Lingerie

I only wanted to smell it for a second. When I heard her voice behind me, I knew that night I was done deciding when, how, or how much.

I had no body, no name, no desire. Until his voice crossed the screen at three in the morning and ordered me to do something no protocol had ever taught me to obey.

I asked her to meet me at six with one condition: a short skirt and the lingerie I chose. The rest I would decide when she walked through the door.

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.

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 shame, hidden behind a screen. I never imagined the body I hated so much would end up teaching me to love myself.

The first time I heard her through the partition, I lay perfectly still, 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. Then a voice behind me asked if I liked her panties, and I knew 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 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 unzipped her dress in front of the entryway mirror, and when she saw herself wrapped in his arms, she 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 on the dress came undone, I knew that night in the dressing room would change everything between us — and 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.