My Brother Was Waiting for Me on the Other Side of the Door

That afternoon in Barcelona I knew something was going to change between Mateo and me. I knew it in the exact instant I sat up on the studio table, my legs still trembling, and saw a sliver of light slipping in through the half-open door.

Behind that sliver was my little brother.

We had arrived in Barcelona the day before. Mateo had insisted on coming with me. He said he didn’t like the idea of me, having just turned twenty-two, taking the AVE alone to show up for the most important casting of my life. I told him it wasn’t necessary, that I was grown now, that I could take care of myself. He laughed and bought his ticket anyway.

Thank God he came, I thought when we got off at the station. Now I wasn’t so sure.

The casting was for an autumn runway show. My agent, Sergio, had gotten me the contact after months of shuffling my portfolio around second-rate agencies. I’d spent two years trying to land somewhere decent, and this was the first major studio that agreed to see me. Bruno and Damián, the two designers, were the ones who decided. Bruno was dark-haired, tall, with a very well-groomed beard and a gaze that carried more weight than his words. Damián had gray hair, tired eyes, and that half-smile of someone who has seen everything too many times.

—Come in, darling —Damián said when I opened the studio door—. Sergio’s told us a lot about you.

Mateo stayed in the hallway. I gave him a little nod and he sat down on the wooden bench, facing a dust-covered window, his phone in hand and a bored expression on his face that at the time I even found sweet. I signaled to him with two fingers: hold on half an hour. He winked back and went back to his screen.

The studio was a huge room with polished concrete floors and a long table in the center. There was a rack with several dresses and a camera mounted on a tripod. Sergio closed the door behind me, but not all the way. I remember because I thought it was strange, because normally doors in places like that are shut properly. But I didn’t say anything.

—Take off your jacket —Bruno said.

I took it off.

—And the blouse.

I hesitated for a second. Sergio looked at me from the corner and gave me a slight nod, as if to say, “Relax, this is normal.” I took off my blouse.

—The bra too.

I closed my eyes for an instant. I thought about months without work, the overdue rent, my mother’s face when I told her this time, yes, this time I had a real casting. I reached behind my back and undid the clasp.

Damián came closer. He smelled of tobacco and expensive cologne. He put one hand on my waist and the other on my neck, slowly, as if he were measuring me. I didn’t move.

—You’ve got beautiful skin —he murmured—. Bruno, come have a look.

Bruno came over from the other side. I felt two hands at once, one on my hip and one sliding up my spine. I thought about leaving. I thought about going out into the hallway, grabbing Mateo by the hand, and going back to the hotel. I didn’t.

***

What happened after that happened almost without me deciding it, as if someone had pressed a button and my body answered on its own. Damián sat me on the table. Bruno kissed my neck, first from behind and then circling around to find my mouth. Sergio watched us from the corner, arms crossed, saying nothing. The camera stayed on the tripod, turned off.

—Lie down —Damián said.

I lay down.

The polished concrete was cold against my back. The studio ceiling had black-painted iron beams. I focused on counting the beams while the two designers stripped the rest of my clothes away with methodical, almost professional calm, as if they were preparing a garment for a photoshoot.

Damián took off his belt. Bruno unbuttoned his shirt. Sergio still hadn’t moved.

I’m not going to describe every detail of what came next. Bruno held my legs and opened me wide on the table while Damián kissed my breasts with filthy patience, biting my nipples until they were hard and sensitive. I felt their hands sinking into my hips, my thighs, spreading me, arranging me, touching me again as if they were examining a body to decide whether it would do or not. The air in the studio was thick and hot, and the smell of cologne, sweat, and expensive clothes made me dizzy.

Bruno slid two fingers into me first, slowly, testing how I opened. Then three. Wetness ran down between my legs and I was ashamed and turned on at the same time, because I could feel my own surrender, the wet slap of his hand as he fucked me with his fingers while staring straight into my face. Damián leaned over me and licked my neck, my jaw, my ear, and whispered in my ear:

—That’s it, slut. That’s how we want you.

I moaned without meaning to, arching my back, and the sound came out broken, more animal than anything I had ever heard in my own throat. Bruno smiled against my mouth and kissed me again, deep, his tongue pushing against mine, while below he kept opening me with a wet, shameless insistence. Then he stopped using his fingers and I felt the tip of his cock brush against me, hard, hot, forcing me to take a deep breath.

—Look at me —he said.

I looked at him.

He went in slowly at first, centimeter by centimeter, until he filled me from the inside with a brutal pressure that tore a trembling exhale from me. Damián held the back of my neck, firm, so I wouldn’t turn my face away. Sergio stayed motionless in the corner, with that old-dog calm of his, the kind that doesn’t need to touch to be in charge. Bruno’s body began to move over mine, first gently, then deeper, driving hard, making my back hit the table every time he slammed into me.

I gripped the edges of the table and opened my legs wider. The studio filled with gasps, with wet slaps of flesh against flesh, with my own unsteady moans. Damián brought one hand to my cunt and rubbed my clit with two fingers, fast, cruel, until I was convulsing beneath them. I was struggling for air. Sweat ran down my temple.

—That’s it —Bruno growled—. What a fucking good pussy you’ve got.

When Bruno pulled out, Damián took his place without letting me catch my breath. He lifted my hips and turned me just enough to change the angle, then entered me again with a dry precision that made me see sparks of light. He grabbed my spread legs, his fingers digging into the inner flesh of my thighs, and drove into me with deeper, rougher thrusts than Bruno’s, as if he wanted to get even farther inside. I cried a little, I don’t know if from the impact of pleasure or from the way he was using me, and he wiped away a tear with his thumb without stopping fucking me.

—That’s it, princess —Bruno said, his voice hoarse—. Just like that.

The game turned dirtier. Bruno shoved his cock into my mouth while Damián was still inside me. He made me suck the tip, run my tongue along the frenulum, take him down my throat until I choked a little on his weight. The taste was salty, rough, filling my tongue while another body opened me from below. Sergio finally came closer, and by then I was somewhere else. I looked up at him from below, gasping, Bruno’s cock wet in my mouth and my legs trembling, and let him do it. I thought it was a circle closing: the agent who had been promising me work for two years, and the two men who held the signature on the contract in their hands.

Sergio knelt beside the table and swept my hair off my face. His gaze was fixed on mine, cold and exact. He ran a finger along the corner of my lips, collecting saliva and the rest of Bruno’s cock, and then lowered his hand to my breast, squeezing one nipple with a force that made me shiver. He said nothing. He just watched. Bruno shoved himself back into my mouth and Damián gripped my hips with both hands to keep driving into me. I could feel the weight of their bodies around me, the whole studio reduced to the table, to skin, to the wet sound of my cunt being opened again and again.

They finished one after the other. Damián first, almost without warning, with a dry grunt that escaped through his nose, pulling back just enough to come over my stomach and thighs in hot pulses. Bruno after that, grabbing my hips and burying himself all the way to the hilt while his body tensed and emptied into me with a violent shudder that left me breathless. Sergio last, looking me in the eyes the whole time, as if he wanted to make sure I understood exactly what had just happened, grabbing my face with one hand while he spilled over my chest and part of my stomach, white, thick, coming with a sickening calm that disgusted and aroused me at once.

—We sign tomorrow —Damián said, fastening his belt—. Come by the office at eleven.

—We’ll call you for the fitting next week —Bruno added.

Sergio nodded from the corner, with that ear-to-ear smile that had always made me a little nervous.

—See? —he said when the other two left—. I told you this would be easy.

And he went out after them without waiting for my answer.

***

I stayed lying on the table for a while, alone, listening to the hum of the fluorescent light in the ceiling. My clothes were scattered on the floor and my throat was dry. Everything hurt and at the same time nothing hurt. I felt the tears before I realized I was crying.

And then I turned my head toward the door.

It was half-open. A strip of yellow light from the hallway tube cut across the floor and stopped right at the feet of the table. On the other side, on the wooden bench, Mateo was still sitting, but he was no longer looking at his phone. His back was straight, his hands on his knees, and his eyes were fixed on the door.

On me.

He had seen everything.

I sat up slowly. I climbed down from the table carefully, as if I were afraid my knees would give out. I picked up my panties from the floor and put them on. Then the bra. My hands were clumsy and it took me longer than usual to fasten it. All the while, I didn’t take my eyes off the rectangle of yellow light.

Mateo didn’t take his off me either.

—Come in —I said at last, almost in a whisper.

The door opened on its own, pushed by his hand. My brother came in without saying anything, closed it behind him, and stopped two meters from me, not daring to come any closer.

He was wearing the gray hoodie I had given him for Christmas. His hair was tousled, as always. He was nineteen, and that afternoon, for the first time, he looked like a man to me.

—Cami —he said—. Are you okay?

I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. And he couldn’t help coming to hold me.

He put his arms around me slowly, as if afraid of breaking me. I pressed myself against his chest with all my strength. He smelled like cheap shampoo and the cologne we’d all pooled money to buy him for his birthday. I felt him breathing against my hair, his breath broken, trying to hold himself together.

—You shouldn’t have seen that —I whispered.

—I couldn’t help it.

We stayed like that for a good while. Me in my bra and panties, him fully dressed, his hands still on my back. Until I felt those hands start to move. Very little at first. A minimal caress, almost a tremor, sliding down my spine and stopping just above the elastic of my panties.

I lifted my face to look at him.

His pupils were dilated and he had an expression I had never seen before. His lower lip was trembling. He was about to apologize and at the same time about not to. His forehead shone under the fluorescent light.

I decided for both of us.

I rose onto my tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. It wasn’t a sister’s kiss. It was the kind of kiss you give slowly, parting your lips just enough to let the other person decide whether to keep going or pull away.

Mateo didn’t pull away.

His hands slid all the way down and grabbed me from underneath, pulling me against him. I felt him hardening against my stomach, separated only by the denim of his jeans. A jolt of electricity raced through me from top to bottom and I forgot, for a whole second, what had just happened in that very same room.

—Cami —he murmured against my mouth—. This isn’t…

—Shut up.

I kissed him again. Harder this time. I slipped my tongue into his mouth and felt him surrender, felt him stop fighting what he had wanted for years and hadn’t even let himself think about. His hands squeezed my ass with the clumsy desperation of a boy who had almost never touched anyone like that, and that, for some reason I can’t explain, turned me on more than anything else.

We pulled apart for a moment. I looked into his eyes. His face was red and his lips were wet.

My little brother, I thought. Jesus.

But there was no going back now.

I took his hand and led him to the table. The same concrete table where the other thing had just happened. I sat on the edge and drew him toward me, making my way between his legs. Mateo let himself be guided as if he had been waiting for this moment all afternoon, probably because it was true.

I helped him undo his jeans. He let his hoodie fall to the floor. He had a hairless chest and marked collarbones, and a tremor in his hands that softened something inside me. I pulled him by the neck until I had him pressed to my mouth again.

—Don’t stop —I whispered in his ear—. Please, don’t stop now.

He didn’t stop.

I pulled down his jeans and took out his cock, hard and throbbing, bigger than I had imagined, the tip wet and hot. I stroked him with my hand, closing my fingers around him, feeling the jolt of his hips, the way he breathed harder every time I squeezed. I took him into my mouth all the way, slowly, sucking the head and then taking him down until he hit my throat. Mateo let out a muffled moan and held my hair with one hand, hesitant at first, then firmer, guiding my head as I sucked him eagerly, running my tongue along the base, the frenulum, licking the precum shining at the tip.

We did it slowly, with no rush at all, as if we wanted to make up for the previous two hours with the slowness of the next ten minutes. I guided him with one hand and held the back of his neck with the other. Mateo buried his face in my neck and breathed hard. He stripped off the rest halfway, because urgency was written all over his body, and he laid me carefully back on the table, amid the remains of our clothes and the smell of dry sex still hanging in the studio. He opened my legs with trembling tenderness and positioned himself between them, brushing the tip of his cock against me, asking with his eyes if I still wanted it. I nodded.

He entered me slowly, with a short jolt that made me dig my nails into his shoulders. He was hot, thick, and filled me to the core in a single contained thrust. Mateo stayed still for a second, trembling over me, as if he couldn’t believe he was really inside me. Then he started to move. First short, then deeper, thrusting carefully at first and then no longer able to contain himself, sliding into me with an awkward, hungry rhythm that pulled moans from my throat. I wrapped my legs around his waist and asked for more, harder, deeper, and he answered with a thrust that made the table creak.

I held his face in my hands while he fucked me. I kissed his mouth, bit his lip, licked the sweat from his forehead. He lowered one hand to my cunt and rubbed my clit with unsure fingers, learning quickly, and the pleasure shot up through me like a hot current that left me on the verge of breaking. I could feel his abdomen tightening against mine, his cock sliding in and out with a wet, obscene sound, his hips pressing into me harder each time. The whole studio disappeared. Only his broken breathing, my name in his mouth, and the blind pounding of his body as he came against mine remained.

When he came, he did it without a single moan, pressing me against him, biting my shoulder in a way that didn’t hurt and that I will remember for years. The heat of his climax filled me from the inside and a little from the outside too, spilling over my skin, while he kept moving slowly, emptying himself completely, his face buried in my neck. I stayed still, trembling, feeling how the weight of all of it mixed with the rawest relief I had ever felt in my life.

***

We went back to the hotel when it was already night. Neither of us spoke in the taxi. Mateo held my hand under my coat and I rested my head on his shoulder. The driver kept glancing at us in the rearview mirror, probably thinking we were a young couple on a romantic trip. I almost laughed.

In the room, Mateo sat on the edge of the bed. I stayed standing in front of him, still wearing my coat.

—Mateo.

—Yeah?

—Don’t tell anyone about this. Ever. Not Mom. Not your friends. Not a girlfriend, if you ever have one. Never.

He nodded slowly. His eyes were shining and he had a smile that wouldn’t quite come out.

—Okay —he said—. I won’t say anything.

I sat beside him and laid my head on his shoulder again. Outside, on the rambla, someone was playing guitar and some tourists were laughing too loudly. Inside, in that tiny room smelling of old carpet, my brother and I kept a secret we were never going to tell.

The next day I signed the contract. Damián smiled at me as if nothing had happened. Bruno kissed me on the cheek with icy formality. Sergio patted me on the back and congratulated me on my decision.

And Mateo was waiting for me in the café on the corner, stirring a coffee with both hands, looking toward the door every time he heard footsteps.

When he saw me come in, he smiled.

So did I.