Fantasy

She came home with news that would change the rules between us: a brand wanted to photograph her in lingerie, and the idea turned her on far more than I expected.

He wanted me to tell him my made-up adventures again. He had no idea that every word I whispered that night was a lie with a hidden edge.

He only came to use our computer on a rainy afternoon. But he showed me a program that could strip anyone naked, and without thinking, I asked him to try it on me.

For eons I knew only the silence of the void. Until I hooked a signal in a blue world and, without asking permission, slipped into the body of a woman on fire.

The metallic voice announced the next phase and, instead of panic, I felt something I shouldn’t have: a ridiculous urge for it all to start again.

The arm resting across his abdomen wasn’t his girlfriend’s. It was heavy, warm, and masculine. And Bruno couldn’t remember a thing about the night before.

I’d never paid for anything like that before. We met on a Tuesday morning, she handed me the bag in a hurry, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what was waiting for me at home.

She ordered me to take off my clothes and let her hands tighten every wire against my skin. When I started getting wet, I knew there was no turning back.

When he looked in the mirror, he no longer recognized himself: blonde wig, red corset, heels. And she, smoking on the sofa, was waiting for him with a smile he had never seen before.

He knew he was going to lose before they even started. But giving in right away gave him nothing: the pleasure was in resisting, in forcing the other to wrench victory from him with bites under the full moon.

She smelled the flower that should not have existed, and her body stopped obeying her. Among the trees, someone watched and waited for the exact moment to approach.

I’ve spent years working among the dead and thought I’d seen everything. Until that man on my steel table twitched when I sank the scalpel into his chest.

Balloons had terrified and aroused me in equal measure since childhood. On that birthday, locked in the bathroom, I discovered how far that contradiction could take me.

When she knelt in the shower and looked at me with that smile, I knew there was no turning back: her fantasy and mine were about to cross a line.

That night, on the drive home, I knew that behind her teasing smile there was a new idea. And I wasn’t going to get it out of my head.

She had never touched a belly like that without gloves and a gown in between. This time it was Marisol’s, her sister-in-law’s, and she couldn’t pretend she was only there to feel for the twins’ kicks.

I locked the door and it was like flipping a switch: for the first time I was going to strip in front of the camera so someone on the other side could desire me.

I was lightly dressed, wearing almost nothing, when something huge and wet burst out of the undergrowth and seized my arms before I could scream.

I followed a trail of blood to a clearing where something waited for me, hanging between the trees. I never imagined the forest creature would choose me as its prey.

Clinging to the handrail in the car, all I could do was glance at him and imagine everything that would never happen between us.