Seduction

I hated him for the way he stalked me, but that morning under the fridge light I discovered his gaze made me tremble for reasons I refused to admit.

We had been whispering about it for days, but neither of us imagined how far we would go that night.

She went up on the stage fully dressed while the others were already nearly naked, and I knew that night she was going to lose all her shame in front of everyone.

I hadn’t set foot in a club in years, but that night my son’s friend looked at me in a way no man had in a long time.

When the lights went out and we were left suspended at the very top, my cousin stopped pretending to be innocent and told me exactly what she wanted to do to me.

The bus’s swaying pressed us together so tightly that her hand ended up exactly where it shouldn’t have, and neither of us did anything to stop it.

That night, while everyone was asleep, my aunt left her glass on the sand, slipped off her sandals, and told me the water was better with nothing on.

It was enough to close the door, put on the lace, and switch on the light to stop being Damián. What he didn’t know was who was watching him from the other side.

I only meant to connect the cameras to my phone. Instead I found, recorded and dated, what my mother did every time my father left for work.

I changed clothes, put on coconut-scented perfume, and went back to the bar with one plan in my head: to find out whether that smile was for real.

I only wanted to sweet-talk him into raising my grade, playing the pickpocket who distracts to steal. I never imagined how far my own bluff would take me.

He thought the locker room was empty when he stepped into the shower. He didn’t count on two strangers watching him, or on how much that look would stir him.

He asked me to go upstairs and get myself ready just for him. That night, at last, I was going to earn the other girls’ respect.

I sat in the passenger seat just out of curiosity, but that night I learned some decisions are made without thinking too much.

When I realized I didn’t have my wallet or my phone, the taxi was already too far. And the driver started looking at me differently through the mirror.

I chose the emptiest screening to be alone with my exhaustion, until she crossed the theater and sat two seats to my right with a smile that promised trouble.

He opened the door in jeans only and I knew we weren’t going to watch any movie. I looked him up and down and my mouth watered.

I was forty-one and had spent months pretending nothing was happening whenever he looked at me. That night, I stopped pretending.

He stopped the car outside her building with trembling hands. She was waiting behind the window, and they both knew that glass of wine was only the beginning.

By day he was the perfect atelier assistant; by night he tried on lace before the mirror. One photo was enough for someone to discover who he really was.