Memories

It was two in the morning, I was bored and horny, and I dropped into the game lobby expecting nothing. Then I saw her avatar lean toward mine.

That morning I shaved my legs, put on the white platforms, and got out of the car knowing everyone on the street would look at me. And look at me they did.

Two years had passed since the first time. When he replied to my message, I knew I was going to see him, even though something in me said I shouldn’t.

Vera approached before the bout, brushed her cheek, and spoke to her about Dafne. On that strip, Renata wasn’t just fighting for an Olympic berth: she was fighting for the right to feel again.

I never thought an avatar in a video game would make me want another woman again—or that desire would stay with me long after I turned off the console.

The feel of her hand when she shook mine was like a jolt. I offered her a ride and, on that dirt road, discovered something I’d denied for years.

I met her long before I met her sister, my wife. Ten years after that hotel, I saw her come out of the water at the beach and knew the story wasn’t over.

I had barely gone a few steps when my phone started vibrating nonstop. It was her, and she wasn’t going to let me get away that easily that night.

Daniela had disappeared without leaving me a number. I was still counting the days when I saw her at the café, smiling at him the way she never smiled at me.

I parked three streets away, climbed to the sill, and slipped into the room where she was sleeping with her husband. I only put a finger to her lips.

When I walked into the bar and saw her at the back, I knew I wasn’t sleeping that night. Three months without her hands weighed more than I was willing to admit.

I'd spent a month watching her nipples show beneath her blouse and pretending to think about equations. That afternoon she complained about her neck, and I knew I had my excuse.

It was our first sleepover with her parents away. When she turned out the light, her hand found mine beneath the sheets, and I understood she’d waited years for that gesture.

I arrived at the square expecting a polite coffee with the woman who taught me to read poems at seventeen. What happened next wasn’t in any book.

I’d known him for years, and nothing had ever happened between us—until that afternoon in the park, when he looked at me differently and everything began to change, very slowly.

When I felt his cock against my ass in the darkness, I knew neither of us would sleep that night. Fifteen years later, I still think about it.

Camila wouldn’t meet my eyes from the far side of the pool. That night, when I went out to get some air among the orange trees, she followed me into the dark without me asking.

My husband doesn’t need to touch me first. He needs to see how other men look at me without permission, how they falter when I pass. Then he comes, and desire no longer fits in the bed.

We’d been waiting for months. My parents finally left, she arrived in dark blue lingerie and both of us trembling, and then the body decided otherwise.

We had been flirting for months over the internal chat. When I suggested closing the office on a Saturday, I never thought you’d come. You did—trembling, but you came.