Masturbation

I thought it would just be a few more photos in exchange for a few dollars. But when I got on all fours in front of the camera, I knew tonight the desire would be mine alone.

My friend couldn’t take his eyes off her. I pretended to be annoyed, but the truth is I understood perfectly what he felt when he looked at her.

At four in the morning, alone in the bakery, he discovered that the divorce had awakened not his usual desires, but new ones, with a neighbor’s name.

I had begged her a thousand times and she always stopped me with the same excuse. Until that night, in the dim bedroom, she said yes.

What began as an awkward talk about toys in the back seat ended up becoming the darkest secret that family would ever tell.

Every time he looked at my face he remembered my mother. And I learned to use that resemblance, a short skirt, and a too-close greeting to erase the line between us.

After twenty-eight years of quiet marriage, one secret bathroom photo was enough for Carmen to fixate on what her little brother was hiding.

All I wanted was to work in peace. But then she sat in front of me, tucked her legs beneath her nightgown, and said she hadn’t slept in two nights.

I thought I knew my son until that night, when his confession forced me to choose between outrage and something far darker that had slept for years.

He came back from the club with that crooked smile and a story about my brother he shouldn’t have told me. That night, I understood how far he was willing to push me.

She had made me eat in a hurry, and now she was straddling me, wet, whispering in my ear that she wasn’t going to leave me alone until nightfall.

For my whole life I’d seen her in heels and stockings, but until that night on the sofa I never imagined what her feet could make me feel.

At the first traffic light, she hiked up her dress and I understood that this car ride wasn’t about shopping. My mother had other plans for us both.

Marisol thought her son was only watching his cousin. But that night, in the same dress and with the same curves, she learned the real temptation was her.

I imagine a woman like me: same soft skin, same mouth. We caress each other slowly until there’s no turning back and I finally live out what I’ve dreamed of alone for so many nights.

I opened my eyes in the dark living room and there she was in the doorway, biting her lip, looking at exactly what I couldn’t hide.

I looked down and saw her hand resting on my thigh. We’d been friends for five years, but that night, after the second glass of vodka, everything changed in an instant.

I shared a flat with two university girls who went around the house half-naked with no shame in front of me. It took me weeks to understand why.

As soon as we closed the door, we came at each other urgently. Then he asked me in my ear if I could picture the two of us together, and that night changed everything.

I won the hand and, for the first time, had both of them at my mercy. My husband and our guest, waiting for my order. And I already knew what I was going to ask them to do.