Seduction

When I opened the door at ten in the morning, I had no idea a favor with an iPhone would end with him moaning on his back in my bed.

I left the bathroom door half open on purpose and knew, from the mirror’s reflection, that he was watching me. That day I accepted the five hundred soles and everything that followed.

I told myself it was just curiosity. I uploaded four photos, used my fake name, and waited to see if anyone still looked at me. That same week, Matías appeared.

I went upstairs thinking I knew the fifteen-year-old girl who no longer existed. The box under her bed made it clear: my daughter was someone else—and so was I.

When he saw the door ajar and recognized his sister inside, against the wall, the last thing he expected was to stand there watching, unable to move.

Her white T-shirt soaked with sweat, her nipples pressing through the fabric, and the question thrown between two glasses of wine: is what they say about you and Lucía true?

I came out of the bathroom with my mouth smeared and a new pulse between my legs. She, with my red lipstick on her lips, didn’t know her boyfriend was already watching.

He was forty, with rough hands and a mustache I’d never liked. Until I found him lying in the bed in my son’s empty room.

Years had passed since I last saw her. When she sat down across from me at that bar and rested her hand on my thigh, I knew that night would not end the way my cousin imagined.

She was 20 and had never had a real orgasm. That sticky January night, with half a bottle of rosé, my French cousin decided it was time.

When she stepped out of the car and every man in the ballroom turned his head, I understood that night my wife wasn’t mine: she belonged to whoever dared look at her.

When the hallway lights went out, the moans started on the other side of the wall, and I knew I’d never forget that week at my aunt’s house.

When her fingers brushed mine across the table, I knew that night I was going to recover something my girlfriend had been making me forget little by little.

When the referee blew the final whistle, I knew there was no turning back: I’d have to pay up on the bet in front of my friend, right at the bar.

I climbed onto the chair in front of the mirror, legs in the air for the photos my girlfriend asked for. I didn’t expect him to walk in, or what came after.

The doorbell rang after midnight and I opened it expecting pizza. It was a stranger with a bottle in his hand and the truth about my wife on his lips.

I was her assistant. We worked twelve hours a day. That night, barefoot on her sofa, she looked at me like never before, and I knew something had changed forever.

I told the guys at the bar I liked men and, without meaning to, opened a door I couldn’t close. That same night, someone followed me into the bathroom.

When I opened the door to the empty apartment, I wasn’t expecting to see him there with that smile. The client was running late, and the clock was silently marking our only chance.

We’d sworn the playroom would be oral sex only. We hadn’t counted on the man next to us watching—or on his wife’s hands on my back.