Chapter 1: The Poolside Groping
The late afternoon sun bled orange and purple across the sky, its reflection fracturing on the surface of Patricia’s pool. The water was clear and cool, a stark contrast to the warm, still air. Terracotta cushions were scattered around the edge, and fat candles in ceramic pots had already begun to weep wax, their flames not yet lit.
Jimena sat on the pool’s curved lip, her feet making idle circles in the water. The tiny triangles of her bikini top strained against the impossible swell of her breasts, the freckles dusting her cleavage like spilled cinnamon. Her curls, the color of sun-bleached wheat, stuck in damp tendrils to her neck. She laughed at something Patricia said, the sound easy and bright, and the movement made everything shift in a way that was frankly hypnotic.
“God, you’re oblivious,” Patricia said, taking a long sip from her glass of sparkling water. She was watching Marcos watch Jimena. His gaze was supposed to be safe, disinterested. That was the agreement. But sometimes, like now, it lingered too long on the dip of Jimena’s waist, on the way her bikini bottom cut into the full, rounded curves of her backside.
“To what?” Jimena asked, blinking those wide blue eyes.
“To the fact that you’re causing a minor eclipse. You’re blocking the sun for everyone on the west side of town.” Patricia’s tone was dry, fond. A tool she used to point out Jimena’s beauty while making it a joke. It kept Jimena from getting self-conscious, from covering up.
Jimena just rolled her eyes, a blush tinting her cheeks. “Shut up.”
Marcos finally moved, unfolding himself from his lounger. He stretched, his shirt riding up. “My neck is killing me,” he announced, rolling his shoulders with a convincing wince. “From studying, I think. All that hunching.”
“Poor baby,” Patricia cooed, without an ounce of real sympathy. Her eyes met his over Jimena’s head. A silent signal. “Jimena gets knots in her shoulders too. From carrying around the national treasures, probably.”
Jimena swatted at her friend’s leg. “They are not that big.”
“They are planetary,” Patricia stated. “Anyway. Marcos gives a decent massage. Don’t you, Marc? All that… yoga.”
He shrugged, moving to kneel on the cushion behind Jimena. “I know a few things. It’s basically physiotherapy. Here, turn a little.”
Jimena, trusting and warm from the sun, obliged. She presented her back to him, the expanse of her skin a constellation of moles and freckles across her shoulder blades. The knot of her bikini was a simple string against her spine.
Marcos’s hands, when they first touched her, were respectful. Firm palms pressing into the meat of her shoulders, thumbs working slow circles. Jimena let out a soft sigh, her head dropping forward. “Oh, that is good.”
“Told you,” Patricia murmured. She adjusted her position, tucking her legs beneath her, a curator settling in to observe an exhibit. Her smirk was a private thing.
For a few minutes, it was innocent. The rhythmic kneading, the sigh of the breeze in the palm fronds, the gentle lap of pool water. Marcos’s touch was methodical, working down the line of her trapezius. He could feel the heat of her skin, smell the coconut oil and clean sweat.
“The real knot is lower,” Patricia said casually, her gaze fixed on Marcos’s hands. “Always is. Right under the shoulder blade.”
Marcos’s hands slid downward, following the inward curve of her spine. His thumbs pressed into the space just beside her ribs. Jimena flinched, a tiny gasp escaping her. “Sorry,” he murmured, his voice close to her ear. “That’s a tight one.”
“It’s okay,” she breathed out. Her eyes were closed. Her arms were resting on her own thighs, which pushed her breasts together, creating a deep, shadowed valley the bikini barely contained.
His hands drifted lower still, his fingers splaying across the sensitive curve of her latissimus. They were almost at her waist. He could feel the faint ridge of her bikini band. He applied pressure, his fingers digging in, and his pinky finger grazed the soft, yielding outer curve of her breast.
Jimena’s breath hitched. But she didn’t pull away.
Patricia took a slow sip of her drink, the ice cubes clinking. “See? You have to get in there. Really work it out.”
Marcos made a low sound of agreement. His left hand settled more fully on her side, his thumb anchoring just beneath the swell of her breast. His right hand continued its work, massaging the muscle, but his thumb now stroked a slow, insistent arc along the sensitive underside of her breast. The pad of his thumb brushed against the thin, stretched fabric of the bikini bottom cup.
A full, breathless moment passed. The sun dipped another degree, painting them all in deeper gold.
Jimena was utterly still. A flush spread from her chest up her neck. Her mind was a blank white static, confused by the sharp bolt of sensation that was not entirely pain, tangled up in the trusted hands of her best friend who didn’t see her that way. It must be an accident. He was just… really focusing on the knot.
His right hand finally stilled, cupping the full weight of her breast in his palm, a perfect, heated fit. He didn’t move it. He just held it there, his thumb resting in the valley between them. A claiming. A practice session made real.
“Better?” Marcos asked, his voice a little thick.
Jimena nodded, a quick, jerky motion. She couldn’t speak. Her heart hammered against his palm. The feeling was immense, overwhelming. It was wrong. It felt… incredible.
Patricia watched the blush bloom across Jimena’s skin, watched the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat. She saw the way Jimena’s body had arched, just slightly, into the touch before freezing. Not rejection. Paralysis.
“Looks like you found it,” Patricia said, her voice a smooth, warm drip of honey. “The source of all the tension.”
Marcos finally, slowly, lifted his hand away. The absence of the heat and pressure was its own shock. Jimena slumped forward, wrapping her arms around her middle as if cold.
“Yeah,” Marcos said, sitting back on his heels. He flexed his fingers, his own breathing not quite steady. “I think I did.”
The sunset was fading into twilight. The first mosquito whined near an ear. Jimena stared into the darkening water, her body humming with a strange, new electricity, the ghost of his hand still seared into her skin. The conversation had died. The easy afternoon was gone, replaced by a heavy, charged silence that none of them knew how to break, and only one of them truly wanted to.