Desire

I saw him looking at me in the elevator mirror and something lit up. That night I knew I didn’t just want him to watch me: I wanted him to see absolutely everything.

I’m shy with almost everyone, except my husband. That’s why I was so surprised to want that stranger who sat down in front of me, as if she’d been waiting for months.

She expected a frail husband she could despise. When the king bent to kiss her hand, the tip of his tongue brushed her skin, and she knew she had been wrong.

He arrived at the den little more than a chained skeleton. The she-wolf promised to teach him what it meant to serve her... and he learned better than she expected.

He barely reached my elbow when he took my hand. In six minutes, I discovered that my body didn’t understand the rules I had imposed on myself.

He was in his chair, oblivious to everything, wearing his headphones. And I was on his bed, with a silly idea I finally dared to act on that afternoon.

When the attic window gave way to the wind, he no longer saw the servant who served his coffee: he saw the soaked woman who held his whole world together.

She arrives at ten-thirty, leans against the shelter, and crosses her legs. She doesn’t know it, but in my head we’ve already done everything we’d never dare.

My friend thought we were just out for fresh air. I’d already chosen my prey: the dark-haired man playing with his son ten meters away.

She knew what they had agreed to, but no words prepared her for what she would feel when she crossed that door and the room closed behind her.

I’d spent hours searching for a spark in other people’s eyes and found nothing. Until I decided to cross the room and put the whole game in his hands.

I used to hide everything. That night I entered the theater without underwear, in a short skirt and certain someone would look. And I wanted him to.

When the train left without me, I thought the night was lost. Then I saw him at the other end of the platform, motionless, looking at me as if he’d always been waiting.

The paper robe barely covered me. When his hot hands slid down my back, I knew that session wasn’t going to end the way I’d imagined.

Three hours under the sun, drenched in sweat, and from beneath the tree he saw something on the terrace that left him breathless: they knew he was watching.

I went into the bathroom wearing my thong and came out with it tangled in my hair. I never imagined the line into the theater would be the longest part of the night.

—You don’t have to believe you can —he whispered in her ear—. I do. Your only job tonight is to surrender and let your body obey.

I served him tea to help him relax, but I knew work wasn’t the only thing making him tense. That night, I decided to do something about it.

I put on my shortest miniskirt just to see if I could make him nervous. I never imagined that night he’d show up again, this time inside my head.

His wife’s friend opened her legs in front of him, smiling, just to show him what he would never get to touch that night.