The Night My Cousin Taught Me to Desire Women

My name is Camila, I’m twenty-five years old, and my cousin Mariana is twenty-six. Since we were little, we were inseparable. We spent summers at our grandmothers’ house, slept in the same bed, told each other secrets no adult was supposed to hear. We got along like sisters, though now I know there was always something between us that was harder to name.

Mariana was always the bold one. The one who slipped away during the long school recesses, the one who taught me to smoke my first cigarette at fourteen, the one who dragged me to a party where I got my first kiss from a boy I don’t even remember. I was the cautious one, the quiet one, the one who took notes while she lived. But never, not once, did it occur to me that we could be anything other than confidantes.

Until the night I turned eighteen.

We celebrated at my parents’ house with a few friends from university. Low music, warm beer, a cake my mother had made from my grandmother’s recipe. Mariana arrived with her older sister, both of them carrying gifts and that sweet perfume she always wore. We danced almost all night, and every time I looked at her it seemed like something had changed in the way she moved. As if she were no longer the cousin I’d shared bathrooms and games with. As if now she were simply a woman.

When the party ended, she told me she was taking me to sleep at her house.

—It’s all sorted with your mom already —she insisted, grabbing my arm—. Tomorrow’s Sunday, you have nothing to do.

The suggestion didn’t surprise me. We’d done it hundreds of times since we were kids. I took my backpack, kissed my mother goodbye, and got into the taxi with her and her sister.

Let me describe her, because understanding what happened depends on that. Mariana is five feet one, fair-skinned, with freckles all over her shoulders and back. She has huge breasts for such a small body, round, with pink nipples that nearly show through any blouse she wears. Her ass is wide, firm, the kind that turns heads when she walks into a room. Her legs are short but toned, defined as if she worked out, even though she doesn’t.

I’m different. I’m taller, five foot five, with olive skin, brown eyes, and although my breasts are also large, they can’t compare to hers. My ass is small, my legs long. We don’t look alike at all, and yet no one ever saw us together without noticing that something tied us to each other beyond our surname.

We got to her house a little after three. Her mother was already asleep, her sister shut herself in the guest room, and we went up to Mariana’s room with two glasses of wine we’d rescued from my birthday. We put on our usual pajamas, the ones I knew by heart: very short shorts and a little tank top with thin straps, no bra underneath. She had a white one on; I wore a gray one I’d left at her place the last time I slept over there.

We lay down on her bed. We talked for a while about the party, about classmates, about the guy from university I liked. And then, without warning, she asked me:

—Have you never been curious about kissing a woman?

I looked at her. Her head was resting on her elbow, her hair messy on the pillow, her eyes shining with wine or something else.

—You were my first kiss —I said, laughing—. Did you forget?

—That doesn’t count. We were kids, we didn’t know what we were doing.

I fell silent. The lamp’s light bathed us both in gold, and for the first time in my life I focused on her mouth. On the way her lower lip jutted out a little. On the shape of her neck. On how the thin fabric of the tank top shifted every time she breathed.

—I’m curious —she admitted, in a whisper—. But with you.

I didn’t know what to say. My heart pounded against my ribs. I sat up a little, leaning on my elbow, and she did the same. We ended up inches apart. I could smell the wine on her breath, that sweet perfume, the coconut shampoo she always used.

I was the one who leaned in first.

I kissed her slowly, without opening my mouth, as if I wanted to make sure of something. The moment I parted my lips to finish the gesture, she kissed me back with her tongue, and there was no turning back. I pulled away for a second to apologize, to say I didn’t know what had come over me, but she put a finger to my lips and said:

—I’ve wanted to do this for years. Don’t apologize.

We started kissing for real. Slowly at first, then hungry. I felt her pressed against me, her huge breasts flattening against mine through the thin tank tops. My nipples got hard right away and I felt hers too, two pointed tips marked against my skin.

—Are you scared? —she asked me, her lips still pressed to mine.

—A little.

—Me too.

But neither of us stopped.

***

I took off her tank top first. I lifted it carefully, as if I were afraid of breaking something, and when I saw her breasts bared I thought I had never seen anything more perfect. They were heavy, round, with those pink nipples that had grown hard and small from arousal. I slid my hand underneath and felt the weight. She closed her eyes.

—Since I was fifteen, I’ve wanted you to touch them —she told me—. I swear I look at you and think about this.

I bent down and ran my tongue over one of her nipples. It tasted like clean skin, like her perfume. I sucked it slowly, nibbled it lightly, and she let out a long sigh that made me clench my legs together. I moved to the other breast, brushed it with my teeth, kissed the space between them. Mariana dug her fingers into my hair and pressed my head against her as if she never wanted me to move away.

Then it was her turn. She took off my tank top, looked at me for a long while without saying anything, and told me my breasts were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. I didn’t quite believe her, but the way she kissed them made me feel it was true. Her tongue was warm, patient, and every time she ran the tip over my nipples I felt a pulse between my legs I hadn’t known existed.

We both ended up in our underwear. I was wearing plain white cotton panties, the most ordinary ones imaginable; she had on a black lace boyshort that clung to her broad hips and outlined the curve of her ass. I didn’t want her to take them off. I told her to stay like that, to let me look at her.

—Look at whatever you want —she said, and stood up on the mattress, laughing, turning slowly so I could see her all over.

It was a body I hadn’t known existed until that night. Or I knew it, but I hadn’t allowed myself to think of it that way. When she lay back down, she slipped off the boyshort and let me see her completely. Her thighs were a little open. There was a sheen in the middle that made me realize she was just as wet as I was.

—Want to try? —she asked me—. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll show you.

I nodded. She took off my panties with both hands, unhurried. She kissed my navel, kissed the insides of my thighs, made me wait. When she finally lowered herself, she spread me with her fingers and ran her tongue over me once, from bottom to top. I thought I was dying.

No one had ever done that to me. The few boys I’d been with were clumsy, rushed, or outright didn’t bother. Mariana, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do. She licked me slowly, then faster, then focused on my clit with the tip of her tongue until I couldn’t stay still. I grabbed her head, said her name like a question, and she answered by sinking two fingers into me.

—Come in my mouth —she begged, lifting her head for a moment—. I want to feel it.

She didn’t let me finish answering. When she went back down, everything went blurry. What came then was a wave I had never felt before, long, electric, making me arch my back against the mattress and tremble all over. She didn’t pull away. She stayed there, licking slowly while I came down, while I caught my breath, while I realized what had just happened.

—I want to taste you —I told her, still breathless—. I want to do the same to you.

She shook her head. She climbed over my body, kissed me on the mouth so I could feel myself, and said:

—Tonight was for you. Next time is my turn.

It made me laugh. A stupid, nervous laugh, thinking there was going to be a next time. She lay on top of me, skin against skin, her huge breasts against mine, her pubic mound brushing mine. We were both wet, and that friction was a new sensation unlike anything I had ever known. She told me in my ear that she loved my body, my kisses, the way I had surrendered myself. I answered the same, in a low voice, my face buried in her neck.

***

We stayed like that for a long while, barely moving, listening to the kitchen clock strike four and then five. A gray light was starting to seep in through the window. Mariana sat up abruptly.

—My mom gets up at six on Sundays —she said, startled.

We got dressed quickly, laughing softly like we were fifteen again and had stayed awake longer than allowed. We slipped under the sheet, me with my tank top on backward, her hair in a knot. Before she closed her eyes, she gave me one last kiss. Long, soft, with her hand on my face.

—Thank you —she said.

I felt strange. Confused. Happy and guilty at the same time. I didn’t know whether what had just happened was the beginning of something or the end of something, whether we’d be able to look each other in the face at the family lunch the following week, whether everything would stay the same or nothing would ever be the same again.

It took me a while to fall asleep. Mariana was breathing against my back, one arm over my waist, as if she were afraid I’d leave. I didn’t leave. I stayed still, feeling every inch of her body against mine, while outside, dawn came slowly.

That was the first time. As I finally drifted off, I thought it would also be the last. That it was a secret we’d keep between us and never touch again.

I was wrong.

The times after that were different, longer, more certain, without fear. But those, as she says when she remembers, are other stories.