First Time

I didn’t realize what kind of neighborhood I’d wandered into until Valeria stopped in front of the hostel. Then I understood everything—and went in anyway.

When the weight of his body sank the mattress behind my back, I knew it wasn’t my boyfriend. And I knew I wasn’t going to do anything to stop him.

I had never thought about it until my new friends mentioned it. That night, alone in my room, curiosity won out over fear.

I put on the black dress and the high heels, and for the first time I wasn’t ashamed of the body I saw in the mirror. That afternoon, he was waiting for me.

We’d been living with that fantasy for months. When the candidate never showed, I decided to be the stranger myself. I walked into the café and approached my wife as if I didn’t know her at all.

Rodrigo walked over to the sofa where my husband was alone and said, “my girlfriend’s been watching you for half an hour.” What followed was not predictable for any of the four of us.

I’d been left three weeks earlier. That night I walked into the bar wanting nothing and left knowing I knew nothing about pleasure.

I recognized the surname as soon as she said it. Two years earlier I’d been with her aunt, and now she was looking at me with those same dark eyes and that small mouth.

The first time I put on someone else’s heels, I knew the image in the mirror was the most honest version of myself. It took me years to accept it.

Alone in the bathroom, with rain outside and the apartment empty, I finally found what I’d been searching for without knowing how to look for it.

The girls from the team had gone out to see the city. I was alone in the room when someone knocked. It was him, with the smile that had made me nervous since the first Wednesday.

I was forty-six, married, with lovers and a perfectly ordered life. Then I saw him come out of the bathroom, and I couldn’t look away. That was the beginning.

I was forty-eight, had a wife, three children, and no doubt about who I was. Then a young man asked me for a ride to the metro.

When Sofía walked through the door of my apartment, she didn’t know exactly what was waiting for her. Her mother had planned everything weeks in advance.

When she came up to the pool that afternoon and asked if I had ever been with a woman, I knew that summer was going to be different.

I’d been talking to him on the app for weeks, but until that night we’d never met. I had his body burned into my mind and an erection that wouldn’t let me think.

She had never been with anyone. I was her cousin. What began as a family gathering ended at dawn when she whispered that she had been waiting for me all night.

His parents had an open marriage and a reputation for being perverts. When he asked for help with his final project, he never imagined they’d make him part of the script.

I had never gone into a place like that. But those legs, that mischievous smile, that metal door... something told me I had to follow this time.

When she drew the curtain and put my hands on her body, I understood that my cousin had decided that afternoon would change everything between us.