Desire

We’d spent five days giving ourselves over without taboos, but it was that last morning by the water, with her trembling in my arms, when I understood what had really happened.

I’d spent months hiding what I felt for her. Then she asked me for a kiss in front of her fiancé, not knowing it would spark something far more dangerous between us.

As a teenager I used to lock myself away and imagine her breasts and jet-black hair. Thirty years later, her voice on the phone lit me up just like before.

I thought it would be a little innocent peck, just to laugh. But her mouth stayed on mine longer than it should have, and I knew that night we weren’t going to sleep as friends.

I crossed my legs slowly until my knee brushed hers in the neighboring seat. She never took her eyes off my thighs, and I knew we wouldn’t finish the movie that night.

Two weeks had passed since the defeat, and she still couldn’t figure out how a skinny, provocative rival had brought her to her knees. Her sister did want to find out.

I moved my body a little closer, pretending not to understand the chart, and watched her hands tremble over the papers.

We’d talked about swapping partners for weeks, but neither of us imagined that crossing that red-upholstered door would make us forget who belonged to whom.

When we created the profile, we weren’t looking for blind sex, but for someone who understood us. Diego and Valeria wrote to us one night, and everything changed.

I turned off the garden lights with one button and, when the hot water was the only witness left, I untied her bikini string in front of the other couple.

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.

Chiara pedaled right behind him on every climb, and every stop in the shade was a new excuse to get closer than necessary.

The screen lit up, her voice filled the speakers, and in front of the whole family, she said goodbye to me forever. I still didn’t know who the other man was.

The email wasn’t a question, it was a challenge: a photo, a woman who beat time, and a husband ready to hand her over. All that was left was for her to say yes.

I had never undressed in front of anyone. That afternoon, on his leather sofa, a man twice my age asked me to remove the blazer I’d hidden behind all my life.

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.