I Got Turned On by a Stranger on the Subway

I have to admit it: I always wanted to be an easy woman, one of those who give themselves over to desire without asking permission. But I grew up in a Catholic family, among prayers and reproachful looks, and for years I held myself back because of what people would say. Not long ago I understood something simple. I can be that way in secret. No one needs to know what goes on inside my head or what I do when no one is looking.

After what happened with a professor at the academy where I took evening classes, something broke inside me. It was nothing major, just a brush, a conversation loaded with double meanings, but it left me trembling for days. I realized I could let myself go a little, that the world wouldn’t end because I wanted things.

That morning I chose a long skirt, in a light fabric that moved with the wind. And before leaving the office, locked in the bathroom on the top floor, I took off my underwear and tucked it at the bottom of my bag. My heart was pounding as if I were doing something forbidden. I was.

I went out into the street and the city greeted me with its usual noise: horns, hurried footsteps, people who didn’t look at me. But I felt different. Walking through the crowd with my cunt free, rubbing against each step beneath the fabric, excited me in a way I had never felt before. Every stride was a little caress.

I stopped in front of a shop window and undid a couple of buttons on my blouse. The neckline fell lower than any decent woman would allow. Let them look, I thought. Let them imagine.

And they did look. I felt men’s eyes travel over my body, settling on my breasts, sliding down my skirt. I imagined what would happen if I took off my blouse right there, on the sidewalk, if one of them dared to come closer and touch my nipples. Just thinking about it made me feel wet between my thighs. I pressed my legs together and kept walking, biting my lip.

***

The subway was packed. It was rush hour and the platform was a sea of tired bodies shoving to get into the car. It smelled of cheap perfume, sweat, that damp heat that forms when there are too many people in a closed space. I would normally have hated it. That afternoon, though, it felt like an invitation.

I got in with the rest of the herd and the doors closed behind me. There was nothing to hold on to, so I ended up squeezed among strangers, shoulder to shoulder, with no room to move. And then I saw him.

He was tall, much taller than me. He wore a gray suit he had already loosened, his tie crooked and the first button of his shirt open. He must have been in his forties, with that salt-and-pepper beard, trimmed and thick, that reminded me of the professor at the academy. It reminded me of everything I wasn’t supposed to want. He was looking at his phone, detached, with an expression of exhaustion that made him even more attractive.

The car lurched and inertia pushed us all to one side. I took advantage of it. I let myself go with the movement and ended up a little closer to him, as if it were chance and not me. At first I was just shifting to get comfortable, pretending I was trying to keep my balance. But I was so wet, so close to the edge, that it wasn’t enough.

On the next curve I pressed myself against his back. I rested the side of my body against his and, slowly, began rubbing my ass against him. My heart was pounding so hard I thought the whole car might hear it. What are you doing?, a voice inside me asked. But the other one, the one that had been silent for years, was smiling.

***

He tensed. I noticed it right away. He lowered a hand and set it on one of my ass cheeks, over my skirt, with the clear intention of moving me away. A polite gesture, from a man who doesn’t want trouble. And for a second I felt embarrassed; I almost pulled back.

But I didn’t give up. I moved toward him again, this time slower, bolder, pressing against his hand instead of running from it. I gave him time to understand that this was no accident. That I wanted this.

His hand hesitated. Then, instead of pushing me away, he squeezed. His fingers closed over my flesh with a firmness that tore a moan from me which I had to swallow between my teeth. I looked around, terrified and turned on in equal measure, but no one was paying attention to us. Everyone was lost in their own exhaustion, their own phones, their own ride home.

That indifference gave me a courage I didn’t know I had. There, surrounded by bodies, completely alone with my secret, I was another woman. Not the one who prayed as a child, not the one who lowered her eyes when a man looked at her too long. I was the one I had always wanted to be and had never dared let out. And all it took was a car full of strangers for her to appear.

For the whole ride I kept rubbing myself against him. I could feel his erection growing, hardening against the curve of my ass, separated from me by only two thin layers of fabric. The sensation drove me crazy. I was so wet I could feel the dampness sliding between my thighs, and I prayed it wouldn’t show through my skirt.

He breathed behind me, by my ear, a heavy breath that raised the hair on the back of my neck. We didn’t say a single word. There was no need. His hand held me, my body offered itself, and between us a silent conversation grew, made of pressure, heat, and a desire we couldn’t confess to anyone.

We reached a large station and half a dozen people got off all at once. A gap opened between us and the magic broke. He stepped to the side, straightened his tie, avoided my gaze. The doors closed again, but I didn’t move back toward him. The moment had passed.

Two stops later, it was mine. As I made my way toward the exit, I turned my head one last time. He was looking at me. That was all. A long, intense look, loaded with everything that hadn’t happened. Then the doors spat me out onto the platform and I never saw him again.

***

Nothing else happened with that stranger. And yet, as soon as I got home and closed the door behind me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. I dropped my bag on the floor, left my keys where they fell, and went straight to the bedroom, my pulse still racing.

I let myself fall onto the bed and opened my blouse all the way, too impatient for buttons. I started pinching my nipples hard, just the way I like. I enjoy pain, that fine line where pain and pleasure blur and everything becomes more intense. The harder I squeezed, the more the heat climbed through my belly.

I pulled my skirt up to my waist and ran my fingers over my soaked cunt. My lips are a little long, so I spread my legs as far as I could and opened myself with my fingers too, until I was completely exposed. The cool air of the room hit my wetness and that, far from calming me, only turned me on more. I like feeling myself this open, as if someone could be watching me from a corner, as if I were masturbating for him.

I rubbed my clit slowly at first, in soft circles, then faster, until my hips began moving on their own. More, I thought. Just a little more. Just when I felt I was about to come, I pinched myself with two fingers and then pushed them inside, deep. Feeling my hand fill with my own wetness was so delicious that I brought my fingers to my mouth and sucked them clean, only to start again.

***

I closed my eyes and went back to him. To the man in the gray suit. To the feel of his fingers digging into my ass cheek, to his broad chest against my back, to that hard erection throbbing against me, looking for a place it couldn’t get into. Remembering it made me even wetter, as if the air in that car were still clinging to my skin.

I started sliding my fingers in and out faster and faster, imagining they were his. I imagined the doors not opening at that station, the car emptying out without either of us moving, his hand sliding up under my skirt and discovering I wasn’t wearing anything. I imagined his rough voice asking in my ear if I wanted him to keep going.

The wet slapping sound my cunt made with each thrust of my hand was so obscene, so arousing, that I could no longer hold back. My legs began to shake, my toes curled against the sheets, and a brutal heat shot up from my belly to my throat. Then I came, with a spasm that arched my back, and I felt a hot gush leave me and soak the bed.

I lay there, panting, with my blouse open and my skirt bunched at my waist, staring at the ceiling while my breathing slowly returned to normal.

***

Of course, that didn’t satisfy me completely. Things like this never really satisfy me. I stretched out my arm, grabbed the phone from the bedside table, and opened the messages that had piled up during the day. Some were from strangers, men who write to me without really knowing who they’re talking to, telling me what they’d do if they had me near. Reading them, with my body still sensitive, was enough to make my hand go back down between my legs.

I plan to keep exploring this version of myself I kept hidden for so long. Maybe next time I won’t get off at my station. Maybe I’ll let the stranger’s hand go a little farther. Maybe I’ll answer one of those messages and see how far I can go when no one knows me.

I’m not good at writing, I know. But there’s something about putting into words what I feel that turns me on almost as much as doing it. And if you, who made it this far, have any idea what I should try next, I promise I’ll read it very eagerly.