The Night I Tasted My Best Friend’s Milk

I had been at Marisol’s house for three days when the silence between us began to weigh more heavily than words. I had gone up into the mountains to help her with the baby—that’s what I told my mother, that’s what I kept telling myself on the bus ride there. But the night before, in the kitchen, while I was washing the cups, she had come up behind me. She kissed my cheek. And I, without thinking, turned my face. Our lips barely brushed, for a second, maybe less. Enough for neither of us to sleep the rest of the night.

In the morning we avoided talking about it. We ate breakfast in silence, she with little Tomás in her arms, me with my eyes fixed on my coffee cup. The house grew cold quickly in those mountain parts, and the only stove that worked was the one in the living room. That was where we spent the hours: her nursing the child, me pretending to read a novel I had left open to page three since Monday.

—Camila —she said suddenly, without looking up from the baby—. What happened last night…

—There’s no need to talk about it.

—Yes, there is.

Her voice cracked a little. Marisol never cried out loud. Since Iván had died on that bend in the road, five months earlier, I had seen her cry twice, both times in silence, biting her lip so as not to frighten the child. This time she bit her lip too, but it didn’t quite work.

—I kissed you —she said—. And you didn’t pull away.

—I didn’t pull away.

—Why?

I didn’t know how to answer. I had spent years looking for that same answer in a thousand different ways. Marisol had been my best friend since school. We had shared bunk beds at camp, secrets over after-dinner coffee, tears through every breakup. When she married Iván, I cried at her wedding, and no one ever really knew why. When he died, I was the first to arrive at this house.

—Last night I kissed you because I’d wanted to for months —she murmured—. And because I can’t find any other way to tell you what I think when you look at me.

Tomás gave a soft whimper and began searching for her breast. Marisol unbuttoned her nightgown with one hand, without taking her eyes off me. The gray morning light fell across her shoulder, and I watched the little one latch on and begin to swallow with that rough, hungry eagerness babies have when they’re very hungry. Her skin was whiter than I remembered, traced with fine veins that had become more pronounced with breastfeeding.

***

That night I slept badly. The guest room was at the end of the hall, separated from hers by only a thin wall. I could hear every movement of the baby, every step Marisol took when she got up to soothe him. Around three-thirty, I heard him crying again. And I heard, too, a sob that was not the child’s.

I put my sweater over my nightgown and crossed the hall barefoot.

The door was ajar. I pushed it open slowly. Marisol was sitting on the edge of the bed, the baby against her chest, completely bare from the waist up. The bedside lamp lit her from behind, and I saw that her face was wet, not with milk, with tears.

—Come in —she said, without looking up—. It’s okay. Come in.

I went in. I closed the door. I sat in the low chair in front of the bed, the same one where we used to talk until dawn when I stayed over at her house as a teenager. Tomás was suckling with his eyes half-closed, content. Marisol held him with one arm, and with the other hand she wiped her face.

—I don’t know what’s wrong with me today —she whispered—. I can’t stop crying.

—It’s the lack of sleep.

—It’s not just that.

She looked up and met my eyes. And then something happened I had never imagined: the other breast, the one the baby wasn’t latched onto, began to leak milk on its own. A warm white thread ran down to her navel, followed her abdomen, and disappeared into the rumpled nightgown at her hips.

She didn’t move. Neither did I.

—It happens when I’m upset —she said, almost apologetically—. Iván used to say it was the body being rude. That it didn’t ask anyone’s permission.

I laughed despite myself. She laughed too, and the laugh was so sad I had to swallow hard not to cry myself.

***

—Come closer —she said after a while.

She said it softly, as if she didn’t want to frighten me. I moved closer. I knelt on the rug at her feet. The milk was still dripping, now more slowly, and the sweet aroma mixed with the lavender soap we had both used since school.

—Marisol…

—You don’t have to do anything —she cut me off—. Just stay near. I need someone to be near.

I rested my forehead against her knee. Her skin was warm, and her thighs were firm from walking so much in the mountains. I ran my hand along her calf, slowly, not knowing what I was doing. She let me.

The baby fell asleep against her chest. Marisol eased him away carefully, got up with me still kneeling in front of her, and laid him in the cradle beside the bed. When she sat back down, the nightgown had slipped all the way down. She was facing me, almost naked, with milk still sliding over her belly.

—Do you want to? —she asked.

—What?

—Taste.

No one had ever asked me that way before. It wasn’t an order, it wasn’t one of those seductive invitations from the movies. It was a simple question, almost childlike, asked by a woman who was afraid of the answer.

—Yes —I said.

I leaned in. I brought my mouth to her left nipple, the one that was dripping more, and brushed the skin with my lips before closing them around it. The first taste surprised me: sweet, yes, but also with an earthy note, almost salty, like spring water that has passed through the soil. I swallowed. I swallowed again. Marisol let out such a long sigh I thought she might split in two.

I ran my hand over her back. I felt her heart beating against my cheek. I kept drinking, slowly, because I didn’t know how to do it any other way.

—Camila…

Her voice was different. Lower, tighter. I felt her body contract against mine, her hips edging forward a little, her knees opening slowly without my having asked anything of her. I let go of her breast. I lifted my face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open.

—Don’t stop —she murmured.

***

I went back to the nipple. This time I switched sides, found the other one, the one the baby had partly emptied. Hardly any milk came out. But she sighed all the same, even louder, and grabbed my hair with one hand. Not to guide me: to hold herself up.

I slid my other hand up her thigh. Slowly. Waiting for her to stop me. She didn’t. I brushed the inside of her leg, that soft place where the thigh stops being hard and turns warm. Marisol held her breath.

—Are you sure? —I asked her.

—I’ve spent five months not being sure of anything —she said—. Only of you.

I let go of her breast again. I sat up a little to kiss her mouth, and this kiss was nothing like the one the night in the kitchen had been. This kiss was long, slow, tasting of her own milk between us. Marisol cupped my face in both hands and kissed me as though she had been waiting for years.

We moved to the bed. I took off her nightgown completely. I took off my sweater, my nightgown, everything. The two of us ended up naked under the yellow light of the lamp, she still with milk and tears damp on her skin, me trembling, not from cold.

I traced her with my mouth. I kissed her neck, her shoulders, her heavy breasts, still leaking a little when I touched them. I went slowly downward, kissing the softened abdomen of pregnancy, the broad hips. I reached her pelvis, the dark hair she had never shaved and that smelled of her, of her soap, of a mother’s sweat. I looked at her in question. She nodded yes with the slightest movement of her head.

I tasted her. The flavor was different from the milk, more intense, more acidic, more alive. Marisol arched her back and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth so as not to make a sound. The baby was still asleep a meter away from us, and her care struck me as the most tender thing in the world.

I moved my tongue slowly, searching for the rhythm that would make her breathe harder. I found it quickly. Marisol grabbed my hair again, and this time she was guiding me, without saying a word, marking the pace with her pelvis. I felt her thighs tense on either side of my face, her breathing quicken until it became short gasps. And then she broke.

I felt her whole body shudder. I felt, too, a new wetness, different from the earlier one, hotter, moisten my chin and neck. I didn’t pull away. I stayed with her until she stopped trembling.

***

Afterward I let myself collapse beside her. Marisol turned toward me and curled up against my chest. I held her. We stayed like that for a long while, saying nothing, hearing only the baby’s peaceful breathing on the other side of the room.

—I’m afraid —she said at last.

—Of what?

—That tomorrow you’ll regret it.

—I won’t regret it.

—How do you know?

—Because I’ve wanted you like this for twelve years —I said, and saying it out loud made me realize it was true. Twelve exact years. Since the summer camp when she was fourteen and I was thirteen, and we slept in the same bunk and I couldn’t understand why it was so hard to close my eyes.

She went quiet. I felt a tear fall onto my shoulder.

—Iván knew —she murmured—. He told me once. That if I ever lost you, I’d lose myself completely.

I didn’t know what to answer. I kissed her forehead. I stroked her back until she fell asleep.

When morning came, the baby woke hungry. Marisol sat up, still naked, and lifted him from the cradle. She came back to bed, sat against the headboard, and offered him her breast. I stayed lying beside her, watching her.

—Stay a few more days —she said, not looking at me.

—I’m staying all winter —I replied.

She smiled, and this time there was no shadow in the smile. I rested my cheek against her bare thigh and closed my eyes. The baby suckled with that rough first-morning strength of the world, and for the first time in five months, in my friend’s house, there was peace.