Preço do Desejo

The man’s name was Viktor, and he smelled like old money and too much cologne. He leaned across the table, his wife’s hand resting on his forearm like a piece of jewelry she’d forgotten to take off.

“Five thousand euros,” he said. “For one weekend. A villa in Tuscany. Wine, food, nothing crude. Just a shift of partners.”

Allan’s jaw tightened beside me. I felt it before I saw it, the way his whole body went still, the way his breathing changed. Under the table, his hand found my knee. Squeezed once. A warning.

“We’re not interested,” he said.

Viktor’s wife, Hana, smiled. She was older than me, maybe thirty-five, with cheekbones that could cut glass and hair the color of expensive honey. She hadn’t stopped looking at Allan since we sat down. Not leering. Studying. Like he was a painting she was deciding whether to buy.

“Think about it,” Viktor said. He slid a card across the table. No name, just a number. “People our age, we’ve learned something. The body wants what it wants. Denying it is just a slower way of dying.”

Allan stood up. The chair scraped the floor hard enough that the waiter glanced over. “We’re done here.”

I grabbed my purse and followed him out, the card still sitting on the table like a bad tip. The restaurant door swung shut behind us, and the summer heat hit me like a wall. Prague in July was a wet blanket of humidity and tourist sweat. We’d come here for our anniversary, three years of marriage celebrated with cheap wine and expensive views.

Now this.

Allan walked fast, hands in his pockets, shoulders up near his ears. I had to jog to keep up.

“Allan.”

“Not now, Letícia.”

“We could at least talk about it.”

He stopped. Turned. His eyes were dark, the kind of dark that meant he was already somewhere else, already fighting a war I hadn’t been invited to. “Talk about what? Some rich asshole offering to buy my wife for the weekend?”

“He didn’t say it like that.”

“He didn’t have to.”

I wanted to argue, but I knew that tone. Knew the shape of it, the weight. We’d been married three years, together for five before that. I knew when Allan was closed for business.

We walked back to the hotel in silence. The cobblestones were slick from a rain that had stopped an hour ago, and the streetlights made everything look wet and golden. A street musician played something sad on a violin. Allan didn’t notice.

Our room was on the fourth floor, small, with a window that looked out at a church spire and a lot of red roofs. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him pace. He was a pacer. His mother had told me that once, at our wedding. “He paces when he’s thinking,” she’d said. “Don’t take it personal.”

Hard not to.

“He offered five thousand,” I said.

“I heard.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

Allan stopped. Looked at me. “You’re not for sale.”

“I know that. I’m not saying I am. I’m saying it’s a lot of money.”

He ran his hands through his hair. It was getting long, curling at the edges. He needed a haircut. I’d been meaning to tell him for a week. “Letícia, what are you saying?”

I didn’t know. That was the problem. I didn’t know what I was saying, only that something in me had shifted when Viktor made his offer. Not in a way I was proud of. But in a way that felt real.

I was twenty-three. I’d been with Allan since I was eighteen. He was my first everything. First kiss, first time, first real fight, first I-love-you. I didn’t regret any of it. But sometimes, late at night, when he was asleep and I was staring at the ceiling, I wondered what else was out there. Not better. Just different.

I didn’t tell him that.

“I’m saying we could use five thousand euros,” I said instead. “Your student loans. My mom’s medical bills. That’s real money.”

“It’s blood money.”

“It’s not blood. It’s just sex.”

He flinched. I saw it. The word hit him like a slap.

“You think I want to share you?” His voice cracked on the last word. “You think I want some stranger touching you, looking at you, while I sit there and pretend it’s fine?”

“I don’t know what I think.” I stood up. Crossed to him. Put my hands on his chest. His heart was hammering. “I know I love you. I know I don’t want to lose you. But I also know we’re drowning, Allan. And this guy just threw us a rope.”

He grabbed my wrists. Not hard. Gentle. The way he always grabbed me. “We’re not that desperate.”

“We’re not desperate at all. That’s the point. We have a choice. We can say no and keep struggling, or we can say yes and change everything.”

“Change everything how?”

I didn’t have an answer. The question hung between us, heavy and unfinished.

He let go of my wrists. Stepped back. Paced again. Three steps one way, three steps back. Like a caged animal.

“I need some air,” he said.

“Allan.”

“I need air.”

He left. The door clicked shut behind him, and I stood alone in the hotel room, listening to the church bells toll eight o’clock. Eight o’clock in Prague. Somewhere, Viktor and Hana were probably having dinner. Laughing. Waiting for a call.

I sat down on the bed. Pulled out my phone. Stared at the blank screen.

Three years of marriage. Five years together. Eight years of knowing Allan since high school, since he was the quiet boy in the back of chemistry class who always had his homework done and never raised his hand. I was the one who talked to him first. I was the one who kissed him first. I was the one who pushed, always pushed, because he would have let the whole world pass him by if no one told him to reach out and grab it.

That night, I dreamed of the card. The number. Viktor’s voice, smooth as oil.

*The body wants what it wants.*

When I woke up, Allan was in the chair by the window, watching the sunrise. He hadn’t slept. I could tell by the way his eyes were red, the way his hands were still.

“I have an idea,” he said.

I sat up. The sheet fell away. I was wearing his t-shirt, the one with the hole in the collar, and I felt naked anyway.

“What kind of idea?”

He didn’t look at me. Kept his eyes on the rooftops, on the light spreading like butter across the city. “What if we don’t take their offer?”

“Okay.”

“What if we make our own?”

I waited. The silence stretched.

“We set the terms,” he said. “We pick the place. We pick the time. We pick the rules. And we ask for more money.”

“More?”

“Twenty thousand.”

The number landed in the room like a stone in still water. Ripples. Shock. Something that might have been excitement or might have been fear, I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

“Allan, that’s insane.”

“It’s negotiation.” He finally turned to look at me. His face was calm. Too calm. The calm of a man who had already decided something he hadn’t told me yet. “They want us. Fine. They can have us. But they’re going to pay for it. And we’re going to walk away with enough to fix everything.”

“And what does that do to us?”

He didn’t answer.

The church bells started ringing. Nine o’clock. The day was beginning, and I had no idea what kind of day it would be.