The Afternoon I Was Left Alone and Gave in to Temptation

Yes, I did it. And before anyone puts on an outraged face, let me tell you that I think we’ve all done it at some point, even if almost none of us talks about it. The difference is that today I feel like telling it, so make yourselves comfortable, because this is about that afternoon when I was alone at home and desire won out over any idea of what was right.

I was a little over twenty then and still living with my family, so a while alone was a luxury. That afternoon my parents had gone to my grandparents’ village and my brother had left with his friends. I closed the door, threw the bolt, and for the first time in weeks I felt the full silence of the house belonging to me. Free afternoon, I thought, and something in my stomach tightened with pure anticipation.

The truth is I’d been hot since the night before. I had been with Mateo, a guy I was seeing at the time, and we hadn’t gone beyond long kisses and a stolen caress in the entranceway. At one point he pressed me against the wall and squeezed me over my skirt, and although we didn’t get any further than that, he left my body burning and me frustrated in a way that didn’t even go away when I slept.

So that afternoon, with the house empty, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I went up toward my room, but as I passed the kitchen I stopped. I don’t know what made me hesitate. On the table there was a fruit bowl, and among the apples and oranges a bunch of bananas was poking out, still green at the tips. I stared at them longer than any normal person stares at a fruit bowl. And then the idea appeared, crystal clear, shameless, impossible to ignore.

You’re not going to be able to do that, I told myself. But I was already smiling.

***

It wasn’t the first time I’d improvised. As a teenager I had experimented with things I’d be embarrassed to list: the handle of a brush, some lotion bottle, the things you grab at hand when curiosity weighs more than modesty. But a banana had something different about it. It had shape, it had promise, it had a brazenness that made me laugh to myself while I chose it.

I took the biggest one from the bunch, the one that looked made for the job. And here’s the first tip of the afternoon, the one I learned that very day: one should be hygienic about what one puts inside herself. I took it to the sink and washed it carefully, running it under warm water, feeling its weight in the palm of my hand. My hands trembled a little, not from nerves, but from that impatience that feels like hunger.

Before going upstairs I opened the drawer where my mother kept the sewing things and, don’t ask me why, I also grabbed an old cloth napkin. And then I remembered something that was going to save my afternoon: in my school bag I had had a condom for months, one Mateo had given me “just in case” and that I had never used. I searched for it in the inside pocket. It was still there, intact. Something, some silly intuition, told me to take it with me.

I went up the stairs with the banana in one hand and my heart pounding in my chest as if I were doing something forbidden. And I suppose, in a way, I was.

***

I closed my bedroom door even though it wasn’t necessary. Habits don’t disappear even when you’re alone. I lowered the blind a little and let the afternoon light slip through the slats, that golden light that makes everything seem slower. I took off my pants and underwear and let them drop to the floor any old way. I was naked from the waist down, still wearing a loose T-shirt, and I lay down on the bed.

I closed my eyes.

At first I went slowly. I began stroking my breasts through the fabric, palm open, feeling my nipples harden under the cotton. Without realizing it, I slipped my hand under my T-shirt, pushed my bra up, and touched my skin directly. I imagined it wasn’t my hand. I imagined it was Mateo’s, or the hand of someone faceless, someone taking his time, pinching my nipples with just enough firmness to take my breath away.

I brought my other hand down over my belly. Slowly, lingering, as if the journey mattered as much as the destination. I reached the inner side of my thighs and felt they were already warm. I touched myself with the tip of my fingers, barely a brush, and discovered I was much wetter than I expected. I started massaging myself in slow circles, wetting my fingers with my own moisture so that later they would go in without friction, without haste.

I was so turned on just thinking about what was coming next that at one point I was about to finish right there, with only my fingers. I had to stop. Not yet, I told myself, squeezing my thighs together. I didn’t want to give myself that chance so soon. I wanted the banana. I wanted the full fantasy.

I stayed still for a few seconds, breathing deeply, letting the urgency drop down one notch. It was a curious feeling: being on the edge and choosing not to fall, knowing I had all the time in the world and no one to answer to. Through the blind slat that afternoon light came in, drawing stripes over the sheets, and I felt utterly in command of every minute.

I touched myself again, but this time without any intention of finishing, just to keep the fire lit. I ran my fingers slowly over myself, working over it, playing with my own body like someone tuning an instrument before playing it. My body responded to the slightest caress, hypersensitive, still vibrating from the night before with Mateo. I thought of his hand pressing me against the wall in the entranceway and a sigh slipped out of me.

***

I reached for it from the nightstand with the hand I had over my chest. And then, I don’t know where it came from, I brought it to my mouth. I licked it slowly, sucked on it as if it were something else, playing with the idea, letting myself be carried by an image that made my hips move on their own, without asking permission, begging for it to already be inside me.

I remembered the condom just in time. I opened it awkwardly, almost tearing it with my haste, and put it on the banana with such care it was almost funny to me. At that moment it seemed like an exaggeration, a by-the-book precaution. Later I would understand that it was the best decision of the whole afternoon.

I licked it a little more, now covered, and began to lower it. I ran it over my neck, over the valley between my breasts, over my navel, leaving a cool trail on hot skin. When it reached my clit I let out my breath in a rush. First I played with it, rubbing it in circles, giving it little taps that sent jolts through my whole body. My hips moved on their own, lifting to meet it, demanding more than I was giving it.

I couldn’t hold out much longer. I stopped thinking and slid it inside.

My whole body arched. My legs pushed my hips upward and a loud moan escaped me, louder than I would have wanted if anyone had been home. I started moving it, pulling it out and pushing it back in slowly at first, then with more rhythm, feeling everything become slippery, feeling my own body receive it with less and less resistance each time.

Every thrust tore a different sound from me. I bit my lip, gripped the sheets with my free hand, let the fantasy carry me wherever it wanted. I thought of hands, of mouths, of scenarios I would never say out loud. The afternoon had been reduced to that: to my ragged breathing, to the creak of the bed, and to that absurd and marvelous fruit moving inside me.

***

The end came like a jolt. I felt it rise from very deep inside, a wave running from my legs to my neck and leaving me breathless. I went taut all over, clamped my thighs down trapping the banana inside, and moaned once more, long and drawn out, until I was empty and trembling. Then, little by little, my body began to loosen, muscle by muscle, until I opened my legs and let myself fall onto the mattress like dead weight.

I stayed like that for a while, staring at the ceiling, wearing that foolish post-orgasm smile. And then I went to take the banana out.

And that’s when I understood the condom.

The fruit had turned to mush inside. A soft, mashed paste that, if the condom hadn’t been there, would have ended up entirely inside me, with all the discomfort and unhygienic mess that entails. I laughed to myself, grateful for that silly intuition that had made me rummage through my bag. Sometimes instinct knows more than you do.

I wrapped the ruined banana and the condom in the cloth napkin and went downstairs to throw it all in the trash, well hidden at the very bottom so no one would ask questions. After that I took a long, hot bath, the kind where the water seems to wash the rush right out of your body, and I stayed there a while letting it run over the back of my neck.

That afternoon I learned two things. The first, that desire, when you’re truly alone, has no idea what shame is or what elegant objects are for. The second, much more practical one: no matter how improvised the fantasy is, one takes precautions. Instinct, that time, thanked me for it.

I know it’s a short story, but I felt like getting it out of me. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed remembering it. A big kiss, and another one, from your dear friend Renata.