Masturbation

I changed the song to a slower one, let my fingers travel down my neck, and suddenly the massage was no longer just a massage. Care to imagine it with me?

I’d been imagining it for weeks. That dawn I opened the gate, stepped onto the asphalt, and knew I wouldn’t stop until someone saw me.

I thought the family weekend would be like any other. Until she walked through the gate and I realized the past had never really been buried.

My tutor had just fallen asleep when I discovered the half-open drawer of her bedside table. Inside, something was shining that was about to change everything between us.

I pulled the curtain aside in fear, thinking they were burglars. What I saw in the patio left me breathless and trembling between my legs.

When she suggested the loser take off a piece of clothing, I said yes without thinking. I had no idea what dare would come next, or that we’d end up with nothing on.

It was the first time I saw her appear in a nightdress at three in the morning, barefoot and with that smile that asked permission without asking.

I went downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water. The back bedroom door was half open, and from inside came a faint light and two conspiratorial laughs.

That afternoon I turned the telescope expecting nothing new, and I saw her: kneeling on the chair, oblivious to the fact that a stranger thirty meters away was watching her in silence.

The call came on a Saturday at dusk. Her parents were away, and her voice on the phone trembled a little. I knew then the night wasn’t going to end early.

I started by filling balloons with warm water so I’d feel like I had breasts. I ended up gluing them to my nipples and finding a pleasure I didn’t know I was looking for.

I locked the door and became someone else in the mirror. I didn’t count on him having a copy of the key.

I went out to get some air while he slept. The lights in the apartment across the way were still on, and then I heard a moan that wasn’t mine and knew I was going to keep watching.

The first time I aimed my sons’ old telescope toward the window across the street, I knew I had become something my husband would never imagine.

He spent years with his ear pressed to the walls of cheap motels. One night he found a forum promising more: booths with a view of other people’s pleasure.

All it took was for her to make an insinuating move for me to get on all fours. That night I discovered she had two surprises hidden away, and only one was for me.

I woke with my body burning and my hand between my legs. I never imagined my sister would open the door that morning… or what would happen next.

“Don’t rush,” she murmured against the wall. “I want to feel everything you do, slowly, until the whole night feels too short.”

When I walked into the teachers’ lounge, hands wrapped around me from behind and lips slid down my neck. I recognized her perfume instantly.

For days I had felt eyes fixed on the back of my neck while I played. That Friday I locked the doors and came down from the stage determined to find her.