In Public

It was two in the morning when a video planted the idea in my head. Days later I was walking through the supermarket with a secret buzzing between my legs.

That morning I opened the curtains intending to watch the maids. I never imagined a stranger in the opposite window would be the one who couldn’t take her eyes off me.

I locked the door and turned on the laptop, letting my imagination finish what a stranger had started in the crush of the platform.

I only meant to rest on the table for a while. I never imagined I’d end up with my hand inside my clothes, biting my lip so no one in the hallway could hear me.

I get home, strip naked on the couch, and lose count. It’s my routine, my secret, the only thing I truly need at the end of the day.

I got there forty minutes early, turned off the engine in the underground garage, and then the smell of that dawn came rushing back to me like a current.

I never thought watching a stranger touch herself at dawn would ignite such a strong desire in me that I’d end up in a park that same night, losing all shame.

There was still more than an hour to go, the seat next to me was empty, and that tingling between my legs was the only thing on my mind.

When I knelt in the sand with the sun beating on my back, I never imagined someone was watching every move from the other side of the crag.

Her boyfriend played with his phone a meter away while she left the fitting-room curtain half open and, every time she undressed, checked that I was still there.

When I took off my bikini top in front of Carolina, her face changed. And then I knew I wasn’t leaving the beach that afternoon as just her friend.

The theater was almost empty. My husband got up for the drinks and, before leaving, had pulled up my skirt and sweater just enough for his friend to be unable to look away.

The park was empty at nine. When the three dark silhouettes appeared at the end of the path, I knew I wouldn’t get home the same person.

By day, I seemed like the most innocent of all. By night, behind a closed door, I discovered a version of myself no one would ever have imagined.

I asked my friend to come with me to do something I’d been imagining for years: letting strangers see me. I had no idea how much I would enjoy it.

I had never taken my blouse off outdoors. My pulse was racing and my hands were trembling, but something in me needed to know what it felt like for a stranger to be able to look at me.

He asked me from the screen and I obeyed: open the window, let the clothes fall, and let those men watch me without shame.

I never had privacy for anything. That afternoon, on an empty bench with my skirt pulled up, I understood I could finally do exactly what I wanted.

I’d been walking for half an hour when the heat between my legs stopped being an idea and became urgency. The concrete wall was cold; I was burning.

I had finished all my work, no one was left on the floor, and the heat had me restless. That afternoon I decided to play with fire on the desk.