The Barefoot Businesswoman Who Learned to Obey

At quarter past one in the morning, when half the guests had already given up and were dancing without heels, Renata Solís slipped off her fourteen-centimeter shoes and stretched out her toes with a gesture of pure relief. Her bare sole, barely covered by her stocking, met the cold marble of the dance floor and a shiver ran up her legs. She closed her eyes for a second. It was her favorite part of any party.

She did not have to open them to know she was being watched. She was always being watched.

Many of the guests had spent the whole night waiting for that moment. Some had bet she would show up barefoot at her cousin’s wedding, but Renata had promised her father that for once she would behave, that she would not put on her usual show. What she had not promised was to endure her heels until the end, and that was why she was taking them off now, more eagerly than ever.

Of all the gazes, only one bothered her: her mother’s. She crossed the dance floor straight toward her, took her by the arm, and pulled her off to a corner while the orchestra kept playing.

—Can’t you help yourself? Do you always have to be the center of attention?

Renata snorted. She had borne the shoes since five in the afternoon, taking them off in secret under the table during dinner.

—Mom, there are ten barefoot girls on that dance floor. Even Aunt Beatriz took off her shoes.

—None of them has your reputation.

Reputation, Renata thought. Her mother was not referring to being Eduardo Solís’s daughter, the owner of the country’s largest textile chain. She meant the other reputation, the one the gossip press had saddled her with years ago: the barefoot businesswoman.

***

It had all started on a trip. Fresh out of college, Renata spent two weeks in a coastal city on the Pacific where people walked barefoot everywhere: in the streets, on public transport, in shops. By the third day she had stashed her sandals in her backpack and did not put them back on until the return flight. She discovered something she could never let go of: the sensation of the ground under her bare feet ignited her in a way she did not know how to name.

Back in the capital, the habit became an obsession. She started by going barefoot on the campus lawn, like so many others. Then she dared to cross the parking lot with her sneakers in her hand, feeling the rough, warm asphalt against her soles. Every step was a small challenge, a mix of shame and excitement that left her breathless. Over the years she understood it was not the ground that turned her on, but the looks. Being seen. Making people uncomfortable. Having them unable to tear their eyes away from her feet.

Ten years later, photographers waited for her at every public event to capture her bare feet, and she had learned to enjoy even the cruelest comments. They called her spoiled, exhibitionist, brat. She did not care. Every insult was an invisible hand running along the nape of her neck.

***

—Put your shoes back on, I’m begging you —her mother insisted.

Renata shook her head, turned her back on her, and returned to the dance floor. Her mother was left with the words on her lips, as so many times before. Her father, from a table nearby, had long since stopped fighting; he only prayed that one day someone would understand her, someone who would do with her what neither family nor society had managed.

That was when Renata saw him.

He was leaning against a column, a untouched glass in hand, watching her with a calm that immediately unsettled her. He did not look at her feet with the morbid curiosity of the others, nor with her mother’s reproach. He looked at them like someone assessing something he already considered his. He must have been around forty, wearing a dark suit without a tie, with a stillness that filled the space around him.

Renata held his gaze longer than she should have. He did not smile. He only lowered his eyes slowly to her bare feet on the marble, let them roam over them without shame, and then lifted them back to her face. The gesture was so deliberate that she felt heat climbing up her neck.

When he approached, he did it unhurriedly.

—You took your shoes off so they’d look at you —he said. It was not a question.

—I took them off because they hurt —she lied, using the smile she reserved for the press.

—No —he answered, calmly—. You took them off to provoke. You always do. And no one has ever given you what you truly want from that.

Renata opened her mouth to answer and found nothing. It was the first time in ten years that someone had named what she herself pretended not to understand.

—And you know what I want? —she managed to say.

—I know exactly —he said—. And I know you’ve spent years not finding it because you’re always the one in charge. My name is Adrián. There’s a reserved suite in the hotel across the street. When you’re tired of performing for these people, come up. Room twelve.

He walked away without waiting for an answer. Renata stood in the middle of the dance floor, barefoot, her heart hammering against her ribs and an unexpected wetness between her legs.

***

She went up forty minutes later, with her shoes hanging from two fingers and her stockings ruined. She told herself she was only going to satisfy her curiosity. She did not believe a single word of it.

Adrián opened the door, looked her up and down, and stepped aside to let her in. The suite was dim, lit only by the city lights coming through the picture window.

—The stockings —he said—. Take them off. I want to see you the way you like to be.

Something in his tone admitted no argument. Renata, who had spent a decade refusing to obey anyone, sat on the edge of the bed and slid the black stocking down one leg, then the other. When her bare feet touched the carpet, he knelt in front of her.

What he did next completely undid her.

He took one of her feet in his hands, with a tenderness that contrasted with his firmness, and kissed it. He kissed the instep, the ankle, the curve of the arch. Renata held her breath. No one had ever touched her like that, no one had ever treated as an altar what the entire world criticized. Adrián traced each toe with his tongue, slowly, without taking his eyes off her face, watching every tremor.

—You’ve spent ten years showing them so someone would do this —he murmured against her skin—. So someone would worship them and then put you in your place.

—You don’t know anything about me —she panted, though her hips were already moving on their own.

—I know you’re dying for someone to tell you what to do —Adrián said, and bit the sole of her foot gently. Renata moaned before she could stop herself—. Face down. Now.

And she obeyed.

She turned over on the bed, her dress hiked up to her waist, her face buried in the sheets. She felt his hands running down her back, lower, uncovering her without any haste. When the first smack landed on her skin, the sting shot through her like a current. It was not pain, or not only pain. It was relief. For the first time in years she did not have to decide anything, did not have to provoke anyone, did not have to hold any pose. She only had to receive.

—Count them —he ordered.

—One —Renata whispered when she felt the second. Then the third, the fourth. She counted them all, her voice growing more broken each time, while the heat between her legs became unbearable.

Adrián slid a hand between her thighs and found her soaked. He let out a low laugh.

—All that reputation of an untamable woman —he said— and look at you. Wet because at last someone is treating you the way you need.

Renata wanted to protest and what came out of her mouth was a moan when his fingers entered her. The humiliation of knowing she had been found out only made her hotter. He played with her without letting her finish, driving her to the edge again and again and stopping just before it, until Renata heard her own voice pleading for something she had never asked anyone for.

—Please.

—Please what?

—Please, let me come.

—Not yet —Adrián said.

He turned her again, spread her legs, and positioned himself between them. Before entering her, he lifted one foot and rested it against his own chest, against his mouth, kissing it again as if it were the most precious thing in the room. Then he drove into her in one thrust and Renata arched her back, her heels digging into his shoulders.

He took her slowly at first, looking her in the eyes, not letting her hide her face. Then harder, setting a rhythm that did not belong to her, one she could only follow. Renata felt each thrust empty her of all those years of control, of poses, of headlines. There was no barefoot businesswoman left, no rebellious heiress. Only a woman finally surrendering.

—Now —he said at last, his fingers once more on her clit—. Come for me.

And as if her body had only been waiting for permission, Renata came apart in an orgasm that left her trembling, biting down on her arm so she would not scream, her legs closing around Adrián’s waist while he finished inside her with a rough groan.

***

Afterward they lay still, she on his chest, their feet still entwined. Adrián stroked her ankle with his thumb, slow, almost absentminded.

—Tomorrow you’ll take your shoes off in public again —he said—. And everyone will think it’s the same whim as always.

Renata smiled against his skin. She knew he was right. She would go out into the street at dawn, barefoot, with torn stockings and dirty feet from all the dancing, and let the early risers look at her as they always did. But it would no longer be the same. Now, every time she felt the cold of the ground beneath her bare soles, she would think of a room with the number twelve on the door, and of the only man who had understood that her provocation was not a cry for freedom, but a question waiting for an answer.

—Will I see you again? —she asked, and was surprised by how much the answer mattered to her.

Adrián lifted her foot one last time and kissed the instep.

—That depends on how well you know how to obey —he said.

The night, Renata thought, closing her eyes, was still young. And for the first time in ten years, she had no desire at all to be the one in charge.