This was the first exhibitionistic experience of my life. I was a very inexperienced girl at that time. I was nineteen.
I have tried my very best to convey my emotional journey of the events through this story as accurately as possible.
Please keep in mind while reading this story, that this takes place in a majorly orthodox close-minded country. The family dynamics of a middle-class family are different from that of the western modern society.
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The first time in a long time we've gone for a vacation together. My father ran his own business and between work and travel, he rarely spent any time with us. My mother worked as a college professor and after her promotion a few years back, she's been having much more work than she could handle. At least that's what it seemed to me. My elder brother had just completed his engineering degree and has now recently enrolled himself for a master's degree.
I was very excited to go to this big city. I've been hearing about it since childhood. It was one of the biggest and most advanced cities of the country, and seeing those modern architectural structures was one of the items in my checklist. I had just completed my first year of college and I was having my vacation during that time.
Since my brother was also at home waiting for university to start, we all decided it would be the perfect time to go on a small family trip.
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Our flight landed at around midnight and we made our way to our hotel in a taxi. I was very surprised to see the streets filled with cars and people all around even this late at night. I was excited. I had been to a few big cities within the country before, but I had never seen so many people so active at night. As we entered the main part of the city, I stuck my head to the window of the car to marvel at the high-rise buildings surrounding the landscape. They were huge!
It made me feel small, too small. I felt a certain way looking at those mega structures all around. It made me feel as if no one knew no one.
An hour or so later, we had reached our hotel. It was towering over the road; all clad up in lights and signboards. My brother and my dad carried the luggage while me and my mom followed them up the stairs to the reception. They showed us to our room which was on the tenth floor and gave us the keys.
It was a two-bedroom apartment type room. I remember we couldn't afford two rooms so we had to take a bigger room instead. The room looked fine; not too good not too bad either. Although I was a bit disappointed at the lack of space, one side of the room had a giant window that covered the entire wall. I rushed to open the window, but realized that it wasn't a window at all. It was a glass wall.
All of our attention was now diverted to the glass wall. There were high-rise buildings at a distance and the city looked bright from up there. While we all were looking out the window, marveling at the new city, my mother pointed out that there were no curtains to block the glass wall. I chuckled and explained to her that these were tinted glass, and we will not be visible from the other side. But after repeated objections from her, we had to call the hotel staff to confirm. And, I was right.
It was late and we were tired. After eating something that we had brought, we dozed off for the night.
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The next morning, I was the last to wake up. My parents were getting dressed and calling out for me to wake up. I clumsily sat up, still very tired and sleepy.
We were here for just three days. So, our itinerary was packed. Dad made a bunch of plans to see all these places that I had no intention of going to. I had come here to enjoy the city, and its lifestyle. Not to travel and look at old ancient ruins. So, I softly made my point but was swiftly dismissed. I had to go with them. I said okay and finally got up from bed.
My brother was still in the bathroom, so I had to wait. I sat near the big glass wall, and stared at the little people walking on the road. They all looked like they were walking so fast.
My brother was done, and my parents were screaming at me to hurry up. We had a lot of places to see today. Oh, what a waste I thought.
I hurried to the bathroom, but it was all steamed up. I had to open a window to let the gases through. I took off my shorts, took off my underwear, phone in my hands, I sat down on the toilet.
As soon as I sat down, through the corner of my eye I could see a person standing in the balcony of the neighbouring building. As soon as I looked at him, I felt him move his head away. I quickly shut the window as fast as I could. My heart went racing for a second. I thought he'd seen me take my pants off. He was just about 20 feet away.
I remember feeling a sense of thoughtlessness when I closed the window. The person looked so close to the window; it scared the hell out of me.
I could still see him through the tinted window of the bathroom. He walked a few steps to his left, then to his right, and then took a seat. He didn't look my way again, so it seemed like he probably didn't notice anything. He picked up a newspaper, that was apparently lying on the floor and started reading it.
I quickly got over it, because I don't remember thinking about it anymore that day.
We roamed the city and the outskirts and looked at all places that my father had planned for the day. Nothing noteworthy happened that day in the context of the story.
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The next day, early morning, I was up before my parents had to call out for me. I do not like waiting so I rushed in to the bathroom before my brother could go in. I laughed at him and closed the door.
The events of the previous day were completely out of my mind, until I saw the same person sitting and reading his newspaper.