The Secret Pleasure I Discovered When She Left

There is one very specific instant that has become the center of my days. It is when I hear the front door close, the click of the key in the lock, and, a few seconds later, the car engine starting in the garage. Then I stop being the man who has shared a roof with his wife for more than thirty years. I become something else. Something quieter, hungrier, more honest.

It is not easy to explain. We have gone almost five years without touching each other. Not because of a fight, or an affair, or anything you can point a finger at. We simply stopped seeking each other out. One night became one week, the week became one month, and one day I realized I no longer remembered when the last time had been. We sleep in the same bed like two polite strangers who wish each other good night and turn their backs.

And that hurts, because I know it was my fault. Marina — that is what I will call her here — was always a fiery woman. She had desires, ideas, fantasies she whispered in my ear when we were young and that I, with my damn square head, received with an awkward smile and an excuse. She offered me an entire world and I gave her half of myself back, out of fear, out of habit, out of not knowing how to let go. It was only a matter of time before she got tired of asking a stone for water.

I lost her. I know it and I carry it. But the body does not understand remorse, and mine still wants. When the heat rises inside me, I have no one to turn to but myself. I have never dared to be unfaithful to her. Perhaps the occasion has never arisen, or perhaps I am too cowardly, or too faithful to a woman who no longer touches me. The reason does not matter. The result is the same: when I am left alone, I devote myself to giving myself the pleasure no one else gives me anymore.

***

At first it was just the usual. My hand, some memory, some story read in secret on my phone with the screen brightness turned down to the minimum. But there is something about desire that, when it is not shared, becomes more curious, more daring. It starts exploring corners it never even looked at before.

That is how I discovered the pleasure of my own body from the inside. The first time was almost an accident, a timid finger that ventured beyond the known and found something that made me hold my breath. I had not expected it. That small jolt, that mix of modesty and pleasure that ran down my back. It frightened me and, at the same time, I knew I would return to that place.

And I did. Each time with less shame and more desire. First one finger, then two, testing myself slowly, breathing deeply as my body yielded millimeter by millimeter. I found myself opening with my hand, coating each fold with lubricant, stroking the edge patiently until the initial sting turned into a wet, insistent need. The sensation of invading myself had me dizzy, with goosebumps on my skin and my thighs tense, and still I kept going, pushing a little further, searching for that inner spot that made me clench my teeth and let out a low, almost embarrassed moan.

But soon my fingers fell short, and I began to look at the house with different eyes. The fridge, above all. I discovered that zucchini were perfect. Firm, smooth, with that gentle curve that seems made for this. I started buying them myself at the market, choosing the good-sized one with a look of naturalness that had me blushing inside.

If the cashier knew what I want it for.

That thought, far from embarrassing me, only heats me up more.

***

The ritual is always the same, and in the repetition lies part of the pleasure. As soon as Marina leaves, I wash the zucchini carefully, slowly, under the bathroom tap. I dry it. I strip completely, even though no one can see me, because I like feeling the air on my skin, feeling exposed in my own home. I look at myself for a moment in the bathroom mirror. An older man, with gray hair and a tired body, about to do something he would never have imagined at twenty.

I set the zucchini upright, resting it on a support I have improvised so it stays firm. I put on lubricant. First on myself, patiently, massaging slowly until the body relaxes and stops resisting. I run my finger over my anus, pressing, circling, barely letting the tip enter to prepare the entrance, and then I go a little further, swallowing air when the muscle opens with that delicious mix of resistance and surrender. Then I coat that green phallus that in a moment I am going to feel very deep inside me. The anticipation alone already has me hard.

And then I do something that makes me a little shy to confess: I place the phone on a shelf, in video mode, at an angle from which everything can be seen. How it goes in and how it comes out. I do not record it for anyone. I record it for myself, to watch later, to believe it. Sometimes I need the proof that that man so proper, so classic, so boring in everyone else’s eyes, is capable of this when he is alone with his desire.

I lower myself slowly. The first push always steals my breath. There is a moment of resistance, a brief burn, and then surrender. The body gives in. And while I feel it filling me, my other hand takes care of the front, squeezing, rubbing, setting a rhythm that grows little by little. The zucchini goes in straight, firm, and I guide it with moans that grow more and more broken, digging my fingers into the edge of the sink so I do not lose control. When it reaches deeper, the pressure turns exquisite: a weight inside, a wild tingling that forces me to move my hips, to find the exact angle to rub myself inside and out at the same time.

I watch myself in the mirror as I fuck myself. I see my flushed face, my open mouth, the sweat on my forehead, my taut belly. I see shame and hunger fighting in my eyes. And that turns me on even more. I push a little harder, pull out, slide in, pull out, slide in, until the wet sound of lubricant and flesh slipping against flesh fills the bathroom. The free hand is no longer working delicately: it closes around my cock, runs up and down it, squeezes at the base, punishes it with a furious rhythm that makes my legs tremble.

Right now, as I write this, I have already gone to the fridge. I took one out and strapped it to the desk chair, because between what I am reading on this story page and the boldness of telling my secret, I am so turned on I could explode. I do not want to wait until I finish writing. I want to do it now, and then go to bed thoroughly satisfied.

***

It was not always so orderly. I have tried other things, in the more impatient periods. Bottles, for example. The problem with bottles is the neck: that narrow section that suddenly widens. I have trouble getting past that point, because my body is a little tight, but I am stubborn. Once I start, I do not stop until I come. Stubbornness, which in my life has caused me so many problems, at least serves me for something here.

What I would really like is to have a good toy. One of generous size, the kind you see on the pages I now visit without guilt. But there is the usual problem: where to hide it. Marina goes into every drawer, opens every cupboard, knows every corner of this house better than I do. I do not have a single safe hiding place.

There was one, long ago. A toy that was actually hers, from the years when she still dared to ask me for things. Sometimes, when she left, I used it in secret. I cleaned it with obsessive care and put it back in exactly its place, praying she would not notice anything. One day it disappeared. I found it in the trash, with no explanation, no comment. I never asked. Maybe she knew what I was doing. Maybe she was simply tired of an object she no longer used. That doubt still stays with me.

***

Sometimes, in the middle of my pleasure, a strange idea grabs hold of me. I think of Marina. Not the distant woman she is now, but the one from before, the one who offered me those fantasies I rejected. I wonder what she would think if she suddenly walked in and found me like this, naked, with a zucchini and the phone recording, moaning on my own in the house we share.

Would it disgust her? Would it make her laugh? Or perhaps, at last, would she recognize me?

Because what I do in secret is, in the end, everything she always wanted from me. The urge to try, to let go, to leave shame aside and surrender to desire without measuring the consequences. The irony is cruel: I became the man she needed precisely when she is no longer interested in looking at me. I discovered all that freedom too late, and I spend it alone, in front of a phone screen.

Maybe one day I will gather the courage. Maybe one night, instead of waiting for her to leave, I will tell her what I discovered. I will tell her that her stone learned to feel, that I am no longer afraid of anything she might propose. I do not know whether she would listen to me. I do not know whether there would be anything left between us that could be rekindled. It is easier to imagine than to do.

In the meantime, I will keep making do with what I have at hand. With the fridge full of green excuses, with the lubricant hidden at the back of the bathroom cabinet, with the phone that lets only me see myself. And with this secret that now, for the first time, I share with a stranger on the other side of the screen.

In fact, enough writing already. The one on the chair is waiting for me, still firm and properly in place, and my body has been begging me for a while now to finish what I started. I am going to switch off the office light, I am going to put the phone back where it belongs, and I am going to give myself, once again, the pleasure no one else wants to give me.

Then I will sleep peacefully. Satisfied. Until tomorrow she walks out that door again and I become, once more, who I truly am.