Taboo

Thirty-two degrees, the child asleep, and only one deck between them. When she asked what he wanted to bet, he answered with the one thing he’d spent the whole week not daring to say.

Marisol thought her son was only watching his cousin. But that night, in the same dress and with the same curves, she learned the real temptation was her.

It was three in the morning when I heard the key in the lock. I hid behind the curtain, never imagining what my mother would let them do a meter away from me.

He came to my room to confront me about what happened on Saturday, but what he confessed afterward left me breathless: he had seen everything, and he liked it.

The taxi disappeared in the dust and, on the porch, the grandparents waited with open arms. No one imagined that welcome embrace would change everything.

For months he’d pretended her uniform didn’t affect him. That afternoon, with her thigh bandaged and his hands trembling on her skin, he knew he couldn’t hold back anymore.

For four days the little paper with his number burned in my pocket. Every night I remembered that wetness dripping out, and I knew I was going to call.

For days I’d been imagining that weekend: every order, every punishment, every broken limit. I wrote it all in one message and hit send without thinking twice.

I crossed the room with my heart racing, knelt beside her, and knew that after that night my mother would stop seeing me as the little girl of the house.

They had shared the same room since childhood, and she watched her sleep every night. That morning, when her aunt let the towel fall in front of the mirror, she knew she could no longer keep pretending.

When I felt my sleeping son’s body pressed against my back that dawn, I did not move away. Something older than me chose for me, and I knew I no longer wanted to stop it.

He had been sleeping pressed against her back for a week to soothe the baby. A week of pretending not to notice what was happening between them in the dark.

My mother got up from the chair, kissed me on the mouth, and without saying a word slid her hand under my pajamas. Only then did I understand what my parents had agreed to during the night.

As soon as I heard her keys fighting the lock, I knew I’d have to play it cool. What I didn’t know was that she’d come home determined not to let me off the hook.

She stood in front of her bedroom door, holding her breath. One step more and reason would have burned away between us.

I left my father’s villa for my grandparents’ house in the village. I had no idea my aunt, the most devout woman in town, would end up naked in my bed for an envelope full of bills.

Her mother called me a dreamer, her father humiliated me by the car. When it was over, Helena came down the stairs, took my hand, and led me to her room.

My niece climbed into my bed with an indecent proposal, and I never imagined my son would be spying on us from the hallway door.

It was six forty. She checked her watch, asked me to stop beside the alley, and before I could ask anything, she was already kissing me.

I joked that she should sleep with me that night. I never imagined that after midnight, my bedroom door would actually open.