Lesbian

When my mother finally decided to marry, I never imagined the trip to the island with my future stepsister would reveal the family’s deepest secret.

I served her the four o’clock coffee as always. Only this time, I’d added something that wasn’t on any schedule.

I crossed the parking lot, hungry and harboring a refined hatred of humanity, and then I saw her fall to the pavement from a punch. She was my boss.

I went in with the key he’d left in the planter. What I didn’t expect was to find her waiting for me, arms crossed and jaw clenched.

I accepted the invitation with my lingerie tucked in my bag. I never imagined there’d be no camera, and that the real plan was me.

Under the morgue lights her hands did not tremble. But when she closed her eyes, she felt her again against the locker-room tiles, sweaty, biting her neck.

The theater was almost empty and the movie was just an excuse: what mattered to me was her hand moving up my thigh in the darkness of the back row.

The bathroom mirror faced the bunks. That night, I discovered why my roommate had moved it without telling me.

The box had been closed at the back of the wardrobe for months. I opened it out of curiosity and, an hour later, I had my phone recording everything my body could feel.

I lowered the blinds, turned off my phone, and for once I stopped thinking about what was right. I just followed what my body had wanted for weeks.

When Sofía opened that closet box, I knew the night wouldn’t end like the others. And yet I didn’t move.

When the scarf covered my eyes I thought it was an innocent game. It wasn’t. Mariela had other plans, and I didn’t want her to stop.

When they put me in that cell, I never imagined two strangers would turn it into the scene where I learned what it meant to surrender to desire and pleasure.

When she sat on my couch with smeared mascara and a trembling voice, I knew a whiskey and a few comforting words wouldn’t be enough.

We started talking by messages. We ended up seeing each other naked under the same red moon, each in our own city, each with the other’s breath on the screen.

I stopped in the hallway with my hand in the air. The sighs coming from my sister’s room wouldn’t let me knock or turn back.

I opened the door expecting dinner and found a slight girl with red-painted nails and a smile that said much more than “good evening.”

I thought the bathroom would be empty. Carolina was standing at the mirror, and her gaze wasn’t surprised: it was the gaze of someone who knew exactly what I had just done.

Caro was six years older than me, had a life that looked perfect, and a secret she thought she’d take to the grave. That night she decided she couldn’t hide anymore.