Seduction

I saw him in the rearview mirror: sporty, with a hard bulge under his Lycra, waiting for my signal. I rolled down the windows and I still don’t know why.

I went down to the bar for two more drinks, and the voice saying hello was the last one I expected to hear at an adults-only hotel on a Saturday night.

I only wanted sun and silence. I wasn’t looking for anyone, least of all a man who waited for me on the shore just to tell me he wasn’t letting me go.

I was left alone with him, pretending to be sick when I wasn’t. I knew what would happen as soon as my sister passed through the gate and left me alone with her husband.

When I followed the sound of her music to the old closet in my office, I didn’t expect to find slits that opened right onto the changing room where she undressed.

I went up for air because I couldn’t stand the heat. I heard his footsteps on the stairs and knew, before I even turned around, that I wouldn’t sleep that night.

She stepped out of the bathroom, saw me half-dressed in my uniform, and said: “you’ve got strong legs.” That’s when I knew the afternoon wasn’t going to end like the others.

I asked her to open her legs at the gas station, and the attendant’s eyes nearly popped out. That morning we learned that being watched got us hotter than anything.

That night I put on the red thong, fishnet stockings, and wig in front of the hotel mirror—and for the first time, I didn’t recognize the same old boy.

I was always the one letting him watch. That afternoon I flipped the game: I sat him in the armchair and let my best friend do to him what he had been imagining.

When she comes down for breakfast in a T-shirt and panties, I melt inside and know this weekend at the country house will be my last chance to stay silent.

My niece climbed into my bed with an indecent proposal, and I never imagined my son would be spying on us from the hallway door.

That afternoon, sitting across from me, Mariela stopped talking about her problems and began unbuttoning her blouse with a calm that froze my breath.

My father taught me that monsters stay in the closet if you don’t open the door. What I never told him is how badly I want mine to dare to come out.

That afternoon, while Sofía tried on lingerie in front of the mirror, my husband and I discovered we had gone months without looking at each other like that.

Beneath the austere habit she wore a secret of black lace. And every time he arrived with the provisions, that secret burned her a little more.

Nobody knows. Not even the person I sleep with every night. But when I close my eyes I see myself in front of the mirror, transformed into someone else, ready for him.

I crouched among the pines and watched Bruno kneel before a stranger. In that moment, I understood why he'd been avoiding me for weeks.

I don’t want your respect from a distance. I want to be the thing you open in secret at 2 a.m., with your hand already under the sheet and my name stuck in your throat.

When I carried her suitcases upstairs and she bent down in front of me without a shred of shame, I knew those days under my roof would not go as I’d imagined.