The Dawn When Everything Changed with My Mother

There are images you don’t think, you feel them in your blood. They stay engraved like a scar that burns every time I close my eyes or hear the shower running on the other side of the wall. I had just turned eighteen and had the clumsy urgency of a boy who only wanted to go down to the street and kick a ball around with the guys from the building.

I burst into her room, shouting, looking for the sneakers she always kept in the closet so the apartment wouldn’t be a mess. Adriana, my mother, had just come out of the bathroom. She had her back to me, completely naked, drying her brown hair with a small towel. The sight stopped my heart: the whiteness of her back speckled with freckles, the broad curve of her hips, the weight of firm breasts peeking out from the side.

She turned when she heard the door slam. She didn’t scream or scold me. She brought the towel to her chest, covering herself halfway, with that disarming naturalness that has always defined her. Her green eyes looked at me with a calm that made me feel more like an intruder than a son.

—Come on, Mateo, get your sneakers and let me get dressed —she said in a soft voice, not a trace of anger—. And next time knock before you come in, okay? You’re not little anymore.

I nodded like an idiot, grabbed the sneakers, and left almost stumbling. But in that second before she covered herself, my eyes had already done their work. That afternoon I didn’t look for my friends. I locked myself in my room, turned the latch, and with my pulse racing, I touched myself thinking about her for the first time in my life. I thus inaugurated a ritual of desire and secrecy that I would repeat in the dark a thousand more times.

***

From then on, my life became a silent hunt. Every time Adriana crossed the hallway with that freedom of hers, every time the smell of her gardenia soap flooded the house, my body reacted with a dark loyalty that made me feel disgust and hunger at the same time. But the worst part wasn’t seeing her. The worst part was hearing her.

The walls of our apartment in Escandón were made of paper, a joke of architecture that forced me to bear witness to her entire life. During those years I saw a procession of mediocre men parade by: the gym guy who smelled of stale sweat, the “licenciado” with cheap flowers, the architect who thought he owned the world. I hated them all with a hot bile that rose up my throat.

My hatred, however, was a trap. As soon as her bedroom door closed and the dull rhythm of the headboard against the wall began, my fury turned into uncontrollable arousal. I stayed still in my bed, in the dark, ear pressed to the wall, listening to how she gave herself over. And my hand moved with desperate violence, replacing in my head the man who was with her. I didn’t want her to stop; I wanted her to scream louder.

I became an expert in her sonic geography. I recognized the exact moment she came, that breaking point where her mother’s voice disappeared and out came the woman who had marked me years before.

***

By the time I turned twenty-two, soccer and genetics had given me a lean but solid body, skin browned by afternoon pickup games, and a height that finally let me look straight into those green eyes that seemed to swallow the light.

She, at forty-one, was in the full bloom of her lushness, more confident in her power, with curves that seemed to grow on purpose to fill every corner of the apartment. Adriana had always been excessively affectionate. For her, physical boundaries didn’t exist: she would hug me from behind while I washed the dishes, give me noisy kisses on the cheek, sit so close on the couch that I felt the heat of her thighs through her clothes.

—My Mateo —she would say, wrapping me in a long hug, pressing her chest against my back—. What am I going to do the day you run off with some old hag? I’ll die of sadness.

I would stay rigid, fists clenched, breathing in the scent of her hair and that trail of gardenias. She did it out of love, or that’s what I wanted to believe. For me, every hug was a jolt that reminded me how fragile my self-control was. I had tried to cure myself with girls my own age, smooth bodies without history, but while I kissed them I would close my eyes and all I could see were freckles. When it was over I felt empty, nailed to the woman waiting for me at home for dinner.

***

It was World Cup season and the city was boiling. That Friday Adriana came home from the office in a green linen dress that took my sleep away; it clung to her hips in an almost obscene way. We bought beer to stay awake, because the national team’s match was in the middle of the night and we wanted to watch it with our tongues loosened by alcohol.

At midnight she went to change so she could be “comfortable” and came out in a gray cotton pajama set, loose pants and low rise. The fabric hung on her, but on her body any garment took on a different weight. When she stretched over the breakfast bar to reach another beer, the shirt rode up her back and, where the pants gave way to gravity, I saw the deep line of her ass, a border of white freckled skin that I devoured from the couch.

We watched the match shouting. When the goal came, she jumped on me and I felt the weight of her breasts crushing against my chest. By the final whistle we had finished the beers and tiredness had mixed with the heat of the alcohol.

—Mateo, my legs hurt all the way to the soul —she said, letting out a long yawn, and without waiting for an answer she put her legs up on my lap—. Come on, give me a little massage, don’t be stingy.

I started with her feet and worked up through her calves. My hands got lost in the softness of her flesh and she let out an “mmm” that reminded me of the moans through the wall. Lying on her side, with her legs heavy over me, her calves were right above my crotch. With every press of my fingers, my erection, already hard as a rock, pushed against them.

There was no way she couldn’t feel it. And she didn’t move away. She didn’t make a fuss or adjust the pajamas that kept slipping. On the contrary, she let more of her leg weight fall onto me, sinking into my bulge with a slowness that was driving me crazy. That night I lay staring at the ceiling, wondering if she, on the other side of the wall, was also touching herself thinking about the same thing.

***

The next day we went to Susana’s birthday, her best friend’s. The terrace smelled of grilled meat and tequila shots never stopped circulating. Adriana was the queen of the gathering, in a floral dress that clung to her bust. Her friends had watched me grow up; they remembered me as the kid with braces. That afternoon tequila changed their perspective.

—Damn, Adriana! When did Mateo get this hot? —Susana blurted out, running her eyes over me and leaving me naked under my T-shirt.

My mother let out a little laugh, but it wasn’t the laugh of a proud mother. It was something sharper, more territorial. She immediately hooked her arm through mine, pressing her chest against my shoulder.

—It’s soccer, Susi. The boy spends all his time on the pitch —she said, winking at me—. But don’t you all try to steal him away, he still lives with his mommy.

Every time one of her friends got too close to me on the dance floor, Adriana would cut in with some excuse and pull me back to the table. She loved watching them melt over the boy she had at home, but her hands became more possessive on my skin with every passing minute. I was not just her son: I was the prize every woman wanted to touch and the one only she would take home at the end of the night.

***

We got back after eleven, with alcohol clouding our judgment. In the cab she fell asleep on my shoulder, her hot breath burning my neck.

—I don’t want to sleep alone, Mateo —she whispered in the hallway, swaying—. Everything’s spinning. Stay with me, okay?

We ended up in her bed. The pretext was taking care of her. She took off her dress clumsily, dizzy, staying in a tank top and underwear, and we fell asleep wrapped around each other, a knot of limbs and tequila breath.

I woke up with light filtering through the curtains. My young, treacherous body knew nothing of kinship: I had an iron erection pressing against her ass. She was sleeping on her side, with her back to me, and my cock was looking for its place in that hot curve. I stayed motionless, enjoying the forbidden contact. Suddenly Adriana stretched like a cat and, instead of moving away, pushed her hips back, sinking more firmly against me. She let out a small sigh and stayed like that, trapping me. I didn’t know whether she was still asleep or whether it was the next move in the game we had started on the couch.

Minutes later she got up, her voice rough from the hangover, and shuffled toward the kitchen to make coffee. I stayed there with my skin burning and my mind fixed on the feel of her ass against me. I needed to get all that electricity out, so I locked myself in the bathroom. I didn’t turn the lock: in our house, with her relaxed attitude, locks had always been optional. That morning was my sentence.

I closed my eyes and summoned her image: the neckline of the floral dress, the weight of her breasts in the hug the night before. My hand was moving furiously when the door opened with a soft creak.

—Hey, Mateo, have you seen the pills for the fla…?

I froze. Adriana was in the doorway, a steaming mug in her hand, her green eyes dropping straight to my hand just as I lost control. The silence was absolute. Shame hit like a hard blow to the stomach.

But she didn’t scream or shut the door. She stayed leaning in the frame, taking a slow sip of coffee, watching me with a cynical calm that scared me more than any scolding could have.

—Well, Mateo —she said, her voice rougher than usual—. Looks like Susana’s friends left you with a lot of homework. Clean that up, come on, I don’t want to be stepping in your filthy mess.

And she turned around as if nothing had happened.

***

The following days were a war of loaded silences. I avoided looking her in the eye, though my pupils always ended up betraying me. Then came the early-morning kickoff of the big match, the clash against the group’s powerhouse. The alarm went off in the middle of the night and we got up with swollen eyes but adrenaline through the roof.

Adriana appeared in the living room wearing an oversized national team T-shirt made of thick cotton. Since she wasn’t wearing a bra, the fabric yielded under the weight of her breasts, outlining her nipples in a way that forced me to look away every three seconds. Below, she was only wearing white cotton panties, the kind with a high rise that on her forty-one-year-old body turned into something divine.

—Don’t you want a little kick in your coffee, Mateo? —she asked, pouring a shot of rum into both mugs—. It’s vacation and it’s the World Cup. Besides, you’ve been really tense since Monday. Don’t think I didn’t notice.

I felt the blood rush to my face. She walked over to the couch and, with a naturalness that left me speechless, sat on the floor between my legs, leaning her back against my knees.

—Give me a little shoulder massage, okay? —she asked—. We’re winning today.

My hands settled on her hot shoulders while the rum began to erase morality and shame. The match was a chaos of nerves and, every time the national team approached the opponent’s box, Adriana tensed under my hands and let herself fall more heavily against my knees.

Then the goal came. An impossible cross, a header into the top corner, and the whole house roared with us.

—Goal! —we shouted in unison.

Adriana jumped up from the floor and threw herself on me, wrapping her arms around my neck, half-straddling my legs. The shirt rode up to her ribs and her white belly pressed against my chest. She didn’t move away after the shout. She stayed there, astride me, her thighs around my hips, her weight both a blessing and a torture.

—That striker is a genius —she whispered, but her hands slid from my shoulders to my chest—. Though you’re doing pretty well too, son. You almost made me forget we’re watching the World Cup.

The other team tied it near the end and she turned violently, burying her face in my neck, pressing her crotch, protected only by white cotton, against my frantic hard-on. When the final whistle blew and the national team qualified, the TV kept on, ignored. Adriana lifted her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her green eyes were clouded by something that had nothing to do with soccer anymore. She looked at my mouth.

—Good thing we made it through, Mateo —she whispered, and closed the distance.

She kissed me. It wasn’t a good-morning kiss or a brush on the cheek. Her lips, hot and tasting of rum, settled on mine with a soft but determined pressure. It was slow, wet, with nothing maternal about it: the kiss of a woman who knew perfectly well the fire she was starting and had no intention of putting it out.

—Shhh —she hushed me when I tried to speak, moving her hips in slow circles over me—. Now you’re going to take care of me, the way I took care of you when you were little.

That sentence blew apart the last scraps of my sanity. For the first time in years I stopped being a spectator. My hands, suspended in the air by fear and reverence, finally came down and closed over her hips. Her skin was boiling. My fingers sank into the firmness of her flesh, and the contrast hit me: my sun-browned hands encircling that pale whiteness I had only seen in dreams.

—That’s it —she panted, arching her back, letting her hair brush my forehead—. Lower your hands more, don’t be scared of them.

I obeyed. My palms filled with the roundness of her ass and I squeezed with an urgency that made her moan. Through the taut fabric I felt her wetness, a warm, steady trace that burned my skin.

—Don’t think I didn’t see how Susana’s friends were eating you up with their eyes —she murmured into my ear, her voice loaded with a lust that made my bones vibrate—. Don’t think I didn’t feel your cock between my ass cheeks that morning. And the bathroom? Do you think I didn’t get turned on seeing you? I know you’ve desired me for years, Mateo, and I’m not naïve. I love knowing you desire me even though I’m your mother.

Her words were gasoline. The secret that had been burning me since that afternoon when I was eighteen was right there, exposed under the gray light of dawn. I pulled her against me with a new fury, she ground herself harder against me, and we let the house fill with the only score that truly mattered to us. What happened after that had no witnesses but the paper walls that had tormented me for so long.

From that dawn on, the Escandón apartment was never again the innocent place I remembered. And neither of us ever wanted it to be.