The Afternoon I Decided to Record Myself Alone

I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept to myself for a long time, something that still makes me smile when I remember it: the first time I recorded myself while I gave myself pleasure, alone, with no one else in the house.

My name is Renata, I’m twenty-three, and I live in Valparaíso. I have wavy brown hair, honey-colored eyes, I’m not very tall, and for the last few months I’ve been going to the gym to feel better about myself. I had never been into this kind of thing, but that day something inside me wanted something different.

Still, I’ve always been curious. I like watching myself, understanding what moves me, what turns me on, and why. What I had never done was put myself on the other side of a camera, to be the one who ended up recorded. The idea had been running through my head for weeks, popping up at the most unexpected moments, and that afternoon I finally stopped fighting it.

And why not?, I thought. No one has to find out.

It was one of those sticky heats that gives you no relief. The afternoon had gone still, windless, and my clothes were sticking to my skin. I decided to hop in the shower to get rid of that heavy summer feeling.

I turned on the tap and let the water run over my body. It was cold at first, and my skin prickled all over at the first touch. I closed my eyes. And then, without meaning to, the memories came back.

The nights of messages with my ex. The photos we’d send each other past midnight, the words he whispered to me when we talked on the phone late into the night. Just remembering it made me feel wet between my legs, and it wasn’t from the water.

It was strange how memory worked on me. I didn’t miss that person; I missed that version of myself, the one who dared say out loud what she wanted, the one who didn’t ask permission to feel. The warm water sliding down my back slowly brought that feeling back, as if waking up a part of me that had been asleep for months.

My hands rose on their own. I started caressing my breasts, tugging gently at my nipples, and a short sigh escaped me before I could stop it. The arousal was building fast, as if it had been waiting all day for an excuse to come out.

I wanted to take my hand lower, to reach my clit, but the sound of a door upstairs cut me off abruptly. I froze for a second, my heart racing. I finished rinsing off quickly and stepped out wrapped in a towel, my pulse still pounding.

***

I walked to my bedroom and locked the door. The house was empty, I knew that, but the gesture gave me a strange kind of calm, as if I were giving myself permission to do what I wanted.

I opened the drawer. I took out a pair of black lace stockings — I’ve got a weakness for lingerie, I love touching myself with something on, never completely naked — and slowly pulled them up my still-damp legs. Then a short wine-colored skirt and a matching bra. I looked at myself for a moment in the mirror and liked what I saw.

I grabbed my phone. I propped it up on a stack of books on the desk, gauged the angle, and turned on the camera. The little red light started blinking.

There’s no turning back, I thought, and I felt even more turned on just because of that.

I sat on the edge of the bed, facing the lens. I started with a close-up of my chest, the thin fabric of the bra barely holding me in. I caressed myself over the garment, feeling my nipples harden against the lace. Seeing myself on the screen, being watched by my own camera, was something I had never experienced before.

I slipped the bra off and let it fall to the floor. With my breasts free, I played with them, squeezed them, pinched my nipples with the tips of my fingers. A low moan slipped out of me.

—Like that, slowly —I said out loud to myself, and my own voice surprised me.

My mind was already somewhere else. I imagined hands that weren’t mine, a mouth moving along my neck, someone I couldn’t put a face to but who knew exactly where to touch me. I decided to let myself be carried by that fantasy all the way to the end.

I got up and went to the closet. There I keep a toy I almost never use, more out of shame than anything else. That afternoon, shame was nowhere to be found. I took it and went back to bed.

***

I lay back against the pillows, still wearing the skirt. Under the fabric, over the stockings, I started caressing my vulva all over, from the outside inward, from the lips to the clit, without rushing. The wetness had already soaked through the lace.

—Yes, right there —I whispered, speaking to that imaginary someone—. Don’t stop.

The movement of my fingers over that sensitive spot gave me pleasure that kept building. I imagined it was that mouth there, licking me slowly, playing with me, making me wait. And the waiting was part of the good part.

I took the toy and ran its tip over my clit, barely brushing it. Seeing myself do that on the phone screen magnified everything. I bit my lip, looked at the lens as if there were someone on the other side watching me, and that idea —of being watched— turned me on in a way I hadn’t expected.

—I want more —I said softly, almost out of breath.

I slid it up and down over my entrance, still above the stockings, torturing myself on purpose. I didn’t want to finish too fast. I wanted to stretch every second.

There was something intoxicating about setting the pace myself, about deciding when to speed up and when to slow down. No one was rushing me, no one expected anything from me. Every touch was a choice, and that freedom —to please myself alone, without having to perform for anyone else— was a kind of pleasure I had never known. I stayed like that for a while, suspended at the edge, listening to my own breathing fill the room.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I pushed the fabric aside. I knelt on the bed, with my back to the camera, and started fucking myself slowly, setting the rhythm myself. The friction, the mental image, knowing that all of it was being recorded: it was too much and at the same time not enough.

—Harder —I told myself, and I obeyed.

***

I changed position. I sat in the little armchair I have by the window, with the backrest against my chest, so that every movement made my nipples rub against the rough fabric. That unexpected friction tore a longer moan from me.

The fantasy had become sharp and vivid. In my head I was no longer alone: it was that faceless person pushing behind me, his hands on my hips, his voice telling me things in my ear. I answered out loud, without thinking, letting the words spill out on their own.

—Don’t stop, please —I gasped—. Just like that.

I felt like I was on the edge. That tingling that starts in the stomach and spreads, that tension that builds and begs to be released. I got down from the chair and lay on my back on the floor, on the rug, where I had room to move without restraint.

With one hand I kept the toy moving in and out faster and faster. With the other I massaged my clit in tight circles. My breathing was a mess, broken up, and I couldn’t control the moans anymore.

—I’m going to come —I said, glancing sideways at the little red light that was still blinking—. I can’t hold out any longer.

And I came. It was one of those orgasms that runs through your whole body, from your toes to the nape of your neck, leaving you trembling and weak. I arched on the rug, clenched my teeth, and let out a cry that fortunately no one else heard.

I stayed sprawled there for a long while, catching my breath, my heart pounding against my chest and a silly smile I couldn’t wipe off my face. The rug was warm beneath my back and the afternoon outside was still just as quiet, oblivious to everything that had just happened in that closed room.

I felt light, emptied of the tension I’d been carrying all day without realizing it. I ran my hands through my sweaty hair and laughed to myself, a little incredulous at what I’d dared to do. There was no one to answer to, no one to have an opinion. Just me, my desire, and a little red light that had saved it all.

***

When I finally sat up, I turned off the camera and sat on the bed with the phone in my hand. I hesitated for a second before hitting play. What if I feel embarrassed watching myself?

I didn’t. On the contrary. Seeing myself in full, hearing my own moans, discovering gestures of mine I didn’t know: it was almost as exciting as living it. I realized that all that time I hadn’t been thinking about pleasing anyone, but about what I truly liked.

That afternoon I learned something about myself. That desire doesn’t need an audience or permission. That looking at myself without guilt, letting myself be carried by a fantasy all the way through, is also a way of loving myself.

I deleted the video a few days later, not out of regret but because it had already done its job. But the feeling of that first time —the freedom, the boldness, the discovery— that I kept forever.

And every now and then, when the house is empty and the heat is oppressive, I put the phone back in front of the bed. Because now I know there doesn’t have to be anyone on the other side of the lens: I’m enough for myself.