My Older Cousin Taught Me What Desire Was

More than fifteen years have passed, but some nights I still remember them as if they had been yesterday. I had just turned eighteen and my head was full of everything a boy that age can imagine without having lived anything. My cousin Daniela lived in a faraway city, more than twelve hours away by road, and we saw each other so little that every visit was almost an event. The last time I’d had her close I was a kid of fourteen, with my voice only halfway changed.

That summer she came with her parents to spend a month with us. I was in the yard when they got off the bus, and I swear it took me a couple of seconds to recognize her. The girl I remembered had turned into someone else. Light brown skin, a dark mane that fell halfway down her back, big eyes that seemed to be laughing before her mouth did.

She had the body of a fully grown woman: firm hips, generous breasts, long legs that the short shorts barely managed to conceal. She walked as if she knew perfectly well the effect she had, and that threw me off even more.

Up until then, I had always liked fair-haired girls, like something out of a story. Always. But something about Daniela shook me out of place from that very first afternoon. It wasn’t her beauty, exactly. It was the way she kept looking at me one second too long, or the way she laughed with her whole mouth when someone said something stupid. Something I still couldn’t name and that was already making me uneasy.

The first few days were a normal family routine. Long meals, walks through the center, my uncles telling the same old jokes, my brothers fighting over the TV remote. Daniela and I hardly talked alone. Sometimes we crossed paths in the kitchen in the morning, her in pajamas, hair tousled, and me trying with all my might not to look at her more than I should.

Things changed in the second week, on a night of heat that never seemed to end. My uncles had gone out with my parents to have dinner at some friends’ house. We cousins were left alone in my room, with the windows open, playing cards and drinking a warm soda because the fridge couldn’t do any more than it already had. Marcos, my younger cousin, was there, Sofía, his sister, Daniela, and me.

By around two in the morning, Marcos and Sofía had both collapsed, one on the floor and the other sprawled across the sofa bed in the corner. Daniela and I were still awake, sitting on the floor, leaning against my bed. Music was still playing softly. A wind came in through the window carrying the smell of a storm far away.

We started talking about different things. Whether I had a girlfriend, whether she had a boyfriend, what people were like in her city, my plans for university. Every answer came with a longer smile than the last. At some point, without really knowing how, the two of us ended up sitting on the bed, covered by the same thin sheet, talking almost in whispers so as not to wake the others.

—You’re taller —she said, and brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead with the tip of her fingers.

I felt my face burn. I didn’t know what to say. Her fingers slid down a little, to my neck, and stayed there longer than an innocent caress had any right to.

This isn’t right, this isn’t right, this isn’t right.

But I didn’t move. And neither did she.

We looked into each other’s eyes for a very long time. Then I dropped my gaze to her mouth, she dropped hers to mine, and as if someone had silently counted to three, we kissed. It wasn’t a timid kiss. It had all the hunger of all those years built up inside it, and I answered with the same urgency, with the clumsiness of a boy who had only kissed three girls in his life.

Daniela was two years older than me. To me she wasn’t just a beautiful woman in my bed. She was an older woman, experienced, and on top of that she was my cousin. My head was spinning. Every kiss from her was at once the most forbidden and the most natural thing I had ever felt.

***

My hands started moving on their own. I caressed her back over her T-shirt, then under it. Her skin was cool despite the heat. I kissed her neck, her jaw, the hollow behind her ear, and she tipped her head back, letting out a small, muffled sigh almost in my ear.

—Slowly —she told me—, they’re right there.

Marcos was snoring softly a few feet away. Sofía hadn’t moved. The music kept playing. I slid my hands to Daniela’s T-shirt and started lifting it very slowly. She sat up a little to help me. When I pulled the garment over her head, I saw for the first time those breasts that had stolen my sleep for a whole week. They were huge for her body, round, with dark, hard nipples. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

—Don’t just stand there —she whispered, laughing.

I kissed her again and went down to her chest. I ran my tongue over one nipple, kissed it, bit it very gently, and she bit her lip to keep from making a sound. With my other hand I stroked the other one, squeezed it carefully, played with the tip between my thumb and forefinger. Daniela grabbed my hair hard, pressed my head against her, set the rhythm for me.

At one point she switched breasts without saying a word, just guiding me with her hand. I obeyed gladly. I was harder than I had ever been. I was wearing thin cotton shorts and it showed everything. She noticed too. She lowered one hand and rested it over the fabric, without moving it, just leaving it there, as if measuring me. Then she started stroking me very slowly, up and down, and a moan escaped me so softly even I didn’t hear it.

—Ssh —she said, with that smile again.

***

Then Daniela did something I didn’t expect. She sat up, took off the lycra shorts she was wearing —she had nothing underneath, I could tell by the way the fabric gave— and straddled me, still with my shorts on. I propped myself on my elbows, breathless. For a moment, before the sheet covered us again, I saw her whole body outlined against the yellow streetlight.

She started moving. Slowly at first, then harder. I could feel her heat through the fabric of the shorts, a hot wetness that ran from the base to the tip. I grabbed her hips to keep the rhythm, but she had her own and it was much faster, much more urgent than anything I had imagined.

—Don’t squeeze me so hard —she murmured, her breathing broken—. Let me move.

I obeyed, though it was hard. She leaned over me and kissed me with her mouth open, swallowing my gasps. Her hips kept working over my crotch, pushing and releasing in a brutal friction that emptied my head out completely. My hands searched for any part of her I could grab: her waist, her back, her firm ass under my fingers, the taut thighs that stood out every time she went up and down.

With one of the movements, my cock shifted a little and brushed something softer between her legs. It felt like it was going to tear through the fabric of her shorts. A heat shot through my head and stole my breath, a soft, wet pressure that only lasted a couple of seconds. I pressed my hands against her hips to keep her there, to keep her from moving, to stretch that instant as long as possible.

Daniela let out a rough cry, louder than either of us had expected. I panicked. I thought Marcos would wake with a start. But no one moved. She stayed still on top of me, trembling, her forehead resting on my shoulder, breathing fast. Small spasms ran through her whole body, and each one hit me like a jolt.

—Fuck —she murmured at last—. That’s never happened to me like that before.

She laughed, still trembling. She laughed in my ear and I understood nothing and everything all at once.

I pushed her away just enough to look at her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth wet and parted, her eyes shining with pure desire. I ran my thumb over her lower lip and she sucked it for a second, slowly, as if she wanted to taste that gesture too. Then she dropped her gaze to my crotch and let out a short exhale.

—Don’t tell me you’re already like this —she whispered—. I’ve barely touched you.

She kissed me again, and this time her hands went down without shame. She slipped her fingers under the edge of my shorts and pulled my cock out in one smooth tug, without ceremony, as if she’d been doing it her whole life. I went rigid, my breath caught in my throat. She gave a satisfied little laugh when she noticed how hard I was, and started stroking me at a slow pulse, sliding from the base to the tip, squeezing right where it made me tremble the most.

—You’ve got such a nice cock —she said, pressing her lips to my ear—. You don’t know how badly I wanted you.

That finished me off. I couldn’t speak. I just looked at her with my mouth open, feeling the obscene, perfect, brutally slow way she handled me with her hand. Every time she squeezed a little harder, my hips sought the movement on their own. Daniela noticed and smiled in that way of hers, as if she loved having me like that, helpless, drooling for her.

—Tell me you like it —she ordered.

—Yes —I answered at last, out of breath.

—Louder.

—Yes, I like it.

—What do you like?

I swallowed. Marcos kept snoring. Sofía rolled over on the sofa bed and went still again. The room seemed suspended, with that heavy heat that leaves your skin shining.

—Your hand —I said—. And your mouth.

Daniela looked at me with open hunger. She leaned down and licked the tip of my cock, just a little, just enough to tear a moan out of me that I had to smother against her shoulder. Then she took me in her hand again, firmer this time, and jerked me off right in front of her own face, never taking her eyes off mine for a second. I could see her wetting her lips, breathing through her nose, enjoying every jolt of mine as if it were fuel.

—That’s it —she whispered—. That’s how I like it. Hold on.

I couldn’t hold on to anything anymore. My thighs were trembling, my abdomen, my jaw. Daniela leaned in again, but this time not to kiss me: she rested her forehead against my chest and started moving over me again, rubbing insistently against my erection, with a savage rhythm, not a trace of tenderness. The wetness between her legs stuck to my shorts, to the head of my cock, to every sensitive patch of skin that made me lose control.

—More —she panted—. Don’t stop. Fuck, don’t stop.

I dug my fingers into her hips and helped her drive herself against me, going up and down with her, feeling my cock thud and sink into the wet flesh of her sex through the fabric. The friction became unbearable. Every thrust wrung a spasm from me, every gasp from her pushed me a little closer to the edge. Daniela had her face buried in my neck, and I could feel her hot breath, her teeth grazing my skin, the pressure of her breasts against my chest.

—I’m going to make you come —she told me, hoarse, and that made me lose my mind completely.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I only remember starting to tense up, gripping her ass with both hands, and her, noticing it, moving even faster, tightening the rhythm like a trap. I pulled her toward me so hard I nearly made her fall sideways. The sheet tangled around our legs, the bed creaked softly, and my whole body went rigid all at once.

Then I came.

The orgasm hit me violently, spasm after spasm, hot and thick, staining the inside of my shorts, soaking into her through the fabric and leaving me breathless. I bit my arm to keep from making a sound, but a broken, animal noise still escaped me, pure release. Daniela kept moving while I trembled beneath her, guiding my hand until I also felt her come apart in small shudders.

—That’s it, just like that —she murmured—. Just like that, my boy.

When she finally stopped, she remained motionless on top of me, breathing unevenly, her chest rising and falling hard. I was still dazed, my whole body burning, and even so I wanted her more than before. She kissed me on the mouth, a long kiss, with a smile hidden inside it. Then she sat up, picked up her T-shirt from the floor, and before running out of the room she whispered in my ear:

—Tomorrow don’t you dare act like nothing happened when you look at me.

She left barefoot, in silence, and closed the door slowly. Marcos was still snoring as if the whole world hadn’t just come crashing down over his head.

I stayed there staring at the ceiling, the sheet stuck to my body, unable to truly believe what had just happened. My face was burning, my heart was racing, my hands still carrying the smell of her skin.

That was the first night. There were others, in other places, in other circumstances, during the rest of that summer. But none of them resemble, in my head, the first one. There are things that only happen once and only one way.

That faraway stormy night, with my little cousins asleep a few feet away, was for me the end of childhood and the beginning of something I’ve never known how to name. What happened on the trip to the coast, two weeks later, is another story. And I’m still not sure I want to tell it.