Forbidden

I went downstairs for a glass of water at three in the morning. What I found there, with the house silent, should never have happened.

I’d spent two months pretending to go to the office while really wandering aimlessly around Barcelona. That night I dialed the only number that could save me.

She agreed to share her bed just so she wouldn’t lose me. She had no idea how far I was willing to go so I wouldn’t lose her.

I left my father’s villa for my grandparents’ house in the village. I had no idea my aunt, the most devout woman in town, would end up naked in my bed for an envelope full of bills.

Her mother called me a dreamer, her father humiliated me by the car. When it was all over, Helena came down the stairs, took my hand, and led me to her room.

He sent me the photo while my husband was driving beside him. I didn’t reply, but that image stayed in my head all day.

He whispered it in my ear while I was still trembling: “What if next time there were two of you alone?” I didn’t know how to say no—and I didn’t want to.

When I held her fever-hot against my chest, I remembered the nights her mouth knew mine as if she’d been learning me for years.

I closed the door, kissed him without permission, and knew I wasn’t leaving until I got exactly what I’d come for—with the entire waiting room listening.

The shutter was half lowered and the key turned twice behind me. I came without my ring and with twelve years of silence on my tongue.

I asked him to imagine my hand on his thigh. I didn’t expect to feel his trembling under mine, or for the trance to become mine too.

I went up to the fifth floor expecting coffee and an explanation. She still had a report unfinished. I had no idea her lover was watching everything from the next office.

I saw him in the rearview mirror: sporty, with a hard bulge under his Lycra, waiting for my signal. I rolled down the windows and I still don’t know why.

The mirror showed me a perfect bride. No one imagined what I would be forced to do in room 131 before getting into the wedding car.

I was left alone with him, pretending to be sick when I wasn’t. I knew what would happen as soon as my sister passed through the gate and left me alone with her husband.

When I followed the sound of her music to the old closet in my office, I didn’t expect to find slits that opened right onto the changing room where she undressed.

I went up for air because I couldn’t stand the heat. I heard his footsteps on the stairs and knew, before I even turned around, that I wouldn’t sleep that night.

When she comes down for breakfast in a T-shirt and panties, I melt inside and know this weekend at the country house will be my last chance to stay silent.

My niece climbed into my bed with an indecent proposal, and I never imagined my son would be spying on us from the hallway door.

That afternoon, sitting across from me, Mariela stopped talking about her problems and began unbuttoning her blouse with a calm that froze my breath.