Cheating

“We’re not doing anything, it’s a piece of silicone,” she told me. But the way she looked at me while opening the box said exactly the opposite.

Eight years had passed since that coach trip, but the moment I saw him standing in front of the terminal I knew I wouldn’t be coming home for dinner that night.

When he pinned the man who had been harassing her, Mariela felt something she shouldn’t: the certainty that that boy could do anything he wanted with her.

Marcela looked at me through the rearview mirror with a smile that was nothing like a calm mother’s. I didn’t know that afternoon would change everything between us.

The store was closed, and she had the whole morning free. The driver noticed before she did, and the smile in the mirror made her think things she shouldn’t.

He was in his twenties, had a thin wife swimming below, and hungry eyes that begged me without knowing it. That afternoon I taught him who was in charge.

I thought I was going to beg her to keep the secret. I never imagined that when she came back into the living room she’d be holding a crop and wearing stiletto boots.

I had worn the belt for months and she promised to take it off that night. She didn’t tell me what I’d have to do first to deserve it.

I sent him two photos hidden in the bathroom to provoke him. His answer wasn’t praise: it was an order to open the drawer I always kept locked.

I was the serious guy in the suit and SUV. All it took was for a woman to challenge me with her eyes for the animal inside me to wake up, and that village fair set him loose for good.

I met her in adolescence and never stopped wanting her. She told me about every kiss, every lover, never knowing I kept all her words for lonely nights.

I got out of the car on a deserted street, my heart racing. I didn’t know what the woman I’d been writing to for months looked like—only that tonight, at last, she would be mine.

We exchanged glances at the pool all afternoon. When I went upstairs for water and he followed me in, I knew there was no turning back.

I had spent thirty years closing projects for the company. On my farewell trip, I never imagined the woman traveling beside me would be the one to say goodbye to me in a different way.

I’d been unsatisfied all night when the phone rang. It was him, and what he suggested made me say yes before I finished my coffee.

I was eight months pregnant, my hormones were raging, and a sweaty man was working in the baby’s room. That afternoon I stopped being the modest wife everyone thought I was.

I never get involved with clients, I told him. But his body was already pressed against mine and my own voice sounded like a lie as I closed the garage gate.

I saw his name on the screen and knew I shouldn’t answer. But I did, and the moment I heard his voice I was again the woman I swore I’d never be.

I parked beside her car, never guessing that my free afternoon would end with her climbing into mine in the darkest corner of the garage.

At eighty-seven, he thought he’d heard everything. Then she knelt on the other side of the grille and started telling him what she did when her husband traveled.