The Fantasy That Visited Me in the Early Hours

It was after two in the morning and I was still awake, staring at the ceiling as if the reason I couldn’t sleep were written up there. Exhaustion weighed on my shoulders, on my eyelids, in every bone in my body, and still my eyes refused to close. No matter how many times I changed position: sleep wouldn’t come.

It was hot that night, a sticky heat that slipped beneath the sheet, but not so much that I would throw it off completely. I left it tangled around my legs, at my knees. Outside, nothing could be heard, not a car, not a dog, not the wind. Only my breathing and that faint hum silence has when it’s too large.

I didn’t know if it was the weather or if it was me. Something was boiling inside me, an unease with no name that felt very much like desire. I felt awake in a different way, my skin alert, as if every inch were waiting for someone to touch it.

I’d been sleeping alone for weeks and I suppose the body eventually makes itself known. It wasn’t sadness, not even loneliness exactly. It was hunger, a physical, concrete hunger that wouldn’t be soothed by tossing and turning in bed. I knew that feeling well and I knew it wasn’t going to go away until I did something about it.

I slid my hand down my neck almost without thinking. I let it glide very slowly, barely brushing the thin fabric of the T-shirt I slept in, until it reached my chest. I paused there for a moment, feeling the nipple harden beneath my fingers. Then I kept going, over my stomach, over the curve of my belly, and let my palm settle between my legs, still, taking in the heat.

I closed my eyes in the hope that my imagination would take me somewhere. I needed to end the night in the only way I knew would relax me.

And then, as if it had been waiting for that permission, the fantasy started on its own.

There were two strangers. I couldn’t see their faces, I didn’t know their names, it didn’t matter. They held me from behind with a firmness that wasn’t violence, but certainty, that kind of strength that tells you you won’t be able to move even if you want to, and deep down you don’t want to move. I felt large hands tracing my breasts, squeezing them, kneading them with a calm that made me more nervous than any rush would have.

Without delay, without asking anything, they spread my legs. One hand came up to my mouth and I let two fingers slip between my lips; I licked them slowly, as if what I had there were something else, while the other hand came down and began to stroke me from top to bottom, right where I needed it most.

Don’t open your eyes, I told myself. If you open them, it’s over.

I was dying to see the owner of those hands, to know who was doing this to me, but I was too busy stifling moans against the pillow to risk breaking the spell. I preferred to stay there, suspended, letting myself be done to.

The heat rose abruptly when I felt the last garment being pulled away from me. I was left completely naked in my own bed, open to hands that knew exactly what to look for. Fingers parted me carefully and began to rub me all over, shamelessly, running over my sex from end to end until everything down there shone with how wet I was.

Then they found the spot. My clit began to receive all the attention: they pressed it, tugged it gently, let go, came back. Every movement pulled a sigh from me that I had to swallow. And while they did that, I imagined something else, a mouth, full lips closing around me, a long, wicked tongue coming down to finish what those hands had started.

—Like that— I murmured into the darkness, without opening my eyes—. Just like that, don’t stop.

My own hand moved in time with the fantasy, fingers drawing faster and faster circles. In my head, those strangers answered everything I thought before I had even finished thinking it.

That’s what I like most about fantasizing: that everything happens exactly the way you want it to. There are no awkward clumsy moments, no one stops to ask whether what they’re doing is okay. Hands know, mouths know, the whole body is there for one thing only. And I, in the darkness of my room, was the absolute master of every detail.

I lifted my hips a little, searching for more pressure. The sheet finally slid to the floor and I didn’t even bother picking it up. My skin was covered in gooseflesh, a thin sheen of sweat on my chest, and my hair stuck to my forehead. I had never cared less about the heat.

Desire grew until it became something else. It was no longer enough for me to be touched. I wanted more. I wanted to feel full, completely open, penetrated through. I thought it with a clarity that surprised even me: I want them to fuck me.

And in the fantasy it happened. A finger slid inside me and I arched my back against the mattress. It felt good, very good, but it wasn’t enough, never enough when imagination has the reins.

—More— I asked in a low voice—. Put in another. Please.

The second one went in and I let out the breath sharply. They began to move inside me, in and out, slow at first and then with more determination. I kept up with my real fingers with the imagined ones, confusing what I truly felt with what I was inventing, until the two things became one.

I could hear the wet sound of my own body answering every thrust. It was an obscene and delicious sound, the sound of being completely given over, and I liked hearing it almost as much as feeling it. In my head I spoke to those faceless men, told them what I wanted, what I needed, without a shred of shame.

—I’d suck your cock— I told them, and the phrase alone made me hot—, but first I want you to eat me out.

I imagined that mouth finally coming down, settling between my legs, the tongue taking its time where the fingers couldn’t reach. I imagined them sucking me slowly, licking me all over, not having any hurry to finish. The mere thought made me clamp my thighs around my own hand.

And while one mouth worked me down below, the other man’s hands kept going up top, playing with my breasts, pinching my nipples with a mix of care and cruelty that drove me crazy. I felt two mouths, four hands, all of them focused on me, all of them attuned to every reaction of my body. I didn’t have to do anything but feel, and that, that total surrender, was the most arousing thing of all.

In reality it was still just me alone, one hand, the brush of my own fingers. But the border between what was really happening and what I was making up had become so thin it almost didn’t exist anymore. Every time I touched a good spot, the fantasy amplified it; every moan that slipped out of me fed the scene happening behind my eyes.

—Faster— I gasped—. I’m too fucking hot, I can’t take it.

And they obeyed, because in fantasies they always obey. The fingers went in to the hilt and moved up and down, just as I needed them, at the exact angle that made me lose my mind. I copied every movement with my own, soaked through, feeling everything inside me tightening toward a point that was no longer far away.

—Don’t stop— I begged, and I no longer knew if I was saying it to them or to myself—. Don’t stop until I come.

The room stayed dark, silent, and yet inside my head there were hands everywhere, mouths, voices answering me. I brought my other hand up to my chest and pinched a nipple while I kept going, doubling the sensation, multiplying it.

The orgasm began as a warm cramp low in my belly and spread outward, into my thighs, into the tips of my toes. I felt it coming and stopped trying to hold it back. I clenched my jaw, smothered a cry into the pillow, and let myself go, trembling over the tangled sheets, the fantasy still hovering behind my eyelids.

When it passed, I lay there for a while, naked and still, with my hand still between my legs and my heart hammering against my chest. My skin was burning and at the same time I felt a deep calm, that heavy peace that only comes afterward.

The strangers had gone as silently as they’d arrived. They wouldn’t come back that night; they never did. But I knew they would be there the next time sleep refused to come, waiting behind my closed eyes, ready to hold me from behind again.

I pulled the sheet up, this time all the way to my shoulders. I rolled onto my side and let out a long sigh. The heat was still outside, just as before, but it no longer bothered me.

I closed my eyes. And this time, at last, I fell asleep.