The Bondage Session That Awoke My Ghosts

I started the bike in the dark alley and let it roar for a second before pulling away. That relic, permanently reeking of burnt gasoline and old leather, was the closest thing I had to a pet. I tore down Buenos Aires’ night avenues, the billboard lights blurring into splashes of color at my sides. I left Luciano’s apartment behind, along with his ropes and the questions I hadn’t asked for. No one was following me. I’d taken care of that before leaving.

The Organization has eyes on every corner of this city. I put them there, one by one, over more than a decade. The rumors that circulate about my name — betrayals avenged with cold precision, punishments nobody ever forgot — were part of the design. My armor. The reason no sane man looked at me twice in an alley with no witnesses. Diego was in Rosario on a job I’d wrapped in promotion papers, in opportunity. In truth, I wanted to be alone tonight. I needed it the way I need air.

I parked under the peeling marquee of the old Palermo cinema, hid the bike beneath a threadbare tarp, and went up the side stairs to the private office. That building — art deco façade, damp walls, the perpetual smell of old film stock — was the only place in the city where nobody looked for me. Not even Diego knew it existed. I locked the door and stood still for a moment, listening to the heavy silence.

I took off my leather jacket and tossed it onto the chair without looking where it landed. I opened the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out a bottle of cheap whiskey, the kind you don’t drink for pleasure but for punishment, the kind that burns wrong and takes too long to fade. I sank onto the cracked leather sofa. The marks were beginning to speak: red lines on my torso and forearms, parallel and exact, deeper where the ropes had tightened harder. They pulsed with every heartbeat. By morning they’d be dark bruises, and I liked that in a way I still didn’t know how to name.

For months I’d felt nothing but rage or emptiness. Months carrying that black pit in my chest, that space where something I could have called love once lived. Luciano — the Master, as he was called in the circles Ezequiel moved in — had found something in me I believed was dead for good. And that terrified me more than any rival. More than any betrayal.

The phone vibrated on the coffee table. I looked at the name on the screen and answered.

—How did it go? —Ezequiel asked, with that restrained amusement of his, the kind that means he already knows the answer before he asks—. Was the master up to the task?

I took a long swallow. The whiskey scraped my throat the way it should.

—Yeah —I admitted—. More than I expected, actually.

Ezequiel gave a short, satisfied laugh.

—Told you. Luciano isn’t an amateur. He’s spent ten years perfecting that, and there’s nobody better in the city for what you needed.

—What I didn’t expect was his attitude —I muttered, staring at the projection screen where a silent black-and-white film flickered—. Nosy. Arrogant. He thinks he has the right to dig into things that aren’t his business.

—That’s part of the job —Ezequiel replied patiently—. A good master doesn’t tie bodies, he ties people. If he doesn’t know you a little, the rest is empty theater. Or are you going to tell me that when he had you naked, kneeling, your cock hard and dripping between your thighs and your ass spread open against the rope, you didn’t answer every question he asked?

I clenched my jaw. I remembered it perfectly: kneeling on the cold workshop floor, my wrists tied behind my back with that rough rope that marked my skin with every breath, my cock hard against my belly, and him circling me, adjusting knots, speaking to me slowly like someone taming an animal.

—I answered him —I said at last—. I didn’t have much choice.

—There it is.

I fell silent. I had no answer to that that didn’t sound inconvenient.

—Listen to me —he continued, lowering his voice—. If you want this to really work, not as an occasional release but as something that builds you instead of just consuming you, read the Marquis de Sade. And tell Luciano. Bring up a specific passage. Trust isn’t declared, it’s shown through concrete gestures. And a man like you, who’s spent years not letting anyone in —not a cock, not an idea— has to make that effort first.

I leaned my head back against the sofa. The marks throbbed beneath the fabric of my shirt.

—And why should I do that? I’m not in the habit of opening up for anyone.

—Because what you carry inside can’t be let go of with ropes alone. You need someone on the other side when the ropes loosen. —A brief pause—. Think about it. Good night.

I hung up. I set the phone face down on the table, as if that could silence everything he’d just said to me.

***

The door opened twenty minutes later. Diego came in without knocking —he was the only one allowed to— bringing with him the smell of wet road and the calm expression of someone who has just driven four hours without a hitch. His eyes swept the room in a second: the bottles on the floor, my body sprawled on the sofa, the marks showing above the open collar of my shirt like someone else’s signature.

He came closer slowly. I know that smile of his —a mix of devotion and veiled threat I never fully manage to decipher— and I know it never announces anything good for my peace of mind.

—Report —I said before he could open his mouth—. Rosario. Anything concrete on Valentín?

Diego stopped at the foot of the sofa and crossed his arms. I saw his eyes go back to the marks on my neck and then up to my face without commenting.

—One of his men was seen at the river port. Nervous. Looking for discreet transport to Uruguay. He knows he’s boxed in, but fear makes him reckless.

I took the nearest bottle and drank deeply.

—Six months hunting him like a ghost —I muttered, my voice thick with a rage I no longer needed to raise for it to be understood—. It’s time to catch that treacherous rat and make him pay what he owes. Slowly. With interest.

Diego sat on the arm of the sofa, too close for my taste, with that familiarity only he allows himself.

—I got ahead of it —he said, with that darkly satisfied tone he gets when he’s moved pieces on his own—. The trap is set and baited. In two days we’ll know the exact moment he tries to cross. He’ll be ours.

I stared at him. His eyes kept drifting to the marks on my neck.

—Do you want him for yourself, or do we do it together? —he asked.

—For me —I said—. First he’s going to talk. Then he’s going to beg. And when he has no voice or pride left, that’s when we finish it.

Diego smiled with that grin that gives me chills, as if my revenge were the most sacred thing he knows. Before going out to get food —I hadn’t eaten all day, my empty stomach growling in silent protest— he turned in the doorway.

—How was the day, boss? You look like hell. But your eyes are different.

I didn’t answer right away. I looked at the projection screen where silent images were playing.

—Interesting —I said at last—. More than I expected.

Diego didn’t move for a long second, processing those words with the same care I use to process a threat.

—First time I’ve heard you use that word for anything that isn’t business or a hunt —he murmured, and left, closing the door more softly than necessary.

***

I got up from the sofa with more effort than I expected. The whiskey was already weighing on the edges of reality. I went into the office’s small bathroom, locked the latch, and stood still for a moment staring at the mirror above the sink.

The marks were brutally clean: parallel patterns on my torso and forearms, as precise as the strokes of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing and how far he can go. I unbuttoned the rest of my shirt and let it fall to the cold tile floor. I lowered my pants slowly, then my boxer briefs, and stood naked beneath the yellow light of the bare bulb. The reflection gave me back a worked-over, punished body: old knife scars, a bullet wound in my shoulder, and over all that Luciano’s fresh pattern, the lattice of rope stamped over my nipples, crossing my lower belly, tracing the base of my cock as if he’d framed it on purpose.

I thought of Luciano. Of his voice —deep, unhurried, as if time were a variable he could control at will— giving orders my body obeyed before my mind even processed the impulse. Of the ropes tightening to that exact limit between pain and something I still didn’t have a name for. Of how he’d made me spread my legs kneeling, my hands tied behind my back, and run his fingers along the cleft of my ass without asking permission, just looking into my eyes in the workshop mirror to see when I gave in. I gave in. I gave in early. And he knew it.

I touched myself. My cock went hard in three strokes of my hand, fed by the memory of the ropes, by the master’s voice, by the concrete sensation of having been completely at another man’s mercy and not breaking. I spat into my palm and started jerking off slowly, gripping the base, sliding up to the head and back again, watching myself in the mirror as I did it. Pre-cum leaked out quickly, clear and thick, and I spread it over the whole length of my cock until my hand slid on its own with every downward stroke.

I imagined myself again in Luciano’s workshop. Kneeling in front of him, wrists crossed behind my back and mouth open. I imagined what it would be like if in the next session, instead of just tying me up, he fucked me. How he’d grab my hair, unhurried, and press his cock against my lips and tell me, "open," and I’d obey, like I’d obeyed everything else. I imagined the taste, the weight, the pulse of another man’s cock against my tongue. How he’d shove it down my throat, measuring, waiting for the gag reflex, pulling back just enough to drive deeper again. How he’d fill my mouth with spit and cum and make me swallow every drop, the rope tightening across my chest, marking me every time I breathed with his cock inside me.

I braced one hand on the sink. My breathing grew short. With the other hand I squeezed my balls, pulling downward like some guy had taught me years ago, and felt the cramp rise through my groin. Then I imagined myself face-down on the workbench, legs spread, the rope crossing my back and running down to bind my ankles apart. I imagined Luciano opening my ass with two fingers, spitting between my cheeks, pushing in slowly until resistance broke. Just thinking about it burned. The burn and the stretching and the impossible mix of pain and wanting more. I imagined his cock driving in at once, all the way, his belly pressing against my ass, staying still so I could feel everything, every centimeter, the throb inside. And then the first thrust, dry, deep, the kind that settles your guts and rips a growl out of you that you don’t recognize as your own.

I started jerking faster. My fist sounded wet in the silence of the bathroom. A gasp slipped out of me. I closed my eyes for a second and saw him fucking me with that slow, cruel rhythm he had for everything, grabbing me by the hair, yanking my head back, whispering in my ear as he went through me: "you like it like this, don’t you? like this, quiet, open, obedient." I imagined coming without touching myself, just from his cock hammering my prostate, my own semen spilling over the wood of the bench while he kept pounding me without stopping. And then the heat of his load inside me, that warm, viscous weight that keeps dripping when the other man pulls out, the mark you can’t see but feel for hours.

Then I heard his voice.

Not Luciano’s. The other voice. The one that doesn’t leave.

—Did you forget me that easily?

I closed my eyes. My hand stopped on its own, halfway there, my cock still hard and throbbing between my fingers.

—I didn’t forget you —I said quietly, to the air, to the mirror, to no one—. I’ll never forget you.

The voice came back closer. Heavy with something that wasn’t tenderness.

—Then why do you let another man tie you up? Why are you jerking off thinking about his cock when mine was the one that filled you? Why do you look for another man to make you feel alive when I can’t do it anymore? When I’m dead.

—Because it’s the only thing that reminds me what I lost —I answered, my throat tight—. The only thing that proves there’s still something in here capable of feeling.

A heavy silence. And then the voice —his voice, the one I’ve had burned into me since that night— with all the weight that never goes away:

—I died because you didn’t get there in time. Because you chose the organization, control, power. You left me to die alone.

The words went through me the way they always do, twisting in wounds that never heal. My erection fell instantly, my cock hanging heavy and wet between my legs, still coated in spit and pre-cum that was already cooling. Cold took its place.

I opened my eyes. My face in the mirror was the face of a man who hasn’t slept well in a year. I felt the sting at the corners of my eyes before I could control it.

I punched the mirror with a closed fist. The glass split into a web of irregular cracks, shattering the way my head has been trying to do for months. The blood came fast, warm, sticky between my already battered knuckles.

—I’m going insane —I told the broken reflection.

But the voice was already gone. It’s never there when I look for it. It only appears in moments of least defense, when something real has just pierced the armor. It was my guilt talking to itself. It was him, who wouldn’t leave because I wouldn’t let him go. Because letting go of his memory would mean accepting that what I did that night can’t be repaired, that no amount of revenge or ropes or voluntary pain is going to give back what I owed him.

I tied my injured hand with an old towel, squeezing until the bleeding stopped. I wiped my cock clean with the same towel, without ceremony, erasing what was left of the arousal like someone erasing a footprint. I pulled my pants back on with clumsy movements. I left the bathroom. The cold air of the office hit me like a reproach.

***

I went back to the sofa. I opened a new bottle and drank without pausing, staring at the projection screen without really seeing anything. An old film ran in silence, black-and-white figures moving with that exaggerated urgency of silent cinema. Gradually, the whiskey erased the edges of everything.

Before falling asleep I thought of Luciano. Of his commanding voice. Of the ropes. Of his cock that I still hadn’t tasted but already knew how it would feel against my tongue. Of that promised session that would be more intense, more naked, closer to the bottom of something I’d kept sealed since that night.

And I felt something I hadn’t recognized in a long time: anticipation.

That terrified me. More than Valentín and his cowardly flight. More than the rivals who had been measuring my patience for months from a prudent distance. More than any betrayal I had survived.

Because it meant there was still something in me capable of wanting something. Something fragile and nameless that Luciano, with his ropes and his impertinent questions and his fingers prying where nobody had pried in years, had found in the darkness where I’d buried it.

And I still didn’t know whether to protect it or destroy it before he got there and opened it all the way.