Strangers

Every insult that masked stranger shouted was aimed at one person only: the man sleeping beside me, who believed I was his.

She had been burning for months and her husband never got home in time. That afternoon, seven months pregnant, she got off the subway at the wrong stop... or the right one.

I was faithful to my husband until that man raised his glass to me and, without touching me yet, told me in my ear everything he planned to do to me that afternoon.

I accepted the massage out of curiosity and because of the heat of his hands. What I didn’t imagine was how much I’d be willing to pay before his alarm went off.

I’d never cheated on my husband in eighteen years. One screen, one bold stranger, and one empty afternoon were enough to make all of that stop mattering.

When I left them alone in the hotel bar, I only wanted to give them some privacy. I never imagined she’d go upstairs with another man and I’d be left waiting downstairs.

I went back to the room quietly so I wouldn’t wake him, and found him with my underwear between his fingers and the sheet pitched up like a tent.

I opened the door expecting the smell of damp and abandonment. The house smelled of freshly brewed coffee and of a man. And there he was, pouring himself a cup as if he owned the place.

I’d spent years giving massages to strangers, but none had ever made me tremble like that on the table, waiting for him to beg first.

I walked into the room dressed as a mime, wearing a trench coat over my lingerie and knowing I was about to do something I’d never regret.

They arrived at the ranch looking for a mattress to spend the night. What they didn’t expect was the story the two brothers had kept for years, or how eagerly they’d tell it.

Around the bend didn’t come a modern tow truck, but a rusted old rig and a huge man who smelled of the fields. And I knew, before he even opened his mouth, how he was going to collect from us.

What started as a paid massage in a small-town hotel turned into something my friend and I swore we’d never tell a soul.

I put on the shortest skirt I had, and when that college guy rested his hand on my thigh, I knew the trip was going to be a lot longer than the ticket said.

A guy rummaging through a dumpster whistled at me in the street, and when he told me why, I wanted to disappear. What I never imagined was how I’d end up thanking him.

He had never seen a naked woman until that afternoon by the waterfall. What he didn’t know was that desire would end up shipping him to the end of the world.

I met him among paintings that seemed to whisper, and two hours later I was against the door of his apartment, wondering how I’d come so far without saying a word.

I looked toward the window opposite and understood that night, among parked trucks, nobody was going to draw the curtains.

I arrived alone at a freshly moved-into floor, wearing tight leggings and a thin sweater. The mover looked at me differently when he closed the door, and I knew I wouldn’t be leaving unsatisfied.

She boarded the carriage after midnight, sat opposite me, and began telling me things no one should confess to a stranger in the dark.