I Let Myself Be Masturbated in the Movie Theater Line

That night we’d arranged to have dinner at the Miramonte shopping center, the big one, the one with the movie theaters at the back of the third floor. I’d dressed in something I knew would drive Mateo crazy: a white mini skirt made of very thin fabric, the kind that looks like a tennis skirt but lighter, and a wrap blouse of the same color, also thin, with nothing underneath. The only underwear I was wearing was a tiny leopard-print thong.

Dinner was business as usual. We ate slowly, laughed at stupid things, and he stroked my knee under the table every time the conversation got boring. Then we walked around the corridors for a while, looking at storefronts we weren’t going to buy from, stealing quick kisses at every empty corner.

“Want to see a movie?” he said, pointing at the lit-up marquee.

“Whatever you want,” I answered.

He bought two tickets for the last screening. There was still a while before the auditorium opened, so we went down that side hallway by the theaters, the dark one almost nobody uses. There are benches against the wall and a dim light at the far end that barely reaches. We sat there, pressed together, and started kissing for real.

Mateo slipped a hand under my skirt and searched for me over the fabric of the thong. I could feel the heat rising in me, but something made me close my legs.

“Not here,” I told him, not even sure why.

He leaned back with a annoyed look, like a child having a toy taken away. You’re going to regret saying no, I thought. And then I got an idea.

***

“I’m going to the bathroom for a second,” I said, and stood up before he could answer.

I walked all the way to the other end, where the bathrooms and the popcorn counter are. I locked myself in a stall and, instead of doing what I was supposed to do, I pulled my leopard-print thong down to my ankles and took it off carefully. I folded it, rolled it up, and tied it into my hair like a hair tie, until I had a loose bun off to one side of my head. I looked at myself in the mirror: the white skirt, my bare legs all the way up, and that tiny piece of fabric turned into an ornament. I laughed to myself. My heart was pounding and I could already feel the wetness starting between my legs, just from thinking about what I was about to do.

I came out of the bathroom walking slowly, looking for him. I found him with his back turned, standing in front of some posters for upcoming releases, hands in his pockets. I approached from behind, swaying, slow, like a cat testing before it jumps.

That’s when I saw them. On the floor, leaning against the wall under the posters, there were three boys sitting down, younger than me, waiting for God knows what. I was twenty-two then; they weren’t even twenty. One in particular caught my eye: messy hair, a loose smile, eyes that lifted just as I walked by. And because they were sitting so low, anyone looking up at me was going to realize that under that white skirt there was absolutely nothing.

Mateo turned around and motioned to me with his hand.

“Come here,” he said.

I swallowed. I could have walked straight over, legs together, like a decent girl. Instead I looked down at the boy with the loose smile, who was already staring at me wide-eyed, fixed on the hem of my skirt. And I took one more step, spreading my legs just a little, just enough.

I saw him catch his breath. I saw him nudge the one beside him discreetly without taking his eyes off me. And I felt something hot and electric run through me from my nape to my thighs, knowing I was being watched like that, completely exposed and doing it on purpose.

***

I got to Mateo and he put his arms around my waist.

“Aren’t you hot?” he asked me, and without waiting for an answer he started taking off the light sweater I had draped over my shoulders.

I was left with only the wrap blouse, the one made of such thin fabric that under the ceiling lights everything showed through. I felt the cool air on my nipples, which hardened instantly and pressed against the fabric. Mateo looked at my chest and then at my face, and I knew he’d realized something.

We kept walking arm in arm, pretending to look at the posters. His hand slid down my back to my ass and stopped dead.

“And your thong?” he murmured near my ear.

I pointed to the bun with one finger, saying nothing. I watched comprehension dawn on him. His face changed into a mix of surprise and desire I’d never seen on him before.

“So those guys over there,” he said, glancing sideways at the boys on the floor, “the ones sitting down, saw you with nothing on.”

“I don’t think so,” I answered, acting innocent. “It’s dark.”

“Where they are, it isn’t dark,” he said.

I didn’t answer. There was no need. I only felt the liquid sliding down the inside of my thigh at hearing it confirmed out loud: several men had seen me, completely naked under my skirt, and I had allowed it. I had sought it out.

***

“Let’s get in line,” Mateo said. “It won’t be long now.”

The line to enter the theater had grown long, about ten people, mostly couples, with the occasional group of friends. Mateo stood in front of me, his back to me, so his body blocked me from the people ahead. I pressed myself against him, wrapping my arms around his waist, resting my chin on his shoulder.

And then I felt his hand. It slipped down from behind, under the edge of my skirt, and found me already soaking. It was no effort at all. He ran two fingers over me slowly, from bottom to top, and I bit my lips to keep from making a sound.

“You’re dripping,” he whispered without turning around.

I couldn’t answer. He slid in one finger, then another. I was so wet they went in without effort, and after a few seconds there were three, moving with a slowness that drove me crazy. I held him tight, hiding my face in his back, while in the middle of the line, surrounded by people, he shoved his hand under my miniskirt.

The white fabric kept riding up in front with every movement. Anyone paying attention would notice. And instead of closing myself off, instead of stopping him, I did the opposite: I spread my legs a little more, gave him more room, offered myself.

***

I leaned back slightly, searching with my ass for the body of whoever was standing behind me in line. I wanted to feel him, wanted to brush against a stranger without it being obvious, to add one more person to this without him fully knowing it. But no matter how far I stretched, I couldn’t reach anyone; there was a respectable gap.

I turned my head just a little, sideways, and almost lost it. The line had doubled. Behind us several lone men had settled in, some staring straight at me, others pretending not to with side-smiles. And there I was: standing up in a white miniskirt with nothing underneath, my legs open, my boyfriend’s hand going in and out of me, leaking down my thighs, while everyone around me pretended to look at the wall.

Among them I recognized the boy with the loose smile. He was no longer on the floor. He’d gotten up and joined the line, a few places back, just to keep watching. Our eyes met for a second. He didn’t look away. Neither did I.

Mateo curled his fingers inside me and I let out a sigh I had to disguise as a yawn. I was well and truly filled up, as we say, on the edge of something I still wasn’t going to let myself finish. Not there. Not so soon.

***

They started opening the auditorium and the line moved forward. Mateo pulled his hand out just in time, wiped it discreetly on his pants, and took my waist as if nothing had happened. We went in, handed the tickets to the girl at the entrance, and climbed the stairs to our seats.

That was when I realized it wasn’t over. Someone must have seen us in line, because as soon as we walked in I noticed nobody else sat far away. Mateo chose a pair of seats in the middle rows, and immediately several men took positions nearby: one in the row behind, two in front, others scattered along the sides of the aisle. Discreet smiles in the dimness. Some girlfriend scowling at her distracted date.

The lights went out. The previews started. I settled into my seat and, without thinking too much, did exactly what I had been doing all night: put one foot up on the edge of the seat, let my knee fall outward, and stayed like that, legs open, the skirt barely covering anything, feeling the screen light my bare skin in flashes of white and blue.

Mateo slid his hand along my thigh as soon as the movie began. He didn’t take it away for the next two hours. He stroked me slowly, heated me up, left me hanging and started again, playing with me as if he had all the time in the world. And I, meanwhile, stared at the screen without seeing a thing, aware at every moment of the silhouettes around me, of the held breaths, of the eyes that from time to time drifted away from the movie and onto me.

I don’t remember what the movie was about. I remember the cold air on my skin, Mateo’s hand, and the strange, intoxicating certainty that for those two hours I was the real show in the theater.

***

When we left, already in the early hours of the morning, I loosened the bun and the leopard thong fell into my hand, rumpled and forgotten. I tucked it into my purse. Mateo looked at me with a new smile, the smile of someone who has just discovered something about the person he thinks he knows.

“I thought you were going to tell me no all night,” he said in the parking lot.

“And I did tell you no,” I answered. “Once.”

He laughed. He opened the car door for me and, before I got in, pinned me against the body of the car and kissed me like it was the first time. I kissed him back, thinking that night I’d learned something about myself I had no intention of forgetting: that I liked being looked at, that the danger of being found out was exactly what turned me on, and that next time there wasn’t going to be a bathroom, or an excuse, or a thong to tie in my hair.

Next time I was going to leave the house already wearing nothing underneath.