Strangers

He sat off to the side, looking at the water with resignation. He was shy, he was a virgin, and he was perfect for what my friend and I had been thinking about all afternoon.

The man put his hand on Lucía’s skirt and she didn’t move. I was crushed among bodies and what I felt was not what I expected from myself.

The warehouse manager never gave him more than half a smile. That night he found her alone at the bus stop, with no buses and no way out.

He ran a stone down my back, murmured something I couldn’t understand, and suddenly I wanted only one thing: for that man to take me. I don’t know if it was witchcraft. I know I didn’t resist.

I’d carried that nameless curiosity for years. When Diego appeared in the cove, alone and with time to spare, something changed before the day was over.

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.

When I asked her to open her legs a little and the guy in the back couldn’t stop staring, I knew that fantasy was only the beginning.

For months I’d been invisible to my husband. When the technician knocked on the door that afternoon, something in me decided I wasn’t letting the chance pass.

I asked her to wear the shortest skirt she owned and wait for the delivery driver. I hid behind the sofa. What happened went beyond anything we'd imagined.

I was wearing my boldest lingerie and hoping someone would notice me. When he appeared among the gardens and saw me cross my legs, I knew the week would be different.

I slipped into the hotel pool at night in lingerie and a snug toy, convinced I’d be alone. Someone was watching me from the dark bar.

I’d spent days with that fantasy spinning in my head. When Héctor showed up at the empty court, I knew the night would end differently.

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.

When I realized someone was watching me naked from the building across the way, I didn’t feel afraid. I felt a tingling I could no longer ignore.

She stepped out of the water thinking how good it felt to be alone and free. When she turned to the shore, her clothes, backpack, and boots were gone.

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.

For months I charged strangers, until a girl called to lose her virginity with me. That afternoon, I understood almost everything.

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.