Seduction

As soon as I heard her keys fighting the lock, I knew I’d have to play it cool. What I didn’t know was that she’d come home determined not to let me off the hook.

That kiss on the cheek turned toward my mouth, and though I didn’t open my lips, I felt his tongue. That was when I knew stopping my own son would cost me more than I admitted.

She stood in front of her bedroom door, holding her breath. One step more and reason would have burned away between us.

I went downstairs for a glass of water at three in the morning. What I found there, with the house silent, should never have happened.

I’d spent two months pretending to go to the office while really wandering aimlessly around Barcelona. That night I dialed the only number that could save me.

She agreed to share her bed only so she wouldn’t lose me. She had no idea how far I was willing to go so I wouldn’t lose her.

He watched me from the armchair while I knelt in front of the stranger I’d picked at the bar. It was my first night being a whore.

I left my father’s villa for my grandparents’ house in the village. I had no idea my aunt, the most devout woman in town, would end up naked in my bed for an envelope full of bills.

Her mother called me a dreamer, her father humiliated me by the car. When it was over, Helena came down the stairs, took my hand, and led me to her room.

I had tried it before and only felt pain. That night, in a hotel room with a stranger, I discovered how wrong I was.

When I held her fever-hot against my chest, I remembered the nights her mouth knew mine as if she’d been learning me for years.

I liked feeling watched, desired, chosen above all the others. That night a man from the countryside pulled me off the dance floor and took me somewhere with no turning back.

He had never seen a man like Lamine, and from the very first day he knew he would do anything to get back inside his house.

I lay naked on the table on purpose, not covering myself, just to see what he’d do when he came in with the hot oil.

The shutter was half lowered and the key turned twice behind me. I came without my ring and with twelve years of silence on my tongue.

I followed her out into the street convinced it would be just another night. I had no idea what she was hiding under that tight dress or how far she would take me.

Twenty years married, and each hid a secret of their own: him in strangers’ bathrooms, me not yet knowing what the yoga woman was about to awaken in me.

I only wanted sun and silence. I wasn’t looking for anyone, least of all a man who waited for me on the shore just to tell me he wasn’t letting me go.

When I followed the sound of her music to the old closet in my office, I didn’t expect to find slits that opened right onto the changing room where she undressed.

I went up for air because I couldn’t stand the heat. I heard his footsteps on the stairs and knew, before I even turned around, that I wouldn’t sleep that night.