Forbidden

“It’s only a handjob,” he promised her. But her husband was coming home that very night and the two of them were still tangled in the sheets, unable and unwilling to stop.

When Damián closed the door and left on a trip, Mariela already knew that a whole week alone with Rodrigo would change everything between them.

She closed the tobacco shop early, climbed onto my bike, and wrapped her arms around my waist. We were both married, and we both knew that ride wasn’t ending at the lookout.

Marina stretched her hand toward him from the sofa, palm open, an invitation that said nothing and everything. Tomás set down the glass and rose from the armchair.

His wife had left him in front of everyone that very afternoon. Now, well past midnight, a pilot he had never seen was smiling in his living room and pouring vodka as if he knew the house.

Every morning she handed me coffee with a smile that lasted a second too long. I knew she had a boyfriend. She knew I knew. And still, neither of us looked away.

I love Bruna more than almost anyone. That’s why it’s so hard for me to tell what two strangers did to her that night neither of them will ever forget.

We had worked side by side for years without anything happening. One afternoon alone among metal shelves was all it took for me to understand what I’d ignored.

When she hung up the phone, I knew I’d be at her place the next day. Her husband was away. And my daughter would never look at me the same way again.

I got there at seven in the evening to look after her. At midnight I carried her to bed. At dawn I passed her half-open door and knew my life had just changed.

I’d never done it with anyone. And the first person who entered me wasn’t my boyfriend, but his father, one afternoon when the house was empty and I couldn’t say no.

I woke up not knowing how I would ever justify what they forced me to do that night, or how I could look the man I still loved in the eyes.

He had spent years perfecting an expression that revealed nothing. But that afternoon, in the hotel lobby, his eyes betrayed the one thing he must not feel for her.

I took off my panties, slipped them under his pillow, and moved up against his back without even saying good morning. I had half an hour before first tutorial.

She knocked on my door at midnight with red eyes and a broken voice. I didn’t expect the last night of the trip to end with my student in my bed.

Marcos asked me to look gorgeous by the time he got home. While Carla was doing my hair, I remembered everything I did to be his—and what I’m still willing to give.

Saúl's last message had arrived seven days earlier: “Six o'clock. Don't be late.” And at six on the dot I went upstairs, my pulse in my throat and my body decided before my mind.

The blacksmith had gone to see the earl. We only needed a few minutes behind the woodpile to forget the whole world condemned what we had.

Her hand slid up my thigh and beneath my underwear. I expected to find what I had imagined so many times, but what I touched left me breathless.

I was straight my whole life. Until one afternoon my son crossed the living room and I couldn’t look away from his crotch. That night I knew I couldn’t stop.