The Night His Stepsister Left the Door Open

Mateo arrived in Mendoza on a Friday in March with two suitcases and the feeling that he was coming back to a house that was no longer entirely his. His father was waiting for him at the door with open arms and, behind him, a woman he had only seen in some WhatsApp photo. Patricia, his stepmother for the past two years. She smiled politely, but her eyes shone with that mix of nerves and eagerness to make a good impression.

—Come in, come in —his father said, giving him a slap on the back—. Your room is at the back. And you’re going to meet Camila. She’s wandering around somewhere.

Mateo had come back for work. The architecture firm where he had done his internship four years earlier had offered him a permanent position, and the rent in Buenos Aires had become unaffordable. Accepting his father’s offer to stay in the family house for a few months, until he got settled, had seemed like a reasonable decision. It lasted exactly as long as it took him to cross the foyer.

He left the suitcases in the living room and went into the kitchen looking for a glass of water. The flight had been short, but the heat of the valley at that hour had dried out his throat. He opened the fridge and leaned inside.

When he straightened up, she was there.

Camila was twenty-two and wearing denim shorts that should not have been legal among family members. Her white T-shirt was too big on her, slipping off one shoulder and revealing the thin strap of a black bra. She wore her dark hair tied up in a loose bun. She looked at him with that half smile people have when they know perfectly well the effect they have.

—You’re Mateo —she said, not moving from the doorway.

—And you’re Camila.

—The famous stepsister —she came up to the fridge and brushed his arm as she reached for a bottle of water—. Does the heat bother you, or are you always this sweaty?

He laughed more from reflex than amusement. It took him three seconds to understand that this girl was going to be a problem. He was twenty-five, had been with enough women to recognize a look when he saw one, and Camila’s was not innocent.

***

The first few weeks were a choreography of casual brushes neither of them commented on. Camila would walk down the hall in a towel just when he stepped out of his room to get his charger. Mateo would leave the bathroom door ajar by “mistake,” and she would cross through with any excuse. Neither apologized too earnestly. Both held each other’s gaze a second longer than necessary.

His father and Patricia had their rituals. On Wednesdays they went to the movies. On Saturdays they got together with friends from the club, ate out, and came back after midnight. Mateo and Camila stayed home with the excuse of being tired or Monday work. The first two times they watched movies in silence, sitting with a cushion’s worth of distance between them. The third time, she moved closer. The fourth, she rested her feet on his thighs like someone asking for a massage without actually asking.

—Does that bother you? —she asked.

—No —Mateo lied.

Camila looked at him for one more moment. Then she turned back to the screen as if nothing had happened.

This is getting out of hand, he thought that night, watching the ceiling fan turn slowly above his head. It took him a long time to fall asleep. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the curve of Camila’s foot resting on his leg, her chipped red nail polish, her slender ankle, that part where the skin turns almost translucent.

***

The following Saturday, the parents went to a birthday party in Chacras de Coria and texted that they would probably sleep over at their friends’ house. Mateo heard the electric gate close at 9:30. The house fell silent. Ten minutes later, Camila came out of her room with her hair still wet, a long T-shirt that barely covered half her thigh, and a cold bottle of white wine in her hand.

—You’re not going to let me drink alone, are you? —she asked.

They sat down on the living room couch, both glasses filled to the brim. They put on some random series. They talked little. Every time she laughed, she leaned a bit closer. Every time he lifted his glass, her elbow brushed his shoulder. After forty minutes she had forgotten the plot and he had forgotten the wine.

—Mateo —Camila said, setting her glass on the coffee table—. Do you think about me?

He fell silent. The question was a trap, and they both knew it.

—I think about you when I shouldn’t —he answered at last.

—When shouldn’t you?

—Almost always.

Camila bit her lower lip, that gesture he had learned to fear. She shifted on the sofa until she was kneeling beside him, her hands on his shoulders, her face very close. She smelled of coconut shampoo and white wine.

—And what do you think?

—Things you shouldn’t think about a stepsister.

—Well —she whispered, and kissed his neck slowly, just below the ear—. Me neither.

The first kiss was on the mouth and lasted longer than was wise. Camila tasted of white wine and quince paste. Her hands sought the back of his neck, pressing him against her as if she were afraid he might change his mind. Mateo held her waist and pulled her up to sit astride his legs. Her T-shirt rode up. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

He dropped his gaze for a second, swallowing his breath. The skin of her thighs was warm, and as she settled over him her shorts rode up a little higher, revealing the edge of her crotch, wet, throbbing. Camila smiled when she noticed the effect and went for him again, kissing him hungrily, with an urgency that was almost furious.

—Don’t look at me like that —she murmured against his mouth.

—Like what?

—Like you already know what you’re going to do to me.

Mateo squeezed her ass with both hands, direct, without delicacy. Camila let out a short moan and dug her nails into his back. He lifted her slightly, brought her to the edge of the sofa, and slid one hand under her T-shirt, cupping her breast over the bra. Her nipple immediately stood out through the fabric, hard, sensitive, and that made him more nervous than anything else.

—Camila —he said, pulling back for a second—. If we keep going, there’s no turning back.

—There was no turning back when you saw me in the kitchen.

She leaned in and undid his belt with clumsy fingers made clumsy by wine and anxiety. He pulled her shorts down to mid-thigh and found hot skin, the damp slit of her sex pressed against her underwear. Camila arched slightly, searching for him, wanting him, and shamelessly rubbed against the bulge straining his pants.

—You’re rock hard —she whispered with a dirty smile.

Mateo buried his face in her neck and kissed her hard, leaving the mark of his teeth where he knew she’d think about it afterward. Camila fell apart in a gasp and started unbuttoning his shirt, button by button, until he was bare-chested in the middle of the living room, the yellow light falling across his chest.

—I imagined you like this —she said, running her open palm over him—. All hot because of me.

He took her by the waist, lifted her from the sofa, and carried her stumbling down the hallway. Camila was laughing softly, excited and nervous, clinging to his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his body. She bit his neck when he shoved her against the wall beside the bathroom and slid a hand under her shorts, finally finding the center of everything, the soaked fabric, the tight, hot vulva already begging for more.

—There —she said, without hiding it—. Don’t stop there.

Mateo rubbed her with his fingers through her underwear until he felt her body opening, her belly loosening in a brief shudder. Camila closed her eyes, threw her head back, and pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t scream. He kissed her again, his hand still between her legs, and she answered by burying her fingers in his hair, trembling all over.

—I wanted to do this from day one —she said, almost voiceless.

—I wanted you to let me do it too.

He took her to his room without letting her go. They fell onto the mattress in a tangle, with the urgency of two people who do not want to think. Camila ripped his pants off with a strength that didn’t seem like her own. When she finally had him in her hand, she ran it over him and let out a stifled laugh at how he pulsed, ready, hard as a stone.

—Your dick is so pretty —she murmured, teasing him.

Mateo opened her legs at first gently, and then with less patience. He pulled down her shorts and underwear in one motion. She was completely open for him, shaved, wet, the flesh shining and the lips trembling from the brush of air. Camila covered her face for a second with one arm, as if she were embarrassed to be seen like that, but then she lowered her hand and held his gaze.

He knelt between her thighs and gave her a slow kiss down there, first on the mound of Venus, then on the soft lips, his tongue parting her just enough to taste her better. Camila shivered from head to toe and pushed his head down desperately, wanting more, deeper, faster.

—Mateo… fuck…

He kept going, licking her hungrily, sucking her until he heard her breath break. He slid two fingers in, slowly at first, opening her from the inside while his tongue kept insisting on the exact spot that made her convulse. Camila clung to the sheets, arched her back, and began to moan without shame, her mouth open and her face flushed.

—Like that, like that —she said, already broken with pleasure—. Don’t stop, don’t stop.

Mateo sped up, alternating tongue and fingers until he brought her to the edge. When she came, she did it with a choked sob, her whole body shaken by a discharge that tightened her thighs and left her legs trembling. He held her by the waist while he kept licking her, slowly, tasting her, feeling her come apart under his mouth.

Camila took a few seconds to come back. When she opened her eyes, she looked at him with a mixture of gratitude and hunger that made Mateo’s chest go loose.

—Come here —she asked, pulling at him by the shoulders—. I want to feel you now.

***

Mateo settled over her carefully, both hands beside her face. Camila held his gaze when he started to enter her, and they stayed still for a moment, feeling the flesh give way, hot and tight, feeling how the moisture let him move forward little by little, centimeter by centimeter. He pushed slowly until he was buried completely, and both of them let out their breath at the same time.

—There —she whispered, voice trembling—. Like that, don’t stop.

Mateo began with long, deep strokes, measuring his strength so he wouldn’t lose control. Camila received him with her body open, legs high, her nails marking his back. Every time he pulled out, she chased him with her hips; every time he drove back in, a wet moan slipped between her teeth. The bed creaked with each thrust, and the sound of their bodies colliding mixed with both of their broken breathing, faster and dirtier by the second.

—Harder —Camila asked, digging her heels into his ass—. Give it to me harder, fuck.

He obeyed. He took her more violently, kissing her whenever he could, alternating short thrusts with deep ones that made her belly tremble. Camila wrapped her legs around his waist, squeezed him with almost painful force, and started moving with him, pushing from below, desperate to grind more, to feel every blow all the way in. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, her hair messy and stuck to her forehead, and that sight made him lose his head a little.

He changed position without warning and turned her face down, lifting her hips with one hand. Camila let out a sharper moan when he took her from behind, grabbing her by the waist and setting a drier, more brutal rhythm. His belt lay thrown beside the pillow, the sheet was twisted under her chest, and she started saying his name like it was an order.

—Like that, like that, fuck me like that —she repeated, shameless, breathless.

Mateo squeezed her ass with one hand and slipped the other between her legs to feel her moving around him, wet, clenched, complete. The room was full of obscene sounds: skin against skin, broken breaths, the mattress creaking, the sticky noise of arousal. Camila came for the second time with a long shudder that shook her back and loosened her legs, and he held her so she wouldn’t fall apart completely.

When he turned her over again, she kissed him furiously, mouth open, as if she wanted to swallow him whole.

—I want you to come inside me —she said in his ear—. I want to feel you fill me.

Mateo almost lost control right there. He clenched his teeth, grabbed her by the thighs, and went faster, deeper, until his breathing turned into a growl. Camila watched him with shining eyes, enjoying every second of seeing him come undone. When he started to come, she dug her nails into his back and stayed still, taking him, feeling him unload inside her with a hot violence that made them both let out a shared gasp.

He let himself fall beside her. Both of them were left with damp skin, legs tangled, chests rising and falling together. Camila moved close right away, still sensitive, and laid her head on his shoulder. Mateo stroked her back with the tips of his fingers and tried not to think about Monday, or breakfast the next day, or the look on his father’s face if he ever found out.

—If the gate sounds —he said after a while—, you run back to your room.

—If the gate sounds —Camila replied, settling against his chest—, we pretend we’re watching a series and that’s it.

They stayed like that a long while, staring at the ceiling. Outside, somewhere, a dog was barking. Mateo stroked her back with the tips of his fingers and tried not to think about Monday, or breakfast the next day, or the look on his father’s face if he ever found out.

—Do you think this can happen again? —she asked in a whisper.

—I think it’s already impossible not to let it happen again.

Camila laughed against his shoulder, with that low laugh she gave when she was happy and a little scared at the same time. Then she got up, picked up the T-shirt from the hallway floor, and walked barefoot to her room. Before closing the door, she looked back over her shoulder with the same smile she’d had on the first afternoon in the kitchen, and Mateo understood that this summer in Mendoza had only just begun.