The Afternoon I Walked Into My Sister’s Room Without Warning

That Saturday afternoon the house was suspiciously quiet. Mom had left early for a birthday party out in the suburbs, and Dad had spent the whole day locked in the workshop out back, fighting with the lawn mower. I had just finished tidying my room and was heading up the stairs to find Mariana to ask if she needed anything from the corner store before it closed.

Mariana is my older sister. Three years older than me, a head taller, and one of those self-assured people I’d always envied. She’d been in a foul mood all week because of a fight with her boyfriend, so I figured she’d be sprawled on her bed staring at the ceiling. I took the steps two at a time to the first floor and walked to her door without thinking anything strange.

Then I stopped.

The door wasn’t fully closed. Through the crack came a muffled, rhythmic sound mixed with short breaths. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was hearing. When I did, instead of backing away, I moved closer.

I put my hand on the frame and looked without wanting to look.

Mariana was lying on her back on the bed, completely naked, her legs bent and spread. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open. In her fingers she held a realistic-looking dildo, and she was moving it in and out with an eerie calm, as if she had all the time in the world and no one could interrupt her.

I froze in the hallway. My heart had moved into my throat. It was my sister, it was a scene I shouldn’t have been seeing, and yet I couldn’t pull my face away from the gap in the door. I felt the blood pooling in places I didn’t want it pooling in at that moment.

I should turn around, go back down the stairs making noise, and pretend I never came up.

I didn’t.

Instead, without thinking too much, I unbuttoned my jeans and let them fall to the hallway floor. I kicked them off clumsily and left them in a heap against the baseboard. I was left in a sleeveless top and thong, barefoot on the cold parquet. Then I pushed the door open slowly, with one finger, and went in.

Mariana opened her eyes wide. I saw the blush rise up her neck and linger on her cheeks. She pulled the dildo away and tried to cover herself with the sheet, but it was already too late for any of that.

—What are you doing here? —she asked in a low voice, not shouting, with more contained anger than surprise—. I was having a quiet moment until you showed up.

—That’s exactly why I came in —I said, and I didn’t recognize my own voice—. Seeing you like that got me going. I want to stay.

There was a long silence. She looked me over slowly, from head to toe, pausing on my legs, on the strip of skin between my top and my thong, on my face. I held her gaze as best I could.

—Show me —she said at last—. I want to see how turned on you are.

I pulled my top off over my head and tossed it on top of the jeans. I wasn’t wearing a bra. My nipples had been hard before I even crossed the threshold. I stood there at the foot of the bed, feeling the room’s air against my breasts, not really knowing what you were supposed to do in a situation like this.

Mariana pulled the sheet all the way back. She took the dildo from between her legs and set it on the nightstand. Then she held out her hand and gently tugged me toward her until she had me kneeling on the mattress.

—Come here —she murmured—. Here.

She guided my head with both hands, unhurried, until she had it resting right between her thighs. I smelled her before I tasted her. It was a warm, clean smell, mixed with perfume and something deeper, more animal. I closed my eyes and stuck my tongue out almost without meaning to.

The first contact was a jolt. She sucked in a sharp breath and arched her back slightly. I held onto her hips and started slowly, afraid, not really knowing what she’d like. I tried the tip of my tongue first, then the flat of it. I heard her breathe out through her nose, and that gave me the nerve to keep going.

—Like that, go on —she whispered, pressing my head a little tighter against her—. Slower. Learn.

I did as she said. I slowed down, drew wide circles with my tongue, explored every fold as if I were reading a map I’d never seen before. I had never dared do anything like this, not even think about it. But now that I was doing it, I couldn’t understand how I’d lived so many years without tasting another woman.

Mariana started moving her hips in small waves, rising and falling against my mouth. I matched her movement with my head. I ran my tongue straight over her clit several times, then stopped to suck it. I heard her moan louder and she grabbed my hair with her right hand.

—Don’t stop, don’t stop —she said—. Right there, don’t stop.

I brought one free hand to her thigh and dug my nails in a little. With the other I dared to slide two fingers into her, slowly, feeling how she tightened around them. My mouth kept working above while my fingers went in and out in a slow rhythm. My chin, my cheeks, everything was getting wet, and I didn’t care at all.

—Bite me a little —she asked.

I obeyed. I pressed lightly with my teeth, without hurting her, and she answered with a long moan that escaped from deep in her throat. I felt her whole body tense, her legs closing around my head, and suddenly a wave of heat rushed through her hips. She flooded my mouth with a warm, slightly salty liquid. I stayed there, licking slowly, until she pushed my face away herself because she couldn’t take it anymore.

I climbed up her body, dragging my wet lips over her belly, over her ribs, over the curve of one breast. I bit her nipple with the same softness I’d bitten below, and I felt her shudder again.

—It’s your turn —I told her in her ear, with a smile I had no idea where it came from.

—Take off your thong and turn over —she ordered, catching her breath—. I want to see your ass.

I liked the way she said it. No asking, no questioning.

I got off the bed just enough to take off my thong, which was completely soaked through. I let it drop to the floor and climbed back up, this time on all fours, propped on my elbows, my face against the pillow. I felt her settle behind me. I heard the dry click of the dildo being picked up from the nightstand.

—You’re dripping —she said—. This is going in on its own.

She ran the tip over my pussy first, slowly, wetting it well, and then lifted it, just as slowly, to my other opening. She squeezed one of my ass cheeks with her free hand and pushed carefully.

—Relax —she murmured—. Breathe with me.

I let out a long breath and she took advantage of it to slide in. I felt enormous pressure, then a stab of pleasure unlike anything I’d ever felt, then a rhythm that settled into itself, her moving the dildo with one hand and with the other stroking my back, my nipples, the nape of my neck. Every time she reached a nipple, she pinched it just a little, and I responded by pushing back.

—Look at me —she asked at one point, and made me turn until I was facing her.

I ended up on my back, my legs lifted. She knelt between my thighs and slid in again, this time looking me in the eyes. She took both my hands with one of hers and brought them above my head, holding them down against the pillow. With her other hand she kept working the dildo, slowly at first, then harder.

—Say it —she said through clenched teeth—. Tell me who’s doing this to you.

—You —I answered in a thin voice—. My sister.

That word, spoken out loud, set me on fire from the inside. I felt everything speed up. I closed my eyes, but she made me open them with a long kiss on the mouth, the first of the afternoon. Her tongue still tasted like her, and now also a little like me.

***

When I came, I came hard and long, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream and wake half the house. She pulled it out of me slowly and lay down beside me, resting her head against my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few minutes without saying anything, listening to our breathing return to normal.

Then she settled on top of me, with one leg between mine, and kissed me again. She adjusted her hips until her sex was pressed against mine, and started moving in slow circles. I wrapped my legs around her waist and let her do it. It felt different from everything before, softer, more intimate. As if we were both confirming, without words, that this had happened and it was going to happen again.

—You’re not telling anyone about this —she said in my ear, though there was no need.

—Neither are you —I answered.

She laughed softly against my neck. She kept moving until both of us were trembling again, this time together, clinging to each other as if we were falling from somewhere.

After that she fell asleep for a while. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, hearing the distant sound of Dad’s lawn mower out back, and thinking that now we were going to have to learn how to live with all this. With Sunday lunches, with dinners with the grandparents, with whatever boyfriends might come along.

It was going to be hard to look at her face the way I used to. But I didn’t want to look at her the way I used to anymore.