PicanteJulieta

Adrián fell asleep ten minutes after takeoff. The man by the window waited until he heard his steady breathing before leaning toward Marina and whispering in her ear.

I didn’t shower before going back home. I wanted my boyfriend to feel the gym sweat on my skin and the trace of another man, and not have the courage to ask whose it was.

He could tell something was off in my breath, but he never dared name it. My best work wasn’t on any screen: it was inside his head, on a loop.

He only came to use our computer on a rainy afternoon. But he showed me a program that could strip anyone naked, and without thinking, I asked him to try it on me.

I told him I wouldn’t touch him, that he should only look. But every folder he opened on the screen pushed me a little closer to crossing the line we’d been skirting for months.

He sat right beside me even though the theater was almost empty. His knee brushed mine and didn’t move away. Then his mouth found my ear, and I knew that afternoon belonged to him.

Damián saved half the city and took the rookie up to his suite to celebrate. Tomás admired him like an idol, until that night he discovered who was really in charge.

He was the king of the pool and he knew it. When he called me to the locker room to laugh at me, I never imagined I’d be the one unable to stop looking at him.

The hot water ran down my back and, for the first time in that captivity, I felt his calloused hands like a caress. I didn’t open my eyes. I had promised him.

She came down from the plane of pleasure to a flat in Ruzafa, and as soon as the street’s desire brushed her skin, she knew no loose clothing could contain what she was.

When the classroom emptied, he stayed in front of my desk with a clumsy excuse about an exercise he already knew how to do. And I stopped pretending.