Lovers

I never imagined that the elegant, composed woman who raised me was hiding someone entirely different on the living-room armchair at two in the morning.

The first time I entered her apartment, I found a thong hanging in the shower—and knew our deal of food for hot water would cost me far more than a few empanadas.

I dressed in my plainest clothes so I wouldn’t give anything away. What I didn’t count on was that I wouldn’t be alone in that apartment—and that I was still the same girl as before.

Three women, one huge house, and a pool in the sun. One look between them was enough to turn an innocent afternoon into something else.

I was the one who encouraged her to accept her lover’s proposal. I never imagined she’d come back that dawn surrounded by the memory of strangers.

When Renata opened her eyes and found Damián’s bed empty, she knew the night was not over for anyone in that house.

One look in the supermarket was enough for me to drop my bags and follow her upstairs. I didn’t know her name, but I already wanted her.

When she told me she’d been on her period for three days, I didn’t pull my hand away: I drew her closer, because her honesty was the beginning of everything that came after.

We got turned on in class and couldn’t wait until we got home. The vacant lot behind the college was the first of many places where we shouldn’t have touched each other.

Renata called me to ask for a favor, but the one who left me breathless that afternoon was the woman who finished cleaning and waited for me by the elevator.

We’d been brushing against each other all night without saying a word, and when I saw the turnoff into the forest, I knew neither of us would make it home.

She laughed that she liked sleeping spooning, pressed her body against mine, and in the darkness of that borrowed room I understood it wasn’t a game.

She agreed to the shoot hoping for elegant photos for her profile. She didn’t expect that old camera to strip away much more than her clothes.

Her father was speaking in my ear over the phone while she silently slid my thong down. We knew a single moan could give us away, and that made it hotter.

When I got into her car that Friday, I knew we were no longer going to talk about my future. There was something else between us, and we’d both spent weeks pretending it wasn’t there.

I had spent ten years resigned to the lukewarm sex of my marriage. Then Lorena locked the shower door from inside and kissed me without asking.

I opened the trunk not knowing that inside it waited another woman’s secret: her lingerie, her diary, and proof that she too loved someone forbidden.

I heard her closing her suitcases on the other side of the wall and knew she would leave with the dawn. Barefoot and trembling, I crossed the hallway to the ajar door of her room.

My hands were ice-cold in the boarding lounge, but it wasn’t the weather: in a few hours I’d see her again, and I didn’t know whether I’d run to her or hide.

Six days before my wedding, I saw her leave the café. I hadn’t seen her in years, but my body recognized her before I did.