Greta had a trick, and she had never told a soul.
It was a Saturday afternoon, with the shutters half closed and the whole house empty. She lay on the big bed in nothing but an old white shirt, unbuttoned to the waist. She was in no rush. A pillow lay under her hips and a cool slice of sunlight lay across her belly.
She had been touching herself for a long, lazy twenty minutes. She tipped toward the edge and eased back, the way you taste something you want to last.
Her kitty was soaked. Her button was swollen and hot and almost too sensitive to touch. She kept her fingers there in slow, steady circles, with her other hand drifting idly along her thigh.
Then she felt it, the first deep tug low in her belly, the one that said soon.
This was when she reached back.
She slid her free hand beneath her, past the curve of her bottom. Two fingertips came to rest against her rosebud. They just rested, with the lightest, steadiest pressure and not one inch of anything more.
She felt the little ring of muscle answer her, a flutter and a clench. A long, bright current ran from that tiny place straight up through her middle. It lit her up like a struck match.
“Oh,” she said, to the empty room. “There you are.”
She pressed a little more. She let the pressure pulse in rhythm with her breath. Every pulse echoed through her whole floor, as though she had touched the bottom of a bell.
Her circling fingers quickened. Her hips lifted, higher and higher. The tug became a pull, and the pull became a rush. She could feel the whole center of her body drawing up, tight and trembling, around the pressure from behind.
She held it there. She held it a breath longer than she thought she could, and the edge of the world went white.
She let go, and the waves came in thick and deep and slow. They were so much bigger than usual. Her toes curled and her thighs shook. She cried out, long and loud, into the afternoon.
The pressure steadied her through every pulse. She felt each one all the way down.
It went on for a very long time.
At last she lay still, damp and glowing. The sunlight lay on her stomach and her heart boomed in her ears.
“Greta,” she said, slowly, laughing, “you have been keeping secrets from yourself.”