Lovers

Twelve months had passed since the last time. I turned a corner downtown and collided with her: the same perfume, the same look, the same desire I thought I’d forgotten.

I asked my neighbor for help with a pipe I could have fixed myself. The truth is I just wanted to see him walk into my house knowing we were both alone.

I’d wanted it all summer and never dared. That afternoon, with the pool silent and no one nearby, Adrián jumped in naked and looked at me from the middle.

I recognized his devil’s smile leaning on the bar, with the black towel and red harness, and knew that night the whole sauna would witness what was ours.

Iván was still asleep in my arms when a noise in the hallway pulled me out of bed. I had no idea the last day would be the hottest of all.

We sat there like any two friends, but we both knew why we’d come. When the door closed, neither of us dared take the first step.

It was three in the morning when I felt his mouth searching for me in the dark, and I knew this time I’d be the one to guide him to the end.

We crossed the apartment threshold knowing we had two hours left, and he lunged at me before I could set the keys on the table.

I put on the lingerie she’d never wear and wait for him to knock on the motel door. I know he’ll return: there’s a man starving in his home.

Matías opened the door barefoot, wearing a half-smile that hid nothing. Behind Andrés, Esteban was already breathing against his neck. All three knew why they had come.

They said the blue of his overalls brought him luck. But that night, under the spray and his teammates’ eyes, he learned luck had another name.

When the officiant asked whether anyone had something to say, the groom raised his hand. Not to say yes, but to confess what he had been holding in for months.

The receptionist handed me a package with no return address. Inside, a metal plug and a note in his handwriting: “For our date, I want you to wear it.”

I was never attracted to him, but every message he sent left me hotter than the last. And that night, with my husband only a few feet away, I stopped resisting.

He blocked me everywhere and came back with a “decent” girlfriend. Fatal mistake: nobody takes a woman’s favorite toy away without paying for it.

I’d spent a week sending him photos to drive him wild. When he came back, I learned my punishment for impatience would be getting on my knees and waiting with my tongue out.

For years I accepted to please them, then ran to the bathroom to spit it out. With him I discovered that the barrier I struggled most to break was also the one hiding the most pleasure.

It started as a game with a costume and tall boots, but it ended with me on my knees at three in the morning, unable to satisfy what he awakened in me.

I covered his eyes for a second, just long enough to turn on the recorder behind the pillow. He never knew that night was trapped forever on a red tape.