Seduction

I got up before the second alarm. I knew that, if I played my cards right, we’d both arrive at work with smiles that would be hard to hide.

The night before leaving, we turned on the screen, played the videos from that mansion, and let the memories prepare us for what the island had in store.

I kept it as evidence for the case, but that night, alone, I slipped the silk over my body and saw in the mirror someone who had been waiting years for me.

I asked him not to come back. But when I saw him again on my porch, I knew I would be the one setting the rules for the game we shouldn’t be playing.

I kissed him in the car as if I had wanted him all my life, and only then did I realize that the boy I had watched grow up was no longer a child.

Bored at home, I agreed to have a drink with him. I never expected that beer to end with me on my knees—and later in his hotel room.

It was meant for Andrés, my boyfriend. But the blue double check appeared three seconds later, and I realized, my stomach turning cold, that I’d sent it to the wrong man.

We had fantasized about it in whispers for years. That afternoon in the cabin, my wife tied my wrists to the headboard and told me she had a surprise.

I thought she was asleep while a blonde approached me on the beach. When we got back, she admitted she had watched everything through half-closed eyes.

I spilled the oil on purpose, dialed his number, and waited. At my age, I had learned that opportunities aren’t waited for: they’re made.

We were dancing when he leaned to my ear and reminded me what he’d seen that other night. Half an hour later, I was climbing into his pickup at the end of the driveway.

The first time Carla crossed her legs in the back seat, I knew those drives were going to complicate my life far more than I ever imagined.

I came downstairs in the set I’d hidden for weeks, and from the way he looked at me, I knew there would be no turning back that night.

I arrived with my tape measure and my nerves frayed. All I wanted was to avoid the west wing, but he had already asked for me at reception.

I went to the coast for two days of work and brought my friend along. I never imagined a dinner in red dresses would leave its mark on my body that way.

I thought the house was empty, but the murmurs were coming from upstairs. I stood frozen on the staircase, unable to go up or leave.

I agreed under three clear conditions, with my husband’s hand trembling in mine. What happened in the living room still makes me question how well I know him.

She told me to come back at ten, when she was closing, and promised to suck me better than anyone. It took four nights to find her at the register again.

When I climbed into the passenger seat and he said, “Look what you’re doing to me,” I knew I wouldn’t leave that taxi the same person I was before.

I took off my sweatshirt on the stairs, waited to hear the shower running upstairs, and returned to the kitchen determined to stop that man from looking at the refrigerator.