The Sweetness of Flesh

Maria stood at the edge of the padel court, watching Carlos slice through the humid air. His shirt clung to his back, dark with sweat, every muscle defined as he returned the ball with violence. She should have left forty minutes ago, should be home with her husband eating dinner, but instead she'd stayed to watch him play.

"You're staring again," he said afterward, leaning against the chain-link fence while she pretended to check her phone. His fox-like grin — all sharp teeth and knowing eyes — made something tighten in her chest. Or maybe lower.

"I'm not staring. I'm waiting for my ride."

"Sure." He reached into his bag and tossed her a piece of fruit. "From my sister's garden. Try it."

The papaya was impossibly ripe, its flesh orange and yielding against her tongue. Sweet, almost cloying, with undertones of something muskier. She watched Carlos watching her eat it, and the moment stretched thin and dangerous between them like a wire.

"Your husband," Carlos said, "does he know you come here?"

"To play padel. Yes."

"Just to play."

Maria wiped juice from her chin with her thumb. "Why do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Pretend you don't know exactly what you're doing."

He laughed, but his eyes stayed fixed on her mouth. "Maybe I like seeing how long you'll keep running from it."

Outside, the sky had begun to bruise purple. Thunderstorms rolled in off the mountains most July afternoons, sudden and violent, drowning everything in seconds. The first drops hit the pavement while Maria was still holding the papaya skin, sticky and guilty in her hand.

"My wife," Carlos said then, like he'd been waiting for the rain to say it, "she thinks I'm at a meeting."

Maria nodded once, sharp and final. She walked to her car through the downpour, water plastering her hair to her skull, her clothes transparent and clinging. She didn't look back at the padel court, at the man who'd become a habit she couldn't break, a hunger she couldn't name. The papaya aftertaste lingered all the way home — sweet, rotten, impossible to spit out.