I Touched Myself in the Shower Thinking of You All Night

It was one of those days when nothing ever really gets going. The light came in gray through the window, the phone never rang, and the hours dragged one after another as if they had lead in their feet. I felt tired down to my bones, that thick heaviness that comes not from having done too much, but from not having felt anything at all. I closed my laptop without saving anything important, took off my shoes, and walked barefoot down the hall to the bathroom, determined to shake off all that drowsiness that had me trapped.

The bathroom was silent. A strange silence, dense, the kind that seems to have weight of its own. I broke it myself when I pulled back the curtain, and the plastic rings squealed against the metal bar. The taps gleamed in their stillness, waiting. I unbuttoned my blouse slowly, unhurriedly, and let my clothes fall to the floor in a soft heap. Out of the corner of my eye I looked at myself in the mirror, which still hadn’t fogged up. There I was: hair tied up, shoulders slightly slumped, pale skin crying out for something to wake it up.

I turned on the water. It coughed first through the pipes, as if clearing its throat, and then a generous stream came out. I tested it with my fingers until I found the right spot, not so hot that it burned, not so lukewarm that it was useless. I stepped in with one foot, then the other, and at last my whole body was under the cascade. The first удар of water on my back tore a long sigh from me. It was as if someone had loosened a knot I’d been carrying all day.

I stayed there a good while, motionless, letting the heat climb the back of my neck and run down my spine. The steam began to win over the walls, the surfaces turned milky, and the mirror disappeared behind a white cloud. Then I understood I hadn’t come in here just to wash myself. I had come looking for something. Something I missed too much, and the water, with its warm insistence, was starting to wake up without asking my permission.

Because running the shower over every inch of my body always brings me back the same thing. It brings me back those dreams I pretend not to have, those urges I keep quiet, that thirst I spend my nights denying in the loneliness of my bed. And it brings me back your face, Adrián. It’s you I miss when the water runs over my shoulders. It’s you I want here, now, with me, filling this bathroom that feels enormous to me when you’re far away.

Maybe thinking of you isn’t enough. Maybe wanting you isn’t either.

I slowly slid down the tiles until I was sitting in the shower tray, knees bent and back against the cold wall. The water kept falling over me, now over my chest and my stomach, breaking into threads that ran down my skin. I closed my eyes. If I squeezed them shut hard enough, I could almost feel you. Almost.

Imagining you close doesn’t fill the emptiness. I know that, and still I try. I slipped one hand between my spread legs, slowly, feeling my way, and the first brush of my own fingers made me arch my back against the tile. It wasn’t enough. It never is when your head is somewhere else, in another mouth, in other hands. Desire grew bigger inside me, more urgent, and I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t let itself be soothed.

Then I took the handheld shower from its holder. I lowered it between my legs and let the force of the water fall straight onto my bare sex. The warm удар tore a moan from me that bounced off the tiles. I clenched my teeth, moved my hand, searched for the exact angle. The force of the stream pushed me toward a shore I never quite reached, like a wave that rises and never breaks. I felt the need growing, relentless, and the water, no matter how insistently it kept at it, couldn’t satisfy it.

And I wanted to call you. To dial your number with wet fingers and ask you to come, to open the door, to get in here with me in this steam and finish what memory begins. But I know you wouldn’t come. I know you can’t. And precisely because of that I let you into my head without resistance, so the lie of having you here would become sharper, more vivid, more alive.

***

I imagined you appearing through the steam, fully dressed, looking at me from the doorway with that half-smile of yours that always undoes me. You didn’t say anything at first. You just looked at me there, seated, vulnerable, with water sliding down my face and my thighs open without shame. I didn’t speak either. I held your gaze and let you see everything, let you understand why I had called you in silence.

—I knew you’d be waiting for me like this —you’d say, and your voice would run down my back like another hand.

You’d take off your shirt without rushing, step by step, just as I had undressed before. The fabric would cling to you as you crossed the spray, and you’d let it fall soaked to the floor. When you finally got in under the water with me, the first contact of your chest against mine would make my whole body tremble. You were hot, real, solid in a way my imagination rarely manages, and I’d cling to that feeling with all my strength so it would last.

You’d help me stand up. You’d take my face in your hands and kiss me slowly, taking your time, as if we had the whole night and not a care in the world. Water would fall over both of us, bind us together, run over our pressed lips. I’d feel your tongue, your breath warming mine, and all the day’s exhaustion would go sliding down the drain with the water.

And then your mouth would start to travel. You’d kiss my jaw, my neck, the hollow behind my ear that only you know. You’d move down my collarbone, over my chest, lingering on my tense breasts until you made me breathe out harder. You’d keep going over my stomach, my hips, leaving behind a hot trail that the water couldn’t wash away. I’d bury my fingers in your wet hair and throw my head back, letting myself go.

—Don’t stop —I’d ask you, even though I knew you weren’t planning to.

By the time you reached the path between my legs, I was no longer mine. I’d brace one hand against the wall so I wouldn’t slip, spread my thighs wider, and give myself over to your mouth the way I give myself over to these memories: without guilt, without fear, regretting only one thing, that you’re too far away. The water kept falling, the tiles echoed my moans, and for an instant the border between what I imagined and what my hand was really doing disappeared completely.

***

I opened my eyes for a second. The handheld shower was still there between my fingers, throbbing its warm stream against my most sensitive skin. The whole room was a cloud. I was once again sitting on the floor, alone, my knees trembling and my breathing broken, but in my head it was still you, on top of me, inside me, filling me in the way only you know how.

I imagined you standing in front of me, with no inhibition at all, inviting me to feel you. I imagined you pushing in slowly, making your way inside me, and both of us letting out at the same time the breath we’d been holding. Each movement you made I followed with my hand and with the stream of water, pretending the pressure was you, the heat was you, the rocking motion was yours and not my own desperation.

We’d be holding each other under the hot torrent, a mirror of that other torrent that was spilling out of me, fierce, between my legs. We’d kiss with water entering our mouths, laughing a little, gasping. And I’d let myself be carried away, because desire knows nothing of distances or borders, and when someone imposes them on you, what you feel refuses to die and becomes more stubborn, hungrier.

I felt that wave at last beginning to rise, the one the whole afternoon had denied me. I squeezed my eyelids shut, called your name under my breath, said it against the sound of the water again and again. My hips moved on their own, searching for the final push. I imagined your voice in my ear telling me to let go, not to hold back, that I was yours, and that single thought finally shoved me over the edge.

The orgasm shook me whole, from my heels to the back of my neck, a long shudder that folded me in on myself. I let out a rough moan that got lost in the steam and the drumming of the water. I stayed curled up in the shower tray, hugging my knees, feeling the aftershocks move through me in waves that grew softer and softer until all that remained was the calm beat of the water falling and my breathing slowly returning to normal.

Several minutes passed before I worked up the courage to move. The water was already starting to lose some of its warmth, announcing that the heat was fading. I hung the handheld shower back in its holder, let the cascade fall clean over my head a little longer, and felt my body differently, loosened, alive again. The heaviness of the day had gone. In its place remained that sweet-and-bitter mix I know so well: the relief of the body and the emptiness of knowing I managed it alone.

I turned off the tap. Silence came back all at once, that dense silence that had welcomed me when I came in, only now it was dripping. I wrapped myself in the towel and sat on the edge of the bathtub, still with my hair soaking wet, looking at the fogged-up walls where my finger, without my realizing it, had drawn a crooked line in the steam.

Today, once again, I had to be alone. Once again I had to resign myself to missing you, wanting you, inventing you in the steam so my body could hold out through the wait. I know that tomorrow you’ll slip back into my head, my hands, the water, every time I need to escape the routine for a while. And I know that one day, I hope soon, I won’t have to imagine you. In the meantime, it’s still just me, my hunger, and this water of mine spilling over in your absence.