What I Do on the Nights I Say I’m Studying

I’m twenty-four years old and, to my family, I’m the diligent daughter who finishes her Economics degree and goes to bed early. That version of me exists, of course. But there’s another one who only appears after I close my bedroom door, and nobody knows a thing about her.

It started two years ago, almost by chance, and since then I haven’t been able to stop. I don’t want to, really. I’m telling it now because I need to get it out somewhere, even if it’s anonymously, somewhere no one can put my face to it.

That particular night I was due to be there at nine. I had showered at length, slowly, shaving every inch of skin under the hot water while I mentally went over my alibi. When I got out of the bathroom, my hair still wet, I looked at the time on my phone and hurried. Being late seemed disrespectful to me.

“Mom, I’m going. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,” I said, sticking my head into the kitchen.

“Tomorrow afternoon?” she asked without turning around, stirring something in a pot.

“I told you, I’m going to Carla’s to finish the Macroeconomics paper. We’re staying over and continuing in the morning.”

“That’s right, honey. I don’t know how you put up with that girl for so many hours.”

If she only knew how little I study on those nights.

“Carla’s a brainiac, Mom. I’ll pass for sure with her. Give Dad a kiss when he gets home.”

I closed the door behind me and went downstairs two steps at a time, smiling. Carla was the perfect cover. Shy, quiet, with no friends who would ever cross paths with mine. She would never tell anyone, because she didn’t even know I used her as a front. My mother hated her family, so she’d never call to check. I had free rein.

***

I didn’t go out onto the street. In the vestibule I opened the door to the underground garage and went down to the storage room my parents had stuffed full of old furniture and boxes no one would ever open again. That room was my secret changing room. I had dragged a huge wall mirror there, older than I was, and kept my other clothes in a rusty toolbox no one would ever touch.

I slid the bolt, undressed, and looked at myself in the mirror. On my hip I had a small tattoo my parents didn’t know about, done in secret by someone I knew who didn’t ask questions either. I brushed it with my finger like a lucky charm.

The clothes I took out of the box had nothing to do with what my mother had just seen. A short, tight black dress, fishnet stockings, a pair of heels I only wore on those nights. I did my makeup slowly in front of the mirror, turning myself into the other one. By the time I was done, there wasn’t a trace left of the diligent student.

My phone vibrated. A three-word message: “We’re downstairs, come down.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder, turned off the light, and left.

A few meters from the entrance, a battered gray van was waiting for me. The side door opened before I reached it. I got in without hesitation and shut it behind me.

“I thought you were going to back out again,” Marina said from the back, sitting among bags and boxes of merchandise.

Marina was around my age, more or less, though I’d never asked. We’d met at one of these get-togethers and, without being friends, we shared the same secret and the same hunger. Each of us knew things about the other that no one else would ever know.

“Me, back out?” I said, laughing as I sat beside her. “Not a chance.”

Diego was at the wheel, and beside him, turned toward us with a smile, was Iván. I knew them both. Iván was the one who organized almost everything: he decided where, when, and who.

“Far tonight?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” was all Iván said, in that tone of someone who has prepared a surprise.

***

The ride wasn’t long. The van stopped in an industrial park, in front of a warehouse in a never-ending row of identical storage units. Marina and I looked at each other. It wasn’t the usual place. Normally we met in borrowed apartments, never somewhere like this.

“Relax,” Iván said, opening the side door. “It’s a friend’s place. Nobody’s going to bother us tonight.”

We got down in our heels, crossing the parking lot under a flickering streetlamp. I wasn’t nervous about the place or the dark. I was excited to know what was waiting for us inside.

Iván felt around for the switch. When the light came on, a huge warehouse appeared before us, full of shelves stacked with boxes and cheap market clothes. And off to one side, on a pair of battered sofas, half a dozen men were waiting for us.

I knew almost all of them from previous meetups. The others were new faces. Every one of them looked at me with the same mix of hunger and amusement, and my mouth went dry just imagining what was coming.

“I told you they’d be worth it,” Iván said to the others, gently pushing us forward.

Marina didn’t wait for anyone to give the order. She went up to the first man within reach, ran her hands over his chest, and kissed him on the neck. I did the same with the one nearest me, a big guy with enormous hands who grabbed my waist and pulled me onto his lap in one yank.

There were no long preliminaries. That was the beauty of it. Nobody pretended there were dinners or conversations. Everyone knew exactly what they’d come for, and that made it honest.

I knelt on the floor between his legs while Marina did the same a meter away. I started slowly, looking him in the eyes, enjoying the way his breathing hitched. Beside me, another hand moved my hair out of my face so he wouldn’t miss a thing. It didn’t take long before several of them moved closer, surrounding us, claiming their turn.

“She never gets tired,” one of them muttered, and the phrase turned me on more than any touch.

***

What came after was a nonstop carousel. I went from one to another without really knowing who I was taking care of at any given moment, and I didn’t care. I loved that feeling of losing control, of being the center of everything and of nothing at the same time. Marina, a couple of steps away, was moaning with the same abandon as me.

They put me on all fours on one of the sofas. I felt hands part my legs, and then I felt myself being filled from behind, slowly at first, then hard. I closed my eyes and let myself go. Another one positioned himself in front of my face, and I took him without being asked. I was caught between the two, swaying from one side to the other, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so alive.

“Like that, don’t stop,” I panted, not knowing which of them I was saying it to.

The one thrusting into me from behind found a rhythm that made my knees tremble. With every shove, a moan ripped out of me that I didn’t even try to hide. In the empty warehouse, my gasps and Marina’s echoed off the sheet-metal walls, mixed with the laughter and comments of the men waiting their turn.

When they asked for more, I gave more. I love that part of me, the one that only appears here, the one that owes no explanations to anyone. I went from the sofa to the floor, from the floor to someone’s lap, with no clear order, just following the hands that were calling me. At some point Marina and I ended up beside each other, sharing the same breath, and we kissed laughing before each went back to her own thing.

I lost count of how many times I came. The first one caught me almost by surprise, with a cry that came from very deep inside me. The rest came in waves, one after another, until my legs went weak and my skin was burning.

***

The party slowly started to lose intensity. Some left earlier; they had to get up early, they said, and once they were satisfied there wasn’t much left to keep them there. Iván, Diego, and a couple of others stayed with us.

They let us rest for a while. They brought out something to eat and drink, lit a cigarette that passed from hand to hand. Marina and I sat on one of the sofas, exhausted, sweaty, smiling like two girls who’d gotten away with a huge prank.

“Next week?” Iván asked, handing me a bottle of water.

“If you give me enough notice, yes,” I answered, drinking in long swallows. “I have to invent the excuse.”

“You always invent it,” Marina said, and we both laughed.

The night was still young, and by the way Diego was looking at me from the other sofa, I knew there was still fun ahead. I finished the water, set the bottle on the floor, and stood up.

At two in the afternoon the next day I would go back home looking like I’d studied a lot. I’d tell my mother the paper had gone great, that Carla was a sweetheart, that I was exhausted from all the revision. And she would believe me, as always.

That’s my double life. The perfect daughter by day, something very different by night. I’m not ashamed. The only thing that makes me sad is not being able to tell anyone who really knows me. That’s why I’m writing it here, where I can, for once, be completely honest.