Seduction

I was kneeling on the passenger seat when he whispered his girlfriend’s name. I looked up through the tint: she was walking toward the car.

The call came on a Saturday at dusk. Her parents were away, and her voice on the phone trembled a little. I knew then the night wasn’t going to end early.

No one knew my truth. I went to the matches just to watch his legs, until that afternoon he looked up and held my gaze as if he knew everything.

Marisol was sitting on the edge of the bed with the baby at her breast, completely naked, when I pushed the door open. Milk was dripping from her and she didn’t ask me to leave.

We followed the moans down to the kitchen and found them. That night, I learned by watching what I would dare to try the next day.

They arrived at midnight in short dresses, fishnet stockings, and a perfume that hit me like a punch. In three weeks, my house turned into something else.

When I sat beside her in that workshop, I never imagined that quiet, sad woman would end up whispering, naked in her bed, that she had never felt anything like it.

I went out to get some air while he slept. The lights in the apartment across the way were still on, and then I heard a moan that wasn’t mine and knew I was going to keep watching.

By day I signed as Tomás and no one suspected a thing. That folder accidentally opened on my boss’s tablet was going to shatter eighteen months of silence in one blow.

The first time I aimed my sons’ old telescope toward the window across the street, I knew I had become something my husband would never imagine.

Mariana asked me whether I’d ever been curious about kissing another woman. I answered with an impulse that changed what we were forever.

When she asked what it felt like to be with another woman, I told her she’d have to try it herself. I didn’t expect her to stand up and straddle me.

I pressed send and left my phone facedown. I wasn’t expecting a reply that night. When he answered, I knew there was no turning back.

I crossed the street convinced she wouldn’t recognize me. She smiled at me, and I knew that afternoon something was going to change forever between us.

When I walked into the bathroom and found the flowers and that card, I knew that summer would mark me forever, even though I still had no idea how it would end.

When we turned off the lights and climbed under the same blanket, I never imagined that silly question about kisses would end with her fingers seeking mine in the dark.

In primary school she loved me more than I could return. Twenty years later, her voice on the phone was the same, and my hands trembled.

It was the first time I saw her in person. I meant to tell her about the pool and the lifeguard, but her hand on my thigh changed the conversation before I finished the sentence.

“Don’t rush,” she murmured against the wall. “I want to feel everything you do, slowly, until the whole night feels too short.”

There are things I never said out loud. This is one of them: what my cousin planned with me that January, before I realized it was too late.