What My Neighbor Saw Through the Open Curtain

I had been planning it for weeks, counting down the days like someone counting the hours until a long-postponed date. I knew that Thursday my whole family would leave early: my mother to the downtown market, my brothers to university, my father on a work trip that wouldn’t end until the weekend. The house would be empty, silent, and for a few hours it would be completely mine.

When the last car pulled out of the garage and the sound of the engine faded down the street, I stood for a moment in the hallway, listening. Silence had a different texture when there was no one else there. It was dense, almost liquid. I took a deep breath and felt my heart pounding in my chest with a mix of fear and something I couldn’t name, something that felt very much like happiness.

I went up to my room and opened the lower drawer of the wardrobe, the one with the false bottom. There I kept everything I had been buying from different stores, always far from the neighborhood, always paying in cash so there would be no trail. I took the garments out one by one and laid them across the bed with the care of someone handling something sacred.

I began with the stockings. They were black silk, very fine, with a dark line running up the back of the leg from ankle to thigh, that old seam they call a French seam. I pulled them on slowly, feeling the fabric glide over freshly shaved skin. The sensation made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Then came the corset, black too, with stays that cinched my waist and forced me to keep my back straight. It took me a good while to fasten all the hooks along the back, twisting myself in front of the mirror, but when I finally closed it and looked at myself, the reflection stole my breath away.

Over my underwear I put on a denim miniskirt and a pale pink blouse, soft as the inside of a shell. I slipped on a pair of high heels that cost me three tries before I could walk without wobbling. And at the end, the most delicate part of all: the makeup.

I sat at the vanity and worked patiently. Foundation, blush, a subtle eyeshadow, the eyeliner I had practiced so many times in secret. I painted my lips a cherry shade and looked at myself.

I can’t be me. It’s impossible that this is me.

But it was me. For the first time in my life, the person looking back at me from the mirror matched the one who lived inside me. I felt whole, complete, deeply feminine. I turned to see myself in profile, lifted my chin, tried on a smile. I had never seen myself so beautiful, and I had never felt so close to being real.

***

I had been walking around the room for maybe half an hour, getting used to the weight of the heels and the brush of the skirt against my thighs, when a sudden thirst hit me. My mouth had gone dry, probably from nerves. I needed a glass of water.

The problem was that the kitchen was at the far end of the house, and to get there I had to cross the living room. And the living room, that morning, had its curtains open. My mother opened them every day at dawn and I, absorbed in my transformation, had completely forgotten to close them before I started.

I hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs. The sensible thing would have been to go back upstairs, undress, and forget the thirst. But my throat was burning and, besides, there was a part of me, a reckless part that afternoon felt more alive than ever, that wanted to walk through the house dressed like this, feel the floor beneath my heels, exist fully even if only for a few seconds in spaces that weren’t my room.

I went down. I crossed the living room in short steps, focused on not twisting an ankle, and just as I passed in front of the bay window I looked up. On the other side of the glass, in the garden separating our house from his, was Mateo.

Mateo, the neighbor. A guy in his mid-twenties who had moved in the year before with his dog and his motorcycle and a smile I had glanced at more than once without daring to do anything about. He was there, a hose in his hand, watering the hedge, and he had frozen, staring at me.

Our eyes met and time stopped.

I couldn’t move. I was nailed to the middle of the living room, exposed, uncovered, my heart pounding in my ears. He recognized me, of course he recognized me. And I knew, from the way his eyes slowly traveled up and down my body, pausing on my breasts squeezed by the corset, on the hem of the skirt, on the stockings, that we both understood exactly what was happening. There was no turning back.

I wanted to run, hide, disappear. But I didn’t. Something in his gaze held me there. There was no mockery in it, no disgust, no scandal. There was something else. A question, and also a hunger I recognized instantly because it was the same one I carried inside me. Before I could formulate an answer, Mateo let go of the hose, wiped his hands on his pants, and disappeared from my field of vision, walking with determined steps toward my front door.

***

The doorbell rang a few seconds later.

I walked to the entrance with trembling legs and peered through the peephole. It was him, of course. His face distorted by the curved glass, waiting. I pressed my forehead against the wood of the door and breathed. I had two options: pretend there was no one home and live the rest of my days knowing I had chickened out, or open the door.

I opened it.

Mateo came in without saying a word. He closed the door softly behind him and stood in front of me, one step away. He looked at me again, this time without the barrier of the glass, and studied every detail: the stockings, the skirt, the curve of the corset under the blouse, my painted lips. He did it slowly, unhurriedly, like someone examining something that matters to him. I held my breath, waiting for a verdict.

—I didn’t know —he said at last, in a very low voice—. I didn’t know you were like this. And you’re gorgeous. I’ve been rock hard since I saw you through the window, fuck.

I lowered my eyes without meaning to and saw the bulge straining his denim pants, a thick line pressing out to one side. My knees felt weak. No one had ever called me that word before. Gorgeous. I didn’t know what to answer, so I answered nothing. He didn’t wait for an answer either. He closed the last step between us, lifted a hand to my cheek, and kissed me.

It was an intense kiss from the start, nothing shy about it. His tongue slipped into my mouth without asking permission, searched for mine, and we sank into each other as if we had been holding ourselves back for months. I clutched the lapels of his shirt, feeling the heat of his body through the fabric, dizzy from the smell of sun and clean sweat on his skin. He gripped my waist, pulled me against him, and I felt his hard cock pressing into my stomach through our clothes. A moan escaped me into his mouth. His hand slid down my back, squeezed one butt cheek over the skirt, and pulled me even tighter against him, grinding without the slightest shame. The kiss went on until we were both breathless, and when we parted we were both panting hard.

—Upstairs —I murmured, and took his hand.

I led him up the stairs to my room, aware of the sound of my heels on the steps, aware of his fixed gaze on my ass swaying beneath the short skirt. When we reached the room, he didn’t even give me time to turn around. He shoved me against the wall, yanked my skirt up to my waist, and shoved his hand into my underwear. His fingers found me already hard, throbbing, and he let out a rough groan against my neck while he masturbated me calmly, with his palm open, as if he were getting to know me.

—What a delicious cock you’ve got hiding in here —he whispered against my ear, and those words electrified me all the way to the nape of my neck.

We stretched out on the edge of the bed and kissed again, this time slower, with hands everywhere. I fumbled at the buttons of his shirt and licked his chest, his neck, the nipples that hardened the moment I brushed them with my tongue. He yanked my blouse over my head and lowered the corset enough to bare me, then stared at me with shining eyes, as if he had never seen anything like it.

—Stand up —he ordered, his voice thick.

I obeyed. He found the side zipper of the miniskirt, pulled it down over my hips, and slid it off my feet. Then he peeled off the stockings with a slowness that was almost torture, kissing every inch of skin that was being uncovered, nipping at the inside of my thigh until I moaned. He tore my underwear away in one tug and there I was, in front of him, with only the black corset tightening my waist, the heels, the stockings bunched down to my knees, and my hard cock, throbbing, pointing at his face.

He licked his lips and grabbed me with his hand. He started stroking me slowly, sliding the skin up and down, looking me in the eyes, and I had to brace both hands on his shoulders not to fall. Then he stuck out his tongue and licked my tip, one slow, long lick, pausing to taste the drop of pre-cum already leaking out. He took the head into his mouth and sucked with tight lips, making a wet, obscene sound that had me moaning out loud.

—Fuck, Mateo —I gasped, and he smiled with my cock in his mouth.

He lowered his head and took me whole, all the way. I felt the tip touch his throat and felt him relax to let me in even deeper. He started sucking me with a devotion I hadn’t expected, one hand at the base holding me steady, the other kneading my balls with exquisite softness. He moved up and down with his mouth, let a thread of saliva hang from his chin, pulled off me completely to lick me from the balls to the tip, then swallowed me again. I watched his head moving between my legs, his cheeks hollowing each time he sucked, and felt my stomach tighten. I was going to come in his mouth in two minutes if I didn’t stop him.

—Wait, wait —I told him, tugging gently on his hair—. Now you.

He stood up and yanked off his pants and underwear. When his cock sprang free, I stared at it: thick, long, with a prominent vein running underneath and the head shiny and swollen. I knelt in front of him on the carpet, feeling the corset dig into my ribs, and took it in both hands. I ran my tongue from his balls to the tip, very slowly, enjoying the salty taste of his skin, and he let out a long moan, eyes on the ceiling.

I took him into my mouth and gave myself over to the task with a devotion I hadn’t known I had in me. I sucked the tip first, working my tongue around the head, pausing at the frenulum, then lowered my head to take him as far as I could. My mouth filled with saliva and I let it spill down in streams, sliding over my chin, and I went back up and down in a rhythm he set with a hand resting in my hair, not pushing, just guiding. I licked his balls one by one while I stroked him with my hand, then took him back into my mouth whole, as far as I could, until I felt nauseous and tears ran black eyeliner down my cheeks.

—Fuck, like that, swallow it all —he whispered between moans—. You’re such a slut, you’re so gorgeous sucking me off.

Every word from him turned me on more and made me suck harder. I felt his cock throb against my tongue, swell a little more, and he pulled my hair to take it out of my mouth.

—Stop, stop, I’m gonna come —he panted—. And I want to come inside you.

***

He took me by the waist and settled me onto the bed, face down, with my hips at the edge of the mattress and my feet still on the floor. He spread my legs with his knee and I felt his hands part my butt cheeks, exposing me completely. He spat on me, a warm gob of spit that slid to the exact spot, and started rubbing it in with his fingers, smearing, circling, pressing a little harder each time until his finger sank all the way in. One finger, two fingers, moving inside me in a slow rhythm that made me bite the pillow.

—You’re so tight —he murmured behind me—. I’ll go slow, okay.

He pulled his fingers out and I felt the head of his cock against me, thick, hot. He spat into his hand, rubbed himself well, and pressed back to the entrance. He pushed in slowly, very slowly, stopping every time I held my breath, advancing only when I let it out. I felt myself opening, felt the head pass with a sharp pain that turned into pleasurable burn, felt the rest go in little by little, centimeter by centimeter, until I felt his hips flush against my ass.

—It’s all in —he gasped—. All for you.

He stayed still for a moment, letting me get used to it, stroking my back, kissing me between the shoulder blades. And when he started moving, he did it with a slow, deep rhythm, pulling almost all the way out and then driving back in to the hilt, making a moan slip out of me with every thrust. His hands clutched my hips, his fingers dug into my flesh, and I heard myself moaning into the pillow, a sound I didn’t recognize as my own.

—Harder —I asked, not recognizing my voice—. Fuck me harder.

And he obeyed. He started pounding into me more fiercely, his hips slamming against my ass with a wet, rhythmic sound that filled the room. He leaned over me, slid one arm under my chest and grabbed me by the front of the neck, pinning me against his torso while he fucked me from behind. With his other hand he grabbed my cock, hanging hard and dripping, and started stroking it in time with his thrusts. Every time he drove into me to the hilt, he pulled my cock downward, and the two sensations merged in a center I no longer knew how to locate.

—Tell me your name —he whispered in my ear without stopping fucking me—. Tell me your real name.

I told him, moaning it between thrusts, the name I had only ever spoken in front of the mirror, the one I felt was mine and that no one had ever heard from my lips. He repeated it against my ear, panting it, and fucked me even harder.

—You’re so beautiful —he panted—. You’re so good. I’m gonna come inside you, do you hear me? I’m gonna fill you up completely.

—Yes —I moaned—, come inside, please.

The sensations piled on top of each other until they became unbearably good. I felt something break inside me, a dam that had been holding for years. His hand kept working my cock, up and down in a perfect rhythm, and suddenly the orgasm rocked me whole. I came with a long moan, hot ropes of semen staining the sheets and his hand, and I felt my whole body clench around him in spasms.

—Fuck, fuck, like that —he growled, and with two more thrusts he buried himself to the hilt and came inside me. I felt every pulse of his cock, every warm spurt filling me, and he stayed there, trembling, groaning against my nape, hips pressed to my ass until the last drop.

We stayed still for a long while like that, him still inside, his chest rising and falling against my back, both of us covered in sweat, not speaking. When he finally pulled out, very slowly, I felt a thread of his semen sliding down my thigh, warm, marking me. He turned me carefully, laid me on my back, and kissed my mouth with a tenderness that after everything before it disarmed me. Outside, the afternoon sun came through the window and drew golden bands over the rumpled sheets.

Mateo brushed a damp strand of hair out of my face and kissed my temple.

—That name —he murmured—. Say it again.

I repeated it softly, and he kept it somewhere inside himself, smiling.

That afternoon, in my bed, I stopped being a secret. For the first time someone had seen me whole, without disguises or shame, and instead of running away he stayed. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or what my family will say the day they find out. I only know that when he said my name, at last, I felt complete.