Young

From the monitor room I saw her open her jacket when she thought no one was looking. She had no idea her new guard had been watching her all morning.

I wore my new trainers on a Saturday morning, never imagining I’d come home with my leggings wet for reasons that had nothing to do with running.

When lockdown was lifted, I’d been holding out for too long. I went out determined to find what I needed, never imagining it would be three at once.

I always thought it was something for easy girls. Then I knelt in front of him, looked into the antique mirror, and realized I’d been wrong for years.

I’d entered her tower to settle an old debt. What I hadn’t expected was to stand frozen behind the curtain, holding my breath, unable to look away.

I met her on a reading app. Black-haired, tall, intimidating. I agreed to be her submissive because I never believed a woman like her would look at me twice.

I went back to the reunion for one unfinished high-school kiss. I never imagined that night, with the bottle spinning, would end with three of us in the same bed.

I’d never thought about another woman like that until her white coat brushed my knee and I knew this exam would be unlike any other.

We’d been meeting for six years to do the same thing: tell each other things and touch ourselves shamelessly. That night Camila promised a surprise and opened the adjoining room door.

When they came back in, Noa was already naked and Andrés had hold of her from behind. I knew none of the five of us would sleep alone in our bed that night.

I followed him down the corridor without thinking, my heart in my throat. I knew that if I pushed that door there’d be no going back, and I pushed it anyway.

I booked the empty time slot and wore the tightest T-shirt I owned. What I didn’t expect was to find two men waiting for me on the tatami.

We had exchanged hundreds of photos, but nothing had ever happened in person. Until that March afternoon when I picked her up and she already had a plan.

The first time he kissed me in that parking lot, I ran away. The second time, I didn’t make excuses: I let him corner me against the same block wall.

She reread the message four times, and her heart beat like it had when she was twenty. She was fifty-nine, and a stranger had just awakened something she thought was lost forever.

We crossed the ocean to celebrate our twenty-first birthdays with them. When we came downstairs dressed, the two of them were waiting, and I knew nothing would ever be the same.

He had been sleeping pressed against her back for a week to soothe the baby. A week of pretending not to notice what was happening between them in the dark.

When I held her fever-hot against my chest, I remembered the nights her mouth knew mine as if she’d been learning me for years.

He had never seen a man like Lamine, and from the very first day he knew he would do anything to get back inside his house.

I lay naked on the table on purpose, not covering myself, just to see what he’d do when he came in with the hot oil.