I Broke in My Vibrator with a Stranger Online

My name is Renata, I’m thirty-one, and I’ve been in Europe for work for almost two months. I came alone, but I’m never completely alone: I share an apartment with two coworkers, and the walls are paper-thin. For days I’d been feeling wound up, with an absurd urge to touch myself, and I couldn’t find a single minute of privacy. A woman goes a little crazy when her body is begging and her mind won’t stop imagining.

So I did the only sensible thing: I planned a weekend just for me.

I booked a room in a hotel downtown, far from the girls, far from the thin walls. And I started counting the hours.

***

Friday, eight in the evening.

I’ve just gotten out of the shower. I put on a short nightgown and a pair of thong panties, and I have to set aside some clothes for tomorrow. I pull out a couple of T-shirts, a pair of jeans, a string thong I bought especially for the occasion. And then I see it, still in the Amazon box, untouched: a vibrator. The first one of my life.

Just imagining how I’m going to use it makes my nipples hard. I have to get into bed, cover myself, and touch them for a while to bring the excitement down. Hold out one more day, I tell myself. One more day and everything will be yours.

That night I hardly sleep. I toss and turn in bed, hear one of my coworkers laughing on the phone on the other side of the wall, and force myself to keep my hands still on the sheets. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I want to reach Saturday with my whole body begging for it. There’s something about delaying pleasure that makes it more intense, and I’d spent days turned into a taut string ready to snap.

***

Saturday, nine at night.

I’ve just arrived at the hotel and it’s better than I expected. The bed is enormous, there’s a gorgeous view of the lit-up square, and a movie-worthy bathtub, the kind where you can fit in completely with room to spare. I lock the door twice, drop my purse on the chair, and breathe. At last no one can hear me. At last it’s just me.

I decide to start slowly, with a bubble bath. While the tub fills, I undress in front of the mirror and, almost out of habit, open one of those apps on my phone. I’m not looking to meet anyone. What turns me on is the chat, the back and forth, the words of a stranger who knows nothing about me.

You showed up almost immediately. I told you where I was, told you my plan for the night, and the conversation got intense so fast that we moved to another, more private app before I’d even finished getting into the water.

—Did you finish the bubble bath? —you asked.

—I’m dressed now —I lied, and sent you a photo with the new thong and one hand covering my breasts.

I lie down on the bed, still with my hair damp, and send you another photo: my fingers playing with the thin thong straps, tugging at the fabric just a little.

—Do you like it? —I type.

—Looks like I do. Look what you’re doing to me —you answer, and the image that comes through next leaves no doubt—. Touch yourself. I want you to feel what you do to me.

I start with my breasts. I tell you they’re medium-sized, soft, with pink nipples. And that now they’re hard, rock hard, from thinking about you on the other side of the screen.

—That photo is really turning me on —you write—. Makes me want to put my hand down.

—The way you’re holding it, you’re about to jack off. Or at least that’s how I’d hold you: one hand around you, the other lower down, teasing.

I touch myself over the thong and it’s already wet. Very wet. I keep at it for a while, with the fabric between us, because that muted sensation, that half-friction, pleases me more than I expected. It’s like stretching out the wait, like denying myself something on purpose just to want it twice as much.

I send you another photo.

Legs open, knees bent. A hard nipple is visible in the foreground and, in the back, the shine of wetness peeking over the edge of the thong.

—I think it’s time for you to take everything off —you write—. I want to hear you.

—You’re already so worked up. The tip’s wet. I want to lick that drop before anything else.

***

I did as you said.

I take off the thong and finally open the box. The vibrator is lighter than I imagined, a pale pink, with a smooth texture that warms up quickly between my fingers. I turn it on at the lowest setting and the hum fills the room. It makes me a little shy and a little laugh-happy, that mix of beginner nerves not quite knowing where to start.

So I start at the top. I run it over my neck, slowly, and a shiver goes through me. Down over my collarbones, between my breasts, and I let it circle each nipple until the first real moan slips out of me.

—Ahhh… —I type, though I’m barely typing anymore, just hitting keys at random.

And then I take it straight down below. I rest it slowly between my legs, search for the exact spot, and when I find it I turn the power up. My legs start trembling immediately. It isn’t a caress, it’s something else: something insistent, steady, that doesn’t let up no matter how much I writhe.

The chat isn’t enough anymore. I need both hands. I need to see you.

I start a video call.

—Can you see me? —I ask, my voice broken.

The first thing I see is your hand, moving slowly, no rush. I love it. I love confirming with my own eyes what I caused from the other side of the country, or the continent, or wherever you are. I don’t know your real name. I don’t care. Right now you’re exactly what I need.

The image shakes a little, glitches, and that makes it feel even more real. It’s not a perfect movie or a rehearsed script: it’s two strangers who happened to cross paths and decided, with no promises, to give each other this night. I can hear you breathing close to the microphone. I hear the rub of your hand. And I answer with my own sound, that deep buzz of the vibrator filling the silence between words.

—Slowly —I ask—. I don’t want you to come yet.

I prop the phone against the lamp, at an angle where you can see me completely, and I start fucking myself with the vibrator. Softly, copying your rhythm. In and out me, up and down you. As if we were dancing without touching, each in our own room, connected by a screen and by desire.

—Hold on —I murmur—. Listen to my voice.

—I don’t know how much longer I can last —you say, and your hand speeds up without meaning to.

—Listen. Listen to my moans.

And I moan for real, shamelessly, because for the first time in weeks no one is going to knock on my door, no one is going to pretend they heard nothing at breakfast. The room is mine. The night is mine. The pleasure is mine.

I can see you can’t hold back anymore. I can see the exact moment you stop fighting yourself and give in. You end up looking me in the eyes through the camera, and a very selfish, very satisfied part of me thinks: you’re coming because of me.

—How I’d love to be the one covered in it —I say, biting my lip.

—Now you —you say, still breathless—. Focus. Don’t stop.

I turn the power up one more notch. The vibrator shows no mercy. I feel the heat rising from the base of my back, that tingling warning that I’m almost there.

—Keep going like that —you tell me, in a rougher voice—. Keep going, you’re almost there.

There’s a word that slips out after that, one of those dirty words that in another context would have bothered me and that now, instead, pushes me right to the edge. You have no idea how much it turns me on to be talked to like that. Actually, you do know; you’re finding out in real time, because the orgasm hits me all at once and arches me hard against the bed.

It’s long. Much longer than I can manage with my hand alone. I stay there for a few seconds with the vibrator pressed against me, lowering the power little by little, until my body begs me to switch it off and drop it onto the sheet.

***

—Thank you —I tell you, and I’m surprised at how sincere, almost tender, it sounds.

I stretch out across the king bed, still trembling, and bring a finger to my mouth because there’s nothing else to do. On the other side of the screen I hear you laugh softly. No need to say more. We each go back to our world, to our real names, to our normal lives, as if this had never happened.

But it did. And it was exactly what I needed.

I end the video call, stare at the ceiling, and smile to myself in the dim light. Tomorrow there’s breakfast with a view of the square, a bubble bath still waiting, and a whole Sunday ahead. The vibrator, finally broken in, rests beside me like a new accomplice.

Honest postscript: I just finished writing all this and realized I’m just as turned on as I was that night. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have an unfinished matter to attend to. And this time I don’t need to book any hotel.