Masturbation

I drove to the abandoned factory with my pulse racing. I stripped among the broken glass and crossed the door, not knowing what waited for me on the floors above.

He ordered me to masturbate in front of him while he smoked in the armchair. What neither of us expected was how that playful afternoon would end.

I know I should feel ashamed, but at that hour, pressed against bodies I don’t know, I stop pretending the touch is an accident.

That Monday the gym was almost empty. I only wanted to shower in peace, but I walked through the wrong door… and he was already inside, watching me without saying a word.

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 slip-ups were the alcohol’s fault. That morning, sober and in broad daylight, I knew I had been lying to myself.

I thought it was an innocent game of glances at the traffic light. I never imagined that on a Saturday morning I’d knock on his door with the most foolish excuse in the world.

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 shame, hidden behind a screen. I never imagined the body I hated so much would end up teaching 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 lay perfectly still, 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 none of it matters. 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. Then a voice behind me asked if I liked her panties, and I knew there was no turning back.