Lingerie

I thought it would just be a few more photos in exchange for a few dollars. But when I got on all fours in front of the camera, I knew tonight the desire would be mine alone.

She used to tan topless by the pool, sure no one could see her. Until she felt his gaze fixed on her naked skin.

My friend couldn’t take his eyes off her. I pretended to be annoyed, but the truth is I understood perfectly what he felt when he looked at her.

I cornered her on the sofa amid drunken laughter, and when my fingers slipped beneath her kitten pajamas, the ice woman finally gave in.

I had begged her a thousand times and she always stopped me with the same excuse. Until that night, in the dim bedroom, she said yes.

When I opened my suitcase at the cabin, none of my clothes were there—just lace thongs, short skirts, and makeup. Carla calmly told me that was my only chance.

When my daughter walked through the door laughing, I was still wearing the trace of the man she was going to marry on my skin.

When the apartment was empty, I’d open my mother’s drawer and become someone else. That afternoon, a shadow in the window changed everything.

I shaved myself smooth, slipped into my black thong, and painted my lips red. He’d arrive in an hour, and I was already trembling before I’d even seen him.

I’d spent my whole life seeing her in heels and stockings, but until that night on the sofa I’d never imagined what her feet could make me feel.

I’d spent years receiving messages with no substance, until a young couple wrote asking for something specific: for me to take control of them both for an entire afternoon.

I asked for the phone and started recording. I wanted them to remember that night every time they looked at the screen, far more than their wedding video.

That afternoon I only wanted to correct some sketches on a terrace. I ended up sharing beers with them and, weeks later, much more than conversation.

I never imagined my husband’s best friend would teach me something about myself in a store changing room. Much less that we’d invite him to join us that same afternoon.

I had watched her go from shy boy to stunning woman. That hot afternoon, with the pizza cooling on the table, she was the one who leaned in and kissed me first.

It was half past eleven at night when Daniela appeared in the hallway and asked me for help with the fire. I’d spent the whole afternoon thinking about what their bags were hiding.

When his number appeared on my wife’s phone screen, I knew the night would end with all three of us tangled up on the sofa. And my wife knew it too.

At four in the morning, while he was making love to me, my husband whispered my coworker’s name. And I, in the dark, smiled.

When I opened the door wrapped in a towel, she came in without letting me speak. She wasn’t the guy my friend was expecting, or the plan my head had imagined.