Seduction

I arrived with my recorder and my questions ready. She welcomed me with a cup of coffee and a smile that was not exactly professional.

The door opened and Nadia looked me up and down with a slow smile. Behind her, Raquel folded her arms. “Speak,” she said. “What do you want?”

She was 67 and had the smile of someone who’d seen it all. When I got her into bed that New Year’s Eve, I never guessed I’d end up watching her for hours.

Four weeks watching her move between the tables, wanting what I didn’t dare name. After that, nothing was ever the same.

While the others kept drinking, I already had Andrés cornered in the alley. I'd spent hours unable to take my eyes off him.

Natalia only wanted to get waxed before going to the beach. She didn’t expect the hotel beautician to be so striking, or what she’d find under her robe.

When she turned off the hallway lights and closed the door, I understood we weren’t going to talk about my record. Something had changed in the office.

We’d been married for twenty years, and then she started going to the gym, changing her clothes, checking her phone in the bathroom. Something was off. I decided to find out.

I’d wanted her since I was twenty. Five years, a marriage, and a child later, Elena showed up at my door.

I dressed to impress no one, or so I thought. Two guards stopped me with a smile that said they knew exactly who I was.

I had been preparing that day for months: the wig, the dress, the lubricant. I thought I was alone at the abandoned lookout. The guard disagreed.

They tried to pry a secret out of me. What I didn’t know was that they were hiding something much bigger—and that afternoon would change our family forever.

I knew exactly what was going to happen when I walked into that room with him. I knew it and still closed the door. My husband was far away and I had too much tequila in my veins.

We were sworn enemies since we were five. No one would ever guess that the girl who made my nose bleed would also be my first woman.

When I reviewed the footage from the cameras she didn’t know existed, I saw my wife with him. In our bed. And instead of getting furious, I felt something dark I hadn’t expected.

Adrián offered to drive me home with my guitar. I should have said no. But there was something in the way he looked at me that wouldn’t let me answer.

The August heat crushed the block’s courtyard and Adrián couldn’t tear his eyes from the window across the way. Mrs. Valverde didn’t know she was being watched.

When I lock the door, I open the drawer, take out the perfume he chose for me, and become who I really am. Only he knows.

To the world we were two friends at the bar. Only I knew I had a black thong under my joggers, and that he knew it too.