First Time

That night I walked into the living room with my heart racing. I knew what I wanted and I knew he wanted it too. All that was left was to make the first move.

I’d been dancing alone for hours when I felt him behind me. I turned, and there he was. And I knew that night wasn’t ending on the dance floor.

I walked into her room with a tray and she looked at me from the bed, almost naked, and asked: “Do you like what you see?” Something in me woke up without warning.

The plaid skirt, the thigh-high stockings, the smeared makeup. That afternoon alone at home, I became who I most wanted to be, and my body surprised me in a way I never expected.

When he got there first, she was already looking at the shelves with a book she wasn’t reading. They were the only two. And neither pretended to be surprised.

He was nineteen, his hands were shaking, and he asked me to teach him. I was thirty-eight, wearing a silk robe, and had the whole night ahead of me.

We were alone in the house with fever and boredom. On the third night, with the lights off, Marcos confessed something no one else knew about him.

We’d been seeing each other on camera for four months. That December night, at last, she was in front of me in the flesh, inside a room that smelled like what was about to happen.

When Valeria came back to class after several days, I saw the flash of pain when she sat down. I knew the “flu” was an excuse.

I always carried my girl things in my bag, just in case. That day I knew the “just in case” had finally arrived.

Rodrigo doesn’t know everything that happened on that trip. Only the version I chose to tell him. The truth is darker, more delicious.

I opened the drawer with my heart pounding. There was lace, there was string, there was a woman waiting inside clothes that had never been mine. That afternoon everything changed.

Put your foot beside mine, he said. Then your arm. Then your hand. And then I understood we weren’t comparing anything.