Masturbation

The moment he heard the key turn in the lock, Nico knew his cousin’s arrival was going to change everything, even if neither of them said it aloud.

I waited naked beside the olive tree, my backpack at my feet and my phone in hand, never imagining that cold night would leave two different flavors in my mouth.

I pulled down the jumpsuit zipper in the dim light, convinced I was alone. Then I felt the weight of a bony hand settling slowly on my knee.

I couldn’t stop watching Bruno’s body beneath the water, and when he turned around with his eyes closed, I knew we were about to cross a line we had avoided for years.

He went in believing the showers were empty, but the steam concealed someone else. His teammate had not heard him arrive, and he could no longer look away.

For months I’d been pretending not to look when he came out of the bathroom in his underwear. That Christmas, alone in the flat, I opened his dirty laundry bag.

I’d sworn we were only going to watch. But when that stranger put his hand on Eduardo’s shoulder, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay still either.

The carriage was empty that late at night. When that man sat almost across from me and started looking at me without hiding it, I knew the ride would be different.

I learned his schedule, the sound of his boots, the exact moment he took off his shirt because of the heat. What I didn’t know was how far that obsession would take me.

She left them by the mat, still warm from her bare feet. It only took my daughter being distracted for a moment for me to commit the madness.

Her feet resting on the edge of my chair were only the beginning. That night, I discovered how far I was willing to go to please her.

The first time she ordered me to paint my toenails, my hands shook. Not from fear: from wanting to obey her.

I told her to bring the most outrageous outfits she had. I wanted to parade her through the city and, back at the hotel, lose myself between her feet for hours.

It was enough for her to look at my bare feet on the cold tiles to understand, before I did, what kind of man I could become if she ordered me to.

I went downstairs to the bathroom with a simple urge and found her there, soaped up and smiling, already knowing the order I was about to give her.

It took three months of patience to reach Mariana’s sofa, slowly remove her shoes, and discover whether she really minded that I couldn’t stop staring at her feet.

I told her I liked her feet and she laughed. She had no idea that that afternoon, while she looked after her nieces, I was on my knees in front of her bed with her sneakers in my hands.

I learned to count the hours until she fell asleep. Only then, in the darkness of the bunk bed, were her sandals mine and no one could see what I did with them.

I went to her house for a school assignment and found her in flip-flops. From that moment on, I could never look at her without thinking of her feet.

I turned my back to the camera, moved my hips slowly, and waited. I only wanted a stranger to tell me what to do with my own body.