The Game That Changed What I Felt for My Best Friend

Friday had brought rain since morning, and Mariana and I didn’t feel like going out. We shut ourselves in my room with two cans of beer, an old playlist, and the blinds half drawn so the afternoon would feel longer than it was. It was raining that soft, steady rain that never quite goes away.

We’d been friends for six years. The kind of friendship where you know the other person is lying just from the way they breathe, or when she’s sad from the way she sets down her glass. What we’d never talked about was the other thing: what had been passing between us since the previous summer, when she came to sleep over after fighting with her boyfriend and we ended up sharing a bed without anything happening and, at the same time, feeling like everything had happened.

—Truth or dare? —she asked that afternoon, twirling the can between her hands.

—Are we fifteen?

—If you’re game, we’ll do it for real.

I kept staring at her. She had that crooked smile she got when she was about to do something stupid. I burst out laughing and threw a pillow at her face.

—Fine.

The first rounds were silly. Old confessions from college, absurd dares like ordering delivery and hanging up before they answered, telling me the last time I’d cried and who it was for. But by the fourth beer, she stretched her legs out over my mattress, set the can on the floor, and said, without really looking at me:

—It needs salt. Whoever loses takes off a piece of clothing.

I didn’t answer right away. I felt the heat in my ears before anywhere else. I looked at her, trying to figure out whether she was serious or whether she expected me to get scared and say no.

—Deal —I said.

The first round with the new rule, I lost. Mariana raised her eyebrows and pointed a finger at my T-shirt.

—That one.

I took it off without any theatrics, but I felt her eyeing me from my neck down to the line of my bra. It was a cotton bra, plain, white, nothing special, and her eyes lit up as if it were catalog lingerie.

The next round she lost. I didn’t give her time to choose.

—The pants.

She stood up on the bed and pulled them down slowly, first turning her back to me, then facing me again. She was wearing a thin black panty, almost nothing, and the skin on her thigh trembled just a little when she bent her legs to sit back down. We both laughed, but the laughter wasn’t the same anymore. It was teenage laughter, a mix of nerves and vertigo.

***

Three rounds later, Mariana was in a red bra and black panties. I’d lost mine and was trying to cross my arms without making it obvious I was crossing them. She didn’t even bother pretending she wasn’t looking at me.

—Dare —she said when it was her turn.

—Kiss my neck.

I said it without thinking, as if I’d been keeping it tucked away for months. She came closer, crawling over the bed until she was a hair’s breadth away. Her hair brushed my shoulder. Then her mouth did too, first just pressed against the side of my neck, then opening, hotter than I’d expected. When she let me go, my eyes were closed.

—Another round —she said softly, and her voice had gone husky.

I lost again. She took off my shorts. She took off my socks. Then it was her turn, and she took off her bra with both hands behind her back, looking at me as if she were giving me permission. Her breasts were smaller than I’d imagined in the few times I’d let myself imagine them, her nipples pink and a tiny mole beneath the right one. I stayed silent.

There was no game anymore.

—Your dare —I murmured.

Mariana took a deep breath. Thought for a second. And then, with a calm that undid me, she said:

—Touch yourself. But don’t close your eyes. Look at me.

***

I leaned back against the headboard. I slid my hand under the elastic of my panties and, at the first touch, felt how wet I was. She didn’t move. She was sitting on her knees in front of me, thighs open, hands on her knees as if she were meditating, and her gaze locked on mine.

—Don’t close your eyes —she repeated.

I started slowly. Small circles, controlling my breathing so nothing would escape me yet. But her gaze was another pressure, another hand. It was as if she were touching me with her eyes. I saw her bite her lower lip. I saw her lower her hand for a second and rest it on her thigh, not slipping it inside, as if she were holding herself back.

—You’re doing well —she said.

I picked up speed without meaning to. I started breathing through my mouth, my head tipped back against the headboard, my thighs open for her. And then, when I could no longer hold her gaze all the way, she leaned forward, yanked my hand away, and kissed me.

The first kiss was impatient, almost clumsy. We knocked teeth and laughed against each other’s lips for a second before going back to the kiss, this time more carefully. Her tongue entered slowly. Mine answered. And the bed, which a minute earlier had been a battlefield for a teenage game, turned into something else.

***

We took off whatever was left without saying anything. No dares were needed. We ended up both naked, facing each other, in a room where the light outside was already almost orange from the sunset filtering through the clouds. She looked at me without shame, and I let her look. Her skin was lighter than mine, her hips broad, a tiny flower tattoo on her left side that I’d seen hundreds of times at the pool and had never looked at like this.

She pushed me down onto the bed and settled on top of me, one thigh between mine, both our breaths already ragged. She kissed my neck, then my collarbone, then one breast. When she sucked my nipple I felt a tug in some place I hadn’t known could connect to another woman’s mouth. I grabbed the back of her neck with both hands.

—Don’t stop —I begged her.

She went lower. She kissed my navel, my hips, the inner side of my thigh, biting just enough to leave me a tiny mark I wouldn’t be able to explain. I was open, exposed, and for the first time that afternoon I didn’t care. When her tongue touched me, I let out a sound I didn’t even recognize as mine.

She licked with patience, as if she had all the time in the world. Up and down, tracing circles, then holding still and blowing lightly. I clutched the sheet, then her hair, then the sheet again. I was about to come when she stopped.

—Not yet —she said, her mouth shining.

***

She settled on top of me another way. She crossed one leg over mine until her hips and mine were pressed together. I felt her hot, wet against me, and the first rub made both of us moan at the same time. We looked at each other in surprise, as if we hadn’t expected the sound to match.

She started moving. Slowly at first, searching for the angle. I slid my hands up to her breasts, then one down to her hip and pulled her against me so she wouldn’t move so slowly. She understood. The rhythm changed.

The sound of the bed, the sound of our wet bodies meeting, the increasingly unhidden moans, all of it filled the room with a density that no longer resembled a Friday afternoon with beer at all. Mariana braced herself on one hand, giving me a better angle, and I took the opportunity to grab her waist with both hands and guide her, almost digging my fingers into her skin.

—Like that —I gasped—. Like that.

—Look at me —she said, just like before—. Don’t close your eyes.

I held her gaze as best I could. Her pupils were dilated, her mouth open, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. I saw her on the verge of coming before I noticed it in myself. But we came almost together, one a second before the other, and the first one to come dragged the other along in a shudder that left us stuck together, panting, foreheads pressed together, our legs still tangled.

***

We stayed like that for a long while. Her on top, me underneath, still connected, our breathing slowly settling. Outside it had stopped raining. Inside, though, everything was new.

—It wasn’t a game —she said then, speaking against my neck.

—I know.

—It stopped being a game a long time ago.

I stroked her back from top to bottom, not answering yet. I was thinking about all the times I’d looked at her from far away, all the times I’d lied to myself with a “it’s just friendship affection,” all the beers we’d shared waiting, without knowing it, for one of them to give us the courage for an afternoon like this.

—It wasn’t for me either —I answered at last.

She laughed softly, still pressed to my neck. I felt the laugh against my skin.

—Another round? —she asked.

—Truth or dare.

—Dare.

—Stay.

She lifted her head to look at me. Her eyes were small with exhaustion and her smile enormous.

—That’s not a dare —she said—. That’s already won.