Seduction

When she opened the door in a rush, with smeared mascara and a wrinkled dress, I knew something had happened that would change everything between us.

When I looked up and saw her sweeping the living room, I knew my cousin was the only one who could save me. I never imagined how far we’d go that afternoon.

I shaved myself smooth, pulled on the tight black thong, and painted my lips red. An hour before he arrived, I was already trembling without having seen him yet.

I never thought a late-night talk with my grandmother, half-finished drinks, and the TV on in the background would uncover what happened every Saturday in the other house in town.

At the first traffic light, she hiked up her dress and I understood that this car ride wasn’t about shopping. My mother had other plans for us both.

Thirty-two degrees, the child asleep, and only one deck between them. When she asked what he wanted to bet, he answered with the one thing he’d spent the whole week not daring to say.

He crossed the city with nothing but his desire. When the door opened, he knew that man wasn’t going to ask permission for anything that happened.

Baltasar smelled the tension the second the boy asked for a lift. He wasn’t after small talk: he wanted the same thing Baltasar did, and they both knew it without saying a word.

At eighteen, I had never been with a woman. The last thing I expected was for my first time to come with the housekeeper who walked into my room to clean.

The salsa was playing louder than usual. I pressed myself against the wall, searched for the gap in the curtains, and what I saw on the other side erased forever the idea I had of my family.

She’d been alone in that lost village for almost a year. Then two younger friends invited her over for wine, pizza, and confessions that changed everything.

I opened my eyes in the dark living room and there she was in the doorway, biting her lip, looking at exactly what I couldn’t hide.

I’d spent forty years dreaming of a free, empty morning. What I hadn’t planned on was starting that Monday by seeing my neighbor naked and feeling my breath catch.

I saw him again in the wine aisle and my stomach flipped. Thirty years without hearing from him, and suddenly an invitation to the bar changed everything.

When she opened the door in that short robe with the sheer nightdress underneath, I knew the afternoon wasn’t going to be just about installing a TV.

We were alone in the office at seven. By ten Camila was leaning against a shelf in the archive and I couldn’t think about the client anymore.

Her hand slid up my thigh while I was driving. “They say people in those areas don’t stop to stretch their legs,” she whispered. And I knew this time she meant it.

Iván rented the beach house to surprise Marina. What he didn’t tell her is that that night his best-kept secret would sit on the sofa between them.

When he told me there was no rush, I knew that night was going to change everything. Mauricio looked at me like a lion looks at a gazelle that has already stopped running.

We arrived at the motel as always, but this time there was something different in her eyes and a hidden promise I never imagined she was ready to fulfill that afternoon.