Female Friends

I was forty-four, had two daughters, and a recent divorce when the girl from across the street looked at me differently and said what I didn’t dare think.

Carolina said she was bored of men. But when I dropped my pants beside her pool, her eyes never left me for a second.

For years I’d watched my wife be flirted with at every gym gathering. That night, with the air already heated, it stopped being a game while I watched everything from the armchair.

Three days at the beach, five friends, and a phone that was never turned off. I thought I was among innocent laughs; others saw it as a show.

I never thought an avatar in a video game would give me back the urge to desire another woman, or that desire would stay with me long after I shut off the console.

I texted “Want to play?” from my fitting room. Five seconds later I slipped into hers, ready to make her come in silence before the saleswoman noticed.

It was our first sleepover without her parents home. When she turned off the light, her hand found mine under the sheets, and I understood she’d been waiting for that gesture for years.

At forty-eight, in a Miami bar, my best friend grabbed me by the neck and kissed me. It was my first time with a woman, and I knew I could never go back.

I thought the party was over when I closed the door. But she was still barefoot on my sofa, glass on her knee and another box in her hands.

Lucía was the most proper girl in the school crowd. That night I saw her walk into the birthday party in a miniskirt and realized the Sunday-Mass girl was gone.

On the curve where the trees formed a tunnel of light, I reached out and laid my hand on hers. No words were needed: none were needed to say yes, that I wanted to try.

Mateo tipped his head at me and went up the stairs. I followed him without thinking, knowing his girlfriend was my best friend and that nothing could stop us now.

I had forty-seven messages from her when I came back to the game, and they all ended with the same screenshot: her avatar on the empty bench, waiting for me at different hours.

Years had passed since I last saw her. When she sat down across from me at that bar and rested her hand on my thigh, I knew that night would not end the way my cousin imagined.

I ripped the dress, tossed a shoe, and rubbed my thighs until they were red. When I called him crying from the phone booth, I knew he’d come without thinking.

Valeria called me to tell me her husband wanted a threesome. I hung up thinking it was her problem. That night I was in her living room, drink in hand and heart racing.

We had been studying for hours when the cold became unbearable. Sofía invited me into her bed to warm up. Neither of us expected what came next.

Lorena had a reputation for liking women. I never paid it any mind until that spring morning when we ended up trapped together.

Twenty years old, zero experience, and a cousin who looked at him like she knew exactly what was on his mind. The summer was going to be long.

We had spent the morning joking among the five of us, with that tension nobody names. When they started touching each other, it was obvious the afternoon was going to last a long time.