The Fantasy I Don’t Dare Tell Anyone About
There’s one thing I’ve never told anyone. Not my partner, not my friends, not even the diary I write in when I can’t sleep. It’s something that lives only in my head, and precisely because of that it scares me so much to put it into words. But I’ve been turning it over for weeks now, and I suppose writing it down is the only way to look it in the face.
My name is Lucía. I’m in my twenties, have a face that still gets me asked for ID in bars, and a body that, on the other hand, is anything but girlish. And for some time now, especially on the days when desire hits me without warning, I fantasize about something I would never allow in real life. I fantasize about losing control completely.
It always begins the same way. I’m alone in the apartment, the afternoon falling away, the orange light slanting in through the window. My body is burning from the inside, that kind of heat that nothing can soothe, that throbs between my legs and leaves me short of breath. And then, in my head, he appears.
He has no face. I never give him one, because the face doesn’t matter. What matters is the size: tall, broad, a presence that fills the room before he even touches me. In my fantasy there’s no knock at the door, no introductions, no coffee in between. He’s simply there, behind me, and before I can react his hands already have me pinned by the waist.
—Stay still —he says, and the voice runs down my spine like a shiver.
I resist him. That’s the part I find so hard to confess: in the fantasy I resist, I struggle, I tell him no. But it’s a no neither of us believes. It’s permission disguised as refusal, the only way I find to let myself go without feeling guilty. He knows it. And I know he knows it.
***
He shoves me against the edge of the bed. The mattress catches my hip, cold beneath the thin fabric of the dress, and I feel his full weight pressing down on me, holding me still. It isn’t violence: it’s restraint. The difference, in my head, is enormous. I want him to hold me like that, not let me escape, choose for me what I don’t dare ask for out loud.
—Please —I murmur against the sheet, and even I don’t know whether I’m asking him to stop or to keep going.
One of his hands gathers my hair into a fist and tugs, slowly, until my neck arches. It’s that pull that ignites me. The slight sting at the scalp, the obligation to lift my face, the feeling that my body is no longer entirely mine. I close my eyes and let out a sound I don’t recognize as my own.
His other hand hikes up the back of my dress without a trace of gentleness. The cool air hits my bare skin and raises goosebumps all over me. I feel him behind me, hard against me, a heavy, hot promise pressed right where I need it most. I clamp my thighs together by pure reflex, but he parts them with his knee, opening me without asking permission.
—Look at yourself —he says—. You say no and you’re shaking.
He’s right. In the fantasy he’s always right. My body contradicts me with every movement: my hips shifting back toward him, the wetness he finds with his fingers and the low, satisfied laugh it draws out of him. I bury my face in the sheet so I don’t have to hear myself.
***
He enters me in one thrust, without warning, and I cry out into the mattress. The stretch splits me open, all at once, too deep. For a second the pain is real even in the imagination, that impossible mix of burning and of something opening in places I never thought could be reached. And then, underneath that pain, the obscene wave of pleasure that makes me clench my fists.
—It’s too much —I gasp—. You’re tearing me apart.
—Take it —he answers, and drives in again, deeper, as if he wants to leave a mark.
His hips slam against mine and the room fills with that wet, raw sound I repeat in my head until I’m sick of it. Each thrust pushes me into the bed, steals my breath, forces me to take all of him. And the worst, or the best, is what he says while he does it.
—These hips weren’t made for saying no —he growls, digging his fingers into my flesh—. They were made for this.
That’s the dark part, the one I really struggle to admit. In my fantasy he talks about filling me, claiming me, leaving something inside me that can’t be undone. He talks about getting me pregnant. And I, who in real life am obsessively careful, who would never leave anything to chance, come apart when I hear him say it. It’s total surrender. It’s handing over the very last thing you still control.
—I don’t want this —I lie, voice breaking—. Not like this.
—Your body says something else —he answers, and tugs my hair again to force my back into an arch.
***
And my body, in fact, does say something else. I can feel it clenching around him with a greed that makes me ashamed, tightening with every thrust as if it never wants to let him go. No matter how much I kick and claw at the sheets in the scene, inside I’m wide open, melting, ready. That contradiction is the heart of the whole fantasy: the struggle that is really surrender, the no that beats with every yes.
He lets go of my hair only to grip both hips and drive into me faster. The rhythm turns brutal, out of control, his thighs hitting me, his breathing reduced to short growls against the back of my neck. I’m no longer forming sentences, only sounds: gasps, whimpers, a plea that breaks in half. The heat rises from my belly to my chest, unstoppable.
—You’re going to take all of it —he says, and his voice trembles—. Every last drop.
When I feel him shudder, when his rhythm falters and he drives all the way in to empty himself inside me, the orgasm tears through me like a blow. It shakes me from head to toe, leaves me trembling, screaming into the sheet while he throbs inside me pulse after pulse. I feel that heat spilling out, filling me, that imagined sensation of being marked that is exactly what my fantasy is after. My body wrings him out, greedy, as if it wants to keep every last bit.
***
In the full version of my fantasy he doesn’t stop there. He turns me over, looks me in the eyes for the first time, and starts again, slower, as if we had all night. By then I’m not even pretending to resist: my hips move on their own, seeking him, and I’m the one asking for more in that hoarse voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
—Again —I tell him, and it’s no longer a no—. Again.
I imagine my stomach filling, the absurd and forbidden idea of ending up pregnant by a nameless stranger, and instead of horror what I feel is a sweet vertigo, the fantasy pushed to its most extreme limit. It’s precisely because I know I would never let it happen for real that I can allow it in my head. It’s a safe place precisely because it’s impossible.
And then I open my eyes.
The room is empty again. The orange light has finally gone and all that remains is the blue dimness of dead afternoon. I’m alone, breathing hard, one hand still between my legs and my heart hammering against my ribs. There’s no faceless brute, no one holding my hair, no one whispering all those terrible things in my ear that melt me. There’s only me, my imagination, and that heartbeat that takes a long while to calm down.
***
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think I need this fantasy precisely because my real life is the opposite. I’m the one who organizes, the one who decides, the one who never lets go of control. At work, in my relationship, in every corner of my day, I’m the one who has everything under control. And I suppose that somewhere, a part of me is exhausted from being in charge. It wants, even if only for a few stolen minutes, not to have to choose anything.
That’s why I invent that man who decides for me. That’s why I lend him words I would never accept from a real lover. Inside my head I can say no and have my no not count, because I’m the one writing the script, I’m the one casting the roles, I’m the absolute owner of every detail. Submission, paradoxically, is the only territory where I’m completely in command.
I don’t know if I’ll ever work up the courage to tell my partner. Maybe they’ll be scared, maybe they’ll understand, maybe —and this is the possibility that makes my pulse race the most— they’ll want to help me play it out with care, with safe words, with the trust you only have with someone who loves you. I imagine explaining it in a low voice, my face burning, and the mere idea of saying it out loud already leaves me breathless.
For now, this is enough for me: the half-light, my imagination, the hand that knows the way by heart. Every night the stranger comes back, holds me down, whispers everything I should not want. And every night, when I open my eyes and find that I’m alone, I smile in the dark. Because it’s my fantasy, mine alone, and in there I’m hurting no one. Not even myself.
