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 was beating differently, calmer and firmer at the same time. There was no hurry. There was no old fear clawing its way 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 to spare that night. The black lingerie I had almost forgotten at the back of the closet wrapped around me with that mixture of nerves and power I had never felt before. The stockings slid up my thighs like an anticipated caress, slow, careful. The heels —higher than I remembered— forced me to walk slowly, measuring each 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 myself.
He had texted me two hours earlier. He wasn’t the kind to fling dirty lines around 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.
I waited for him at home. I dimmed the living room lights until only an amber glow remained, lit a candle in the bathroom, silly little details that made me feel elegant rather than 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 very last second, turn everything off and send an excuse. That night that part stayed still, watching, without taking over.
When the doorbell rang, my heart gave a jolt I felt at the base of my neck. I walked to the door slowly, my heels marking the floor, and took a deep breath before turning the handle.
I opened the door and he looked at me as if he hadn’t quite expected that. As if, for an instant, 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 replied, and stepped aside to let him in—. And you’re going to treat me like it.
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, slowly at first, holding my face in both hands as if I were something that could break and yet he didn’t want to let go of. I returned it with the pent-up longing of entire days, the kind that gathers in silence and then suddenly asks for everything at once.
His hands slid down my back, measuring the curve, until they settled on my hip. His fingers found the edge of the stockings and stayed there, playing with the fabric, not moving forward. My legs trembled, but not from insecurity. It was something else, a kind of impatience that did not want to rush.
—Tonight I don’t want you to see me as an experiment —I whispered 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.
He didn’t answer with words. He lifted me in his arms, apparently without effort, and carried me to the bedroom while I laughed softly against his neck, surprised by my own weight becoming light. He set me on the bed with a tenderness that undid me more than any roughness could have. Then he took off his shirt, slowly, without theatrics, and leaned over me.
He undressed me piece by piece, but without tearing anything away, savoring every inch like someone who had nowhere better to go. He kissed my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder. He went down to my chest and lingered there, in that part of me I had fought with for so long and which that night, under his mouth, made me feel sensual instead of чуж? Wait no. need accurate. Let's final.
—Stay still —he murmured when I tried to move—. Let me.
His lips kept going down, tracing a line through the center of my stomach, teasing the tip of his tongue exactly where he knew it would make me tremble. I closed my eyes. The ceiling, the candle, the city beyond the window, everything became a distant murmur. Only the heat of his breath remained and the deliberate slowness with which he advanced.
He stopped, looked at me without shame or calculation, only with desire, and caressed me with his tongue, first barely, as if he were 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.
—Wait —I told him, propping myself on my elbows—. Now I want to.
He leaned back, resting 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 become uneven. I ran my long nails over his thigh, barely brushing the skin, and felt him tense under my hand.
I took him slowly, with the base of my tongue first, rising without haste until the tip. I loved that sensation, the exact blend of control and surrender I only found there. I took him all the way into my mouth, closing my eyes, feeling the deep groan that slipped out of him, sounding as if it surprised him too.
I felt his hand tangle in my hair, not to impose a rhythm but to steady himself, as if he needed something to hold onto. That turned me on more than any caress: knowing it was me, with my mouth and my calm, who had him on the edge. I sucked with care, playing with my tongue, while my hands kept roaming over his stomach and thighs. Every time I looked up at him, he held my gaze with a mixture of amazement and surrender that made me feel powerful. Feminine. Truly desired.
When I felt he was too close, too soon, I pulled away gently and climbed up his body to kiss him on the mouth. He gave the control back with a firm movement, turning me carefully until he left me 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 with tenderness and kissed my back, vertebra by vertebra, moving downward. He stroked me with open hands, unhurried, then with his tongue, patient, until he drew out of me a long shiver that ran through my whole body. I buried my face in the pillow, not to be quiet but because the intensity needed somewhere to rest.
—Look at me when you can —he said, his voice rough.
I turned my head just enough to find him. And then, without a sharp warning but without hesitation, I felt him enter me. Slow. Deep. With a restrained force that made me gasp in broken little sounds against the fabric. His hands closed over my hips and he began to move, measuring each thrust, reading in my breathing when to speed up and when to stay still for a moment, letting me feel everything.
I clung to the sheets, completely given over, with no part of me hidden for the first time in a long while. There was no shame, no constant calculation of how I looked or what he thought. There were only the two of us and that back-and-forth, gradually building, like a tide that knows exactly where it’s going.
The climax hit me without warning, like a wave breaking before you’ve finished counting the ones before it. 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 behind me, holding me tight, spilling himself with a deep, muffled groan against my shoulder.
We stayed like that for a few minutes, without separating, panting, listening as each other’s heartbeats slowed. No words were needed. Sometimes words only get in the way of what the body has already said in full.
***
Later, when he dressed to leave, I walked him to the door wrapped in a robe, barefoot at last, with the 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.
—Don’t even doubt it —I answered.
I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, smiling in the half-light. 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.
It wasn’t the first time. Not the second. But this time, at last, I was truly myself, without asking anyone’s permission or waiting for someone else to grant it. And I fell asleep with that new certainty, warm, settled somewhere in my chest that had taken me years to find.
