Strangers

I found a glass of wine, a black blindfold, and a heated text on the screen. I read it slowly and understood that that night my husband had decided to fulfill his greatest desire.

He was pretending to wait for someone at the entrance when the three women came over laughing. One asked if I was free that night. I had no idea how far it was going to go.

My husband looked at me and encouraged me to leave with that stranger. What neither of us knew was that he had no intention of leaving us in peace.

Uploading the video was only the beginning. That Saturday dawn I understood that watching was no longer enough: I wanted a stranger to touch me for real.

I paid the entry fee, picked the stall at the back, and thought it would take a minute. Then I heard that deep voice ask if anyone was on the other side of the wall.

I told him everything would be upfront. He smiled, transferred half, and met me in an apartment where no one would ask questions. I went up ready to collect every minute.

We had climbed over the fence of an empty estate. He set the pace with his hand on my neck, and I let myself go without thinking of anything else.

It was six in the morning, I was still in my wedding dress, and my husband was snoring unconscious upstairs. The waiter hadn’t left yet, and I was no longer thinking about sleep.

At forty-nine, I thought I’d seen it all—until that soaked stranger took off his shirt in my yard and I knew the afternoon wouldn’t end with gardening.

I’d spent years making sure no one looked at her too long. That afternoon, hidden among the tall weeds, I couldn’t stop looking myself.

I never thought being watched by complete strangers would turn me on so much. That night, behind glass, I discovered what I really liked.

He was twenty-seven, had a girlfriend, and a tidy life. Then that neighbor looked at him on the bus as if he knew something Tobías had not yet dared to name.

He asked me to hold some tools while squatting down. I knew perfectly well what he was doing, and still I didn’t get up.

I cut the engine in the darkest corner of the service area, touched up my lips in the rearview mirror, and knew I wouldn’t be leaving alone that night.

We thought we were sneaking around in the sand, until a stranger came over and confessed he’d been watching us for hours. And he had a proposition.

She caught me looking at her while she leafed through a Cortázar. She held my gaze for three seconds, smiled crookedly, and I knew that afternoon in the bookstore wasn’t ending among books.

When the four guys came into the apartment at five in the morning, I knew I was about to live through something I’ve never told anyone.

I didn’t care that he was thirty years older. With the road swaying beneath us, his hand found my hip in the darkness and I stopped pretending I didn’t like it.

I was late to dinner, but not because of traffic. It was because of the detour we took to that vacant lot fifty meters from the restaurant.

I put on the smallest bikini I had and went down to the garden just to see his face. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I wasn’t going to stop.