First Time

I was in my forties, married, with two children, and I had never once looked at another woman. That night, leaning on the bar in a pub, everything I thought I knew about myself came undone.

She sat down across from me in a nearly empty bar, took my hands, and told me I looked sad. Three hours later I was naked in her bed, and I didn’t want to leave.

I went to get my jacket so I could leave without interrupting. Then I saw Daniela’s hand buried under Paula’s clothes, and my feet refused to move from that doorway.

She arrived on my friend’s arm, with that mouth and those full lips, and I knew right away that on my birthday she was going to be mine, even if she was another man’s girlfriend.

For months I’d felt her searching for me in the crowd during the sermon. That Sunday I decided to follow her home and find out what that look was hiding.

Marina knew exactly where to touch to make Lucía’s body stop obeying her. That night, in the hotel’s dim light, she decided to find out how far her curiosity went.

She agreed to stay the night for her favorite aunt’s birthday. She had no idea that two women had planned every caress with precision for that night.

Every night she came to that door to listen. What she never imagined was that soon she would be on the other side, utterly surrendered.

Carolina had never told anyone what she secretly wanted. That night, with the house to themselves, she decided her sister-in-law would be the first to hear it... and more.

She accepted the invitation to pay her cheating boyfriend back in kind and chose the fine-featured zombie, not imagining what she would discover when she took off the costume.

We arrived revving the bike so everyone would look. But I only had eyes for the girl in the next tent and for what we were going to share that night.

When she started crying on my shoulder and confessed that her husband no longer touched her, I knew that afternoon’s massage was going to end very differently.

Every month I crossed the street for a wax, never imagining the girl with the soft hands was waiting for the same signal I was.

Every time the girl came into her house, something ignited inside her. That afternoon, for the first time, no one else was there to interrupt them.

I met her on the excursions, exotic and self-assured. I never imagined that one comment from her by the pool would end with me naked in my husband’s room.

She’d been greeting her in the lobby for months, barely containing herself. That afternoon the grocery bags slipped from her hands and finally gave me a reason to go upstairs.

I hadn’t felt anything for months. Then she came in behind me in the stall, locked the door, and everything I thought I knew about myself came crashing down.

They shared the same class three days a week and stole glances at each other. Until one of them decided she was done pretending nothing was happening.

I’d been stuck in a cast for weeks and bored out of my mind when a TV series stirred something in me. Then she appeared in the doorway with a smile that wasn’t entirely innocent.