Lingerie

I’d known her since I was seventeen. I had told her everything. And that afternoon, while I was zipping up her dress, I realized I wanted to kiss her too.

I never imagined that crossing the threshold of a discreet bar in my wife's underwear would end with me in a hotel room with a stranger.

I put down my suitcase without knowing that one of the wardrobe drawers held something that would change the course of that weekend at my partner’s family home.

We sat facing each other with a martini each. One rule: see, talk to, smell each other. Touching was forbidden. And she had an ice cube in her hand.

I took the elevator in heels and a wig, praying I wouldn’t run into anyone. He opened the door in a robe and called me a slut before I even said hello.

I looked at myself in the mirror wearing her lingerie, heels, and painted lips, and knew I couldn’t stay home. It was two in the morning.

When I came out of the bathroom in heels, stockings, and a red baby doll, his face said it all: I was no longer his best friend’s “daughter,” I was something else.

She only came to drop off some papers. When she sat on the sofa and crossed her legs, I knew the problem was going to be mine, not hers.

When she came out of the bathroom in the clothes I’d left on the bed, I knew that afternoon she’d obey every order without a complaint.

I remember every name, every room, and every kiss. But she looks at me as if I invented everyone I spent the night with.

Years later I still remember her panties in the breeze, her hand between her legs, and the kiss she blew me from the sidewalk before disappearing. We never said a single word.

Sandra took off her thong in the bar bathroom and put it in my hand. Wet, warm. I knew then there would be no turning back.

I’d wanted to do it for a long time: pick up a man in a public place and take him to bed. That afternoon in the café, I finally dared.

When she told me she was into me, I didn’t believe her. Then came the message with the hotel name and the exact time. I knew it was real.

I was cleaning the offices in the hallway when I found her alone, with an open neckline and a tense neck. I offered her a massage. Neither of us thought we’d go that far.

I waited for him with whiskey and very little clothing. He had no idea that night was only the beginning of a plan I’d been building in silence for weeks.

Sometimes the greatest pleasure is doing nothing. I lay on the sofa, arms spread, and let her take control.

The app on the hidden phone said three men, a hotel, no romance. All I had to do was type “yes.” I did it before thinking twice.

Daniela asked me to drive her home. When we arrived, two neighbors were drinking beers outside. One had a secret my friend already suspected. I decided to find out.

When Roberto pointed out that I was the husband, Mr. Kanamoto smiled for the first time. I understood then that my role that afternoon would not be husband but witness.