In Public

I kept it to myself for over a decade. It all started with a pair of white stockings and ended in a car at two in the morning, with the last person I should’ve gotten involved with.

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’d spent months imagining it and couldn’t bring myself to admit it. That afternoon, an ordinary conversation was enough to send everything out of control.

She was fifteen years older than me, drove a red convertible, and knew exactly what she wanted that night. All I had to do was obey and enjoy it.

I’d spent weeks avoiding her, convinced what we had was over. Then the phone rang and her voice was enough to tell me I’d fall again.

She pulled my pants down in the middle of the path without a word, and I understood that afternoon my body didn’t belong to me, but to her.

We thought it was a twenty-block ride. Neither Lucía nor I imagined we’d get off that bus as two completely different women.

She slipped into bed naked except for her thong and whispered in my ear: don’t turn around, don’t say anything, just listen. Then she started telling me about that night.

I went out alone to explore the northern area and a blow to the back of my head changed everything. I woke up surrounded by strangers, naked and with no escape.

He’d been ignoring me for weeks. That night I dressed for another man, and just as I was kissing him at the next table, he walked in arm in arm with a stranger.

Every week we stared at the photos at the entrance without daring to go in. The night we crossed the threshold, I discovered how far I could go with him watching.

I didn’t tie her hands to restrain her. I tied them so she’d understand, before anything happened, that tonight her body no longer belonged to her.

I’ve spent thirty years pretending to be the modest wife my husband thinks he set free. What he doesn’t know is that on this cruise, I’m the one pulling the strings.

When she told me what really turned her on, I knew we were opening a door we’d never be able to close again. And I didn’t want to close it.

Everyone at the university knew what I was like, and the guard at the gate only needed a smile to understand that that afternoon, after cleaning up, I wouldn’t be leaving so fast.

I had never felt so much from a simple brush of hips. When she settled behind me on the crowded bus, I knew that ride wouldn’t end like the others.

She came down from the plane of pleasure to a flat in Ruzafa, and as soon as the street’s desire brushed her skin, she knew no loose clothing could contain what she was.

I took my time handing her coat over, enjoying the way men looked at her. I never imagined one would dare that much in front of me.

You didn’t know us from Adam, but you spent the whole afternoon with your hand in your swimsuit, watching us play. And we knew it from the start.

I got out of the car thinking I was going to defend him and ended up seeing him with a stranger on his lap. What I did next wasn’t planned: I just stopped being afraid.