Seduction

I went up to see the new apartment and toast with cava. I didn’t come down until the next morning, with her perfume still on my skin and a secret no one should know.

When I opened the door to my uncle that afternoon, no one else was home. What I confessed to him after that, on his sofa, I had never told anyone.

I arrived with my T-shirt stuck to my body from the heat, and she opened the door with that smile she had spent years pretending not to have.

She opened the door in a badly tied robe, heels on, and a smile that wasn’t a welcome. Her husband wasn’t there, and she knew it when she let me in.

I went barefoot to the bathroom and, when I pushed the door open, I saw him coming out of the shower. What I saw in that second never left my head.

I found her underwear on top of the laundry basket when I went into the bathroom. She hadn’t put it away properly. And from that instant, I could never see her the same way again.

We were having dinner like any other Sunday when my father dropped the line. Three hours later, my brother and I were closing the door to their bedroom, not knowing what we’d be by morning.

When I stepped into the living room, I realized my father-in-law’s surprise had a name, a red dress, and a smile too practiced to be innocent.

She stepped out of the water thinking how good it felt to be alone and free. When she turned to the shore, her clothes, backpack, and boots were gone.

When her mother took the night shift and he waited for her with the workshop light on, Daniela knew she could no longer lie to herself.

We had been talking for three weeks without meeting. When I finally crossed the door to his apartment that night, I knew I wouldn’t come out the same.

When my stepmother locked the bedroom door and started unbuttoning her blouse, I knew that punishment wouldn’t be like any sermon before it.

At midnight, someone stopped outside my cell. I was still wearing my habit, and the candle was still burning on the altar.

We’d been kissing in secret for four years like two hidden lovers. When our aunt and uncle closed the door on the way to the airport, I knew there would be no turning back that night.

When I crossed the bridge and saw the woman in the black coat waiting for me, I knew nothing I wrote in my piece could tell the truth of that week.

I thought it was the wine, those shy touches on the dance floor. But when I walked her to the hotel room, she held the card without sliding it in and whispered: “Stay a while.”

I found her crying on the sofa, her blue robe barely tied. When I told her she was beautiful, I already knew that night I wouldn’t be just her son anymore.

When he opened his eyes, she was still asleep beside him, naked. Bruno knew in that instant the night wasn’t over—not really—and that they only had a few hours left.

That morning I thought I was alone in the house. I walked naked down the hallway and, as I turned the corner, there she was, with a look that wasn’t a mother’s.

I hadn’t seen her in years. When she got off the bus, she was no longer the girl I remembered, and that night we ended up sharing much more than a sheet.