Seduction

Marcos set the bottle on the bar and said out loud what the two of them had been keeping silent for days. The bartender pretended not to hear.

I’d spent months thinking about her, about her feet, about her mouth. The Halloween party gave us the night we’d both wanted without saying it out loud.

That summer we rented the same little house as always, and she got out of the car with a new smile. My cousin. Forbidden. And yet, everything I wanted.

She was 37, had a stunning body, and nearly a year of loneliness built up inside her. When she chose me at the gym, I knew some nights aren’t planned.

I ran out in my nightgown, naked underneath, with the vibrator in my hand. The door clicked shut, and I knew I was locked out. Someone was already in the hall.

I always trained alone, in silence, never looking at anyone. He’d been watching me for three months, and I found out when it was already too late to walk away.

I opened the hotel-room door, and there was Renata: just like her pictures, but with nerves no image could ever capture.

A rainy night, a blackout, and an embrace that began in fear. With my roommate, I discovered something I never expected to feel.

I arrived with my recorder and my questions ready. She welcomed me with a cup of coffee and a smile that was not exactly professional.

The door opened, and Nadia looked me up and down with a slow smile. Behind her, Raquel crossed her arms. “Speak,” she said. “What do you want?"

On the drive, she put her hand on my thigh and didn’t take it away. At dinner, she looked at me as if I were dessert. Going upstairs was only a matter of time.

I’d been burning up for an hour with Rodrigo not home. When I called the sex shop, I never imagined the clerk would show up at my door ten minutes later.

When Marcos told me about the man who bathed naked by the riverbank, I couldn’t get him out of my head. That night I went to see for myself.

When she came into my room that night, wearing nothing, I knew it wasn’t just because she was afraid of the thunder. My mother knew everything. And so did I.

She was 67 and had the smile of someone who’d seen it all. When I got her into bed that New Year’s Eve, I never guessed I’d end up watching her for hours.

Four weeks watching her move between the tables, wanting what I didn’t dare name. After that, nothing was ever the same.

Sofía had been wearing that mischievous look for weeks. When she suggested a stranger watch her touch herself on camera while I observed in silence, I said yes without hesitation.

Claudia thought of herself as a respectable, religious, faithful mother. But that afternoon, kneeling in front of her own son, she understood she could no longer ignore the darkness in her.

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

I’d been counting the hours for seven days. When I saw him come through the airport doors, I barely cared that I was on my period: that night, I wasn’t waiting for anything.