Taboo

I wanted him from my first lovers and never dared to tell him. That afternoon, in front of his camera, I discovered my brother had been holding the same thing back for years.

He showed up at the door unannounced, looking for a fight and carrying a bottle under his arm. By three in the morning, nothing I knew about him was true anymore.

When the car wash brushes erased the world outside, my sister leaned over the seat, moved my hair from my forehead, and whispered something I could no longer ignore.

I’d been in a coma for a month when a warm hand slipped under the sheet in the dead of night. Only when I opened my eyes did I learn who had decided to wake me.

At two in the morning I went downstairs barefoot for a glass of water and heard them arguing in low voices about me, with that married-couple tone.

I came home early with the image of my freshly showered sister-in-law Renata stuck in my head. An hour later, she knocked on my door wrapped in a robe.

I thought I was home alone. The key in the lock came too late, and when I lifted my head from the sofa, she’d already seen me.

I went into my room and found her naked in a corner, masturbating while she watched me. She said nothing. Neither did I. I just sat down in front of her.

Nine months of failed independence sent her back to her father’s house, to Carmen’s rules and Marcos’s gaze, which from day one made her feel things she shouldn’t.

Valeria sat between Matías and me without asking permission. When she turned her face toward me with that smile, I understood we’d been avoiding the inevitable for years.

Her cold hands moved slowly over a place no hand should have gone. I didn’t make a sound. But something broke that afternoon, and nothing was ever quite the same.

She had been sad for days since her boyfriend left her. I sat beside her on the sofa with no clear intention. But she rested her head on my shoulder and everything changed.

I put the coffee on the table, we started talking, and the last thing I remember is sleep overtaking me. When I woke up, I was tied hand and foot.

The doctor was clear: seven days of treatment. My mother, a nurse by profession, said she’d take care of it herself. I had no idea what that meant.

When my sister whispered in my ear what she really wanted, I knew neither of us could keep pretending it didn’t exist.

In the restaurant I told her to act like my girlfriend. She switched chairs slowly. Neither of us said what that meant.

When I suggested to Valeria that she share my boyfriend and my brother, she was left speechless. What happened next in the dungeon was impossible to forget.

I pushed the door open, holding my breath. He was asleep on his side, the sheet fallen to his waist. If I left then, nothing had happened. I didn’t leave.

We’d spent months sharing something forbidden between siblings. That afternoon, while she told me everything with her hands busy, the camera revealed something that would change everything.

When I took her hands in the car, in front of the square, she already knew where I was taking her. I was still pretending I didn’t know.