Strangers

She burst out laughing, lowered her voice, and looked at me with that satisfied whore’s smile I already knew. I knew she was going to tell me everything she’d kept hidden.

You’ve been swallowing midnight sighs for years. That night someone was watching you from the doorway, and your body knew before you did.

I arrived at the hotel convinced it would be just photos. When the door opened and his older brother appeared, I knew there’d be no turning back that night.

At eleven-thirty I went down to the laundry room with an excuse. She was turned away, and didn’t turn when she heard me come in. That changed everything.

Kwame parked the rig at noon and, before pulling out the next day, had marked three different bodies. Some sought him out; others simply gave in.

When they stopped us in the dark, all I could think about was getting away. I never imagined that hours later I’d be hoping it wouldn’t end.

Martín listened in silence while I told him what had happened with my mother’s husband. That night I didn’t sleep, thinking about doing it.

I had access to every screen in the place and never should have looked. But when I saw what they did with my photos, something in me lit up.

I hadn’t planned it. But when he walked in with the others and locked eyes with me, I already knew that night would end only one way.

I went into the game to make friends. I stayed because there were men there who wanted the same thing I did: something real, nameless, and without a future.

Carmen was sleeping naked in the sun while I made the worst and best decision of my life. When she woke and saw the state she was in, she didn’t react as I expected.

When I passed by the bus stop, Don Rodrigo saw me from the bus. What started as a birthday beer ended in a way I never expected.

Rodrigo told me there would be six. I stood up and left. Nine days later I called him back to say I’d thought about it and yes.

I kept his texts in a private folder, rereading them at night with the lights off. I’d been doing it for months before I dared to write him.

The door opened in the middle of the storm and the woman looked us over before making her offer. It was direct: five hundred for everything, paid in advance.

I’d gone months without anyone touching me. That night I started the car with no destination, but my body already knew exactly where it was going.

I’d been watching him in the locker room for months without daring to act. That afternoon, when he asked if I wanted to go up to his place, I knew it was now or never.

I’d been ignoring his looks for weeks. That night at the hotel, after the pool and dancing with strangers, I couldn’t keep doing it.

There were nights when I didn’t look at the face of whoever came in. I counted the money and waited for it to be over. But once, everything was completely different.