Strangers

It was July and we were both sweating. I’d been doing this for only a short time and still had a lot to learn, but that night the woman watched me from the chair as if I were the main course.

She was the one who suggested it, in a whisper one random dawn: she wanted me to hold the camera while another man made her his. I said yes without knowing what I was becoming.

I got into the car expecting an afternoon with him, but there was someone else in the back seat, and I immediately knew where this was going.

When he whispered, “Go, press yourself against him,” I knew we wouldn’t be going home alone that night. And part of me had been wanting it for weeks.

My wife always fantasized about another man having her in front of me. That afternoon, at a lonely stop on the highway, a stranger asked for a light and everything stopped being a game.

The phrase we always whispered in bed was spoken in a low voice in front of a real man. And this time I wasn’t going to let it stay a fantasy.

When the shop shutter locked, I knew there was no turning back: the three of us were alone, and my husband was looking at me with that complicit smile.

Every time I got up for the lighter he caught me looking, and my boyfriend smiled like he already knew how that night was going to end.

Ramiro texted me that he’d decide in the moment whether he wanted the happy ending. Neither of us imagined how far we’d go that Thursday afternoon.

Three months alone with her daughter and a cold bed. When a message offered her a summer away from everything, she never imagined two men were waiting there.

I thought it was just a routine cleaning. But when he summoned me to his house that night, I discovered he had a surprise waiting on the sofa.

“If you stay, you stay to play,” he said, looking at my friend. I only wanted him for myself, but a dark part of me wanted to see how far she’d go.

I always fell in love; she only wanted to have fun. But that night, behind a door at the club, I discovered something in myself I’d never imagined.

I work alone on the night shift and nothing ever happens. Until a red sports car stopped at the pump and out stepped the longest legs I’d ever seen.

Five minutes trapped between a wall and a throne bearer who smelled of rosemary and wood. I didn’t know his name, but I knew I’d look for him again that night.

I went up to his landing in jeans that showed everything and my heart in my throat. No one answered. When I gave up, the elevator doors opened and there he was.

We agreed that whoever arrived first would wait in the car. I got there first. Fifteen minutes later, two taps on the window awakened every nerve I thought I had under control.

For years I’d convinced myself I knew what I wanted from a woman. That night, at the bar of a nearly empty place, a stranger showed me how wrong I was.

All he had to do was watch. No touching, no talking. But when she slid her panties to the floor of the carriage, he no longer knew where to look.

Behind each of the three holes there could have been anyone. I couldn’t see a thing. I only felt hands, mouths, and a familiar gaze watching me from the other side.