Hotel

I’m shy with almost everyone, except my husband. That’s why I was so surprised to want that stranger who sat down in front of me, as if she’d been waiting for months.

“I knew you’d come today,” she said, and then he understood that this chance reunion was anything but chance.

Sitting in the armchair, the key dangling between her breasts, I knew that night I’d finally watch her give herself to another man while I stayed locked up.

I crossed the threshold without underwear, just as she had ordered. What I didn’t know was that on the other side of the door, a face I knew far too well was waiting for me.

I don’t know your name, but I know what’s waiting for you. I also thought it was love before I learned to obey every one of his orders.

She kept telling herself she was a decent woman, but that night, in the hotel room, she discovered how badly she wanted to obey every one of my orders.

I opened my eyes and didn’t recognize the room: only the weight of hands on my skin and the certainty that that morning belonged to others.

I arrived trembling at the room, closed the curtains, and undressed following his instructions. I only wanted to be a usable mouth. I had no idea what would come out of there.

I left that store trembling with desire, never imagining that by that same week I’d be on my knees, begging to be used with not a shred of tenderness.

I agreed to go have a coffee with my friend’s boyfriend. When he opened the door to that room, I understood there was no coffee waiting for me.

I thought he was coming in for an ordinary problem. Instead, he sat across from me, lowered his gaze, and began to tell me something he’d hidden from everyone for years.

When he came out of the shower and found him waiting in black lace, Bianca smiled: she knew exactly what was going to happen that night.

I had spent thirty years closing projects for the company. On my farewell trip, I never imagined the woman traveling beside me would be the one to say goodbye to me in a different way.

I’d been unsatisfied all night when the phone rang. It was him, and what he suggested made me say yes before I finished my coffee.

We’d been neighbors for years and barely exchanged a hallway hello. That night, when I put my sweater over her shoulders, I knew we were done pretending.

He slipped a little note into my hand when he took the plate away. I read it in the room: it was his number. And I knew I wouldn’t be alone that night.

I’ve never done it, but I know every detail: the café, the elevator, his hands. This is the fantasy that repeats itself and that I never dare say out loud.

At six in the morning, with a plate of tacos in my hand, I decided to sit at the table of two strangers who had been watching me for a while.

He shut the room door with all my clothes in his hands and left me on my knees, naked, with one order: “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

I was sweaty and breathless when his voice reached me from behind. He didn’t want to take me to dinner: he wanted to buy my whole night, and I wanted to be bought.