Deceit

In primary school she loved me more than I could return. Twenty years later, her voice on the phone was the same, and my hands trembled.

It was the first time I saw her in person. I meant to tell her about the pool and the lifeguard, but her hand on my thigh changed the conversation before I finished the sentence.

When I went into the empty classroom to change, the door opened behind me. It was her, the student council president, and she hadn’t come alone with words.

I’d been drafting the ad in my head for months; it took me twelve minutes to write it, and half an hour later I already had seven replies. His was the fifth.

Under that loose, demure clothing, you could sense a woman with her desire intact. I only had to wait for her to stop pretending in front of her husband.

I climbed the tree behind the dormitory to confirm what I already knew. I never imagined seeing her with him on the balcony would awaken something between rage and desire I’d never felt.

I locked the door and turned off the lights in the study room. All I wanted that afternoon was to comfort her; all she wanted was to forget her boyfriend.

An hour before dinner, the kids were watching cartoons in the living room and I crossed the garden looking for my wife. The laundry room door was ajar.

When I looked at myself in the hotel mirror, mascara running and marks on my neck, I knew no lie would be enough when I got home.

For months I’d let her dance alone, waiting for someone to push far enough. That night, a man taller than me finally did it.

The lover’s initials weren’t written out in full, but they matched the man smoking on my balcony.

We’re identical, she repeated as she painted her lips. And it was almost true: only one detail separated the twins, and it was the one Carla had never confessed to her boyfriend.

Her skirt was torn, her lips swollen, and she smelled of a man who wasn’t me. The worst part wasn’t seeing her like that—it was what she ordered me to do next.

I had never paid for sex, much less with a trans woman. But that early morning, with the car full of gas and my head full of kink, I took one turn too many.

I went in with the key he’d left in the planter. What I didn’t expect was to find her waiting for me, arms crossed and jaw clenched.

When I bent down to put the box away in the storeroom, Adela turned slowly and let me see the white lace under her blouse. That night I knew the route had changed forever.

When I went into the kitchen she already had the lasagna in the oven and two glasses poured. I pressed her against the marble before she could set the dish down.

Marina left the phone book open to the letter C. I was only going to talk about my bedroom problem, but that first appointment didn’t end as anyone would have imagined.

I got to her place an hour before my girlfriend. My mother-in-law opened the door in a short robe, a poured whiskey, and a smile that was anything but innocent.

I crossed that door convinced women weren’t my thing. I left two hours later knowing that was the biggest lie I’d ever told myself.