What I Do in Front of the Mirror When I’m Alone

There are mornings when I wake up and I already know it’s going to be one of those days. It’s not something I decide; it just happens. I open my eyes and feel my body switched on before I think about anything, as if I’d dreamed something I can’t remember but that left my skin buzzing.

That morning was like that. My husband had left early for work, still with damp hair and his usual quick kiss on my forehead. I took my daughter to kindergarten, watched her run into her classroom without looking back, and on the way home I was already squeezing my legs together in the car seat.

I’m in my thirties, fair-skinned and a little plump, with wide hips and shapely legs from going up and down stairs so many times with grocery bags. I’ve never thought of myself as a magazine beauty, but I know what I provoke when I stand in front of the mirror and really look at myself. That morning I needed to look at myself.

I locked the door, even though I didn’t need to. It’s a gesture that gives me permission, a way of telling myself that for a while the world doesn’t exist. I went upstairs leaving my shoes in the hallway and started undressing without hurry, one piece at a time, as if someone were watching me from some corner.

From the back of the drawer I took out an outfit I almost never wear. A gauze babydoll with thin ribbons, one of those pieces that cover nothing and are made precisely for that. The ribbons barely skimmed over my breasts, and another, even thinner, disappeared between my ass cheeks. I put it on slowly, feeling the fabric brush my nipples until they hardened.

Then I looked for the heels. The black ones, the highest ones, the ones that force me to walk with my back straight and my chest forward. I slipped them on sitting on the edge of the bed, and when I stood up and saw myself in the full-length mirror, I lost my breath for a second.

I didn’t recognize that woman. And at the same time it was me, more me than ever.

I started moving. I wasn’t dancing for anyone; I was dancing for the reflection, for that other woman who looked back at me with parted lips. I ran my hands over my neck, down my shoulders, tracing the curve of my waist. Every time I touched myself, the reflection touched me back, and the feeling of being watched aroused me far more than the touch itself.

That was when he appeared in my head.

Damián. He isn’t real, or at least not entirely. He’s a man I met in a chat room months ago, a voice written on a screen, words that reached me in the small hours when my husband was snoring beside me. I never saw his face, never heard his real voice, and yet I knew exactly how he would speak to me in a moment like this.

—Look at yourself properly —the voice inside me said—. Turn around. I want to see everything you hide under that good-wife apron.

I turned in front of the mirror, looking over my shoulder at how the ribbon sank between my ass cheeks. I arched a little, spread my legs just enough. The woman in the reflection obeyed me, and I obeyed him.

—That’s it —the voice went on—. You’re a bitch when nobody can see you. A slut who pretends to be decent and the second she’s alone strips for a stranger.

His imaginary words burned me more than any caress could. My heart was hammering against my chest with a force that scared me a little, that acceleration that warns you the body isn’t going to stop now. I felt the heat rising from my belly, a wave climbing up my spine to the nape of my neck.

I let myself fall back onto the bed, still in my heels, my legs hanging off the edge. I pulled at the babydoll ribbons until my breasts were free and I stroked them, first softly, then squeezing, imagining it was his hands kneading me.

—Don’t cover yourself —Damián ordered in my mind—. I want to see all of you. Touch yourself for me.

And I touched myself. I slid one hand between my legs and found I was already completely wet, ready, swollen from wanting. I ran my fingers slowly, tracing circles, not entering yet, stretching out that moment when you know you’re about to give in but don’t want to yet.

The wardrobe mirror was at just the right angle. I turned my head and saw myself stretched out, open, one hand on my breast and the other between my legs. Seeing myself like that, watching myself do it, was what finally pushed me over the edge. I like watching myself. I like knowing what I provoke, even if the only spectator is me.

***

I have a toy I keep at the back of the closet, inside an old shoe box, under a pile of scarves I never use. My husband doesn’t know it exists. It’s one of those little secrets a woman keeps for herself, a key that opens a door he prefers to ignore.

I stretched to reach it without getting all the way up, my legs still trembling with need. When I had it in my hand I lay back down and took a second, just a second, to breathe and let anticipation run through me completely.

—What are you waiting for? —the voice rushed me—. You know what you need. Do it. I want to hear you.

I slipped it in slowly, feeling every inch, and a moan escaped my throat before I could control it. The pleasure was so immediate and so intense that I had to bite my lip not to scream. I like screaming. I like howling, moaning, letting out all the noise my body asks for. But the walls in my house are thin and the neighbors are too close.

I stretched out my arm, grabbed a pillow, and pressed it against my mouth. With my other hand I set the rhythm, in and out, while I imagined it was him holding my hips, whispering in my ear, calling me all those names that from anyone else’s mouth would offend me and from his melt me.

—Like that, bitch. Move for me. Show me what you’re really good for.

The mirror’s reflection was with me in every movement. I saw myself with the pillow covering my face, my body arched, my heels dug into the mattress. An image my husband would never see, would never even suspect. That idea—that I was two different women, the one in the kitchen and the one in the mirror—took me higher than any caress ever could.

I brought my fingers up to the center of my pleasure and moved them in quick circles while keeping up with the toy. Two sensations at once, two hands working, my whole body turning into one taut string ready to snap. I felt sweat on my back, my hair stuck to my forehead, my thighs trembling out of control.

—You can’t hold on any longer —Damián whispered—. I know. Let go. I want to feel you come apart.

And I came apart. The orgasm hit me like a jolt that split me in two, a surge that started in the center and shot into every corner of my body, all the way to my fingertips, all the way to my scalp. I screamed into the pillow, a long muffled scream that left my throat raw, my hips lifting off the mattress again and again on their own.

Then came the shaking. That aftershock of pleasure that arrives when it’s all over but the body still doesn’t understand. I lay there panting, with the toy forgotten at my side and the pillow fallen onto my chest, staring at the white ceiling without seeing it.

***

Little by little the heat faded, like a candle burning down to the end. I sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing one heel and the other somewhere on the floor, and laughed to myself. A low laugh, almost ashamed.

I surprise myself every time it happens. The slut, the bitch, the hungry woman hidden beneath the mother who makes snacks and folds laundry. No one would believe it if they saw me pushing the cart at the supermarket, greeting the kindergarten teachers, smiling in the bank line.

I stood up, took off the crumpled babydoll, and put it back in the back of the drawer. I returned the toy to its shoe box, under the scarves. I got into the shower and let the warm water carry away the sweat and Damián’s trace, who was once again just a sleeping voice on a dark screen.

Sometimes I think about how different everything would be if my husband wanted to. If just once he let me show him this other woman, the one in the mirror, instead of turning off the light and turning his back on me with an “I’m tired” I already know by heart. He has a hungry bitch sleeping beside him every night and he prefers not to know.

But I’m not complaining. Meanwhile I have my stolen mornings, my mirror, my heels, and an invented voice whispering in my ear exactly what I need to hear. And when I lock the door and stay alone, I’m freer and more myself than at any other time of day.