My Fantasy Began When I Handed Him the Remote

Maybe my fantasy is you, or maybe it’s everything I would do to you if you gave me the chance. I’ve spent weeks unable to decide, and tonight I still don’t know.

Last night I went out looking in other people for something that might make me feel even the shadow of it. The hours passed, the looks passed, the polite smiles, those warm little brushes on the dance floor, and nothing. I only felt cold under my clothes, a skin that never quite woke up. Not a single spark to warm even the tiniest part of my imagination.

And yet, in the middle of all those people, I could only think of you. Imagine you tangled around my neck, your breath grazing the nape of my neck, the heat of your big hands working its way under the fabric. I know it’s all in my head. You haven’t kissed me yet and, even so, I know exactly how you kiss.

If there’s so much eroticism in your words, in the way you write at two in the morning, then your kisses must be just as intense: strong, wet, slow. The kind that foreshadow the promise of everything that would come after.

I still don’t know your touch. I imagine it as firm, patient, warm, and precise. I picture it so many times that I can almost feel it, and that embarrasses me and turns me on in equal measure.

I want to invent an ending for this encounter that hasn’t even happened yet.

I can think of endless possibilities, so I’m going to fantasize about all of them. I’m going to tell you one. The one I like most. The one I repeat in the dark when I think no one can hear me.

***

It was Friday and the place was packed, with that low red light that makes everyone look better than they are. Without really knowing how, I saw you. You were standing by the bar, talking to someone who clearly didn’t interest you.

I noticed the way you moved, the way you nodded without listening. That conversation was going nowhere, and after so many nights of hunting, you recognize that at a glance. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

I convinced my friends to change areas. It would be easier that way to let the inevitable happen. You were close, but I wanted even less distance between us.

—Look, I think those are the ones over there —I told Carla and Noelia, pointing toward some random group in the back—. I’m going to say hi.

They followed me without suspecting a thing. The hard part wasn’t getting close: the hard part was not running to you. So I took my time with every step, slowly, so it would seem both as natural and as calculated as possible.

A few minutes later we were already near you. Our eyes met and a crooked half-smile slipped out of both of us without permission. My friends didn’t know you, so I could shape the encounter however I wanted. The game was about to begin and I was the one dealing the cards.

I walked up to you like someone greeting an acquaintance. Two kisses, the usual. But I lingered too long near your neck. I wanted to smell you, to keep your scent for future nights when I would only have myself.

I took advantage of the darkness and the noise to lean even closer to your ear.

—I’ve got a challenge for you —I whispered—. Want to play?

Your face said it all. You hadn’t expected that, after so long playing cat and mouse, I’d be the one to make the first move. The one to challenge you. The one to set the rules.

You tried to regain control immediately, as you always do. You slipped an arm around my waist to pull me against you, and I let you. More than that, I wrapped myself around your body, returned the gesture in the form of a warm, deliberate embrace, far too intimate for two people who “just said hello.”

You smiled at me with that swagger of yours. I saw you run your tongue over your lips to moisten them before speaking, saw you barely bite your lower lip. It was right then that I knew I had stopped piloting my own body. I knew it, and even so it took me a while to surrender. I wanted to stretch out that last frontier of control a little longer.

—I like challenges —you said, lowering your head just enough for your mouth to rest against my ear.

My friends were dancing and laughing a couple of meters away, completely oblivious to what was burning between us. My pulse was racing and I could feel dampness growing between my legs, traitorous, getting ahead of everything else.

—I accept —you repeated, and the words were followed by tiny kisses on my earlobe and a wet stroke of your tongue that slid down my neck until it was almost visible to anyone looking.

I took all the air I could. I reclaimed the power I’d given myself and took charge of the game again. I opened my bag and put something in your hand. A small remote control, cold and discreet.

—You’re going to torture me with this in a little while —I said, and I walked away before you could answer.

***

On the way to the bathroom I texted you. I knew, from the expression on your face, that you were still analyzing the situation, trying to understand how far the challenge went.

The message said: “Don’t ask and don’t follow me. When I come out of the bathroom, you can turn the remote on. There’s a toy I’ve been wearing since before I walked through the club’s door.”

I would have loved to see your face when you read it, but that time I had to imagine it. And I imagined it well: the raised eyebrow, the half-smile, the eyes searching for me among the crowd and failing.

I locked myself in the bathroom for a moment, in front of the mirror, and took a few seconds to steady myself and gather every shred of confidence I could. I fixed my hair, breathed deeply, felt the toy small and warm against me. I was ready. More than ready.

When I went back to the dance floor, your whole body radiated a contained perversity. You had understood perfectly. Nothing else needed to be said: I was begging you, without words, to torture me with pleasure in front of everyone.

I went back to my friends as if nothing had happened. I danced, laughed, toasted. But my mind kept waiting for that torture my body was already demanding. I waited patiently, pretending, until I almost forgot I was carrying the secret between my legs.

And then it began.

A soft vibration, low, almost a tingle, woke up in the very center of my underwear. So slight at first that I thought I had imagined it. But no. It was you. You were somewhere in the club, watching me, deciding the rhythm of my night with your thumb.

I tightened my grip around the glass. I half-followed Carla’s conversation, nodding out of sync, laughing a second too late. The vibration climbed a notch and I had to close my eyes for an instant. When I opened them, I found you. You were leaning against a column, drink in one hand and the other hidden in your pocket, watching me like someone watching their own work.

—Are you okay? You’ve gone red —Noelia said in my ear.

—It’s hot in here —I replied, and I wasn’t lying completely.

You heard it with your eyes, read my lips from across the room, and turned it up a little more just to confirm that this was under your control. The vibration became a steady, deep pulse that forced me to brace my hand on the high table so I wouldn’t lose my footing. I bit my lip. Not here, not in front of them. But that was exactly the point, and we both knew it.

We played like that for what felt like hours. You lowered the intensity just when I thought I was going to give in, let me breathe, collect myself, go back to the conversation. And when I let my guard down, when I convinced myself the tide had passed, you cranked it back up and stole my breath in the middle of a sentence.

It was a conversation without words, made of looks across all those people. I searched for you, you held my gaze and moved your thumb ever so slightly, and I could feel the effect sweep through my whole body, from my knees to the nape of my neck. I had never felt so exposed and so desired at the same time. So much at your mercy in a place full of strangers who suspected nothing.

At one point you left everything still, silent, for several eternal minutes. The sudden emptiness was almost worse than the torture. I found myself longing for you to switch it back on, counting the seconds, looking at you with a reproach that was pure begging.

You smiled. You knew exactly what you were doing to me. That pause was part of the game: showing me how much I missed something I had been trying to hide just ten minutes before.

When you turned it back on, you did it mercilessly and all at once. I had to grip the stool, fake a laugh to justify the tremble, dig my nails into my own palm. My legs went weak and I felt everything concentrate into a single point, tightening, edging toward a dangerous precipice in the middle of the dance floor.

—I’m going outside for a minute to get some air —I told my friends, my voice less steady than I meant it to be.

—Want me to come with you? —Carla offered.

—No, I’ll be right back. I need a minute.

I headed out toward the corridor that led to the exit, knowing you would read the move. Knowing that, this time, you really would break the rule about not following me. I felt you on the back of my neck before I heard you: your footsteps behind mine, your warmth closing the distance I had stretched out all night.

—I didn’t tell you to follow me —I murmured without turning around, with a smile you couldn’t see.

—You changed the rules first —you replied, already very close, and the vibration climbed one final notch just as your hand found my waist.

***

And there, exactly there, my fantasy always stops. On the edge. With your breath on my neck, the remote still warm in your hand, and the promise of everything to come trembling in the air.

Because the truth, the only truth in all this, is that I still haven’t kissed you. I still don’t know your touch. Everything happens in my head, over and over, with variations, with different endings I invent every night.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally decide to really cross that room. Maybe I’ll really put that remote in your hand and stop guessing how you kiss. Or maybe I’ll send you this story and let you decide which of my endings deserves to stop being only a fantasy.

Your choice. But remember: I’m the one who hands out the remote.