Beach

I opened the box in front of him because inside was the perfect excuse. What I didn’t expect was for the neighbor to dare that much — or for me to let him.

When he stayed to practice a few poses, I could feel him looking at me. I hadn’t had a partner in months, and my body had decided for me long before my head did.

I’d put on the shortest skirt I owned, and when that college student rested his hand on my thigh, I knew the journey would be far longer than the ticket said.

She ran her marriage, but that morning on the sand I found out how much she loved a stranger telling her who was in charge, with her husband watching.

“Just the first three levels,” I promised him on the plane. Neither of us imagined how far that book of challenges would take us before we came home.

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.

For eons I knew only the silence of the void. Until I hooked a signal in a blue world and, without asking permission, slipped into the body of a woman on fire.

I only wanted to watch the sun go down and photograph the sea. Then I heard another bicycle approaching through the sand, and I knew that afternoon wouldn’t end like the others.

Iván was still asleep in my arms when a noise in the hallway pulled me out of bed. I had no idea the last day would be the hottest of all.

The first time I saw him without a shirt at the beach, I couldn’t breathe. He was my mother’s man, but I could no longer look at him like a son looks at a father.

I offered the bus window seat to the old lady and she didn’t even look at me. I had no idea the real journey would begin in the hotel dining room, across from two strangers.

I pretended to be asleep so I could watch him. What I saw that night in the other bed completely changed the course of the trip.

I bet him that if I beat him on the field that afternoon, I’d collect my prize with him. He laughed. He had no idea I’d been waiting for that moment for years.

I couldn’t stop watching Bruno’s body beneath the water, and when he turned around with his eyes closed, I knew we were about to cross a line we had avoided for years.

We counted to three and stripped naked in front of everyone. What I didn't know was that she'd kept a key in her necklace for the rest of the day.

No one would imagine those giant, ridiculous sneakers were keeping my secrets. That night on the road, with everyone asleep, I finally dared to do what I’d been fantasizing about.

I chose the spot closest to the water, dropped my bikini, and before lying down, searched for the one who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off me.

No one dared move, but she knew that one gesture from her would make the whole beach hold its breath and turn the circle from mere sand into something else.

Neither said it out loud, but both knew it: every gesture under the sun was a challenge, an invitation no one on the beach could ignore that afternoon.

Two gleaming bodies, a circle of men watching, and one unanswered question: would they fight for attention or split it like accomplices?