First Time

I left my father’s villa for my grandparents’ house in the village. I had no idea my aunt, the most devout woman in town, would end up naked in my bed for an envelope full of bills.

When everyone fell asleep, Diego stayed next to me in bed. He said he wasn’t sure whether he liked men. What happened next was planned by neither of us.

He had never seen a man like Lamine, and from the first day he knew he would do anything to get back into his home.

That night I put on the red thong, fishnet stockings, and wig in front of the hotel mirror—and for the first time, I didn’t recognize the same old boy.

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.

My family was one floor below and I was alone in my room, phone pressed to my ear, his voice ordering me to do things I’d never dared before.

For weeks I’d been pretending I wasn’t looking at him. That night, with two drinks too many and the house empty, I stopped pretending and went downstairs looking for him.

That night I didn’t have a condom in my bag, nor any intention of asking him to put one on. I only wanted to find out how far we could go.

We were newbies and nervous, but that couple sitting at the back of the club looked at us like they already knew exactly what we’d come for.

I was nineteen, with a girlfriend who was crazy about another man. It took me a year to understand that her betrayal, far from hurting me, was what turned me on most.

I ordered my first toy online so I wouldn’t die of embarrassment in the store. What I didn’t imagine was the delivery guy’s face when he handed me that box.

That night I locked the door, turned off my phone, and, for the first time, let myself discover what it felt like to stop resisting.

I was twenty-seven and still a virgin. That afternoon, alone in someone else’s house, I found something that forced me to look in the mirror and admit what I’d been hiding.

The first afternoon I went to help him, I thought I’d only be doing his exercises. I never imagined I’d end up discovering with him everything my home had denied me.

Esperanza had never imagined looking at another woman that way, until Marisol held her by the fire and their lips brushed by accident. By accident at first. Not afterward.

I was twenty-two and had never been with another man. When I pushed open the ajar door to 5B, I knew I wouldn’t leave that night the same man I’d been when I walked in.

I had spent months preparing for Adrián, but it was another man who taught me that night what it really means to give yourself over.

I had never worn a thong, but that afternoon I decided to break it in in the busiest corner of the market, right where no one could stop staring at me.

We’d spent months sharing coffees and confidences. That afternoon, with the cup still warm in my hands, she asked me something no friend ever dares to ask.