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I painted my lips against the trunk, convinced I was alone. Then I heard the crackle of leaves and knew someone had been watching me for a while.

I signed my resignation without looking back. That night would be the last fuck of my life as a man, and I meant to enjoy it before becoming who Carla had always wanted.

In the mirror, with my lips painted and my heels on, I saw no one in disguise: I saw the woman I always wanted to be when I let 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 carrying a bag with my other skin inside it: corset, stockings, and heels. That night I stopped being Adrian and gave myself wholly as Selene.

I put on the wine-colored dress he had chosen, took a deep breath, and understood that night would be the real gift: finally feeling 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 chose to tell him the truth about myself right before giving him my address.

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

I’d spent weeks holding him off with a smile and a “not yet.” That night, when his hand found mine, I knew I didn’t want to wait anymore.

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 beside my ear was enough to make my respectable life begin collapsing beneath the click of heels that were not yet mine.

I went looking 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 led an orderly life. Then a neighbor looked at him on the bus as if he knew what Tobías dared not 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 shadows.

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