Neighbors

You looked one way and then the other, certain you were alone, when you hiked up your dress in the middle of the garage. You didn’t see that, two spaces away, someone had been watching you for a while.

He opened the door without looking through the peephole and recognized that smile from a thousand screens. His neighbor was her. And she had just asked him for the most innocent of favors.

I left the sheer babydoll hanging where he’d see it, planned every move, and waited to see how far the guy in 4B would dare go.

I told him I wasn’t going out that night. Then he knocked on my door holding a pink dress and that smile that already knew he was going to win me over.

She got out of the car with her jacket half open, and I knew that night I wouldn’t hold back. She’d said we shouldn’t; I’d already decided otherwise.

She was only going to advise him about an apron. She never imagined that, in front of the salesman, he would point to her as if she were the maid they had come to dress.

That night I watched her through the window, alone and desperate with her toy. And I knew exactly what to do with her... and with her son, watching beside me in the dark.

I only wanted to smell it for a second. When I heard her voice behind me, I knew that night I was done deciding when, how, or how much.

When Bárbara let the sandal dangle from her fingertips, I knew I’d obey her right there in the entrance hall, no matter who walked in.

Renata had been putting up with the second-floor neighbor’s looks for weeks. That afternoon she decided he and his wife would finally learn who ruled the building.

I slipped into the house without making a sound to look for a paper and found my wife with her slipper in hand and her friend over her lap, waiting for punishment.

I went up in a robe, barefoot and furious, ready to yell at him. He opened the door, looked me up and down, and I knew I was the one in trouble.

Four purplish marks on my hips were the exact shape of his fingers. I dressed like an impeccable executive, but we both knew who my body already belonged to.

Pressed against the counter, they thought the house was empty. They didn’t count on her coming back early, or on what she had in store for anyone who dared to lie to her.

She went up to her penthouse ready to throw the intruder out on his ass. She lowered her head when he ordered her to serve the wine on her knees, and discovered that obeying could be a pleasure too.

We kept crossing glances by the pool all afternoon. When I went up to get water and he came in behind me, I knew there was no turning back.

I crossed the complex to deliver a message and ended up surrounded by four older men who looked at me as if I were the main course of the afternoon.

I’m not saying this to ease my conscience, but to confess how far I was willing to go that afternoon, with him asleep on the table and her just meters away.

We’d been neighbors for years and barely exchanged a hallway hello. That night, when I put my sweater over her shoulders, I knew we were done pretending.

I recognized the basket of clothes that wasn’t mine, and before I could think, my hand was already buried in his things. What happened next changed me from the inside.