Cheating

When I saw them adjust their pants after watching her stretch in the kitchen, I knew that summer was going to be different. And I’d make sure it went there.

At forty-one, I thought desire had gone out—until a man caught me off guard and, for the first time in years, made me feel truly seen.

I followed him down the hallway without thinking, my heart in my throat. I knew that if I pushed that door open there would be no going back—and I pushed it anyway.

I’m a mother of two, I’ve been married for over ten years, and I thought I was happy. Then he arrived and I discovered how long I’d forgotten desire.

When Tobías’s teacher gave me her personal number “in case anything urgent came up,” I knew it had nothing to do with my son’s grades.

A burst pipe forced the men to sleep together. Toni on one side, me on the other, and between us, Sergio... who wasn’t sleeping quite as soundly as we thought.

When Camila closed the door with her suitcases, I never imagined that half an hour later a stranger would offer me his company and know so much about my wife.

The wedding ring appeared at the bottom of a glass of Baileys, and Damián was smiling as if he knew exactly how much it cost her to ask him to leave before her husband got home.

That afternoon she came home in black, painted her lips in the mirror, and left saying she was sleeping at a friend’s place. It took years to learn where she was really going.

When I went down to the lobby looking to escape the corporate party, I never expected the bartender who would look at me like he knew exactly what I needed that night.

While my husband was sucking on my breasts in front of the mirror, I was thinking about her and the body of the man we’d be having dinner with that night.

For years his wife called me “the mistress.” But I never was. I was his sex worker, and this is the truth she never wanted to hear.

Every time I walked into the garage, he looked up before he even heard the door. That afternoon, with the shutter half down, I stopped pretending.

When I moved Sebastián’s laptop mouse and saw my best friend’s name on the screen, I knew nothing would ever be the same.

In front of the bedroom mirror, she discovered her body still knew how to ask. What she did not expect was for someone to be willing to listen that very night.

She had been with Rodrigo for two years and told herself it was only a drink with a coworker. When she stepped into Lautaro’s apartment, she knew there was no going back.

When her cousin came back drunk that night and started telling me details, I realized my wife had only given me half the truth.

I’d spent two months pretending to go to the office while really wandering aimlessly around Barcelona. That night I dialed the only number that could save me.

He sent me the photo while my husband was driving beside him. I didn’t reply, but that image stayed in my head all day.

The shutter was half lowered and the key turned twice behind me. I came without my ring and with twelve years of silence on my tongue.