Desire

“I knew that one day I’d have this conversation with you,” my mother said, closing the door. What she told me that afternoon changed forever what I believed about us.

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.

A single innocent remark from Lucía on the terrace brought every gaze down on us, and Marina’s hand found mine under the table.

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

Marina returned from university a grown woman, and amid laughter and games in the water, Adrián understood they were no longer the children who swam there every summer.

He whispered it in my ear while I was still trembling: “What if next time there were two of you alone?” I didn’t know how to say no—and I didn’t want to.

I walked to the park sucking on a lollipop, my skirt so short the cool air brushed me, knowing anyone who passed by could see me.

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.

I asked him to imagine my hand on his thigh. I didn’t expect to feel his trembling under mine, or for the trance to become mine too.

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.

There were no screams or accusations. Only the city's sticky heat and two bodies that knew they were touching for the last time, though neither said it aloud.

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.

My father taught me that monsters stay in the closet if you don’t open the door. What I never told him is how badly I want mine to dare to come out.

Beneath the austere habit she wore a secret of black lace. And every time he arrived with the provisions, that secret burned her a little more.

I closed my eyes beneath the hot water, never imagining that, alone in my bathroom that afternoon, I would discover something about myself I could never stop seeking.

I locked the door, lowered the blinds, and for the first time decided not to rush. That afternoon, the silence of my house became my accomplice.