Strangers

I worked while the city slept locked away, and the only time that was mine was that empty train car. Until he stopped asking for the permit and started asking for something else.

I boarded the last car expecting a quiet trip. I never imagined the woman in the green dress would invite me to watch what her partner was about to do to her.

I told her she set the limit. What I didn’t expect was how much I would enjoy standing aside and watching others discover her.

Rubén was laughing at the blonde’s body on the screen, certain she wouldn’t last a minute. He had no idea he’d be the one ending up on the floor.

When Sofía whispered in my ear that we wouldn’t be alone that night, I felt a shiver I couldn’t tell was fear or desire. The stranger was already on his way up the stairs.

She was nearly twice my age and had a smile that promised trouble. She told me she’d see whether I was truly hungry or just bored, and I was already lost.

When I pulled her thong down to put cream on her, I noticed the couple next to us had stopped pretending. And then I understood that watching was part of the game too.

I’d dressed up a thousand times in front of my bedroom mirror, but that night, for the first time, it wasn’t just for me. Someone was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

I watched him train every morning and pretended not to look. Until one day I went over, and that decision led me to the most intense night of my life.

The passenger seat was uncomfortable for him, so I offered to share the bed. I had no idea what would happen when he thought I was already asleep.

I posted the ad expecting little, but the next morning there was one message unlike all the others: direct, no detours, with the voice of a man who knew what he wanted.

I thought arriving at the dead hour would protect me from their eyes. I didn’t count on them coming in to clean just as I got out of the shower.

She stood there among the trees, red with embarrassment, her hands clasped behind her back. “Just let me watch,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen a man do it.”

I couldn’t say whether I liked everything about that creature or nothing; I only know that, in the heat before the mirror, a new self began to emerge.

She was alone on the grass, in the shade, with legs that made me forget the book. I had no idea how far we’d go before we said goodbye.

I could have held it, but I didn’t want to. I got out, left the door ajar, and waited for the headlights to find me squatting by the road.

Adrián just wanted to get home after class. Two strangers in an alley decided that night would turn him into the neighborhood’s humiliated plaything.

She went up on the stage fully dressed while the others were already nearly naked, and I knew that night she was going to lose all her shame in front of everyone.

The bus’s swaying pressed us together so tightly that her hand ended up exactly where it shouldn’t have, and neither of us did anything to stop it.

I changed clothes, put on coconut-scented perfume, and went back to the bar with one plan in my head: to find out whether that smile was for real.