The First Time I Tasted Another Woman’s Lips

That summer we finished our final year of college with our heads completely in a spin: exams, moves, breakups, the usual. Carla suggested Cancún and, without thinking too much about it, the five of us pooled what was left in our bank accounts and booked an apartment two blocks from the beach. There was Carla, Sofía, Lucía, Daniela, and me. I was the last one to join the plan, because until a month earlier I’d been seeing a guy from Engineering who told me he “needed time to think,” and in the end he decided not to.

We landed on a Saturday afternoon in sticky heat that seeped under my clothes before I even got out of the airport. The apartment was small, with two bedrooms, a big sofa in the living room, and a kitchen that opened onto a narrow balcony overlooking an inner courtyard. We tossed bed assignments around by shouting, and before we’d even unpacked our suitcases we were already in bikinis deciding which bar we were going to that night.

The first night, though, wasn’t my night. Carla got tangled up with an Argentinian who whisked her off to dance after three songs. Sofía disappeared with a French guy who barely spoke any Spanish. Lucía, Daniela, and I stayed at the bar, ordering expensive gin and tonics and pretending we were having fun. Around four in the morning, the three of us walked back to the apartment, laughing without much enthusiasm at the ones who’d had better luck.

Lucía fell asleep before taking off her makeup. I heard her drop onto the bed with a dull thud and then nothing. Daniela and I stayed in the living room, barefoot, the lights off except for the small lamp in the corner. I flopped onto the sofa. She sat on the floor, leaning against the armrest, back straight and knees pulled up to her chest.

—Are you sleepy? —she asked, not looking at me.

—Not at all. You?

—Neither am I.

We stayed quiet for a while. It wasn’t an awkward silence; it was one of those silences that happen because there’s something to say and no one wants to be the first to say it. Daniela fiddled with the hem of her dress. I stared at the ceiling.

—Valeria —she said at last.

—What?

—I have to tell you something, and I don’t want you to get weird about it.

My stomach clenched. I thought of a thousand things at once: that she wanted to go home early, that something serious was wrong, that she’d hooked up with my ex. The last thing I thought was what happened.

She got up from the floor, sat beside me on the sofa, looked me straight in the eyes, and before I could understand what she was doing, she put a hand on my cheek and kissed me. It wasn’t a quick kiss. It was slow, deliberate, with her mouth slightly open, as if she’d been practicing it for months.

I didn’t pull away. That was the part I couldn’t explain afterward.

—Sorry —she murmured when she pulled back.

—No —I said without thinking—. Don’t apologize.

—It’s just that I’ve spent the whole trip thinking about doing that. And before the trip too. For a long time, Valeria.

I didn’t know what to say. I had never looked at a woman like that. I hadn’t looked at Daniela like that either, though now that I thought about it, there had been details I’d refused to see: how she always sat close to me, how she grabbed my arm when she laughed, how, in class, she looked up before I did whenever we entered a lecture hall.

—I’m a little lost —I admitted.

—Do you want me to stop?

I thought about it. Really thought about it, not just to be polite. And the answer that came from somewhere I couldn’t reach with words was no.

—Don’t stop.

***

She kissed me again, and this time I kissed her back with a clumsiness I didn’t recognize in myself. Her lips were softer than those of any guy I’d been with, and she smelled sweet, like vanilla mixed with the night’s sweat. She slowly slid my dress straps down, one first, then the other, and I was left sitting on the sofa with my breasts bare and a breathing pattern that wasn’t obeying me.

—You’re beautiful —she said, and she said it as if she’d been waiting years to say it.

She brought her mouth to my chest and started slowly, with her tongue, tracing circles around my nipple before closing her lips over it. I threw my head back against the sofa. This isn’t happening to me, I thought, and at the same time: I don’t want her to stop.

She sat up for a second to take off her T-shirt. She had a simple black bra on, and beneath it small, firm breasts I’d seen a thousand times when we changed clothes in the shared room, never paying attention. Now I paid attention. I slid the bra straps down with both hands, fumbled with the clasp, and pulled her toward me.

I kissed too, by imitation, by instinct, by curiosity. I ran my tongue along her neck, her collarbone, and lower. She let me. She held the back of my neck with one hand and let out a short gasp when I reached her nipple.

—Slowly —she whispered—. No rush.

It was strange to have all the time in the world. With guys there had always been haste, urgency, some kind of race to get to the end. With Daniela there was no end. There was only the room, the sofa, the apartment’s silence, and the heat clinging to our skin.

We slipped off the sofa and ended up both on the rug. She finished taking off my dress. I pulled down the shorts she was wearing. We were left in our underwear, and a while later, without underwear. The lamp cast soft shadows across the floor. Daniela kissed my stomach, my hip, the inside of my thigh, and when she moved a little higher I closed my eyes.

—If you want me to stop —she murmured—, say so.

—I don’t want you to stop.

***

What came next was something new, a different sensation. It wasn’t like when a guy tried without really knowing where to touch. Daniela knew exactly. I imagine she knew because she knew her own body. She started with the flat of her tongue, moving over me slowly, not attacking the center. She went up and down like that several times until I arched my hips and then, only then, she stopped exactly where she was supposed to stop.

I clenched my fists against the rug. I didn’t recognize my own breathing. I didn’t recognize the short moans escaping me without permission. I wanted to say something and couldn’t. I grabbed her hair, not to push her away, just to keep her close, to know she wasn’t going anywhere.

—Dani —I said for the first time, and my own voice sounded strange to me.

She kept going. She slipped in one finger, then two, while still using her tongue. I arched all the way, felt my whole body pulling away in a current that started somewhere very deep and rose up. I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t make noise and wake Lucía. I didn’t manage it completely. I let out a long cry when I came, and when I lowered myself back to the floor, I realized my eyes were full of tears and I didn’t know why.

***

Daniela moved up my body again and lay down beside me on the rug. She kissed my temple, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. I was still breathing like I’d run kilometers.

—Are you okay? —she asked quietly.

—I’m… —I didn’t know how to finish.

—Do you want to stop?

—No. I want to give back what you gave me.

She smiled. It was a smile I’d never seen from her before, a Daniela smile that wasn’t for everyone.

—You don’t have to give anything back.

—I want to.

I sat up. I ran my hand through her hair, over her neck, over her chest. Her skin was hot, almost damp. I felt embarrassed not knowing what to do, but I was curious too. I leaned in and kissed her breasts the way she had kissed mine. I moved down her stomach slowly, paying attention to how the muscle tightened when I ran my tongue over her.

When I reached between her legs, I stopped for a second. She propped herself up on her elbows to look at me.

—You don’t have to…

—I want to know what it’s like —I said.

She let herself fall back onto the rug. I followed her lead without quite copying her, because my tongue moved to my own rhythm, not Daniela’s. I tried. I changed. I tried something else. She started breathing faster and grabbed my hair, just like I had grabbed hers. That was how I knew I was doing it right.

—There —she whispered—. Right there. Don’t move.

I didn’t move. I repeated the same motion, the same angle, the same rhythm, until I felt her trembling. She bit the back of her hand so she wouldn’t cry out and came in silence, her whole body arched and her thighs closing against my face.

When she relaxed, I let myself fall beside her. We both stared at the ceiling for a long while without speaking, catching our breath.

***

—And now what? —I asked.

Daniela turned her face toward me. She smiled again with that new smile.

—Now nothing. Whatever you want it to be.

—I don’t want you to think I’m someone who knows what she wants —I told her—. Because I don’t know.

—I know. I’m not asking you for anything.

—Did you like it? —I asked stupidly, as if it weren’t obvious.

—Much more than I expected. And I can assure you I was expecting a lot.

We both laughed, softly, so as not to wake Lucía. I rested my head on her shoulder for a while, and then I looked at the wall clock in the living room. It was almost six. Through the window that blue light before dawn was already coming in, that light that in Cancún has a strange, almost purple tone.

—We should get some sleep —I said.

—We should.

We gathered the clothes from the floor without speaking. She helped me put my dress back on. I handed her her T-shirt. When we were already heading toward the bedrooms, she held my hand for a moment.

—Valeria.

—What?

—Tomorrow you don’t have to say anything in front of the others. And it doesn’t have to happen again if you don’t want it to.

I thought about it. I looked at her for a couple of seconds.

—It might happen again —I said—. I don’t know yet.

—That’s enough for me.

She let go of my hand, went into her room, and closed the door. I went into mine. Lucía was sleeping with her mouth open, oblivious to everything. I lay down beside her with my heart still pounding against my chest.

I didn’t sleep. I spent the whole next morning with the feeling that something in me had opened up and I didn’t know whether I wanted it to close again. The others got up at eleven, hungover and making plans. Daniela poured me a coffee without looking at me, as if nothing had happened. But when she handed it to me, her fingers brushed mine for a second longer than necessary.

I smiled at my cup. There were eleven nights left in Cancún.