Seduction

I didn’t realize what kind of neighborhood I’d wandered into until Valeria stopped in front of the hostel. Then I understood everything—and went in anyway.

When the weight of his body sank the mattress behind my back, I knew it wasn’t my boyfriend. And I knew I wasn’t going to do anything to stop him.

I had been watching her in silence for years, telling myself it was only an obsession that would pass. That morning, with what I had recorded in my hand, I knew everything was about to change.

Daniela was twenty, lived on the fourth floor, and had never been with a woman. That day, all of that changed at once.

We’d spent months talking about that fantasy: being watched. That night at the motel, we turned it into a game with rules and no turning back.

My son organized the evening without telling me his plans. I understood when he took his guest to the bedroom and left me alone on the sofa with his friend.

When I finally said it out loud, his gaze changed. He wasn’t just my friend anymore. He was something else, and I had wanted that from the very beginning.

Three months without seeing each other, and the moment she stepped off the plane I knew something was going to happen. What I didn’t count on was witnesses on the beach that night.

They had been friends for years. All coupled, all jealous, convinced it was just another dinner. Then Daniela brought out the cards.

Roberto had been on forced sexual dry spell for months. That night in Seville, Valeria promised to change the rules. No one expected what Natalia would do.

Someone was touching me in the dark, with a slowness that had nothing urgent about it. I opened my eyes and Valeria’s voice said: “Are you enjoying that, baby?”

When she came over to me at the bar, I knew that woman was going to do whatever she wanted with me. And I wanted exactly that.

We’d been living with that fantasy for months. When the candidate never showed, I decided to be the stranger myself. I walked into the café and approached my wife as if I didn’t know her at all.

When Rafael ordered me to take off my blouse, the other two men in the room didn’t move. No one protested. No one looked away. That was what he wanted me to understand.

I’d been left three weeks earlier. That night I walked into the bar wanting nothing and left knowing I knew nothing about pleasure.

I recognized the surname as soon as she said it. Two years earlier I’d been with her aunt, and now she was looking at me with those same dark eyes and that small mouth.

She was my best friend’s girlfriend, and she knew exactly what effect she had on me. Every skirt, every neckline was a message meant only for me.

The first time I put on someone else’s heels, I knew the image in the mirror was the most honest version of myself. It took me years to accept it.

We had planned Saturday, but she called on Friday: come tonight, I’m anxious. When she opened the door, I could no longer pretend this wasn’t serious.