What My Father Did While My Mother Slept

The night turned into a nightmare of insomnia for Sabina. The faint taste of victory she had felt in the kitchen that afternoon had soured inside her, transformed into an acidic hunger rising up her throat. Her father’s rejection, that desperate plea with which he had begged her to stop, had not stopped her. It had only made her angrier.

She had refused to destroy him. What a mistake. She did not want him preserved. She wanted him devoured whole, with nothing left.

She tossed and turned in bed. The sheet tangled around her legs like a shroud, and the silence of the house, which had once calmed her, was now her enemy. Every creak of the wood, every whisper of the wind against the glass, reminded her of what was not happening. She was wet and frustrated, and her mind, a beast without a cage, returned again and again to the image of him: to the hardness she had felt beneath the fabric, to the conflict in his gaze.

That was when she heard it.

Not a shout, not a moan. Something more sinister. The slow, heavy creak of a mattress. The rustle of a sheet sliding away. A furtive, guilty sound. She sat up, breathless, eyes fixed on her bedroom door. It was not the sound of sex. It was the sound of theft.

She got out of bed with her heart pounding in her temples. She didn’t put anything on. Barefoot, she moved down the dark hallway like a ghost over the cold wood. Her parents’ bedroom door was half open, letting out a sliver of moonlight that cut through the dimness. She approached and pressed her ear to the frame.

The first thing she smelled was not sex. It was salt. Cold sweat and fear. And underneath it, a sweeter smell: that of a sleeping, defenseless body.

—Please, sleep… please, keep sleeping —a hoarse voice whispered. Her father’s voice. It was a desperate prayer.

Sabina took the risk. She looked through the crack. The scene chilled her blood and, at the same time, lit a fire in her belly.

Her mother was asleep on her back, mouth slightly open, breathing with the unconscious depth of deep sleep. One leg stuck out from under the sheets. She was completely at his mercy.

And her father, Adrián, was standing beside the bed like a predator watching its prey. He wore only the pajama bottoms, pulled down to his knees, and he was holding his cock in his hand. He was not stroking it with desire, but with a kind of dark, slow fury. He was masturbating while staring at his sleeping wife’s body. But Sabina knew, with a certainty that made her tremble, that he was not seeing her. He was seeing a substitute. A warm body onto which he could project his obsession.

He leaned down slowly, with grotesque delicacy. Very carefully, as if he did not want to wake a corpse, he spread his wife’s legs apart. The sheet slid away and exposed her sex, dark in the dim light. He did not kiss her. He did not caress her. He simply positioned himself between her legs, guided himself with his hand, and pushed toward the entrance of that absent body.

Sabina held her breath. This was not sex. It was a profanation.

And then he entered her.

There was no moan of pleasure from her mother. Only the faintest gasp, the sound of air expelled from lungs that had not expected it. He remained still for an instant, head bowed, the muscles in his back taut. Then he began to move.

The rhythm was horrible. It had nothing of the heat from that afternoon. It was slow, methodical, almost clinical. The rhythm of a man masturbating with someone else’s body. All that could be heard was his ragged breathing, the creak of the mattress, and the wet, sticky sound of his thrusting into a sex that did not answer, did not receive him with pleasure, was simply there, passive.

—Whore… —he hissed. But the word was not meant for the woman beneath him. It was an insult thrown into the darkness, at the daughter who had driven him mad—. You’re driving me crazy… you’re fucking driving me crazy…

Sabina’s eyes burned, but they were not tears of sadness. They were tears of fury and of a lust so black and deep it frightened her. She slipped one hand between her legs and found herself drenched. Her cunt throbbed with a painful, desperate pulse. She began to rub herself in the same slow, perverted rhythm with which her father was fucking her unconscious mother’s body.

Every thrust of his was an insult. Every caress of her own fingers against her clit, a reply. He was using her through her mother. And she, in turn, was using him, turning his act of desperation into the fuel for her own pleasure.

—I’m going to fill you… I’m going to leave it all inside so you remember… —he growled, and his words were a warped promise that did not belong to the sleeping woman.

Sabina clenched her teeth and rubbed harder, faster. The tension grew, a filthy electric wave rising from her feet. She wanted to scream. She wanted to break something. She wanted to go into that room, shove her mother aside, and take her place.

He sped up. His movements became erratic, desperate. With a muffled groan, a sound of total defeat, he came. He stayed buried in his wife’s body, trembling, emptying his frustration, his rage, and his desire into that sleeping womb.

Sabina’s orgasm exploded at the same time. It was not a scream. It was a silent, violent spasm that doubled her over. She braced herself against the wall, trembling, her thigh wet, while she watched her father withdraw from her mother’s body with horrifying slowness.

He looked at her. A fleeting second, through the crack. His eyes were empty, lost. There was no triumph in that look. Only nothing. The abyss.

He pulled up his pajama bottoms and left the room without looking back, like a man who has just committed a murder.

Sabina remained in the hallway, in the dark, listening to her mother’s peaceful, foreign breathing, completely unaware of the profanation she had just suffered. And for the first time she felt not only desire. She felt a pure, poisonous hatred. Hatred toward her mother for being so weak, for being there. And a much deeper hatred toward her father for not having the courage to do it with her.

***

The house smelled of secrets. Of dried semen in sheets her mother still hadn’t changed, of guilty sweat, and of a thick silence you could almost chew. Her father avoided her. He passed by her as if she were a ghost, his eyes fixed on some indeterminate point on the wall. That night’s act had not bound them together in a conspiracy of sin. It had broken him. It had turned him into a mediocre, frightened man, and his desire had become an acidic, biting contempt.

She needed a new weapon. And that weapon arrived on a Saturday morning, in the form of an old, noisy pickup truck that stopped in front of the house. It was him. Uncle Bruno.

Bruno was her father’s younger brother. Ten years younger, his exact opposite. Where Adrián was dark, introspective, and tormented, Bruno was sunshine, easy laughter, and a confidence that bordered on arrogance. He wore his hair longer, a few days’ beard, and a T-shirt from a band Sabina didn’t know. He smelled of roll-your-own tobacco, of car, and of a freedom her father had buried long ago.

—Little Sabina! How you’ve grown! —he exclaimed when he saw her, lifting her off the ground in a hug that pressed her breasts against his firm torso. He let her go, but his hands lingered a second too long on her waist—. You’re already a grown woman.

Sabina smiled. A sugar-and-poison smile.

—And you’re almost an old man already, Uncle.

He let out a genuine laugh that echoed through the house’s oppressive silence. Her father appeared in the living room doorway and Bruno’s smile faded a little.

—Adrián. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.

—I live here, remember? —her father replied in a flat, lifeless voice.

The tension between the brothers was palpable. Bruno, the eternal drifter, and Adrián, prisoner of his own life. And Sabina, in between them, felt the power shift sides.

They spent the morning in an awkward ritual of coffee and small talk. Bruno told stories about his latest trip along the coast while her father nodded in monosyllables. Sabina watched him: she saw how his eyes landed on her every time Bruno complimented her, every time her uncle’s laughter filled the room. She saw the shadow of jealousy. The seed had been planted. All that was left was to water it.

The plan formed in her mind with crystal clarity.

—Uncle, will you help me move the big pot in the garden? Dad’s very busy being a bad host —she said, in a joking tone that had a real edge to it.

Bruno jumped up.

—Of course, niece. Let’s leave your father to his deep thoughts.

Before going out, she looked at her father one last time. His face was a stone mask, but his eyes followed her. She felt that look on her back like a burn.

***

In the garden, the sun beat down hard. Bruno took off his T-shirt to work, revealing a dark torso, lean but defined, with an eagle tattooed on his arm. He did not have her father’s heavy strength, but he had a wild, youthful energy. Sabina watched him, not with desire, but with clinical curiosity. He was a tool. A means to an end.

—Fuck, this thing weighs more than my debts —Bruno puffed, pushing the terracotta pot. He was sweating, and the smell he gave off was different from her father’s. Less deep, more animal.

—Let me help —she said, moving closer. She knelt beside him and, “accidentally,” spilled a little water from the watering can onto her own chest. The thin fabric of her blouse went sheer, clinging to her breasts.

Bruno stopped, eyes fixed on her cleavage.

—Careful, little one. You’re going to get wet.

—I don’t mind —she whispered, moving closer. She ran a hand along his arm, feeling the warm skin and the hair under her fingers—. You’ve got strong arms.

He laughed, nervously this time.

—It’s the construction work, you know. —He didn’t pull away. His eyes stayed locked on her breasts.

It was time.

Sabina slowly stood up and knelt again, this time in front of him, between his body and the pot.

—Rest, Uncle. Let me thank you.

Before he could protest, her fingers found the buckle of his belt and popped it open with a click. Her hands moved to his fly.

—Sabina, what the fuck…? —he started. But his words broke off in a gasp when she pulled down the zipper and took out his cock.

It was half-hard, thinner than her father’s, with darker skin and less pubic hair. It was not the object of her desire, but it was the key. She leaned in and, without further preamble, took it into her mouth.

The taste hit like a blow. Sweat, clean skin, another man. It was different. It was not the one she longed for. But she did it anyway. She took him deep, feeling him harden and grow until he filled her mouth. She used her tongue, circled the tip, sucked him with a wet, obscene sound. She was not doing it for pleasure. She was doing it for show. She was doing it for the man she knew was watching.

And he was. From the threshold of the sliding door, invisible in the living room’s dimness, her father watched them. Sabina could not see him, but she could feel him. She felt his hatred like physical pressure in the hot garden air.

Bruno had surrendered. He buried his hands in her hair, not forcefully but in amazement, guiding her, letting out little gasps of disbelief.

—Fuck, Sabina… what… what are you doing…

She did not answer. She only glanced sideways toward the sliding door while continuing to suck him with false devotion. She wanted her father to see her. She wanted him to see his brother, his younger brother, with his cock in his daughter’s mouth. She wanted him to understand that if he was not man enough to take her, someone else would be. A substitute. A thorn driven into his pride.

Bruno started moving, thrusting gently into her mouth with the rhythm of a man who cannot believe his luck.

—I’m going to… I’m going to come, niece…

Sabina did not pull away. She prepared to receive him. But at that very moment, a sound shattered the spell of the garden.

The crash of glass breaking in the living room.

Bruno jumped and came out of her mouth as if burned. He fastened his pants clumsily and sprang to his feet, panic in his eyes.

—What the fuck was that!

Sabina stayed kneeling on the ground, her uncle’s taste in her mouth and a triumphant smile on her lips. She didn’t need to look. She knew exactly what had happened. She knew that her father, from the darkness of the living room, had clenched his fist so hard he had shattered the glass he was holding.

She had done it. He was no longer a ghost. He was wounded. And a wounded animal, no matter how much fear it feels, is always the most dangerous one.