Desire

My girlfriend had been out of town for a week and I could think of only one thing: text Mariana and meet her at our usual café for a little game.

Every morning she chose a different garment, knowing it would end up torn on the living-room floor. What she didn’t expect was the door opening early.

I've been faking it in bed for years. That night, while he ordered another drink, I exchanged glances with the man at the bar and knew I wouldn't return from the bathroom alone.

Ten years of marriage collapsed over a gold earring left on the passenger seat. Carla decided divorce wouldn’t be the end, but only the beginning.

I had promised Daniel I would never look at another man. And yet, when he closed the door to that room, I was the one who took the first step.

When she crossed the workshop threshold that night, she knew she would leave as a different woman. She wasn’t going to resist. She was going to surrender, because her husband’s life depended on it.

I never imagined I’d be the one pushing my wife toward another man, but there I was, reading every email with a racing pulse and a dry mouth.

My body was still burning from the weekend with him. I never imagined that same night I’d hear, through a door, the conversation that would break me apart.

They had spent ten years visiting nudist beaches without anything happening. That afternoon, a man sat down in front of them—and she did what her husband had only dared imagine for years.

She dissected other people’s minds for a living; so did he. Sharing a table was enough for them both to stop pretending they only wanted conversation.

He sat on the sofa, a handspan from me, with that repentant-boy face that worked so well for him. And I, after weeks without sleep, knew I was going to forgive him again.

I was always certain of her faithfulness. So when she lowered her gaze and began to talk about that night, I felt the ground shift beneath my feet.

She went down the stairs with her heart racing and her dress clinging to her naked skin. She knew he was watching from the window, and that tonight the game could no longer be undone.

For years I pretended not to understand why she lingered when passing that shop. The afternoon I followed her inside, I understood my mother had already stopped belonging only to my father.

A single photograph on the studio wall was enough for the professor to realize he could never look at her as just a student again.

She told herself she was only helping him feel better. But every afternoon, with her boyfriend out of the house, the distance between them grew shorter.

“She came to see her boyfriend, the doctor,” the receptionist told him. Damián had no girlfriend. But when she described the visitor’s blush, he knew exactly who was waiting inside.

I’d spent years cheating on my husband without guilt, but I never imagined a work trip to a remote farm would end with me on my knees before a stranger.

I started by telling him made-up dreams about other men. What he didn’t know was that every word that made him moan had really happened that same week.

“Welcome to my beach,” his voice said behind me. I was completely naked on the towel, and he was the last person I expected to see there.