Seduction

I was twenty-two and had a final project worth the entire course. What wasn’t in any plan was the offer that man made me on the way home.

For years I’d wanted to go to a nude beach, but none of my partners would come with me. That morning I went alone, not knowing how it would end.

I went down for coffee with the woman from the fifth floor and came back stunned: she told me, in vivid detail, what she did with the married man from the eighth floor.

She unhooked her bikini top with the natural ease of someone who has already decided everything. “You told me to feel free,” she said. And I could barely breathe.

When I locked the door, he turned around and reproached me for kissing another man. I couldn’t tell whether it was rage or desire burning in his eyes.

Every night she invented a new excuse on the phone while he waited for her in the room upstairs. She knew that sooner or later everything would explode.

Everyone hated her before she returned to the neighborhood. I only drew her tattoos from my side of the wall—until she decided to make me pay for being her muse.

I was curious and a little scared, but when I knelt in front of him I knew I wasn’t going to back out. That afternoon I learned something new about myself.

I’d been watching her at the traffic light for weeks, with those denim shorts and that tired smile. That afternoon I dared to speak to her, never imagining where we’d end up.

I left home in an ordinary dress, but underneath I was wearing something only he would see. I knew what he was going to ask for, and I had already decided to say yes.

I’d been sleeping among the stars for twenty years. The first woman who smiled at me on solid ground dragged me into a bathroom before I could say no.

The auditorium was almost empty when his hand settled on the armrest. I was forty-two and thought I knew everything about desire. That night I learned I didn’t.

When Marisa caught me breathing hard and staring at her legs, she didn’t get offended: she smiled, leaned close to my ear, and told me it wouldn’t end there.

Every morning she watched people from her café table, never imagining that a man in a suit was studying her back—or the silent arrangement he was about to offer.

I told her I couldn’t think of anything to write. She got off my lap, let her clothes fall to the floor, and ordered me with a smile: “Describe me.”

I promised Marcos I’d look after his mother while he was away. What I didn’t tell him was what happened the afternoon she offered to cook at my place.

I took a seat in the third row with a cold coffee and my skepticism folded inside my notebook. I didn’t know every word she said would rewrite who I was, down to the last button.

When he got out of the van with that smile, I knew the broken boiler would be the best excuse fate had given me in years.

At midnight I went to the bathroom and the half-open door revealed something I never imagined: my mother, whom I thought was asleep, wasn’t alone in the shower.

Under the torch I go over my sketches and feel my body burning for her. My contract is ending, and I already know one thing: I’m not leaving this jungle without Yuma by my side.