CelesteSev

The old man at the deli had the last two bottles of the wine I needed for that night’s dinner. And he knew exactly what he was going to charge me before he let me leave.

I parked outside the house, my hands sweating. It was my first session with a naked client, and I still didn’t know I’d end up with two men on top of me.

When I saw his socks lying on the hotel bathroom floor, I knew I was about to cross a line I could never uncross with my best friend.

I went to the bathroom on a night with no electricity, convinced I was alone in the house. A phone light lit up the kitchen and I understood why the two of them had been acting so strange.

I had never really noticed another man until his eyes met mine in that bar. Three drinks later I was in his apartment, not knowing what to do with my hands.

I was sitting in the round sofa in the back, my legs crossed and my glass half empty, when I saw the curly-haired guy set down his drink and walk straight toward me.

The whole campus envied the guy Rebeca’s group had taken in. No one knew what it would cost him to belong to them.

When Rodrigo opened the door for me, I knew there was no turning back. My life was about to change in a way I never imagined.

I had been in love with Andrés for months when he told me his ex was coming to dinner. I never imagined that night would end with the two of us proclaiming him our king.

Raquel thought she would always be the one setting the rules. That night on the pier, with the metal bit and the fresh mark on her thigh, everything changed.

The cheerleader uniform, five players, and too much beer. That night I lost something I thought mattered and discovered it didn’t matter that much.

She told me she had never gone all the way with anyone. There was something in the way she said it that made me want to be the one to change that.

I’d rejected him a hundred times, called him the ugly duckling in front of everyone. When I opened my eyes, my wrists were hanging from a bar and he had a whip.

I saw the videos: women strapped to machines, electric shocks, lashes while they ran. And still I dialed the number. My will was spent.

They tied me up in the park in broad daylight and no one came to help. They had planned it well—much better than I had.

Nadia and Sofía were on their way home from the biggest event of the year when darkness claimed them. On waking, only chains and another’s will remained.

Living in a cage, obeying without question, belonging completely to someone. That’s what I wanted, and when I got it, reality surpassed any fantasy.

I woke up cuffed to the ceiling in a room full of whips and rings. Two women meant to break me. No one warned them I learn fast.

I slipped off my heel beneath the tablecloth and, while he smiled absentmindedly, started reminding him who had control that night.