Forbidden

Camila and I accepted the invitation without imagining that behind that door lived a family where everyone shared far more than the dining table.

I wore my new trainers on a Saturday morning, never imagining I’d come home with my leggings wet for reasons that had nothing to do with running.

I'm twenty-seven with an ordinary life, a loving family, and a secret I've finally dared to write down.

The bathroom door was half open, steam drifting out, and she didn’t cover herself. She held my gaze as if she’d planned the whole scene for me.

I was twenty and had a boyfriend waiting for me at home. That hot afternoon by the pool, I discovered how fiercely the body can burn when you let go.

He crouched to show me his bracelets, and his gaze dropped to my breasts. In that instant, I knew I wouldn’t leave that beach the same woman.

There are things a woman never tells anyone. This is the one I kept for years, the one that still makes me tremble when I pass that cinema.

I opened the door for him to shelter from the downpour. I never imagined I’d end up on my knees in front of him, or that his four friends would come knocking too.

I crossed my arms to hide what the theater’s cold had betrayed in me. Then he sat beside me without asking, as if the seat were his.

Daniel forbade me to touch myself while he fucked me. The rule held until the night the trucker came back early and caught us in the bathroom.

I had never gone down more than three steps dressed as Lía. That afternoon, with the white lace brushing my thighs, I decided I would make it to the street.

When I went down to the hotel gym, I never expected to end the night with swollen knuckles and two broken ribs that weren’t mine. What came afterward was worse.

I crossed the empty campus with my lab coat against my naked skin and my heart racing. Adrián was waiting inside, and we both knew we wouldn't be sleeping that night.

When he ran back to the car, I was still planning to leave him at the station. At three in the morning, he was pressed against my back, searching for me beneath the sheet.

The meter had expired, and he was already kneeling with the wheel clamp. I had only a few seconds to convince him another way.

I only wanted to sleep, but the crack in the bedroom door let the light through, and my mother’s low laugh stopped me dead before I reached my room.

I got off the plane not knowing that trip would end with his hand gripping my waist in the sand, and me wishing morning would never come.

When I saw my sister crossing the restaurant with that new sway, I knew the game I'd invented to arouse my lover had stopped being a game for me.

I accepted the date dressed as a woman, not knowing that afternoon in his car I would decide everything that came after. He just looked at me and said: “You’re going to have clients.”

From the darkness I watched her move on top of him, and I understood I no longer knew whether it hurt more to watch or to want to keep watching.