My fantasy with another woman felt so real

It makes me laugh how curious people are. Some of them keep asking me what happened the night after the one when I gave my husband the best massage of his life, and the truth is I’m going to leave them wanting. There are things a woman keeps to herself. But in exchange I’m going to tell you something else, something that didn’t even fully happen, and yet left me trembling for days.

I need to explain something first. I’m pretty shy with almost everyone. I have trouble holding someone’s gaze for too long, I blush at the slightest thing, and when someone pays me a compliment I lower my head and change the subject. The only person with whom I stop being that way is Bruno, my husband. With him I let myself go completely, without shame, without thinking about what’s right or wrong. He’s the only man with whom I learned how to truly let myself go.

The problem started on a boring afternoon. Bruno was away on a work trip and I was left alone at home, with nothing to do. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I started watching some videos on my phone. And among everything that flashed across the screen, one stuck with me: two women, unhurried, looking at each other as if they had all the time in the world. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

From then on, a strange, new desire got into my head, one I had never felt so strongly before: I wanted to be with another woman. Not with just anyone, or anywhere. It was a vague idea, a texture, a mouth. And the curious thing is that it even slipped into my dreams.

***

One of those nights I dreamed something so vivid I still have trouble believing it wasn’t real.

I was sitting on a bench in the square near my house, the one with the old plane trees where people take their dogs in the afternoon. The sun was coming in from the side and stroking my bare arm. It was such a pleasant warmth that I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them she was already there, standing in front of me, the sun at her back.

She was a woman with a generous body, the kind that fills out clothes without asking permission. She was wearing a light-colored dress and her hair was tied up, with a couple of loose strands stuck to her neck from the heat.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know a place nearby where I can get something cold to drink at this hour?”

I remembered that on the corner they had opened a small place selling cream shakes with lots of ice. I pointed her that way and explained how to get there. She thanked me with a smile and started to walk away.

I don’t know where I found the courage. Me, who blushes at nothing, shouted:

“Do you want me to go with you?”

She turned around slowly. She looked me up and down without hiding it, and smiled in a way that had nothing innocent about it.

“You took quite a while to ask,” she said.

I grabbed my bag and crossed the square almost running, as if I were afraid she might disappear. When I got to her side, I realized she had the fullest lips I had ever seen in my life. I wanted to kiss them right there, in the middle of the street, but there were too many people around and I held back. The very act of holding back was already turning me on.

***

We walked the two blocks talking about anything and everything and reached the place. We ordered two shakes and sat by the window. Only then did we introduce ourselves. Her name was Renata.

She asked me what I did for a living. I told her the truth: that for now I didn’t work, that I took care of the house and my husband, and that sometimes I got so bored I ended up making up stories in my head. She laughed at that, as if she knew exactly what I meant.

“I’m a secretary,” she told me. “Or I was. It didn’t go very well at my last job.”

I asked her what had happened and she told me without beating around the bush, stirring the ice with her straw. Her boss had been asking her for favors that weren’t in the contract, and she, she confessed to me, hadn’t really minded all that much. It all ended the day the man’s wife showed up unannounced and found them in a situation that was hard to explain. The wife demanded that he fire her on the spot, and the guy, rather than keep arguing, did it without thinking twice.

“So here you see me,” she said, shrugging. “Looking for work and having shakes with strangers.”

I felt sorry for her, and at the same time it gave me an excuse. I told her I knew people, that maybe I could help her, and that she should give me her number. I pulled out my phone to write it down and, with nerves, it slipped from my hands and fell under the table, almost at her feet.

I bent down to get it. And down there, in the dimness under the tablecloth, I lingered a second longer than necessary. She had her legs crossed, firm, shining from the heat. Without thinking, I ran my hand over her knee and slid up a few inches along her thigh.

Up above, Renata let out a low laugh, a little giggle that made my whole skin prickle. I felt myself get wet all at once, and I sat back up, my face burning, certain that everything showed.

“Did you find it?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Yes,” I lied, because I didn’t even remember the phone.

I pulled my chair closer to hers, as close as I could, to feel her perfume. She was wearing a sweet, warm scent that stayed in my nose. And then, not recognizing myself at all, I blurted out:

“I’ve had a fantasy for days. I want to be with a woman. Would you be up for being with me?”

Renata didn’t seem surprised. She rested her hand on mine, on top of the table, and told me of course. In fact, she added, the shake had been an excuse. She had seen me from the other side of the square and had come over only to have a reason to talk to me.

***

I don’t know much about hotels, and I didn’t know where you go for these things, so I let her lead me. We walked a few more blocks and she went without hesitation into a discreet building with a worn facade. It wasn’t luxurious, but the room was clean and neat, with heavy curtains that left the place in a pleasant half-light.

As soon as she closed the door, I didn’t give her time to speak. I threw myself at that mouth that had obsessed me since the square and kissed her as if I’d been waiting for her for years. She answered right away, with a calmness that undid me, letting me set the pace.

I pulled down the zipper of her dress and the fabric fell to her waist. She wasn’t wearing much underneath. I stood looking at her for a second, not knowing where to start, and then I leaned in and began to explore her with my mouth, slowly, barely biting, listening to the way her breathing changed. Every time a sound escaped her, I squeezed a little harder, just like when Bruno makes me tremble. It was strange and wonderful to recognize my own reactions in someone else’s body.

Then it was her turn. She gently pushed me until I was sitting on the edge of the bed and knelt down in front of me. She started with my neck, came down between my breasts, over my stomach, leaving a warm trail of kisses until she reached lower. I was already so aroused that the first touch of her tongue shook me all over. She opened my legs with her hands, unhurried, looking me in the eyes the whole time, and that gaze made me more dizzy than anything else.

She licked slowly, played, stopped just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. She held me on the edge with a patience that made me moan and beg her not to stop. When she finally gave in, the orgasm hit me with a force I don’t remember ever feeling like that, so fast, so defenseless. I had fantasized so much about that moment that my body didn’t know how to wait.

As soon as I caught my breath, I turned her over on the bed. I wanted to return the favor, to feel what she had felt in her mouth. I went down between her legs and kissed her with the same slowness with which she had tortured me. Renata clutched the sheets, arched her back, repeated my name in a broken whisper. I kept going until I felt her tense completely and let herself go with a cry that filled me with pride, as if I had just passed an exam I had never taken.

We lay there, tangled together, laughing at nothing. I told her I had never done anything like that, that I didn’t even know I was capable of it. She caressed my face and told me it showed, and that that was exactly why she had liked it so much.

***

And then I felt a weight on my chest.

Something warm, alive, rising and falling with my breathing. I opened my eyes slowly, my heart still pounding against my ribs, and found two green eyes looking at me from very close up. It was Mishka, my cat, who had settled in to sleep right on top of me.

It took me a long, long moment to understand. The square, Renata, the hotel, the full lips: none of that had happened. I was in my bed, completely soaked in sweat, with my nightgown stuck to my body and my legs still trembling. It had been a dream. The most real dream I have ever had in my life.

I turned my head. Bruno was still asleep beside me, on his back, breathing deeply, unaware of anything his wife had just dreamed inches away from him. I wanted to wake him up, but I stayed still, listening to my own breathing return to normal.

I moved Mishka aside carefully and lay there staring at the ceiling in the dark. I could still feel the sweet scent of that invented lotion, I could still feel my skin burning where a mouth that doesn’t exist had traveled over me.

Now I have a question that won’t leave me in peace, and that’s why I’m telling you all this. If dreaming it felt that intense, what would it be like for real? I wonder if I’d dare, if one day I’d cross that plane-tree square looking for a stranger with full lips, or if this will always remain on the side of dreams. I still don’t know. The only thing I know is that once curiosity wakes up, it never goes back to sleep.