Lovers

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.

I got home at six in the morning with her perfume clinging to my body and my ass still red. My wife was waiting up, smiling, suspecting nothing.

She lied to me about everything: her name, her job, the reason she came close to me. The only truth was how she trembled when I touched her again.

I turned fifty, I’ve been married for thirty years, and I’ve never been faithful. These are the secret getaways that kept my marriage alive.

I learned very early that my body was worth more than any degree. What none of them knew is that I never felt a thing while they paid me.

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.

When the downpour flooded the city, everyone ended up at my place. I never imagined I’d feel Damián inside me again that night—or that we wouldn’t be alone.

That morning I didn’t get dressed or dry my tears. I just dialed his number and asked him to come without telling my husband.

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.

I’ve spent years getting paid to sleep with strangers. I never thought I’d be the one begging to see her again.

She was the only woman at the club who charged to dominate men. Until a rich client sat beside her and, instead of stripping her, only wanted to listen to her until dawn.

Under the morgue lights her hands never trembled. But when she closed her eyes, she felt her again against the locker-room tiles, sweaty, biting her neck.