Seduction

Camila closed the blind without taking her eyes off me, and when I got into bed, I could think of nothing else but what she had said about my mother.

The theater was almost empty and the movie was just an excuse: what mattered to me was her hand moving up my thigh in the darkness of the back row.

For weeks I’d been wearing lingerie under my clothes, but that night, alone at home, I decided to become the woman he wanted to see.

The bathroom mirror faced the bunks. That night, I discovered why my roommate had moved it without telling me.

That Friday we were the last ones at the pool. When I got out of the water, his eyes dropped to my swimsuit and I knew the student would be someone else tonight.

I dialed the number with a trembling hand. A South American voice told me to go up to the third floor, that it wouldn’t hurt, that tonight I’d learn to ask for more.

That morning she thought she was alone. I shut my office door, asked not to be disturbed, and opened the app just as she walked into the bedroom.

I started with mirrors on the floor and ended up discovering my neighbor naked from my terrace. Every fleeting glimpse became a drug.

Three mornings a week she cleaned the corridor right on the other side of my desk. And three mornings a week I learned not to look away from the glass.

I hadn’t written to him in a year. That afternoon I opened the email, typed his name, and before I thought it through, I was already telling him exactly what I wanted him to do to me.

When she shut the door, she told me I wasn’t enough of a man. I never imagined that same night I’d stop being one forever—and that it would be the best thing that ever happened to me.

When Sofía opened that closet box, I knew the night wouldn’t end like the others. And yet I didn’t move.

She had red hair, painted lips, and a body that stopped traffic. What I didn’t imagine was what I’d find when I slipped my hand under her dress.

She had never been with someone fifteen years older. That night, in the hotel room, she discovered that intelligence can be seductive too.

When the scarf covered my eyes I thought it was an innocent game. It wasn’t. Mariela had other plans, and I didn’t want her to stop.

I warned her that if I didn’t like it, I’d drop her at the next corner. She smiled, reclined my seat, and asked me to close my eyes for a second.

When she sat on my couch with smeared mascara and a trembling voice, I knew a whiskey and a few comforting words wouldn’t be enough.

When I bent down to put the box away in the storeroom, Adela turned slowly and let me see the white lace under her blouse. That night I knew the route had changed forever.

My roommate was asleep when he knocked with a bouquet of freesias. I opened the door in a sweater and barefoot. That night I promised never to let another man into my bed.

He left the door open for me. All I had to do was arrive, dress up as Valeria, and forget forever the boy I no longer wanted to be.