Confessions

I learned early that my body was worth more than any degree. What none of them knew is that I never felt a thing while they paid me.

My husband had spent two decades waiting for me to cross that line. I never imagined I’d do it on an ordinary afternoon, against the wall of my own office.

When she stepped off the plane in those shorts and with that smile, I knew the rule about never touching a friend’s sister would cost me dearly.

I was married, I was straight, and I was sure of who I was. That dawn, in a car parked by the beach, I stopped being so sure.

No one on that trail could imagine what I was wearing under my clothes, or the wild woman the brush of the air finally woke in me that afternoon.

We were never friends, but she looked at me with contempt every time her boyfriend kept staring at me. So I decided to give her a real reason to hate me.

I accepted the room he rented me without suspecting a thing. Three weeks later I was already planning my new life with him, while my husband still called me every night.

When I moved to the capital, I thought I was only looking for work. My roommate taught me something else: that men look at what they shouldn’t, and one gesture is enough to confirm it.

I climbed the stairs barely able to walk, my dress reeking of the whole night. I had no idea my mom was awake, waiting for me in the hallway.

There are things I never said out loud. This is one of them: what my cousin planned with me that January, before I realized it was too late.

For years, Romina had imagined her mother while making love to her boyfriend. That night, with wine loosening her tongue, she could no longer keep it inside.

When she opened the door in that short dress and that alcohol-soaked smile, I knew the night wouldn’t end the way she’d planned.

The elevator stopped on the eighth and he got in. I had the last cash in my pocket and the certainty that something was going to happen between us that morning.

I closed the laptop, stepped under the water without thinking about anything, and when the sponge brushed my breasts, I knew that shower wasn’t going to be like the others.

I get home, strip naked on the sofa, and lose count. It’s my routine, my secret, the only thing I truly need at the end of the day.

I was alone, the heat was unbearable, and the water ran lukewarm over my skin. Then I got an idea I’d been imagining for months and had never had the courage to try.

It took two days to arrive, and for those two days I could think of nothing else. When I finally opened the box, I knew that night I was going to know myself in a new way.

I warned her that if I didn’t like it, I’d drop her at the next corner. She smiled, reclined my seat, and asked me to close my eyes for a second.

My roommate was asleep when he knocked with a bouquet of freesias. I opened the door in a sweater and barefoot. That night I promised never to let another man into my bed.

Every morning is the same: I open my eyes with my body on fire and the bed in disarray, knowing no pillow can soothe what I truly crave.