SalvajeRodrigo

Her father watched her from the pool’s edge, and for the first time she wondered what hid behind that gaze that followed her with every stroke.

The creak of the mattress in her parents’ room was not sex: it was theft. Barefoot, Sabina followed it down the hall and pressed her eye to the crack in the door.

He was more than twice her age and her mother’s man. But when they were left alone in the house, Carla understood he’d wanted exactly this for months.

The elevator was old and narrow, and she was right in front of me. I only had to slide my hand around behind her and pray her husband kept his eyes on his phone.

For months he’d pretended her uniform didn’t affect him. That afternoon, with her thigh bandaged and his hands trembling on her skin, he knew he couldn’t hold back anymore.

It was six forty. She checked her watch, asked me to pull over by the alley, and before I could ask anything, she was already kissing me.

For weeks I’d been pretending I wasn’t looking at him. That night, with two drinks too many and the house empty, I stopped pretending and went downstairs looking for him.

With days left before my trip, she called me for an innocent favor. Neither of us imagined we'd end up locked inside, in the dark, without clothes.

Valeria was 26 when we went on vacation together. I’d spent days unable to stop looking at her, and neither of us knew what was about to happen.

That morning Mateo told me something was wrong down there, and without knowing it, he began the quietest and hardest week of my adult life.

I arrived at the Cancún hotel a day before my sister. Nearly two days alone with her husband: the nudist beach, the lingerie fitting room, the tequila. Something was going to happen.

When she let the sweater fall to the floor and took off her shoes in front of me, I knew that afternoon I wouldn’t leave my father-in-law’s house the same man.

I was naked on the balcony, smoking in front of the sea, when I saw the stranger on the bench across the street. And instead of covering up, I let him watch.

When my stepmother locked the bedroom door and started unbuttoning her blouse, I knew that punishment wouldn’t be like any sermon before it.