The Night I Chose the One I Would Never Have Chosen

A few months ago, my husband and I slipped away for a few days to the Florida coast. He has that rare trait that few men admit out loud: he gets turned on by watching me desire other men, by seeing me lose myself a little in front of him and then come back to his arms with my skin still hot. I realized a long time ago that his fantasy fits mine like two perfectly made-to-measure pieces.

One night, while we were having dinner near the boardwalk, he told me there was a nightclub for women only a few blocks from the hotel. Professional dancers, he said, from all over the world. He asked me if I wanted to go. His question was a trap and we both knew it: I had never set foot in a place like that, and just the idea churned something in my stomach.

—Would you really take me? —I asked, pretending to be more doubtful than I felt.

—I’d take you and sit there watching you —he replied.

That was enough. That very night I got dressed as if I were going to an important exam, a tight black dress, heels that made me seem taller than I am. I’m five foot one, and I’ve always fought against my height with everything else.

***

The place was huge, much bigger than I had imagined. Low lights, music that you felt in your chest before you heard it, and a central stage surrounded by small tables where there were only women. My husband was almost the only man there, and they seated him beside me like a silent companion, exactly what he wanted to be that night.

The dancers came out one by one. Each had his own act, his own music, his own way of looking at the room. There was a Colombian with broad shoulders and tattoos climbing up his arm, a Russian with a hard jaw and pale eyes, a couple of very tall Europeans, and several more who paraded by like a menu someone had written with my weaknesses in mind.

Because I do have weaknesses, of course. I’ve always liked men who look like they’ve come straight from the street, men with trouble written on their faces, tattooed men, men who walk as if the world owes them something. The Colombian and the Russian fit that category perfectly, and I watched them like a lioness who has already chosen her prey but still hasn’t decided when to leap.

My husband never took his eyes off me. He wasn’t watching the stage; he was watching me. He saw my lips part, saw me cross and uncross my legs, saw me breathe deeper every time one of them came close to the edge of the stage.

—Do you like one of them? —he whispered in my ear.

—The one in the black thong —I said without thinking.

It was the Colombian. My husband pulled out some bills and put them in my hand so I could go closer. I got up, but before I reached the stage I had to pass near the side runway, and there the Russian stopped me. He leaned down from the platform, took the back of my neck gently, and drew me close to his body in a gesture that was pure audacity. I dug my nails into his waist, stuffed the bills into the waistband of his thong, and kept going with my heart racing.

When I got back to the table, my husband was smiling like a little boy.

—You got him to come all the way over —he said.

—Too bad he was wearing too many clothes —I replied, and the two of us laughed softly, conspiratorial, while I kept my eyes glued to that parade of bodies.

***

—Want me to get one to dance for you? —he asked later. —Pick one, we’ll pay.

The price was twenty dollars for two minutes. I did the math quickly: in two minutes, every second had to count. I chose the Colombian and my husband recorded a short video on his phone, nearly a minute and a half of pure vertigo. That man moved with a looseness that seemed impossible, his body brushing mine on every turn, my hands tracing his back, my mouth level with his abdomen while I stayed seated in the chair, right in front of my husband.

I was burning up. I had that liquid, pounding tension that only appears when you know you’re being watched and the gaze is part of the game. I adore that feeling. I adore feeling a hard body against mine, I adore having desire show on my face, and later, in the quiet of the bed, I adore watching the videos again and recognizing the woman I was that night.

My real goal, however, was another one. I wanted to know whether I was capable of provoking a professional. Those men dance for dozens of women every night; they do it for a living, with bodies trained not to react. I wanted to see whether I could break that boundary, even for an instant. With the Colombian it was almost impossible: he barely met my eyes once, and I think he avoided mine on purpose, as the house rules demanded.

***

A couple of hours passed. The music, the alcohol, and the constant touching had left me in a state that was already bordering on urgency.

—Let’s go —I told my husband—. I need you now.

—Pick one more first —he answered. —I’ll buy you a private, whoever you want.

I have to explain something here so what came next makes sense. For years I repeated, without thinking too much about it, that a certain type of man didn’t appeal to me. That I didn’t find him attractive, that I couldn’t imagine myself with him. It was an inherited idea, one of those things you carry from youth without ever really examining it. My husband knew that idea of mine perfectly, and that’s why he was convinced I’d go with the Colombian again.

But I never choose what’s comfortable. If anything defines me, it’s that I always look for a way out of my known zone, to open the door I’ve been pretending for years doesn’t exist. I scanned the room, one by one, and stopped on someone I hadn’t looked at all night. A man who was incredibly tall, almost seven feet, with huge shoulders and black shorts that barely contained him.

—I want him —I said.

My husband’s eyes widened.

—Him? —he asked, incredulous.

—Him —I confirmed. —The one I would never have chosen.

Something in his face changed. I think it turned him on even more to see me break my own rule in front of him, to choose exactly what I had said for years I didn’t want.

***

His name was Dorian, or at least that was the name he used on the floor. He came over to the table and took my hand, and when I stood up I could see just how huge he was: I barely reached his elbow. They led us to a private room in the back, a small space with a couch and a curtain, where they had no problem letting my husband come in to record.

As soon as the curtain closed, that man awakened in me a desire I hadn’t felt all night. I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to touch his arms, his legs, his back, everything at once. He looked down at me from his impossible height and spoke to me in a deep voice that went straight through me.

—I’ve been watching you for a while —he said—. You have no idea how badly I wanted you to choose me.

—I want to find something out with you —I replied, holding his gaze.

He sat me on the couch and started moving very close, measuring every gesture. I ran my hands over his thighs, dug my nails into his hips, brushed his abdomen with my mouth. And then I noticed something changing in him, that the professional boundary was starting to give way. I had done it. I had managed to make a dancer trained not to react react to me.

—That’s never happened to me in a dance —he murmured, surprised at himself. —You’re too much.

His skin had a different heat, almost feverish, a heat that spread through contact. I kept tracing his body with my mouth, intoxicated by the mix of music, dim light, and the certainty that my husband was filming everything from the corner, silently enjoying seeing me like this, shameless and surrendered at the same time.

We had six minutes. Six minutes that evaporated like a drop of water on a hot griddle. When the curtain opened again and reality came back with its lights and background music, I was breathing as if I had run miles.

—Come back next month —Dorian told me in my ear before letting go of my hand.

I didn’t promise anything. But I left that private room knowing two things. The first, that my husband had a video we would watch together that night, over and over, until we were out of breath. The second, more uncomfortable and more important, that I had spent years shutting a door without ever daring to look at what was behind it.

***

We went back to the hotel in silence, his hand on my thigh and mine over his. No words were necessary. The moment the room door closed, he took me as if he had been holding himself back for hours, which was exactly what he had been doing.

As he sank into me, I still felt the heat of that other man’s skin, the echo of a deep voice telling me I was too much. And I understood that the fantasy had not been choosing a particular man, nor breaking a rule on a whim. The fantasy was discovering, in front of the man who loves me and watches me, that desire doesn’t understand the labels we invent to make ourselves feel safe.

That night I fell asleep wrapped around my husband, with my phone charging on the nightstand and a saved video worth more than any memory. And for the first time in a long while, I had no rule left to defend.