Bet

When I found out what the forfeit was, I was struck dumb. Not because I couldn’t, but because it exposed me with a man who knew half the city. And yet I arrived on time that first day.

My boyfriend thought I wouldn’t dare. He bet I’d only get the gardener worked up from the window, but that afternoon he ended up on his knees in front of me.

We started the day with a dumb bet and ended it in a stranger’s room, with a phone recording everything.

We went down to the garage to play like we used to when we were dating. What we didn’t expect was that someone else would be awake among the cars that night.

I agreed to help him organize his new house out of pity. I never imagined that each bet would leave me with less clothing and more eager to lose the next one.

She lifted her dress, looked at me with a smile, and started touching herself for the trucker driving alongside us. It was only the beginning of a trip I would never forget.

I look at myself in the mirror in my garter belt and fishnets, and I smile: I lost the bet, and I know exactly what he’s going to ask of me this afternoon.

I said yes to the game for one night only: a dress, a wig, and a name that wasn’t mine. I never imagined the girl in the mirror would look back as if she’d been waiting for me.

For years I swallowed her provocations and played the patient friend. That August afternoon, on her balcony overlooking the sea, something inside me broke.

They stepped onto the stage convinced it would only be a ridiculous dance. None of them imagined how far the girls were willing to go that end-of-term afternoon.

Two chairs with holes in the middle, a rope with a knot, and two men tied up not knowing if the next round would be theirs. The game was about to begin.

I thought enduring ten hits would be easy. I didn’t count on her enjoying every one of them, or on how much I’d end up enjoying them too.

I thought I’d pay up with a kiss or a joke. Instead, my friend dared me to show up as an escort at his best friend’s bachelor party.

At the café, they dared each other over laughs: each would pick a man that very afternoon. Neither imagined the bet would end in the same bed.

When she came out to the garage dressed like that, I knew I’d lose the bet. What I couldn’t imagine was how far that summer would go with her and her mother.

When Lucía and I arrived at that house, what we saw in the living room left us breathless. I knew the night had only just begun and neither of us wanted to leave.

If we lasted five minutes, then the women would compete afterward. What began as a joke among friends ended with the four of us naked in the same bed.

The rules were simple: the winner stayed tied up, the loser served, and in the end the two couples would decide who really ruled. No one planned to give in.

I had three tubes of aloe vera and not a centimeter of unburned skin when my flatmate’s boyfriend came in with her keys and found me naked on the sofa.

I accepted the bet with laughter and wine. Twenty minutes later, he was taking a satin apron and gloves from the drawer, and I was no longer in charge of the house.