Forbidden

It was almost eleven when the elevator dropped me at the empty parking garage. I had no idea those keys would cost me so much, and so little, at the same time.

I sent my secretary home, turned up the heat, and left only my blazer over my sheer bra. I wanted Mariela to see everything I’d been craving for weeks.

Her wife was leaving on a trip the next day, and I was still sleeping on a mattress on the floor. When he rang the bell with his toolbox, I knew something was about to happen.

I was kneeling on the passenger seat when he whispered his girlfriend’s name. I looked up through the tinted glass: she was walking toward the car.

Downstairs our parents were toasting twenty years together. Upstairs, in his room, I had his cock in my hand and he wanted me to finally make a move.

Marisol was sitting on the edge of the bed with the baby at her breast, completely naked, when I pushed the door open. The milk was running down on its own and she didn’t ask me to leave.

They came home at midnight in short dresses, fishnet stockings, and a perfume that hit me like a punch. In three weeks, my house became something else.

When I sat next to her in that workshop, I had no idea that the sad, discreet woman would end up whispering, naked in her bed, that she had never felt anything like it.

Anyone would have thought we’d be sated after the banquet the night before. In this house, desire never rests, and that Sunday was about to overflow.

By day I signed as Tomás and no one suspected a thing. That folder accidentally opened on my boss’s tablet was going to shatter eighteen months of silence in one blow.

He spent years with his ear pressed to the walls of cheap motels. One night he found a forum promising more: booths with a view of other people’s pleasure.

Mariana asked me whether I’d ever been curious about kissing another woman. I answered with an impulse that changed what we were forever.

I climbed the stairs barely able to walk, my dress reeking of the whole night. I had no idea my mom was awake, waiting for me in the hallway.

When I went into the bathroom and found the flowers and that card, I knew that summer would mark me forever, though I still didn’t know how it would end.

I woke with my body burning and my hand between my legs. I never imagined my sister would open the door that morning… or what would happen next.

When we turned off the lights and climbed under the same blanket, I never imagined that silly question about kisses would end with her fingers seeking mine in the dark.

In primary school she loved me more than I could love her back. Twenty years later, her voice on the phone sounded the same, and my hands shook.

It was the first time I saw her in person. I meant to tell her about the pool and the lifeguard, but her hand on my thigh changed the conversation before I finished the sentence.

When I walked into the teachers’ lounge, hands wrapped around me from behind and lips slid down my neck. I recognized her perfume instantly.

The car was so packed there was only one seat left: on her son’s lap. Marisol never imagined five hours on the road would be enough to cross the one line she should never have crossed.