I was sitting with a woman I didn't know, drinking coffee and offering her to live with me.

It was my fault for destroying her idea that she had a happy life. But from the little she told me, it hadn't been quite like that. I felt vulnerable. I asked her to have a drink to satisfy my curiosity; I think she did too.

Offering her the house came naturally to me. The environment where I work didn't take everything away from me. I still had hidden traces of who I was. Guilt? Yes, that too. Feeling responsible for not thinking things through twice.

I saw her when the musicians appeared, setting up an improvised stage. Another brilliant idea from the campaign manager: crying poverty with live music, salmon, and bottles of Cristal. But hey, those people were like that about everything.

They showed one thing in front of the cameras and behind the scenes they didn't deprive themselves of anything. A fundraising dinner. Lie, there was money to spare. It was to kiss ass, to buy votes with champagne and fake smiles.

Cheap dress, bass hanging from her shoulder. I froze. It was her. My wife's lover's girlfriend. Brown hair, green eyes. Nothing special. Average. With worn boots instead of shoes.

She fixed her eyes on me when they started playing. She looked away immediately.

I stood against the wall. I watched her all night. Every movement, every gesture. How she played, how she breathed. Every now and then she looked back at me. Nervous. Uncomfortable. She must have thought I was a psychopath or a lunatic.

And maybe I was, because I couldn't stop imagining Vera fucking her boyfriend. Imagining how he would take her to bed, and if he would do it the same way he did with the bassist. If he would touch her breasts the same way, if she would moan the same way.

I felt myself getting hard. In the middle of the fucking fundraiser.

When the first piece ended, I applauded along with the rest. A councilman approached me to talk. He asked me about my wife. I no longer had a wife, I didn't even know where she had gone. Maybe with that guy, maybe to a hotel. Certainly not to her mother's house, because they hated each other.

"She's not feeling well," I lied.

Between songs, she tuned her instrument, biting her lip. The line of her bra was visible under her dress. I wondered what the hell she was doing there, playing for this bunch of corrupt people. Did she need the money? Or was it just a coincidence? It couldn't be a coincidence.

In the second song, she sang. Her voice was hoarse, and she looked at the floor. When she looked up, our eyes met again. This time she didn't look away so quickly. There was something there, a "we're so fucked up" kind of thing.

I had another glass of champagne. She hit a wrong note in the chorus and blushed. I saw her neck turn red. For a moment, I felt sorry for her. There she was, pretending everything was normal while our lives were falling apart. She was playing to earn a few bucks, I was smiling to win votes.

We were both pathetic.

The 40 minutes were up. Lukewarm, half-hearted applause. They started to take everything down. I wanted to go over and ask her something. Anything. But what could I say? Maybe she forgave him. Maybe they stayed together. Why rub salt in the wound?

Liam approached her from behind. His wife was five meters away, distracted with a drink. He whispered something in her ear. He got too close. Something he said completely changed her expression, and she turned around as if she were going to smash his guitar over his head.

"Perfect," I thought. "A sex scandal in the middle of the fundraiser." I could already see the headlines. Because that jerk must have spat one of his vulgarities at her.

Without realizing it, I walked quickly toward the stage.

I heard him say "Old fart" as she backed away. She was holding her bass with both hands, covering herself. Liam had that disgusting smile on his face. The same one he used before groping someone.

"Any problems?" I asked.

Liam looked at me. He raised an eyebrow.

"No, not at all. I was just congratulating the lady on her performance."

He licked his lips. Disgusting.

"How thoughtful. Your wife is looking for you."

I pointed to where his wife was standing. Son of a bitch.

Sabrina looked at me again. With sadness. With pity. She started to put the bass in its case. Her hands were shaking.

"Thanks," she said without looking at me.

"Liam's an idiot."

"Everyone here is an idiot." She remembered who I was. "No offense."

"It's the truth."

She closed the case. The other musicians had already left. We were alone on stage.

"Did you forgive him?" It came out without thinking.

"No."

"Do you know where they are?"

"No. And I don't want to know."

"Sorry."

It just slipped out. When everything got too much for me, I stopped thinking. Vera had left without a trace. Without saying goodbye. Without anything. I couldn't get my head around what all those years had meant to her. And I couldn't get my head around the fact that I still didn't care.

She grabbed her guitar and hurried toward the exit. Without saying a word. I followed her. I don't know why. Maybe to make sure Liam didn't bother her again. Maybe because I had nothing better to do than follow the ex-girlfriend of the guy who's sleeping with my wife. There was a rickety van in the parking lot. The kind that looks like it belongs to kidnappers.

The engine was making a muffled noise. The other musicians were already inside, smoking.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. I still felt guilty.

"Yes," was all she said.

I reached into my jacket's inside pocket and gave her one of my cards. Why? To get rid of the putrid taste in my mouth.

"If you ever need anything..." I said, handing it to her.

She just took it, and I felt her fingers barely touch mine. She shook her head. I saw her press her lips together. She was holding back the urge to cry in front of me again. Her eyes were very green. The dress clung to her body. She touched her hair.

Amazing. With two gestures, she made me feel like the worst piece of shit. And at the same time, I wanted to stand there, watching her. Watching her breathe. Watching her adjust the strap of the case on her shoulder, stretching the fabric around her breasts.

I was screwed. Completely sick. Because the last thing I needed was to feel something for someone else's girlfriend.

But there I was. Feeling the blood rush to my crotch. Guessing the curve of that ass that swayed when she walked. Imagining those full lips stretching and adjusting to my member, or the faces she would make while she came.

She hesitated for two seconds and I jumped in, offering her a coffee. What I really needed was to check if it was her who was causing me to feel this way or if it was all the images of Vera that had been running through my mind all night. Why? I don't know. Maybe to feel like a man again and not an asshole.

But yes, it was her. I had a hard-on the whole hour we talked. And it must have been "that head" that came up with the idea of taking her to the guest house. The guilt too, feeling my boxers getting wet, the responsibility, her eyes looking at my hands.

Or maybe it was just a perverted game between two abandoned souls, two lost souls, snooping around to forget or to feel again.

The guest house was a house. Complete, with everything. Bigger than anywhere I had ever lived. It intimidated me a little. And what had made it difficult for me to leave Andrea's house was not that I didn't want to leave, but because I had gotten myself into a situation that made no sense. "Do you do drugs with the musicians?" That was her response when I told her he was giving me a place to stay.

"What? No!"

"Then what?"

"Then what? I need a place to live, he has an empty house. It's a done deal."

"No, it's not a done deal," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her bag. Her belly was huge. "This is ridiculous. Is this how you want to get back at Zachary?"

"It has nothing to do with Zachary. I can't live with you forever. You're going to be a mother soon. If you want to have sex with your husband, I'm in the next room. It's not right."

"It's perfect, not right. You're my best friend, even though you're crazy, and I love you."

It killed me when she got like that, so sensitive.

"And I love you too," I said, sitting down next to her. "But you have to realize that I can't get between you and your husband. You have to realize that your baby is about to be born, that you don't need any more worries."

She took my hand, and I thought she was going to start crying. But Andrea wasn't like that. She looked at me as if she were going to say something even nicer.

"You're going to live with him because you liked the guy and you want to fuck him," she blurted out.

"Oh, for God's sake!" I stood up and she started laughing.

"What? What's wrong? It's great, Sabrina! It's healthy, it's normal. You got out of a shitty relationship with a manipulative asshole who-she opened her arms-was sleeping with another woman. I don't see why you can't like another man.

"Because that's twisted, Andrea."

"So what? You're making excuses. You liked the guy, it's obvious. You hesitate, you think about it 800 times, but you liked him. That's all."

"You just called me crazy!"

"Because I thought what you wanted was for that piece of shit to know you were giving him a taste of his own medicine. But that's not it..." She leaned toward me. "It's something else."

"You're the one who's crazy, your hormones are all over the place."

She planted her feet more firmly on the floor and leaned back on the bed.

"I stalked him on social media. He's hot, he's cute," she raised an eyebrow.

"He's like 40 years old."

"So?"

So nothing, it was true. He was more than hot. He was built like a real man, not like some excuse or imitation. He stood confidently, spoke confidently, looked at you and said things with his eyes. He had turned me on in that coffee shop, I had gotten wet looking at the veins in his hands. Fuck me!

He looked like one of those guys who manipulate you however they want and fuck you without waiting, without asking permission, touching you all over, kissing you all over. Who make you feel like a woman with their overwhelming desire to penetrate you.

"Well, yes, he's heart-stopping," I admitted, sitting back down on the bed. And that's why I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

"Maybe he liked you too. You never know."

"I felt something... I don't know. I think it's more like he feels responsible. The look on his face when I told him I had nowhere to live."

"Yes, you have somewhere to live, stupid!" She hit me on the arm.

"I know, but it's not the same."

Andrea settled back on the bed and looked at me with that "don't give me any of that crap" look on her face.

"I'll tell you one thing. I haven't seen you like this in days. I haven't seen you interested in anything in days. Ever since you broke up with Zachary, you've been walking around like a zombie. And now this guy shows up and your eyes light up."

I hadn't realized it, but she was right.

"Besides," she continued, "after what that jerk did to you, you deserve to sleep with whoever you want. And if he's hot, even better."

"It's not all about sex, Andrea."

"No, but it helps," she laughed. "Look, do what you want. But don't play the saint. You like the guy, okay. And it's perfectly fine to like him."

That was true too, I liked him. Spencer was a man who effortlessly fit into what I considered "ideal." He wasn't someone you had to listen to complaining about life, who wasn't going to kill himself because things weren't going his way. On the contrary, if I closed my eyes, I could see him with his fist clenched around my neck, pulling my head back and thrusting into me relentlessly.

No acting, no "performance," no having to look in the bedroom mirror to feel like a porn star.

I had imagined all that and more. She noticed right away.

"From the look on your face, you've already fucked him in your head," she said.

"Shut up."

"It's true. I know you, Sabrina. When you really like someone, you get like this. Like you're gone."

I had spent the entire conversation in the café thinking about what it would be like to have him on top of me. How it would feel.

"Okay, yes. I like him," I admitted. "But that doesn't mean anything's going to happen."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a mess. Because I just got out of a shitty relationship. Because I don't even know where I stand."

"That's exactly why," she said. "Because you need something good. Something that makes you feel alive again. Besides, he didn't offer you the house just to be nice. I know it, you know it, we all know it."

Well, yes. But no. Men like Spencer didn't go around giving houses to strangers. But I didn't want to get my hopes up either.

"Maybe he feels sorry for me."

"Sorry!" she laughed. "Sabrina, please. From what you told me, the guy wants to eat you alive."

"Don't exaggerate."

"I'm not exaggerating at all. You yourself described to me how he talked to you, how he offered you the house. And how you felt with him there."

"It still doesn't mean anything," I said. "Maybe he's one of those guys who flirts with anyone."

"See? There you go again with the excuses. Give yourself a chance, stupid. Give yourself the chance to have a good time for once."

I gave myself the chance. And now there we were, standing in his guest house, not knowing what to do, uncomfortable, indecisive, I don't know. Like a bad soap opera at five o'clock. Looking for something in his face that would tell me what to do: throw myself at him or pretend to be sane and behave like a normal woman.

"Are you kidding me?" Lucas took a beer from the refrigerator.

He came home that Saturday to "accompany me in my process." We hardly ever saw each other, and he showed up unannounced. He came for the gossip, to find out what had happened with Vera.

Even that was pathetic: the friend who never showed up, eager to see the results of his photographs.

"No."

"Are you going to have a woman you don't know living in your backyard because Vera cheated on you? At least wait, I don't know... two months?"

"Don't be an idiot. I felt sorry for her, she was out on the street because of me."

"Because of you?" Lucas leaned against the counter and took a sip of beer. "You didn't force her to leave her boyfriend."

"She found out the hard way. Because of me, in her apartment. She had no idea, she didn't even suspect anything."

"And what does that have to do with you?"

Sure, he and everyone else were used to seeing me differently: the son of a bitch who was an accomplice to other people's trash. I didn't know how to explain to him that when I saw her sitting there, trembling with anger and humiliation, I felt as if my hands were dirty too.

"I don't know, Lucas. It just came out of me to offer it to her."

"It just came out?" he laughed. He shook his head. "Spencer, you don't do anything because it just comes out. You calculate everything, even how many times you breathe per minute."

He was right. It was true.

"What's she like?" he asked.

"What do you want to know?" Here it came.

"I don't know. Is she pretty? Smart? Do you like her?"

I didn't answer. Sabrina was all of those things. I was being swept off my feet by a brat I was tied to by horns, guilt, and something else. Just one coffee, that was enough.

"You're not bringing her here out of pity," he opened his eyes as if he had read my mind. "You're bringing her because you like her."

"Are you even listening to yourself?"

"I am, but you're not. You like the bass player and you're mixing everything up."

"I gave her a place to stay, it's temporary until she finds somewhere else to go. Why the hell do I have to explain myself to you?" I raised my voice, trying to play dumb.

"Your guilty face is giving you away, don't fuck with me. Have you fucked her yet?" he asked suddenly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I exploded.

"That's answer enough," he smiled as if he had won something. "Not yet, but you want to."

"You're seriously messed up in the head."

But yes, she made me feel all kinds of things. Not just horniness, not just the urge to fuck her against the wall. She had this energy that radiated from her pores, screaming that this was what she wanted, what she liked.

After fifteen years of looking the other way when a nice ass walked by, noticing someone again came naturally. The only screw-up was that that someone was Sabrina.

"You're an idiot. Do you realize what you're doing?" He suddenly became serious. "She just broke up, and so did you. You're both a mess, and you think the solution is to get into bed together."

"No one said anything about getting into bed."

"Then you would have helped her find a place to rent."

It was true, there were a thousand ways I could help her without having her live twenty feet from my bedroom.

"She doesn't have the money to pay rent," I muttered.

"Oh, you're Saint Teresa of Calcutta! You go around picking up homeless people," he threw his hands in the air. "No, Spencer. It's simple. You like her, period."

He grabbed another beer and looked at me.

"So what if I like her?" I finally said. "What's the problem?"

"Nothing. The problem is that you're lying to yourself, saying it's out of pity, bringing her to your house and her accepting the situation you're both in. That's going to be a disaster."

It annoyed me that overnight Lucas had become the voice of my conscience. He had the life of a teenager, going from woman to woman, without attachment, without commitment, without anything. I had reached the age of 40 sleeping with the same woman every night.

"Did you hear about Vera?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"No."

"Nothing? Not even a call or a message?"

"Nothing. She left, and that was that."

"Well, it's not surprising," he raised his eyebrows. "Vera was always like that."

"Like what?"

"She never told you what she was thinking. She was always speaking in double meanings, with hints. And you went crazy trying to figure out what the hell she wanted."

"How do you know so much?"

"We all knew, except you. That thing about love making men stupid must be true. I highly doubt she's changed over the years."

"Did you come here to remind me that I was cheated on because I'm a fool?"

He laughed heartily.

"No, I came to see if I could introduce you to someone. But you already found someone on your own." He winked. I wanted to punch him in the mouth.

He settled back in his chair, with that air that guys who party all the time. Confident, calm, carefree. Without going to bed at night questioning himself about what the hell he did so wrong that the woman he was married to went and slept with another guy.

"It's not your fault," he said suddenly. "You know that."

"What?"

"That she did what she did to you. You're the most corny guy I know, even with that ugly face that scares everyone away. You loved her, you took care of her, you gave her even what you didn't have. It's not your fault."

Now it turned out I was an open book.

"Then whose fault is it?" I asked, tired.

"No one's. These things happen, these things you allow to happen. You spent the last 10 years denying yourself with all those little whores parading through the halls of the Senate. Well, Vera didn't."

His phone rang. He answered reluctantly. His new "girlfriend" apparently never tired of harassing him, looking for him, demanding things from him. She wasn't going to last long.

"I have to go pick her up," he sighed and stood up, fed up. "She's wearing me out with her stupidity."

"How romantic," I smiled sarcastically. "You're definitely the right person to give me advice about women."

"Very funny."

He walked past me and patted me on the shoulder.

"Let me know how it goes with your new tenant."

"Okay."

"Stop taking responsibility for other people's mistakes," he said, opening the door. "But you know what?

"Just go already.

"It's more fun this way, if you think about it.

I threw away the empty bottles when Lucas left. I looked at my hands, closing the trash bag, and remembered her eyes looking at them in the coffee shop. As if she wanted me to touch her.

So many years in politics had taught me to control every reaction, every gesture. But with Sabrina, everything had gone to hell in an hour.

I stood there with the bag halfway out of the trash can. What the hell was happening to me? Vera and I hadn't had good sex in months, but this was different. This was hunger. Thinking about Sabrina hit me in the gut, woke me up, got me hard.

Just like when I was 20, so much so that it bothered me. So much so that I didn't know how the hell to move so she wouldn't notice while I showed her the guest house.

"Everything is set up: kitchen, bathroom. Over there," I pointed to the left, "is the bedroom. I put groceries in the cupboards and there are clean sheets and towels in that closet."

"Thanks."

"Let me help you with that."

She put her bag on the floor and handed me the box she was carrying. It was heavy. It had some old vinyl records in it.

Well, at least it helped me cover up a little the obvious .