Strangers

We arrived not knowing what awaited us. We left changed. An estate, seven men, and a stranger who decided I would be his that night.

I stood in the doorway with my wine in hand and looked at him from far away. He looked up. I smiled. No more words were needed.

We’d been talking online for months before we met in person. When I saw him at the theater entrance, I knew that night wasn’t going to end the way I’d planned.

Every time she squeezed my hand, I understood it: she was crossing and uncrossing her legs so he could see everything.

I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps with strangers in a club bathroom. Or I wasn’t. That night in Barcelona, a short skirt and a mistake changed everything.

I crossed the threshold of the palace with the gold mask and my heart racing. That night, several masked hands waited for me while he watched from the shadows.

We had been talking for three weeks without meeting. When I finally crossed the door to his apartment that night, I knew I wouldn’t come out the same.

When I crossed the bridge and saw the woman in the black coat waiting for me, I knew nothing I wrote in my piece could tell the truth of that week.

I only wanted something temporary while I finished high school. I never expected those late-night voices in a virtual world to teach me so much about desire.

I looked down when I saw my skirt was shorter than was prudent. I crossed my legs on the stool and, before the cocktail even arrived, I could feel two pairs of eyes fixed on my cleavage.

I’d promised her a different anniversary gift. What she never imagined was that my surprise was waiting for her on the other side of a hole in the wall.

Marina was already soaked when she demanded the second round: both of them at once, no barriers, with the action movie still blaring in the background.

When Marcos closed the apartment door and asked whether they were going to sleep with their “new partner,” the four of them fell silent and said everything.

He’d had four days of bad luck until he walked into a seaside bar and saw her sitting alone, with curves that said more than she did.

She wore fishnet stockings and a black skirt. I stood two meters away playing the stranger while he devoured her with his eyes from the floor.

When Marcos told me he wanted to share me with another man, I didn’t reject him. I felt curiosity, nerves, and something I had never felt before: real desire.

I went to the gym without underwear on purpose, so everything would show. After weeks of stares, he finally came over with a proposition that left no room for doubt.

When Elena opened the door, drenched and out of options, her look said it all before she even offered the night in words. Mother and daughter, fixed price.

I arrived at the hotel alone and told myself that week would be different. I had no idea the woman at the bar would teach me things I'd never felt before.

When I saw the Brazilian crossing the dance floor toward us, I knew my flatmate was no longer the shy girl who’d moved to Madrid a month earlier.