Masturbation

The gym was almost empty that Monday. I only wanted a quiet shower, but I walked through the wrong door… and he was already inside, watching me in silence.

Fresh out of the shower, I looked in the mirror and realized I couldn’t keep waiting. I took a sheet of paper and started writing down everything I’d wanted for years and never dared to do.

I always told myself my indiscretions were the alcohol’s fault. That morning, sober and in broad daylight, I knew I’d been lying to myself.

I thought it was just an innocent game of glances at a traffic light. I never imagined that one Saturday morning I’d ring his doorbell with the most ridiculous excuse.

I’ve always hated public bathrooms, but that day I had no choice. What I never imagined was what I’d find when I ran back for the phone I’d left on top of the water tank.

I walk between the lockers with a towel over my shoulder and I feel every gaze. They pretend not to look, but their bodies answer me before their words do.

I thought she was asleep the night I brought those two men home. I was wrong: she saw everything. And weeks later she walked into the bathroom, sat in front of me, and demanded to know it all.

I bought that toy almost out of embarrassment, hidden behind a screen. I never imagined the body I hated so much would teach me to love myself.

It began as an academic interest in the brightest student in the group. What ended up happening in my office is still hard for me to put into words.

The first time I heard her through the partition, I froze, holding my breath, pretending to be asleep while she believed she was completely alone.

I recognized the basket of clothes that wasn’t mine, and before I could think, my hand was already buried in his things. What happened next changed me from the inside.

I found her panties on the hallway floor, with a note on top. From that night on, we played a game neither of us wanted to end.

It started with a message about one of my stories. It ended with me in bed, in the dark, obeying every thing she wrote from the other side of the screen.

I don’t lie about my age or about the gym, but in that reclining chair all of that stops mattering. All that’s left is the soft pressure of her body against mine.

I was sixty and my marriage was asleep when I noticed the boy next door spying on me through the hedges. I didn’t cover up. I played along.

That Thursday I didn’t have classes and the morning was mine. I turned on the water, closed my eyes, and let myself go... not imagining boots would appear in the window.

I thought I was alone among the hanging laundry—until a voice asked if I liked her panties, and there was no turning back.

I had never smelled another woman’s desire until that afternoon, standing in the hallway with my flatmate’s soaked garment in my hands and my pulse racing.

I’m naked while I write this. And I want you to know exactly what goes through my head when I shut the door and no one can hear me.

I walked into the bathroom by mistake and found him under the water. Ever since, I return to that image every night I’m alone and can’t get it out of my head.