Seduction

He came home from work exhausted, and when he saw the two lines in my hand, he didn’t let me finish the sentence. His mouth was on mine before I could react.

I looked down when I saw my skirt was shorter than was prudent. I crossed my legs on the stool and, before the cocktail even arrived, I could feel two pairs of eyes fixed on my cleavage.

I’d promised her a different kind of anniversary gift. What she didn’t know was that my surprise was waiting on the other side of a hole in the wall.

The Saturday the house was empty, my mother-in-law came into the kitchen barefoot, wearing lingerie that wasn’t for her husband, and smiled like she already knew the ending.

When she opened the door and found us, I thought the family was over that afternoon. What I didn’t expect was to hear her confess, right in my ear, desires she’d kept hidden for years.

When I bent down to pick up the book, my stepsister pulled my shorts down. The three of them stared in silence, and I knew something could never go back to how it was.

I arrived at the crime scene and found her smoking, her eyes dry. Three months later, the widow opened the door to me in a black nightgown, with a bottle of lube on the nightstand.

The robe rode up when she bent for the spatula. It wasn’t an accident; it was an invitation I spent the whole morning accepting.

Marina was already dripping when she demanded the second round: both men at once, with no barriers, while the action movie still played in the background.

When she clung to me in the water and I felt her breathing change, I knew the summer we turned eighteen would be unlike any other.

Three weeks after discovering the hidden monitors in my father-in-law’s office, the screen flickered on by itself, just as he was already behind his daughter.

That night at the neighborhood fair I discovered something I shouldn’t have felt for my girlfriend’s younger sister, and the sight of her smile under the lights never let me sleep the same again.

When I pulled back the curtain to look in the mirror, she was there, leaning against the wall, looking at me like she already knew what would happen next.

Friday yoga started as a silent game of looks and ended with her body pressed against mine in my father’s game room.

We got home from the airport at eleven at night, with the house to ourselves and fifteen days ahead of us. Then she told me she hated sleeping alone.

I booked the same Airbnb where I first made love to my cousin. This time we weren’t alone: each of us brought our partner, and all four of us knew it.

I hugged him to comfort him and then felt his erection against my hip. In that instant I knew neither of us would ever be the same again.

The dress was French-blue voile, almost transparent. My father was in front of me. My husband to the left. And the French guest still didn’t understand what was going to happen that night.

Monday morning. Adrián’s suitcase disappeared through the door and, before the coffee was even done, we already knew that week was going to be different.

I went up to the hotel wearing a red lace set under the dress he still hadn’t seen. We’d been waiting seven months for that moment.