Seduction

She’d go up to her room, open the closet, and change knowing we were watching from the street. I was the youngest in the group, but I was the first to go through her door.

I’d sworn her virginity was nonnegotiable. That morning, in the apartment a friend lent me, she showed me just how far she was willing to go.

I was sixty and my marriage was asleep when I noticed the boy next door spying on me through the hedges. I didn’t cover up. I played along.

I had seen him only once and couldn’t forget his body. When I learned he was looking for me too, I waited for my mother to go to work and let him in.

I thought the picnic area would be empty in that rain. Then she appeared, asked for a light, and two hours later let her dress slide to the floor.

I knew he’d wanted me for months, and I wasn’t going to stop until I had him in my bed. What I didn’t count on was who would catch us afterward.

I thought I was alone among the hanging laundry—until a voice asked if I liked her panties, and there was no turning back.

I only meant to be nice and carry her grocery bags up to her apartment. She offered me a soda, changed clothes, and left her bedroom door ajar.

I kept it for more than a decade. It all started because of a pair of white stockings and ended in a car at two in the morning with the last person I should have gotten involved with.

It began with a twisted ankle on the court and ended many weeks later, one night when her house was empty and there was no longer any reason to hold back.

I wanted to surprise him in the shower, like every afternoon. I slipped naked behind that broad back and, when it started to turn, I realized it wasn’t my boyfriend.

I went looking for Bryan, but it was Andrés who stopped me in the street, grabbed me without shame, and set a date for the next day. I already knew what would happen and did nothing to stop it.

I was furious, trembling, with an almost empty bottle beside me. I dialed his number at three in the morning just to hear him breathe on the other end.

I’d gotten used to being looked at, but that afternoon, alone at the waterfall, I decided that this time I wouldn’t cover up when I found him hidden among the trees.

I’d watched her for years in ways I shouldn’t have. That night, after catching her with another man, she got into my car not knowing I had secrets of my own.

We had arranged to exchange some photos. What neither of us said aloud was that this reunion had been waiting for months to happen.

I’d spent months imagining it and couldn’t bring myself to admit it. That afternoon, an ordinary conversation was enough to send everything out of control.

She was fifteen years older than me, drove a red convertible, and knew exactly what she wanted that night. All I had to do was obey and enjoy it.

Every time she touched herself, liquid stars and new flowers burst from her body. That night the eons had been fulfilled and she was about to burn like never before.

I came to Buenos Aires to save up a little money for my family. I never imagined the nicest house in the neighborhood would change my life the way it did.