Cheating

The two goons dragged me off to tour the machines while she stayed alone with the owner. When I came back, the desk was empty.

When I opened the door to the empty apartment, I wasn’t expecting to see him there with that smile. The client was running late, and the clock was silently marking our only chance.

When we got there that night, my wife was already wearing the plug. What we didn’t expect was to run into a nineteen-year-old who would change the routine.

At five in the morning, with my wife’s friend smoking on my terrace, I knew I was going to tell him about the night she herself pushed me over the edge.

When she leaned in to say goodbye at the door, her mouth found mine and everything I’d buried for years came rushing back.

Her message came Tuesday at four: “My boyfriend’s away. I need to get out.” My best friend’s sister was waiting for me, eager.

He’d asked that no one in the building see him. When she locked the door and pressed her back to the wood, she was already trembling in his hands.

I’d spent five years waiting for my husband, and that night, with my sister-in-law’s lover in front of me, I realized my body could no longer bear silence.

I swear that when I got on that plane all I could think about was closing the deal. I never imagined that night would be the one where I lost myself and us.

When I opened that old folder on his computer, I never imagined a photo of her would be the beginning of my own betrayal.

I got out of the taxi without looking back. It was eleven at night, my wife was still screaming my name from the landing, and I only wanted to disappear from the world.

I went downstairs for ice and he shut the door behind me. With the party going on outside, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to.

Diego was asleep when he felt the mattress dip beside him. It was her, barefoot, whispering that she’d only come down to get her pajamas. His brother was snoring next door.

For days I hid among the bushes, watching her ride another man every night. When he was laid up with a fever, I took his place.

The elevator panel died between two floors. She smiled, stepped toward me, and said quietly that she knew exactly what was on my mind.

She had been married for fifteen years and had never looked at another man. Until Lorenzo offered to show her his workshop at seven in the morning and locked the door.

When I looked through the keyhole and saw her on her knees in front of him, I knew lust had defeated pride long before that night.

When he tied the black mask over my eyes and opened the private-room door, I never imagined that one of those masks hid someone I’d known since childhood.

I heard it through the ajar door: the laborer was fucking the secretary in the storeroom. That afternoon I went back to the office for more than documents.

I’d spent half my life with the same woman when that stranger in leopard print sat beside me and looked at me the way no one had in years.