Female Friends

Her mother saw us playing around in bed and, instead of yelling, smiled at me. That same night I understood that nothing in that house was innocent—and I didn’t want to be innocent either.

I turned off the light, and as I settled in, I felt a lump under the sheets: it was the shorts I had lent her. I brought them to my face without thinking, and my body understood before my mind did.

We’d been talking every day for a year. On that fifth night in Seville, playing on her phone while sitting on her couch, I touched her hand by accident. Neither of us had ever been with a woman.

When everyone else went to sleep, she came to the sofa, looked me straight in the eye, and said something I never expected to hear from a friend.

We bought the harness saying it was to practice so we could teach them. What we didn’t expect was to end up trembling against each other.

I’d been faithful to my girlfriend for eight years. It only took a pool, two bikinis, and my sister’s mischievous smile for everything to fall apart.

She took my hand on the kitchen table, looked at me hard, and said what she’d been thinking for weeks. I only managed to stand up and pace in circles.

She’d been alone in that lost village for almost a year. Then two younger friends invited her over for wine, pizza, and confessions that changed everything.

I never imagined my husband’s best friend would teach me something about myself in a store changing room. Much less that we’d invite him to join us that same afternoon.

We always slept in the same bed and told each other everything. That night, with a drink too many, Renata took my face in her hands and kissed me like never before.

I looked down and saw her hand resting on my thigh. We’d been friends for five years, but that night, after the second glass of vodka, everything changed in an instant.

At that hour we all seemed more beautiful, and nobody wanted to go home. Mila opened the door to her room, and none of us imagined how the night would end.

As soon as we closed the door, we came at each other urgently. Then he asked me in my ear if I could picture the two of us together, and that night changed everything.

It was half past eleven at night when Daniela appeared in the hallway and asked me for help with the fire. I’d spent the whole afternoon thinking about what their bags were hiding.

When I opened the door wrapped in a towel, she came in without letting me speak. She wasn’t the guy my friend was expecting, or the plan my head had imagined.

“If you stay, you stay to play,” he said, looking at my friend. I only wanted him for myself, but a dark part of me wanted to see how far she’d go.

One of them pushed me against the wall while the other knelt without saying a word; I knew right away that I wasn’t leaving that apartment in one piece.

I always fell in love; she only wanted to have fun. But that night, behind a door at the club, I discovered something in myself I’d never imagined.

I lowered my phone, thinking we’d only chat, but what I saw in her bed that night completely changed what I thought I wanted.

A hallway bulb gave out and went dark. In the dimness, her hands circled my waist and I knew she’d been waiting years for that moment without daring to name it.