turn.

She laughed, a low, rough, satisfied laugh.

—That’s not mandatory either. If you want to fall asleep, that’s fine.

—I don’t think it’s mandatory because you’re already fine —I replied, sliding my hand toward her thigh.

I found her completely wet, her lips thick and soft, no fuzz, as if that part of her body lived permanently ready for something. I went between her legs with less technique than she had, but with more curiosity than I’d had in years. I tried. I imitated what she’d done to me, adjusting according to what I heard: when her breathing quickened, I repeated; when she went still, I changed the angle. It wasn’t science, it was attention.

Soon I understood that with Renata it wasn’t enough to touch just to touch: you had to hold the pressure, find the exact spot where her hips tipped forward and not ease up even when she asked me to keep going the same way. I spread her lips with my fingers and leaned in with more hunger than I’d admitted to myself all night. I tasted her and something salty, and every time I sucked her a rougher moan escaped her, less contained, that shot straight to the center of my chest.

—Like that, yes —she said, digging her fingers into my hair—. Don’t stop there.

I grew more confident with each reaction she gave me. I ran my tongue around her clit, took it into my mouth, went back down, returned to the center. The movement of her hips became more urgent, dirtier. It wasn’t long before she started pushing against my face, and that pressure made me bolder still. I wanted to give her all the pleasure she had given me, but I also wanted to watch her lose control. Renata, the woman who had walked into the room like it was nothing, started breathing as if she were drowning in her own skin.

—That’s it, fuck —she panted—. That’s what I like.

I held her gaze for a second while I kept sucking her and watched her break apart in pieces: first her back, then her thighs, then the hand in my hair, which gripped harder as if she wanted to keep me from moving exactly when I needed to most. The moan that escaped her was low, deep, and ended in a long exhale that emptied her body completely. She lay there trembling, still wet, still open, with that delicious defeated look that only appears after a well-earned orgasm.

She let herself fall back and pulled me on top of her immediately. She kissed me with her mouth still wet with me, as if she wanted to give me back everything I’d done to her. The kiss was dirtier than at the start, clumsier too, because we were both breathless and smiling into each other’s mouths.

We stayed wrapped around each other for a long while, our legs tangled together and silence breathing around us. My body was still sensitive, my skin warm, and every small touch sent a fresh shiver through me. Renata stroked my back with the tips of her fingers, slowly, as if she no longer had any hurry to prove anything.

Before we fell asleep, I felt her say against the back of my neck:

—Tomorrow at breakfast you’re going to pretend to be asleep until everyone leaves. I’m serious.

I closed my eyes smiling. The birthday party had turned out better than either of us —me and the birthday girl— had imagined. And for some reason, I was already starting to think about when I’d have a decent excuse to stay over in that apartment again.