singisela

I like provoking people, I admit it. But that morning, when I picked them up in the truck with nothing beneath my leggings, I knew the weekend would get out of hand.

I was the serious girl with the ponytail and notes tucked under my arm. He was twice my age, with a calm that undid me whenever he looked at me.

When her boss offered to take me out to buy the drinks, my husband was left looking like a fool. I already knew that outing wouldn’t be innocent.

She unhooked her bikini top with the natural ease of someone who has already decided everything. “You told me to feel free,” she said. And I could barely breathe.

I came home from my second date with my heart racing, never imagining that my own husband would ask me that night to tell him everything.

That night, while everyone was asleep, my aunt left her glass on the sand, slipped off her sandals, and told me the water was better with nothing on.

She gave me a hundred euros in tip for a three-kilometer ride. It took me two days to understand the money was only the beginning of what she wanted.

I lowered my eyes every time she came into the shop, pretending to count screws. What I never knew was that she was studying me too.

I told him he’d left a T-shirt behind just to get him to my table. What he found that night bore no resemblance to the wife he left.

I climbed up to steady the ladder without imagining what I’d find when I looked up. That afternoon, in the back room, I learned who was really in charge.