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In front of the mirror, with my lips painted and my heels on, I didn’t see anyone in disguise: I saw the woman I’ve always wanted to be when I let myself go.

I walked through the bar door in new heels and with my heart in my throat. I had no idea that night someone from my past would walk in.

I arrived at his door with a bag hiding my other skin: corset, stockings, and heels. That night I stopped being Adrián and gave myself to him as Selene.

I put on the wine-colored dress he had chosen, breathed deep, and understood that night would be the real gift: to feel, at last, like the woman I had always been.

The first time I saw myself in the mirror wearing the red dress, I knew Daniela would no longer be content to come out only when the town was asleep.

Every night she touched herself in secret and cried with guilt. That dawn she walked toward the dunes not knowing the desert held a temple, and inside it, a figure that would change everything.

Three nights of messages with a stranger, and when he asked if I was alone, I decided to tell him the truth about myself just before giving him my address.

When the director’s assistant handed me the bag of lingerie, I knew there was no turning back: that night belonged to all the men in that room.

For weeks I kept him at bay with a smile and an “not yet.” That night, when his hand found mine, I knew I didn’t want to keep waiting.

I put on the red heels, the baby doll, and the wig, placed a random order, and waited for a stranger to knock on my door in the rain.

I had never been with anyone like him. When he opened the door and I had to look up at his face, I knew that night would no longer belong to me.

A whisper by my ear was enough for my whole life as a proper man to begin collapsing under the click of heels that weren’t mine yet.

I asked for a bar job at a roadside club. Three weeks later I was serving drinks in a thong, heels, and a new name: Adriana.

I said yes to the game for one night only: a dress, a wig, and a name that wasn’t mine. I never imagined the girl in the mirror would look back as if she’d been waiting for me.

I got myself made up like a goddess to spend the night on camera. When the doorbell rang, it wasn’t the delivery guy: it was him, real and with the whole weekend ahead.

He was twenty-seven, had a girlfriend, and a tidy life. Then that neighbor looked at him on the bus as if he knew something Tobías had not yet dared to name.

When I opened the door I expected to find her alone on the sofa, as always. I hadn’t counted on the second silhouette watching me from the living room’s half-light.

I cut the engine in the darkest corner of the service area, touched up my lips in the rearview mirror, and knew I wouldn’t be leaving alone that night.

The scanner emitted a red beep and, in that instant, I knew I would never again be the man who had walked into that room that morning.

I paid a fortune to find the perfect wife. The app sent me one profile: Daniela. What I discovered at the hotel wasn’t in any photo.