It starts differently every time. Sometimes, it's after a long day's work, driving home. My mind gets to wandering, missing the touch of someone else's skin, and thoughts turn to shivers. Sometimes, I'm at home, bathing in the sun-splashed pockets of my simple space, warmth seeping through the full-length windows, and I start to feel a familiar tingling. A desire to strip naked. A need for letting go. Alone for over 11 years, you find ways to take care of yourself when no one else can provide. It starts differently every time.
Once it starts, there is a process. A sequence of steps that occur sometimes in slow self-seduction, others in frenzied, needy haste.
I stand in my living room, in front of a wall of windows. I'm only 5 stories up—there's another building right across the street. Still, I feel safe as I begin to strip. The top comes first. Over the head, down past the fingertips, grazing my calf as it falls to the floor. The bra is next—the sweet sensation of unbinding as soft, silky mounds feel heat from the sun, and quickly, the cold of exposure. The nipple on my right breast answers the chill, and I delicately touch it. It's usually a foreign thing, as mine don't come out very often, but the thrill of what's to come coupled with the afternoon breeze make it hard and pink.
The bottoms come next. Off in one motion, pants or skirt with panties, in one sleek slide. I run my fingers lightly over my body—stomach, breasts, thighs, neck. I stand, fully exposed in the sun. The warmth is no match for the inevitable sprinkling of goosebumps as my skin protests the air. I often think I should retreat to a blanket when I begin, but I never do. I feel alive and uncomfortable in the best way possible when naked, exposed, vulnerable.
My bed faces a full-length mirror—the only one I own. It was strictly a coincidence that the mirror lives there, but its placement has proven invaluable at times like these. I lay on my back, head caught by a pile of pillows, and sink into myself. I spread my legs and revel in the sight of me as someone else may see me—as a partner might, as a lover would take me, and look upon me, chilled and warm at the same time, anxious and breathless and open, open, open for them.
A finger's worth of lubricant, and it's cold. A quick flick over the important nub. A quick flick and the familiar whirring sounds of vibration. A hard press. I could, and probably should, start slower, tease myself more. At this point, my body is so ready, my brain is but it's worthless servant. Fast and hard and right away, it says, you can't hold out that long. A pulsing, pounding, steady rock, a fluttering, tickling pleasure punctuated by miniature full-body spasms, harbingers of what's to come...
