I Installed Cameras to Keep an Eye on My Daughter’s Boyfriend

My name is Ricardo, and I never thought I’d end up spying inside my own house. I’ve been married to Marcela for over twenty years, a woman with wide hips and a narrow waist who still undoes me with a single step into a room. We have two daughters: Daniela, the older one, who came out exactly like her mother, and Brenda, the younger one, still in university. I did well at work, enough to give them a comfortable life, a big house with a pool and a gym where the girls worked out. I thought I already knew all the secrets in that house. I was wrong.

Daniela had spent several months on a humanitarian mission very far away, and one afternoon she called to say she was coming back. She wasn’t coming alone. She was bringing her boyfriend. Marcela and I went to the airport with our hearts tight, aching to hug her, and when we finally saw her come through the arrivals gate, all three of us cried for a while without caring about the people around us.

—Mom, Dad, this is Bakari —she said, wiping her cheeks.

I looked up and went speechless. Bakari was huge. Nearly two meters tall, shoulders like beams, a calm in his eyes that commanded respect without saying a word.

—Nice to meet you —he said, and his deep voice made something in my chest vibrate.

—Welcome to the family —Marcela replied, offering him her hand.

We took him home, I showed him the pool, the jacuzzi, the gym. He loved the latter; he told me he trained every day. That night we had dinner together, talked until late, and although I liked him, I couldn’t stop looking at him. Next to him, my daughter looked tiny.

I stayed up working until dawn to catch up. When I went upstairs to bed, I passed Daniela’s room and heard something that froze me in place. The door was half open. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did.

Daniela was on her back against the mattress, and Bakari was on top of her, moving with a force that was both measured and brutal. She had her legs wrapped around him and was begging for more in broken whispers. What took my breath away wasn’t his size, but the way he dominated her: he held her wrists, spoke into her ear, decided every movement. My daughter obeyed and moaned as if surrendering like that was the only thing that mattered in the world. I went to my bed ashamed, aroused, and unable to sleep.

***

A few days passed. One morning, before leaving for work, I went downstairs for some papers and heard voices in the kitchen. Brenda had already left for class, Daniela was still asleep. Marcela and Bakari were alone.

—Now I see where Daniela got all her beauty from —he was saying—. From you.

—Oh, Bakari, what things you say —she laughed.

—I’m serious. You’re a beautiful woman. My father-in-law is very lucky.

—You’re just saying that. I’m already old.

—Not at all.

I went in before hearing more, and Marcela stepped away abruptly, like a child caught doing something wrong. I didn’t say anything. I grabbed my papers and left. I trust my wife, I kept telling myself in the car. But I don’t know him.

That same afternoon I bought several tiny cameras, the kind that fit in any corner. One day when the house was empty, I installed them everywhere, except in the bathrooms and Brenda’s room. In Daniela’s room I did put one; I’d be lying if I said it was only for surveillance. I wanted to keep seeing what I’d seen through the crack in the door.

***

I got home very late the next night. Everyone was asleep. I locked myself in my office, turned the key, and opened the day’s recordings from the time I’d left.

Marcela came down in a silk robe to make breakfast. Brenda ate quickly and left. A while later Bakari appeared, in shorts and nothing else. My wife became visibly nervous.

—Has my father-in-law already left? —he asked.

—Yes, he had to go in early today.

—You must feel a little lonely then. Such a beautiful woman.

—I’m used to it —she replied, turning her back to him.

He looked her up and down without bothering to hide it. Marcela noticed through the reflection in the window, bit her lip, and kept cooking as if nothing were happening. Nothing else happened that morning, but I understood that something had been set in motion and that I, instead of stopping it, was recording it.

***

The following days fell into a strange routine. Every morning, after I left, Bakari would come down to the kitchen and find a way to get close to Marcela. A greeting, a hug from behind, his body pressed against hers a second too long. My wife pretended to be surprised, but she never pulled away completely.

—Good morning, mother-in-law —he said one morning, hugging her from behind.

—Oh, good morning —she stammered.

—How did you wake up? Besides beautiful.

—God, Bakari, you scared me. Fine, and you?

—Happy. I like giving hugs, I hope you don’t mind.

—No... I was just surprised.

—Then get used to it. I’m going to hug you a lot.

And he hugged her again. I watched the scene locked in my office, my pulse racing, with a mix of jealousy and dirty fascination I didn’t know how to name. Every night I repeated the ritual: I locked the door, played the recordings, and watched that man weave his trap with a hunter’s patience.

***

One afternoon I recorded something that changed everything. Bakari was with Daniela in her room, dominating her as always, with her completely surrendered, saying yes to every order.

—Your hips are just like your mother’s —he told her, never stopping.

—I inherited them from her —Daniela panted.

—And the rest, did you get that from her too?

—No... I don’t know.

—I’m going to have to find out.

Daniela went still for a moment, as if she had understood.

—With... with my mother? —she asked.

He held her wrists behind her back, spoke softly into her ear, and waited. My daughter took a while to answer, but she did answer.

—All right —she whispered—. Do it. If that’s what you want.

I turned off the screen for a moment, my hands trembling. This is no longer flirting, I thought. This is something else, and I’m allowing it from my chair. I turned it back on. I couldn’t stop watching.

***

The decisive morning I recognize the moment I see it on the recording. Marcela appeared in the kitchen wearing her shortest silk robe. Bakari came down afterward, and before entering he stopped in the hallway, out of her sight, preparing himself with cold determination. When he stepped in, my wife was already waiting for him with a smile I hadn’t seen on her in years.

This time he didn’t hug her. He took her by the hips with both hands and pressed her against the counter.

—Good morning, Marcela.

—Oh, God, you scared me —she said, not moving a single inch to get away.

—Still not used to it?

—I wasn’t talking about that... but about this I feel here —she murmured, barely moving her hips back.

—Daniela couldn’t take it last night —he replied—. She fell asleep too early. And I woke up like this.

—Do you make her... tired that much? —Marcela asked, her voice breaking.

—Whenever I want. And you? How many times a week do you get it?

—Twice —she confessed in a thread of a voice—. When I’m lucky.

—That’s a crime —Bakari said, lifting her robe up her back with two fingers—. A woman like this should be taken care of every day.

Marcela closed her eyes. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t say no. Instead, she leaned slightly forward, offering herself, and let my name escape her once, like a farewell.

—Too bad my daughter is already your wife —she whispered.

—In my country —he replied, pressing her against the counter—, a man can have more than one. You only have to ask me.

There was a long silence. I, in front of the screen, held my breath as if I were inside the kitchen. And then Marcela said it. She asked for it with the exact words he had been waiting for, once, twice, three times, each time firmer, until her voice stopped trembling.

What came after I watched in full, without pausing, locked in my office with my heart pounding against my ribs. The way he bent her over the counter, how he held her arms behind her back the same way he did with Daniela, the way my wife went from modesty to total surrender in a matter of minutes. She moaned without holding back, calling to him, begging him, with a face she had never once shown me in twenty years of marriage.

At some point Daniela appeared in the frame and sat in front of her mother, watching her. Far from stopping anything, the two of them seemed to understand each other in a language I didn’t share.

—I see you got the rest from her too —Bakari said.

—Forgive me, daughter —Marcela managed to say.

—It’s all right, Mom —Daniela replied, with chilling calm—. Now we both know what it is.

***

That afternoon Brenda came home from university. They had lunch the three of them as if nothing had happened, and I still couldn’t look them in the face at dinner. Later, while I was reviewing the cameras, the microphones picked up what happened next.

Bakari went up to Marcela’s room and the moans filled the hallway again. Brenda, in the living room, listened with her eyes wide open.

—I don’t understand how Daniela can take it —she said softly, to herself.

Just then Daniela came down to the kitchen for water, calm, tousle-haired but smiling. Brenda froze.

—If Daniela is here —she murmured—, then who is he with... No. It can’t be. With Mom?

Curiosity overcame fear. She went upstairs in silence, opened Marcela’s room door just a crack, and saw what I had already seen on the screen: Bakari on top of her mother, completely dominating her. She closed the door carefully and locked herself in her own room. I don’t have that part recorded; there’s no camera there.

I turned off the screen and sat there in the dark, in my office locked from the inside, listening to the beating of my own house. I know I’ll have to decide what to do with all this. I know I should tear out the cameras and speak to my wife face-to-face. But while I think about that, a more cowardly idea takes hold: tomorrow I’m going to install a camera in Brenda’s room too.