Neighbors

He lived three doorways away from me and only wanted porn and mutual wanking. What I learned about him that afternoon changed everything between us.

She caught me watching those videos behind her back. Instead of getting angry, she smiled and asked, “Do you really want another man to fuck me in front of you?”

I thought I had the situation under control. I thought an old man with no strength couldn’t do anything to me. That was my first mistake of the morning.

Rubén filled the coffee maker while, on the other side of the window, our women stopped pretending. Neither of us looked away, and then his hand found mine.

In the car, with his hand on the wheel and mine between his legs, I understood that that night I would make the rules. And he would obey every one.

I put the proof back where I found it, washed my hands, and went down to the kitchen as if I knew nothing. That night our marriage’s dirtiest game began.

I crossed the living room to get a glass of water, forgetting the curtains were still open. On the other side of the glass, his eyes had already found me.

I was forty-four, had two daughters, and a recent divorce when the girl from across the street looked at me differently and said what I didn’t dare think.

I carried her boxes up, made her coffee, and before I finished it, I already knew that neighbor was going to change every night I spent in that building.

The doorbell rang just as she finished hanging the laundry. I hid in the bedroom and watched her go answer it wearing nothing but wedges and a smile.

Three weeks without hearing from him, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I texted “hiii,” and his reply reminded me of the only thing I was to him: his obedient slut.

It was seven in the morning, I’d just broken up with my girlfriend by text, and my neighbor was still face down in my bed. I wasn’t about to waste the morning.

I turned the living-room light down so she wouldn’t see me, but when the sheet started moving beneath her hips, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping that night.

I’d only been in the alley for a month when I was put in charge of the punch with house 207. I didn’t expect the woman who opened the door and her husband to change my idea of desire that very night.

When I leaned out the car window to see if my sister was still awake, I found him in his window, smoking. And I knew he wasn’t going to look away.

For months I kept running into him in the elevator, knowing he was out of my reach. That night I found a yellow sign with a phone number and a binding spell.

I went upstairs with a stranger and, when the door closed, I knew my neighbor was already posted behind the curtain, ready to watch every detail.

At quarter to eleven I was already going down the stairs in my building. Before leaving I looked through the peephole, just in case I saw someone. The landing was empty. Better that way.

While the others kept drinking, I already had Andrés cornered in the alley. I'd spent hours unable to take my eyes off him.