Desire

While you slept off the booze in the room, I slipped barefoot down the hotel corridor to discover in his arms what you could no longer give me.

We had been whispering about it for days, but neither of us imagined how far we would go that night.

She went up on the stage fully dressed while the others were already nearly naked, and I knew that night she was going to lose all her shame in front of everyone.

I thought I’d buried the woman who charged for her time. One offer from my own boyfriend was enough to wake her and take control of the night.

I hadn’t set foot in a club in years, but that night my son’s friend looked at me in a way no man had in a long time.

That night, while everyone was asleep, my aunt left her glass on the sand, slipped off her sandals, and told me the water was better with nothing on.

I hadn’t dressed in two years. Then I found the key to the room the owner told me not to open, and inside was everything I needed.

I changed clothes, put on coconut-scented perfume, and went back to the bar with one plan in my head: to find out whether that smile was for real.

It began in front of a webcam, in the dark and safe. But that afternoon, at the reservoir beach, there was no screen—only my body, the sun, and men who couldn’t look away.

I thought we’d had five perfect years, until she walked into that shop and chose something that made it clear my body wasn’t enough anymore.

I got out of the car to sit in front, and as soon as I noticed the bulge in his trousers, I knew that taxi wasn’t taking me straight home.

He opened the door in jeans only and I knew we weren’t going to watch any movie. I looked him up and down and my mouth watered.

I stepped into the center of the circle thinking I had the situation under control. I had no idea my shorts would slowly ride up until they left me nearly exposed in front of everyone.

He stopped the car outside her building with trembling hands. She was waiting behind the window, and they both knew that glass of wine was only the beginning.

By day he was the perfect atelier assistant; by night he tried on lace before the mirror. One photo was enough for someone to discover who he really was.

A night flight began as a conversation between friends and ended with a confession: my bed always had room for my husband, my lover—and that night, for her.

My friendship with that rough but good-natured old man took a turn one afternoon over wine in a lost village, when he whispered what he planned to do to me.

She climbed the ladder in front of me with nothing beneath her nightgown, and I knew I wouldn’t leave that apartment the same man who entered.

I sat in the dim light, determined not to touch anyone and only to watch. But my fingers had other plans as I watched her give herself to two men a meter from me.

I spent weeks thinking about her every night, until that dinner ended in the car seat, with her hand finding what I could barely hide.