Cheating

I got out of the car convinced the house was empty. Then I heard moans upstairs and turned on the bedroom camera.

I sat down in front of him, took his hands, and started talking. I knew every word tied me more tightly to him, even if it hurt like a badly placed caress.

I put on a miniskirt and heels that Thursday when I had the house to myself. I was only going to flirt for a while. That’s what I told myself as he shut the camera room door behind us.

Rodrigo kept watching me every time I crossed the living room. I’d known for months, and that afternoon I decided it was time to collect a debt.

When she sent me the photo from the fitting room wearing lingerie, I closed it without replying. She saw that. That was how it all began.

Sandra took the wine bottles, looked at me, and whispered: “It’s going to be needed, trust me.” Her smile was the kind that already knows how the night will end.

That night the three of us wore light clothes in front of the TV. I tried to hide what they were doing to me just by looking at them.

I’d spent months thinking about her, about her feet, about her mouth. The Halloween party gave us the night we’d both wanted without saying it out loud.

I ran out in my nightgown, naked underneath, with the vibrator in my hand. The door clicked shut, and I knew I was locked out. Someone was already in the hall.

I always trained alone, in silence, never looking at anyone. He’d been watching me for three months, and I found out when it was already too late to walk away.

I’d been burning up for an hour with Rodrigo not home. When I called the sex shop, I never imagined the clerk would show up at my door ten minutes later.

Four weeks watching her move between the tables, wanting what I didn’t dare name. After that, nothing was ever the same.

I was the impeccable stepmother, the woman who made the rules. But when my stepson appeared naked before me, I knew my rules were made of paper.

...

We’d been married for twenty years, and then she started going to the gym, changing her clothes, checking her phone in the bathroom. Something was off. I decided to find out.

I saw her alone in the café for weeks: voluptuous, pretty, with a body her clothes couldn’t hide. When she confessed she’d gone months without sex, I knew something was about to happen.

I knew exactly what would happen when I entered that room with him. I knew it, and still I closed the door. My husband was away, and there was too much tequila in my veins.

When I reviewed the footage from the cameras she didn’t know existed, I saw my wife with him. In our bed. And instead of getting furious, I felt something dark I hadn’t expected.

The August heat crushed the apartment courtyard, and Adrián couldn’t take his eyes off the window opposite. Mrs. Valverde had no idea she was being watched.

The image was crystal clear: her lying on his lounger, in a bikini, with a smile that wasn’t for me. What came next left me speechless.