What Happened with My Cousin at Grandma’s House

That night at my grandmother’s house, the heat was heavy, the kind that won’t let you breathe properly even with every window open. My cousin Renata had arrived two days earlier with my aunt and uncle from Mar del Plata to spend the week, and as always whenever they stayed over, the two of us had to sleep in the living room, on the huge sofa bed my grandmother set up with white sheets that smelled of lavender.

I had just turned twenty-one. She was nineteen. We had grown up together in the summers, sharing ice cream, teenage secrets, and more than one scare when the boys from the neighborhood stared at us too much. But that night there was something different. I wouldn’t have been able to explain it then, though now, looking back, I think I knew it from the moment I saw her get out of the car in those tiny shorts and a white T-shirt clinging to her body with travel sweat.

Grandma had gone to bed early, as always. The house fell silent except for the hum of the fan and the distant barking of some dog. The two of us were lying on our backs, staring at the ceiling, with Renata’s phone resting between us. We watched YouTube videos without paying much attention, giggling under our breath at whatever nonsense so we wouldn’t wake anyone.

—Do you remember when we were ten and used to hide behind the shed? —she asked, turning her face toward me.

—When we used to play at being girlfriends —I replied, and she laughed.

—How embarrassing.

—You were the one in charge. It was always you deciding who kissed who.

There was a brief silence. Too brief to be a coincidence. I felt her leg inch closer to mine under the thin sheet.

—Have you had your first kiss yet? —I asked, trying to sound indifferent.

—Ages ago. You?

—Obviously. —I paused. My heart started beating harder—. Have you ever kissed a woman?

This time the silence was long. So long I thought she had fallen asleep or was pretending to so she could dodge the question. But then I heard her voice, lower than before.

—Once. At a birthday party. We were playing spin the bottle.

—And did you like it?

—I don’t know. It was really quick. But afterward I kept thinking about it.

Then think about it again.

The words crowded my throat. I’d been turning this over in my head for months, ever since the last time she’d come and we’d ended up looking at each other a second too long in the bathroom mirror while brushing our teeth. I swallowed.

—Do you want to see something? —I asked, taking her phone.

—What?

—Something with women. Like... videos. To see if you like it.

I was expecting a flat no. I was expecting a laugh and a “you’re totally crazy.” Instead, Renata stayed quiet for a few seconds, biting her lower lip, and then slowly nodded, as if she were making a bigger decision than it seemed.

—But quietly. If Grandma wakes up...

—She won’t wake up.

I searched online for something simple, two women kissing in a bed, nothing too intense so I wouldn’t scare her. I propped the phone between the two pillows and lowered the volume to the minimum. The screen barely lit up her profile, but it was enough for me to see her lips parting and her chest moving every time she breathed.

In the video, one of the girls was kissing the other’s neck and then pulling down her bra strap with her teeth. Renata said nothing. Neither did I. But I felt her leg press fully against mine under the sheet, skin to skin, and a current of electricity run up my thigh to my stomach.

—Does it turn you on? —I whispered.

—A little —she answered, without looking at me.

—Do you want to try?

This time she did look at me. In the dark I could barely make out her eyes, but I felt the whole question suspended between us, like a heavy object neither of us wanted to touch first. Then, without saying anything, she turned off the phone. The screen went black and the room was lit only by the reflection of streetlight slipping through the blinds.

***

Her hand was the first to move. She found mine under the sheet, intertwined our fingers, and gently tugged at my hip to pull me closer. I let myself be guided. The two of us ended up on our sides, facing each other, our noses almost touching. I could feel her warm breath mingling with mine, with a hint of toothpaste and the Coke we’d had after dinner.

—If we do this, we’re not telling anyone —she murmured.

—No one.

—Ever.

—I swear.

And then she kissed me.

It was clumsy at first. Two short pecks, almost childlike, like testing whether the other one was really there. Her lips were softer than I’d imagined, warmer. After the third time, I parted my mouth a little and let her tongue slip in. The taste was unlike anything I knew. It wasn’t better or worse than kissing a guy; it was something else. Softer. Slower. More mine, in some way I couldn’t explain.

Renata whimpered softly against my mouth and that was what finally lit me up. I slid a hand down her back, under the T-shirt she wore to sleep, and felt her skin still damp from the night heat. She did the same. Her fingers traced my ribs, rose to my chest, and stayed there, hesitating, as if asking permission.

—Go on —I whispered.

She squeezed one nipple between her thumb and forefinger and a moan slipped out of me that I had to smother against her shoulder. My breasts were small, just like hers, but my nipples always hardened at the slightest touch. She noticed and started teasing the other one, taking turns, while we kept kissing with more and more hunger.

I returned the gesture. I pulled her T-shirt up over her shoulders and left her bare from the waist up in the dim light. For a second I just looked at her. It was the first time I’d seen her like that, and even though I’d known her forever, it was like knowing her for the first time. She had a mole above her left breast that I’d never noticed before. I bent down and kissed it.

—Ah —she said, and laughed softly, nervously.

I kissed her nipples too, first one, then the other. I licked them with the tip of my tongue, slowly, the way I’d seen done in the video. Renata was biting the back of her hand to keep quiet, and her thighs were closing against mine, opening and closing, searching for something without knowing it.

—I’m soaking wet —she confessed in my ear, her voice breaking—. Don’t do this to me.

—Why not?

—Because you’re going to drive me crazy.

I slid one leg between hers. Through the fabric of her pajama shorts, I could feel how hot and wet everything was. She started moving slowly against my thigh, in short circles, biting her lip so she wouldn’t moan. I was soaked too. Fifteen minutes in and my panties were already stuck to my body.

We kissed like that, her pelvis rubbing against my leg and my hands on her breasts, for a while I couldn’t have measured. It could have been five minutes or twenty. Time in the dark gets elastic, especially when you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing, with someone you shouldn’t be doing it with.

***

And then, all of a sudden, she stopped.

She went still. She rested her forehead on my shoulder, breathing hard. I felt her body tremble a little, not with pleasure this time, but with something closer to fear.

—Stop —she said quietly.

—What’s wrong?

—Hold on a second. I can’t.

I moved away right away. I gave her space. I pulled my hand out from under her T-shirt and left it on the sheet between us, no longer touching her. She stayed like that for a while, her face buried against my neck, saying nothing. I felt her swallow several times.

—Are you okay? —I asked, trying to sound calm even though everything in me was pounding.

—Yeah. No. I don’t know. It’s just...

—It’s okay. We don’t have to keep going.

—It’s just that I really liked it —she said, almost in a whisper—. That’s what scares me.

I held her. I held her tight, without saying anything else, because I knew exactly what she was talking about. I was scared too. Not of the act itself, but of what was opening up in front of us. Of realizing, the two of us together, that what had just happened hadn’t been an experiment or a passing curiosity. It had been something real. Something with consequences.

We stayed wrapped around each other until our breathing returned to normal. Then, without speaking, she pulled her shirt back into place, kissed my forehead, and turned over to the other side. I stayed looking at the shadow of her back in the dark, still hot, still wet, still with her nipples marked in the memory of my fingers.

***

We didn’t talk about it the next day. We had breakfast with Grandma like nothing had happened, got some sun in the patio, and in the afternoon we went to the club pool with my aunt and uncle. Renata was quieter than usual, but every time our eyes met, there was something new in hers, something that hadn’t been there before. An unspoken question.

The week ended. My aunt and uncle took her back to Mar del Plata and I stayed at Grandma’s for three more days, going over everything in my head. I masturbated thinking about her every night. I imagined what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten scared, if she hadn’t told me to stop. I imagined my mouth between her legs, her fingers in mine, the taste her wetness would have on my tongue.

We kept messaging each other, same as always, as if nothing had happened. Memes, family gossip, photos of my aunt’s cat. But two weeks ago, out of nowhere, she sent me a long voice note. She told me she’d been thinking about that night for months. That she couldn’t stop thinking about it. That in January she was coming to see me alone, without her parents.

She told me this time she wasn’t going to stop.

January is almost here. I’ve got the bed ready, the white sheets that smell like lavender, and an empty apartment where nobody will interrupt us. When she gets here, I’m going to open the door, pull her inside, and we’re going to finish what we left halfway through that night at Grandma’s house.

After that, I’ll figure out what story to tell. For now, this is all I can confess.