What I Saw of My Sister in a Roadside Hotel

My name doesn’t matter. For this story, it’s enough to say that I’m twenty-four years old and that I have a sister named Camila, although at home everyone calls her Cami. Three years younger than me, skinny, with the kind of body girls have when they lug a backpack to the gym four times a week. She hardly ever wears makeup, dresses in oversized sweatshirts and jeans that hide more than they show. If someone saw her on the street, they’d think she was the kind of girl who goes unnoticed. Whoever sees her at home understands something else.

Our relationship was never the clingy-siblings kind. We talked just enough, ran into each other at Sunday lunch, on the occasional trip to the gym when her car broke down, not much more. That’s why I was so surprised when she asked me, almost begging me, to go with her to Renata’s graduation, her best friend since forever.

—It’s in San Esteban, it’s a three-hour drive. My parents can’t go, Dad’s company is closing out the quarter. Please, I don’t want to go alone.

—Cami, I’ve got a date with Lucía that night. We were going to have dinner.

—I promise we’ll be back early. The ceremony is at ten in the morning, we’ll be home by five.

I agreed on the condition that we not linger. I texted Lucía to let her know I’d make it to dinner just in time. I had no idea how wrong I was.

The sky closed in around Coronel Vargas, half an hour from San Esteban. The kind of storm that shuts down small towns. Graduation was delayed three hours. The party afterward, another hour. Renata insisted we eat something before leaving, and even though I said no, my sister gave me a puppy-dog face and I couldn’t refuse. When we left the hall, it was almost six in the evening. I texted Lucía again. She didn’t answer.

—She’s pissed —I told Cami, starting the car.

—You’ll explain it to her and she’ll get over it.

—You don’t know her.

The road was worse than on the way there. Rain came down in sheets, headlights barely reached three meters. Forty minutes later I pulled into a roadside hotel by the highway, a low building with a red sign blinking in the dark. It wasn’t a pretty place, but it had a roof.

—We’ll wait for it to ease up and then keep going —I said.

It eased up two hours later. When I went out to check the car before paying and leaving, I discovered the rear right tire had been nailed to the asphalt. A clean blowout. The spare had been left at the garage the week before and I still hadn’t gotten it back.

—The mechanic gets here at seven in the morning —the guy at the front desk told me, not looking up from his phone.

My day couldn’t get any worse. Or so I thought.

***

I asked for a room with two beds. Cami went ahead to the desk while I shut the car under the rain. When I walked into the lobby, I stopped for a second in the corridor to shake the water out of my hair. And from there I saw her.

She was leaning back against the counter, talking on the phone with Renata. The blue dress she’d worn to the graduation wasn’t short, but it clung to her in all the right places. The fabric followed the curve of her back before tightening over her hips. The receptionist, a guy in his forties, had lowered his cellphone below the level of the counter and was pointing it at her without moving his wrist. No sound, no obvious pretense. Just an angle and a reflection.

I stood still. The right thing to do was walk over and smash his face in. I didn’t. I didn’t know why then. I do now.

I was looking at her the way he was looking at her.

I walked over when the guy put his phone away. I asked for the keys in a voice that sounded foreign to me, signed the voucher, took my sister by the arm, and walked with her toward the hallway. She was telling me a story about the party. I didn’t hear a single word. I walked behind her trying not to look at her ass, and looking at it every two steps.

***

The room had two single beds separated by a nightstand, a worn rug, and a bathroom with a loose faucet. I threw the bag on the window bed and went into the bathroom to change. When I came out, Cami was still sitting on the edge of her bed with the dress on.

—What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to sleep?

—This dress is uncomfortable to sleep in. I didn’t bring pajamas.

—Take it off —I said, trying to sound casual—. Or at least take something off. You’re not sleeping in that.

—I don’t have decent underwear, idiot. I’m embarrassed.

—I’ll turn my back. Tell me when you’re covered.

I sat on my bed with my back to hers, staring at the ugly green patterned wallpaper. I heard the zipper on her dress come down slowly. The rustle of fabric falling. A short sigh. The mattress creaking as she got under the sheets. Every sound etched itself into me as if I were seeing it. I closed my eyes and tried not to think.

—Done. Good night.

—Good night, Cami.

I turned off the lamp. Only the glow of the hotel’s red sign filtered in through the curtain. I pulled out my phone and sent Lucía a voice note telling her about the tire. She didn’t answer. I knew her: she was angry and wouldn’t reply until the next day. I put on my earbuds and let soft music play, trying to fall asleep.

I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, the image of the receptionist aiming his phone came back. And with it, the disgusting and tempting idea of what had been under that dress. An idea I had never once had before. An idea that twenty minutes earlier would have seemed sick to me.

Just look. Nothing more.

I repeated it to myself four or five times until I convinced myself that looking was nothing. That it was curiosity. That opportunities like this didn’t come around twice. That my sister slept like the dead —since she was a kid, my mother had had to wake her by shouting—, that she wasn’t going to notice. Any excuse would do.

I waited.

***

I called her softly twice. Then a third time, using her full name. Nothing. Her breathing was even, deep. I sat on the edge of my bed and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I turned my phone screen to minimum brightness and set it on my thigh, pointing it toward her side.

She was on her back, completely covered up to her neck. Impossible to see anything. I waited. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. In one of her movements she rolled onto her side, turning her back to me. The sheet slipped down to the middle of her back and left her shoulders and the strap of a pale pink bra exposed. White skin, unmarked. A small mole near her right shoulder blade.

My heart pounded against my ribs with a violence I had never felt before. I breathed through my nose, slowly, trying to calm myself. And I knelt beside her bed.

I lifted the sheet centimeter by centimeter, watching for the slightest change in her breathing. When I reached knee height, I stopped. The view I had took my breath away.

She was wearing white spandex shorts, tight, barely covering half her ass. Beneath the shorts, the glossy edge of a thong in the same pale pink as the bra peeked out. Matching set. I had always seen her in sweatshirts, in baggy jeans, in that armor of loose fabric that was her uniform. And underneath, all the time, she’d been wearing this.

My hand trembled. I wanted to touch. I wanted to slide my open palm over the curve of her hip, feel whether the skin was as warm as it looked. Press my lips to the lower part of her back and move slowly downward. Bite. Do all the things a brother can’t and mustn’t think.

I didn’t touch her. The fear of waking her was stronger than the urge. Instead I lowered my face to her hair, a few centimeters from the nape of her neck, and breathed. She smelled like coconut shampoo and something else underneath, something warm I wouldn’t know how to name. I gave her a very short kiss on the shoulder, so soft not even a fly would have noticed. Then another a little lower, on her ribs. Then one on the edge of the shorts.

She moved just a little, a half-turn to get comfortable, and I froze. But she didn’t open her eyes. Her mouth parted in a slow exhale and she kept sleeping. That tiny sound made me grit my teeth. Blood throbbed in my temples. I leaned in again and slid my hand, first over the sheet, until I felt the firm curve of her thigh. Then underneath, with the slowness of a thief, until I brushed bare skin.

It was warm. Soft. Softer than I’d imagined. I traced her thigh with two fingers, from knee to up high, and felt the muscles loosen under my hand. I kept going a little more, each centimeter higher seeming like a point of no return. When I reached the edge of her shorts, I touched it with my thumb and felt the elastic give. There was nothing between that fabric and the heat of her body.

I lifted her leg just enough to straighten the sheet, and in doing so the shorts rode up a little more. The triangle of the thong came into view, pressed against the cleft between her ass cheeks. Holding my breath, I ran a finger over it, not quite entering, just grazing the thin fabric. Her reaction was immediate: a brief tremor, tiny, but real. Cami let out a murmur and furrowed her brow. I pulled back as if I’d been burned.

I stayed still, watching her back rise and fall, waiting for her to open her eyes. She didn’t. My pulse had gone so wild I felt dizzy. I moved closer again, this time from above, and laid my palm on her waist. I wanted to pull my hand away at once, but I couldn’t. It was there, sunk just slightly into the soft flesh at her side, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.

Then, with almost unbearable slowness, I dared go lower. The edge of the thong was a pink line lost between skin and the white fabric of the shorts. I tugged at that edge with two fingers, just enough to free a little more fabric. The rest was done by gravity and her own body, settling in sleep. What appeared was a strip of skin damp with heat, the most intimate curve of her ass and the tight meeting of her thighs.

I stared at her as if I had lost the ability to speak. My mouth was dry. My cock was hard as stone inside my pants. I knelt even closer, so close the heat of her body was hitting my face. And then, with a mix of guilt and hunger that left me wrecked, I pressed my lips to that point where her thigh met her hip. One kiss, two, three. Short at first. Then longer. Wetter.

She sighed again, this time more clearly, and turned slightly onto her back. The sheet fell to her abdomen. The blue dress was no longer there; she had left it hanging on the chair. Only the fitted top she hadn’t brought remained, and the underwear set, visible in the reddish dimness from the sign. She had small, firm breasts, held by a pink bra that outlined the edge of her nipples. I stared at them with a filthy fixation, as if they were the only solid thing in the room.

I wanted to slip my hand under the bra. I wanted to pull the strap down, take one breast out, suck her nipple until she woke with a moan. I wanted to shove her legs apart and bury my face between her thighs until I couldn’t breathe. I wanted it so badly my hands hurt.

I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. Or not yet.

Instead, I slid my fingers down the center of her abdomen, very low, to the edge of the thong. The fabric was a little damp with sweat. Grazing it sent a jolt through me. And when I pressed right there, over the covered mound, Cami arched her back slightly, as if her body had answered before her mind. She opened her mouth in a longer, sweeter, indecent sigh. That sound split me in two.

—Mm…? —she murmured, still asleep, her voice broken by sleep.

I stayed motionless, my hand planted where it was. She hadn’t come to. She had only made that sound. But it was enough for me. Fear no longer stopped me; what stopped me was the certainty that if I kept going, there would be no turning back. I looked at the soft mound under the thong, the wet line in the crotch, the chest rising and falling with deep breathing, and felt a brutal need for her to open her eyes and look at me.

Then I slid two fingers inside the elastic, just an inch, and found heat. Nothing else. Just heat and the smooth texture of skin. But it was enough to cut my breath short. I heard her moan softly, a nearly childlike sound, and I leaned in to cover her mouth with mine before it could be heard more clearly. The kiss was clumsy, trembling, a mix of saliva and held breath. She didn’t wake, only turned her head looking for air and let me keep going.

My hand moved on its own. I lowered the thong carefully, a little, until the wet curve of her lips was exposed. The skin there was warmer, softer, and it smelled like her in a way that made me drunk. I stared at it for a full second, without touching. Then I brought my mouth close and gave her a slow lick, bottom to top, tasting the salty mix of her arousal and my own guilt on my tongue. Cami shuddered violently, this time waking halfway, with a gasp that slipped out between her teeth.

—What…? —she said, half confused and half asleep.

I didn’t answer. I pulled the thong aside completely and buried my face between her legs as if I had been meant for this all along. Her pussy was wet, open from her broken breathing, and my tongue went in hungry, licking from top to bottom, searching for the center where the heat grew thicker. She grabbed my hair with one loose hand, then tighter when I dragged the tip of my tongue over her clit. Her hips lifted on their own, offered up, and the moan she let out was no longer the moan of sleep.

—Fuck… —she whispered, eyes still closed, not fully understanding—. What are you doing to me?

I didn’t answer. I was eating her like an animal, holding one ass cheek in my hand while the other separated her legs better. My tongue was full of her. The smell of sex made me dizzy. I sucked harder, slipped two fingers inside her carefully, feeling the wetness squeeze them, and then a third when she arched her back and dug her nails into my scalp. The sound that came out of her throat was clean, sharp, a real moan, and it turned me on so much I almost came in my pants.

—Keep going… —she said, fully awake now, breathing fast, with a voice I didn’t recognize at first.

I lifted my head. Her eyes were half open, shining in the darkness, her face disheveled, her mouth wet. She looked at me for a long second without looking away, as if deciding whether horror or desire was the first thing she was going to name. Then she yanked on my shirt and kissed me with the same hunger with which I had licked her pussy. It was a filthy kiss, open, full of saliva, teeth clacking, breath broken. There was nothing sleepy left in her now. Only a fierce need.

I yanked her bra down and put one nipple in my mouth. I sucked it until it got hard, playing with my tongue around it while she scraped my back under my shirt. I squeezed the other breast with my hand, feeling the round heat, the pulse of her skin against my fingers. Cami arched, panting, and opened wider for me without saying a word. I ran my hand over her belly, came back down to the center, and she received me with her legs completely open, pushing her pelvis toward my mouth like a slut desperate for more.

—Put it in me —she told me in my ear, with a trembling urgency that made my cock even harder—. I want to feel you inside me.

I shoved my pants down halfway, pulled out my throbbing dick, and settled between her thighs. The tip brushed her wet lips, then entered slowly, only a little, and she moaned so loudly I had to cover her mouth with my hand so it wouldn’t carry into the hallway. Her pussy gripped me with a hot, wet, delicious force, and when I started thrusting for real, both of us let out a sound like a sob. Each stroke made the mattress creak. Each hit of my hips stole my breath. She clung to my neck, bit my shoulder, begged for more with her broken voice.

—More, you son of a bitch… deeper… like that…

I kept going until her legs started trembling. The whole room seemed to pulse to the rhythm of our bodies. The thong hung to one side, soaked. My cock went in and out of that tight cunt while I forced her legs farther apart with my knees, driving hard and short, looking for the bottom of her with brutal blows. Cami screamed once, loudly, unable to hold it back, and came with a convulsion that squeezed me even deeper inside. I felt the base of my dick go wet, felt the spasm run through her whole body, and that sight made me lose the last shred of control.

—I’m gonna come —I told her, barely able to speak.

—Do it —she answered, biting the pillow—. Come inside. I want it all.

That was the phrase that finally broke me. I grabbed her waist, buried my cock to the hilt, and came with a muffled groan, long, brutal, spilling hot cum inside her while she kept trembling from her own orgasm. I stayed folded over her, sweating, my body shaking and my heart about to burst out of my mouth. She stroked the back of my neck slowly, as if nothing in the world could be more natural.

Then she looked at me with obscene calm and gave the smallest smile, her mouth swollen and her legs still open.

—Now you won’t be able to look at me the same way again —she said.

I pulled the sheet back up to her chest, stepped away from her bed with weak knees, and stood there for a second, breathing like an animal. The room smelled of sex, sweat, and that strange mix of cheap perfume and skin that wouldn’t go away for a long time. Cami fixed her hair, picked the thong up off the floor, and put her shorts back on with a calm that gave me chills.

***

I went back to my bed with shaky legs. The pillow felt hard, the sheets rough, the room’s air stale. I pictured her on a loop: the spandex shorts, the glossy line of the thong, the mole on her shoulder blade. I ended up jerking off under the blankets with my face buried in the pillow so I wouldn’t make noise. I didn’t imagine Lucía. I didn’t even imagine some random woman. I imagined Cami on top of me, her hands against my chest, her nails, her hips marking a rhythm I followed with mine.

I fell asleep wrecked. Not from exhaustion. From the other thing.

***

She woke me, shaking my shoulder.

—Little brother, the mechanic’s here. We need to go.

She was fully dressed, the blue dress on again, her hair tied up in a high ponytail. Smelled like fresh shampoo and toothpaste. As if nothing had happened. Because for her, nothing had happened.

—I’ll be out in five minutes —I said, my voice thick.

—I brought you coffee from the lobby.

She set the cup on the nightstand and left the room humming softly. I watched her go. I looked at her like I had never looked at her before. Like a woman. Not like my sister. And in that second I knew, with a clarity that did not make me proud, that this was not going to stay a single dawn in a roadside hotel. That the image of those white spandex shorts was going to come crashing over me every time I saw her come down to breakfast in pajamas. Every time we crossed the kitchen at the same time. Every time she bent over the sofa to reach for the remote.

***

The mechanic changed the tire in forty minutes. I paid, left a tip, didn’t return the good morning to the receptionist who had looked at the woman standing beside me.

On the road, Cami talked nonstop. She told me details about the graduation, old stories about Renata, plans for next summer. I answered in monosyllables. I was thinking about something else. I was thinking about how I was going to get a little closer, without scaring her, without her suspecting anything. About what excuse I was going to invent so she’d come back to the gym with me. About how I was going to start touching her in small doses, as if it were natural, as if I had always done it. A hand at the waist while passing through the kitchen. A shoulder massage if she said she was tired. A longer hug when we said hello.

—You got quiet —she said, looking at me—. Are you mad about Lucía?

—A little —I lied.

—I can talk to her if you want. I’ll explain it was my fault.

—No, leave it. She’ll get over it.

She smiled out of the side of her mouth and looked back at the road. I looked at her thighs covered by the fabric of the dress, and I already knew exactly what was underneath. And I also knew, with the same clarity, that I wasn’t going to stop until I went farther. Even if it cost me my girlfriend. Even if it cost me my sanity. Even if she was my sister. Especially because she was my sister.