The Prize My Son Would Receive If He Ranked Number One

Tobías got fixated on making me his under water. It became our weekly ritual, something so fixed in the calendar that I already counted on endless showers, a steam-filled rite that lasted longer than any movie. Inside there, in that little cubicle where the echo threw back every breath, he sometimes took me twice in a row. The first time was fast, almost furious, as if he wanted to put out a fire. The second was slow, deep, as if he were deliberately lighting it again.

I liked feeling him inside me in that hot atmosphere, the way his body slid against mine, slick with soap. I liked the way he growled when he finished, a hoarse cry lost beneath the roar of the water, a sound of pure possession. And I felt completely possessed, surrendered without reserve.

—What’s wrong with you, Mom? —he asked me once, with his hands dug into my hips and the rhythm growing ever more insistent—. Here you get more… wild.

—It’s the water —I lied, though not entirely—. It makes me feel clean. And you make me dirty again. I like that back-and-forth.

He smiled, understanding more than I was saying. He lifted one of my legs and entered me from a new angle, deeper, and it tore a cry from me. He was my teacher and my downfall all at once. And in that steam everything felt true.

That said, on the days of my period nothing happened. Nothing penetrative, at least. The first time my period came, I told him with the same ease as announcing a rainy day.

—We can’t today, sweetheart.

Tobías frowned like a little boy whose favorite toy has been taken away.

—But, Mom? —he protested, in a voice that was almost a tantrum—. Are we just going to stop doing it like that?

—Look, my love —I explained, stroking his cheek—, those days I feel dirty. I don’t like doing it that way.

He wasn’t a spoiled brat demanding a whim. It was that the routine mattered to him, that the certainty of our pleasure had become an anchor in his life. So, seeing his puppy face, denied the bone, I came up with an out. Diplomatic. A mother’s solution.

—But I can give you something else —I whispered, my fingers tracing a path from his chest to the waistband of his pants—. I can suck you until your eyes cross.

His gaze lit up like the streetlamps of a waking city.

—Really, Mom?

—Really. Now take off those pants and let me work.

And that was how my new specialty began. With him I became an expert. I learned every centimeter of him as if it were my own treasure map. I discovered he liked the tip of my tongue right under the head, and that if I pressed my lips firmly on the way up and loosened them on the way down, he moaned differently, a deep sound that was my private symphony. I learned how to play with the rest, to hold him with just the right pressure, not so hard it hurt, not so soft it turned into a bland caress.

—There, Mom, right there —he guided me, his voice tight, while my head moved in a hypnotic rhythm—. Don’t stop, please.

I didn’t stop. I felt him tense, felt his whole body preparing. And when the moment came I pulled back just enough to see him, to receive my prize in my mouth. And I swallowed without hesitation, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

***

But all good things, like yogurt, have an expiration date. And our warm little idyll was about to collide with reality’s thermometer. Tobías had gotten through the year and was hovering among the top students in his class, but the university he wanted had more filters than a Swiss coffee maker. To even be invited to sit the entrance exam he needed to be number one, king of the hill. The other option, the one his father offered with a foxlike smile, was to send him abroad to an easier faculty. Easy for him. For me, it was the prelude to the abyss.

One night, after making love and while he was drying himself against my thighs like an invisible signature, I brought up the subject.

—My love, have you thought any more about what your father suggested?

He sighed, his hot breath on my neck, and pulled me to his chest as if he wanted to fuse our bodies together.

—I don’t want to leave, Mom. Not fucking way. I’d rather stay here with you. That university is my only shot, but it’s hard… brutally hard.

I felt the weight of his frustration, the same tension I saw in his shoulders. They say that hard problems need hard solutions. So a few days later, before he went back to his father’s house, I cast the bait. It wasn’t just any bait. It was the most exclusive cut on the menu.

—I have a proposal, Tobías. A prize. But listen to me first and don’t interrupt me.

He fixed his eyes on me like someone waiting for the winning lottery number.

—I know you like my ass —I began, with the delicacy of a surgeon—. You’re always playing with it, touching it, treating it like the last relic of a lost civilization. Well: if you come first in the year, out of the whole class… you’ll have my ass for whatever you want.

Tobías’s mouth fell open like a fish just pulled out of water. It’s one of those things all men want and very few dare to ask for. And he was about to receive it on a silver platter.

—For… for anything I want? —he asked, in a thread of a voice, caught between disbelief and naked desire.

—For anything you want. To enter, to enjoy, to mark it as yours. But listen carefully, because there’s no going back: only if you come first. If not, nothing. Not even a conversation, not even a maybe.

He propped himself up on his elbows and the mattress dipped under his weight.

—Mom… —he said, his voice breaking—. What I want most is to stay with you. I can’t live without you. I don’t even know who I was before this anymore.

His words were balm and poison. They confirmed my power over him and, at the same time, frightened me because of the responsibility of such a feeling.

—Then fight for what you want most —I told him, with a firmness that surprised me—. If you win, I’ll give it to you. But only on the day of your graduation. Not one minute before. That way you’ll celebrate it and remember it forever. —I put a finger to his lips to silence the protest already forming in his eyes—. And I want you to know something else: I’ve never done it that way. Down there I’m a virgin. You don’t give that to just anyone. You’ll be the first, if you succeed.

He swallowed, the sound audible in the silence of the room. Now the prize wasn’t a trophy: it was a consecration, the key to a temple only he would have a copy of.

—For now —I went on, reclaiming my role as strategist— you can play with it like always. But don’t ask me for anything else until you finish and win.

—I’m going to do it —he said, and it sounded like a vow—. For you. For us.

—We’ll see, my love —I replied, with a half smile that was half challenge, half caress—. We’ll see if you’ve got the guts for this.

***

The next few days were pure, hard study. My house, which had been a nest of whispers, turned into an operations room. I saw him genuinely worried, under a kind of stress I’d never known him to have: a constant knot between his brows, a tension in his shoulders that even my massages couldn’t undo. Now it was me asking him to stop, to relax for a while with me.

I don’t know if it was because of the prize, the fear of being separated, or that strange mix of love and duty I’d planted in his head. Sometimes I’d spy on him from the doorway, hunched over his books, and laugh to myself. Other times I felt a stab in my chest imagining my bed empty, and the plan grew fragile, a house of cards about to fall.

His father started calling me to make sure he was at home. Once the phone rang while he was inside me. I answered with a trembling voice, feeling Tobías’s rhythm grow slower, deeper, almost defiant.

—Everything okay? —my husband asked.

—Yes, yes, everything’s fine. We’re… studying. Fluid dynamics, you know? —I said, choking on a laugh that was more like a moan.

Tobías smiled against my neck and rammed into me harder. He bit my shoulder so I wouldn’t cry out when I hung up.

—See? You’re a terrible actress, Mom —he whispered later, when we’d calmed down.

But it wasn’t all fire. Sometimes, when we were done, we’d lie in silence with his head on my chest. I stroked his thick hair and a wave of guilt would hit me. I saw his boyish face, the same one that looked at me with admiration when I taught him to tie his shoelaces. What was I breaking in him? What was I breaking in myself?

—You’re scared, Mom —he told me one night, as if he could read my mind.

I shook my head, but my eyes filled with tears.

—Don’t lie. I can see it on your face. Afraid we’ll get caught?

—More afraid of hurting you, Tobías. This is a precipice. And I’m pushing you into it.

He sat up and looked at me with a seriousness that made him look ten years older.

—The only thing that hurt me was when you left. The rest is the realest thing I have. There is no precipice. It’s just you and me.

And he kissed me. It wasn’t a kiss of lust, but of comfort. And in that kiss my fears dissolved again, drowned in the certainty of his desire.

***

One Friday, my husband asked me for a favor. He had a conference, a long-weekend thing.

—Could Tobías stay with you? —he asked, his voice as distant as the moon—. His sister is going away with her boyfriend’s family.

My pulse sped up, a runaway gallop in my veins. Three days. Three whole nights. Seventy-two hours to become myth or ashes.

—Of course, no problem —I said in the calmest voice I could muster, the voice of a devoted mother and not a starving woman.

When I hung up, Tobías was standing in the doorway of my room. He’d heard everything because I had the speaker on. He was looking at me with that shine I already knew, the one of a hunter who’s smelled blood.

—Three days, Mommy —he said. And smiled.

***

On Thursday afternoon, when he set his backpack down by the door, the air in my apartment changed. It charged with electricity, with an unspoken promise. These were not three days of studying. These were three days to redefine ourselves.

We forgot about food and fed on each other’s bodies. Sustenance was no longer bread, it was his salty skin under my tongue. We made love in the shower, with hot water falling down our backs like a rain of sin, and he lifted one of my legs and entered me with an ease that both scared and turned me on.

—Whose body is this, Mom? —he growled, braced over me, sweating as he split me in two.

—Yours… it’s all yours —I stammered, feeling myself explode into dust and stars.

—This is mine —he said, his hand clamped on my hip, right on the edge of pain—. This ass is going to be mine.

—It’s going to be yours, all yours… don’t leave me, Tobías… never leave me —I begged him.

We made love on the living room floor, among cushions, with the city lights coming through the windows like a silent movie only we could see. I taught him how to control his breathing to last longer, and he taught me that I had no limits, that I could ask him for anything and he would give it to me. He asked me to sit on his face and I obeyed, feeling his tongue where I had never imagined it, such a sweet profanation it almost made me believe in something.

On Saturday afternoon we bought a bottle of cheap wine. We sat on the balcony, wrapped in a blanket. He told me about his fears about university and his desire to travel and get to know other countries. I told him about my youth, about the mistakes that still weighed on me. For the first time we were not just mother and son, nor just lovers: we were two people. And the connection I felt was deeper and more terrifying than any orgasm. Because it wasn’t just desire. It was love, a love so pure and so twisted all at once that I couldn’t breathe.

—I’m yours, Tobías —I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder—. Truly. Before this happened, and after, and always. There’s no going back for me.

—Neither for me, Mom —he answered, and his voice broke for the first time.

On Sunday morning the sun found us awake, exploring each other again. He asked for something new: he put me face down, on my knees, my face buried in the pillow.

—I want to see all of you, Mom —he said, in a hoarse murmur.

And he took me by the hips, with a rhythm that turned wild, primitive. My moans were muffled, my fingers clutched the sheets until my knuckles went white. It was total surrender, a renunciation. And when he finished, with a cry that sounded like my name and a blasphemy, I knew something had broken forever, and that something else, beautiful and monstrous, was being born from the ashes.

***

By Sunday afternoon, the apartment smelled of sex, cheap wine, and us. We moved through the rooms like ghosts, bodies sore but sated. Tobías rearranged his backpack. I made the beds, trying to erase the traces of our battle, though I knew the memory of the skin would remain imprinted on the walls.

—Don’t worry —I told him while he helped me wash the dishes—. When your father gets here, no funny faces. We’re mother and son and we were studying fluid dynamics. And believe me, we studied it thoroughly.

He smiled with that mischievous look I already knew as the prelude to a storm. He ran a wet finger along my neck, gathering a drop of sweat.

—I’ll leave you with a taste of me, Mom. So you won’t forget.

—As if I could —I murmured.

When the doorbell rang, the spell broke. It was my husband, a man made of routine and deadlines, utterly unaware of the earthquake that had just shaken the foundations of his world.

—How was the weekend? —he asked from the doorway.

—Educational —I said, and my smile felt like a cardboard mask—. Very productive. We even reviewed the theory, with practical examples and everything.

Tobías shot me a look over his shoulder. A look full of complicity, of promise, and of a shared sadness: the pain of going back to the cage after flying together.

—Thanks, Mom —he said aloud, but his eyes were telling me something else.

After they left, the apartment felt huge and cold. The silence was deafening. On the living room floor, one of the cushions had a small, almost invisible stain. I touched it with my finger: it was the last remnant of our secret world. I lifted the cushion to my face and inhaled. It smelled like us. And my traitorous, love-struck heart wanted only one thing: for him to come back soon.