The Third Time I Dressed as the Woman I Am

It wasn’t the first time. Not even the second. But that night something inside me beat differently, calmer and firmer at the same time. There was no rush. None of that old fear that used to climb up my throat every time I opened the bottom drawer. I looked at myself in the bedroom mirror and, for the first time in a long while, I didn’t see anyone in disguise. I saw Valeria.

I took my time, which was the one thing I had plenty of that night. The black lingerie I’d almost forgotten at the back of the closet wrapped around me with that mix of nerves and power I hadn’t felt before. The stockings slid up my thighs like a prelude to a caress, slow, careful. The heels —higher than I remembered— forced me to walk slowly, measuring every step, and I liked that. I painted my lips a dark red in front of the mirror and, when I finished, I smiled. I liked that smile. I liked that version of me.

He had texted me two hours earlier. He wasn’t the type to throw out dirty lines or get straight to the point. Mateo had another way of speaking, quieter, almost shy for someone with those shoulders. His message was brief.

—Tonight? —it said, nothing more.

And I answered with the same economy, but with a new intention.

—Yes. But this time let me set the pace. And come hungry, because tonight I want you to fuck me all the way to the hilt.

I waited for him at home. I dimmed the living room lights until there was only an amber glow left, lit a candle in the bathroom, silly little details that made me feel elegant instead of vulgar. I straightened the cushions, moved a book off the table, dried my hands on a towel because they were cold. There was a part of me that always wanted to run at the last second, to shut everything down and make up an excuse. That night that part stayed still, watching, without taking control.

When the doorbell rang, my heart jumped so hard I felt it at the base of my neck. I walked to the door slowly, heels marking the floor, and took a deep breath before turning the knob.

I opened the door and he looked at me as if he hadn’t quite expected that. As if, for a moment, he didn’t know what to say. He still had his coat on, one hand in his pocket and the other half raised, suspended in the air.

—You’re gorgeous —he said at last, lowering his voice almost to a whisper.

—I know —I answered, stepping aside to let him in—. And you’re going to treat me like it. Gorgeous and a filthy little slut, both.

He closed the door behind him without taking his eyes off me. His coat fell over the back of a chair. He kissed me without asking permission, slow at first, holding my face with both hands as if I were something that could break and he didn’t want to let go of. I kissed him back with the hunger I’d been holding in for days, the kind that builds silently and then suddenly wants everything at once. I bit his lower lip, sucked it slowly, and felt the air leave him through his nose.

His hands slid down my back, tracing the curve, until they settled on my hips. His fingers found the edge of my stockings and stayed there, playing with the fabric, not moving any farther. I took his wrist and pushed his hand inside my panties, guiding his fingers to my already soaked cunt. I showed him like that, without beating around the bush, so he’d know exactly how I was. He let out a low groan when he noticed how wet I was from the mere thought of the night ahead. My legs trembled, but not from insecurity. It was something else, a kind of impatience that didn’t want to be rushed.

—Tonight I don’t want you to see me as an experiment —I told him in his ear, my voice lower than I meant it to be—. Tonight I want you to see me as the woman I am when I close my eyes. And I want you to fuck me like it.

He didn’t answer with words. He lifted me into his arms, without any apparent effort, and carried me to the bedroom while I laughed softly against his neck, surprised at my own weight becoming light. He laid me on the bed with a care that disarmed me more than any roughness could have. Then he took off his shirt, slowly, without theater, and leaned over me. I found the bulge in his pants with my open palm and felt his cock already hard, fully outlined against the fabric. I squeezed, measured its length with my fingers, and smiled to myself.

He undressed me piece by piece, but without tearing anything off, savoring every inch like someone who had nowhere better to go. He kissed my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder. He made his way down to my breasts and lingered there, in that part of me I’d fought with for so long and which that night, under his mouth, made me feel sensual instead of alien. He sucked each nipple one by one, taking them fully into his mouth, releasing them with a wet tug that made my back arch. He nipped them just enough, testing me, and when I moaned louder he bit a little harder, until they were red and stiff and pointing at him.

—Stay still —he murmured when I tried to move—. Let me.

His lips kept moving lower, tracing a line down the center of my belly, teasing me with the tip of his tongue right where he knew it would make me tremble. I closed my eyes. The ceiling, the candle, the city behind the window —everything turned into a distant murmur. All that remained was the heat of his breath and the deliberate slowness with which he moved.

He tore my panties off with his teeth, tugging them to one side until they hung from one ankle. He stopped, looked at me without shame or calculation, only with desire, and licked me with his tongue, barely at first, as if exploring me. A low sound escaped my throat and I didn’t try to hold it back. For once I didn’t want to hide anything, not even that. He spread my cunt lips with his thumbs, looked at me there, shining and open for him, and lowered his mouth again. He licked me from bottom to top, with a flat, broad tongue, until he closed over my clit. He sucked it, curled around it, let it go. He slid two fingers inside me and bent them, searching for that spot that made me lose the thread. He found the rhythm right away: tongue above, fingers inside, in and out with a wet sound that echoed through the dim room. I pulled on his hair, not meaning to at first, and he moaned against my cunt, and that vibration shot through me like a live wire.

—Wait —I told him, propping myself on my elbows, my breath in pieces—. Now I want to. I want to suck your cock.

He leaned back against the headboard and let me take control without arguing. I knelt between his legs and looked up at him for a moment, enjoying the way his breathing had already turned irregular. I dragged my long nails across his thigh, barely grazing the skin, and felt him tense under my hand. I pulled his pants down to his knees, then his boxers, and his cock sprang up hard and thick, slapping against his stomach. I stared at it for a few seconds, my mouth already watering. I took it by the base, weighed it in my hand, felt it throb against my palm.

I took him slowly, with the base of my tongue first, rising unhurriedly to the tip. I licked the head in circles, gathered the thick drop that had appeared and swallowed it while looking into his eyes. I loved that feeling, the exact mix of control and surrender I only found there. I took him all the way into my mouth, closing my eyes, feeling the deep groan slip out of him, a sound that seemed to surprise him too. I went down until the tip touched the back of my throat, stayed there for a moment holding back the gag reflex, and came back up with my mouth sealed tight around him. Again. And again. Each time deeper, each time wetter, saliva running down my chin and dripping onto his balls.

I felt his hand tangle in my hair, not to force a rhythm but to steady himself, as if he needed to hold onto something. That turned me on more than any caress: knowing that it was me, with my mouth and my calm, who had him on the edge. I sucked him carefully, playing with my tongue, while my hands kept roaming over his stomach and thighs. I grabbed his balls with my other hand and kneaded them slowly while I kept sucking his cock, and he let out a tight, clenched “fuck” through his teeth that made me laugh with a mouthful of him. Every time I looked up at him, he held my gaze with a mix of awe and surrender that made me feel powerful. Feminine. Truly wanted.

—Like that, take it all —he said, his voice broken—. Fuck, the way you suck it.

I answered by speeding up, moving my hand at the base at the same time as my mouth on the tip, closing the circle of fist and lips until I felt his whole body tense. When I noticed he was too close, too soon, I eased off softly, pressed two fingers to the base of his cock to bring the wave down, and climbed up his body to kiss him on the mouth. Let him taste it there. He gave me control back with a firm movement, turning me carefully until I was face down on the sheets. It wasn’t an imposition. It was a silent agreement, a change of turn we both understood.

He parted my legs delicately and kissed my back, vertebra by vertebra, working downward. He stroked me with open hands, unhurried, and then with his tongue, patient, until he drew out a long shiver that ran through my whole body. He spread my ass cheeks with both hands and lowered his mouth there, without asking, without requesting permission, and licked me slowly from bottom to top, from my cunt to higher still, until he made me tremble again. I buried my face in the pillow, not to stay quiet but because the intensity needed somewhere to land.

—Look at me when you can —he said, and his voice came out hoarse.

I turned my head just enough to find him. And then, without any harsh warning but without hesitation, I felt him enter me. Slowly. Deep. His cock opened me centimeter by centimeter, until I felt his balls slap against my cunt. With a restrained force that made me moan in broken bursts against the fabric. His hands closed over my hips and he started moving, measuring each thrust, reading in my breathing when to speed up and when to pause for a moment, letting me feel everything. He drove in to the hilt, withdrew almost completely, then plunged back in. The wet slapping was obscene, glorious, and I pressed myself against him every time he thrust, asking for more with my body.

—Harder —I begged, my mouth against the pillow—. Fuck me harder, don’t be afraid of me.

He wasn’t afraid of me. He grabbed my hair with one hand, lifted my torso slightly, and started fucking me for real, with long thrusts that shook me to my core, making the headboard creak against the wall. His other hand found my clit from below, located it, and started rubbing tight circles in time with his cock. I screamed into the pillow, my vision blurring, and he kept going, not slowing down, breathing hotly at the nape of my neck.

He turned me again, this time onto my back, to see my face. He bent my knees up against my chest, put my heels on his shoulders, and drove into me again like that, at exactly the angle to hit the spot where everything came apart. He watched me while he fucked me, and I watched him, mouth open, unable to close it, unwilling to close it. He sucked on two of his fingers and ran them over my nipples, wetting them, then brought his mouth down to suck them too. I clung to the sheets, completely surrendered, with no part of me hidden for the first time in a very long while. There was no shame, no constant calculation of how I looked or what he thought. It was just the two of us and that sway that was building little by little, like a tide that knows exactly where it’s going.

—Come inside me —I told him, looking straight into his eyes—. I want to feel you hot inside.

The climax hit me before I saw it coming, like a wave that breaks before you finish counting the last ones. I convulsed under him, squeezing his cock in spasms that ripped an animal growl out of him. I screamed, and what I screamed was my name, my woman’s name, the one I chose for myself the day I decided to stop hiding. I felt him shudder over me, gripping my hips hard, driving himself to the hilt, and then the hot stream of his cum filling me inside, beat after beat, while he moaned low and muffled against my shoulder. He stayed inside me for a few more seconds, moving only slightly, emptying himself completely, and I clenched around him each time I felt another shudder.

We stayed like that for a few minutes, not separating, panting, listening as each other’s heart rate slowly came down. When he finally pulled out, I felt the semen trickle warm down my thigh and made no move to clean it away. There was no need to say anything. Sometimes words only get in the way of what the body has already said in full.

***

Later, when he got dressed to leave, I walked him to the door wrapped in a robe, barefoot at last, with my heels abandoned somewhere in a corner of the bedroom. He kissed my forehead, then my lips, and held my face for a second before letting go.

—Next time you set the pace again —he said, half joking, half promise.

—You can count on it —I answered.

I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, smiling in the dimness. I went back to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the rumpled bed, and touched my lips, which still held a trace of that dark red. There wasn’t much left, just a faint stain, but it was enough to remind me of the whole night. Between my legs I could still feel him, thick and warm, and that sensation made my smile wider.

It wasn’t the first time. Not the second. But this time, at last, it was truly me, without asking anyone’s permission or waiting for someone to grant it. And I fell asleep with that new certainty, warm, settled somewhere in my chest I had taken years to find.