Cheating

She had red hair, painted lips, and a body that stopped traffic. What I didn’t imagine was what I’d find when I slipped my hand under her dress.

When she sat on my couch with smeared mascara and a trembling voice, I knew a whiskey and a few comforting words wouldn’t be enough.

When I bent down to put the box away in the storeroom, Adela turned slowly and let me see the white lace under her blouse. That night I knew the route had changed forever.

When I went into the kitchen she already had the lasagna in the oven and two glasses poured. I pressed her against the marble before she could set the dish down.

Marina left the phone book open at the letter C. I only meant to talk about my bedroom blockage, but that first session didn’t end the way anyone would imagine.

The taxi arrived at two-thirty. I climbed the four floors with two bags in my hands and the certainty that there was no turning back.

Every first Tuesday of the month he rang the bell with the water drum on his shoulder. I greeted him each time wearing less and less, hoping he’d stay longer than necessary.

I got to her place an hour before my girlfriend. My mother-in-law opened the door in a short robe, a poured whiskey, and a smile that was anything but innocent.

When I opened the door to breathe the wet air, someone jumped the wall. He was naked, he wouldn’t give me his name, and my husband was still sleeping inside the house, knowing nothing.

Eight years had passed since the last time I undressed in front of that camera. That night I turned it on again, and on the other side the same man was still waiting for me.

He asked me from the screen and I obeyed: open the window, let the clothes fall, and let those men watch me without shame.

I switch off the lamp, close my eyes, and let her voice on the other side of the wall set the rhythm of my hand. She’s not mine anymore, but I still come thinking of her.

I had never seen her, I didn’t know her name, but that night her sentences touched me deeper than anyone had touched me in years. And I let them.

When she let the robe fall, I understood that my perfect neighbor was hiding far more than anyone imagined, and that night I no longer wanted to turn back.

I went upstairs to use the bathroom and he was waiting for me with his fly open. What I didn’t count on was someone opening the door just when we were on all fours.

For an entire year I lived two lives: the perfect professional beside my partner, and the insatiable lover who returned to the hotel every night. Until the TV announced his death.

She climbed into the back seat with the boss’s wife thinking she was going to find me. She got out thinking about when she could see her again.

If his cock wouldn’t respond, he’d borrow another man’s. It was enough to look a man in the eye and whisper the right suggestion to get to his wife’s bed.

It’s two in the morning, I can’t sleep, and I’m alone. The heat is brutal, the bed is burning me, and my mind starts drifting to names and bodies I thought I’d forgotten.

That night I went down to the studio with the excuse of the copier. In her personal folder there were three files that changed everything I thought I knew about her.