First Time

When she took off her sweat-soaked T-shirt in front of that girl, she knew she was no longer sweating just from the heat of the barn.

I had adored her in silence since childhood. The night before she left, she asked me to help her undress, and my hands trembled as they finally brushed her skin.

Eight years into my career, no patient had ever looked at me like that. That afternoon she put her feet up on my sofa, held my gaze, and everything I thought was solid began to tremble.

I arrived single and bored, planning to leave early. Then the lambada started, and firm hands took my waist from behind.

She had been with her boyfriend for five years and had never doubted. Until that black-eyed woman stared at her on the platform and something broke inside.

I heard her closing her suitcases on the other side of the wall and knew she would leave with the dawn. Barefoot and trembling, I crossed the hallway to the ajar door of her room.

My hands were ice-cold in the boarding lounge, but it wasn’t the weather: in a few hours I’d see her again, and I didn’t know whether I’d run to her or hide.

We’d hated each other at the office for years, but that night, with my fourth margarita in hand, her thumb brushed my bare thigh and everything changed.

Bruno had broken my heart again, but waiting for me in that house on the outskirts wasn’t him, it was his mother, wearing a dress that left nothing to the imagination.

Six years pretending nothing was happening every time they brushed against each other. That night, with the city asleep, neither of them wanted to keep pretending.

I was twenty-two and had never seen another woman naked until that afternoon in the shower, when she took off her underwear as if I weren’t watching.

I went looking for advice from the only woman I trusted, never imagining that afternoon at the country house would teach me everything my body didn’t yet know it could feel.

Renata was spreading tanning lotion over my breasts when she asked me whether I’d ever had a lover. I blushed like a little girl. I said no.

I thought I would be guiding her through her first experience, but she was the one who took control and showed me how far my body could go.

Mara covered her friend’s eyes and asked for silence. What she did next with her tongue crossed the line forever.

When she came out to the garage dressed like that, I knew I’d lose the bet. What I couldn’t imagine was how far that summer would go with her and her mother.

We’d spent months fantasizing about taking the plunge. That night, in the living room of strangers, my wife looked at me before we crossed the point of no return.

After twenty-four years of marriage, Marina whispered that she only wanted to watch. Three hours later, I was watching another man drive her out of her mind.

We went down to the sauna without swimsuits and I understood that my wife and her cousin had already talked it all over: that mountain weekend was not going to be what we’d been told.

She only set one condition: if he didn’t appeal to her, nothing would happen. What I didn’t expect was that, by the end of the night, she’d be the one leaving me alone with the other woman.