Couple

I’d spent twelve years pretending that what happened in her apartment that afternoon meant nothing. My own wedding’s open bar proved otherwise.

At midnight on the dot the doorbell rang and I knew there was no turning back: she had agreed, they were coming for her, and I had promised to stay in the chair and watch.

When Ataq explained that Inuit hospitality included sharing wives, my wife and I looked at each other in silence. That night, the heat came from somewhere else.

We had spent our whole lives doing the right thing. Then suddenly it was three in the morning, and the three strangers were still in the house.

Her anniversary gift was waiting for her on the other side of a hole in the wall. There was only one rule, and it was that I stayed to watch.

That Friday afternoon, with a second glass of wine in her hand, Valeria looked at me differently and began telling me what she did on weekends.

I read the letter in the dressing room with trembling hands. The offer was indecent, the sum obscene. I showed my husband, expecting fury; he smiled and told me to accept.

While they stayed in the water, he proposed what I’d been imagining for a year. I set my beer down on the counter and said yes before I could change my mind.

I never imagined my coworker was keeping the same secrets I was. We found out that night, with the bar almost empty and too much wine in our glasses.

The private room was immaculate, and I was kneeling in the center, waiting. Eight men entered in silence. Then I understood what it meant to truly surrender.

My husband had a plan: take me to a shop and let the salesman put his hands on me. There was only one rule: he would pretend not to see a thing.

We played strip poker with my neighbors. Nobody said what else was being played for, but when I was left naked in the middle of the living room, we didn’t need the cards anymore.

I knew what he would do if he thought we were alone. What I couldn’t foresee was that my husband was watching everything from the other side of the glass.

I went to their apartment hoping for beer and a way to kill time. I left with a sore ass, a mouth tasting of semen, and a smile I couldn’t hide.

She had always been shy, but that afternoon on the beach, naked beneath the sun, something awakened in her that I had never seen before.

When Diego placed a hand on her back and introduced her as his wife, Lucía felt that word open a door none of the four would close that night.

We had been friends for twenty years, and that afternoon, leaning on the beach bar counter, we said out loud something neither of us thought we’d ever admit.

When Camila turned off the movie and told me, “sometimes I watch gay porn when I’m alone,” I knew that line was going to split my life in two.

The first night in the new apartment, I heard the neighbor on the other side of the wall. I had to go to the bathroom to finish while Laura slept.

I traveled alone seeking temples and ended up on a terrace over the river, surrounded by hands that weren’t mine and mouths that knew exactly where to find me.