My aunt found me unconscious in that cave

We’d been at Sant Pere cove for three days and, until that morning, I hadn’t been able to enjoy a thing. A panic attack the first night left me stretched out on the apartment sofa, pale and shaking, with Aitor and Damián taking turns keeping watch over me. The fourth day dawned different. I got up before they did, opened the balcony, and looked out at the sea as if for the first time.

—Today I want to do things —I told them when they came out of the bedroom.

—Define things —Aitor replied, rubbing his eyes.

—Volleyball, water, sun. Whatever.

Damián looked at me with that older-brother caution he always adopts with me. He nodded without saying anything.

On the sand we found two girls setting up a net. Berta was a redhead, with a back full of freckles and a laugh you could hear from three parasols away. Mara was more reserved, dark-haired, with a black swimsuit that looked painted on. They agreed to play against us and, for an hour, I was who I used to be: competitive, loud, smashing spikes as if my life depended on every point. We crushed them without mercy. They didn’t get angry; on the contrary, they each gave us a kiss on the cheek as a prize for making them sweat.

After that we jumped into the water. I swam through the waves, spat salty water at Aitor and Damián, laughed to myself. Some bathers looked at us disapprovingly. Most were smiling. My friends watched me with a mix of relief and caution, as if they feared that burst of euphoria might snap all at once.

We went back to the apartment for lunch. It was small, one bedroom, kitchen and living room together, a bathroom and a balcony overlooking the sea. At that hour it was in the shade and you could eat in the cool. My aunt Lara showed up around one with a tray of dressed tomatoes and a bottle of chilled white wine.

—Don’t invite me, I’ll invite myself —she said, setting the tray on the table.

Lara was my mother’s sister. She had rented a little house two streets down and, although the original plan was for everyone to spend the summer on their own, there was no way to pry her away from the balcony. Not that I minded. My aunt was thirty-seven, with coppery hair tied up in a messy bun, and a body my friends didn’t dare comment on in front of me, but I knew they commented on it when I wasn’t around. Her husband, my uncle Gerardo, had been in Buenos Aires for two weeks on business. She had come to the coast alone.

—You look better, Mateo —she told me as she poured me wine without asking.

—I woke up feeling good today.

—It shows.

She held my gaze for a couple of seconds longer than necessary. I looked away toward the sea.

***

In the middle of the afternoon I dragged my friends into the water again. We found Berta and Mara on the same stretch of beach and, with no splashing this time, all five of us got in to chat and let the waves rock us. Aitor and Mara stayed on the shore sunbathing. Damián, Berta and I went in and out of the water, getting sand up to our eyebrows.

—I’m going to swim for a bit —I said after a while.

—Be careful, Charlie —Damián asked, stubbornly calling me that since university.

I made a face and swam off with my arms. The sea was flat, almost no surf. I passed a boy who winked at me as he crossed paths with me; it made me laugh, being liked by a man, and I kept going, smiling. When I stopped to look back, my friends were tiny dots on the sand. I waved. Berta and Damián waved back. I wanted to keep going. I needed to keep going, as if that kilometer of water were the only thing separating me from something that had been chasing me inside for months.

I didn’t see the rock.

The impact hit me from below, on the crown of my head, with a white pain that shut me off instantly. I remember the taste of salt entering through my nose and the feeling of my body losing weight. Then, nothing.

***

I woke up lying on stone. Pebbles dug into my back and, when I tried to sit up, a stabbing pain in my temple forced me to clutch my head with my hand. The cave was small, lit only by the reflection of the water on the walls, and it smelled intensely of salt and moss. My swimsuit was still dripping. Wherever I was, I hadn’t been there long.

—Stay still, don’t get up.

The voice reached me from the entrance. When I turned my face, my aunt Lara was coming out of the water and crawling toward me over the rocks. She was wearing a black swimsuit clinging to her body and her copper hair had come loose, sticking to her neck in dark strands. At her waist hung a dry bag.

—Lara? What are you doing here?

—I got you out of the water, Mateo. You were drifting. I saw you from the point of the rock and swam to you.

—And the others?

—They didn’t see me. I brought you in here because the current was dragging us and I couldn’t hold you outside. —She sat down beside me, still panting—. Your head is fine. I checked. It’s just a bump.

Just a bump.

The cave must have had its entrance below the waterline, because no opening could be seen above. The light came in broken, alive, drawing ripples on the ceiling. My aunt watched me with an expression I’d never seen on her before, as if she had been waiting a long time for a situation like this and no longer knew what to do with it.

—We should go back —I said, but my voice came out hoarse.

—Not with your head like that. Wait a little.

She reached out and touched my hair, right where I’d been hit. I could feel her pulse under her fingers. When her hand slid down the back of my neck and then my shoulder, she wasn’t checking me anymore.

—Lara…

—I’ve been watching you all summer, Mateo. —She said it without taking her eyes off me—. All summer.

I didn’t know what to say. She was my aunt. She was my mother’s sister. She was the woman who had taught me to read the cards in a deck when I was seven and laughed at me when I lost. And, at the same time, she was that soaked thirty-seven-year-old woman, with her swimsuit dripping over the stone and her breathing uneven, whose hand was resting on my collarbone.

—This isn’t… —I began.

—I know. —She closed her eyes for a second—. If you tell me no, I’ll leave, swim to the shore, and nothing ever happened. I swear it on whatever you want.

I looked at her. I looked at her mouth, the freckles under her left eye, the undone bun. I thought of my uncle Gerardo in Buenos Aires and of my mother, and of how forbidden all of this was, and how the blow to the head had perhaps brought out of me something that had been locked up for a long time. I thought of the crisis the first night and how far away it already seemed.

—Don’t go —I said.

***

She came closer slowly, as if I were fragile, but the moment her mouth found mine all delicacy was gone. She kissed me hungrily, biting my lower lip, shoving her tongue all the way in, and I answered in kind, grabbing her by the nape so she wouldn’t pull away. She tasted of salt and something else, something that had been fermenting for years and was now escaping from her mouth in short gasps. She took my face in both hands and I felt the weight of her body against mine, her soaking swimsuit clinging to my chest, her hard nipples pressing through the fabric.

—I’ve been years —she said against my ear, her voice broken—. Since you went away to study and came back a man. Years thinking about your cock, Mateo. Years.

Hearing her say it like that, with that word in my aunt’s mouth, made me rock-hard inside my wet swimsuit. I ran my hands over her back, her sides, her waist, and found the zipper of the swimsuit at the nape of her neck. I pulled it down slowly and she shuddered all over. The left strap fell first, then the right, and when I freed her breasts from the soaked Lycra a sound escaped my throat that I couldn’t control. They were firm, white where the sun hadn’t reached, goosefleshed from the cold water, with pink, thick nipples, so hard they pointed upward.

—Suck them —she asked, grabbing my hair—. I’ve spent all summer wanting you to suck them.

I leaned down and took one whole nipple into my mouth. Lara arched her back and let out a long moan that bounced off the cave walls. I licked it slowly, circling the nipple with my tongue, biting it gently, and then moved to the other one. I squeezed both breasts with my hands while I sucked them, pressing them together, and she dug her nails into my nape and whispered things that were no longer full sentences, just fragments: “like that, there, harder, don’t stop, fuck, Mateo, fuck.”

I still had my swimsuit on and my cock was strained against the fabric, aching from how hard it was. Lara pulled me off her tits with one hand and with the other yanked my swimsuit down without ceremony, all the way to my ankles. When my dick sprang free, swollen and already dripping, she stared at it for a few seconds with her mouth slightly open.

—Jesus Christ —she murmured—. Jesus Christ, the cock you’ve got.

She knelt between my legs on the flat stones at the bottom, not caring that they were digging into her, and took me in both hands. She looked up at me, eyes shining and breasts hanging, and licked me all the way from root to tip, very slowly, as if she were tasting something she’d wanted for years. Then she took the head into her mouth and sucked hard, her cheeks hollowed out, while she stared straight at me. My legs buckled a little.

—Lara… fuck…

She started really sucking me. She took me down her throat to the back, until she was choking, and pulled her head back with a strand of saliva hanging between her lips and my cock. Then she went down again. With one hand she gripped the base and with the other she cradled my balls, squeezing them softly, and all the while she moved up and down with a calm that seemed studied, as if she knew exactly how much she could give me before breaking me. When she lifted her face to breathe, she looked at me with that hungry slut face I had never seen on my mother’s sister, and spat on the tip before taking me back in.

—Stop —I said after a while, tugging her hair—. Stop or I’m going to cum now.

She lifted her face and licked her lips slick with spit and my juices. Her mouth was redder than before and her eyes shining, her chin wet.

—I don’t want it to be over so fast —she replied, and gave me one last kiss on the tip before letting me go.

She pulled off the bottom of her swimsuit, dragging it down to her ankles, and lay back on the flat stones at the bottom of the cave, where the moss softened things a little. She opened her legs for me without a trace of shame. Her pussy was almost completely shaved, with a thin strip of copper hair above it, and her lips were swollen, glossy from how wet she was. The waterlight traced waves over her belly and cast shadows between her thighs.

—Come —she asked, parting her lips with two fingers—. Come and eat me.

I lay down face down between her legs and kissed the inside of her thighs first, nipping them, slowly moving up until she grew impatient and pushed my head down. When I finally pressed my mouth to her cunt, I gave her a long lick, bottom to top, and Lara let out a scream that bounced three times off the walls. She tasted of sea mixed with something more intimate, denser, and I stayed there far longer than I’d planned. I sucked her clit with my lips, flicked it with my tongue, slid two fingers inside her and curled them inward, searching for the spot, and she gripped a rock ledge above her head with both hands and arched her back until her ass lifted off the ground.

—Oh God, Mateo, like that, keep going like that, don’t stop, eat me, suck it all…

I slipped in a third finger and licked her clit faster, in circles, and felt her start to clamp my head between her thighs, closing me against her. She came this time screaming, not biting her lips, her cunt throbbing over my mouth and her legs trembling so hard she nearly slipped away from me. I kept licking softly until she pushed me off, laughing, her voice broken.

—Come —she begged when she caught her breath, pulling me upward—. Come here now. Put it in me.

I climbed up and kissed her on the mouth. She licked her own juices off my lips without the slightest disgust, as if she liked recognizing herself. She grabbed my cock with her hand and guided it herself to the entrance, rubbing my glans against her clit before letting me push. When I penetrated her, I went in all at once, to the hilt, and we both moaned at the same time. She was so tight and so wet that she swallowed me whole without resistance.

—Fuck, Lara, what a cunt you’ve got…

—It’s yours —she whispered against my mouth—. It’s yours, Mateo. Fuck me. Fuck me however you want.

She dug her nails into my shoulders and held my gaze the whole time, not blinking, as if she wanted to etch this moment and this place and this light into her memory exactly. I started moving carefully at first, coming out almost all the way and sinking back in, and then harder, following the rhythm she set with her hips. The cave threw every sound back at us amplified: our breathing, my balls hitting her ass, the water licking the walls, her moans and mine mixed together.

—Harder —she begged—. Break me, don’t treat me like glass.

I grabbed her under the knees and spread her legs all the way, folding them toward her chest, and started fucking her deep. The sound of my cock sliding in and out of her was obscene, wet, and Lara’s tits jerked with every thrust. I pinched one nipple while I fucked her and she let out a cry and clawed my back from top to bottom.

—Like that, like that, don’t stop, give it all to me, give me all your cock…

I pulled out for a moment and turned her over. I put her on all fours on the stones, ass raised toward me, and ran my hand through the slit before sinking back into her. I gripped her hips with both hands and shoved in hard. Lara dropped her head and her breasts hung against the wet floor. I started pounding her from behind, watching her back arch and her buttocks tremble with every thrust, and I ran a thumb slick with her own wetness over her asshole, pressing gently. She shivered all over.

—There too —she moaned—. There too, Mateo, put a finger in there…

I slid my thumb in slowly to the knuckle while I kept fucking her from the front, and she started trembling and making sounds that didn’t seem like hers. The cave was pure acoustics: every moan came back multiplied, every slap of my pelvis against her ass sounded like a gunshot.

—Mateo —she grabbed my wrist, turning her face to look at me—. Look at me. I want to see you.

I pulled out again and laid her on her back. I lay down on top of her and sank into her all the way again, face to face. I looked at her. I didn’t stop looking at her while I fucked her. I kissed her mouth and bit her neck and kept driving into her with everything I had, and she dug her heels into my back and whispered obscenities in my ear: “like that, give it all to me, deeper, like that, cum inside me, don’t worry about inside, cum inside, I want to feel it.” When she came the second time it was silent, biting her lips so she wouldn’t scream, her whole body trembling under mine and her cunt clenching my cock in spasms.

I held on a few seconds longer and then pulled out and finished on her stomach, because she hadn’t asked me about anything and I didn’t want to ask either. I emptied myself over her in thick, long spurts, splashing from her navel to between her breasts, and she ran her fingers over the marked skin and brought them to her mouth without taking her eyes off me.

Lara laughed softly while she wiped herself with the other hand.

—Idiot —she murmured—. I take the pill. You could have come inside me.

—Next time.

—Next time —she repeated, smiling with her mouth still dirty.

She kissed me again, long, without hunger now. We stayed quiet for a while. I stroked her copper hair, which was already drying in unruly strands. Her head rested on my chest and one arm lay across my waist. The waterlight kept moving across the ceiling. My eyes were closing. I thought I was going to fall asleep.

***

—Mateo… Mateo!

The gentle slaps on my face brought me back to the white glare of the sun. I had something in my throat that needed to come out and I spit it up. Someone put me on my side so the water would run onto the sand and, when I looked up, there were too many people around. I sat up abruptly, frightened.

—My aunt. Where’s my aunt?

—What? —Aitor looked at me, not understanding.

—Lara. She was with me in the cave.

—Mateo —Damián held my shoulder firmly—, there is no cave. You hit your head while swimming. Luckily, the men on the boat got you out in time and brought you ashore.

I looked around. Most of the onlookers were already leaving. Berta and Mara were watching me with scared faces beside me. Two sun-browned men, the ones from the boat, waited with their arms crossed for me to thank them.

—But I…

—Come on —Damián cut in—. Slowly.

Aitor helped me to my feet. They put their arms around my back and led me patiently to a wooden bench facing the sea. They gave me water. Mara and Berta stayed with us for a while and then said goodbye. The men from the boat refused to accept anything and went back aboard.

—You need to have dinner and sleep —said Aitor.

—Yeah.

When the two of them got distracted watching a passing sailboat, I took another look at the horizon. Had it all been a dream? Had I really fucked my aunt in a cave, or had my brain made it up while my lungs filled with water?

I spent the rest of the afternoon turning it over in my head.

***

We got back to the apartment at dusk. The balcony door was open and, when I went out for some air, my aunt Lara was sitting in one of the chairs, barefoot, wearing a black dress and with her copper hair still damp and gathered in a bun. On the table there was a tray of watermelon and a bottle of chilled white wine.

—They say you got a bad knock —she commented without looking directly at me.

—That’s what they say.

She finally turned. On her collarbone there was a fresh pink mark, exactly the size of a kiss. She smiled just enough for only me to see it, and poured me wine without asking.

—Tell me what you dreamed —she said.

And I understood, as I accepted the glass from her, that I hadn’t dreamed a thing.