Cheating

When the fourth escort entered the room in a red dress, the tray of drinks slipped from my hands. She was my wife.

The number wasn’t in my contacts, but the first two lines forced me to read to the end. What came next changed everything I remembered about Saturday.

I recognized the moans behind that door. I knew every cadence. But the woman at the desk had something my wife swore she would never have.

I thought the vodka had clouded my head, but when she closed the hotel room door I knew she’d been waiting for that exact moment for years.

Between boxes, with the door barely closed, she bit her lip to keep from screaming while I held her against my chest. No one could hear us.

At forty-eight, in a Miami bar, my best friend grabbed me by the neck and kissed me. It was my first time with a woman, and I knew I could never go back.

It was eleven in the morning and the cove was empty, except for a guy pretending not to watch me. My husband was swimming and I could feel his eyes fixed on every inch of my skin.

When he told me he looked like the singer behind the counter when he dressed up, his mother smiled and I understood it wouldn’t stay a joke.

The Polaroid hung from my neck when she appeared under the threshold, barefoot and smiling, escorted by two men I didn’t know at all.

She was twenty-one and the daughter of my best friend’s partner. I taught her equations; she taught me not to ask where she’d been on the nights she disappeared.

When Diego closed the van door and disappeared toward the supermarket lights, I knew I had half an hour to do everything I’d been imagining for months.

When I opened the door and saw the three of them on the landing in their blue coveralls, I knew something was going to break that afternoon, and it wasn’t just the washing machine.

Andrés locked the door even though he knew there was no one else on the floor. When he stood in front of me again, he was no longer my boss but something else.

At midnight, wearing her shortest miniskirt and a white blouse without a bra, Carolina crossed the garden toward the bricklayers' container.

I dressed up like never before to see him: miniskirt, heels, wig. What I didn’t expect was his sister showing up and, with one look, reading everything we were hiding.

I went back to the club for a second escape looking for pleasure, and a new guy chose me. What promised to be an easy lesson left a mark I didn't expect.

I agreed to dance at a bachelor party because I needed the money. What I didn’t expect was that four guys would offer me double for something more.

The phone rang just as he walked through the door. It was my boyfriend. I couldn’t hang up. And my ex wasn’t about to wait for me to finish the call.

My boyfriend introduced me as his friend to his entire family. His uncle noticed and slipped me a note with his number and one word written on it: «later».

Diego always turned me on and I avoided him because of my boyfriend. Until that afternoon he took me to the gym sauna and I realized I couldn't keep lying to myself.