The Towel That Changed Everything Between Us

For months I’d been telling myself it was only affection. That the way my chest tightened when Sofía walked into the office was exhaustion, loneliness, the side effect of too many shifts in a row. Anything but what it really was.

That morning, though, the lie fell to the floor. Just like her towel.

Sofía had stayed over because the day before we’d gotten out of the hospital late and my apartment was ten minutes from hers. I’d invited her with the naturalness of someone who won’t admit anything to herself. I lent her a T-shirt. I spread clean sheets on the couch for her. I said good night from the hallway, without looking at her, because looking at her would have meant starting to tell myself something I wasn’t ready to say out loud.

By seven in the morning, I already had coffee going. The smell drifted through the apartment like a domestic announcement, a small promise that helped me pretend this was normal, that having Sofía in my home was just one more thing among many.

I was setting two cups on the counter when she came out of the bathroom.

The hallway was narrow. The balcony light hit her squarely in the back. She was wearing a white towel, one of those big ones I used to wrap myself in head to toe after a shower. She’d pulled it tight above her chest with a hasty knot, the kind that never holds for long.

She smiled at me. I smiled back.

And then the knot gave way.

It wasn’t dramatic. There was no scream, no gesture of modesty. The towel simply slid down her body, without asking permission, and ended up in a heap at her feet.

One instant.

One instant that split me in two.

The first thing I felt wasn’t desire. It was fear. An old, familiar fear, the kind you learn as a little girl: the fear of not controlling what your body is going to do in the next five seconds.

Then came astonishment. Sofía wasn’t perfect like a statue. She was real. She had a small mole beneath her collarbone that I didn’t know about. A curve at her waist that drew something like an invitation. Skin still pink from the hot water.

And then, without warning, desire hit. Like a dry lightning strike that left my throat burning.

—Sorry, sorry —I stammered, turning away clumsily—. I didn’t see, I didn’t mean to, sorry.

I heard the whisper of the towel against the floor. I heard her retie it, this time more carefully.

—It’s okay, Lucía —she said, and her voice had a tremor I knew, because it was the same one in mine—. It’s nothing.

But it was everything.

I went back to the kitchen too fast. I poured myself a glass of water. I didn’t drink it. I leaned against the counter and breathed as if air were a new substance, something I had to learn how to use.

Don’t look at her. Don’t think about her. This isn’t it. This isn’t you. It’s not for you.

I’d been repeating that mantra for years with other women. Classmates from grad school. A cardiology resident. My sister’s friend, at that wedding in Mendoza. Always the same script: look and don’t look, want and don’t want, go home with the feeling of having been close to something that never quite got started.

With Sofía, the script no longer worked.

—I’ll make you breakfast —I said, without turning around—. Then I’ll take you back to your place. You need to pick up clothes before your shift.

—Don’t bother. I can call a taxi —she replied from the kitchen doorway.

—It’s no bother.

—Lucía.

—It’s no bother, Sofía. I brought you here, I’ll take you back.

There was a silence. I felt her gaze against the back of my neck, almost physical. Then I heard her steps moving away toward the bedroom.

I finished the coffee in one gulp, even though it burned. I needed to get out of that kitchen before I did something stupid.

—I’m going to take a quick shower —I called out, loudly, toward the hall.

—Sure —she answered, far off.

***

I went into the bathroom and closed the door harder than necessary. I leaned against the cold tile. My breathing was short, my hands icy, my head full of a single image: her, the towel, that second when I had looked at her without permission.

I turned on the hot water and stepped under the stream fully dressed. Then, at some point, I took my clothes off. I don’t remember in what order. I remember scalding water, I remember pressing my forehead to the tiles, I remember biting my lip so I wouldn’t cry.

Cry about what, exactly.

About wanting like that. About wanting this particular woman like that. About taking thirty-four years to understand that this was what I’d always wanted. About the absurd guilt of having looked at her in one careless moment, as if I had stolen something from her.

I cried a little. Then I stopped crying. I stayed under the water without thinking, listening to the tiles hum with every drop.

When I heard the bathroom door, I didn’t turn around.

I thought it was my imagination. I thought it was one of those hallucinations you get when you haven’t slept enough hours. But then I heard her voice, right on the other side of the curtain.

—Can I come in?

My heart stopped. Then it started up so hard I thought she’d hear it from where she was.

—Sofía… —I murmured.

—You don’t have to answer right away. But I want to come in.

I closed my eyes. I swallowed. The water was running over my shoulders, my back, my nape. I felt as if my body was asking me something and my voice, before my head, answered.

—Come in.

The curtain moved. She stepped in dressed. Shorts, T-shirt, bare feet. The water began soaking her clothes at once. The fabric clung to her skin, turning transparent over her shoulders, tracing the contour of her chest.

She didn’t move closer. She stayed still a step away, looking at me. It was she now who was looking at me, without pretense, without that polite distance with which two friends avoid each other’s bodies.

—I saw you crying from the hallway —she said softly—. I didn’t want you to cry alone.

—I’m not crying.

—You were.

I nodded, speechless. Water mixed with what was still running down my face.

—Lucía… —she began, and her voice trembled—. If this makes you uncomfortable, I’ll go. I swear I’ll go and never bother you with this again. But I need to tell you before I do.

—Tell me what.

—That me too.

Three words. Three words I’d been waiting for for months without knowing I was waiting for them.

—Me too what? —I asked, because I needed to hear it all.

—I stay awake thinking about you too. I make up excuses so we can spend more time together too. I got scared this morning too, when my towel fell, because I looked at your face and understood that you too.

I stepped back instinctively. Not out of rejection. Out of the magnitude of it. Out of the certainty that if I moved forward even one centimeter, there would be no going back.

She noticed. And she turned away.

—Forgive me —she said, voice breaking—. I’m going too fast. I’m ruining everything.

And she started to leave.

And then something inside me —something that had spent years gagged, silent, watched— snapped loose.

***

I didn’t think. I came up behind her. I slid one arm around her waist, gentle but firm. With my other hand I pressed against her wet chest, holding her there, asking her without words not to go.

—Stay —I whispered against her nape—. Please, stay.

I felt her give in. Her whole body softened toward me, as if she’d been waiting for that permission for months. She rested her head on my shoulder. Her fingers searched for mine over her chest and threaded through them.

—Are you sure? —she asked.

—I’m not sure of anything. But I’m sure of this.

She turned slowly in my arms. We ended up face-to-face, both of us soaked, both of us trembling, our eyes searching each other as if they were afraid not to find one another.

—I don’t know how to do this —I admitted—. I’ve never done it.

—Look at me —she said, and she put a hand on my cheek—. I’m here. I’m not going to hurt you.

Her thumb wiped away a drop that wasn’t from the water. I lowered her hand to the edge of her soaked T-shirt. I asked permission with my eyes. She nodded.

The fabric hit the shower floor with a heavy, wet, final sound.

This time I did look at her. Calmly. As someone who had a right to. I let my eyes travel over her collarbone, the new mole, the curve of her waist, her thighs. I looked at everything I’d had to avert my eyes from that morning in the hallway.

And she let me look.

—You’re beautiful —I said, because it was true and because I hadn’t allowed myself to say that word to another woman in years.

—I’m beautiful with you —she answered.

My hands found hers. Then let them go, to touch the skin of her shoulders, her arms, her back. She did the same with me. We were learning a new language through touch, without a manual, without haste.

She kissed me first. Softly, like a question. I answered with a deeper kiss, a reply I’d been preparing for years without knowing it. She tasted like coffee and warm water. She tasted like home.

The water poured over our heads, over our shoulders, over everything we were discovering. Every brush amplified under the shower, every caress grew more vivid against wet skin.

I eased her back against the tiles. I kissed her neck, her pulse, that soft place behind her ear that made her sigh. I went down to the mole on her collarbone. I kissed it as if it were a small promise: I’m here, I’m going to learn you by heart, I’m not going to forget.

Her legs trembled. I held her by the waist. She returned the gesture, taking my hand to her chest, letting me know without words what she wanted and how. I guided her hand where I could no longer wait either.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t spectacular. It was slow like a discovery, attentive like an important conversation, generous like only what’s done for the first time with the right person can be.

When pleasure took me, it came in long waves. Sofía held me through the whole trembling, whispering things I don’t remember and that still marked me forever. Then I was the one holding her. I watched her surrender without hiding, without armor. And I understood that this was exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: be present when this woman was fully herself.

The water kept falling. Then, at some point, one of us turned it off.

We stayed wrapped in each other on the shower floor, with a single towel around both of us. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was that sacred silence that comes after something that changes us forever.

—I’m with you —she said, against my temple.

I closed my eyes. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I had to protect myself from anyone. Not even from myself.

Outside, morning went on. My shift started in two hours. Hers, in three. We’d have to get dressed, dry off, go out into the world, keep pretending things were the way they’d been yesterday.

But they weren’t anymore.

A towel had fallen. And with it, everything else.