Seduction

I’d been at the company barely a month when my director put her hand on my thigh and ordered me upstairs for a drink. I wasn’t about to disobey her.

From the darkness I watched them through the fence of plants. He was small and quiet, but what he was hiding under his pants took my breath away that night.

She gave me a hundred euros in tip for a three-kilometer ride. It took me two days to understand the money was only the beginning of what she wanted.

I lowered my eyes every time she walked into the shop, pretending to count screws. What I never knew was that she was studying me too.

I recognized her at the bar by the way she moved. She was my ex-player’s girl, the one who used to cheer behind the bench, and that night no one was holding her back anymore.

Three nights of messages with a stranger, and when he asked if I was alone, I decided to tell him the truth about myself just before giving him my address.

I opened the door wearing only a button-front dress and nothing underneath. If he understood the invitation, great; if not, I’d know how to make it clear.

I promised him this time would be different. I kept it up for exactly three weeks, until the bar bouncer arrived an hour early.

For months we kept crossing paths in the water without saying a word. That Sunday, when his hands brushed my waist on the ladder, I stopped pretending I didn’t want him.

When I knelt in front of him while he was driving, I knew those last miles of road would stay with me far longer than I admitted.

For weeks I kept him at bay with a smile and an “not yet.” That night, when his hand found mine, I knew I didn’t want to keep waiting.

I put on the red heels, the baby doll, and the wig, placed a random order, and waited for a stranger to knock on my door in the rain.

I found a glass of wine, a black blindfold, and a heated text on the screen. I read it slowly and understood that that night my husband had decided to fulfill his greatest desire.

He ordered me into the confessional in my finest lingerie and told me to whisper my sins to the priest. What I didn’t expect was for him to decide I needed penance.

I wore a white dress for a night with my boyfriend that never came. At 3 a.m., the only one who answered my call was my tenant.

I’d been watching her train for months without daring to do anything. That night she invited me to her house and I discovered the shy woman from the gym was hiding someone very different.

He was pretending to wait for someone at the entrance when the three women came over laughing. One asked if I was free that night. I had no idea how far it was going to go.

For months I watched her through the peephole at 7:15 sharp. What I didn’t know was that she counted my steps behind hers every time she went downstairs.

The first morning I found her in the kitchen almost naked, moving as if I didn’t exist. That’s when I understood her husband’s game had only just begun.

She was forty-two, newly buried in a marriage, and desperate to feel desired again. That night, at the bar, someone was watching her.