The Afternoon I Was Left Alone and Stopped Pretending

The whole house to myself. I don’t remember the last time that had happened on a Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon. My roommate, Renata, had gone to her parents’ house until Sunday, and I had several hours ahead of me with no one coming through the door, no footsteps in the hallway, no constant feeling that I had to behave.

I took my shoes off at the entrance and walked barefoot to my room. The sun was coming in too strongly through the window, so I lowered the blinds until the room was left in dim light. I turned off the phone. I didn’t want interruptions. There was something I’d been putting off for weeks, an idea that came back into my head every night before sleeping and that I never quite managed to attend to the way I wanted.

I started slowly. I unbuttoned my blouse button by button, unhurried, glancing at myself out of the corner of my eye in the wardrobe mirror. I liked that slowness, that sort of private ritual no one else would see. The blouse fell onto the chair. Then the bra, and my breasts were left bare, cold for an instant until my own hands covered them.

I stroked myself with open palms, feeling the nipples harden under the friction. I closed my eyes. No one’s going to come. I have all the time in the world. I slid my skirt down and let it fall to the floor, and I stood in the middle of the room with only my underwear on, breathing in the silence of the empty house.

I sat on the bed and turned on the laptop. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, or so I told myself. But my fingers knew exactly where to go. I went to the same site as always and headed straight for the category I liked most, the one I’d never confess to anyone out loud: two women together, no men, no script, just them.

I chose a video almost at random. A dark-haired girl ran her tongue over the body of another, lighter-skinned one, who arched on the sheets and couldn’t keep still. There was no music or forced dialogue, just breathing and the wet sound of a mouth working patiently. That was enough for me.

I felt the heat rise between my legs almost immediately. I ran my hand over the fabric of my panties and noticed the moisture that was already starting to seep through. I stroked myself like that, over the fabric, pressing with two fingers in slow circles, while with the other hand I kept playing with my nipples. The image on the screen and my own body started to blur together in my head.

***

It didn’t take long for me to want more. The underwear had become a nuisance, too much of a barrier between my fingers and what I really needed to touch. I pulled it off by the sides and tossed it toward some corner of the room. I leaned back against the pillow, spread my legs, and looked at myself for a second: I was completely exposed, shining, ready.

I brought my fingers to my mouth and moistened them, even though it wasn’t necessary. It was a gesture I liked, a way of preparing myself, of prolonging the moment before the first direct contact. When I finally brought my hand down and brushed the clit with the pad of my finger, a shiver ran down my entire back and a sigh escaped me that filled the room.

I began with gentle movements. Small circles, not pressing, letting the sensation grow on its own. On the screen, the two girls had changed position; now they were tangled over each other, each one with her face between her partner’s legs, and the moans overlapped. I imagined it was me there. That it was my body that mouth was moving over without rest.

The fantasy built itself in my mind, vivid, detailed. I invented a woman with no defined face but firm hands and a tongue that wasn’t in any hurry. I imagined her kneeling between my legs, looking up at me from below, waiting for me to ask her to keep going. Please, don’t stop. In my head I said it to her, and in my head she obeyed.

I increased the pace of my fingers on my clit and, with the other hand, brought my middle finger to my opening. I slid it in slowly. My inside was so slick it went in with the slightest resistance, tight but warm, receiving me. I pulled it out and pushed it back in again, setting a rhythm that kept quickening, until one finger was no longer enough.

I added the second. Now I was fucking myself with both of them, sinking them to the hilt, spreading them slightly inside to feel how my walls closed around them. The fantasy became more concrete: I imagined it wasn’t my fingers going in and out, but those of that nameless woman, who looked me in the eyes as she did it and smiled when she noticed how wet I was for her.

***

I changed position without thinking, guided only by what my body was demanding. I lifted myself until I was straddling my own hand, letting my weight do the work. I rocked on my fingers, up and down, while with the other hand I didn’t stop rubbing my clit. My back arched on its own, head thrown back, mouth open and searching for air.

I spread my fingers inside me like scissors and a long moan slipped out of me, louder than I expected. For an instant the old reflex to lower my voice appeared, but I dismissed it at once. No one was there. I could scream if I wanted to. And for the first time in a long while I allowed myself to do it, to let the sound out just as it was born, without filtering it, without shame.

I was close. I could feel it in the tension gathering in my lower belly, in the trembling that was beginning to take over my thighs. But I didn’t want to come yet. I slowed the pace on purpose, pulled my fingers out, stopped at the edge and stayed there, suspended, breathing in raggedly as the feeling deflated just enough.

I looked at the screen again. The brunette had the other girl right on the edge, rubbing her with her hand while kissing her neck, and the blonde kept repeating a “yes” over and over as if it were the only thing she knew how to say. I synchronized my hand with hers. When the girl in the video sped up, I sped up. When she stopped for a second, I stopped. It was like we were dancing without touching.

I got down on my knees on the bed, leaning forward, one hand braced on the mattress and the other between my legs. From that angle the pleasure hit differently, deeper. I slipped two fingers back in and this time I didn’t stop. I moved them fast, relentlessly, and I could feel my whole body begging me to finally let go of everything I’d been holding back from the start.

The fantasy reached its highest point in my head. I imagined that woman whispering in my ear to let myself go, that I was beautiful like this, that I didn’t have to hold out for anyone anymore. And I listened. I squeezed my eyelids shut, rubbed my clit frantically while the fingers of my other hand drove in to the hilt, and the orgasm hit me like a wave that gives no warning.

My whole back went rigid, my thighs closed over my hand, and a hoarse cry burst from my throat before I could stop it. My legs shook for several seconds, my eyes rolled back, and for a moment I stopped having thoughts: there was only the hot pounding between my legs and the pleasure coursing through me from top to bottom in waves that refused to go away.

***

I pulled my fingers out slowly, still feeling the last spasms, and let myself fall onto my side on the rumpled sheets. I stayed there for a good while, naked, breathing gradually returning to normal and a loose smile I couldn’t erase. The video was still playing, but I wasn’t paying attention to it anymore. I stretched out my arm and closed the laptop lid.

The room smelled like me, like sex, like a stolen afternoon. I ran my hand over my forehead, brushing my damp hair back, and lay there looking up at the dim ceiling. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt, and that was what surprised me most. For years I had convinced myself that that part of me, the one that desired other women even though I had never taken the step, was something I had to hide even from myself.

But there, alone in the house, with no one to answer to, I had allowed myself to stop pretending. And it hadn’t been dirty or shameful. It had been honest. Maybe the most honest thing I’d done in a long time.

I thought of Renata, who would be back on Sunday, and of how little she imagined the kind of afternoons I spent when the house was empty. I also thought, for the first time without being frightened, that maybe the faceless woman in my fantasy didn’t have to remain a fantasy forever. That maybe, someday, I would dare to look for her for real.

I got up with my legs still weak, raised the blinds a little so the afternoon light could come in, and went to the shower. The warm water ran down my back and I stayed under the stream for a while, thinking of nothing, simply enjoying the feeling of being, for once, exactly who I was. When I got out, I turned on my phone and saw a message from Renata asking how my afternoon alone was going.

Better than you can imagine, I wrote. And deleted it before sending it. Some things, I decided, were mine and no one else’s. At least for now.