I Spied on My Parents Through a Crack in the Door

What I’m going to tell began by accident, but it ended up being the most intimate secret I keep. My name is Mariana, I’m in my fourth year of university, and I’m the youngest of three siblings. Tomás and Lucía are already married and live separately, so in my parents’ house there are only three of us left: Andrés, Carolina, and me.

The house is small, and the layout matters for what follows. You walk in to the living room; on the right is the kitchen and dining room; and at the back there are two almost adjoining doors: the one to the master bedroom and mine. Before my siblings moved out, my room was the three of ours. Now it’s only mine, but the wall I share with my parents is still the same. That, I discovered one ordinary night, changes everything.

The first time was in May. I had a microeconomics midterm the next day and didn’t understand even half the material. I showered early, took a huge mug of coffee to my desk, and spread my notes fanlike across the bed. At midnight I closed the books, made mind maps until two, and finally turned off the light, convinced that with how tired I was, sleep would beat me quickly.

It didn’t. The coffee had left my eyes open like two beacons. I tossed and turned, threw off the covers, pulled them back up, counted backward. Nothing. Then, when I had already resigned myself to being awake, I started hearing a strange squeaking, soft but constant, coming from the back wall.

At first I was scared. I thought of a burglar, an animal, anything but what it was. I stayed still, pressing the pillow against my face, waiting for the noise to stop. And it did, for two seconds. Then it started again, faster, mixed with something I couldn’t quite identify. A moan. Something soft, muffled, feminine.

I sat up slowly in bed. The voice was my mother’s.

I got up with a care I didn’t know I possessed. I crossed the room on tiptoe, opened my door with the slowness of someone defusing a bomb, and stood there in the doorway, listening. The squeaking was rhythmic. So were the moans. I had no doubt, though I still could hardly believe it. In twenty-one years, I had never imagined my parents doing that. To me, they were a man and a woman who kissed each other on the cheek and argued over the TV remote. That was it.

And now, on the other side of the wall, that man was fucking that woman. There was no other way to say it. I stayed a few more seconds, gripping the frame, listening as the rhythm quickened and my mother’s moans grew higher, almost plaintive, as if each thrust broke her apart a little. I heard the wet sound, unmistakable, of one body slamming against another. I heard my father let out a low, animal grunt, and then her voice begging for something in clipped fragments, in a tone I had never, ever heard from her.

I went back to bed with my face burning. I lay on my back and realized my breathing had gone shallow. Without thinking, almost out of curiosity, I lowered my hand and found myself soaked. My fingers sank in without resistance, slippery, and I was surprised by how much wetness I had. I touched my clit with the pad of my middle finger, in slow circles, unconsciously syncing myself to the blows on the other side. Every time the mattress creaked, I pressed harder. Every time she moaned, I held my breath. I slid two fingers inside and curled them upward, searching, and felt everything contract with a force I didn’t know in myself. The discovery made me ashamed and numb at the same time. I fell asleep without moving, with my hand still between my legs and my fingers sticky.

***

The next morning my mother had breakfast ready and my father looked at her as if he still wasn’t fully awake. I couldn’t meet their eyes. I felt like it showed on my face that I knew something. They passed the coffee, the bread, the “good luck on your exam,” and everything went on like any other day. But something inside me was already different.

When I got back from university in the afternoon, I started watching them with different eyes. My father came home from work, kissed my mother, and whispered something in her ear. She laughed and shot him a look I had never been able to decipher. While he washed his hands, she heated the food in the pan, her back to the door. My father came up behind her, rested his hands on her hips, and spoke into her neck. Without turning around, she pushed her ass back against him. It was a tiny gesture, an instant, but I saw it. And I also saw how my father pressed himself for a second against that ass, how he shoved with his pelvis, and how she closed her eyes for a moment before going back to stirring the onions as if nothing had happened.

I’ve spent my whole life seeing and not seeing at the same time, I thought.

I’m going to describe my parents, because from that day on they started being something else to me. Andrés is tall, dark, broad-shouldered. He’s worked construction since he was twenty and his hands are covered in scars. His face is rough; he’s not what you’d call a heartthrob, but there’s something in the way he walks and occupies space that I understand now. Carolina is the opposite: fair skin, honey-colored eyes that turn green some days, a mouth with full lips, and straight hair down to the middle of her back. She isn’t tall and she isn’t as thin as she’d like to be. She’s what people call curvy-hipped. She has big tits she hides under loose sweaters in front of me and an ass that seems impossible for a woman her height. She always smells good and always looks put together, even if she’s only going to the corner store.

That night I made myself another coffee and tried to recreate the previous evening’s scene. Nothing happened. They went to sleep early and I stayed up alone, staring at the ceiling, feeling ridiculous and turned on at the same time, with my hand inside my panties and nothing more than a little relief to show for it.

***

The second time was two days later. After dinner I caught them being more affectionate than usual: an extra kiss, a playful slap on the ass, a long look. I knew something was happening that night. I prepared methodically: strong coffee, comfortable clothes, nothing on the bedroom floor that could make me trip in the dark. I drizzled a few drops of cooking oil on my door lock so it wouldn’t squeak when I opened it.

At nine my mother went to shower. She came out wearing a thin silk robe that was completely sheer: a tiny thong, her tits free, nipples outlined against the wet fabric. She told my father the bathroom was his and he went in without needing to be asked twice, not before sliding a hand over her ass and squeezing it hard over the silk. I took the opportunity to tell them I was going to sleep, that I’d had a rough day at the faculty, and I locked myself in my room.

I waited. A long forty-five minutes, measuring every step on the other side of the wall. When the squeaking started, I got up, opened my door without a single creak, and stood in the hallway, a meter from their room. This time it wasn’t just moans. It was words.

—Suck me all the way, like that, down to the root—my father said, with a voice I didn’t know, deeper, dirtier—. Look at me while you suck my cock.

I heard the wet sounds, her heavy breathing taking in air between sucks, the sound of a hand patting a cheek.

—You suck it so good, baby—he went on—. All slobbery like that, that’s how I like it. Take it all the way to your throat.

A gurgle, a soft gag, and my mother letting him out with a sucking noise that made me clamp my thighs together in the hallway. Then her voice, hoarse, wet.

—Fuck me now. I can’t take it anymore. Look how wet I am.

A short silence, the mattress creaking, and then the unmistakable sound of a cock entering a soaking cunt. My mother let out a long, sharp moan that broke in the middle as if the air had been knocked out of her. I covered my mouth with both hands.

—Like that, daddy, like that, deeper—she panted—, tear me apart.

—You like it like that?—his voice, between thrusts—. You like how I fuck you?

—Yes, yes, yes… don’t stop, please, don’t stop.

I heard the rhythm change, become harder, heavier. The mattress was hitting the wall in sets of three or four blows, then a pause, then another faster set. She moaned louder and louder, with that high voice I had never heard in the kitchen or the living room, a voice meant only for him and now also, without their knowing it, for me.

—Whose ass is this?—my father asked, his voice rough.

—Yours, daddy—she answered.

—All mine, right?

—All yours. Do whatever you want with me.

Then came a hard slap, so strong I heard it thud against the wood of the headboard, and a whimper. Another slap. Another whimper, longer, more grateful. Then a change of position, a gentle struggle, and a different rhythm, heavier, deeper, with her gasping in a muffled way as if it were hard to breathe and him grunting each time he drove into her. I was clenching my thighs in the hallway, too afraid to move, feeling my whole body charge up, feeling my panties dampen, feeling my nipples harden against the thin T-shirt I wore to sleep in.

—Now get on all fours—he ordered—. Arch that ass for me. Like that. Nice and open.

I heard my mother arrange herself, the sound of her knees against the mattress, her broken breathing. And then the deepest moan I had heard from her so far, one that came up from her belly, when he started fucking her from behind again. The blows against her ass were fleshy, rhythmic, and I could perfectly imagine the scene even though I wasn’t seeing it: my father gripping her hips, pulling her back to drive into her all the way, and my mother with her face against the pillow, biting it so she wouldn’t scream so much.

—I’m going to cum—he warned after a while, his voice tight—. Where do you want it?

—In my mouth—she said without hesitation—. Take it out and give it to me in my mouth.

When he told her he was going to pull out so she could give him a kiss, and she answered yes through clenched teeth, and those impossible-to-mistake sounds were heard—the quick movement of a hand on a wet cock, my father’s final panting, the “swallow it all, baby” said like an order, and then the little noises of her swallowing and licking—I had to go back to my room before I made a sound myself.

I lay down with my hand inside my panties and didn’t take long to finish. I slid two fingers in, rubbed my clit with my thumb, and came biting my forearm so not even a sound would escape me. I felt the contractions come in waves, one after another, while I kept hearing the muffled murmurs on the other side of the wall, the wet kisses, my mother’s low laugh. I fell asleep with my breathing broken, with my hand still sticky between my legs, feeling dirty and fulfilled in equal measure.

***

That repeated itself several nights. Not every night, but enough to become a habit. I stopped needing coffee: just having dinner with them and noticing the long looks they gave each other was enough to keep me awake. I learned to distinguish the footsteps in the hallway, the moment they closed their bedroom door, the first creak of the mattress. I knew when it was going to start before it started. I also learned the variations: the nights of long sex and the nights of a quick fuck before sleep, the nights when she sucked him off first and the nights when he took a long time between her legs and she tried to muffle her moans against the pillow without quite succeeding.

But as happens with all addictions, listening stopped being enough. I wanted to see. The idea scared me and obsessed me at the same time. Some nights I would stay there with my hand resting on their bedroom doorknob, not daring to do more. Until the opportunity I had been waiting for without knowing it appeared.

It was Wednesday. My father got up before anyone else, made breakfast for my mother, and took it to her in bed.

—Happy anniversary—I heard him say from my room.

I had completely forgotten. Twenty-three years. I came out to greet them as if nothing were wrong, and my father, before leaving for work, announced that he was taking her out to dinner that night. That she should get dressed up. That it was going to be a special night.

A special night. The words echoed in my head all day.

When I got back from university, my mother was getting ready to go to the beauty salon. She left the house to me alone and kissed me on the forehead. As soon as she closed the door, I did something I had never allowed myself before. I went into her room.

The bed was made, perfect, with that cream-colored bedspread she shook out every morning. I sat on the edge and bounced twice to hear it creak. I smiled to myself like an idiot. Then I opened the drawers.

In the second one I found the underwear. Thongs of every color, lace bras, a couple of garter belts I had never seen her wear, a black baby doll folded at the bottom. My mother, the woman who went to mass on Sundays and sent cookies to the neighborhood school, had an entire drawer of lingerie that looked like it came straight from a store window. Thinking about her putting those things on for my father gave me a different kind of heat, more confusing. It wasn’t because of him that I blushed. It was because I was discovering that my mother was a whole woman, not just a mother. A woman who put on a garter belt so it could be ripped off with teeth. A woman who liked having her hair pulled and dirty things whispered in her ear.

I pulled out a red thong with lace at the sides. I undressed in her room, with the door closed, and put it on in front of the dresser mirror. It was smaller on me than on her, it sank between my ass cheeks and left a tiny triangle over my skin. I looked at myself from the side, touched my waist, let my hair down. I ran my hand over the lace and felt, not surprisingly, that I was wet again. I slipped two fingers beneath the fabric and touched myself slowly, looking into my own eyes in the mirror, my cheeks red and my mouth slightly open. For the first time in a long time, I liked what I saw.

Then the plan came to me.

I examined the bedroom door centimeter by centimeter, looking for a point from which I could watch without being seen. I found, right beside the lock, a tiny crack between the wood and the frame, too narrow to use. I went to the kitchen, grabbed the thinnest knife, and came back. I pushed carefully, without forcing it, until the crack gave way and opened enough to rest my eye against it. I bent down and tried it. From that angle, the whole bed could be seen, perfectly framed, as if someone had placed the camera there on purpose.

I put the folded thong back exactly where I had found it, got dressed, left the knife in the kitchen, and sat in the living room pretending to study.

Mum came back at seven with a new hairstyle and a perfume I didn’t know. She went to shower again. At eight Dad arrived, freshly shaved, wearing a blue shirt he hadn’t worn in months. They said goodbye to me with useless instructions—eat something, don’t open the door to anyone, go to bed early—and left holding hands like two teenagers just starting out.

I locked the door, turned off the living room lights, and sat on the hallway floor, against the wall of their room. The crack was waiting. I knew that at some point that night they would come back with wine in them and in the mood, and this time I wasn’t going to have to imagine anything.

For the first time in weeks, I realized I wasn’t waiting for a sound. I was waiting for an image.