Strangers

The neighbors’ complaints didn’t scare her; they turned her on. In that elevator it smelled of beer and dirty man, and she was already on her knees before reaching the top floor.

I turned my back to the camera, moved my hips slowly, and waited. I only wanted a stranger to tell me what to do with my own body.

On weekends I don’t go to the movies for the film. I go to sit in back and wait for unknown feet to settle on me and decide how much I can take.

It had been two weeks since anyone had used me the way I needed, so I put on the easiest dress to remove and went to the only place where no one would ever say no to me.

That afternoon, she walked through the curtain into the back room knowing she would obey every order, however degrading, without anyone forcing her to.

She knew those two men would despise her the moment she walked through the door, and that was exactly what kept her coming back for more.

She got thrown out of the mansion for asking too much. Lost in the night, the stench of a garbage truck made her smile: at last, someone spoke her language.

I’d never paid for anything like that before. We met on a Tuesday morning, she handed me the bag in a hurry, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what was waiting for me at home.

We counted to three and stripped naked in front of everyone. What I didn't know was that she'd kept a key in her necklace for the rest of the day.

The door opened and I understood that tonight I wasn’t deciding anything. She waited tied to the headboard; he, standing in the dim light, only looked at me and nodded.

She lifted her skirt, looked at me hard, and said not to be embarrassed, that we all did it. That’s when I knew that night wouldn’t be like any other.

For years I’d chased this moment in airports and trains, but I never imagined a stranger would let me worship her bare feet on a flight.

I felt her bare feet on my shoulder in the darkness. Then a voice asked me if I liked the way her socks smelled, and all I could do was say yes.

For years I exposed myself in the window while no one mattered, until the night I crossed the street barefoot to kneel before the only man who dared to truly look at me.

He told me that wait wasn’t paid for with money. And instead of getting out of the taxi, I stayed to find out what he wanted me to pay with.

She smelled the flower that should not have existed, and her body stopped obeying her. Among the trees, someone watched and waited for the exact moment to approach.

I was half-naked in the car of a man I didn’t know, in a crowded parking garage, and he told me to relax because my checkup was only just beginning.

My adrenaline surged just thinking about it: going out at night to a remote area and letting men I didn’t know use me however they wanted. I knew the risks.

I’ve spent years working among the dead and thought I’d seen everything. Until that man on my steel table twitched when I sank the scalpel into his chest.

The sea spat me onto a yacht deck with not a single man on board. When I woke up a second time, I was already wearing their dress and didn’t understand why I was letting them.