Seduction

My mother had sent me to ask her for a couple of eggs. Doña Marisol opened the door in a robe, her hair still wet, and looked at me in a way I would never forget.

I ripped the dress, tossed a shoe, and rubbed my thighs until they were red. When I called him crying from the phone booth, I knew he’d come without thinking.

When I saw her get off the bus with the pink backpack on her shoulder, I understood she had already decided everything, and I was only going to do my part.

I went out to smoke in the dark and saw him: crouched behind the palm tree, eyes fixed on the window where she was undressing, unaware she was being watched by two.

We’d been talking on WhatsApp for almost a year without ever meeting. That afternoon, in the hotel room, she sat down in front of me and started taking off her clothes.

I dressed to blow my boyfriend’s mind. The one who opened the door was his older brother, and his eyes ran over me before he even said hello.

When the first one came up to the car, my wife already had her skirt hiked up and her blouse open. What happened after that I saw everything from a sofa, glass in hand, holding my breath.

Lucía never told that part. That Thursday she dressed the only way she knew how and made sure that virgin nephew wouldn’t leave without leaving something inside her.

We happened to meet in the elevator by chance. She was carrying boxes and I had my hands free. I agreed to help her without knowing that storage room would close with both of us inside.

I got out of the taxi half a block from the hotel, as always. The receptionist no longer asked my name: she handed me the key to 304 without looking at me.

Our eyes met in the service-area café. I knew he’d follow me into the bathroom, and I knew I wasn’t coming out the same man who went in.

I was still dripping from the shower when she walked into the bathroom without knocking, wearing that crooked smile she’d been avoiding me with for weeks.

He’d wanted those lips in silence for years. That night, fighting over the console controller, his mouth fell on mine and everything shattered.

I opened the door convinced it was my husband. I was in my underwear, hair messy, and barefoot. When I saw who it was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to shut it in time.

That morning I decided to go out with nothing under my skirt. I didn’t want to be touched, only watched. And in the second-floor ice cream shop, someone noticed.

We were alone that March siesta, and she was still in her uniform. I don’t know how we went from tickling on the sofa to something else.

I saw the bus driver watching us in the rearview mirror and, instead of covering up, I let him pull down my top. At three in the morning, my ex and I were a free show.

I was the invisible director of a forbidden play: I watched my wife transform before the painter, knowing I was spying on her from behind the camera.

The beer had made us affectionate and the terrace seemed empty. Until I saw the flash of binoculars trained on us from the hill.

I came back from months in Patagonia and found her sitting in the kitchen at one in the morning, glass in hand, with that look that promised a fight.