She Came Back to My Bed the Night I Was Burning with Fever

Valentina had been out of my life for two years when someone knocked on the door at eleven at night. Camila was with me in the living room, finishing her coffee, when I recognized that short, almost timid knock. The knock of someone who knows she shouldn’t be there.

I opened the door. And there she was, with chapped lips and hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.

—I had nowhere else to go —she said. And she collapsed against the frame.

Camila got up in silence. We carried her between us to the bedroom. I laid her on the sheets that smelled of lavender and a perfume she surely remembered, though she didn’t open her eyes. The thermometer read thirty-nine point four.

Camila brought me the cold cloth and stood watching me.

—Mariana. This isn’t just a fever.

I already knew that. But I nodded as if I were hearing it for the first time.

I ran the cloth over her forehead, her temples, the long neck where I still remembered where to kiss her to make her surrender. I undid the buttons of her blouse because the fabric was soaked and because I couldn’t leave her like that. Beneath the blouse she wore the same black lace bra I had given her what felt like a lifetime ago. Her dark nipples showed through it, hardened by the cold sweat running down her sternum.

I swallowed.

—Camila, give me the T-shirt from the top drawer.

Camila said nothing. She brought the T-shirt and left. She closed the door with the delicacy only old friends possess.

I changed her myself. I took off her soaked blouse, her bra, her pants. I ran the cold cloth over her shoulders, down her spine, over her ribs, where more bones showed than I remembered. She was thin. They had broken her. When the cloth brushed her breasts, a low moan escaped her, more from fever than desire, but I saw her nipples stand hard as stones and felt my mouth fill with saliva. I hated myself for noticing. I hated myself even more for remembering, with my fingers still on her skin, how I used to suck them until she arched and begged.

—Mariana —she murmured without opening her eyes—. Don’t touch me.

I went still.

—No… it wasn’t you… —she continued, and her body shuddered in a spasm—. He already knew…

I felt a closed fist in my stomach. The woman speaking wasn’t the one I knew. She was a version of her that someone had built out of things I hadn’t been there to see.

I put the T-shirt on her carefully, as if I were dressing someone who would break if I squeezed too tightly. I left my hand on her forehead until her breathing fell into rhythm.

***

Sofía arrived at two in the morning. I had left the door unlatched because I knew she would come.

She came in, saw Valentina asleep, saw the thermometer on the nightstand, saw my face. She folded her arms.

—You’re taking her to the hospital now.

—No.

—Mariana, she…

—It’s not just the fever, Sofía. It’s her. It’s what they did to her. If I put her in a room with three doctors asking who hurt her, she’ll break.

Sofía lowered her voice, but it didn’t lose its edge.

—You’re off the case.

I blinked.

—What did you say?

—We’re leaving shortly with Camila. You’re not coming.

I looked at her. Really looked at her, for the first time in weeks. Sofía’s jaw was tense and her eyes were too bright for someone claiming to be speaking only professionally.

—And you’re objective?

—I’m not broken inside, Mariana. Not like you.

—Don’t you dare say her name.

—I didn’t.

—You don’t have to.

There was a silence. Valentina turned in the bed, murmured something, and we both looked at her. Sofía lowered her shoulders by a millimeter. A millimeter that wasn’t for me, but for herself.

—You can’t protect her if you lose control —she said more quietly—. You can’t take care of her if you keep thinking about the other one while you touch this one.

—This isn’t about me.

—Oh, no?

—It’s because she’s her, Sofía. It’s because every time I mention her, your face tightens. And I’m not stupid. I’ve spent years pretending I didn’t see it.

Sofía didn’t answer. I looked at her as if I were undressing her without touching her. I saw everything: why she had spent two years coming closer to me with apologies that weren’t apologies, why she was always the one who volunteered to accompany me to the hardest scenes, why her eyes had lit up when I told her, once, that Valentina would never come back.

—Camila will be the lead forensic examiner —she said, her voice barely trembling—. You’ll go as support. And afterward… we’ll talk.

She left without looking back.

***

I went back to the bedroom. Valentina’s eyes were open. She looked at me as if she had been watching me for hours, as if she had heard everything.

—You came back —she whispered.

—I never really left.

I sat on the edge of the bed. I brushed her hair away from her forehead with two fingers. She was hot, but less so. Her face had settled a little against my sheets, as if she had finally recognized them.

—Mariana —she said—, you left with someone else.

—I can’t leave with anyone if I’m only yours.

She closed her eyes. A tear ran down her temple and wet her hair. I leaned over and dried it with my lips without thinking. I felt her go still beneath me. Felt her stop breathing for a second.

I pulled away a little. I didn’t want to force her. Not after what the night had told me.

But she grabbed my wrist.

—Stay.

—I’m here.

—Stay here.

I understood. I lay down with her, on top of the sheets, fully dressed, holding her as if the fever had to pass from her body into mine so she could sleep. I felt the heat of her skin through the T-shirt. Felt the bones of her hip against my thigh. Felt, too, the way she searched for my mouth.

—You don’t have the strength —I murmured.

—I have exactly the strength I need —she said, and kissed me.

It was a dry, cracked kiss, nothing like the urgency with which we had kissed before. It was the kiss of someone asking forgiveness without words, saying stay, saying don’t let me go, saying I’ve done things, but this is still mine. I returned that kiss with the same patience, licking her split lower lip, letting her rest her head on my shoulder when she grew tired.

But she soon sought me again. This time with her tongue. She slid it slowly into my mouth, her own still dry, and I sucked it as if I wanted to give her water back. I carefully bit her split lip and licked it until it no longer tasted of blood. Beneath my hand I felt her nipples harden again, this time with no fever involved. Her knee slipped between my legs as if it remembered by heart where it belonged.

—Emy —she whispered against my mouth—, touch me. You touch me, please. I need you to erase the other hands.

I couldn’t breathe. I searched her gaze. She was whole. She was asking me with a clear mind, even though her body was still trembling.

—Are you sure?

—If you don’t touch me tonight, tomorrow I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life.

I slowly pushed her T-shirt up to her neck. I left it bunched beneath her armpits. I looked at her breasts for the first time in two years. They were smaller, thinner, with dark, hard nipples pointing at me. I lowered my mouth. I sucked one as if I were drinking. I licked her entire left nipple, circling it with the tip of my tongue, pinching it between my teeth until she let out a hoarse moan from deep in her chest.

—Keep going —she panted—. Keep going, fuck, keep going.

I moved to the other breast. I sucked it harder, drawing on her nipple with my lips tight around it, pulling upward until her back arched off the bed. I ran my tongue through the valley between her breasts, over her marked ribs, down to her navel. Her T-shirt had ridden up on its own. I pulled her panties down with two fingers without stopping my kisses on her belly.

Her pussy opened before my face. It was drenched. Dripping. Her pink lips swollen and shining with how wet she was. She smelled the way I remembered: like her, like no one but her.

—Look at me —I told her from between her legs.

She lifted her head. Her eyes were glassy, her mouth open.

—Look who’s eating you.

I plunged my tongue into her pussy in one stroke. Her whole body writhed. I ran my flat tongue from bottom to clitoris, sucking it slowly, drawing it out with my lips as if it were candy. I gripped the insides of her thighs and spread them farther apart. I drove my tongue inside her, fucking her with my mouth, feeling her pussy tighten around my tongue every time I pulled it out and pushed it back in.

—Emy… don’t stop… don’t stop…

I inserted two fingers. She was incredibly tight around them. I moved slowly, curling my fingers upward, searching for the spot only I had ever found. A sharp moan escaped her, which she smothered against the pillow for fear Camila might hear. I sucked her clitoris in the same rhythm as I moved my fingers in and out. In. Out. In. Out. Faster and faster.

—I’m coming… I’m coming…

I added a third finger. I clamped my mouth around her swollen clitoris. She arched off the bed, drove her heels into my shoulders, and came, soaking my entire face. I felt her pussy contract around my fingers in long waves, felt the liquid run down her hand to her wrist. I didn’t stop sucking her. She came again, shorter this time, moaning my name into the bitten pillow.

When I finally let her go, her thighs were trembling and her breathing ragged.

—Come here —she panted—. Come up here. I want to taste myself on your mouth.

I climbed up. I kissed her with my lips still shining with her. She sucked my tongue, cleaned her own come from my chin with slow licks, and slipped her hand beneath my pants without asking permission.

—You’re soaked —she whispered.

—I’ve been like this for two years, waiting for you.

She opened me with two fingers. She found my clitoris with the pad of her thumb and pressed it slowly, in circles. She thrust her middle finger into me. Then her index finger. She buried them inside me to the knuckles and began moving them in me with desperate slowness.

—I remembered this every night —she said against my ear—. The way your pussy tightens when you’re about to come. The way you call me.

—Val… Val…

—Tell me what you called me.

—Love. Val, love. God, don’t stop.

She fucked me with her fingers until I bit her shoulder to keep from screaming. She pulled them out just before I came. She looked at me with a tired, almost sad smile, then lowered her mouth to my pussy. She licked me as if she were thirsty. She pushed her tongue inside, licked my clitoris with its tip, sucked it between closed lips until my vision blurred. I came in her mouth, clutching her hair, arched beneath her, biting my free hand so no one would hear me.

She climbed up, kissing my belly, my breasts through the T-shirt, my neck. She reached my mouth again, tasting of me, and kissed me slowly. She went still on top of me.

—Now I can sleep —she whispered.

She settled beside me, her head on my chest and one leg over mine. I slipped my hand beneath her rumpled T-shirt, along her back. Not for anything more. So she could feel my open palm against her skin, that simple thing that is knowing another body is taking care of yours. She drew a deep breath. Sighed. Surrendered.

—I missed you so much my back hurt —she whispered—. Here, right here.

I ran my fingers over the exact spot she indicated. Slowly. Tracing circles. I felt the fever drop another notch, felt her shoulders loosen, felt her stop tensing her neck.

—Sleep.

—I don’t want to dream.

—I’ll wake you if you have a bad dream.

I closed my eyes and for a moment let myself fall back into the summer when I met her, to that deserted beach where, lying on top of me, she had taught me that desire between two women is a fire that burns without asking permission. We had spent the entire night on the sand, naked beneath the moon, our mouths wet with salt and pussy, fucking each other with four hands until dawn. I had sucked her breasts until they were red, she had eaten my pussy with sand sticking to her knees, and we had come so many times we lost count. That Valentina was now buried beneath two years of things I didn’t know how to name.

—Tell me what happened —I said in her ear, with her already half-asleep.

—Another day.

—Okay.

—But stay.

—Okay.

She fell asleep like that, with my hand beneath her T-shirt and her forehead against my neck. I didn’t sleep. I watched her until dawn broke.

***

Camila arrived at six. I assumed Sofía had stayed at the office so she wouldn’t have to see me.

—Her mother’s house is cordoned off —Camila said quietly in the kitchen. —We’re going in.

—I’m coming.

—Sofía said only if you wanted to.

—I do.

Valentina appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing my T-shirt, barefoot, her hair still damp with dried sweat. She looked small.

—I’m coming too.

—Darling —I said, and the word tasted like another era—. You can’t.

—She’s my mother.

—That’s exactly why.

She cried silently. Camila poured her some tea. I put one of the tranquilizers Camila had brought from her bag into her mouth. She swallowed it without water.

An hour later we were carrying her in the back seat, curled into a ball. Sofía was driving. Camila sat in front with the paperwork. I was with Valentina. Halfway there, the car hit a bump and Valentina’s hand brushed mine on the seat.

Neither of us pulled away.

Our fingers searched for each other. Twined together. Neither of us spoke. Neither looked at the other.

But for the next several miles we held on like that, two women recognizing each other without needing to look, as if the other’s closed palm were the only promise anyone had made us in a long time.

***

The house was dark. The curtains were drawn. The neighbors murmured behind their gates.

—You’re staying in the car —I told Valentina—. If they see you with us, they’ll connect you to this. And I won’t risk it.

—But, Emy…

It hurt that she called me that. No one had called me that in years.

—Please —I insisted—. I’ll protect you. But you stay here.

She nodded. I kissed her forehead, her temple, the exact place where her mother must have kissed her a thousand times. I closed the car door.

Inside, her mother’s body was near the dining room. Three clean shots. One to the chest. One to the neck. One to the abdomen. No sign of a struggle. Not even a forced door. A half-finished cup of coffee. An open book. An unanswered phone.

I went out onto the porch to breathe. I lit a cigarette, the first in years. And then I heard the voice.

It came from a side alley. A man was speaking on the phone, nervous.

—Yes, Doctor… just as you said, the three women came. No, Doctor… the old woman’s daughter didn’t come with them.

I went still. The cigarette burned my fingers and I didn’t feel it.

“The doctor.”

That word fell inside me like a stone into a well I had thought was dry. It couldn’t be a coincidence. It couldn’t be some other doctor. Not after everything he had done to Valentina that year when I wasn’t there, the year she never wanted to talk to me about and still spoke of in her dreams whenever her fever rose.

I walked back to the car slowly, calculating every step so the man in the alley wouldn’t see me. Valentina was asleep against the window, her forehead pressed to the glass fogged by her breathing. I sat beside her. I placed my hand on her knee. She opened her eyes.

—Is it over? —she murmured.

—Almost.

—Are you going to stay?

—I’m going to stay.

But inside, while I stroked her knee and lied to her in a calm voice, I knew the night had only just begun. The doctor was still alive. As long as he was breathing, she wouldn’t be safe. And this time, whatever it cost, I wasn’t going to let her go.