Desire

My patients tell me their secrets, and I nod as if mine weren’t worse. Today, for the first time, I’m going to tell you the truth about me.

When he came out of the shower and found him waiting in black lace, Bianca smiled: she knew exactly what was going to happen that night.

We exchanged glances at the pool all afternoon. When I went upstairs for water and he followed me in, I knew there was no turning back.

I know I should feel ashamed, but at that hour, pressed against bodies I don’t know, I stop pretending the touch is an accident.

It started as a joke in the park: “Should I wrap him up so we can take him home?” Months later, a hidden camera would turn that joke into something else.

We arrived exhausted and fell asleep wrapped around each other in our underwear. Three days later, the apartment owner came in with breakfast and a look that changed everything.

Fresh out of the shower, I looked in the mirror and realized I couldn’t keep waiting. I took a sheet of paper and started writing down everything I’d wanted for years and never dared to do.

Damián came every three days; Adrián showed up Friday on his motorbike. That week I found out just how far I could go when nobody was looking.

No one at the party suspected a thing: to everyone we were just friends. But that dawn Adrián took the road to the hillside estate, and I knew we were done pretending.

I saw his name on the screen and knew I shouldn’t answer. But I did, and the moment I heard his voice I was again the woman I swore I’d never be.

I parked beside her car, never guessing that my free afternoon would end with her climbing into mine in the darkest corner of the garage.

I told him I’d come in sweaty and needed a shower. He carried me to the sofa and whispered that, with my scent, he liked me even more.

I thought it was just an innocent game of glances at a traffic light. I never imagined that one Saturday morning I’d ring his doorbell with the most ridiculous excuse.

I never promised you more than I gave you, and maybe that’s why you came back. This is the story of the woman I never truly got to know.

We’d had one clear rule for years, but that morning I understood renewing the contract meant climbing onto the notary’s table in front of everyone.

I walk between the lockers with a towel over my shoulder and I feel every gaze. They pretend not to look, but their bodies answer me before their words do.

He insisted on walking me all the way to the entrance that I ended up inviting him up. At eight in the morning his phone rang and everything I believed changed in an instant.

When I got into the car and saw that man in the front seat, I never imagined my lover had brought me there to hand me over to someone else.

I bought that toy almost out of embarrassment, hidden behind a screen. I never imagined the body I hated so much would teach me to love myself.

I picked up the fork she had dropped and, bending under the table, discovered something none of the adults suspected. That night everything changed.