The Ritual I Follow When I Sleep Alone

There are nights when the bed becomes too big. Martín has been away for three days for work, and even though we talk on the phone every night, his voice on the other end of the line is useless to me when all I want is for someone to hold my wrists against the mattress. I switch off the lamp, lie there staring at the ceiling, and feel that tingling I know all too well.

I’m not going to be able to sleep like this.

I get up, barefoot on the cold floor, and walk to the corner wardrobe. The bottom drawer is the one nobody ever checks, the one where I keep my little secret tucked between two sweaters I never wear. I sink my hand all the way to the back and take it out: a glass dildo, transparent, with a pink spiral running along its entire length. I have several hidden away for these nights when the house falls silent.

None compare to a real man, but tonight it’ll have to do.

I admit without shame what I like. I like to obey, I like feeling used, I like being treated as if the only thing that matters about me is what I have between my legs. It took me years to accept that, and now I embrace it every time I’m alone, with no one to judge me, with no rules but the ones I invent for myself.

I go back to bed and take off the T-shirt I sleep in. I peel off my bra and let it fall to the floor without looking where it lands. I’m left in nothing but a thin pink thong that’s already starting to annoy me. The room air prickles my breast skin, and for some reason that only turns me on even more.

I take a moment to look at myself. Streetlight slips through a gap in the curtain and draws a pale line across my belly. I run my hands over my thighs, over my hips, getting to know myself as if for the first time. There’s something about being like this, naked and alone, that makes me feel powerful and vulnerable at once. No one is waiting for me, no one is rushing me. The whole night is mine, and I’m going to take it all.

I pick up the glass and pass it over my lips. It’s cold at first, nearly makes me shiver, but the cold against my mouth has something delicious about it. I drag it slowly down my neck, between my breasts, over my belly. I’m in no hurry. I know the longer I wait, the stronger what comes next will be.

I press it over the fabric of my thong, right above where I’m throbbing, and start moving it in slow circles. The pressure through the cotton is a measured torture. I bite my lip. I need more.

I pull the thong aside with two fingers and reveal what I already suspected: I’m completely soaked. Getting turned on quickly has always been my thing. I barely touch the entrance with the tip of the glass and my whole body answers with a shiver that climbs up my back.

I slide it in slowly. Centimeter by centimeter, feeling it make its way inside. The ridges of the spiral bring me sensations no smooth toy ever has. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

—Finally —I whisper into the darkness, as if someone were listening.

I leave it inside, still, filling me, and with my free hand I reach for my clit. I stroke it in circles, first gently, then more insistently. With my other hand I squeeze one breast, pinch it, tug my nipple until the little pain blends with the pleasure and I can’t tell one from the other anymore.

That’s how I like it. A little bit of pain.

I go back to the glass and start moving it, out and in, with a lazy rhythm that fools no one. I know where this is going. Every slow thrust is a promise of the faster ones that will come later. I close my eyes and imagine it isn’t my hand holding the toy, but someone else’s, someone ordering me to stay still and take it.

Stay like that. Don’t move. Hold on.

The fantasy drives me wild. I clamp my thighs together and start fucking myself harder, sliding it in and out as fast as my own body allows. The spasms force me to stop abruptly, to breathe, to begin again. My forehead is slick with sweat and my breathing is in tatters.

I pull the glass out for a few seconds and bring it to my mouth. I suck it slowly, tasting myself, until the taste fades and then I sink it back where it was. It’s a dirty gesture and I love being dirty when no one can see me. Here, in this bed, I can be exactly the woman the world won’t let me be by day.

***

I sit up and lower myself onto the toy, letting my own weight push it deeper. I bounce in small hops, my knees sunk into the mattress, and with each one I feel myself gaining a little more depth. A moan escapes me without permission, then another, and I stop trying to control them. There aren’t any neighbors pressed up against this wall. I can be as loud as I want.

—Mmm… more… —I moan, and my voice comes out rough, unrecognizable.

I love this feeling. Being full, not being able to think of anything except the next movement. My whole body has been reduced to a single point of pleasure and everything else — Martín’s trip, the silence of the house, the exhausting day I had — is wiped away as if it had never existed.

And then it occurs to me.

I reach for the nightstand and take my phone. I turn it on and the screen lights my face blue. I want to see myself later. I want to know what I look like when I let go, when nothing remains of the composed woman everyone thinks they know.

I set the camera to landscape and prop it against the pillow, calculating the angle. I turn over and get into all fours, ass toward the lens, back arched. The pose by itself turns me on even more. Knowing I’m being watched, even if it’s only by a glass eye that doesn’t judge, turns me into something else.

I take my “companion” again — that’s what I call it in my head, with absurd affection — and slide it back in. In this position it goes in differently, deeper, and the first thrust rips a groan out of me that surprises even me. I start the rocking motion again, first soft, then merciless, glancing sideways at the way the screen light cuts out my silhouette.

Tonight I want everything.

I pull the glass out, slick with my own wetness, and bring it farther back. I know the route. I press it against my other opening and push carefully. At first it always burns, there’s always that instant of resistance when my body hesitates. I grit my teeth, inhale deeply, and keep going.

—Aaah… —the sound slips out between the pain and something else that isn’t pain at all.

After that first burn comes what I came for. I lower my head until my cheek is pressed to the mattress and leave my ass in the air. My left hand returns to my clit, which I haven’t left alone for even a second, and I start rubbing while the glass moves slowly in the place that feels most forbidden.

I don’t know how I enjoy this. I shouldn’t like it this much, and yet I love it. Every nerve in my body seems to have moved to those two points of pleasure, and I’m nothing more than the woman tending to them, on her knees, moaning in an empty bed.

I lose track of time. It could be five minutes or twenty, I don’t know and I don’t care. The pillow mutes my moans every time I bury my face in it, and the phone keeps recording everything, patient, unblinking. For a moment I imagine it’s Martín holding the camera, watching me from some faraway hotel, and the idea sends a fresh shiver racing from the nape of my neck to my heels.

***

When I feel I’m close, I pull the toy out and collapse again onto my back. I spread my legs as wide as I can. I slide it in one last time where I started, and I combine the thrusting with my hand on my clit, the two rhythms chasing each other, drawing closer, colliding.

In. Out. I don’t let go of my clit. In again.

The orgasm hits me like a wave that’s been building for minutes. I arch my back until only my shoulders and heels touch the bed. I open my legs even wider, as if asking for more of something I no longer need, and I stay like that, trembling, for a few seconds that feel endless.

It’s the biggest, cleanest pleasure I know. One nobody gives me. One I give myself.

Little by little, I come back to my body. My breathing steadies, the trembling fades, the muscles loosen one by one. I remove the glass with care and leave it on the nightstand; I’ll deal with it in the morning. I pick up the phone, look for an instant at the video I’ve just recorded, and smile without really looking at it. It’s mine. Only mine.

I don’t plan to get dressed. I drag myself to the center of the bed, pull the blanket up over me, and curl into a ball beneath it. My body feels heavy in the best way, that delicious heaviness only a good orgasm leaves behind.

Tomorrow I’ll call Martín and I won’t tell him anything. Or maybe I will.

I close my eyes. The bed no longer seems so big. And as sleep starts to win, I think that solitude, when used well, has its rewards too.