The Nude Beach Where I Finally Was Myself

To Rodrigo I was Sofía. That’s what he called me when we were alone, when he wrapped himself around me from behind in that small bed in the rented apartment and whispered in my ear everything he was going to do to me, everything he had already done to me, everything that made me forget the rest of the world. To Claudia, my mother, I was still Santi: Santiago, her eldest son, the one who had always had something hard to name in the gestures, in the way he walked, in the laugh.

I’d been on hormones for four months when Mom announced she was coming to visit me. Four months that had changed me more than I’d ever thought possible: breasts still small but unmistakable under any T-shirt, nipples more sensitive, darker, swelling at the slightest touch; softer skin on my forearms, hips a little wider, my ass rounding out in a way Rodrigo never got tired of biting. I lived in a small apartment facing the sea, in a resort town on the Atlantic coast where nobody had known me before. Where Sofía could exist without explanations.

—We’ll tell her I’m your roommate —Rodrigo tried the night before she arrived—. We cover up yours with clothes and that’s it. One week.

I stayed looking at him for a moment. —One week pretending I don’t exist.

He didn’t answer. We both knew what that meant.

I went to the shower and stayed a good while under the hot water, face lifted and eyes closed. I thought about how many times I’d done that before: disappearing into the water so I wouldn’t have to decide. But there was something different now. It wasn’t the body I’d always wanted to hide. It was mine.

I got out of the shower and didn’t say anything else about it.

***

Mom arrived on a Tuesday at noon, with a wheeled suitcase and that way of hers of walking into places while looking at everything at once. She looked at me from the doorway for a few seconds. Then she came in, set down the suitcase, and hugged me.

She didn’t say anything about my hair, which reached my shoulders. She didn’t say anything about my clothes, which were women’s clothes even if loose. She just hugged me.

That night the three of us had dinner with surface-level conversation: the trip, the sea, the rent. Rodrigo was kind and seamless. I was tense in a way muscles notice before your head does. At eleven Mom went to the pull-out sofa we’d prepared, and Rodrigo and I went into the bedroom.

I’m not really sure how it started. For days I’d had that tension stored up in my body that I know well: that dull heat that starts in the stomach and works its way down slowly to the ass, until it leaves me throbbing with every step. As soon as we closed the door Rodrigo pressed me against the wall and pushed his tongue into my mouth, his hand already sliding down my pajama pants, his fingers searching between my cheeks over the fabric. He bit my neck, my ear, my earlobe.

—You’ve been hot since she got here —he told me in my ear, in that low, rough voice that made me tremble—. I know you. You’ve had your ass tight and wet since dinner.

—Shut up and take my clothes off —I told him.

He tore my T-shirt up and over my head and stopped for a second to look at my breasts, with that face he always made, like he still couldn’t quite believe it. He grabbed them with both hands, pinched my nipples between his fingers until I moaned, leaned down and sucked one, slowly at first, then hungrily, scraping it with his teeth while I buried my hands in his hair. I felt the cunt —because that’s what he called it and that’s what I’d learned to call it, even if anatomy said otherwise— throbbing between my legs. I felt my cock, still mine, hardening against my will, that contradiction four months of hormones hadn’t quite erased but had softened.

He shoved me onto the bed. I lay face down on the pillow, spread my legs, lifted my ass. Rodrigo opened the drawer of the bedside table without turning on the light. I heard him uncork the lube, heard that wet little sound when he put it on his fingers. His fingers entered slowly, with the cold lubricant we always used, turning, searching for the rhythm. The first one went in easily. He pushed it all the way in and started moving it in circles, stretching me, opening me up.

—Look at how it sucks your finger in —he said, and his voice went right through my spine—. How you hold it. You need more, don’t you?

—Yeah —I gasped into the pillow—. More.

The second made me grip the pillowcase with both hands. He twisted them together, scissored them open, drove them in to the knuckles. Every time he brushed that inner spot I felt a lash of sensation shooting up my back and leaving me damp with cold sweat. I had my face buried in the pillow so I wouldn’t scream. I had my butt cheeks pulled apart with his other hand. I had my ass open, throbbing, ready for him.

He was inside up to the knuckles when the door opened.

Mom didn’t scream. That was the first thing I thought, with a strange clarity: she didn’t scream. She stood frozen in the doorway. Rodrigo pulled his hand away. I covered myself with the sheet and sat up, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it.

—Claudia —Rodrigo said, softly.

But Mom was looking at me. At the breasts peeking over the edge of the sheet. At my long hair. At my beardless face.

—How long have you been like this? —she asked. Her voice was strange. It wasn’t anger. It was something I couldn’t name at that moment.

—Four months on hormones —I answered—. But really, forever.

The silence lasted what felt like a full hour.

—What’s your name now? —she said at last.

I swallowed. —Sofía.

She nodded. Slowly, as if processing each syllable separately. Then she turned and closed the door. She didn’t slam it.

I didn’t sleep all night.

***

The next morning Mom was on the little terrace, a coffee in her hand and her eyes on the sea. I sat down beside her without speaking. It was one of those heavy silences, full of things moving underneath the surface.

—Are you okay? —she asked at last. It wasn’t the question I expected.

—Yes —I said—. For the first time in a long time, yes.

Mom took a sip of coffee without looking away from the water. —Then that’s what matters.

She didn’t add anything else about the subject. But when Rodrigo came out with breakfast, she looked at him differently. Not warily. With something more like the calm acceptance of someone who has made an inward decision without announcing it.

It was Rodrigo who mentioned the nude beach over breakfast, with that natural ease of his that sometimes irritated me and sometimes saved me.

—There’s a cove four kilometers away, accessed by a path through the pines. Hardly anyone goes on Mondays. It’s very quiet.

Mom frowned. —Really nude?

—Really nude —I confirmed—. There’s something incredibly freeing about taking everything off in front of the sea and nobody caring about a thing.

Mom hesitated. I knew that hesitation: it was the same one I’d had the first time, before I learned nudism has that strange ability to erase differences instead of exposing them. In the end she said yes with a nod that was almost resignation and almost curiosity.

—I’ll bring sunscreen —she said.

***

Mom was forty-four and had a body that filled me with a strange mix of admiration and something I took a while to identify as envy. Small, with narrow shoulders and the wide hips all the women in that family inherit, a pair of generous breasts that gravity had only just begun to curve, large dark nipples, her cunt covered with neatly trimmed brown hair. When she took off her dress in the sand and stood naked under the midday sun, I saw in her posture that instant of doubt that comes before freedom.

Rodrigo walked toward the water first, without looking back. His cock hung heavy between his thighs, still half-asleep but thick, and I caught out of the corner of my eye how Mom took half a second too long to look away. I stayed beside her while we took off our sandals.

The water was cold in the first steps and then simply salty and clear. Rodrigo was waiting waist-deep, arms open. The two of us went in at the same time, and a small wave shook us together and made us laugh.

The sea has something that levels everyone. With clothes on you belong to a place, a history, a way of moving through the world. Without clothes you’re just a body in the water, like everyone else. I felt that with a clarity that tightened my chest: the sun on my shoulders, the salt on my lips, the body that was finally mine without any name contradicting it.

The waves pushed us toward Rodrigo. His hands found my waist, then my thighs, then slid under the water between my cheeks, pulling me against him. I felt his cock harden against my lower back, long and hot, separated from me only by the salty current. Every time a wave broke, I fell against him, and he took the chance to rub it slowly between my cheeks, hidden from Mom’s view by the water. I had to bite my lip not to moan. Mom floated two meters away, on her back, her breasts bobbing between the waves, eyes closed and face to the sun.

Half an hour later, Mom said she was going to rinse off at the showers.

—To get the salt off —she explained. But there was something different in her eyes: a sidelong glance at Rodrigo and me that was perfectly eloquent.

We watched her walk toward the rocks. Her naked body moved more easily than when she’d first come in, her firm ass swaying with every step, her feet leaving wet prints in the pale sand. The sea does that: it gives something back to you.

I waited until she disappeared between the rocks.

***

Rodrigo was already hard when we got to the tarp spread out on the sand. His cock rose against his belly, thick, the vein along the side marked, the head shiny with salt and with the clear drop already forming at the tip. I knelt in front of him without either of us saying a word. The sun burned my shoulders. I took it with both hands —one hand wasn’t enough to wrap around it— and took it into my mouth slowly, feeling his weight, the taste of salt and hot skin, the pulse of blood against my tongue.

—Sofía —he said, in that low voice that was only for me—. That’s it. Suck it good.

I let him in deeper, until I felt him hit the back of my throat. I coughed, tears ran from my eyes, I spit out a thread of saliva that ran down over his balls and left them shining in the sun. I swallowed him again. One hand stayed at the base, twisting, while the other grabbed his testicles, weighing them, stroking them. I sucked the head with closed lips, ran my tongue flat over the underside, took him in sideways to suck him like a candy. His cock swelled more in my mouth with every thrust.

He grabbed my hair with both hands, made a fist, and started fucking my mouth himself, setting the rhythm, driving it to the balls against my lips. I let him, with my jaw relaxed and tears running from my eyes, feeling the hot drool dripping down my chin and onto my breasts. I could have come like that, without him touching me, just from having him so deep inside me.

Then he yanked his cock out of my mouth, pulled me up by the shoulders, and kissed me long and dirty, tasting himself on my tongue. His hands traced my back, down to my ass and squeezing with both palms, pulling my cheeks apart.

—Turn around —he said—. I want to see that ass open in the sun.

I got down on all fours on the tarp, knees spread wide and ass lifted toward him, face resting on my forearms. I felt the hot air between my cheeks, felt Rodrigo’s gaze lingering. I heard him suck his fingers, heard him spit, heard the lube in the bag pop open with that dry little snap.

—Look at you —he murmured, and ran his wet thumb over the hole in circles—. All tight, like it’s the first time every time.

—Just put it in already —I moaned.

—Slow. I’m going to open you up like you like it.

He oiled his fingers patiently, ran them over the outside first, massaging the ring, and then pushed in the first one. Cold, slippery. He twisted it patiently while I rested my forehead on my forearm and waited. I know that feeling well: the body that resists for a second and then gives, like a door opening from the inside.

The second finger came in more easily. He moved them in scissors, widening the space, driving them in to the knuckles and pulling them almost all the way out before pushing them back in again. I felt the heat spreading into my pelvis, that tingling that slowly becomes heavier, more urgent. When he found the exact spot with his fingertip, my body reacted on its own: a spasm that shot up my spine and made me squeeze my eyes shut. My cock, still mine, jerked against my belly, leaking another drop.

—I’ve got you —he said, laughing softly—. Look at it drip. Look at how you ask for it.

He slid in a third finger. I held on. I held on until I couldn’t hold on anymore and started pushing back myself, fucking his fingers on my own, driving against his hand, moaning into the tarp without caring about anything.

—Ready? —he asked.

—Yes —I said. And I meant it—. Put it in already, please. Put it all in.

He pulled his fingers out. I felt the emptiness for a second, then the broad head of his cock rubbing against the freshly opened hole. He rested it there, moved it in a circle, pressed just a little. He pushed slowly. The pressure built to a limit I recognized and then that limit gave way, and I felt him enter: filling me, taking up that space that was mine the way my new name was mine, opening me centimeter by centimeter until I felt his balls bump against my ass. I let out the air I’d been holding without realizing it.

—All the way in —he gasped—. Do you feel all of it?

—All of it —I said, and my voice came out broken.

He moved slowly at first. He pulled almost all the way out, leaving only the head inside me, and pushed back in again slowly. The friction was intense and precise. The sun on my back, the sound of the waves, the hot sand under the tarp. Everything was sensation without adornment. His hands gripped my hips, thumbs digging into my ass, pulling my cheeks apart to watch himself go in and out.

—You’re opening for me —he said—. Every time you open more. Every time you suck my cock better with that ass.

Then he sped up. The rhythm turned more urgent, the thrusts more direct. The slap of his balls against my skin sounded dry, wet, obscene under the sound of the sea. When he found the exact angle, I found it too: a release that started deep inside, long and slow, without haste. It wasn’t pain and it wasn’t exactly pleasure in the ordinary sense: it was something fuller, filling the whole body at once. I felt my own cock throbbing without anyone touching it, saw the patch of clear fluid forming on the tarp beneath my belly. I heard myself moan into the tarp and didn’t care.

—Like that —he said—. Exactly like that. Squeeze me. Make me cum in your ass.

He pushed my back down until I was almost flat and came up over me, his forearms on either side of my head, fucking me with all his body weight, driving himself in to the hilt every time. He squeezed. He squeezed harder. I felt his cock swelling even more inside me, that different pulse I already knew, and I knew he was about to finish.

—Inside —I begged—. Cum inside me.

He came with his hands clamped on my hips and a groan he held behind his teeth. I felt the hot spurt, the first, second, third, filling me, soaking me from the inside, and feeling it I came too, without touching myself, a long orgasm that left the tarp soaked beneath me and my whole body loose, shaking. Then he collapsed beside me, both of us sweaty and breathing with our mouths open. When he pulled out, the semen dripped warm from between my cheeks, down my thigh, onto the sand. The waves kept coming. The world kept going. We stayed still for a while, just breathing.

We went into the water to wash off. The sea was the same: indifferent and perfect, the same for everyone.

***

Mom wasn’t at the showers when we looked toward the rocks.

It took us a moment to find her. She was in the water, in the farthest part of the cove, where the rocks form a kind of lagoon sheltered from the surf. Beside her was a man. Tall, broad-backed, with the dark, shining skin of someone who spends a lot of time in the sun. They weren’t embracing, exactly. They were very close, water up to their chests, talking softly.

As we watched them, without meaning to, the man slid his hands over Mom’s waist and she didn’t pull away. She rested her hands on his shoulders and closed her eyes for a moment. One of the guy’s hands slid down her back and disappeared beneath the water, and I saw Mom’s mouth open just a little, saw her neck tense. The current rocked them gently. Her breasts rose and fell with the water, nipples hard, and he tilted his head to suck one while he kept doing whatever he was doing to her below the line of the sea.

Rodrigo touched my arm softly. —Let’s go back to the tarp.

We went back. We lay down on the sand on our backs, side by side, eyes closed. We didn’t talk. There was no need.

It took Mom more than half an hour to appear along the path skirting the rocks. She was walking alone, her cheeks flushed and with an expression I’d never seen on her before: something between surprise and calm, like someone who has just remembered something they’d forgotten for a long time. Her hair was wetter than before and her nipples were still hard under the sun.

We packed up in silence. We shook the sand off the tarp, put the bag away, put our sandals back on. The walk back to the car was uphill and narrow, single file between the pines. I was last.

Halfway there, Mom turned without stopping.

—What’s this place called exactly?

—Lighthouse Cove —I said.

She nodded slowly, as if storing the name away for something.

***

We got to the car. Rodrigo opened the trunk to put the bag in. Mom and I stood by the back door, looking toward the sea still visible between the pines. She looked at me for a second, directly.

—When’s your next medical appointment? —she asked. It was the first time since the night before that she’d brought up the subject.

—In three weeks —I answered.

—Let me know. I want to go with you, if that’s okay.

I didn’t answer right away. I felt something move in my chest, something I didn’t know how to name precisely but recognized as relief. The kind of relief that only stops hurting once it’s gone, and makes you realize how much it hurt before.

—That’s okay —I said.

She nodded and got into the car. Rodrigo looked at me over the roof before getting into the driver’s seat. I got in last, closed the door, and leaned back against the seat, still feeling his semen running inside me, my ass open and throbbing against the seat.

Through the window, the sea was still shining between the trees. The cove was behind us, but something of it was coming with us: sand between the fingers, salt in the hair, and that feeling of having crossed something that doesn’t have an exact name but changes forever the way you see yourself when nobody is looking.

Sofía. His daughter. Rodrigo’s woman. And all three of us, for the first time, going to the same place.