Forbidden

She had made me eat in a hurry, and now she was straddling me, wet, whispering in my ear that she wasn’t going to leave me alone until nightfall.

I’d spent my whole life seeing her in heels and stockings, but until that night on the sofa I’d never imagined what her feet could make me feel.

I never thought a late-night talk with my grandmother, half-finished drinks, and the TV on in the background would uncover what happened every Saturday in the other house in town.

At the first traffic light, she hiked up her dress and I understood that this car ride wasn’t about shopping. My mother had other plans for us both.

Thirty-two degrees, the child asleep, and a single deck of cards between them. When she asked what he wanted to bet, he answered with the one thing he’d spent the whole week not daring to say.

Marisol thought her son was only watching his cousin. But that night, in the same dress and with the same curves, she realized the real temptation was her.

He came to my room to confront me about what happened on Saturday, but what he confessed afterward left me breathless: he had seen everything, and he liked it.

He crossed the city with nothing but his desire. When the door opened, he knew that man wasn’t going to ask permission for anything that happened.

The salsa was playing louder than usual. I pressed myself against the wall, found the gap between the curtains, and what I saw on the other side erased my idea of family forever.

I opened my eyes in the middle of the dark living room, and she was standing in the doorway, biting her lip and looking at exactly what I couldn’t hide.

He had spent forty years dreaming of a free, empty morning. What I hadn’t planned on was starting that Monday seeing my neighbor naked and feeling my breath catch.

When she opened the door in that short robe with the sheer nightdress underneath, I knew the afternoon wasn’t going to be just about installing a TV.

I drove toward the cliff determined to end everything. What I found in the lagoon’s icy water gave me back my will to live, and something I never imagined.

The other side of the bed was untouched and, on the fruit bowl, an envelope with my name and my husband’s square handwriting.

I’d been cleaning that huge house for eight months. I never imagined what that married couple was hiding behind the row of shoes, or how far I’d go for tuition.

She wore the tightest yellow dress in her closet and a head full of arguments against that woman. An hour later, she no longer knew whether she hated or desired her.

Carla whispered her darkest fantasy to me, and weeks later I watched her kneeling before the man we had both chosen without ever saying it aloud.

I came home from the hospital on the verge of collapse and found them both in bed. I didn’t want to sleep: I wanted to feel alive, and that night I decided what would change our family forever.

Bruno introduced me to his friends with a conspiratorial smile, and before I understood what was happening, I knew I wouldn’t leave the cabin the same woman.

I lit the fuse and shut them both inside an empty apartment. Now my husband begs to watch what comes next, while my brother-in-law has signed a blank check without knowing what awaits him.