I Touched Myself in the Car Before Going Into the Office

My name is Renata and I’m in my thirties. I’m a psychologist, a wife, and a mother, and a long time ago I learned not to apologize to anyone for the way I enjoy my body. I’m telling it like that, straight out, because what happened that morning was neither an accident nor a careless mistake. It was pure desire, the kind that doesn’t warn you and doesn’t wait.

I have brown, curly hair, fair skin, wide hips, and a waist that still shows despite the years and the children. I’m not thin, but there’s something about my body that holds the gaze of anyone who looks at it. That morning I dressed in a hurry, without thinking too much, still with the soft, warm body of someone who has just woken from a night that shouldn’t be told.

It was Friday. I woke up late, disoriented, with a heavy head and a smile I couldn’t quite fit on my face. I’m not going to give details of that dawn; it’s enough to say that when I opened my eyes I still smelled other skin and sweat, and that smell stayed with me while I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and fumbled for something clean to wear in the drawer.

I put on a loose dress, made myself a soft-boiled egg and a little oatmeal to eat on the way, and started the truck with my makeup half done. I drove fast, finishing my eyeliner at every red light, the radio low and my mind anywhere but traffic.

I arrived forty minutes before my shift. I went into the building’s underground parking garage, drove down the ramp to the emptiest level, and parked in a corner far from the elevator. I turned off the engine. The fluorescent lights buzzed over the concrete and, except for two or three cars in the distance, I was completely alone.

I took out the container with the soft-boiled egg, opened social media on my phone, and started eating without rushing. And there, with the fork halfway to my mouth, everything changed.

Part of the egg white was too soft, with a mucous, slippery consistency between the fork’s tines. The texture hit me before the thought did. I froze, with that warm thing on my tongue, and suddenly I wasn’t having breakfast anymore: I was remembering.

This tastes the same.

The memory came back whole, without asking permission. The dawn, the tangled sheets, the weight of a familiar body on top of mine. I lowered the fork and set the container on the passenger seat. The fluorescent buzz receded into the distance. All I could hear was my own breathing, which had suddenly turned short.

***

I threw the seat back in one quick pull. The backrest gave way and I ended up almost lying down, with the truck’s roof only a hand’s breadth from my face. I hiked my dress up to my hips, lifted my hips off the seat, and pulled down my panties. They were wet long before my mind could justify it, soaked in a way that didn’t match the few minutes I’d spent thinking about this.

I brought the fabric to my nose almost without deciding to. The smell was unmistakable, a mix of me and him, the trace of dawn still clinging to the garment. I stuck out my tongue and ran it over the cotton, slowly, tasting that mixture with my eyes closed. Knowing where it came from lit me up in a way that made me ashamed and, at the same time, pushed me on.

I unbuttoned my dress inside the narrow space of the cab, slipped my arms out of the sleeves, and let it fall to my waist. My breasts were bare against the cool air of the garage. I started to caress them, squeeze them, pinch my nipples until the edge of pain blurred into pleasure. I took one into my mouth, bent over myself, and sucked it as if someone else were doing it.

With my other hand I reached between my legs. I was open, wet, stretched. I rubbed two fingers over my clit in slow circles and felt my whole body tighten with anticipation. I wasn’t in a hurry. I had plenty of time and a body that was urgently asking, a combination that rarely comes together.

I took the oatmeal spoon and used it to gather up some of what was already dripping down the insides of my thighs. I lifted it to the light, smelled it, and brought it to my mouth slowly, mixing the taste of the memory with that of my own desire. The seat lining was already stained and I didn’t give a damn. Nothing in that moment existed outside the cab and my hands.

***

I slid my middle finger in first, then my ring finger, and began moving them deeper while the thumb and index finger of my other hand kept working my clit. The rhythm sped up on its own. The truck started rocking barely at all, a minimal sway on the suspension, and that little metal tremor put the idea in my head that I was in plain view of anyone, separated from the world by a fogged-up window and nothing else.

And then, a sharp knock on the window.

I jumped so hard it knocked the air out of me. My heart raced. I yanked my dress down to cover my breasts, wiped my face, and lowered the glass by barely a third, showing only my eyes.

—Everything okay in here? —a security guard asked, leaning in a little to look inside.

—Yes, everything’s fine —I said, in a voice rougher than I’d expected—. I was just having breakfast.

I wasn’t exactly lying. The man nodded, hesitated for a second, and walked away toward the ramp. I watched him disappear in the rearview mirror and, far from stopping me, the scare left my body vibrating, adrenaline and desire braided into one thing I couldn’t shut off.

I raised the glass again. I stayed still for a moment, listening, alert for any footsteps, and when I confirmed I was alone again I leaned back once more. Fear had set everything on fire. What was forbidden now had two layers: the memory of the dawn and the possibility that anyone, at any moment, might knock on the glass again.

***

I scooped up the rest of the egg in the container with my hand and ran it over my sex, letting it mix with everything already seeping out of me. I brought my fingers to my mouth, sucked them one by one, and slid them back inside. This time there was no slowness. I was going for the finish with the urgency of someone who knows they’re out of time, scraping deeper as the other hand never left my clit.

I started to sweat. The dress stuck to my back. I felt that unmistakable pressure in my lower belly, the one that confuses pleasure with the need to pee, and instead of stopping I let myself fall into it. Outside, someone started an engine; the screech of tires bounced off the concrete walls and that ordinary noise, added to everything else, pushed me over the edge.

A hot stream burst out of me and a moan slipped from my throat before I could hold it back, loud, uncontrollable, lost in the echo of the engines. My body arched on its own. An electric current shot from my sex to the nape of my neck, my eyes squeezed shut, and I was left trembling, writhing against the backrest, in one of the longest orgasms of my whole life.

It took me a while to come back. The fluorescent buzz returned first, then the cold of the air on my wet skin, and finally the awareness of where I was and what I had just done. The windows were completely fogged over. I peeled myself off the seat little by little, my legs still weak.

***

I opened my bag and took out the packet of wipes I always carry with me, as if some part of me had known in advance what they’d be for. I cleaned between my legs, my thighs, the soaked seat. As best I could, I moved over to the passenger side to straighten my dress without getting it any dirtier, buttoned it up with clumsy fingers, and got out of the truck without airing it out first.

I had arrived forty minutes early. I walked into the office fifteen minutes late, and I didn’t care at all. I spent the day with a strange calm, the kind the body is left with when it’s given exactly what it wants, and every time I met someone’s eyes I felt like I was carrying a warm secret hidden under my clothes.

When the day ended and I opened the truck door, the smell of sex was still soaked into the leather and the sealed air of the cab. I had to take it to be washed before going home. But that was later. First, still in the parking garage, with the memory fresh and my body fired up again just thinking about it, I sat behind the wheel, looked around to make sure I was alone, and let desire have me once more.