Taboo

Three months without seeing each other, and the moment she stepped off the plane I knew something was going to happen. What I didn’t count on was witnesses on the beach that night.

My mother opened the changing room door without warning. What she found on the other side changed everything between us, even if neither of us could name it that afternoon.

They were cousins, they rarely saw each other, and that night they were alone in the living room while everyone slept. Nothing should have happened. Almost nothing did.

We arrived at the hotel as mother and son, pretending to be lovers. By Sunday, there was no pretending left.

She had never been with anyone. I was her cousin. What began as a family gathering ended at dawn when she whispered that she had been waiting for me all night.

His parents had an open marriage and a reputation for being perverts. When he asked for help with his final project, he never imagined they’d make him part of the script.

Forty-five years old, a growing belly, and a chastity device my own daughter controls from across the bar. This is my life now.

When she drew the curtain and put my hands on her body, I understood that my cousin had decided that afternoon would change everything between us.

Rodrigo knew stealing his own son’s wife was unforgivable. But when Valentina first looked him in the eye, he understood there was no turning back.

We were doing crunches and then I saw him. He wasn’t my son in that moment, he was a man. And that thought haunted me for days.

I went to drop off a package for my mother-in-law and ended up with my hands on something that wasn’t her ankle. I can’t regret a thing.

When Valeria asked, “When do we start?” with that smile, I knew the night would have no turning back. And I no longer wanted it to.

I was wearing my mother-in-law’s black lingerie when the door opened. Behind Lucía wasn’t just Patricia. My mother was there too.

When my son-in-law walked in that afternoon and saw who I was with, I knew my life would change. I had no idea he would come back three weeks later to collect my silence in my own bed.

I saw him come out of the bathroom with the towel at his waist, and everything changed in an instant: I stopped seeing him as my son and started planning how to make him want me.

That morning Mateo told me something was wrong down there, and without knowing it, he began the quietest and hardest week of my adult life.

The living room camera switched on just as she crossed her legs on the sofa. I only had to watch and wait for my turn.

She came home from the hospital with both arms in plaster up to the elbows. And I discovered, watching how she depended on me, how little I knew how to look at my own mother.

I arrived at the Cancún hotel a day before my sister. Nearly two days alone with her husband: the nudist beach, the lingerie fitting room, the tequila. Something was going to happen.