LorenaLima

It was three in the morning, and I couldn’t stop watching you sleep. I wanted to touch you, but I knew you were hurting. So I thought of something else.

I was twenty-four and thought I knew what I liked, until that mature man looked at me from across the kitchen and everything fell apart.

I told him to take the well-lit highway. He smiled, took the turn toward the overlook, and I let my dress ride up to my thigh.

I'd never done anything like it. But that afternoon, while looking for someone to fix the roof, I realized I was really hunting for something else.

I never planned for it to end like this, but when he opened the door and saw us, I knew that night I would choose with my body, not my head.

She crossed her legs, looked at me over the book, and I knew that woman hadn’t asked permission for anything in years. The dead hour of the metro turned into something else.

The divorce didn’t break me: it gave me back my breath. That night, with a button-front dress and a poured drink, I let a much younger stranger make me feel alive.

I went down to the kitchen to make coffee and felt his gaze fixed on my back. I knew what was going to happen, and for the first time in months I didn’t want to stop him.

There was just one guy at the back, washing his hands. He looked at me in the mirror and, without a word, we both knew the wait was over.

I promised my friend I wouldn’t touch his little sister. What I didn’t tell him is that his best friend kept sitting next to me in every class, too close to focus on the numbers.

She had a girlfriend and I was dragging along a relationship that was fading fast. We went to the coast as friends. What happened in that room with two beds was not in my plans.

She came out into the hall to look for me, stared straight at me, and said she had a question. I had no idea what would happen when she closed the door.

I’ve always hated public bathrooms, but that day I had no choice. What I never imagined was what I’d find when I ran back for the phone I’d left on top of the water tank.

The first time I heard her through the partition, I froze, holding my breath, pretending to be asleep while she believed she was completely alone.

I thought the picnic area would be empty in that rain. Then she appeared, asked for a light, and two hours later let her dress slide to the floor.

I went looking for Bryan, but it was Andrés who stopped me in the street, grabbed me without shame, and set a date for the next day. I already knew what would happen and did nothing to stop it.