Masturbation

I closed the laptop, stepped under the water without thinking about anything, and when the sponge brushed my breasts, I knew that shower wasn’t going to be like the others.

I had never touched myself. But that night, with the phone screen lighting my face, my fingers went down on their own and I didn’t want them to stop.

She knew she was alone in the flat. So when she took down the black box her friends had given her, she was no longer thinking about the notes waiting on the desk.

That morning she thought she was alone. I shut my office door, asked not to be disturbed, and opened the app just as she walked into the bedroom.

When her friend was asleep on the sofa, Vera challenged me to show myself and touch myself for her. I couldn’t refuse.

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

I lowered the blinds, turned off my phone, and for once I stopped thinking about what was right. I just followed what my body had wanted for weeks.

I was alone, the heat was unbearable, and the water ran lukewarm over my skin. Then I got an idea I’d been imagining for months and had never had the courage to try.

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 turned on the vibrator, opened a bingo game, and promised myself one rule for every ball. What happened next took me weeks to tell anyone.

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.

I’m twenty-four and still learning what turns me on. That afternoon, with my hand on my throat, I discovered something I didn’t know I needed.

Three mornings a week she cleaned the corridor right on the other side of my desk. And three mornings a week I learned not to look away from the glass.

It took two days to arrive, and for those two days I could think of nothing else. When I finally opened the box, I knew that night I was going to know myself in a new way.

It started as a solitary game at midnight. By the time I was done, I had discovered something about my own pleasure I could no longer pretend not to know.

I waited for the house to go silent so I could turn off the light, open the drawer, and find out how far I could go on my own.

I asked my husband for a photo of himself and got one of another man: a perfect stranger. That night I had no idea how far that image would take me in my sleep.

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.

I promised myself I’d never miss him again. So why is my hand between my legs and his name stuck in my throat tonight?