What My Father Did While My Mother Slept

The night turned into an insomnia nightmare for Sabina. The vague taste of victory she had felt in the kitchen that afternoon had soured inside her, transformed into an acidic craving 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 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 comforted her, was now her enemy. Every creak of the wood, every whisper of the wind against the glass, was a reminder of what was not happening. She was wet and frustrated, and her mind, a beast without a cage, kept returning 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 cry, 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 bolt upright, 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 hammering in her temples. She did not put anything on over herself. Barefoot, she moved down the dark hallway, like a ghost over the cold wood. Her parents’ bedroom door was ajar, letting out a sliver of moonlight that cut through the gloom. 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, helpless body.

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

Sabina took the risk. She peered through the crack. The scene froze 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 was sticking 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 was wearing only the pajama pants, pulled down to his knees, and he was holding his cock in his hand. He was not stroking it with desire, but with some kind of dark, slow fury. He was masturbating while looking at his wife’s sleeping 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 the dead, he spread his wife’s legs. The sheet slipped away and exposed her sex, dark in the half-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 into the entrance of that absent body.

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

And then he entered her.

There was no moan of pleasure from her mother. Only a tiny gasp, the sound of air forced out of lungs that had not expected it. He remained still for a moment, head bowed and back muscles taut. Then he began to move.

The rhythm was horrible. It had nothing of the heat of that afternoon. It was slow, methodical, almost clinical. The rhythm of a man masturbating with someone else’s body. The only sounds were his ragged breathing, the mattress creaking, and the wet, sticky sound of his thrusts into a sex that did not answer, that did not receive him with pleasure, that was simply there, passive.

—Whore… —he hissed. But the word was not aimed at the woman beneath him. It was an insult hurled into the darkness, at the daughter who had driven him mad—. You drive me insane… you’ve got me fucking insane…

Sabina’s eyes burned, but they were not tears of sadness. They were tears of fury and of a lust so black and deep that it frightened her. She slid a hand down between her legs and found herself soaked. Her sex throbbed with a painful, desperate pulse. She started to rub herself to the same slow, perverted rhythm with which her father was pounding her mother’s unconscious body.

Each thrust of his was an insult. Each caress of her fingers over her own 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 everything inside so you remember… —he growled, and his words were a twisted promise that did not belong to the sleeping woman.

Sabina clenched her teeth and rubbed faster, harder. The tension grew, a dirty, electric wave climbing up 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 stifled moan, the sound of total defeat, he came. He remained 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 cry. It was a silent, violent spasm that folded her in half. She braced herself against the wall, trembling, her thigh wet, as 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 pants 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 calm, чужой, oblivious breathing, utterly unaware of the desecration she had just suffered. And for the first time she felt not only desire. She felt pure, venomous hatred. Hatred for her mother for being so weak, for being there. And a much deeper hatred for her father for not having the courage to do it with her.

***

The house smelled of secrets. Of dried semen on sheets her mother still hadn’t changed, of sweat thick with guilt, and of a dense silence you could almost chew. Her father avoided her. He passed by her as if she were a ghost, his gaze fixed on some indeterminate point on the wall. What had happened that night 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 turned into an acidic, cutting contempt.

She needed a new weapon. And that weapon arrived on a Saturday morning in the form of an old, noisy van 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 rolling tobacco, of car, and of a freedom her father had buried long ago.

—Little Sabina! Look 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 at her waist—. You’re a real woman now.

Sabina smiled. A smile of sugar and poison.

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

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

—Adrián. Didn’t expect 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, the prisoner of his own life. And Sabina, between the two, felt the balance of power shift sides.

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

The plan took shape in her mind with crystalline clarity.

—Uncle, will you help me move the big pot in the garden? Dad is very busy being a terrible host —she said, in a joking tone that had a sliver of truth in it.

Bruno jumped up.

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

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

***

In the garden, the sun beat down hard. Bruno took off his shirt to work and exposed a brown torso, lean but defined, with an eagle tattoo on his arm. He did not have her father’s heavy strength, but he did have 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 huffed, 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 you —she said, stepping 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 over his arm, feeling the warm skin and the hair beneath her fingers—. You’ve got strong arms.

He laughed, nervous this time.

—It’s the construction work, you know. —He didn’t pull away. His eyes remained glued to her breasts.

It was time.

Sabina stood up slowly 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 began. But his words broke into 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 sparser hair. It was not the object of her desire, but it was the key. She bent down and, without further preamble, took it into her mouth.

The taste hit her 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 to the back of her throat, feeling him harden and grow until he filled her mouth. She used her tongue, rolled it around the head, sucked him with a wet, obscene sound. She was not doing it for pleasure. She was doing it for display. She was doing it for the man she knew was watching.

And he was. From the doorway of the sliding glass door, invisible in the darkness of the living room, her father watched them. Sabina could not see him, but she could feel him. She felt his hatred like a 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 small moans of disbelief.

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

She did not answer. She only glanced sideways at him, toward the sliding door, while she kept sucking 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 lodged in his pride.

Bruno began to move, 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 herself to take him. But just at that instant, a sound broke the spell of the garden.

The crash of glass shattering in the living room.

Bruno jerked and came out of her mouth as if he had been burned. He fumbled to zip up his pants and sprang to his feet, panic in his eyes.

—What the fuck was that!

Sabina remained kneeling on the ground, her uncle’s taste in her mouth and a triumphant smile on her lips. She did not 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 that he 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 afraid it is, is always the most dangerous one.