I stopped asking the room for permission somewhere around forty-six. I am Isabel. I am forty-eight. I live alone in a flat in Chamberí with good light and a bed I bought for myself after a marriage that had run out of questions. My hair has silver at the front and I don't dye the message out of it. My body is a woman's body that has been used by life and not used up: breasts that sit lower and still fill a hand, a waist that arrives when it arrives, thighs I trust. What changed was not the body. It was the moment I understood I could choose, in a gallery, in a bar, in a doorway, and the choosing was the erotic part.

I chose Álvaro on a Thursday.