By Alejandro Sanchez
Sex in Spanish
You’ve wanted sex since before you knew what sex was. A baby was given by God, preguntas y recibes, Mami said when Gera was born. You were six and already knew what touching yourself felt like. There was no release, no euphoric clarity. Lo haces por hacerlo. But you like how it feels. You see sex in Novelas, you see nude kissing. That’s what sexo is. Sexo sounds too vulgar in Spanish, hacer el amor too corny, and coger too European, you like it more in English: sex, fucking. Paraphilia sounds more natural in English. You don’t speak English yet, just the bad words, like sex.
You’re nine and you now know babies come from sex. You caught your parents doing it a couple of times when they thought you were asleep and now you know how Flaco got here. They never have sex again. You’ve seen naked women in movies, and now, every woman you see, you wonder. Your Grandpa tells you you need at least dos novias, levántales el vestido. You never lift their dresses, but again, you wonder. You now have a computer in your room, you and Gabo look at pictures of naked women. You learn you can watch videos, you lock the door and hope Gabo takes his time walking home from middle school. You take a little too long opening it when he knocks, he searches the history and reads your embarrassing searches out loud. The week after, he uses the computer late at night and you tell Mami que estaba viendo porno. Mami yells at Gabo and tells Papi, Papi smacks his head and walks out.
You’re ten and your TV only has twelve channels. That’s fine because at least the channels are in Spanish, and some of them forget to censor nudity. Papi has cable in his house; they show boobs after midnight, you lower the volume to one while Papi, Gera, and Flaco are asleep and you look. Papi tells you not to watch cochinadas and goes back to sleep. A few weeks after you spend a Saturday at your friend Santi’s house and stay up late. You’re both lying down, looking at the ceiling, speaking in whispers. He tells you when he has a wife, he’s gonna have nonstop sex, para eso son. You wake up for church the next morning.
You turned twelve, Papi bought you a tablet. It wasn’t an iPad like you assumed it would be, but Mami convinces you it’s the best tablet you’ll get. You can finally watch porn anywhere; your history never makes it past ten searches. You believe fake boobs are what boobs are supposed to look like. You hate any sag. You watch more and more until you end up on a fetish video. A man sodomizes a woman on a leash. Your English finally came in, but there is little difficulty understanding purple skin and tears. The man tells the woman to bark and you stop. You don’t watch porn for years.
In middle school, you’re in love with Mari from your Texas History class. You try not to think of sex, but you end up thinking of it anyway. She has never spoken to you, yet you stare at her constantly. You love how beautiful her eyes are, like an autumn pool. You look at her when she walks in front of you.
Before soccer practice, some of the boys you don’t like, but fit in with because you want to kick a ball and speak Spanish, take out their phones, and watch porn in circles. One of them tells you in class that he had sex with a prostitute in Juarez. He’s thirteen, yo y mis primos, he says. You don’t believe him but think about it for a long time.
You don’t have a phone yet, but your Dad lends you his when you visit him, so you don’t get bored. You go online, and porn blasts your face. Your Dad stares at you, knowing what happened. You close the page. He’s 37.
You’re in high school when you start watching porn again, and you’re also in high school when you meet Liliana. You wake up energized because you know Lily will be in your first-period class. She’ll make fun of you. She’ll call you an asshole and then she’ll tell you she’s tired. She woke up early to feed her baby brother. This, you know.
You love her body. You love her freckles and how dark her hair is against her pale skin. You love her body. You never date but text every night and it always ends up being about fucking. You want to have sex with her. You never do. She isn’t ready for a relationship or even sex. Your sternum implodes at the thought of someone else touching her before you do.
You watch enough porn to know the names of pornstars. Your Grandpa asks you if you have any novias, and you’re tired of him thinking you don’t like women, so you give him the name of a pornstar. Even your Dad has a girlfriend at that point, but you go another year without one.
Alicia loves you instantly, and you try not to love her, but her long eyelashes and brown doll eyes win you over. She lets you grab her breasts while you kiss but not her ass, only one she says, you choose her breasts. You’re convinced you’ll have sex with her, none of your friends have had sex yet, and you think you’ll be the first. This makes you happy.
You learn about Alicia’s life, about her waking up at 4:30 in the morning to cross El Puente. She does her little sister’s braids while her mom drives. She has Chihuahuan license plates. Sometimes, she doesn’t even sleep; she’s texting you. You also wake up at 4:30 to go to your Grandma’s house, the one you lived in for years after your parents divorced, you sympathize. She loves Juárez. You hate it. You hate how different it is from the U.S., you hate that you grew up there, you hate that your first language was Spanish, and you hate that you have to visit your drunk Father there.
She’s apprehensive about constant touch; you’re all about touching. You confuse love with physicality; you apologize in English, and she responds in Spanish. You start speaking more Spanish.
You tell her your life, about your three brothers. Gabo, who you haven’t spoken to since your Mom moved you out of your grandparent’s house. Gera, and Flaco, who are too young for you to have much to say about them. You tell her about your Dad’s new baby, who was conceived along with his break from sobriety. You also tell her about your Mom’s boyfriend moving in, about the house in Juárez you grew up in, about the divorce. You tell her your dreams and hopes. About the babies you want to have with her. About marrying her. You listen as she tells you why she lives in Juárez and not El Paso, it’s home, she says, so you stop calling it No-Man’s-Land. You even visit your Father with his new baby. You all have the same eyes.
You talk to her about sex, you talk about porn, you ask her if she minds you watching porn, she says no, all guys do it. You ask if you can have sex, she says yes, eventually. Every time you fight, you think you won’t have sex so you make up with her. When you do touch, she only follows your lead, and you notice she’s tense. You learn about that family member.
You don’t understand trauma, not even your own. You touch when you’re not supposed to. You apologize, and she doesn’t let you hug her for a long time. When you watch porn, you think of her face. You’re in love with her, but you have no label. When your Grandpa asks about girlfriends again, you think about telling him. You don’t.
Alicia lets you kiss her one last time, but you don’t know that yet. You do know she has feelings for someone else, she tells you. You don’t believe her. You believe you know her feelings better than her. She tells you again. You’re afraid you’ll never have sex or kids with her. You’re so afraid you throw up. You never have sex, but you cling for another six months.
You’re in college now. You live alone in a single dorm. It’s small and empty but overlooks the mountains, so you don’t mind too much. You’re alone. You try to text your Mom every day, like she wants you to, but you don’t. She picks you up every weekend and she’s too mad to speak to you the whole ride home, you don’t text her. You remember the look she gave you when you told her you wanted to live in the dorms; the same one she made when Gabo said he wasn’t moving with the rest of you. Your first weekend back, Gera cries when he sees you and you can’t get yourself to hug him when he grips your back and runs his tears on your shirt. The last time you hugged him, he had broken his arm. You lock your door after he lets go because you can’t reciprocate. He has been sleeping in your bed. You’re home for two days and you spend it with your screen, and your door locked.
You’re alone. You lost all your friends in the first semester. You don’t know your dorm neighbors, not the girls or the boys, but you hear them. You hear their moaning at night and listen for a few seconds before putting on your headphones. You watch porn, but the mattress still has its plastic cover. When you move, the thin walls give you away. You’re 18 and still a virgin. You clean yourself in the restroom without turning on the light.
You’re taking your first writing class. You read erotic prose, and it makes you uncomfortable. Your Professor is eager to discuss. You discuss the negative stigmatization of sex in society, you agree and nod but still feel uncomfortable, you can’t write about something you haven’t experienced.
The longer you go without sex, the more eager you are to have it. You try dating apps, you try social media, you scroll and scroll until your suggestions are full of semi-nude women. You try speaking with girls you don’t find attractive, and you plot, only to go to your dorm alone with your fantasies of what could’ve been. You feel like a bad person. You feel depressed, and you start thinking of Alicia. Alicia who has a boyfriend now.
You don’t attend most of your classes, except for your writing one. Your first story is about love. It plays out in a dream; you had a blank page two nights before it’s due, but now you don’t. You’re proud of that story, even if it’s the opposite of what is going on in your life, and your Professor likes it too. She calls it a complete narrative. You feel accomplished as if a writing degree is not wasted on you.
You see Alicia on campus, and you walk in a different direction; you stare from afar, and the only image in your head is her naked, in her boyfriend’s arms. You spend the better part of the week on your knees, your head leaning over the toilet.
You forget Juárez. You don’t even look over I-10 on your way to campus; for all you know, it’s still El Paso. El Paso, who birthed you, who took you in after the divorce and sheltered you in warmth, made you American, instead of Mexican, like your Father, but deep down you don’t feel like her offspring.
You’re now up to three times a day. Three times a day, you come to your dorm from class or work; you might have been attempting to cook or you could just be bored before you’re on your phone watching porn. You scroll longer than it takes you to finish because none of the thumbnails or raunchy titles seem enticing enough to warrant a click. There is a slight feeling in your head, and it tells you to go at it. You feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Even worse, you’re taking a woman studies class that semester, Women in Sex Work. You’re one of two guys. You learn about the mistreatment and misogynistic practices in the porn industry, about the lack of protection from the government for those who are involved in sex work, even involuntarily. Your Professor shows interviews with Latina porn stars you don’t know, and they share their experiences and their stories—question after question with answers that are brutal in their humanizing nature. After class, in your bed, you put the names of those porn stars on the search bar and watch their videos.
Your favorite category is now “Latinas.” Not American Latinas who moan in English and have sex in studios. No, you like Latinas who moan in Spanish and shoot in rooms and streets you recognize as anywhere except the U.S. You wonder if your moan is in English or Spanish and it finally happens.
Clara is younger than you, not much younger. You are 19, she is 18. Clara is short and has very white skin. She has curly, copper hair that goes nicely with her hazel eyes. She’s attractive, but you still think Alicia is more beautiful. You met her through a coworker. A coworker who talks to you nonstop about her friend Clara and how much sex she has. She comes in one day while you’re scooping ice cream and you look at her body. You tell your Coworker to help you out. You end up in Clara’s room after the third date. On the second date, you were brave enough to kiss her, and she was gracious enough to let you. She shows you videos of her with her dance group, and you wish you’d go back to kissing. You get her naked after just three minutes. You’re so excited you stop and excuse yourself to use the restroom. You throw up and brush your teeth with your finger and some toothpaste you find. If she could taste it on you, she never says, but by the time you get back to her room, she has her clothes on again, and it takes only two minutes this time to get it all off. You’re not even hard.
Eventually, you get it over with, and Clara tells you she doesn’t want to do it again because she’s scared she’ll run away from you, and she likes you. You don’t like this. Three days later she sends you a message telling you it’s not gonna work even though you’re a nice guy. Your Coworker tells you Clara said you weren’t as fun after you had sex with her. That night you cry.
You try to write a short story about sex and fail. You can’t get the shame out of the paper, and it shows. The diction is never correct, and you either describe too much or too little. You never finish the story. You do visit Juárez after a year though. Your Dad has frosted hair and one of his eyelids is slower to the blink than the other. He is seven months sober and has been sick twice already. He asks about school and girls. You stutter through your Spanish answers. You look at your Dad and wonder whether he still watches porn but you never ask. You don’t ask much of anything even though you want to. You spend the night in the room that used to be yours. You remember hiding under that bed when your Dad had a beer in his hand or when you wanted to touch yourself.
That night, you dream of Alicia and wonder whether she’s in Juárez or El Paso the next morning. You also think of Clara; whether you’re still in her head and you realize you didn’t picture her naked body like you always do when she crosses your mind.
Your Dad brings you a burrito for breakfast, the same one he’d get you every Saturday when you visited: frijoles refritos con queso. You hated burritos growing up because they reminded you of him, of Juárez. You take a bite, and it tastes like nostalgia. You finish it in a few minutes, and your English comes out. Thank you. You didn’t mean to. You forgot to switch and you’re ashamed. Ashamed of your English. You can’t meet his eyes. De nada, he says nonchalantly and finishes his burrito. Your Dad is Mexican, so are you. You don’t watch porn until you’re back in El Paso.
You are 22 now. You haven’t watched porn in a few weeks. The urge has been drained out of you for a while now. You think of that first time with Clara. It didn’t feel as good as you expected. It was supposed to be better than kissing Alicia; who you were in love with all those years ago. Better than learning a complete phrase in English. Better than writing a short story more than a couple pages long. It was not. That same day you watched porn as soon as you left Clara’s house. You’ve had more sex since then and it has yet to feel the same as those dreams you had in your younger years. That bit of adrenaline that you felt before pulling up porn is now anxiety before you put it in. Your moan is nonexistent, in English or Spanish.
You’re taking an autofiction class and you start exploring your identity. You don’t want to write about the Mexican-American experience but it is all you know. It is you. You feel like a hypocrite, exploiting the culture that’s embarrassed you all your life, but you write. You write your memories. You code-switch, which you hate doing in real life, but continue to write. You feel like a fake, so you stop turning in completed assignments. You’re scared of how you might look when your peers workshop your stories; they’re all part of the same culture. Your stories are real, but you are not. You think they’ll know, or worse, that they won’t. When your classmates read their stories, you envy them. You hear them interchange Spanish and English in their prose and conversations; some have harsher accents in English than you do, and you’re jealous. You watch porn for the first time in weeks. You’re wiping yourself and it starts to click.
The first time you have sex with Destiny you also sip a beer. She is in your writing class and when you first saw her she was wearing a Gloria Anzaldúa shirt; who you only know through sentences you quoted in an essay you wrote about your own wild tongue. Having sex with her brings you closer to your heritage. She has wine, tequila, and beer in her dorm and you always opt for the latter because that’s the only one your father taught you. The can never loses more than a swish around your mouth, you’re not a drinker but she doesn’t need to know that. When you have sex, you want to pull her hair but you can’t, it’s short, like Anzaldúa’s. She touches herself while you’re inside her and after you come, which you do every time, she reaches for her counter and grabs a novel.
She looks like a pornstar, if you’re honest with yourself, which you’re not. A long-haired Latina you saw once in a video you haven’t forgotten. You think you’re disgusting but your fantasy becomes a reality when she approaches you about meeting up with a small group to discuss your writings and your libido beats out your reason. Before you meet them, you find the video and watch it without touching yourself. They are identical so you observe her while she drinks her iced coffee. You’re convinced it’s her. You’re staring too much so she stares back and by the end of the night, you end up alone with her.
Denver. She comes from Denver. She was born in Juárez and recently made the trip back down for good. Why live in Juárez of all places? Something you wonder but never voice. She has a mom, a dad, and a brother. But in Colorado, it was only three of them. Her Dad was deported when she was eight and he’s lived in Juárez since. You sympathize. The rest of them stayed in Denver. They worked, went to school and fourteen years later her Mom decides she’s had enough snow without her husband’s warmth and makes the trip down the Rocky’s to the lowest peak. They made the trip every Christmas, with a car full of American goods: clothes, toys, and groceries that were valued more simply because of their nationality. Destiny picked up more English before every trip until eventually, at twelve, she could barely communicate with her Father. She is now American, and will now have the same opportunity as an American, her Father thinks. It was worth it. She disagrees. That last time, her Mother told her and her Brother they could come with her or stay behind, it was their choice. There was no choice to make, she tells you.
She’s very comfortable with her body. There is a beauty mark on the back of her right shoulder you love. It’s a perfectly circular, black island in the middle of the brown ocean that is her skin. You haven’t watched the video again, you can’t, it feels disrespectful. You watch it again anyway and notice that same island on the girl in the video. Destiny walks around your dorm with only a thong that says “mostly nice” on the front side. You’re never brave enough to bring it up, but secretly, your ego is ecstatic to be fucking a pornstar.
Every night ends in sex. Every day begins with writing. Both of you wake up and write. Destiny writes in a journal and you type away on your laptop. Excerpts of your private affair bleed into class and manifest in words read out loud. She’s a code-switcher. Spanglish is all over her, even in her full name. You find it amusing when she reads her stories in class because of how determined she is to pronounce the Spanish properly. In your dorm, you try to correct her pronunciation when she uses her limited Spanish and she won’t have it. You laugh. She does not. When you’re with her, you feel more Mexican.
You’re in love with Destiny. Your Dad abandoned you, you confide, even though your use of hyperbole stretches on that statement. Just you? She says.
You purposely answer in Spanish knowing she can’t follow along. But she does.
Al menos, yo puedo hablar con el mío.
But you don’t.
You were never in love with Destiny, and she was never a pornstar. You stopped speaking after the semester ended and you both graduated. There was a short, typical Mexican señora with a leopard-print shirt and a guy taller than you who had the same shade of hair as Destiny. They posed with her while she held her diploma and you only stopped staring once your own Mother and brothers posed with you. Like in her pictures, yours were missing a father. The last time you watched the video was also the last time you watched porn. Destiny was already in cordial classmate terms with you and you missed sex. You realized the girl’s beauty mark was on her left shoulder.
It’s been more than six months since you’ve seen your Dad so you visit and this time, when your Grandpa asks about any novias you’re honest and say you don’t have one and he laughs. Eventually, he says. Your Dad smiles and you see all the years of alcoholism in his wrinkles. You can’t help but think whether his wrinkles are from abuse or smiling. You think of your Mother, who recently bought her first house at 46. You think of Gabo who you finally started speaking to again after a Christmas in which you both made fun of Gera and Flaco for being the younger siblings and having less trauma. You think of Mari, Liliana, Clara, and Alicia and wonder whether you’d see them again before you have your own wrinkles. You think of Destiny and the last picture you saw of her; she was standing next to a middle-aged man with a black mustache sprinkled with white hairs, he had his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him the only way a daughter leans into her father. They were sitting on a very colorful small boat, named Teresita decorated with flowers and bright yellows and pinks, the caption read “Xochimilco.” You think about whether your wrinkles will give away your vices to your kids someday and you wonder whether they’ll speak Spanish at all before you realize your Dad’s wrinkles are not your wrinkles and his life is not your life. Your wrinkles will have abuse, smiles, English, Spanish, and everything else in between.
Alejandro Sanchez is a Mexican-American writer born in El Paso, Texas. Alejandro received a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Texas in El Paso and is interested in writing about the human experience through the Mexican-American lens.