The Lesson My Parents Should Never Have Given Us

In an apartment in the Albaicín district of Granada lived the Soler family. Marta was thirty-nine, with blond hair that fell to her shoulders and hazel eyes that could hold a conversation without a word. Andrés, her husband, had turned forty-two in March. He was dark-haired, broad-shouldered, one of those men who age better than their youth photos. Their children, Lucía, nineteen, and Mateo, twenty-one, still lived at home: she was finishing her first year of Fine Arts, and he was interning at an architect’s studio in the city center.

It was Sunday. The after-dinner conversation lingered over wine and short silences. Marta was serving coffee when Andrés set his cup on the saucer and looked at his children.

—There’s something your mother and I want to talk to you about —he said.

Lucía looked up. Mateo, about to bite into a piece of sponge cake, set it aside.

—It’s nothing serious —Marta added, smiling faintly—. But you’re both old enough now, and it seems to us no one has ever taught you what really matters.

—What are you talking about? —Mateo asked.

—Sex —Andrés replied bluntly—. How to fuck well. How to enjoy a cock, a cunt, a mouth. Not the template they drew for you in class.

Lucía felt heat rise up her neck. Mateo let out a nervous laugh that died halfway out of him.

—Dad —she said—, this is really weird.

—I know —Andrés answered—. And that’s why we’re going to do it properly, or not at all. If you say no, we drop it and nobody brings it up again. If you say yes, your mother and I will teach you what we know.

Marta watched them without pressing. Her hands rested on the tablecloth, and her rings gleamed against the dark wood.

—I… —Lucía began, then bit her lip.

—I want to know —Mateo said. He said it faster than he meant to, and immediately blushed.

Lucía looked at her brother, then at her parents. She nodded.

—Yes. Me too.

***

Andrés poured another glass of wine and turned to his daughter.

—The first thing you learn isn’t mechanics —he said—. It’s the look. Knowing when someone wants to fuck you before they say it.

He stood up. He went around the table until he reached Lucía. He placed two fingers under her chin and lifted her face gently.

—Look at me —he said—. Don’t blink. Three seconds.

Lucía held his gaze. Her father smelled of red wine and the cologne Marta had given him for his birthday. When he leaned in and kissed her on the lips, it was a short kiss, no tongue, almost paternal. But Lucía’s pulse sped up in a way that frightened her.

—This isn’t a husband-and-wife kiss —Andrés said, pulling back a hand’s width—. It’s only the beginning. But now you know what it feels like when someone decides to kiss you and you decide to let them.

Marta beckoned Mateo over with her hand. Her son rose slowly and walked to her as if he were stepping on glass.

—Same with you, darling —she said, and ran a hand along his neck—. Skin is learned. It starts here.

She kissed him below the ear, in the hollow where the jaw meets the neck. Mateo closed his eyes. Then Marta kissed him on the lips and this time opened his mouth with her tongue, slowly, letting him taste the red wine and the warmth of that mouth that five minutes ago had still been only his mother’s. She held the kiss just long enough for him to understand the difference between the mother who had tucked him in a thousand nights and the woman now teaching him how to kiss the way you kiss a female you’re about to fuck.

—Good —she said, pulling back and wiping his lip with her thumb—. Did you feel it?

Mateo nodded, still not quite opening his eyes. His erection was already pressing hard against his trousers, and Marta looked at it without hiding it.

***

The master bedroom was at the end of the hallway. Andrés switched on the bedside lamp and left the door ajar. There were two chairs facing the bed, the same ones Marta used when she got ready to go out. They had been placed there that very afternoon.

—Sit down —Andrés said—. You’re going to watch. You’re going to learn by watching.

Lucía and Mateo obeyed without a word. The room smelled of the quilt washed that morning and the pine wood of the wardrobe. Marta unbuttoned her dress slowly, one button at a time, and let it slide down to her waist. She had small, firm breasts, with a mole beneath the left one Lucía didn’t remember ever having seen. Her nipples were already hard just from the draft.

—No need to rush —Andrés said, positioning himself behind his wife—. Hurry is what breaks this. Watch how I touch her.

He ran his hands over her hips, her belly, the roots of her breasts. He pinched her nipples between both thumbs, one at a time, and Marta let out a soft moan against his neck. Andrés bit her shoulder, licked the nape of her neck, slipped a hand between her legs over her panties. Marta spread her legs without taking her eyes off her children.

—She’s already wet —he said, in a technical, almost instructional tone—. I got her there with a mouth on her neck, fingers on her nipples, nothing else. That’s what I want you to learn: a woman’s cunt is prepared in advance by everything that isn’t her cunt.

When he pulled her panties all the way down, Marta herself took off the dress from the waist down without breaking eye contact with her children. She stood naked, his hand still between her legs.

—You don’t have to look away —she said—. We’re here so you can learn.

Lucía did not look away. Neither did Mateo. The daughter tried not to look at her brother, and when she did, she found him looking at her.

Andrés undressed next, without ceremony. His cock was already half-hard, thick, the veins standing out against his brown skin. Marta knelt before him without being asked, took the base in her hand, and slid it halfway into her mouth. She ran her tongue under the head, closed her lips, and went down slowly, then up, then down again until the tip reached her throat and she breathed through her nose without pulling away.

—Watch —Andrés said, his voice a little rougher—. It’s not about swallowing as much as possible. It’s about her enjoying doing it. Notice how she breathes. Notice how she grips my balls with her other hand. That’s what gives her away.

Marta spent another long minute on him, sucking, pulling it out to lick the head, then taking it back in whole. When his cock was fully hard, shining with saliva, she stood and lay back on the bed. She spread her legs.

Andrés lay down beside her. He began kissing her neck, her breasts, pausing at each nipple to suck it, to nip it carefully with his teeth. He moved down over her belly. He opened her legs wide with both hands and lowered his head between them. Lucía saw her mother’s cunt with perfect clarity, pink, open, gleaming, and she also saw her father’s tongue licking her from below upward, slowly, two times, three. Marta threw her head back and let out a deep, long moan that had not been forced at all.

—This is the first thing —Andrés said, lifting his head for a moment, his chin wet—. Not penetration. This. That she’s ready, that she wants the cock. When you’re going to fuck her, the mouth comes first. Always.

He lowered his head again. He slipped in two fingers, curving them upward, and kept licking her clit at the same rhythm. Marta clenched the sheets in both fists. Lucía realized that she herself had parted her lips without noticing, and that she was breathing through her mouth.

When Andrés positioned himself over Marta and penetrated her, he did it slowly. Marta received him with a low sound that seemed to rise from her stomach. Andrés moved with a firm, controlled rhythm, going all the way in and pulling out to the tip before driving back in. He spoke in her ear in words Lucía could not fully make out, though she caught an “that’s it, beautiful,” an “open wider,” a “take all the cock.” Marta answered with her body more than her voice, arching against him, seeking his mouth.

They changed positions without breaking eye contact. Marta sat on top. Her blond hair fell over her shoulders and her breasts swayed with each rise. She grabbed her husband’s cock, positioned it properly, and sank down all the way with her eyes closed. Andrés held her hips, set the rhythm from below, lifted and lowered her with both hands. He licked her nipples when she bent over. He gave her a light slap on the ass when she sped up.

—Like that —he told her—. Ride me like that, slut, grind that cunt on me, don’t stop.

In the chair, Mateo had his fists clenched on his knees and his cock was pressing rock-hard against the fabric of his trousers. Lucía could tell because she was looking at him. She also realized she had crossed her legs a while ago and was squeezing her thighs harder than she would admit, and that her cunt was throbbing like its own pulse.

The third position was from behind, with Marta braced on her elbows and knees. Andrés positioned himself behind her. He parted her ass cheeks with both hands and stayed a moment looking, letting his children see their mother’s cunt open, shining, waiting. He spat in his hand, smeared the saliva over his cock, and drove into her in one long thrust. Marta let out a “fuck” that was the loudest thing she said all night. Andrés held her by the waist, then by the hair, yanking it back with a closed fist. He fucked her with long, dry thrusts that shoved her forward on the bed and she pushed back to take the cock even deeper.

—Watch closely —Andrés said, his voice breaking—. That’s how you fuck a woman who wants to be fucked. Not gentle, not brutal. Just how she asks for it.

Marta had her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open, her cheek pressed against the mattress. She slipped a hand between her legs and began rubbing her clit while Andrés kept driving into her. When she came, she did it almost silently, biting her lip, tightening her cunt around her husband’s cock with contractions that could be seen from the chairs. Andrés came a minute later, withdrawing at the last moment and spurting in jets across Marta’s lower back, a thick pool that slid down her side. He stayed like that for a few seconds, cock in hand, breathing hard.

***

There was a long silence. Marta sat up and wiped herself with a towel she had prepared on the nightstand. She covered herself with the sheet to her waist. Her hair was tousled and her face flushed, but her voice came out calm.

—Now you —she said.

Lucía felt breathless.

—What? —Mateo said. The question came out higher than he intended.

—Now you —Marta repeated—. You don’t have to go as far as we did. Whatever you want. Whatever your body asks for. But do it here, where we can guide you if you get stuck.

Andrés sat on the edge of the bed and put on a robe. Marta covered herself with another one. The chairs were still facing the bed, but now they were occupied by the parents.

Lucía and Mateo looked at each other. They had spent nineteen and twenty-one years looking at each other as siblings. The difference between the look from two hours ago and the one at that moment was everything that had happened in that room.

—We don’t have to —Lucía said. She said it without conviction. She said it because she was supposed to say it.

—We don’t have to —Mateo repeated. And as he said it, he held out his hand.

She took it.

***

They began sitting on the edge of the bed, still dressed. Mateo ran a hand over his sister’s cheek. He brushed a lock of hair out of her eye, the same gesture he had repeated a hundred times since she was little. But this time it was followed by a kiss. A kiss without haste, without guilt, with hardly any shame left at all. Lucía opened her mouth and let her brother kiss her the way she had seen her father kiss her mother, with tongue, calmly, searching for her palate.

—Slowly —Andrés said from the chair—. You don’t have to prove anything to her, Mateo. Just listen to her.

Mateo slid down the straps of her dress. Lucía lifted her arms so he could take it off completely. She was wearing a simple white bra, the kind she used so it wouldn’t show under her uniform shirts. Mateo ran his lips over her shoulder, her collarbone, the top of her breast. He unclasped the bra awkwardly and removed it completely. Lucía’s breasts were larger than her mother’s, with small, very pink nipples, already hardened by the cold and whatever else. Mateo stared at them for a full second before lowering his head and taking them into his mouth.

—That’s it —Marta murmured—. Suck them properly. Take your time.

Lucía closed her eyes. Her brother’s tongue circled her nipple, licked it in rings, tugged it with his lips. He moved his other hand over the free breast and pinched it the way she had seen Andrés do to Marta. Lucía let out a short, involuntary moan that frightened her with how much it sounded like her own.

She took her brother’s T-shirt off. She ran her palms over his chest, his shoulders, the dark line running down his belly to the waistband of his trousers. They both laughed soundlessly when Mateo got tangled in his belt. It was a relief to laugh. It dissolved the last layer of panic they had left. When the trousers fell to the floor, Lucía saw her brother’s cock for the first time, already rock-hard, pointing upward, the tip reddened and a bright bead at the slit. It was longer than she had ever once imagined without wanting to imagine it. She took it in her hand, weighed it, squeezed it gently.

—Put it in your mouth —Marta said from the chair, in a low but clear voice—. Only if you want to. But he’ll thank you for it.

Lucía knelt on the rug between her brother’s legs. She ran her tongue over the head first, testing. The taste was salty, dense, a taste of hot skin. She closed her lips over the tip and went down slowly as far as she could. Mateo let out a gasp that came from deep inside him and rested a hand on the back of her neck without pressing. Lucía went up and down, up and down, sucking him the way she had seen her mother do half an hour earlier, trying to remember the technique: tongue underneath, hand at the base, the other on the balls.

—That’s it, Lucía —Andrés said, and his voice was instructional, not aroused—. Let the saliva soak it well. Use your hand to guide it.

Lucía sucked another long minute until Mateo, his voice breaking, told her, “Stop, stop, I’m going to come.” She pulled back, lips shining, and laughed for the first time that night.

—Lie down —he told her, tugging her hand.

She lay back in the same place where her mother had been twenty minutes earlier. Mateo pulled her panties all the way down, tossed them to the floor, and stood looking at his sister’s cunt as if he had just discovered something. Lucía had shaved pubic hair, only a narrow strip of very short blond fuzz. She parted it with two fingers herself, without thinking, because all at once she needed him to look at her.

Mateo settled between her legs and lowered his head. He didn’t do it well at first: he was nervous, his tongue was stiff, he went too low, too deep. But Lucía guided him with her hand. She gripped his head, moved it an inch to the left until he found her clit, set the rhythm with her hips. And when he understood, when he relaxed his tongue and began licking in small circles, she clutched the sheets with both hands and arched her back.

—That’s it —Marta repeated, softly—. Let her tell you. And slip a finger in. Curve it upward, toward the navel.

Mateo obeyed. Lucía felt her brother’s finger enter her, curl, find a spot that made her let out a moan she didn’t recognize as her own. He kept licking her clit at the same time, his face wet. Lucía felt the orgasm rising from her feet and closed her thighs around Mateo’s head without meaning to. She stopped it just before it broke.

—Wait —she said, panting—. Not yet. Come here.

Mateo climbed up to kiss her neck, her mouth, and Lucía tasted herself on his tongue. She felt his erection pressing against her thigh and opened her legs a little wider.

—Are you sure? —he asked, almost a whisper.

—Yes —she said—. But go slowly. It’s the first time that… —and she didn’t finish the sentence.

Mateo held his cock in his hand, ran it up and down between the lips of his sister’s cunt, wetting it, finding the entrance. He entered her with a short movement, pulling back immediately. Then another, a little deeper. Lucía bit her lip. It hurt and it didn’t hurt. It was a new sensation, a full burn, a pressure that opened her, that her mind still didn’t know how to classify. On the third thrust, Mateo sank all the way in. He stayed still once he was fully inside.

—Wait —she told him—. Don’t move.

They waited. She breathed. She could feel her brother’s cock throbbing inside her. When she was ready, she ran her hands over his back and drew him toward her.

—Now.

Mateo moved slowly, watching her face, attentive to every gesture. He entered her fully, withdrew almost completely, entered again. Lucía began letting out short, broken moans that escaped her with each thrust. Andrés spoke quietly from the chair, giving directions Lucía heard without really hearing: “Not faster yet,” “kiss her while you do it,” “lift one leg.” Marta didn’t say anything else for a long while. She only watched, with her robe half-open and one hand lost inside it.

They changed positions once. Lucía got on top, as she had seen her mother do, and let herself sink onto her brother’s cock with her hands braced on his chest. Mateo grabbed her breasts with both hands, squeezed them, pinched her nipples. Lucía moved back and forth, searching for the angle, and when she found it she accelerated without control. She came first, without screaming, her back arched and her eyes closed, tightening her cunt around his cock in spasms Mateo felt one by one.

—Come inside me —she whispered, her voice broken, without thinking about what she was saying—. Come inside me, I’m on the pill.

Mateo grabbed her hips, drove her down against him, and came with three short thrusts upward, whispering her name as if it were the first time he had ever said it. Lucía stayed on top, motionless, feeling her brother’s cock throb and empty inside her. Then she collapsed onto his chest, her face pressed against his neck.

***

They lay there, pressed together, staring at the ceiling. The room smelled of sweat and wine, of semen and hot sheets, of something else too, something that hadn’t been there two hours earlier and was not going away now.

Andrés stood up. Marta did too.

—We’ll leave you a while —he said—. When you’re ready, come downstairs. Coffee’s made.

They closed the door behind them.

Lucía turned her face toward her brother. Mateo found her hand beneath the sheet.

—And now what? —he asked.

Lucía didn’t answer right away. She stroked his knuckles with her thumb.

—Now —she said at last— we know.

And they stayed like that, unmoving, listening to the distant clatter of cups in the kitchen. Marta was laughing at something. Andrés was agreeing to something. And upstairs, in the bedroom that would no longer be only their parents’ room, two siblings were learning to call by another name what they had called family for nineteen years.