Long ago. South America.
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Maybe. Maybe it would have been funny if it was happening to someone else. Maybe I should’ve stopped it then.
My lips were dry again, but I was frozen in place.
My hands kept trying to open the lid of the water bottle, but they were sweating, I was always sweating here.
What is happening? I thought.
I remembered my step-father commenting on what had become my new personal mantra: ‘You can’t hide from the sun there’. I didn’t remember his exact words but I knew that’s what he’d meant.
The plastic crumpled as I forced it open with more violence than I’d meant to use. The water was warm with a faint metallic taste. It brought me no relief going down.
My brain met my eyes again and realized I hadn’t stopped staring this whole time, staring at this.
“Is this real?” I muttered.
I imagine my expression was some poor conjunction between confusion and perplexing shock.
Yet, I wanted to keep some composure, I wanted to project that… false serenity. It always made me look mature beyond my years—first impressions are very important, and I meant to impress—but my mind couldn’t be forced to accept what I was seeing. It could have been funny if it had happened to someone else.
This can’t be right.
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In the early months, to me, Colombia was always alien and bizarre. Loud, warm, vibrant. The hot winds of summer fluttered through leaves on lone trees—wherever they managed to rebel on any of the multiple rivers of mangled concrete streets—baring the sky and yourself from the much-needed shelter of the clouds.
Life was desperately trying to catch up with the modern world, but the indigenous soul of the people stood, and the result was a whirlwind of wonderfully bright colors and music. Women wore this on their flesh – playful, elegant, and spirited. All this was the opposite of my quiet, dull life growing up in a classic suburban community. It was amazing. On any given street you’d find someone willing to sell, to speak, to smile… or to take. I lost my watch twice before I learned not to trust anyone, not even little kids. Still, over time I came to appreciate that culture and tolerate its dark side.
So yes, I learned plenty, but as strange and passionate this country had been for me, nothing I ever lived there prepared me for the idiosyncrasies of my girlfriend’s family, especially concerning her uncle.
I was standing there, not ten steps back, with my mind racing to count all the reasons why he shouldn’t even think about touching her breast while he conversed with her, groping away over her purple blouse like this wasn’t his niece, or we weren’t present, me and Milena’s mother and aunt. He was so casual.
“No, this can’t be right,” I grinned, hoping it was some sick joke. The scorching Colombian sun and my sprouting anger were starting to make my head spin.
“How are you, mi amor? Do they hurt?” he asked, taunting her with a feigned worried tone that was supposed to add humor to his facade. His raspy voice was sandpaper to my ears, and his tone was not at all familial to me, but she seemed comfortable enough with the fondling.
Rolling her eyes with a shy smile forcing her lips, Milena nodded.
What is she doing? Wait, hurt?
The sudden ‘get together' was beginning to make sense.
Was that why they arranged this whole thing? They think she’s pregnant? God, I knew I shouldn’t have come.
I proposed to Milena because I was completely in love with her, and while this love only matured with time, in our haste, we did pay a heavy price for each step. But apparently, here people only married to legitimize children. I’d spent months in that country and was starting to grasp the basic concepts of its convoluting culture.
“Okay, yes, Uncle. I’m okay, really,” her hand held his arm, and her eyes laid over his contracting fingers.
“You’re so hot, Milena. You’re already more beautiful than your mother ever was,” he said, planting a soft kiss on her cheek with his hands never leaving her tit.
There was something about him, about his behavior, screaming that he might go even further.
I looked past them hoping to find some semblance of normality in her mother and aunt’s response, but I found them to be chuckling before returning to their own conversation as if it simply was a common and acceptable joke that I was too foreign to understand.
For a split second; it made me doubt my own sense.
Am I overreacting? Overthinking?
No. When my mind unveiled the only possible answer, I took hold of it as though it were white-hot nails. A slow blistering pain flashed through me, fueling my growing contempt towards these mocking strangers.
It felt natural to detach myself from all of them. We’d only just arrived but I had decided to leave. I couldn’t stand the thought of humoring my girlfriend’s family for a second longer, incensed as I was with their attitude and with Milena’s filthy uncle…who was now, kissing her neck?
Unbelievable.
While I’d been fumbling with my thoughts, my mother-in-law and her sister had walked away, greeting someone else in the farthest stand, away from the street. Looking back at my soon-to-be wife I was finally convinced that all pretense of normalcy had been thrown out the window.
His incipient beard kept tickling Milena’s neck with each playful kiss, testing her boundaries in a sick game, drawing shy giggles from my passive girlfriend. His mock purring was the only difference between them and two strangers in a nightclub.
I took a couple of steps in their direction, white-knuckled and stoking my own rage as their image drew closer. I was purposefully gathering enough of it to punch the old smirking stranger, eager to break both his pudgy face and any possible diplomacy with the in-laws.
He stopped to glance at the sisters—both still immerse in their own conversation with the third woman—before increasing his assault with a crawling, passionate pace, smacking his lips onto her neck, one hand held her head in place and the other was still on her breast, now at the bare side of her blouse.
Milena had her mouth half-open, her eyes active and wide at last, trying to find words amidst her molestation. She had chosen a curious moment to draw the line.
“Uncle, Uncle, this is, Hm! I’ll introduce you to my bo- Ah!” she moaned with one particularly deep kiss to her neck.
With that, he stopped, just seconds shy of getting caught by the pair of black-haired, white females coming back to our place in the stand.
When he stepped back, I got to see her neck again.
It was gleaming.
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At some point in their act, I had begun to feel something. It was growing—unbeknownst to me—beyond control and invariably fast, so big and clear until it was impossible to ignore. It was so potent now it overshadowed my anger; I searched for the remains of my burning hate but it was nowhere. I’d lived as a teenager long enough to understand what I felt but at the moment I was clueless as to why.
My own pride; my dignity, refused to believe it, but that simply added to my confusion and frustration. I barely had time to register it before her aunt spoke.
“Hey! Leave Mile alone. Look this is her boyfriend,” she pointed, looking me in the eye. Her hair waved with the dirty hot wind from the busy street.
I hadn’t noticed before—between the two sisters, my future mother-in-law always drew more unwanted attention—but her natural, flowing dark hair was especially beautiful. This and her subtle knowing expression seemed to persuade me to take enough tension from my shoulders and shake hands with the shorter, beer gutted man beside her.
He looked confused; surprised even, turning around. It dawned on me – he didn’t know. He had no idea that the figure he saw behind his niece upon her arrival was actually her boyfriend, not some stranger casually walking down the street. After all, when he set his eyes upon Milena I never saw him turn my way again. I could imagine all this going through his mind; he hesitated, unsure of where we stood, before warily stepping away from Milena to shake my hand with a bright smile that stood out as what I thought was his only redeemable quality.
“Hola, ‘mo está.” He rushed his Spanish, avoiding my stare. Surely my face had yet to be drained of the previous cocktail of emotions. When he removed himself from between my field of vision and Milena, I could see her in full again.
Everything looked good on Milena back then. It spoke about her taste, but it goes beyond that. Even now, bright or dark colors; it doesn’t matter, everything bends and shifts to make her green eyes glow – her pure, white skin makes an amazing contrast with the dark color of her hair. Maybe it was just the fact that I was in love, but the little flaws on her body really made her more attractive. Also, the fact that the only woman in her family that used bras was her mother didn’t exactly add to objectivity.
She wore her Deep V blouse that day. It would take years before she wore something so sexy on the street again. The soft texture of the cotton framed by her straight locks of hair was an invitation to feel the luscious shape of her pale breasts.
I remember her face was an even mix between anger and blushing shame, a natural reaction, I’d expect, from what had been happening, but whether this was because it happened in public, or because I was there, I didn’t know. In any case, it didn’t escape me that the outline of her hard nipples was now clearly visible through her clothes.
“Hola, mi amor. How is my pretty sister? Your husband?” I heard him say, greeting my future mother-in-law. For me, the lascivious tone in his voice did not fade when talking to his sister.
Indifferent, she replied, “We are all well, thank the Lord.”
There was a strange tension in the air.
If my mother-in-law felt any love for her older brother, she hid it well. I had the impression that I was alone in my contempt towards his little number with Milena, but maybe I was wrong. Or maybe this was about something else; there’s always that one person in the family, and in this one, it had to be him. Or perhaps that’s how severely religious women always behaved; I had never met one so, faithful. It always irked me how such a perfectly attractive woman in her forty-somethings would actively choose to look perpetually pissed off. Maybe it was because of men like him.
“Ay Dios, you have my favorites! I haven’t seen these in forever! Papa always had these for me when I visited him,” said the youngest sister, apparently oblivious to the atmosphere and fascinated by a colorful bouquet; she’d picked the biggest one.
“80.000 pesos.” He cut her off, taking the flowers from her hands and placing them back in the stand.
“Wha-uh, hey I’m your sister!” she complained. Her eyes glared as she smiled in disbelief.
“It is true,” her brother conceded. “79.000 pesos and it is yours”.
“I’m your little sister!” she repeated, now resembling more to a spoiled teen than the thirty-something woman she was. “We grew up together for God’s sake!”
“It is true, 90.000 pesos,” he sentenced.
With their laughter as background, I could feel the wariness in me start to recede. I got a glimpse of how much of a dysfunctional family they were (as much as mine) although with a twist. I imagined that, in the family’s dynamic, the youngest sister was the catalyst for peace and equilibrium. Certainly a heavy burden to stand between a sexual deviant and a religious zealot.
I never really had a model for a healthy relationship. Any. I wondered if I wasn’t missing the big picture or, giving them the short end of the stick as I passed judgment onto these strangers from my high chair. They were real adults, and I was a sprout of a man in my twenties, what did I know about how a family should behave? I was so confused.
After seeing them together, their honest effort to make it work, I read between the lines and found that this gathering wasn’t just with some perverse, dark motive. They had a reason to meet again. They were happy. My compassion overthrew my disdain and I tried my best to be amicable with the group. I’d always struggled with expecting the worst from people and honestly, to this day I still do.
I took a big gulp out of my water bottle and watched them take shelter from the sun beneath the stand’s roof. I surveyed the inside of the structure, which was shaped like a kiosk, made out of long metal plates with thick coats of white paint on the outside. It was supported on four big rusty wheels; it looked like someone took an old mail truck and worked on it until it was almost a room, with a bathroom of sorts. It had been a family business for two generations but it was even older, according to my girlfriend.
Eventually, their conversation flowed to a frantic pace until well past the point when I lost all capacity to follow, Spanish still proving difficult. Watching their joyful chatter I began to make peace with the idea of letting go of everything I had seen, we would be moving soon anyway.
It’s not like we’ll ever see him again. I thought.
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A couple of hours before we left, Milena and her aunt went to a small mall nearby.
The sun had been relentless, and I didn’t want to walk, but staying with my future mother-in-law and her perverted old brother seemed like the perfect recipe for a very uncomfortable conversation, so the choice for me was obvious. Yet, to my despair, we were heading to a popular fabric chain store.
Now, the thing about these stores is that their characteristics are universal: dimly lit, very tight hallways that seem to extend beyond sight, endless piles of long rolls of fabric, no air conditioning, and the tiniest fan you could possibly imagine.
Any trip with a mature woman at any given time within these shops will yield the same result: hours in search of something they somehow don’t find, only to buy something that they weren’t looking for, while you stand in a corner wondering why their mannequins don’t have heads. You can actually sense the seconds tick by; I’m telling you, time works differently in there. Besides, in that heat, I wasn’t gonna try my luck in a crowded place with a couple of five-inch fans for ventilation. I made my excuse and practically ran away.
I came back to the flower stand; it was empty.
Relieved that I wouldn’t have to find ways to circumvent rude probing in conversation, I went inside to use the bathroom. I heard something; rushed whispers and rumble. There was someone struggling behind the bathroom door. It was hard to make out what they were saying but it sounded private and urgent.
I figured Uncle Goatee and my mother-in-law were having a fight.
I knew I had to leave, but curiosity got the best of me. I think I simply wanted to know more. There were so many things I didn’t understand from my soon-to-be in-laws.
I was so nervous. I had a heavy feeling that I should go back to the store, but I never left.
With shaking hands, I put my ear to the wall to hear the muffled echo of her fevered female voice. Breathless, the pace of her short bursts of speech was hard to understand. I barely managed to translate rough bits.
“… is sick… This, Ah! You’ll never change.”
“Shh. Be a quickie,” he countered under a muzzled tone.
“…keep doing this… I’m married now, this is sin!”
My brain rushed to connect the dots. My blood beat into my temples. It was hard to hear the words coming from my girlfriend’s twisted Uncle, masked by his naturally deeper tone.
“…this, Ah! I-I have my husband in the house, God!” she continued her protest. “I’m married! At least let me-- wait no! Put on a condom. Umph! Oh, God… Oooh God…Softly, softly.”
I felt the muted struggle fade into a quiet rhythmic grunting that sent shivers through my stomach. I could imagine her black hair covering her back, her hands holding the door for balance while her perverted old brother took her from behind. Her eyes closed, mouth agape and grunting with each thrust – with her dewdrop tits bobbling at the motion. Even the door was now shaking slightly from their obvious rutting.
Shaking a bit myself, I stepped back, sensing my heartbeat painfully in my chest and the blood pulsing through my veins. I realized I’d been holding my breath when I heard my mother-in-law start to moan, just loud enough to be heard where I was standing.
The scene overtook me. The fear of getting caught sprung my body outside, heart in my throat, back to the time-bending store, nervous and disoriented.
I looked around as I stepped back.
There are people walking by. We’re in an open street. There’s a market right there. I thought.
I jogged back to the store, guilty and aware of my erection.
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Back home, Years Later.
"Amor, is it my turn with dinner?"
The light from inside the bedroom made her locks glow with deep dark shades of brown. Her sight hurt me in such a special way… I've almost started to enjoy it.
"Y-Yeah, I'll be down in a minute," I replied, renouncing the mournful quiet of winter on the balcony.
She looked at me with secret attention – for the genuine reassurance of my glazed eyes. Nothing like a sincere compliment to chase away her insecurities… for a while.
"Okay ‘mor, no rush," she smiled.
As Milena walked away, my eyes followed her malicious sway; a hypnotizing dance between the two globes that made my trembling hands move by their own will.
Fuck… That never gets old, I thought.
I'm convinced Latin blood breeds ass without equal among women of any other ancestry, and those loose pants only suggested the outline of their shape. I didn't think it could entice me more if it was literally perfect.
She stopped to glance at me from the top of the stairs, catching my sight imprisoned as usual between the crevice of her mounds. Milena had always been sexy, but her ass was my absolute favorite. We were still young, but those hips almost screamed milf.
"You like these pants? I just borrowed them from my sister," she asked, a mischievous grin conflicted with the innocence of her demeanor.
Rather irked by her obvious grasp of my helpless attraction, I tried to change the subject, desperate to salvage whatever ‘power’ I had left.
"'Borrowed', yeah. I've heard that about a third of the things you still have in the closet." I blurted.
"Oh,” she teased, “maybe I should take them off?"
She was wearing that feigned pouty innocence again, sliding her pants off slowly. Her arched back offered her meaty white ass, only a string of fabric short of nudity.
“M-Milena!” I stuttered.
She giggled at my alarm, pouring from my expression. We both knew that, from where she was standing, anyone downstairs by the door or near the couch could easily enjoy her near-nude waist.
“Wait, are you wearing a G-string?” I remarked, feeling an all too familiar stirring commence. The thin line of fabric was the only cover she’d chosen for her ass this evening, and it was deep between her cheeks (just as I wanted to be).
She nodded, casual, nibbling her lip as she put her pants back on her hips.
“Well, Amor, don’t you think that, um, today, with your uncle home...”
Frowning confused, she said, "What do you mean? Don’t worry, mi amor.” Now waving her hands dismissively.
This long-awaited reunion originally included her mother and brother, but in the end, they couldn’t afford it. Her uncle found out and, albeit infamous among her family for his short arms when it came to using his modest fortune, offered to pay a ticket for his youngest’s niece, with the condition that he’d come along too.
Milena’s giggled with an excited, happy tone, “Hurry, let’s go down. We have guests.” Her smile was the last thing I saw before she went down the stairs.
What a beautiful girl.
I waited for my surviving erection to subside, tried to take one last sip at my glass before I’d follow her into the living room to attend to my unspoken duties as host, but found only my own reflection at the bottom.
“Okay,” I sighed. Facing her family’s disconcerting exchanges was the inevitable ending of this day.
And it waited for me beyond the bottom of the stairs.
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“Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Valerie.”
Downstairs in the living room, I glanced at the kitchen to see Milena’s uncle already taking a seat in one of the stools, completely invested in their conversation while she fluttered around, happily engrossed in the occasion; the cooking, the smiling, and the news.
I turned again to face the pretty, shorter blonde, introducing herself in the tense, basic English and met her with my polite smile. I had heard that stiff presentation so many times before that I felt I was back in Colombia.
She’s blonde… Are they really sisters?
Her eyes, like my wife’s, were green, yes, of a deeper shade, but she was fairly younger and her hair was dark, dirty blonde. No one I ever met in Milena’s family had hair like that.
Still smiling, I finally retorted. “Y-Yes, hi Valerie, nice to meet you. How was your flight?”
Her eyes darted beyond me before she answered with a strange look.
“Wow. It was… ”
I noticed her nipples outlined in the gray, loose tank top. Her tits were two natural drops swelling free with her respiration.
Do they really not know what that does to men? I thought.
I can’t imagine what kind of trip she had in that deep V cleavage sitting beside that dirty old man at night, and for who knows how many hours between connecting flights. I caught myself staring at her breasts.
“It was,” she repeated, smiling and exposing my staring,“ Fun.” With the last word came a subtle expression of complicity that made me swallow in reflex, immediately flushing my cheeks with fiery red.
I always thanked God for allowing me to find Milena, especially knowing the scope of my social skills around women, back then. But now I was so out of the game that even these small situations were enough to make me nervous.
“Okay. I mean, I’m glad,” I said. “Want me to take your bags?” Pointing at the stairs, both already in my hand.
At the perspective of finally resting, she groaned, “Yes! Thank you. It was a very, very long day. Thank you,” throwing kisses with her hands.
I’d been dreading this day ever since I had it forced upon me with no questions asked – their abusive rudeness had reached my own home before they even stepped on the door, but the sincerity behind her accented, chopped English promised a new perspective for this whole visit. It felt nice to finally meet a polite, normal person among my in-laws.
I glanced at the kitchen again, heading upstairs with the tattered bags. Her uncle had turned to see Valerie’s, fit frame as she walked past me to join their conversation. He stared at her chest, sitting and grinning coy at their smooth jiggling on each step of her sandals. My wife mouthed me a clueless ‘thank you’ from behind the leering jackass and I winked at her before going upstairs.