Strangers

Some ask for photos before hello. Others call me things they never got permission to say. Here are the gems from my inbox, with the names changed.

I was twenty and had a boyfriend waiting for me at home. That hot afternoon by the pool, I discovered how fiercely the body can burn when you let go.

Llevaba semanas con una sola idea fija en la cabeza, y aquel domingo en las gradas del campo de rugby encontré por fin la manera de cumplirla.

For weeks I had been masturbating every night, imagining what she was living in her own body. Until one Thursday I stood before the mirror and decided to stop imagining it.

That night we went down twenty-two steps into the basement where the sax was playing. What happened down there still hasn’t been told to anyone.

I went down those basement stairs with my heart in my throat, and before I even thought twice, I was already on my knees in the back booth.

I charged a lot and chose who I was with. That yacht invitation looked like any other, until the one man who didn’t touch me turned up on the beach.

I climbed those stairs with my heart racing, never imagining I’d leave the apartment transformed into someone else, with a woman’s name on my lips.

I locked the dressing room, opened the suitcase, and stopped being Tomás. That night at the club, I had no idea my own boss would push the door open.

Five of the boss’s friends, a rented house, and a poker game. Diego knew how I’d be dressed on every round; no one knew how the night would end.

I dialed the number he gave me on the road without knowing his name. In two hours he’d be at my door, and I’d already put on the blonde wig and my highest heels.

I confessed the fantasy at eleven thirty at night. By two in the morning, the date was locked in and I was more scared than she was.

When she opened the hidden folder on her phone and turned the screen toward me, I realized the shy girl had finally dared to tell it all.

We thought we were alone in the hidden cove, until I noticed those three wouldn’t take their eyes off us. And we didn’t mind looking back.

Tied under the lights with his gaze fixed on my back, I understood that tonight the real show was him: forced to watch everything he refused to give me.

She was cleaning the terrace in a thong and little else, not knowing two men were spying on her from across the building. And me, seeing her desired, drove me insane.

My owner planted the idea like a seed: money for my body and a stranger watching every detail. That Tuesday afternoon I went to fulfill it, not knowing how it would end.

We went to Formentera so people could watch her. I never imagined how far she’d be willing to go when that foreigner spread his towel just a few meters from us.

I went into the third fitting room, left the curtain exactly how I like it, and when I looked up I caught her looking inside. One of mine, I thought.

It was an April afternoon. I went out without a bra and in a tiny thong. I had no idea my husband would stop at the abandoned gas station and do that to me.