He Came Back for Them, and This Time They Set the Rules

Aníbal had turned fifty-eight a long time ago, and ever since that night in the alley he hadn’t slept soundly again. It wasn’t fear that kept him awake, but memory. Three women had cornered him against the brick wall, used him as they pleased, and left him lying there like an old rag. Any sensible man would have been grateful to come away in one piece. He, on the other hand, could think of nothing else.

That was why, when Renata reappeared at the corner bar a few days later, Aníbal knew he would go wherever she took him. He recognized her at once: dark hair half pinned up, the short dress, that way of looking him up and down as if she were appraising a tool before buying it.

—So you came back —she said, sitting down beside him without asking.

—I didn’t come back for you. I was passing by —he lied.

Renata gave a crooked smile. She rested two fingers on the back of his hand, no pressure, barely a touch, and even so Aníbal felt the air leave his chest.

—You lie terribly —she murmured—. It’s written all over your face. You want more.

Yes. He wanted more. And that frightened him more than any threat.

—Tonight you’re coming to my place —she went on, no longer sounding as if she were asking—. The girls and I are going to have a good time. But this time we play by our rules. If you walk through that door, you do it accepting them. Understood?

At the back of the place, the other two were watching him from a table. Carla, the blonde, lifted her beer in a mocking toast. Pilar, the shortest of the three, laughed with a hand over her mouth. Aníbal swallowed, nodded, and knew he had just signed something whose price he still didn’t understand.

***

The address took him to a secluded house at the end of a street with no streetlights. The walls were peeling and the smell of damp hit him as soon as he crossed the threshold. The three of them were waiting in the living room, arranged as if they had rehearsed the scene: Renata standing in the center, Carla draped across the sofa, Pilar seated on the arm of a chair with her legs dangling.

—Come in, don’t just stand in the doorway —Carla said, giving his shoulder a slap that pushed him further inside—. This is just getting started.

The room was dim, lit only by a standing lamp with a crooked shade. There was a wide mattress on the floor, covered with a clean sheet, and beside it a locked wooden box. Aníbal glanced at it from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to ask.

—Take your clothes off —Renata ordered—. Slowly. I want to see you.

He obeyed awkwardly, his fingers fumbling at the buttons of his shirt. He felt ridiculous, exposed, his body heavy under that meager light. But the three of them didn’t laugh the way he expected. They looked at him in silence, assessing him, and that silence was far more unsettling than any insult.

—Good —Renata said at last—. Now listen, because I’m only saying this once. No one here is going to truly hurt you. But everything else is on the table. If at any point you want to stop, you say “red” and it ends. Do you understand the word?

—Red —he repeated, his voice rough.

—Perfect. I hope I don’t hear it.

Aníbal nodded. And for the first time in his life he felt that giving up control could be a relief instead of a defeat.

***

Pilar opened the box. She took out thick cotton ropes, soft to the touch, and began wrapping his wrists with a dexterity that revealed practice. She didn’t tighten them enough to cut off circulation; she tightened them until it was clear there was no way out. She made him kneel on the mattress and crossed his arms behind his back, binding them with a series of turns that strained his shoulders without hurting him.

—Look at him letting himself be tied up —Carla remarked, coming closer—. So big and so tame.

—It’s what he wanted —Renata said—. It’s written in his eyes since he walked in.

They tied his ankles too, spreading his legs apart, and left him kneeling in the center of the mattress, his torso leaning forward. Aníbal felt every heartbeat in his temples. His heart hammered in his chest, and between fear and anticipation he noticed his body responding without permission, betraying him just like that first night.

Renata crouched in front of him and took his chin between two fingers, forcing him to lift his gaze.

—Tonight you’re not a man —she told him slowly, almost tenderly—. You’re whatever we decide you are. And by the look on your face, you like that. Am I wrong?

He didn’t answer. There was no need. She read it in the tremor of his breathing and smiled like someone winning a bet.

***

Carla was first. She positioned herself behind him, ran her nails down his back leaving a trail of shivers, and took her time. There was no hurry in her movements; that calculated slowness was, in itself, a form of torture. She spoke into his ear, warm words against his nape, crudely describing everything they intended to do to him. Aníbal closed his eyes. Each sentence tightened his body a little more.

—Look how he’s shaking —Pilar laughed, having sat in a chair in front of him so she wouldn’t miss anything—. We haven’t even started yet.

Renata knelt before him again and gently pulled his gray hair back, stretching his neck.

—Open your mouth —she said.

She kissed him. It wasn’t a tender kiss: it was a way of marking territory, of reminding him who decided. She bit his lower lip until a groan escaped him, then drew back, leaving him panting, craving more like a hungry animal.

—Please —he murmured, not even knowing what he was asking for.

—“Please” —Renata repeated, savoring the word—. Learn to say it properly, because you’re going to use it a lot tonight.

***

They made him wait. That was the worst part and the best at the same time. The three moved around him, touched each other, laughed, deliberately ignored him while he remained bound, exposed, burning. Carla kissed Pilar a hair’s breadth from his face, and Aníbal could only watch, unable to interfere, the ropes reminding him with every tug that he was in charge of nothing.

—Do you want to be touched? —Renata asked, pacing in front of him.

—Yes —he admitted, his voice breaking.

—Ask for it.

—Please… touch me.

—Louder. Let the three of us hear you.

He repeated it, louder, with not a shred of pride, and discovered that the less of himself he had left, the freer he felt. Renata rewarded him by running her open palm slowly over his chest, tracing his skin with such care that it made his whole body tremble. A caress. Just one. And it was enough to send heat surging up his back like a current.

***

The session was long and meticulous. They took him to the edge again and again, and every time they felt he was too close, they stopped dead, leaving him suspended in unbearable tension. Pilar whispered orders to him; Carla marked his skin with precise pinches; Renata directed the rhythm of everything with the coldness of an orchestra conductor.

—Hold it —Renata ordered whenever she saw him on the verge of losing control—. You don’t come until I say so. That’s the rule.

Aníbal gritted his teeth. Sweat ran down his forehead, the ropes burned at his wrists, and yet never in his life had he felt so alive. His body was begging to give in, but something deeper was begging him to obey, wait, earn permission.

—Please —he gasped at last, trembling from head to toe—. I can’t take it anymore. Please.

Renata came closer, took his face in both hands, and looked him in the eyes. For a second, in the middle of all that scene, there was something almost intimate in her gaze.

—Now —she told him softly—. Now you can.

The orgasm shook him like a jolt. His whole body went rigid against the ropes, a hoarse cry tore from his throat, and for an instant the world turned white. The three of them watched him, satisfied, as he collapsed forward, spent, emptied out, breathing in ragged gasps.

***

For a while no one said anything. Pilar brought him a glass of water and held it for him to drink. Carla loosened the wrist ropes a little, checking that his circulation was fine. That unexpected care, after so much hardness, left him more thrown off balance than everything that had come before.

—Are you all right? —Renata asked, sitting beside him on the mattress.

—Yes —he answered, with a tired smile—. Better than all right.

—Good. Because that was only the first part.

Aníbal looked up, not sure whether she was serious. Renata returned his calm gaze and tucked a damp lock of hair behind his ear.

—It’s the weekend —Carla said from the sofa, stretching like a cat—. We’ve got until Sunday. And we haven’t even opened half the box.

They didn’t untie him completely. They left his wrists loosely bound, draped a blanket over him, and turned off the crooked lamp. The room fell dark, silent, with the distant murmur of the three of them laughing in the kitchen.

Aníbal closed his eyes. His body ached in a way that, against all logic, felt sweet. He knew they would be back. And although part of him wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into, the other part —the most honest one, the one that had been silent for years— was waiting for those three women to return with a mixture of fear and desire he had no intention of confessing to anyone.