Neighbors

I'd gone a month without touching anyone when he appeared across the hall in sweatpants that left very little to the imagination. And I was in my boxer briefs.

When I lent Bruno the red brief that morning, I had no idea my neighbor would come looking for us and that the path to the river would end in something none of us had ever done before.

Years later I still remember her panties in the breeze, her hand between her legs, and the kiss she blew me from the sidewalk before disappearing. We never said a single word.

That afternoon on the beach, I knew the four of them were watching us. What I didn’t know was that that night everything Roberto and I had imagined would come true.

Daniela asked me to drive her home. When we arrived, two neighbors were drinking beers outside. One had a secret my friend already suspected. I decided to find out.

My boyfriend didn’t show up to the Christmas party. Instead, his godfather—my neighbor across the street—offered me a drink, and that extra glass changed everything.

Going out in a thong and bra under my leggings was my secret ritual. I didn’t expect anyone to dare follow me. Or that I’d want them to so badly.

I grabbed the binoculars almost without thinking. When I focused them, she was already looking at me from her window. And instead of closing the curtain, she pulled it all the way open.

Sandra needed help with a blind. I needed to forget the worst day of my life. Neither of us expected Valentina to arrive so soon.

I announced myself, as we always did. He told me to come in. I found him in the bathroom, shaving, naked. He had the body I’d tried not to look at for months.

I got off the bike half a block away and slipped in through the back door. From the bedroom came voices I took a moment to recognize.

I went to fix his washing machine with a red thong under my pants. I only had to find the moment for him to notice. He said nothing, but he kept watching.

Daniela was twenty, lived on the fourth floor, and had never been with a woman. That day, all of that changed at once.

When Sofía walked through the door of my apartment, she didn’t know exactly what was waiting for her. Her mother had planned everything weeks in advance.

Two twenty-year-old guys sneak into the neighbor’s house while she’s showering. What happens when she catches them is something none of them will ever forget.

The professor stopped under the trees and slipped his hand under my skirt. It was the first time someone had touched me like that, and I didn’t want him to stop.

I thought the house next door had been empty for months. When the study light came on one night, I discovered I had been someone’s show for weeks.

She lived two floors above me, and every time I ran into her in the elevator I thought the same thing: you’re going to be mine. That afternoon, with a rose in my hand, I asked her to come down for coffee with me.

I went to his house thinking I was doing a good deed. I found my photos on his phone, and what I did next I haven’t told anyone until today.

I had waited months for that Saturday. High heels, lace lingerie, the estate all to myself. No one was supposed to see me. Then Roberto from the estate across the way arrived.