Mature

I told him everything would be upfront. He smiled, transferred half, and met me in an apartment where no one would ask questions. I went up ready to collect every minute.

My breasts were always my secret weapon, and that Friday with the office empty I decided to use them to get from him what I really wanted.

I grew up understanding naturism as something natural, but nothing prepared me for the day my mother’s boyfriend stopped covering himself in front of me.

I only peeked through the crack in the door for a second. It was long enough for it to stay with me forever, and ruin every night that came after.

She came home every dawn smelling of American tobacco and new perfume. I said nothing and kept my suspicions, until the night I decided to follow her and find out who she spent those hours with.

I get up early so I can have the gym to myself. But for the past three weeks, there’s been a much better reason to arrive before anyone else: him, and that scandalous smile.

At forty-nine, I thought I’d seen it all—until that soaked stranger took off his shirt in my yard and I knew the afternoon wouldn’t end with gardening.

She caught me looking at her while she leafed through a Cortázar. She held my gaze for three seconds, smiled crookedly, and I knew that afternoon in the bookstore wasn’t ending among books.

I didn’t care that he was thirty years older. With the road swaying beneath us, his hand found my hip in the darkness and I stopped pretending I didn’t like it.

I crossed his garden every afternoon to help with the vines, but we both knew I was really there for the way that huge man looked at me.

“Do you want to try it before you decide?” he said, and Mariana understood that neither of them was going to be talking only about the projector that afternoon.

When she felt the breeze raise goosebumps on her skin, she knew that full-moon night wouldn’t end on the seashore. And she didn’t want it to.

Every morning I spied on him from the window without admitting it. That rainy afternoon he showed up at my door soaked, and I knew there was no way to keep pretending nothing was happening.

I went down to the kitchen to make coffee and felt his gaze fixed on my back. I knew what was going to happen, and for the first time in months I didn’t want to stop him.

That night, while I was correcting his exercises in the hotel room, I felt his gaze fixed on me and knew I could no longer be just his teacher.

I barely knew him, but when that stranger grabbed me in front of everyone, the driver set down his drink at the bar and walked over with a calm that was scarier than any shout.

I didn’t find him attractive, but feeling desired turned me on. When he climbed onto the stool to check the fan, I knew exactly how I’d repay him.

When Sara came out of Don Aurelio’s cellar, her legs were trembling and she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I knew exactly what had just happened in there.

When I opened the door to her at home, I knew that woman was going to ruin my night. I had no idea how far she’d take it—or where she’d end up on her knees in front of me.

The request came from a shy boy, my nephew’s friend. I took weeks to answer him and a month to admit I wanted him in my bed.