Miranda

The swing creaked with a soft, rhythmic sound. The afternoon sun no longer burned the way it had at midday, but it still left that sticky heat typical of July in the town. Pablo and Miranda had been sitting there for almost an hour, side by side, like so many other afternoons over the last two years.

Sometimes Pablo still struggled to believe that two years had already passed since she agreed to be his girlfriend behind the soccer field, with red cheeks and that nervous smile that still melted him. They were sixteen then. Now they were eighteen. In three weeks they would leave for university. A city six hours away. A new life. And the idea kept spinning in his head more than he wanted to admit.

Miranda swung her bare feet, her short floral skirt riding up a little more than was decent from the way she was sitting. He glanced at her sideways, the way he always did. He liked seeing her like that: distracted, calm, unaware of the effect she caused. The strap of her white blouse had slipped a little off her shoulder. Pablo felt the almost automatic urge to fix it… and at the same time the much stronger desire to pull it all the way down.

But he couldn’t. They had promised— in front of their parents, even— that there would be no nudity, no touching under the clothes, nothing that crossed that line until their wedding night. And both of them had kept it. In their own way.

That didn’t mean they hadn’t gotten up to mischief.

They had kissed in secret in the church bathroom during a wedding. They had touched each other over their clothes in the movie theater, his hand sliding up her thigh until it was almost at the edge of her underwear, always stopping millimeters short. Once, on the roof of her house, Miranda had straddled him, still fully clothed, and moved slowly while they kissed, until Pablo came in his pants like an idiot. She had laughed afterward, blushing, and told him she had liked feeling him that hard underneath her, but never anything further.

He had never seen her breasts. He had never touched her pussy. He had never felt her completely naked skin. And that, as the months went by, was turning into an obsession.

Miranda, for her part, was thinking too. Though in a different way.

She liked Pablo. Truly. She liked his awkward way of being affectionate, his anime T-shirts, the way he got nervous when someone looked at her too long. She knew he desired her. She noticed it in how he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. And that made her feel special… but it also scared her a little. Because she had urges too. Sometimes at night she touched her clit, thinking about him, and afterward she felt guilty, as if she were breaking the pact even though he wasn’t there.

She thought about university with a mix of excitement and fear. There, no one would know them. There they could start from scratch. But there would also be more temptations, more parties, more people. And she wanted to arrive at that new chapter still “intact” for him. She wanted the first time Pablo saw her naked to be something sacred, something no one else had ever had.

That afternoon, however, Pablo was quieter than usual. Miranda noticed.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, giving him a soft nudge with her shoulder.

He took a second to answer. He was looking at the ground, playing with a little twig between his fingers.

“About us,” he said at last. “About how we’re leaving soon. And about… the things we still haven’t done.”

Miranda felt a small knot in her stomach. She knew exactly what he meant.

Pablo took a deep breath. The afternoon heat pressed against the back of his neck. He could smell her shampoo, that sweet scent that always drove him crazy.

He had been turning the same idea over in his mind for days. A dirty, jealous, and exciting idea all at once. An idea that, if he proposed it the right way, she might accept… because she would do it for him.

Pablo stayed silent for a few more seconds, gathering courage. The swing barely moved under their combined weight. Miranda watched him from the side, waiting, with that soft patience she always had when he got serious.

Finally, he spoke without looking at her directly.

“Miranda… have you ever felt… good when other men look at you?”

She blinked, surprised by the question.

“What do you mean?”

“When someone stares too long. When their eyes stick to your legs or your chest. Do you like it, even just a little?”

Miranda shifted on the swing. Heat rose to her cheeks.

“I don’t know… sometimes it makes me embarrassed. I blush. But…” She lowered her voice. “Sometimes I also feel this strange little tingle. Like… I don’t know. Like it makes me feel pretty. Is that wrong?”

Pablo swallowed. That answer gave him exactly the opening he needed.

“It’s not wrong,” he said, now turning his face a little toward her. “It’s normal. A woman feels good when she’s desired. Even if she doesn’t do anything. Even if they only look. It’s… natural. Something similar happens to me, but the other way around. When I see them looking at you, I feel jealous… but it also gets me hard. Really hard.”

Miranda watched him in silence. Her light eyes reflected a mix of surprise and innocent curiosity. She didn’t seem scared. She was just processing.

“Does it really turn you on?” she asked quietly.

“Yes.” Pablo tightened his fingers around the swing chain. “It turns me on knowing that others want you… and that I’m the only one who actually has you. Even if I still haven’t really touched you. Even if I’ve never seen you without clothes. That’s what drives me the most crazy. Knowing that no one else has seen you the way I haven’t seen you either. And that soon we’re going to leave this place.”

Miranda lowered her gaze to her own knees. The skirt had ridden up a little more with the movement of the swing. A stripe of sunlight crossed her thigh.

“We’re leaving in three weeks…” she murmured, almost to herself. “Everything is going to change.”

“Exactly.” Pablo seized the moment. “There we’re going to start another life. No one will know us. No one will know about our pact. But here… here we’re still the same as always. And I… I’ve been thinking that, before we leave, I’d like you to be a little more… free. That you let them look at you more. That you don’t hide so much. That you wear clothes a little more daring. That you feel their eyes on you… and that you know it’s killing me with jealousy and desire at the same time.”

Miranda slowly raised her eyes. There was a different light in them. It wasn’t rejection. It was that very particular way she had of trying to understand something new without breaking the rules she valued so much.

“But the pact…” she whispered. “We can’t…”

“The pact is between you and me,” he interrupted, gently but firmly. “What other people do doesn’t count. You said it yourself when we talked to your parents. As long as you and I don’t see each other naked, as long as we don’t really touch each other… everything else doesn’t get used up. It still belongs to us.”

Miranda stayed quiet. The wind moved her blonde hair a little. Pablo could almost hear the gears turning inside her head: the need to make him happy, the desire to remain “pure” for him, the twisted but convincing logic that if it wasn’t with Pablo, then it didn’t count.

In the end, she spoke in a soft, almost shy voice:

“If… if it really turns you on that they look at me… and if that makes you feel like you still desire me… then I can try. I can dress a little differently. I can… let them see more of me. But only that, right? Only looks.”

Pablo felt his chest tighten. Jealousy and arousal mixed into a thick, hot sensation.

“For now, only looks,” he answered. “Later… we’ll see. But I want you to do it. For me.”

Miranda nodded slowly. A small, almost embarrassed smile appeared on her lips.

“All right, Pablo. I’ll do it for you.”

And in that moment, without fully realizing it, the two of them had just crossed an invisible line that there would be no going back from.

The silence between them stretched for a few seconds after Miranda accepted. The swing barely moved anymore. Pablo could still feel his heart racing, as if he had just confessed something much bigger than what he had actually said.

That was when Miranda looked toward one side of the park.

About fifteen meters away, sitting on a bench under a tree, was a man in his thirties. He was alone, phone in hand, but every so often he lifted his gaze. He wasn’t one of those who tried very hard to hide it. He had already looked at them a couple of times since they arrived.

Miranda watched him for a moment. Then she lowered her eyes to her own skirt and an idea slipped into her head. An idea that made her blush… but also triggered that strange little tingle she sometimes felt when someone looked at her too long.

She bit her lip and spoke in a very low voice, almost as if she were afraid the wind would carry the words away:

“Pablo… if you’re really that willing for me to do those kinds of things… can I try something right now?”

He looked at her, surprised.

“Now?”

She nodded, nervous, but with that innocent determination that always disarmed him.

“That man has been watching us. If I sit on the bench across from him… and open my legs a little while we talk… maybe he’ll be able to see under my skirt. Not much. Just a little. Like… a test. To see if you really like it or if you’re just saying it.”

Pablo felt his mouth go dry. The image hit his head instantly: Miranda sitting, the skirt lifted just enough, her white panties (he imagined they were white) half-visible to a stranger. Jealousy rose burning through his chest… and at the same time his cock grew hard inside his shorts in a way that was almost painful.

He swallowed.

“Are you sure?” he asked, though his voice came out rougher than he intended.

Miranda looked him in the eyes. There was a different light in hers. It wasn’t lust. It was that particular mix of wanting to please him and testing the limits without breaking the pact.

“If you tell me yes… I’ll do it. But you have to stay here, next to me. And you have to look me in the face while he… looks. Okay?”

Pablo closed his eyes for a second. Jealousy tightened his throat. Arousal tightened something lower. In the end he nodded, almost without voice.

“Do it.”

Miranda took a deep breath. She stood up from the swing with a calm she didn’t feel and walked toward the bench that sat directly across from the man. Pablo followed her. They sat down. She settled slowly, knees together at first. Then, while pretending to look for something in her bag, she opened her legs just a few centimeters. Then a little more.

The floral skirt stretched tight over her thighs.

From the man’s angle, the inner shadow of her legs was now visible… and the white edge of her panties.

Miranda leaned slightly toward Pablo, as if she were telling him a secret, and spoke in a low voice without looking at the man:

“Is he looking at me?”

Pablo, jaw clenched and cock throbbing, glanced sideways. The man was no longer pretending. His eyes were fixed exactly between Miranda’s legs. The gaze was heavy, dirty, direct.

“Yes,” Pablo answered, voice tense. “He’s staring right at you.”

Miranda felt an intense heat climb up her neck and chest. She forced herself not to close her legs. Instead, she shifted a little farther forward, making the skirt ride up another centimeter. Now the man could see almost the full white triangle of fabric, pressed against her pussy.

She kept looking at Pablo. She smiled at him nervously, almost with pride.

“Tell me you like it…” she whispered. “Tell me this is what you wanted.”

Pablo looked into her eyes. He saw the flush on her cheeks, the way she pressed her lips together a little, the contained emotion. And behind her, the man who was devouring with his eyes what he himself had still never touched.

Jealousy burned in his chest.

Arousal burned lower.

“Yes…” he said at last, voice rough. “I like it. Keep going.”

Miranda opened her legs a little more.

And the man, from the other bench, did not look away for a single second.

Miranda leaned toward him without fully closing her legs. The man was still watching her, and she could feel it on her skin.

She brought her mouth to Pablo’s and kissed him slowly, almost tenderly at first. Between the kiss, she whispered against his lips:

“He’s looking at my panties… did you know that? He’s staring at exactly what you still haven’t touched.”

Pablo felt a surge of jealousy so strong it almost hurt his chest. At the same time, his cock throbbed hard inside his shorts. Miranda noticed. She smiled against his mouth and kissed him deeper, letting her tongue brush against his with a boldness she almost never allowed herself in public.

“Tell me you like it,” she murmured between kisses. “Tell me it turns you on knowing a stranger is looking at what’s yours…”

Pablo answered the kiss with more hunger than he intended. One of his hands gripped the back of her neck; the other clenched into a fist on his own thigh so he wouldn’t touch her under the clothes. The pact was still there, even in that moment.

Miranda, aroused by his reaction and by the heavy gaze of the man, opened her legs more than she had planned. Much more. The skirt rode up almost to her groin. Now the man could not only see the outline of her white panties: he could see the exact shape of her shaved pussy pressing against the thin fabric, the soft hollow between her lips, even a little naked skin on the sides.

She gasped against Pablo’s mouth, surprised at herself.

“They opened too much…” she whispered between the kiss, almost embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to open them that far… is he still looking?”

Pablo, without stopping the kiss, glanced sideways. The man was completely still, eyes locked between Miranda’s legs, jaw tight, one hand resting in a suspicious way over his own crotch.

“Yes,” Pablo answered in a rough voice. “He hasn’t looked away for a single second.”

Miranda let out a trembling sigh into the kiss. For a moment she stayed like that, legs open, tongue tangled with her boyfriend’s, letting a stranger drink in the sight of the most intimate part of her…

When they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathing hard. Miranda closed her legs slowly, as if she suddenly felt ashamed of what she had just done. She adjusted her skirt with trembling hands.

“Let’s go…” she said quietly.

They stood up. As they walked toward the exit of the park, the man did not look away. Miranda, in an impulse she hadn’t even expected from herself, turned her head a little and gave him a short, coquettish, almost innocent smile. A quick gesture. Then she pressed closer to Pablo’s arm and they kept walking.

Pablo felt that smile like a stab and a caress at the same time.

That guy had seen Miranda’s panties.

He had seen the shape of her pussy.

He had seen more of her in five minutes than Pablo had seen in two years.

And she had smiled at him.

Arousal climbed up his back like fire. Jealousy tightened his throat until it almost hurt. He rested his hand on Miranda’s waist as they walked, more possessive than usual, and thought —with a bitter, hot mix— that this was only just beginning.

Miranda, beside him, walked in silence. Inside she repeated the same phrase over and over, like a mantra that kept her calm:

*I didn’t break the pact. He hasn’t seen me. It was only a stranger. And I did it for Pablo…*

But her legs were still trembling a little.