The Advice My Brother Gave Me That Brought My Desire Back

That Sunday afternoon I called my brother Daniel to see how he was handling his new life as a separated man. He’d only left the apartment he shared with his wife three months earlier, and I still pictured him pacing around a half-empty flat, not knowing where to put anything.

“So? Have you already gotten yourself into any trouble with some woman or other?” I asked him, half joking.

He dodged the question. He started talking about work, about a trip he had pending, about anything but what I’d asked him. That way of wriggling out of it confirmed everything for me: of course he had something going on with someone, he just wasn’t planning to tell me, his older sister.

“Relax, I’m not going to interrogate you,” I said, laughing. “I retired from that a long time ago.”

And it was true. Since my breast cancer surgery I hadn’t been with anyone again. It wasn’t so much a lack of desire as modesty. The scars I was left with made me feel as though my body was no longer a place where someone else would want to stay. Time took care of the rest, and little by little I pushed the subject aside until I almost forgot it had ever existed.

“I was never much of a masturbator, you know?” I added, surprised to find myself talking about that with him. “I guess I never really needed it.”

There was an odd silence on the other end. And then, I’m not quite sure why, I blurted out something I’d had inside me for months.

“The only time I felt something again was while reading your book. That chapter… it turned me on. A lot.”

Daniel laughed, flattered. His erotic novel had spent years in a drawer before a small publishing house finally decided to release it, and hearing his own sister say she’d been aroused by it must have seemed like the finest compliment possible.

“And what did you do?” he asked, his voice amused. “Did you just stay frustrated, or did you take care of it?”

“I tried,” I confessed. “I had a dildo tucked away from more than twenty years ago, a gift from my ex-husband that I brought with me when I left that house. But when I took it out of the drawer… oh God. It had turned into a soft, deformed lump of rubber. It disgusted me so much I threw it straight in the trash without even thinking.”

And I stayed just as frustrated, that part I didn’t tell him.

“Listen, you don’t need to buy anything out of the ordinary,” he said with complete naturalness. “I’m sure you’ve got a thousand things at home that work just as well.”

“What kind of things?” I asked, incredulous.

His answer left me dumbfounded. He started naming everything from the handle of a hairbrush to half a greengrocer’s stall: carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, leeks, turnips. He said it like someone reciting a shopping list.

“Just open the fridge and let your imagination run wild,” he concluded, laughing his head off.

***

I didn’t know whether to laugh or die of embarrassment on the spot, but curiosity outweighed everything else. Since we were at it, I kept asking him questions, like a diligent student.

“One important thing,” he warned me. “Always use a condom with it. It helps you avoid infections and, besides, they’re lubricated, so it goes in much better.”

“Daniel, I’m sixty-four years old,” I protested. “I’d die of embarrassment just thinking about going into a pharmacy to buy condoms.”

He was quiet for a moment, I suppose not quite knowing how to answer that.

“Then don’t go to a pharmacy,” he said at last. “Buy them at the supermarket, at the neighborhood checkout. You put them on the conveyor belt with the rest of your shopping and the cashier just scans the barcode. You don’t even have to ask for them out loud.”

We laughed a while longer and hung up. But the conversation had stuck to my skin.

***

I went straight to the kitchen. I opened the fridge and stood there with an absurd feeling, like a teenager doing something forbidden. A good-sized carrot was the first thing that caught my eye. I washed it slowly under the tap, longer than necessary, as if delaying it would make it seem less brazen.

Then I went into the living room, took Daniel’s book off the shelf, and looked for the chapter. I found it without effort; I knew exactly what page it was on. I sat down in the armchair barefoot, legs tucked up, and started reading.

Even though I remembered every sentence, as I went along I could feel my panties getting wetter. I touched myself over the fabric, just the lightest brush, and my breathing changed at once. I thought it was time to move from theory to practice.

I pulled down my underwear and, carefully, used the carrot to help myself. I was surprised by how easily it slid in, after so many years of drought. With one hand I held the book open on my knee and with the other I moved it slowly, in and out, without hurry.

Just when I reached the scene where the book’s heroine comes, my body responded on its own. It was the first orgasm in years, and it caught me so by surprise that I let out a moan that bounced off the empty walls of the living room.

I stayed sunk in the armchair, exhausted, my chest rising and falling. It took me a while to catch my breath. And as soon as I did, all I felt was the need to do it again.

I looked for something bigger. A thick leek tempted me, but the rooty end didn’t invite that kind of use, and I was afraid that if I cut it, the juice might cause some irritation. It was clear: I had to go to the supermarket for condoms, just as my brother had told me.

In the meantime, a medium zucchini seemed perfect for a second time. I washed it well with soap and went back to the armchair. This time I didn’t even need to read; remembering the images from the book was enough. When I slid it into myself, I felt completely full, the walls tightening around it, a sensation I couldn’t remember ever having had, maybe because it was thicker than any man who had touched me before.

I moved it at a slow rhythm while two fingers from my other hand drew circles over my clit. The second orgasm was much more intense than the first, so long it left me wrecked on the armchair. It took me at least fifteen minutes to be able to get up.

At that moment I didn’t know whether to hate Daniel or love him more than ever for stirring all that up, when I thought I’d been living quite peacefully without sex.

***

A few days later, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery man with a package addressed to my brother. I found it odd, but since it was addressed to him, I accepted it, signed for the delivery, and left it on the dining table. Then I called him, intrigued.

“Has it arrived yet?” he asked the moment he picked up, before I could say anything.

“That’s why I’m calling. It came in your name, but…”

“It’s for you,” he interrupted. “Open it now. I want to hear your face.”

I put him on speaker and tore open the cardboard. I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Inside were three boxes. On one, a rubber penis was drawn; on another, smaller one, the picture made it clear it vibrated; and the third I recognized instantly: condoms.

When I fell silent, Daniel started laughing.

“Welcome back to sex, little sister. Even if it’s only solo.”

“I don’t know whether to thank you or hang up on you,” I said, between embarrassment and laughter.

“They run on batteries; you charge them by plugging them into the mains. Enjoy them,” was the last thing he said before saying goodbye.

A couple of minutes later he sent me a text with two website addresses, as a suggestion. I didn’t need to ask what they were for.

***

I unpacked the toys and washed them thoroughly in the sink. I took my laptop to the living room and, with a mix of modesty and excitement, typed the first address into the browser. It was the first time in my life I was going to watch porn on a big screen, beyond the odd video a friend had sent me on my phone.

As soon as the page loaded and I clicked on the first video, I felt the wetness between my legs again. I didn’t think twice. I took off my pajama pants and panties, switched on the biggest one, and slipped it inside me. I pressed the switch and a vibration started to run through me from the inside. I moved it very slowly, luxuriating in every centimeter of its path.

I picked up the second toy, the smaller one, switched it on, and pressed it straight against my clit. The scream I let out when I came must have been heard by every neighbor in the building. The sensation was so brutal I hesitated between stopping or keeping on looking for more. I decided to keep going.

From then on the orgasms followed one after another, barely giving me a break. I lost count of how many times I came that afternoon. When I finally got into the shower, I couldn’t even pass my hand over my sex without my body begging for more, despite how irritated and raw it had become.

To this day I’ve beaten the hang-ups and prissiness I dragged around for years. That said, I still enjoy myself solo, which is how I know my body best. I have a more than decent collection of toys I’ve been buying online, and they do truly wild things to my body when I combine them.

Every now and then, when Daniel and I talk on the phone, he still asks me with a teasing edge if I’m still “reading a lot.” I tell him yes, that his book is the best thing he’s ever written. And we both laugh, fully knowing exactly what we’re talking about.