Cheating

When they carried him to bed asleep, I knew that night wouldn’t end like the others. And I regret nothing that happened after.

I hid on the locker-room mezzanine with Bruno pressed against my back. Below, my mother and her friend were undressing among the workers, and I couldn’t look away.

I only meant to be nice and carry her grocery bags up to her apartment. She offered me a soda, changed clothes, and left her bedroom door ajar.

I’d watched her for years in ways I shouldn’t have. That night, after catching her with another man, she got into my car not knowing I had secrets of my own.

When her number appeared on the screen as a missed call, I knew that night in the mountains was going to break something in her that could never be put back together.

At four in the morning, locked under the sheets with my mother’s phone, I started opening folder after folder, unaware that nothing would ever be the same.

That afternoon the massage left me burning. I never imagined I’d end up on my knees in front of a stranger in my own living room, or who would catch me there.

I’d spent weeks avoiding her, convinced what we had was over. Then the phone rang and her voice was enough to tell me I’d fall again.

She slipped into bed naked except for her thong and whispered in my ear: don’t turn around, don’t say anything, just listen. Then she started telling me about that night.

She was old enough to be my mother and married to a man who barely looked at her. I only wanted to return to that kitchen every afternoon.

We had spent three years living by one rule between partners. That cold night, in her green dress and the dark office, we knew we were about to break it.

I’ve spent thirty years pretending to be the modest wife my husband thinks he set free. What he doesn’t know is that on this cruise, I’m the one pulling the strings.

When she told me what really turned her on, I knew we were opening a door we’d never be able to close again. And I didn’t want to close it.

A yellow Post-it on the little box said just one word: “Play me.” It was two in the morning, and curiosity beat out the night’s accumulated exhaustion.

I turned fifty, I’ve been married for thirty years, and I’ve never been faithful. These are the secret getaways that kept my marriage alive.

I turned on the system from the office just to keep an eye on the tools. What came up on the screen was my wife taking off her bikini in front of him.

I asked her to dress to provoke, and on the fourth day she came home with a trembling voice and a story she couldn’t tell me with her clothes on.

I got out of the car ready to defend him and ended up seeing him with a stranger on his lap. What I did next wasn’t planned: I simply stopped being afraid.

I let my dress fall on the balcony knowing he was watching from the other side of the glass. And I knew my husband had planned everything.

That morning I didn’t get dressed or dry my tears. I just dialed his number and asked him to come without telling my husband.