I Gave Myself to My Master, Bound in Front of Strangers

The air in the training room was stale, thick with that metallic smell of disinfectant. I was in the middle, sitting on a plastic chair, the target of every gaze. I was supposed to be an actress, a volunteer for the first-aid workshop. The truth was that I felt like a piece of meat laid out on a counter.

The black top with the word “Caprichosa” spelled out in silver rhinestones made me feel ridiculous and, at the same time, dangerously visible. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I could feel the synthetic fabric rubbing against my nipples, hard, aching, responding not to the air-conditioning but to the intrusive idea that you might be watching me from some dark corner of the room.

—Noelia, stay still. We’re going to proceed with the assessment —one of the instructors said.

His voice reached me as if through a tunnel. Without makeup, my acne scars gleamed as though a spotlight were on them. My bitten nails dug into my sweaty palms. I felt neglected, vulnerable, and that, in a twisted way only you would understand, was turning me on. I bit my lower lip until the taste of iron flooded my mouth. The pain was a spark.

—Relax your neck —the instructor continued.

I felt his hands. They weren’t yours, but my traitorous, hungry body processed them as if they were. A shiver ran down my spine and I felt that liquid heat beginning to soak my thong, while I imagined that this exam was, in fact, your private inspection. I was terrified someone might notice that my chest was rising and falling at a rate that had nothing to do with an emergency. They were strangers, and in my head they were all witnesses to a humiliation I had chosen.

***

The murmur turned into white noise when the lead instructor asked an assistant to begin the cervical immobilization. There were two men now, flanking me with a technical efficiency that, for me, was torture made precise.

—We’re going to put the collar on. Eyes forward, Noelia. Don’t move for anything —ordered the voice behind me.

Then one man’s hands settled over my ears to stabilize my head. Covering me, they shut the outside world off. Only the booming echo of my own heart remained. In that sonic void the illusion completed itself. They were no longer instructors. They were your hands, isolating me from the universe, claiming entry into my mind.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Beneath my eyelids I saw myself naked in the middle of that room, stripped of every thread of dignity. I imagined those hands weren’t there to protect me, but to hold me in place while you walked slowly around me, inspecting every flaw I work so hard to hide and that, under your gaze, became trophies of your possession.

—She’s very tense —the one behind me commented, his breath brushing the nape of my neck—. Take a deep breath.

I can’t, I wanted to say, but all that came out was a gasp. I was so aroused it hurt. Then the contact stopped.

—Perfect, immobilized. You can let go.

When their hands withdrew, the noise of the world came rushing back all at once and, with it, a freezing emptiness. I didn’t want freedom. I wanted to keep being that marble figure under their fingers.

***

I took advantage of the shift change to escape to the bathroom. I locked myself in a stall, my legs heavy, the scent of my own arousal trailing after me like a wake. I wanted to touch myself right there, but the squeal of the door froze me: a couple of girls from the course were laughing and saying how well I’d done. If they only knew my pallor wasn’t illness, but the vertigo of imagining myself opened for you in front of everyone.

I waited until they left and looked at myself in the mirror under that merciless light: bare face, lips swollen with their little crust of blood. I felt ugly, and at the same time seeing myself so vulnerable excited me in a sick, twisted way. You wouldn’t see flaws: you’d see coordinates of your property. I washed my face with ice-cold water, adjusted my moon pendant, and went back to the classroom.

***

But the lead instructor looked at me differently.

—Noelia, just in time. For the compression bandage demonstration we need you to take off your top. The bandage has to go over the skin of the torso to be effective.

My heart lurched. Without a bra, I was going to be bare from the waist up in front of fifty people.

—It’s only for practice. We need realism —he insisted, pointing to the chair in the middle.

My hands went to the hem of the top. Underneath there was nothing. Fifty pairs of eyes fixed on my trembling fingers as I grabbed the hem. I lifted it. The icy air against my damp skin was a lash. The garment went over my head and my hair fell in disarray over my shoulders. I crossed my arms on instinct, but he told me to put my hands on my hips.

There I was. Exposed. I felt small, defective, a stain of imperfection in a room full of normal people. And yet, between my legs, my pulse was so strong I was afraid he could hear it.

When the elastic bandage, cold and rough, touched my bare skin, I let out a gasp I couldn’t hide. In my mind it wasn’t a bandage: it was your hands wrapping me in leather. The instructor passed the fabric under my armpit and over my breast, tightening it to secure the compression. The pressure was delicious: it forced me to offer my body more openly.

He wound it around once more, right over my nipples. The friction of the coarse fabric against the most sensitive part was too much. A shock ran all the way down to my toes.

—Is it too tight? —he asked, his face inches from mine.

I opened my eyes and I didn’t see the instructor. I saw a void that only you could fill.

—No —I whispered, voice breaking—. Tighter. Please.

He took it as an act of commitment to the exercise, never suspecting that every millimeter of fabric taking my breath away was giving me back my life. He crossed the bandages in a perfect X, pinning my arms to my sides.

—Come closer. I want you to check the tension —he asked the class.

A shiver of terror and delight ran through me when the students stood up and the circle closed around me. I felt the first hand, a hesitant set of fingers on the curve of my left breast. Then another on my back. I closed my eyes: they were no longer students, they were your guests, and you were watching from the front row as I let others touch me under your orders.

—She’s sweating. The stress is real —a girl commented, taking my pulse at the collarbone.

Her touch was another jolt. The shame of someone noticing my state was the fuel keeping the fire burning.

—The immobilization is complete —she concluded with a pat that tore a muffled sob from me—. Stay like that while we explain stretcher transport.

***

Four students arrived with an orange canvas stretcher that reminded me of an altar for sacrifice. They moved me by holding my thighs, armpits, and hips. Then came the straps: wide, rough black nylon bands. One crossed my thighs, tightening the leggings against my sex. Another, the waist. The last one, the already bandaged chest. The click of the buckles sounded like the closing of a cell.

—Lift on three. One, two… three.

The floor vanished. The nylon bit into my skin and I, staring up at the ceiling, felt like an offering. When they started swaying the stretcher to simulate uneven ground, the friction of the bandage against my breasts pushed me to the edge.

When the instructor called for a break, they left me on metal sawhorses and, in their rush to leave, forgot the chest strap. I was left alone, lying on my back, my arms pressed to my torso. I closed my eyes and imagined you coming in, sliding the bolt shut, and walking toward the stretcher with that calm that undoes me, not releasing me, watching my breasts strain against the bandages. I heard footsteps in the hallway: anyone could walk in and see me like that, and the mere possibility tightened me to the limit.

***

When they finally freed me, I sought refuge in an empty lab and, under an emergency lamp, stripped my torso again. I took out my phone with trembling hands. The marks from the bandaging were etched into my skin like a map of surrender; red lines, deep grooves. I focused on the deepest one, the violet mark from the nylon strap, and took the photo. Then another of my face, glazed eyes, tongue wetting the wound on my lip.

“I’ve belonged to everyone and no one,” I wrote with clumsy fingers. “They’ve touched me, tied me up, and looked at me like an object. But it only hurts because it wasn’t you tightening the bandages. Look at what they’ve left on me.”

The phone vibrated against the metal floor. Your reply appeared sharp, without a trace of mercy: “Get out of there right now. Don’t put the top on. Cross the campus to the underground parking lot, level minus three. I want you to feel the air on your marks while you walk toward me. If anyone looks at you, let them see your shame. It’s my trophy.”

A moan of terror and excitement escaped my throat. I looked at myself one last time in the reflection of a display case: the pale girl, the red stigmas from the bandaging. I looked like a victim, a fugitive, or a sacred possession.

***

I went out. Every step was an agony of pleasure. The air conditioning struck my bare breasts, hardening my nipples until they hurt. On the stairs a group of people was coming down, laughing. I pressed myself against the wall, covering myself with my arms. One of them paused for a second and his gaze traced my neck and hidden chest before moving on. I died of humiliation, and my thong soaked through again.

The elevator returned me the image of my surrender: half-naked in a public building, obeying an order that defied all logic. The doors opened onto the smell of gasoline and wet concrete. In the distance, between the columns, your car headlights came on. My master was waiting.

I stopped in front of your window. It rolled down slowly and your perfume, that scent of authority, made my knees weak. You didn’t look me in the eyes: your gaze dropped straight to the violet lines the instructors had etched into my chest.

—They tightened you up nicely, Noelia —you said, and your voice thundered in my empty chest—. You let yourself be moved and touched by strangers. You felt comfortable being their toy.

—No… I just… —my voice cracked and I bit my lip again.

—Silence. I didn’t give you permission to speak.

You got out of the car with that calm that terrifies and devours me. You forced me to lower the arms covering my torso, and the cold of level minus three cut into my irritated nipples.

—Get up on the hood —you ordered—. On your knees. Facing the entrance ramp.

The hood was directly under a floodlight. If a car came in, the first thing it would see would be my silhouette, naked from the waist up, exposed like a hunting trophy.

—Please… —I whispered, but your eyes reminded me that my will no longer belonged to me. I climbed up. The cold metal against my knees, my back scored with marks, offered up to the darkness.

—You’re going to stay like that until I decide you’ve washed away the mark of their hands with your shame. If you hear a car, don’t move.

The echo of an engine bounced off the walls. Someone was coming down. Two headlights turned the corner and bathed me completely; I shut my eyes, but I didn’t lower my head. An SUV braked a few meters away. The driver must have seen the scene: a half-naked woman on a hood, immobilized by her own submission, under the watch of a shadow claiming her. Fear and shame were acid turning into a burning flow between my legs. The car started again and rolled slowly past us until it disappeared into the distance.

—We’re not finished yet —you said, and I felt the brush of something metallic against my chest—. The others’ marks are still there. I only accept my own seal.

It was your silver lighter. The snap of the lid sounded like a bell in the silence.

—Your hands, Noelia. Use them. Put the heat where they put their hands on you. Let your skin remember who owns the fire.

I brought my fingers close to the flame and, with a trembling that ran down my spine, began to stroke my skin following the red grooves of the bandaging. The heat of my fingers contrasted with the glacial cold of my nipples. Every time I brushed them, a shock slammed into my pelvis.

—Look at me —I whispered, beside myself—. I’m yours. There’s nothing left of them.

—Down —you ordered, snapping the lighter shut with a dry click.

***

You directed me to the back door with a gesture. You made me sit on my heels, my forehead against the back of the driver’s seat, the rearview mirror tilted so I couldn’t escape my own reflection.

—Look at yourself —your voice was a thick whisper at the nape of my neck.

What I saw broke me: the face twisted out of shape, the torso turned into a map of war. Your hands circled my waist from behind and tugged at my leggings with torturous slowness. I wanted to close my legs, but your knee moved in, forcing me to stay open, offered to the mirror.

—You’re soaked. You’ve wanted this since the first instructor put his hand on you, haven’t you? You wanted it to be me who immobilized you, who saw you this broken.

—Yes… please —I pleaded, my cheek pressed to the leather.

Your fingers climbed up my spine to my neck, where my moon hung.

—This is the only thing that doesn’t match you —you whispered, hooking the chain—. What do you prefer, your little moon or my mark? Because today you’re not leaving here with both.

—Your mark… always yours —I moaned, eyes fixed on the reflection.

You pulled with one sharp motion. The clasp broke and the moon fell onto the floor mat, disappearing into the darkness. I felt naked for the first time all day.

—Now you’re just canvas —you said.

You yanked my leggings down, leaving the bear socks as the only trace of my outer reality. The cold leather against my soaked sex ripped a cry from me that stuck to the glass. You forced me to turn, to face forward, open, stripped of my jewel, my clothes, and my pride.

Outside, the silence broke with a rhythmic sound: heavy footsteps and the jingle of a ring of keys. The security guard was beginning his round.

—If you make a single sound, I’ll open the door and let him find us like this —you said, your voice a blade of steel—. Stay quiet while I claim you.

You grabbed me by the thighs, your fingers sinking into my flesh. When you entered me, the world disappeared. I threw my head back, seeking air that wouldn’t come; my lungs burned beneath the bandage marks. I buried my bitten nails in your shoulders. The guard’s footsteps stopped beside the car and I saw the beam of his flashlight sweeping the concrete through the crack in the window, while the glass fogged with the heat of our bodies.

Every thrust was an order for silence my body could barely obey. The pleasure, after hours of immobility and waiting, was so sharp that the moan died in my throat. The flashlight struck the glass dead on and the white light illuminated the interior in a spectral glow. We were millimeters from being discovered. Fear shot adrenaline through me and clamped my muscles around you in a spasm that made me see stars.

The guard stayed there for one endless second; I could hear his breathing on the other side of the glass. At last, the footsteps moved away and the jingle of keys vanished into the depths of level minus three. You let go of my mouth and I collapsed against your chest, sobbing without a sound. I was broken, marked, and emptied of any will that wasn’t yours. The heat you had built up all day finally spilled over the car’s leather, in a surrender that needed no words.

***

—Get dressed —you said, coldly, snapping me back to the concrete.

As I slipped the top over my head, the rhinestones scraping against my nipples was torture, but I knew that pain was the only collar you would allow me to wear now that the moon lay beneath the seat.

—Get down —you ordered without looking at me, starting the engine.

I got out. The air of level minus three hit me like a wall of ice. I stood in the middle of the lot, the bear socks on the dirty concrete, watching you close the door. I put my hands in my pockets, shrinking so the fabric wouldn’t brush my marks, and started walking toward the exit, feeling the weight of your control in every step. I knew you were watching me in the mirror as you drove away in the opposite direction.

I crossed the deserted campus under the orange glow of the streetlights. In the distance, other students were coming out of the library, laughing. No one could have imagined that, beneath my careless clothes, I carried the map of a war you had won: the instructor’s marks, the heat of your hands, and the emptiness of my lost moon.

I bit my lip one last time, savoring the iron that was already part of me. Tomorrow I’d go back to class, back to being the pale student with the bitten nails. But that night, with the cold wind lashing my face, I knew my skin no longer belonged to me. It was yours. And that thought gave me enough warmth to make it home.