Lesbian

We’d spent years summering together, seeing each other topless without thinking anything of it. Until that first day at the beach, when her hand slipped inside my bikini and everything changed.

When she slid the latch shut and dropped her jacket on the chair, I knew we weren’t going to spend those hours on the narrow bunk sleeping.

When the door opened and she came in wearing that leather coat, I knew that women’s night was going to change something inside me I’d never be able to ignore again.

Drunk and heartbroken after losing my job, I said yes to her flirting. “Just five minutes in the bathroom,” she promised. I had no idea how far she meant to go.

She went down to reception just to ask about a trail, but she kept staring too long at the green eyes of the girl behind the desk. And the girl noticed.

I arrived in the city knowing no one, and that very afternoon a stranger offered me a slice of pizza. Neither of us knew where that gesture would lead.

We’d spent five days giving ourselves over without taboos, but it was that last morning by the water, with her trembling in my arms, when I understood what had really happened.

I’d spent months hiding what I felt for her. Then she asked me for a kiss in front of her fiancé, not knowing it would spark something far more dangerous between us.

As a teenager I used to lock myself away and imagine her breasts and jet-black hair. Thirty years later, her voice on the phone lit me up just like before.

I thought it would be a little innocent peck, just to laugh. But her mouth stayed on mine longer than it should have, and I knew that night we weren’t going to sleep as friends.

She arrived at the house on Saturday at noon, sat down across from us, and before speaking took a deep breath like someone about to leap into the void.

I crossed my legs slowly until my knee brushed hers in the neighboring seat. She never took her eyes off my thighs, and I knew we wouldn’t finish the movie that night.

Two weeks had passed since the defeat, and she still couldn’t figure out how a skinny, provocative rival had brought her to her knees. Her sister did want to find out.

She arrived at dinner thinking it would be a quiet evening among friends. She had no idea that night would teach her, in a stranger’s arms, everything her body had kept silent for years.

She lowered the blinds, locked the door, and stood behind me. “You just need to relax,” she whispered. What came next wasn’t on any exam.

My aunt lowered her voice as she told me that afternoon at Pilar’s house: the door had been left open on purpose, and she couldn’t look away from what was happening inside.

I hadn’t touched anyone in two years when she answered my message with one question: “when are we meeting?” I never imagined how that night would end.

I moved my body a little closer, pretending not to understand the chart, and watched her hands tremble over the papers.

I’d never thought about another woman like that until her white coat brushed my knee and I knew this exam would be unlike any other.

She had never imagined what it would be like to be with a woman. That afternoon, with her blouse half open, she stopped wondering.