Confessions

Uploading the video was only the beginning. That Saturday dawn I understood that watching was no longer enough: I wanted a stranger to touch me for real.

I paid the entrance fee, found the back stall, and thought it would be a minute. Then I heard that deep voice asking if anyone was on the other side of the wall.

She came over to ask about the printer and ended up staring at the screen with a question on her lips that changed everything between us.

We had climbed over the fence into an empty property. He set the pace with his hand on my neck, and I let myself go without thinking of anything else.

I’d watched him for days from the terrace, pretending I wasn’t. That hot afternoon I decided to stop pretending and went down with a glass of lemonade in my hand.

It was six in the morning, I was still in my wedding dress, and my husband was snoring unconscious upstairs. The waiter hadn’t left yet, and I was no longer thinking about sleep.

She came home every morning smelling of American tobacco and new perfume. I kept silent and hid my suspicions—until the night I followed her.

At forty-nine I thought I’d seen it all, until that soaked stranger took off his shirt in my patio and I knew the afternoon wouldn’t end with gardening.

No one at the bank, pharmacy, or bakery imagined what I was hiding beneath my clothes. And that was precisely what excited me most.

You texted me “I’m hungry,” and I knew exactly what you wanted. We’re not a couple, not even my type, but there’s something between us no one would understand.

In the dark, a few meters from my building, his cock shone under the only streetlamp on the street. And I already knew I was going to lower my head again.

I never told anyone, but the moment he closes the door to leave, one name and one body take over my whole imagination.

When the four guys came into the apartment at five in the morning, I knew I was about to live through something I’ve never told anyone.

I was late to dinner, but not because of traffic. It was because of the detour we took to that vacant lot fifty meters from the restaurant.

It was after eleven, everyone was asleep, and the rain was falling hard. I thought I’d just go get wet in the patio for a while. I had no idea how far I was going to dare to go that night.

I put on the smallest bikini I had and went down to the garden just to see his face. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I wasn’t going to stop.

There was just one guy at the back, washing his hands. He looked at me in the mirror and, without a word, we both knew the wait was over.

I came out of the water shivering and saw her adjusting her bikini in the sun. Neither of us knew that morning would change everything between us.

I took off my bikini in the jacuzzi, knowing he was watching me from the roof. What I came to forget became the only thing I remember about the trip.

Renata always hid behind Camila and Marisol. That night, on warm sand and far from home, she decided she was done watching from the shore.