Young

Thirty-two degrees, the child asleep, and a single deck of cards between them. When she asked what he wanted to bet, he answered with the one thing he’d spent the whole week not daring to say.

Baltasar smelled the tension the moment the boy asked for a ride. He wasn’t looking for conversation: he wanted the same thing Baltasar did, and they both knew it without a word.

At eighteen, I had never been with a woman. The last thing I expected was for my first time to come with the housekeeper who walked into my room to clean.

When she opened the door in that short robe with the sheer nightdress underneath, I knew the afternoon wasn’t going to be just about installing a TV.

We arrived at the motel as always, but this time there was something different in her eyes and a hidden promise I never imagined she was ready to fulfill that afternoon.

On the first day of class she sat next to me smelling of vanilla. I had no idea that girl would completely change the way I understood desire.

She arrived in black underwear, turned on the hose, and let the water run over her skin. I knew then that that August night, we weren’t going to behave like friends.

I looked down and saw her hand resting on my thigh. We’d been friends for five years, but that night, after the second glass of vodka, everything changed in an instant.

At that hour we all seemed more beautiful, and nobody wanted to go home. Mila opened the door to her room, and none of us imagined how the night would end.

I shared a flat with two university girls who went around the house half-naked with no shame in front of me. It took me weeks to understand why.

Bruno introduced me to his friends with a conspiratorial smile, and before I understood what was happening, I knew I wouldn’t leave the cabin the same woman.

Lorena opened the suitcase to help put away the clothes and found the toys. Her new cook was watching from the doorway, not a shred of shame on her face.

Three glasses of wine, warm water, and a nineteen-year-old redhead who still didn’t know that night would make her more than just the house cook.

When I got off the plane at two in the morning, I had no idea I’d be sleeping under the same roof as her. I only knew my brother had died and that I was far too alone.

One of them pushed me against the wall while the other knelt without saying a word; I knew right away that I wasn’t leaving that apartment in one piece.

We grew up together, studied together, and kept the same secret for years. The night we buried their parents, we finally said everything out loud.

I’d spent the whole morning imagining being caught. I didn’t expect it to be the professor I’d been thinking forbidden things about for months.

The fire burned low in the cabin when the young orphan arrived with nothing but her ragged dress. Marisol, a widow alone with her child, had no idea how hard she would find it to look at her.

Everyone called her the easy girl at the university. I just wanted her to explain, without beating around the bush or feeling ashamed, how to take that step with my boyfriend without getting hurt.

Tomás came out of the shower naked and said why should he get dressed if we were going to strip him anyway. That night in the cabin, none of the four of us thought about sleeping.