05 Erotic Story: Sunday Was for Me

[Sunday morning, just me]

I cleared my Sunday on purpose. No brunches. No friends-of-friends. No emails. The package had arrived on Friday and I'd put it on the kitchen counter and let myself look at it for two days before opening it. I wanted the wait. I wanted to want it.

I made coffee at ten. I drank it in bed. I didn't get dressed.

I'd been single for a year and a half. The first few months of that, after he left, I'd treated my own body like a stranger I didn't quite trust. Then a friend said something at brunch that I still think about — Emma, you keep waiting for someone to come back and tell you you're allowed. I went home that night and I sat on my own kitchen floor and I cried for an hour. Then I ordered the toy.

It had taken me three weeks of looking. I'd read the reviews. I'd compared. I'd opened my own laptop in the bath with a glass of wine and clicked add to cart and felt — what was the word — defiant. Like I was doing something for myself that nobody else in my life had to know about.

Sunday morning I finally opened the box.

The little suction clitoral stimulator was smaller than I'd imagined. Matte rose-gold. Smooth in my palm. There was a charging cable, a small instruction card I read twice, and the velvet pouch that everyone in the reviews had mentioned. I'd worried it would feel clinical. It didn't. It felt like something I'd bought myself.

I took a shower first. I shaved my legs because I wanted to, not because anyone was checking. I rubbed body oil into my arms and my thighs. I lit the candle on the bedside table that I usually saved for guests. There were no guests today.

I lay down on top of the duvet in the soft grey light coming through the curtains and let my own hands move first. I touched my stomach. I touched my breasts, slow circles around my nipples until they tightened against my palms, and I felt my hips shift on the bed without me telling them to.

I closed my eyes.

I let myself imagine — nothing specific. A mouth on my neck. A hand on the inside of my thigh. Someone slow. Someone in no hurry. I thought of a body covering mine and I thought of a body next to mine and I thought of being alone in a hotel room with the curtains open. I let the images do what they wanted.

My hand slid down between my legs.

I was already wet. Not soaked — slick, soft, that early-warm wet where your body has started without you. I touched my clit lightly with two fingers, slow circles, and the breath left me in a small sound that surprised me.

I made myself wait. I made myself slow. I traced my own folds with my fingertips, the way I might want someone else to. I dipped one finger inside myself and curled it, just slightly. My hips lifted off the bed.

Then I reached for the stimulator.

I'd charged it for two hours the night before. I clicked it on. The hum was low — not buzzy. Soft. Almost breathing.

I parted my lips with two fingers and placed it gently against my clit. The suction caught — soft, rhythmic, pulling instead of vibrating. My breath stopped for half a second.

"Oh."

I said it out loud. To no one. To me.

The first pulse was lower than I expected. Like a slow heartbeat against the most sensitive part of me. I held still. I let it find me. By the third or fourth pulse my hips were lifting again, my free hand had gone up to my own breast, and I was already breathing fast.

I clicked it up one level. Then another.

The pulse went deeper. I felt it from my clit all the way up into my belly. I made a sound I hadn't made for someone else in years, low and shaking and entirely my own.

I wanted to come fast. I made myself slow. I clicked it back down. I took the stimulator off for a moment, ran my fingers through my own wetness, slid them inside myself, and put it back. The cool silicone against my clit after my own warm fingers — I gasped. My legs trembled.

I thought about all the times I'd waited for someone else to find this. I thought about how long it had taken me to stop waiting.

I clicked it up again. I let it work. I slid two fingers inside myself and curled them where I needed them. I felt the second pulse coming up out of my body like a wave, slow, then faster, then there was no slow.

I came with my own name on my tongue. Not anyone else's.

I lay there afterward with the toy still humming softly in my hand. I clicked it off. My hand fell against my own stomach. My breathing slowed. The candle was still burning on the bedside table. The coffee was cold on the floor.

I felt — good. Not the kind of good you feel when someone else has done something for you and you owe them a smile. The kind of good you feel when you have just had a long honest conversation with yourself and you liked what you heard.

I stretched. I rolled onto my side. I pulled the duvet over me.

I thought about texting somebody. I didn't.

Sunday was for me.

I'd already promised next Sunday to myself too.