Confessions

It was two in the morning, it was the anniversary of my dead marriage, and I was crying on the couch. Marcos wrapped his arms around me and said he wasn’t going anywhere.

When I was left flat broke and unable to pay the rent, Lorenzo knocked on my door at ten sharp. I had never been with a man before that night.

We’d spent the whole wedding exchanging looks. When he whispered that he wanted to show me something, I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.

We had been exchanging photos and audio messages for months that his wife would never see. When we finally met, everything we had imagined became real.

Rodrigo went pale and pulled the phone away. I knew exactly what had happened before he even opened his mouth to explain.

Bringing three folding chairs to a back alley at midnight was her idea. What happened after left me watching from the outside, dry-mouthed and racing pulse.

He asked me for directions and I walked with him without thinking. I never imagined that minutes later I’d be against the wall of a building under construction with my pants at my ankles.

The first time I went in, I didn’t know what happened in the dark. A stranger’s hand brushed my leg and changed everything forever.

An ordinary man discovered that beneath his wife’s clothes lived another version of himself, ready to emerge when lockdown came.

I went wearing a thong and garter stockings under my pants, not knowing if anything would happen. That night, everything did.

When I told him I could call someone to keep him company, he went out to buy cigarettes. Thirty minutes later, Sofía came down the stairs in heels.

I had never done it. Never let anyone in there before. That afternoon in the booths, a stranger with hand cream changed everything.

I only went to pick up the bra I’d forgotten the night before. Sofía opened the door with that smile, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of there any time soon.

The shop was empty and the boy was young. I’d been imagining that exact moment for days, and I had no intention of wasting it.

I was wearing the wig and heels when I saw someone waiting at the door. It was Germán’s nephew. I froze half a block away, not knowing whether to keep going.

He was big, calloused, with hands that did the heavy work without ever complaining. He wasn’t the man I would have imagined. But that snowy afternoon, something broke.

I had never gone out dressed for the street before. That Friday I decided it was time: miniskirt, heels, and the year’s most crowded subway car. What happened surpassed anything I had imagined.

When she invited me up to her apartment, I knew I couldn’t say no again. She was almost seventy and I was thirty-six, and that had never mattered so little.

When I asked her to tell me again, her eyes closed, her voice dropped to a wet whisper against my neck, and I knew it still burned inside her.

I’d known her since I was seventeen. I had told her everything. And that afternoon, while I was zipping up her dress, I realized I wanted to kiss her too.