Hotel

I looked at myself in the mirror wearing my wig and translucent dress, and knew that night I would let a stranger do everything I’d imagined for weeks.

I had spent years imagining it: getting dressed up, putting on my stockings, and giving myself to a man for the first time. That afternoon, in a hotel room, I stopped imagining it.

When I ran into him on that beach after three years without seeing each other, he was no longer the boy who used to throw sand in my hair. Something in his look told me this wasn’t going to end well.

I walked past the booth five times before daring to look inside. The gray-haired man looked up and motioned to me without saying a word.

Three days at the beach, five friends, and a phone that was never turned off. I thought I was among innocent laughs; others saw it as a show.

For months I’d been pretending men didn’t interest me anymore. One voice on the phone and a promise of a gift were enough to drag me back in.

I didn’t go up to that motel thinking I’d be the one ending up on all fours, begging her not to stop. But she knew exactly what I hadn’t dared admit.

When I arrived at the restaurant in my black dress and lace lingerie, I already knew I wouldn’t leave as the faithful wife I pretended to be.

She wore a dress she’d never have worn in front of my son, and after the second glass of wine she told me she preferred mature men in bed.

I met her long before I met her sister, my wife. Ten years after that hotel, I saw her come out of the water at the beach and knew the story wasn’t over.

I had barely gone a few steps when my phone started vibrating nonstop. It was her, and she wasn’t going to let me get away that easily that night.

When they knocked to say our ten minutes were up, I was already face down on the artist’s bed, trembling, his body pressed against mine.

I thought the vodka had clouded my head, but when she closed the hotel room door I knew she’d been waiting for that exact moment for years.

When my phone buzzes at four in the morning I know it’s him, that no one else wanted him tonight, and that he’ll pay anything if I show up.

I want to put on my wig, do my makeup, and surrender to a stranger who has read my stories. One night, no commitments, before it’s too late.

I dressed up like never before to see him: miniskirt, heels, wig. What I didn’t expect was his sister showing up and, with one look, reading everything we were hiding.

I met her through pixels and long-distance promises. She never knew that every night, alone in my hotel room by the sea, I imagined her beside me.

I went back to the club for a second escape looking for pleasure, and a new guy chose me. What promised to be an easy lesson left a mark I didn't expect.

That afternoon on the beach, all I wanted was to switch off. When the blonde woman in the bikini came over asking for a light, I knew my plans for solitude had just changed.

She said she couldn’t fasten her seat belt. When I leaned over to help, her hand went somewhere else—and everything changed course.