Desire

As soon as I heard her keys fighting the lock, I knew I’d have to play it cool. What I didn’t know was that she’d come home determined not to let me off the hook.

She stood in front of her bedroom door, holding her breath. One step more and reason would have burned away between us.

She agreed to share her bed only so she wouldn’t lose me. She had no idea how far I was willing to go so I wouldn’t lose her.

He whispered it in my ear while I was still trembling: “What if next time it’s just two for you?” I didn’t know how to say no, and I didn’t want to.

I lay naked on the table on purpose, not covering myself, just to see what he’d do when he came in with the hot oil.

Twenty years married, and each hid a secret of their own: him in strangers’ bathrooms, me not yet knowing what the yoga woman was about to awaken in me.

No one around me suspects it, but all day long I obey orders that exist only in my head... and I want more and more for them to become real.

I went up for air because I couldn’t stand the heat. I heard his footsteps on the stairs and knew, before I even turned around, that I wouldn’t sleep that night.

I’d never let so many eyes run over me all at once. And the worst —or the best— part is that my husband enjoyed every second from the bar.

I left work without underwear and with my blouse half-open. I only wanted to feel the air between my legs. I had no idea who I’d find in the train car.

It was six forty. She checked her watch, asked me to stop beside the alley, and before I could ask anything, she was already kissing me.

I joked that she should sleep with me that night. I never imagined that after midnight, my bedroom door would actually open.

With mascara running from my tears, she took my hand and led me upstairs, determined that what we felt would no longer be a secret.

I told him I just wanted to practice taking photos. It was a lie. What I really wanted was for him to finally look at me the way I’d been looking at him for weeks.

We were newbies and nervous, but that couple sitting at the back of the club looked at us like they already knew exactly what we’d come for.

No one in that house knew what I was hiding under the black dress. No one except him, the masked stranger I handed it to in a dark hallway.

I thought I was alone among the trees, until a crackling sound changed everything and I realized how badly I wanted someone to find me like that, naked and surrendered.

I ordered my first toy online so I wouldn’t die of embarrassment in the store. What I didn’t imagine was the delivery guy’s face when he handed me that box.

That night I locked the door, turned off my phone, and for the first time let myself find out what it felt like to stop resisting.