My Son’s Speech Therapist Taught Me What Desire Was

I started a new life when my husband decided that ours no longer suited him. I accepted a transfer within the public company where I worked, left behind the coast of Alicante, and landed in a small terraced house on the outskirts of Bilbao, close enough to the airport to make it to my shifts on time. I took with me the only thing that truly mattered to me: my son Aitor, just turned fourteen, and aphasia that made even asking for water difficult.

The first few months were a mix of unopened boxes and sleepless nights. I managed to get a day schedule and, after an awful lot of paperwork, they granted him a level of dependency. Social services assigned a speech therapist who would come to the house two afternoons a week. I expected an older, serious woman with a briefcase and a folder. What arrived on a Tuesday at five was something else entirely.

Vega was twenty-eight, short and very thin, with hair dyed an almost white blonde. She had a small piercing in her nose and another in her tongue that only showed when she spoke very fast. Her arms were covered with fine tattoos, branches and words in cursive. The first thing I thought was that my son was going to lose respect for any teacher after that appearance. I was completely wrong: two weeks later, Aitor smiled when he heard the doorbell.

Vega worked with him for long two-hour sessions in the living room. I stayed in the kitchen or hanging out laundry, trying not to get in the way, but every so often she called me over to show me a new exercise. After a month I started offering her coffee when she was done. After two, she was staying for dinner. At first she talked very little, then a lot, especially when she poured herself the second glass of wine. She asked me questions no one ever asked me: whether I slept well, whether I had any friends in the city, whether I had ever gone out drinking since the separation.

—You look like a nun, Marisa —she told me one night, laughing—. A very pretty nun, but a nun.

I laughed and looked away toward my plate. I didn’t realize then, but I had been sleeping on the left side of the bed for months because the right side frightened me. I didn’t realize I had started putting a little makeup on before she came. Nor did I realize that I had gone back to touching myself at night after a long time, and that those two things were connected.

***

What had to happen happened on an ordinary Thursday. I came out of the shower with the towel badly wrapped around me and opened the bathroom door without thinking. Vega was on the other side, waiting to go in. She stood still, looking me up and down without hiding it. I pulled the towel to my chest and felt my ears go red.

—Sorry —I muttered.

—Sorry for what? —she replied without moving—. You look great, Marisa. How old did you say you were?

—Thirty-nine.

—Well, you look very good for thirty-nine.

She went past me, brushing my arm with the tips of her fingers. I went straight to my room, closed the door, and sat on the bed with the towel still wet. I had goosebumps, and it wasn’t from the cold. That night, after Vega left, I got into bed and touched myself thinking about the way she had looked at me in the bathroom. I felt ridiculous and, at the same time, alive.

***

The following Friday Aitor was going with his father. I dropped him off at the AVE station with an attendant who would accompany him on the trip, and went back to the terraced house with the clear intention of doing nothing all weekend. Shopping, washing up, watching a movie, and sleeping twelve hours. I was putting the groceries in the fridge when the doorbell rang.

—What are you doing here? —I asked when I opened the door.

—I’m taking you to dinner —Vega said, walking in without asking—. We said so last week. You’re alone, I’m alone, end of story.

—I really don’t feel like it.

—Yes, you do. Put something nice on.

She said it like a soft order, without raising her voice. I stood looking at her for two seconds too long and then went to the bedroom. She came after me. She opened my wardrobe as if it were hers, rejected three skirts and a blouse, and finally pulled out a black skirt and a white shirt I hadn’t worn since before the divorce.

—This.

—It’s cold.

—This.

I sat on the bed and started changing with her still in the room. I took off my trousers and put on the skirt. When I was about to fasten the shirt, Vega stopped my hand.

—Bra off.

—Vega…

—Trust me.

I took it off underneath the shirt, without looking at her. She came closer, stood in front of me, and began buttoning my shirt from bottom to top. When she got to my chest, her fingers lingered longer than necessary. She brushed my nipples through the fabric, slowly, again and again, until they hardened. I closed my eyes.

—Look at me —she said.

I looked at her. She had that bright, knowing gaze of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing. She brought her face close to mine and I turned my head away at the last moment. She smiled as if she had expected the gesture, turned around, and chose a pair of high-heeled sandals from the back of the wardrobe for me. While she buckled them onto my feet, kneeling in front of me, her fingers slid up my calf to mid-knee. She said nothing. Neither did I.

***

We had dinner in a pizzeria in the old quarter. We talked nonsense, about her tattoos, about a trip she wanted to take to Berlin. Halfway through dinner I got a WhatsApp from Aitor saying he had arrived at his father’s house. I breathed out and filled my glass again. After that we went to a pub full of twenty-somethings and felt old, both of us, so we left before finishing our second drink. We walked to the car down a very dark, very empty street.

When I sat behind the wheel, Vega looked in the rearview mirror, out the window, and back in the rearview mirror again. Then she leaned over the gear shift and kissed me. It was a short kiss, almost a peck. I stayed motionless, hands on the wheel and heart racing.

—On weekdays I take care of your son —she whispered close to my mouth—. This weekend I want to take care of you.

—It can’t be —I stammered—. Vega, no.

—Start the car.

I started the car. I drove slowly, in silence, while her left hand slipped under my skirt and stroked my thigh. She went a little higher, and a little higher, until her fingers brushed my panties over the top. At a traffic light I leaned toward her and kissed her myself, without thinking. Another car came up behind us and we pulled apart. At the next traffic light I didn’t care about anyone and we kissed with tongues, slowly. I felt the piercing in her tongue against mine and my stomach clenched all at once.

—I’m going to drive you out of your mind —she murmured when we parted.

—How? —I asked, stupidly.

—When I eat your cunt, you’ll forget even your own name.

***

I parked in front of the terraced house any old way. I had barely shut the front door when Vega shoved me against the hall wall. She yanked my shirt open, kissed my neck, my cleavage, my breasts. She sucked one nipple while with her other hand she pinched the other. I braced myself against the wall with my back and let my head fall back.

—Why are you doing this to me? —I whispered, not really knowing whether it was a question or a plea.

—Because the first day I walked into your house I knew I was going to fuck you —she said against my skin.

She took me to the bedroom without letting go of my wrist. There she finished undressing me with a couple of sharp tugs. She lay me face down on the bedspread and gave me two hard slaps on the ass, one on each cheek. I yelped in surprise and felt a different kind of heat rising up my back. Then she turned me over, made me kneel at the foot of the bed, and undid my sandals very slowly. She kissed the top of my foot. She licked between my toes without taking her eyes off me.

—You’re a very well-kept little slut —she told me, almost tenderly.

She spread my legs with both hands. She ran one finger over my sex, over the hair, without going inside yet. When she finally brushed my clit I let out a sharp gasp I didn’t even recognize as mine.

—Ask me for it.

—Vega, please…

—Ask properly.

—Eat me —I said softly, covering my face with both hands—. Eat me, please.

Vega finally lowered her head and licked me from bottom to top, once, long and slow. I arched my back against the mattress. She started eating me with a slowness that was a punishment. Her tongue went in, came out, stayed still on my clit for eternal seconds. Then she would speed up without warning. The tiny metal point of her piercing sent shivers through me every time it brushed the exact right spot.

—You’re going to drive me crazy —I moaned.

—That’s the plan.

—Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

—From now on this cunt is mine, understand?

I told her yes a thousand times, without thinking about what I was saying. I felt an orgasm rising up from my legs, grabbed her hair with both hands, and pressed her against me without meaning to. I came with a cry that must have been heard in the house next door. When the shaking passed, I clamped my legs shut and she had to pull back laughing, her face shining.

—You wanted this —she said, climbing up my body.

She kissed me on the mouth and made me taste myself. Her fingers returned to my nipples and I arched again. I thought that was it, that it ended there. I was wrong.

—Stop —I whispered when I felt her slide two fingers inside me—. Stop, I can’t take any more.

—Yes, you can.

—Vega, seriously.

—Look at me while I fuck you.

I looked at her. Her fingers went in and out of me very slowly at first, then harder, turning inside as if they were searching for something specific. And they found it. I felt a different wave, much deeper, coming at me from within my belly. I clung to her shoulders and bit her collarbone without thinking. I came again, this time with a hoarse cry, and felt something wet and hot escape beneath me, soaking the sheets. I was instantly ashamed.

—Easy —she said, kissing my temple—. That happens when a woman is really enjoying herself.

I stayed trembling for a long while. She lay down beside me and wrapped her arms around me from behind, her lips pressed to my nape. She didn’t try anything else. There was no need. I was crying silently without really knowing why, and she let me cry.

—I’m not like this —I said at last, my voice broken.

—You are now —she answered—. But only if you want to be.

I fell asleep with her arm across my waist, smelling of her shampoo and of myself. Before closing my eyes I thought about Monday, about the doorbell at five in the afternoon, about my son opening the door and how I was going to look at her when she came in. I didn’t know whether I was scared or eager. A few minutes later I stopped thinking about it. Sleep came on its own, the way sleep comes when someone finally takes care of you.