The Scene That Changed Everything Between My Twin Sister and Me

—Are you taking long? —Lucía shouted from the living room.

The popcorn still hadn’t finished popping in the microwave. There was still more than a minute left, but my twin had never known how to wait for anything in her life.

—One minute, for fuck’s sake! —I shouted back.

That Saturday we had a plan neither of us would have signed up for a month earlier. The storm had been battering the windows since noon, my head was still aching from Friday’s party, and my checking account wouldn’t even cover a beer at the bar on the corner. The night before had been a tidy catastrophe: an open bar at a friend’s birthday, too much vodka with lemon, and getting home at nine in the morning without really understanding which streets I’d come by. Lucía had shown up even later, with one shoe in her hand and her makeup smeared down to her chin. The scolding from our parents after lunch had been the final shove that made neither of us want to step outside.

—Who did you end up with last night? —I asked her over lunch.

—I’d rather not remember.

—Did you sleep somewhere weird?

—Mateo, for God’s sake.

I laughed and left her alone. With Lucía there was something hard to explain: we were twins, we’d shared the same room until we were twelve, the same friends until we were twenty-two, and the same secrets until that very morning. We told each other things any normal sibling would have kept locked away. Nothing had ever happened. Until that night.

—Are you coming or what? —I heard from the living room.

I shook my head. I’d been staring at the microwave turntable for a while, as if it were a black hole. I picked up the bowl of popcorn and went into the living room. Lucía had put on old sweatpants and an oversized white tank top, one of mine that had somehow ended up in her closet by magic.

—Look at the two of us —she said, making room for me on the sofa—. Saturday night, at home, with popcorn. We’re pathetic.

—Speak for yourself. I don’t know anyone more interesting to spend the night with.

—Poor thing. If you only knew the list I’ve got.

—Last night’s, for example?

She went red to the ears and gave me a light punch on the thigh.

—You’re an idiot.

We’d spent the whole afternoon arguing about what to watch. My twin had vetoed documentaries and I had vetoed musicals. In the end we both gave in to an Italian film a college friend had been recommending for months: a postwar drama about two orphaned brothers surviving alone in a half-ruined house in the countryside. The synopsis sounded like homework, but the rating on every film site was over nine.

—Well, ready to cry for two hours? —I asked.

—Hit play and shut up.

I turned off the living room lamp. The only light was from the television and, every so often, the lightning flashing through the gap in the blinds.

***

The film had something hypnotic about it. The long shots, the silences, the sound of the wind over the wheat fields. We didn’t take long to forget we were on the sofa. Lucía had curled up against the opposite armrest, her feet tucked under a cushion, but by the half-hour mark she had already slid toward the middle and her knees were touching mine.

—Who’s that? —I asked.

—The cousin. The one who brings them food.

—You sure?

—Yes, shut up.

The conflict unfolded slowly, as it does in good movies. The two brothers, trapped in that house, realizing they only had each other. The looks stretched longer than was reasonable. The brushes against each other stopped seeming like accidents. At 1:20, the scene came.

The sister went into the barn looking for her brother. He was shirtless, sweaty, chopping wood. She stopped in the doorway, saying nothing. He dropped the axe. She took a step. Then another. The camera moved in on their faces and the director had the decency, or the cruelty, not to cut away. They kissed as if they’d wanted to do it for years. She climbed up onto the wood table, he spread her legs, lifted her white skirt, and buried his face between her thighs. Then he turned her, bent her over the table, and fucked her from behind, one hand on the nape of her neck and the other gripping her breast under her dress.

A shiver ran from the nape of my neck down to my groin. I looked at Lucía without moving my head, only with my eyes. Her mouth was slightly open and her neck was taut, and when the actress let out a small, sharp moan, my twin swallowed. I saw it. I saw her throat moving in the bluish half-light from the television.

The scene lasted as long as it needed to last. Then he let himself fall onto her back, both of them still, crying, and the camera stayed there a while, in the silence of the barn.

—They were… —I started.

—Siblings, yes.

My throat had gone dry.

The movie ended twenty minutes later. Neither of us said anything about the scene. We talked about the cinematography, the ending, the actor, anything but that. When the credits rolled, Lucía stretched her arms and yawned.

—I’m going to bed, I’m done in.

—Aren’t you staying for another one?

—No, seriously. Tomorrow, okay?

She kissed me on the cheek, too close to the corner of my lips, and went upstairs. I heard her bedroom door close and then, a couple of minutes later, the creak of the wardrobe.

***

I stayed on the sofa with the remote in my hand, staring at the TV menu without seeing it. I should have turned it off and gone upstairs, but I didn’t move. My whole body was pressed tight against the sweatpants fabric and, the moment I closed my eyes, the wood table came back, the small moans, my twin’s throat swallowing.

I rewound. I don’t know when I decided to rewind, but there it was, my thumb pressing the button. I turned the volume down to a whisper. And I watched the scene again. This time without pretending.

The actress was brunette, her hair tied up and her skin very pale. She didn’t look like Lucía. Lucía was blonde, with gray eyes and a back longer than the rest of her body. But the barn, the gestures, that way of tipping her head back when he spread her legs, all of it began to blur together. The actress’s face dissolved. My twin’s face appeared. My hand slipped under my pants before I had decided anything.

Fuck, Mateo. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I masturbated in silence, eyes locked on the screen, feeling like the worst son of a bitch in the world and, at the same time, the most turned on I’d been in months. I imagined Lucía with her legs apart, leaning back, that mouth of hers half open and her eyes fixed on me. I imagined my hand going in and out between her thighs, forcing her to arch her back, her broken breathing, the wet sound of her cunt soaking as I licked her as if there were no tomorrow. I imagined putting my fingers in her and then my cock, pushing slowly until I saw her clench her teeth, and then harder, deeper, with her clinging to me, wordlessly asking me not to stop.

The movie kept playing on the screen, but I wasn’t seeing the movie anymore. I was only seeing Lucía. My hand got brutal, gripping the base of my cock, stroking it in short, quick tugs, the head sensitive, the foreskin damp, the pulse climbing up from my balls. I came with a dry spasm, holding my breath by force, and the heat exploded in my palm, on my stomach, on the back of the sofa. I stayed still, trembling, head thrown back, chest burning with shame and desire.

When I was done, the room was so quiet I heard the lightning before the thunder. I wiped myself with a popcorn napkin, turned off the TV, and went up to my room with soft steps.

There was a thin line of light under Lucía’s bedroom door. She was awake.

***

I didn’t sleep. I’d been tossing and turning for an hour, listening to the storm, when I went down to the kitchen for a glass of water. The most absurd part was that I wasn’t thirsty. I just needed to get out of my room.

I switched on the extractor light, that tiny yellow light we used so as not to wake our parents, and leaned against the counter. I drank slowly. And then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Lucía appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing the same white tank top and some socks that came up halfway to her calves. Her eyes were red, not from crying, but from not sleeping. She crossed her arms over her chest when she saw me.

—I couldn’t sleep —she said.

—Me neither.

—I’m getting some water.

She walked to the sink. She had to pass by me, and although the kitchen was wide, she chose to pass so close that her arm brushed mine. She poured herself a glass, took three swallows, and set it down on the marble. She didn’t leave. She stayed there, looking out the window, watching the water run down in streams over the glass.

—The scene, right? —she said, without looking at me.

I felt the blood rise to my neck.

—What scene?

—Mateo.

I braced both hands on the edge of the counter. The kitchen still smelled of the popcorn from the living room.

—Yeah —I said at last—. The scene.

Lucía turned her head. The extractor’s yellow light illuminated one side of her face and left the other in complete shadow. A lock of blond hair had fallen over her left eye, and for the first time in my life I noticed that her eyelashes were incredibly long.

—Did you think about me? —she asked.

I didn’t know how to answer. It was a question only my twin could have asked, because only she knew how to read my silences like subtitles.

—Yes —I said.

—While you were jerking off?

I nodded, not daring to lift my eyes.

Lucía took a deep breath. She didn’t move for a very long while. Then, slowly, she came closer. I was still gripping the edge of the marble as if it were the only thing holding me up. When she was a breath away from me, she raised a hand and brushed my fringe off my forehead.

—Me too —she whispered.

***

The first kiss was slow, almost shy. Neither of us dared open our mouths. It was the kind of kiss from someone who still thinks they can back out, that maybe this can be treated like an experiment, a stupid curiosity that will amount to nothing. But after the first came the second, and by then there was no turning back.

Lucía put her hands around my neck and pressed herself against me. I felt the thin shirt against my bare chest, her hard nipples outlined under the cotton. I ran my hands down her back to her waist, and when I moved to her hips she parted her legs, climbed up onto the counter, and pulled me between her knees.

—If our parents come in —she murmured against my mouth.

—They’re asleep. They’ve been asleep since one.

—Are you sure?

—I’m sure.

I lowered the straps of her shirt to her waist. Her breasts were small, white, with a mole beside her sternum I’d been seeing since we were kids at the beach and that night discovered for the first time. I ran my tongue over it and heard her moan, a moan identical to the actress’s in the film, sharp and small and held back for fear of waking anyone.

I took off her socks. I took off her pajama pants. Lucía pulled down my sweatpants and laughed under her breath when she realized I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

—You were ready —she said.

—Shut up.

I kissed her again so she would shut up. And then I opened her legs on the counter and did exactly what that actor had done to his sister in the barn. I buried my face between her thighs until she grabbed my hair with both hands and started moving against my mouth, asking me for more without saying a word out loud. Her cunt was already slick, warm, open for me, and when I parted her lips properly with my fingers and licked her from below up to her clit, a gasp escaped her so broken it made me even harder. My tongue ran over the wet slit, the salty-sweet taste filled my mouth, and I kept going, nestled between her legs, sucking, licking, gripping the base of her thighs with my hand so she wouldn’t close them.

When I slid two fingers inside her, Lucía threw her head back and hit the wardrobe with her shoulder blades. She started moving her hips on her own, fucking my fingers like she was desperate, while she whispered through clenched teeth not to stop, to fuck her, to leave her trembling. I pulled my fingers out, brought them to my mouth, and she looked at me with wide eyes, breathing fast, on the verge of losing control.

Then she grabbed the back of my neck and forced me upright. I set her with her back against the marble, spread her legs wider, and without stopping kissing her, I positioned myself between them. The head of my cock brushed her soaked entrance and Lucía let out a low, almost furious whimper of pure hunger.

—Say it again —she asked me.

—Say what?

—That you won’t stop.

—I’m not going to stop.

I went in slowly at first, feeling how she clenched around me, how her cunt opened centimeter by centimeter around me, hot and tight, as if she were swallowing me. Lucía dug her fingers into my shoulders and let out the air in a sharp burst. When I had her all the way in, we stayed still for a second, staring at each other without speaking, with the kitchen steam rising between us.

—Fuck —she said, barely a thread of sound.

—Yeah.

Then I started moving. I fucked her against the counter, standing up, holding her waist with both hands while I drove short, hard thrusts, each one deeper than the last. The marble knocked against her thighs, and every hip strike made the tip of my cock brush that exact spot that made her tremble. Lucía bit my shoulder, scratched my back, asked for more with her whole body, throwing her head back to offer me her neck, arching her spine, opening herself to me as if she no longer wanted to hide anything.

I turned her a little, bent her over the counter, and fucked her from behind, grabbing one wrist with one hand and her hip with the other. Her ass slapped against my pelvis with every thrust, the wet sound of our hips mixing with the rain on the glass. Lucía moaned louder like that, muffled against the marble, and I kept opening her cunt with the head of my cock again and again, feeling her clench around me, milking me with each thrust. I slid my hand between her legs to rub her clit at the same time, and that was when she began to convulse, warning me in a broken voice that she was about to come.

—Give me more, Mateo, more, fuck, like that…

It didn’t take much. I heard her break first in a long moan, then in a tremor that ran through her legs. She came against my cock with a wet spasm, squeezing me so hard she nearly took my breath away too. I kept moving for a few more seconds, pounding her just as hard while she gripped the marble with white fingers.

And then I came too. I grabbed her waist, drove my hips in all the way, and unloaded inside her in one long, hot, brutal burst. I felt my cock pulsing inside her cunt while the semen surged through my body in short waves, and I stayed still, pressed against her, breathing with my mouth open, still trembling from the force of the orgasm.

***

Afterward we stayed like that for a while, her perched on the marble and me standing between her legs, not separating, listening to our breathing come back. Lucía rested her forehead on my shoulder.

—This didn’t happen —she said.

—Okay.

—I mean, it did happen, but we’re not going to tell anyone.

—No, of course not.

—And we’re not going to talk about it. Not tomorrow and not ever.

I nodded. I helped her down from the counter. She got dressed in front of me, without shame, as if we’d seen each other naked all our lives. She picked up the glasses, washed them, set them upside down in the drying rack. She turned off the extractor light.

—Good night, idiot —she said from the landing at the top of the stairs.

—Good night.

I waited to hear her bedroom door close before I went into mine. That night I slept straight through for the first time in months.

***

On Sunday we had breakfast with our parents as if nothing had happened. Lucía told a silly joke about my mother’s watery coffee. My father laughed. I laughed too. In the afternoon, when my parents went over to my uncles’ place, my twin appeared in the doorway of my room with the laptop under her arm and the same smile she always had.

—Shall we watch another one? —she asked.

—Another one by the same director?

—He’s got more, yeah.

I made room for her on the bed and locked the door.