Forbidden

My daughter set down her glass, took off her tights on the sofa, and looked at me with a smile I hadn’t seen in ten years. Outside, the first snowfall of winter settled over the attic.

I slipped into the hallway without making a sound. The whispers were coming from the kitchen, and they weren’t from the person I expected. What I saw after that I never told anyone.

I got out of the taxi without looking back. It was eleven at night, my wife was still screaming my name from the landing, and I only wanted to disappear from the world.

I went downstairs for ice and he shut the door behind me. With the party going on outside, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop him even if I wanted to.

Diego was asleep when he felt the mattress dip beside him. It was her, barefoot, whispering that she’d only come down to get her pajamas. His brother was snoring next door.

I tied him up so he wouldn’t bite me. I washed him among the ruins. What I discovered that night between the empty shelves changed who I was forever.

For days I hid among the bushes, watching her ride another man every night. When he was laid up with a fever, I took his place.

When I leaned out the car window to see if my sister was still awake, I found him in his window, smoking. And I knew he wasn’t going to look away.

The elevator panel died between two floors. She smiled, stepped toward me, and said quietly that she knew exactly what was on my mind.

When he told me to lower my pants and lie face down, I could hear in his voice that this exam wasn’t going to be routine.

I went down to my room wanting to escape the noise. I ended up with my legs open in front of the mirror while everyone toasted a few feet away, suspecting nothing.

When I put my hand on his chest and didn’t take it away, I knew that afternoon wouldn’t end like the others. He was twice my age and smelled of cold beer.

That folder was never supposed to exist. But I opened it—and among hundreds of photos of me asleep and naked, I found something worse: the email where he shared them.

For months I kept running into him in the elevator, knowing he was out of my reach. That night I found a yellow sign with a phone number and a binding spell.

The door had been left ajar. When I sat up on the table, I saw my little brother staring from the hallway. He didn’t dare come in.

I turned on the phone, cracked the curtains open just enough, and waited for his shadow to cross the window while I stayed naked in front of the mirror.

She had been married for fifteen years and had never looked at another man. Until Lorenzo offered to show her his workshop at seven in the morning and locked the door.

When I looked through the keyhole and saw her on her knees in front of him, I knew lust had defeated pride long before that night.

When he tied the black mask over my eyes and opened the private-room door, I never imagined that one of those masks hid someone I’d known since childhood.

I heard it through the ajar door: the laborer was fucking the secretary in the storeroom. That afternoon I went back to the office for more than documents.