The Twitter photo that made me lose my mind

I’d been alone in the apartment for three weeks and was starting to lose track of the days. My online classes weren’t starting for another month, I’d cleaned every corner of the place twice, I’d finished the books on my nightstand, and I’d binge-watched three and a half series. That Thursday afternoon I found myself staring at the living room ceiling as if something new to do might appear in the plaster.

I picked up my phone more out of habit than desire. I opened Facebook: birthdays of people I didn’t remember, photos of other people’s babies, a cannelloni recipe nobody was going to make. I closed it. Instagram wasn’t promising anything different either: the same three friends in the same bar, the same influencers selling me creams I wasn’t going to buy. I closed that too.

Twitter was my last resort, and I always opened it with a certain caution. The timeline was a mess of politics, soccer, and people fighting over nothing. But that afternoon the algorithm gave me something else.

The first thing was a short video. Two girls in a bed, one blonde and one brunette, kissing with a slowness that ordinary porn doesn’t have. The blonde was holding the other girl by the back of the neck as if she were afraid she’d slip through her fingers. The brunette had her hand between the blonde’s legs, and although the camera didn’t show everything, you could see her fingers moving under the wet fabric of her panties. I watched longer than I was going to admit later. I felt the first tug low in my belly, a hot throb between my legs, and crossed my thighs over the couch without even realizing it. I was already wet, and I still hadn’t done anything.

I scrolled a little farther with my thumb and then I found her.

It was an unfiltered photo, taken in front of a mirror in low light. An older woman than me —thirty-something, I figured— showing her breasts without posing, without the hysteria of someone looking for approval. She had big, heavy tits, with dark, hard nipples pointing slightly upward, as if the cold of the mirror had made them that way. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, there was a tiny tattoo on her collarbone, and she had a sideways smile that was anything but innocent. Beneath the photo, a short caption:

“Women of the city: anyone brave enough for a Thursday afternoon? DM me, no strings attached.”

I clicked on the profile. Her name was Marisol, or at least that’s what the username said. She had few photos, all with the same dim light, the same aesthetic of not looking for anything and at the same time asking for everything. In one she was in a bathtub, with her knees peeking out over the foam and one hand lost between her thighs, as if she’d been photographed just as she was starting to touch herself. In another she was sitting on the edge of a rumpled bed, wearing a black lingerie set that outlined her cunt through the fabric, her legs barely apart, her gaze fixed on the camera, as if she’d been waiting for me.

I went back to the first one. The one with the tits.

Am I really going to write to her?

I didn’t write to her. I didn’t have the nerve, or not at that moment. But I left the phone open on the armrest, her profile right at the top, and started sliding my hand under the waistband of my pajama shorts.

I was soaked before I touched myself. I discovered it almost with surprise, as if my body had started the game without telling me. My fingers sank into the folds of my cunt without any resistance, and when I pulled them out to take them to my clit they were dripping, shining with my own wetness. I circled it slowly, back and forth, while rereading the text under the photo. “No strings attached.” The phrase kept repeating in my head in a voice that wasn’t mine. I slid two fingers into my cunt, deep inside, and curled them upward looking for that spot I knew how to find on my own. The skin inside was throbbing, tight around my knuckles.

***

I had to stop to take off my clothes. I ripped my shirt over my head —my nipples were left hard in the open air, tense, almost hurting— and yanked down my shorts and panties in one go. The panties had a dark, soaked spot that stuck to my thigh as I pulled them off. I dropped them on the living room floor along with the shorts and walked barefoot and naked to the bedroom with the phone in my hand. The screen light reflected in the wardrobe mirror every time I passed by, and out of the corner of my eye I saw my tits moving with every step, my thighs shining with moisture all the way to my knees.

I lay on my back on the bed, my back against the headboard and my legs spread wide, and opened a new tab. I searched for girl-on-girl videos; I’m picky about what I watch, so it took me a long while to find the right one. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop touching myself with my other hand to keep the heat going: two fingers going in and out of my cunt with a wet sound that filled the bedroom, my thumb circling the swollen clit. The screen lit up my face and tits in intervals as I moved from one video to the next.

When I finally found one that worked for me —two brunettes in a hotel room, no background music, no forced dialogue, one kneeling between the other’s open legs sucking her cunt hungrily— I paused it for a second and went back to Marisol’s photo. I wanted it in the background. I wanted it as if she were the one in the video room, the one with her face buried between those thighs.

I hit play.

The two women’s moans filled the bedroom. You could hear the wet slap of tongue against cunt clearly, the ragged breathing of the one underneath, the “like that, like that, don’t stop” muttered through clenched teeth. I closed my eyes and let the image settle itself in my head. They weren’t the girls from the video anymore. It was Marisol on top of me, with that messy bun falling over her face, with the tattoo on her collarbone at my eye level. I could see her sideways smile as she kissed my neck, as she bit my earlobe, as she came down slowly over my cleavage and caught one nipple between her teeth.

—I knew you’d go into my profile —she told me, with a voice I made up on the spot, rough and low, speaking against my skin—. Girls like you always do. And you always end up wet before you message me.

I pressed my thighs against my hand. The fantasy built itself layer by layer, without me having to work for it. Marisol running her tongue along my neckline, sucking one nipple until it went red and then the other. Marisol moving down my stomach, leaving a trail of saliva. Marisol spreading my legs with both hands, unhurried, looking at my open cunt like someone settling in to eat slowly. Marisol flattening her tongue, from bottom to top, in one long lick that would wrench a moan out of me. Marisol sucking my clit, wrapping it with her lips, sucking gently and then hard, while two fingers of hers slid into me and pried me open from the inside.

I was doing all that to myself with my own hand, but it was her doing it. I slid in a third finger. It burned for a second and then it settled, and my cunt tightened around it as if it knew there was something new. With my other hand I grabbed a whole breast, squeezed it hard enough to hurt, pinched the nipple between my index finger and thumb and twisted it. I arched on my own against the pillow and let out a “fuck, the bitch” that came out whole, unfiltered, in the deep voice I get when I’m alone and really horny.

***

In the video, the brunettes had changed positions and one of them had pulled a harness out of a drawer. Hanging between her legs was a black silicone dick, thick, with the veins standing out, and she was pushing it into the other girl’s mouth, shoving it all the way down her throat. The girl underneath had her face soaked with spit and was sucking it with her eyes half-closed, pulling it out shiny and taking it back in whole. Then the first one settled between her legs, spat on her hand, lubed up the dick, and started sliding it into the other girl’s cunt little by little, first the tip, then halfway, until the other girl asked for more and she drove it in in one single thrust up to the plastic balls.

I stared at the image for a moment. It wasn’t something I’d ever tried. I’d seen it, imagined it, but always from a safe distance, like someone looking out the window at something happening on another block.

That afternoon there was no safe distance. My cunt was open, dripping onto the sheets, and I needed something inside me. Something more than my three fingers.

I stretched my hand toward the nightstand drawer looking for something, anything. The first thing I found was the handle of a hairbrush, long, round, cold. I rested it in my palm for two seconds to think about it and then decided there was nothing to think about. I took it to my mouth first. I sucked it like I’d seen the girl in the video suck the harness dick, imagining it was Marisol’s, soaking it with saliva from tip to base. Then I lowered it, rubbed it for a while against the lips of my cunt to warm it up, passed it over my clit making it slide on my wetness, and slowly started pushing it in.

I let out a long, filthy moan I hadn’t known I had saved up. The brush wasn’t so thick or so long as to be frightening, but it made its way in with that different hardness, that firmness fingers don’t have. The mere idea that I was doing that to myself —imagining it was her handling it, her driving it into me from above with the harness on— filled my head with an intensity I hadn’t expected.

—Move —Marisol told me in my head, her face pressed against my ear, her voice rough, her mouth smelling like me—. Move, like this, for me. Fuck it. Show me how you fuck yourself.

I started matching the rhythm of the video’s thrusts. I lifted my hips to meet the brush, pulled it almost all the way out until the tip barely showed between my lips, then shoved it back in to the hilt in one blow. My wrist was at a weird angle, but I didn’t care: the handle struck me inside every time, and every hit tore a gasp out of me. With my other hand I pinched my nipples, one and then the other, pulling them upward until they really hurt. Pain entered pleasure as if they were the same thing. Every tug went straight to my cunt and my cunt tightened around the brush.

—Harder —the Marisol in my head begged—. Harder, babe, don’t be a little pussy. Fuck it good.

I sat up on the bed, braced the brush against the mattress with the handle standing up, and dropped myself onto it. I felt the whole shaft go in at once and screamed into the pillow I grabbed so I wouldn’t wake up the whole building. I started bouncing on the handle with my whole body weight, supporting myself with both hands on my knees, my tits dancing in front of my face, the wet bounce of my ass against the mattress every time I went down. My hair fell over my face, sweat ran down my back and between my breasts and dripped from the tips of my nipples. I looked down and saw the brush handle appearing and disappearing between my legs, shining, soaked, and imagined that with every downward bounce it was her pushing from below, fucking into me.

On the phone screen, which had been left lying beside the sheets, the two brunettes kept going, but I could hardly hear them anymore. The one in the harness was taking the other from behind, gripping her hair, talking dirty to her, yanking her head back with every shove.

All I could hear was my own breathing, the sticky sound of the brush going in and out, and Marisol’s invented voice.

—You’re my favorite —she told me, her imaginary hand on my waist, guiding me from below—. My favorite girl. The one who fucks herself thinking about me. Come here, come finish on top of me.

I took my hand to my clit without stopping the bouncing. I pinched it with two fingers and made fast circles, irregular, pressing hard because by then a soft caress was useless to me. I needed friction, I needed pain, I needed something to wrench what had built up inside me out of my body.

***

The ending didn’t come like it usually did. It wasn’t a wave rising and falling. It was more like a discharge, a jolt that split me in two for one long second when I heard nothing at all, neither the video, nor my breathing, nor the ceiling fan. My cunt clamped down around the brush with a force that scared me, as if it wanted to keep it inside forever. I felt a hot rush running down my thighs and over the handle, soaking my hands, dripping onto the sheets. Everything froze.

Then my body started trembling for real. I let myself fall sideways onto the bed, the brush still inside, laughing and gasping at the same time. My legs wouldn’t respond; they shook from the inside, with those tiny spasms that remain after a too-long orgasm. My cheeks were wet and I didn’t know if it was sweat or tears; when I touched my face, I decided it was a little of both.

The video ended on its own. A deep silence came in through the open bedroom window. Outside it was starting to get dark, and in the living room the afternoon lights had been left on, those ones that were no longer needed.

I pulled the brush out carefully —it came out with a wet little sound, soaked halfway up the handle—, wrapped it in a towel on the nightstand to clean it later, and stayed lying on my back for a while, my legs still open and my cunt throbbing slowly, staring at the ceiling. This time I wasn’t looking for anything new in the plaster. I had already found something new. I’d done it to myself with the face of a woman I didn’t know.

I reached for the phone. Marisol’s photo was still open on the profile. I looked at it for a long time, this time without urgency, almost fondly. I owed her more than she would ever know.

I thought about writing to her. I thought about sending a short message, one line, something like “Still up for that Thursday proposal?” My finger was over the button. Thursday afternoon was over, but the desire had only just begun.

In the end I didn’t write to her. Not that night. I locked the phone, set it face down on the nightstand, and got into the shower with the feeling that I had discovered a door I hadn’t known was there.

As the water ran down my back —and more wetness still slipped out of me down my thighs, mixing with the hot water before going down the drain—, I promised myself two things. The first was that the following Thursday I would open Twitter expecting nothing, exactly as I had done that afternoon, to see what the algorithm gave me back. The second was that next time I wasn’t going to settle for a photo and a brush.

Next time I wanted the whole thing. The sideways smile, the messy bun, other people’s hands around my neck, another woman’s tongue between my legs, a thick silicone dick going all the way into me while they looked me in the eyes. Marisol or any other woman who showed up on my screen on a Thursday afternoon, with the dim light and the direct offer.

I didn’t want to go back to the old inertia anymore. Now I knew what to pay attention to. I knew what to look for. And above all, I knew what my body was capable of doing when the right door was opened.