Desire

There I was on the sofa, whisky in hand, realizing I no longer needed to take part: it was enough to watch someone else do what I’d stopped doing.

A patient hand came out from between the bars and stroked my stomach, unhurried. My husband undid one button on my shirt to make room for it.

I asked for just one thing for the last night: to dance. What happened after that, in the cabin at the end of the corridor, I told no one.

The parish priest asked me to stay after the church was empty. What happened in his office became my Sunday secret, and I don’t want it to end.

I was in my pajamas, coffee half-finished and a scorching novel in my hands, when I heard his key in the door and knew that morning wouldn’t end with reading.

I accepted the assignment thinking it was just another job. I had no idea that man from the calendar would get under my skin until he became impossible to forget.

I knew his eyes were fixed on my back as I undressed by the wardrobe. I left the bathroom door ajar on purpose: the invitation had been served.

I booked the empty time slot and wore the tightest T-shirt I owned. What I didn’t expect was to find two men waiting for me on the tatami.

We had exchanged hundreds of photos, but nothing had ever happened in person. Until that March afternoon when I picked her up and she already had a plan.

I was twenty-one, coming off a disastrous year, and desperate to be distracted. That June afternoon, one different message changed everything.

Midnight in the empty station. Iván leaned in to kiss me, and for a second the world was simple, until the ghost of the other voice returned to interfere.

I had never taken a job like that before: he only wanted to sit and watch while other men used me, and keep for the end what they left inside me.

I touched up my makeup, smiled, and went back to the kitchen with a plan none of them could imagine. That night, I chose the menu.

At ten sharp I walk into the boardroom and, while the boss talks numbers, my head goes to a place where she and I don’t obey any rules.

She sits two chairs to my left and, while the family talks, my head already has her astride my lap. No one knows. Not even her. Not yet.

He only wanted a decent shirt. But then she looked up from behind the counter, and Andrés’s head started inventing what would never happen.

I’d kept that desire locked away for years. That dawn, drunk and defenseless, I let it slip in front of the one person who could make it real.

I thought she was telling me those stories to make me jealous. It took me a while to understand that what was turning me on was something far darker and harder to admit.

A firm hand on her nape was enough for her to understand that tonight I made the rules. The rest depended on whether she dared to stay.

Her ass was offered up, the whip still unused in my hand, and she was begging me to begin. But the master’s pleasure is different: making her wait until fear and desire blur together.