Desire

When she started crying on my shoulder and confessed that her husband no longer touched her, I knew that afternoon’s massage was going to end very differently.

We’d been writing to each other every morning and every night for a month and a half. When I finally saw her sitting at that table, I knew neither of us would sleep alone.

Every month I crossed the street for a wax, never imagining the girl with the soft hands was waiting for the same signal I was.

Every time the girl came into her house, something ignited inside her. That afternoon, for the first time, no one else was there to interrupt them.

For months we’d had breakfast together after dropping the kids off. That morning she seemed different, and what she texted me changed everything between us.

I hated her the moment she walked in: tall, quiet, unbearable. What I didn’t expect was to spend the night fantasizing about her—or what would happen after, in the empty office.

It had been more than ten years since I’d seen her. I found her by the dildo shelf and, without thinking, gave her my number.

I was wearing a too-tight red dress and had just turned forty-two when that blonde woman put her hand on my waist and pulled me against her.

I thought the hardest thing of the year would be passing my English exam. I was wrong: the hardest thing was hiding how badly I wanted the woman teaching me.

When winter leaves me trembling and alone, I close my eyes and imagine her entering with firm steps, ready to undress me slowly and finally make me completely hers.

She agreed to the shoot hoping for elegant photos for her profile. She didn’t expect that old camera to strip away much more than her clothes.

She had spent months greeting her in the entrance hall, holding back her desire. That afternoon, the shopping bags spilled, and at last I had an excuse to go upstairs.

For months I’d imagined that scene in her office, but I never thought it would be her who made the first move, with the lock clicked shut and her perfume filling everything.

Since I was fifteen, I’d kept quiet about how badly I wanted to kiss her. Now, sitting across from me with that same smile, I wasn’t going to let the chance slip away again.

When I got into her car that Friday, I knew we were no longer going to talk about my future. There was something else between us, and we’d both spent weeks pretending it wasn’t there.

I felt a hand on my hip and a mouth in my ear: “You smell incredible.” When I turned around, it was her—the girl my friend had come to flirt with.

I had adored her in silence since childhood. The night before she left, she asked me to help her undress, and my hands trembled as they finally brushed her skin.

We three met on the last Thursday in December, under the pretext of seeing the year out. None of us said aloud what we were really going to do.

I never told her I liked women, or that she kept me up at night. But that midnight, alone by the pool, I was the one who dared to say what I felt.

All it took was for her to tilt her head toward the back door for me to set my glass on the bar and follow her without thinking twice.