Neighbors

My husband was away again, and my back couldn’t take any more. My neighbor’s message said, “The first massage is free.” I never imagined how far it would go.

The tree that grew between our yards was only the excuse. What I really wanted was on the other side of that wall, and I learned to jump it every time he left.

I’d spent the whole day not feeling like doing anything. Until, when I switched on the boiler, I saw the woman in the building across from mine walking nearly naked through her kitchen, oblivious to my gaze.

I watched him through the window while he touched himself, thinking no one could see him. The next day I went down with the excuse of using the bike, and I wasn’t leaving without trying him.

My window was open and my hand was where it shouldn't have been when I heard her voice ten feet away. When I opened my eyes, she was already watching me.

It was enough to close the door, put on the lace, and switch on the light to stop being Damián. What he didn’t know was who was watching him from the other side.

She climbed the ladder in front of me with nothing beneath her nightgown, and I knew I wouldn’t leave that apartment the same man who entered.

Every night a different car arrived at the house opposite, and all the lights went out except one. That night I approached the window and could not stop watching.

I’d been dry for five years, and my husband had just proposed a threesome with him dressed as a woman. The craziest part: I already knew who to invite.

I’d been running into her in the garage for weeks with that smile. The day she pressed against me in the elevator, I knew it wouldn’t stay a neighborly hello.

The moment I caught his eyes across the glass, I knew I’d turn that afternoon into something neither of us would forget.

From the first day she asked me for a photo to brag about me to her friends. I never imagined how far her pleasure in showing me off would go.

She’d been married for twenty years to a man who prayed before every meal. That afternoon, under the park tree, she confessed who she truly missed.

She had been married for more than forty years and had never looked at another man. That morning she opened the door to an empty house, unaware that nothing would ever be the same again.

She came upstairs with two containers and a smile that was far too sweet. He was twenty-two, had the whole weekend free, and an idea he knew he shouldn’t have had.

The first afternoon, I still hadn’t unpacked, and I already knew no one there would take their eyes off us. And the worst part was this: I was starting to like it.

I knew he spied on me every afternoon from his balcony. What I didn’t know was how much I liked him doing it—or how far I was willing to go.

I had watched her through the peephole at exactly 7:15 every morning. What I didn’t know was that she counted my footsteps behind hers whenever she went downstairs.

I told him he’d left a T-shirt behind just to get him to my table. What he found that night bore no resemblance to the wife he left.

She came over to ask about the printer and ended up staring at the screen with a question on her lips that changed everything between us.