Memories

I switch off the lamp, close my eyes, and let her voice on the other side of the wall set the rhythm of my hand. She’s not mine anymore, but I still come thinking of her.

I had never dared watch myself while I touched myself. That afternoon I put my phone in front of the bed, took a deep breath, and learned something new about my own desire.

We had been locked in the room all afternoon, and still he was awake in the bathroom. Curiosity beat sleep, and what I saw changed me.

It was eleven in the morning, the place was empty, and my partner was asleep. When I saw him come through the door, I knew that Sunday wasn’t going to be like any other.

I was hanging the laundry in the middle of the night, cold and bored, when something in the silence of the patio lit me up inside and I couldn’t stop.

It had been six weeks since I’d slept well, and her scent still weighed on the sheets. That morning, in the café on the avenue, I understood how much it costs to lose someone who still smells like they’re yours.

I bought that toy out of sheer boredom. What I didn’t calculate was that the building manager would end up holding it in his hands, looking me in the eyes.

It’s been five weeks since you showed up, and tonight, with the house all to myself, I decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer to finish what you left half-done.

It took forty-eight hours to arrive. Forty-eight hours in which every brush of fabric against my skin reminded me what was on its way.

It took me years to understand what my body was asking for. And when I finally did, there was no going back or settling for less.

I went back to my room trembling, stood naked in front of the mirror, and let his memory guide every one of my fingers. I couldn’t stop until the end.

It’s two in the morning, I can’t sleep, and I’m alone. The heat is brutal, the bed is burning me, and my mind starts drifting to names and bodies I thought I’d forgotten.

That night I thought of no one. I turned off the light, looked at myself naked in the half-dark, and understood that the body I had given so often to others could belong only to me.

I spread a towel over the bed just in case, opened my legs, and followed the video’s instructions. Half an hour later I understood my body kept a secret.

I didn’t go to the beach to swim. I went to remember her, inch by inch, until memory became so real my body answered on its own.

The whole house silent, the keys still in my hand, and an idea crossing my mind as I looked at the fruit bowl on the kitchen table.

It’s three in the morning, the sheets are brushing my naked skin, and your memory won’t leave me in peace. I confess what I do when you’re not there to do it yourself.

I’m naked on the rug, facing the mirror, still trembling from the last orgasm. And then I decide to play back what I just filmed of myself.

When he rolled down the window and I heard his voice, the five years we hadn’t seen each other vanished in an instant and I knew I would get in without asking where we were going.

I slipped the vibrator into the toiletry bag beside the toothbrush. If fantasy could ease the pain, no one was going to stop me from trying that night.