Desire

I let my guard down the moment he walked into the stall. I hadn’t come looking for any of it, but his voice ordered me to kneel, and I no longer knew how to say no.

The first time I heard her through the partition, I froze, holding my breath, pretending to be asleep while she believed she was completely alone.

I recognized the basket of clothes that wasn’t mine, and before I could think, my hand was already buried in his things. What happened next changed me from the inside.

I heard him on the phone say, “This old lady is ready.” I should have been offended. Instead, I felt myself get soaked right there against the bar.

I found her panties on the hallway floor, with a note on top. From that night on, we played a game neither of us wanted to end.

It started with a message about one of my stories. It ended with me in bed, in the dark, obeying every thing she wrote from the other side of the screen.

I don’t lie about my age or about the gym, but in that reclining chair all of that stops mattering. All that’s left is the soft pressure of her body against mine.

I’ve never done it, but I know every detail: the café, the elevator, his hands. This is the fantasy that repeats and that I never dare say out loud.

That Thursday I didn’t have classes and the morning was mine. I turned on the water, closed my eyes, and let myself go... not imagining boots would appear in the window.

I knew he’d wanted me for months, and I wasn’t going to stop until I had him in my bed. What I didn’t count on was who would catch us afterward.

I had never smelled another woman’s desire until that afternoon, standing in the hallway with my flatmate’s soaked garment in my hands and my pulse racing.

I’m naked while I write this. And I want you to know exactly what goes through my head when I shut the door and no one can hear me.

I went looking for Bryan, but it was Andrés who stopped me in the street, grabbed me without shame, and set a date for the next day. I already knew what would happen and did nothing to stop it.

I walked into the bathroom by mistake and found him under the water. Ever since, I return to that image every night I’m alone and can’t get it out of my head.

I was furious, trembling, with an almost empty bottle beside me. I dialed his number at three in the morning just to hear him breathe on the other end.

I’d gotten used to being looked at, but that afternoon, alone at the waterfall, I decided that this time I wouldn’t cover up when I found him hidden among the trees.

I first saw her cheering from the stands, with wet hair and that easy laugh. Ten days later, behind the fronton, she taught me something I’ve never forgotten.

I’d spent months imagining it and couldn’t bring myself to admit it. That afternoon, an ordinary conversation was enough to send everything out of control.

I said I had heartbreak just so someone would look at me. I didn’t expect two strangers to take my cure so seriously… or for me to let them.

Every time she touched herself, liquid stars and new flowers burst from her body. That night the eons had been fulfilled and she was about to burn like never before.