Strangers

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said as he moved toward the examining horse. I had come to have the carrot removed, not to orgasm in front of a stranger in a lab coat.

I know I shouldn’t, but whenever I walk home alone after dark, I look for him: the stranger who will pin me against the wall without asking permission.

She crossed half the kingdom for a legendary relic; what she didn’t expect was to kneel before those guarding it, or to desire it with every fiber of her body.

“I live inside the lake,” she told him without blinking. Damián took her for an eccentric and followed her anyway. What he found at the bottom was no heaven.

That night I went down for a glass of water and he was awake on the sofa. What happened after that in my bed, with my stepfather breathing on the other side of the door, still burns me.

I followed a trail of blood to a clearing where something waited for me, hanging between the trees. I never imagined the forest creature would choose me as its prey.

Clinging to the handrail in the car, all I could do was glance at him and imagine everything that would never happen between us.

When I got the final dare of the night, I knew I could say no. What no one expected was for me to say yes with that smile on my lips.

For months, I’ve repeated the same scene in my head on the ride home. Today, when the seat beside me was taken, I almost stopped breathing.

I rode out on my bike without underwear, my phone buzzing with messages I should never have opened. The road was empty, but I felt watched by everyone.

I closed my eyes for a second and, when I opened them, a huge shadow was blocking the sun. What happened next only existed in my imagination… until that afternoon.

You looked both ways, certain you were alone, when you hiked up your dress in the middle of the garage. You didn’t see that someone two spaces away had been watching you.

I sat between an older man and a guy who was to die for. Then the train braked hard, the lights went out, and a hand found mine.

The store was closed, and she had the whole morning free. The driver noticed before she did, and the smile in the mirror made her think things she shouldn’t.

I slipped barefoot to the chapel at midnight to ask forgiveness for my dreams. I never imagined something waited coiled in the shadows, ready to teach me what my body had kept silent.

I tripped over a root, and before I could get up, she was already on top of me. Her cold skin brushed mine, and I knew that night I wouldn’t leave the forest unchanged.

She wasn’t looking for love or company. She wanted to be watched, desired, imagined naked beneath her dress. That night she chose to be pure fire.

She came to the clearing seeking silence and found torches, naked bodies, and dozens of deer masks waiting for her as if they had always known she would return that night.

I had spent weeks imagining a night without names or promises. What I hadn’t imagined was him watching me from the bar as if he already knew everything.

I’m shy with almost everyone, except my husband. That’s why I was so surprised to want that stranger who sat down in front of me, as if she’d been waiting for months.