My Sister Came Back from the Club Without Underwear

The door opened with a sharp bang that had nothing to do with its usual familiarity. It wasn’t the soft sound of every night, but something abrupt, almost desperate, followed by the metallic screech of a forced lock. I got up from the couch where I was pretending to watch a movie, and a strange unease ran down my back.

It was Saturday and the house was empty except for me. My parents had gone to the coast for the weekend with some friends, and Lucía, my younger sister, had left early. She always moved with that slightly awkward grace she’d had since she was a kid, a warmth in her gait that was impossible to hide. That night, though, she could barely stay on her feet.

She came in and stopped in the doorway, as if the door were the only thing holding her together. Her hair, that dark cascade she always wore perfectly, fell in a mess over her shoulders, strands stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her makeup, usually subtle, was a disaster: the mascara had drawn two black rivers down her pale cheeks.

She was wearing a black dress, short and tight, made of a shiny fabric that was now wrinkled. She smelled of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and something else, heavy, that I couldn’t identify at first.

She slammed the door shut, making the pictures tremble, and sank back against the wood, head thrown back and eyes closed. She was breathing in ragged bursts, mouth open, as if she had just run for hours.

—Luchi, are you okay? —I asked, coming closer carefully. My voice came out lower than I wanted.

She opened her eyes slowly. They were two glassy wells, lost somewhere on the wall behind me. She didn’t answer. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor, legs apart, in a defeated posture that wasn’t like her at all.

—Where were you? —I managed to say, my throat tight.

At last she looked me in the eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek and took some of the smudged mascara with it.

—At a club —she murmured. Her voice came out rough, broken. She rubbed her face with her hands and made the mess worse—. I went dancing.

I knelt in front of her, not knowing what to do. I wanted to hug her, calm her, but something murky was rising in my chest, and I had trouble recognizing it.

—And what happened? Why are you coming back like this?

She paused so long I thought she wouldn’t answer. She lowered her gaze to her own legs, as if only then noticing how exposed she was.

—I was bored —she said at last, flatly—. I wanted to dance, feel the music, lose myself for a while. I had a couple of drinks and loosened up. I started moving, sweating. People were looking at me. They always look at me.

She stopped and ran her tongue over her dry lips.

—Two guys showed up. I don’t know where they came from. One tall, in a leather jacket. The other shorter, broad, with a beard. They came over when I was dancing alone and, without saying anything, they surrounded me.

My stomach twisted. I felt a hot, bitter knot in my throat. I kept listening, hypnotized, as if she were telling me someone else’s story, even though every word had to do with her, with my own blood.

—The guy in the jacket put a hand on my waist —Lucía went on, her voice a little steadier—. The other stayed behind, pressed against me, and I felt his breath on the back of my neck. I started dancing between the two of them. They squeezed me, pushed me from one to the other. I could have left. I didn’t leave.

She closed her eyes, reliving the scene. Her breathing sped up again.

—They took me to a dark corner, near the bathrooms. There was hardly any light there. The guy in the jacket kissed me. A brutal kiss, tongue, everything. While he was kissing me, the other one lifted my dress from behind and squeezed my ass with both hands. He told me in my ear that I was hot, that it showed.

A shiver went through me, a mix of discomfort and something I was ashamed to name. Without realizing it, I clenched my legs together.

—And you…? —I asked, and I couldn’t finish the sentence.

She opened her eyes and looked at me with an intensity that burned.

—Me what? —she said, with a tired half-smile—. You want to know if I liked it? I did. I loved feeling wanted like that, like I was the only thing that existed in that corner. I let go. For once I wasn’t the proper girl everyone expects. Does that bother you?

Her words hit me like a blow. I didn’t move. I needed to hear the rest. I needed, for some twisted reason, to know that part of my sister I had never seen.

—The bearded one knelt down —she continued, in a whisper, like someone telling a dirty secret—. He parted my legs with his knee and started touching me. I was wet. I don’t know if it was the drinks, the music, or the situation. He slid his fingers inside me slowly, then faster, while the other guy was kissing my neck. I came right there, standing up against the wall, biting my hand so I wouldn’t scream.

My own breathing had grown heavy. I felt a guilty tension building in my body, a heat that seemed monstrous to me and that I couldn’t put out.

—Then they took turns —she said, and her voice trembled just a little—. First one, then the other. I let them. I was between them, held up against that cold wall, and for a while I didn’t think about anything. Not Mom, not Dad, not you. Only that music covering everything and my body making its own decisions.

She fell silent, staring at me hard, with a glimmer of a tear that never quite fell.

—When they were done, they pulled up their pants and left without looking at me —she went on, almost inaudibly—. They left me there, wrecked, leaning against the wall. I fixed my dress as best I could, looked for my underwear on the floor and couldn’t find it. I lost it in some corner of that shitty club. I walked a few blocks and took a taxi. And here I am.

***

The silence after her confession was thick, almost solid. I could hear my own heart beating in my ears. The room smelled of her: sweat, someone else’s perfume, an entire night condensed into her skin. I looked at her there on the floor, disheveled, stained, telling me about her surrender with a frankness that undid me.

And in the middle of the shock, I couldn’t help it: I was hard. It was a sick, dark arousal that filled me with shame. Her story had set me on fire in a way I didn’t dare admit even to myself.

I got up slowly, my legs numb, and stood in front of her. Lucía was still on the floor, looking at me with eyes that were defiant and pleading at the same time.

—Get up —I told her. My voice came out low, loaded with a tension I didn’t recognize as my own.

She obeyed me. She stood, trembling, bracing herself against the wall. Her body was a map of the night: wrinkled dress, smeared mascara, messy hair. She looked at me and understood, before I did, what was happening between us.

—And you? —she asked, very softly—. Are you disgusted? Angry?

I looked her straight in the eye. It made no sense to lie to her.

—I’m turned on —I confessed—. Turned on by you. By what you did. By what you just told me.

Something changed in her face. Toughness mixed with a soft surprise, almost relief. She took a step toward me.

—You’re a mess, little brother —she whispered, and there was no reproach in it, only a kind of recognition—. Just like me.

I took her by the arm and pulled her toward me. I kissed her without thinking, and she kissed me back immediately, opening her mouth for me, clutching my T-shirt as if afraid I might change my mind. The kiss tasted of alcohol, cigarettes, and something forbidden that clouded me completely.

I half-stumbled my way to my room with her, never leaving her mouth. I pushed her onto the bed and she fell onto her back, looking up at me with burning eyes. Her dress had ridden up. She did nothing to pull it down.

—Come here —she said, holding out her hand.

I stripped off my clothes with clumsy hands and lay down on top of her. Her skin was burning. I brushed the hair out of her face and looked at her for a long moment, giving her one last chance to stop everything. She didn’t take it. She dug her nails into my back and arched her hips against mine.

I entered her slowly, holding back, feeling every inch. Lucía let out a deep moan and closed her eyes. I kissed her neck as I moved, first slowly, then with a rhythm that grew on its own, driven by all the anger and all the confused desire I felt for her.

—Like that —she gasped into my ear—. Don’t stop.

I rolled her over, laid her on her back again, and held her wrists against the mattress. I wanted to see her face. I wanted her to know it was me, that this was different from what had happened in the club, that this was ours even if it had no name.

—Look at me —I asked her—. Look at me.

She opened her eyes and didn’t look away. We moved together, in sync, her breathing mixing with mine. The bed hit the wall lightly. She bit her lip to keep from screaming, and every so often she failed.

—Don’t let go of me —she said, her voice trembling—. Stay.

I felt her tense all at once, her whole body arched, her legs closing around my waist. She came with a muffled cry, digging her fingers into my arms. Seeing her like that, coming apart under me, dragged me over the edge too. I pulled out in time and finished on her belly, gasping, my forehead resting on her shoulder.

***

We stayed silent for a long while. Then I lay down beside her and held her tightly. She smelled of the whole night and, now, of me too. The room still hung heavy with that dense air, a mix of sweat and something neither of us would be able to explain the next day.

I propped myself up on one elbow to look at her. The ruined dress, the eyes finally calm, fixed on the ceiling.

—Are you okay? —I asked quietly.

She turned her head slowly. She no longer had the lost look from the beginning. Now there was a strange calm in her, almost relief.

—I don’t know —she said—. I feel empty and full at the same time. It’s weird. It’s a beautiful piece of shit.

She smiled, neither happily nor sadly, but in pure recognition.

—And you? —she asked—. Do you regret it?

I thought about it for a second. I should have said yes. I should have felt guilt, disgust, fear. I felt some of that, and the opposite too.

—No —I said—. And that’s what scares me the most.

She let out a low, guttural laugh and curled up against my chest.

—Welcome to the club —she murmured—. I’ve always been a mess. Today I decided not to hide it anymore. And it turns out you’re the same.

I stroked her hair slowly, untangling a strand stuck to her cheek. Outside, dawn was beginning to break. The gray light slipped in through the curtains and made me feel like, with morning, all this should evaporate, become impossible. But she was still there, warm against my body, and she wasn’t leaving.

—And now what? —I asked, more to myself than to her.

—Now we sleep —she said, closing her eyes—. We’ll see tomorrow. There are things it’s better not to rush to understand.

I held her a little tighter. I knew nothing was ever going to be the same between us, that we had crossed a line with no way back. I knew it was a mistake, that it was forbidden, that if anyone heard about it nobody would forgive us. And yet, there in bed, hugging my sister as she drifted off to sleep, I couldn’t find a single drop of regret inside me.

I closed my eyes too. Lucía’s breathing grew slow and even. The smell of the night gradually faded away, until only hers remained, the familiar one, the one I’d known since I was a kid. I fell asleep listening to it, with the uncomfortable certainty that, in some twisted way, this was only the beginning of something neither of us was willing to let go of.