Taboo

She didn’t teach me out of love. She taught me because no one else was going to, and because, deep down, it was what we both needed.

His hand was where it shouldn’t have been, and my voice was whispering things no son should hear. But neither of us wanted to stop.

When he hugged me from behind and I felt his body against mine, we both knew it had a name no one dared to say aloud.

Valeria was twenty-five, my father’s wife, and she looked at me as if she didn’t know whether to hate me or devour me. I didn’t know either.

She showed him the photos with a nervous smile. It took him three seconds to understand what he was looking at, and three more to decide he wasn’t going to stop.

We had spent three months coordinating every detail. When Diego opened the door and I saw his mother behind him, I knew there was no turning back for any of us four.

I came home from university exhausted and flopped onto the bed without even taking off my shoes. I don’t know how long I slept. When I opened my eyes, he was already sitting beside me.

I subscribed without thinking. It was her face, her body, her voice. And I, her father, couldn’t look away from the screen.

Nadia arrived that morning with a bag of soft drinks and very short jeans. We hadn’t been alone together in years. I didn’t know that was about to change.

It was late, we were alone at home, and Mom began talking about something she never should have told us. By the time I wanted to stop her, I no longer wanted her to stop.

We lived in the same apartment, naked, unable to touch each other. He looked at me as if he meant to devour me. A month of abstinence before he earned it.

Marcos was crying with rage in that adjustable bed, convinced he would never feel a woman again. I locked the door and took off my clothes.

We’d been locked up for days when the conversation turned dangerous. His confession in the dark ended with my hands on him.

At three in the morning I went to the bathroom with her smell still on my skin, and when I came back to bed I saw a slit of light under the door across the hall. Someone was watching us.

When my mother called to say she’d be alone that weekend, I had no idea what she had planned for me that night.

When night falls in this house, I turn off the light in his room, close the door, and stop being only his mother to become something more.

I’d been tossing and turning for two hours. I knew he was sleeping three doors down, and that night, for the first time, I couldn’t pretend.

When I covered her with the blanket and my hand brushed the curve of her hip, I knew it would take me a long time to pull it away.

When I went down to the garage, Valeria was waiting for me in leather pants and a smile that was anything but maternal.

She got on my bike in that tight leather outfit and told me to go slow. But neither of us wanted to go slow that night.