I Can’t Sleep When I Think About What You Used to Do to Me

Did you miss me today? Don’t lie to me. I bet you did, just like I miss you now, at this absurd hour when I should be asleep and instead I’m writing you this thing I’ll probably never send.

I’m sleepy to the point of heaviness in my eyelids, but my body won’t obey me. I’ve been tossing and turning in bed for half an hour. The sheets are new; I bought them last week, and every time I move they brush against my naked skin with a softness that almost annoys me. Almost. Because the truth is I like it. I like the way the fabric feels against my thighs, against my back, against my breasts when I roll onto my side.

And then you show up. Without warning, as always. It takes only a moment of stillness for your memory to slip between the sheets and lie down beside me.

I start feeling my nipples harden. I’m not doing anything to make it happen; it just does, just from thinking about you. I close my eyes and there you are: your low voice, that way you have of saying my name when you can’t take it anymore. A shiver rises from my stomach and settles lower, between my legs, in the shape of a pulse. A slow, insistent pulse I know too well.

I want you inside me. Just like that, no beating around the bush. That’s the only thing I think about when I wake in the middle of the night with my body on fire and the bed empty.

I slide one hand down over my belly. Slowly, stretching out the moment, because I know that once I get there there’ll be no turning back. I keep my eyes closed and let your image take up all the space behind my eyelids. I part my lips with two fingers and, as always, I’m surprised by how wet I am. Just from thinking about you. Just from imagining it’s you there.

The first touch draws a sigh from me. The pad of my finger barely glides and a shiver raises goose bumps along my arms. It’s ridiculous how much power you have over me even in your absence. You’re miles away, probably asleep, with no idea what you’re making happen, and here I am, writhing between the sheets with your name in my mouth.

I draw circles over my clit, first soft, then a little firmer. My hips start moving on their own, searching, demanding. I think about what you’d say if you saw me like this. How you’d bite your lip. How you’d probably be touching yourself too while you watched me, without touching me yet, deliberately leaving me on the edge of desperation. You love that game. You love seeing me beg.

Look at me, I’d say. Look what you do to me even when you’re not here.

I bring my other hand up to my breasts. I squeeze them, play with my nipples between my fingers, tug just hard enough, the way you learned to measure better than I ever could. I prop myself up a little, take one into my mouth, and lick it. It’s delicious. There’s something obscene about doing this to myself, and that makes it even more arousing.

I sink my index finger into myself and a moan slips out of me, muffled against the pillow. It isn’t enough. One finger is never enough. My body is calling for you, for your weight, for the rough way you enter all at once when you can’t hold back anymore. But tonight I only have myself, so I’ll have to make do.

I add a second finger. I start moving against my own hand, setting a rhythm I know by heart, the same one you taught me without even realizing it. My mouth is open, I’m panting, moaning softly, imagining it’s you filling me, thrusting into me, holding me by the hips to drive deeper.

My hand goes faster and faster. My thighs tremble, tense, my toes curl against the sheet. I squeeze my eyelids shut hard, I see you on top of me, I hear you, and that’s enough. Without warning I come undone, I come all over the sheets in a shudder that runs through me from head to toe. I go still, breathless, with my breathing broken and my skin burning.

***

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this thinking about you. Far from it. It’s become a dangerous habit, almost a ritual. When you’re not here —and lately you’re not here almost ever— my memory of you does the work your hands should be doing.

I lie there for a while, getting my breath back, and instead of calming down I start thinking about other things. About everything I’d like you to do to me. Because once is not enough for me, never enough with you, not even in my imagination.

I think, for example, about how I’d like you to take me from behind. Hard, almost violently, gripping my hair, while at the same time you kiss my neck with a tenderness that doesn’t fit the rest and that precisely for that reason drives me insane. That contradiction of yours. The roughness and the sweetness in the same gesture. No one else knows how to do that.

I think about how different your fingers would feel instead of mine. Thicker, surer, knowing exactly where to press and when to ease off. My fingers do what they can; yours did magic.

And then a whole scene builds in my head, so vivid I can almost smell it. I’m in the kitchen, sitting on the edge of the table, with my back to you. It’s the middle of the night too, like now, and we’ve both come downstairs for water without agreeing on it. The house is silent. Just us and the dim light from the extractor hood.

You hug me from behind. One hand climbs to my breasts and cups them, kneads them slowly, unhurriedly, like someone who has all night ahead of him. The other goes down my belly at a languid pace, lingers on my hip, and finally slips between my legs. You turn my face a little and kiss me, a deep, hungry kiss, while your fingers start moving.

I can’t breathe. The way you touch me feels so good I literally can’t breathe. I throw my head back against your shoulder and feel your hot breath in my ear. I also feel how hard you’re getting against my lower back, how my own heat is turning you on, and that idea —knowing that seeing me like this excites you as much as being touched excites me— takes me to the edge again.

In my head you masturbate me right there on that kitchen table, without fully undressing me, with my clothes half-off and my breathing a mess. You take me to the end right there, until I come again, this time biting my hand so I don’t wake anyone, wanting to turn around and kneel to return the favor with my mouth.

I open my eyes. I’m still alone. The kitchen is empty, the bed is empty, and all that’s left is the echo of a fantasy that feels more real than my own pillow.

I sigh and stretch one arm toward the cold side of the mattress, the side you should be occupying. It’s freezing. I pull the sheet up to my shoulders and lie there staring at the ceiling, still shaking, skin buzzing, with a stupid smile I can’t get rid of.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you. Maybe I’ll describe every detail to you calmly, by text, while you’re in some boring meeting and can’t do anything about it except clench your teeth and cross your legs. I like the idea of giving you back a little of the torture you put me through at this hour every night.

Or maybe I won’t tell you anything. Maybe I’ll keep it to myself like a secret, like one of those things only I know happen in the darkness of my room when the world is asleep and you’re not here.

But one thing is certain: the next time we see each other, I’m not settling for my fingers. I’m going to make you pay for every one of these early mornings when you left me alone with your memory and a body that doesn’t know how to wait.

So yes. I missed you today. I miss you now. And I’m going to keep missing you, again and again, with my eyes closed and my hand between my legs, until you fill this empty side of the bed again.

Good night. Or what’s left of it.