Partner Swapping

I went downstairs thinking I was in control. Three hours later, I was just a spectator to something that no longer belonged to me.

I put the blindfold on her, gave the orders, and let her surrender without knowing who was touching her. What came next surpassed any fantasy we’d imagined.

I told her I wanted something stronger than her, much stronger. She wasn’t shocked. She smiled and said she knew a place where that was possible.

We’d been talking about it for months and never dared. Then a couple invited us to a liberal spa one May afternoon, and Sofía walked through that door before I did.

They had known each other since adolescence and desired each other in silence. When both married men who let them be free, they stopped hiding.

I went looking for my husband in a jealous mood, and the man I was dancing with stopped me: “Leave it, I gave him permission.” I didn’t understand until his body pressed against mine.

We’d talked about swapping partners for weeks, but neither of us imagined that crossing that red-upholstered door would make us forget who belonged to whom.

When Lorena let her dress fall to the floor and stood naked in front of all four of us, I knew that night we weren’t going to set any limits.

No one said aloud what was going to happen, but when the clothes began to come off, all four of us knew we wouldn’t return home that night as the same people.

Noelia looked at us over her glass of cava and asked the question no one expected: how did we manage our sex life after so many years together?

I did my makeup, chose the tightest black dress, and went down to the restaurant knowing that night with the other couple wouldn’t end at the table.

They liked us, we liked them, and the warm water did the rest. What came after none of the four of us had fully planned.

When we created the profile, we weren’t looking for blind sex, but for someone who understood us. Diego and Valeria wrote to us one night, and everything changed.

I turned off the garden lights with one button and, when the hot water was the only witness left, I untied her bikini string in front of the other couple.

I knew it before either of them admitted it: every Thursday she made up a clumsy excuse, and I let her go, knowing exactly where and with whom.

There I was on the sofa, whisky in hand, realizing I no longer needed to take part: it was enough to watch someone else do what I’d stopped doing.

I wanted to see another man inside my girlfriend. What I hadn’t reckoned with was what I would feel, lying in the next bed while she moaned for him, not me.

A patient hand came out from between the bars and stroked my stomach, unhurried. My husband undid one button on my shirt to make room for it.

I woke up with my head about to explode. Beside me slept a woman who wasn’t just my wife, and I couldn’t remember a thing about how I got there.

When they came back in, Noa was already naked and Andrés had hold of her from behind. I knew none of the five of us would sleep alone in our bed that night.