Lingerie

From the dance floor we were already sneaking our hands to each other; what we didn’t finish in the car, we continued in my room, unhurried and unclothed.

I bought that toy almost out of embarrassment, hidden behind a screen. I never imagined the body I hated so much would teach me to love myself.

The first time I heard her through the partition, I froze, holding my breath, pretending to be asleep while she believed she was completely alone.

My brother told me everything: his lovers, his fetishes, what he did with Romina. What he never imagined was that one night I’d end up in bed with her, without him.

I found her panties on the hallway floor, with a note on top. From that night on, we played a game neither of us wanted to end.

I thought I was alone among the hanging laundry—until a voice asked if I liked her panties, and there was no turning back.

I had never smelled another woman’s desire until that afternoon, standing in the hallway with my flatmate’s soaked garment in my hands and my pulse racing.

I kept it for more than a decade. It all started because of a pair of white stockings and ended in a car at two in the morning with the last person I should have gotten involved with.

She lowered her dress's zipper in front of the entryway mirror and, seeing herself surrounded by his arms, knew there was no going back that night.

I asked her to dress to provoke, and on the fourth day she came home with a trembling voice and a story she couldn’t tell me with her clothes on.

When the zipper came undone on her dress, I understood that night in the dressing room would change everything between us—and that I didn’t want it to stop.

I put on the white apron and the little cap, did my makeup like a slut, and called him to let him know the room was ready. We had the rest memorized.

I kept that dress at the back of the closet for no one. That night, when he rang the bell soaked through, I knew I was finally going to wear it for someone.

The moment I crossed that door, I stopped being me. He was waiting for me without a wig or makeup, with a bad-boy smile and my new name already chosen.

In the bathroom, a black-and-white dress, women’s underwear, and heels were waiting for me. He only said: undress and get dressed. I obeyed without knowing what I would become.

He was almost forty, lived door to door, and one day invited me for a drink. That night I stopped being the girl on the landing and became his desire.

I sent my secretary home, turned up the heat, and left only my blazer over my sheer bra. I wanted Mariela to see everything I’d been craving for weeks.

When she told me the total and I counted my bills, I knew I was four thousand short. I leaned on the counter and whispered a proposition in her ear.

I kept my women’s clothes locked away, sure no one would ever see them. Until that man found the suitcase and asked me to put them on for him.

They arrived at midnight in short dresses, fishnet stockings, and a perfume that hit me like a punch. In three weeks, my house turned into something else.