My Boyfriend Took Me Around the Supermarket Almost Naked

It was one of those winter nights when the cold gets in through the seams of your clothes. I had left the university early and had a couple of free hours before seeing Bruno, my boyfriend, so I decided to wander aimlessly through downtown. I was wearing a tobacco-colored spaghetti-strap top, no bra, and over it a white fine-knit sweater, almost transparent, the kind that shows nothing when the light hits it. Tight jeans and a tiny thread thong that I could barely feel. I don’t know why I dressed like that that night. Maybe somewhere deep down, I already knew what I was looking for.

I passed in front of a small bar where I’d been a couple of times before. Inside, at a table by the window, three men in their forties looked up when they saw me. They recognized me, and one of them called me by name. They were regulars, construction guys who ended the day with a few beers. They beckoned me in to warm up for a while, and the cold was excuse enough.

—Stay, we’ll buy you something —said the biggest one, pulling out a chair for me.

I sat down with my sweater still on, hugging myself. But they insisted, laughing, that I take it off, that it was warm inside, that I shouldn’t be shy. And I, whose body was burning that night for some reason I didn’t understand, took it off.

Underneath, the tank top barely held in my breasts. Without the bra, they looked heavy, marked, and the three of them stopped talking for a second. They like what they’re seeing, I thought, and that idea sent a tingle between my legs.

They couldn’t stop looking at me. They joked, they praised me, and every word made me more nervous and hotter at the same time. Until one of them, the quietest one, leaned across the table and told me in a low voice that he would pay to see me without the top. Just looking. The other two nodded, pulled out some bills, and laid them on the wood.

I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. I looked at the door, at the almost empty bar, at the dim lights. And I lowered my straps.

The cold air raised goose bumps on my skin as soon as I was exposed. Three pairs of eyes ran over me as if they were touching me. I felt one of their rough hands come closer, hesitate, and then brush against me. I didn’t pull away. I closed my eyes and let that mouth find my breast with a need that tore a low moan from me. It wasn’t elegant or romantic. It was pure desire, and I loved it so much that I ended up trembling against the back of the chair.

***

We stayed like that for a while, between stolen caresses and whispers, until I remembered the time. Bruno was waiting for me. I got myself together, put my sweater back on, and said goodbye. The quietest one offered to drive me home in his car, and since it was already night outside and freezing, I agreed.

The ride was short. He dropped me off in front of the building where I lived with Bruno, but I didn’t have the apartment keys and he still hadn’t arrived. I asked him to wait with me inside the car for a few minutes, until he showed up. Meanwhile, he talked. He said my boyfriend was a lucky bastard, that he’d never seen anyone like me, that he was having a hard time keeping his hands still.

And he didn’t keep them still.

He started with my knee, moved up my thigh, and I did nothing to stop him. On the contrary. I found his crotch with my hand and discovered he was rock hard. I pulled him out of his pants and found that he was thick, much more than I expected, and that fascinated me. I leaned over him without thinking, and while I heard him hold his breath, all I could think about was how badly I wanted to feel him inside me.

I pulled down my jeans, thong included, and climbed on top of him as best I could in the cramped space of the seat. He entered me with a pressure that made me bite my lip to keep from crying out. He thrust hard, without pause, and at some point the fabric of my thong got in the way and he, impatient, ended up ripping it off with one yank. He came inside me just as I was losing control, pierced by something I had never felt with that intensity.

I got down, breathless, asked him for something to clean myself with, and he offered me, laughing, the shredded thong. I gave it back to him. I told him to go, that Bruno would be arriving any minute, and as soon as the car pulled away I saw my boyfriend’s headlights turn the corner.

***

Bruno got out, surprised to find me out in the street. He asked me how I’d gotten there, whether we weren’t going to stop by my mother’s house. I told him someone had given me a ride. We went upstairs, and inside the apartment he immediately noticed that I wasn’t wearing any underwear under my jeans.

—And your thong? —he asked, not angry, just with a strange curiosity.

—I didn’t bring it —I answered—. I wanted to come like this, for you.

He didn’t say anything. He kept looking at me for a long moment, as if he were calculating something. Then he came closer, took off my sweater and the top, and left me naked from the waist up in the middle of the living room. I thought we were going straight to bed. But no.

—Put the sweater back on —he said—. Just the sweater.

I obeyed. The transparent fabric covered me without covering anything: my breasts were fully outlined, my nipples tight from the cold. Then he took off my jeans and pulled a tiny skirt from a drawer, the kind that barely covers anything, and handed it to me.

—Put it on. I have to buy a few things at the supermarket.

I looked at him without understanding, but something in his voice made me comply. I put the skirt on over my bare skin, with nothing underneath, and we went out into the street. The supermarket was two blocks away. As we walked, I could still feel the warm residue of the other scene seeping through me, and I discreetly wiped myself with my hand so Bruno wouldn’t notice.

The night cold had my nipples about to burst under the sweater. A couple of men walking by stared at me with their mouths slightly open, and I felt my cheeks burn. Bruno walked half a step behind me, watching me and watching how others watched me. He likes this as much as I do, I realized. And that changed everything.

***

We went in. Under the supermarket’s white lights, I felt more exposed than I had out on the street. Every step made my breasts move under the thin fabric. A man was coming toward us and my first instinct was to cover myself with my arm, pretending to fix my hair, while with my other hand I squeezed Bruno’s.

But farther on, two young guys appeared, tall, attractive, and I decided not to hide. I let my arm drop. My nipples showed completely against the sweater, and they didn’t look away even after we had passed them. Bruno leaned toward my ear.

—Walk ahead. I want to see you.

I did. I went on alone down the aisle, knowing his eyes were following me, and in an empty stretch I bent down slowly, as if looking for something on a low shelf. The skirt barely reached anywhere. When I stood up, his gaze was burning.

—You look incredible —he murmured.

Those two words pushed me to want more. I walked to the deli section, where an employee was offering samples. To one side there were tables with people eating dinner, drinking coffee, talking. The guy behind the counter offered me a piece of ham to taste. I climbed onto one of the metal steps meant to keep shopping carts away from the display cases, leaned toward him, and opened my mouth, never taking my eyes off his while his dropped to my breasts.

I was wearing a miniskirt, no underwear, a sweater that made everything see-through, letting a stranger feed me by hand while the men at the tables behind me had a full view of what the skirt no longer covered when I bent over. Bruno, from a distance, saw everything. Later he would tell me exactly what they had seen, and just imagining it sent a shiver through me.

We kept going to the checkout lines. Bruno was ahead. He turned just as a couple reached the line next to us, two shy boys with glasses who, according to him, came closer without suspecting anything. He asked me in a low voice to turn toward them, and I obeyed. The boy’s eyes went wide when he saw my bare breasts under the fabric, and his girlfriend looked at me with equal parts outrage and curiosity. I held her gaze a second too long, enjoying the power of provoking that kind of reaction in someone.

***

By the time we left the supermarket, I was so turned on I could barely walk straight. The whole night had piled up in my body: the hands in the bar, the sex in the car, and now this slow, deliberate display Bruno had orchestrated for the two of us.

We didn’t make it back to the apartment. On the stairs of the building, on the landing between two floors, he shoved me against the cold wall and lifted my skirt. There was no preamble. We both needed it with the same desperation. We did it there, barely holding back our moans, until we had to go into the apartment to finish what we could no longer stop.

That night we discovered something neither of us had confessed out loud: I got turned on by being watched, and he got turned on by seeing me stir up other people’s desire. We shouted so much that the next day a neighbor, with an awkward smile in the elevator, commented that everything had been heard.

I laughed, said I was sorry, and went in before the blush showed on my face. But inside, I was already thinking about the next time. Because after that night, Bruno and I understood that this was only the beginning. What came after, however, is another story.