The Domina on the Fourth Floor Does Not Forgive a Look

Everything had happened very quickly in the entrance. Bruno was still on his knees on the tiles, panting, with a wet stain spreading beneath him and the lost stare of someone who has just discovered something about himself he would rather not know. A couple of steps away, his wife watched him speechless, one hand braced against the wall as if the floor were shifting under her feet.

Renata collected her keys from the mailbox with studied calm and got into the elevator without looking back. This was only the beginning.

She had been putting up with it for weeks. Every time they crossed paths on the stairs, Bruno would freeze, his eyes sliding over her body, his breathing ragged like an old dog in front of a butcher’s window. That afternoon, sick of it, she had put him in his place in front of his own wife. She wasn’t stopping there.

***

Renata opened the door to her apartment and, behind her, Damián came in on all fours: naked, with a leather collar snug around his neck and a leash she held effortlessly. She had picked him up from the hall, where she made him wait when she went out. Days earlier she had gone to the shop on Calle Mendizábal and bought a full set — collars, leashes, a short crop, a strap whip — and the bill, of course, he had paid. She didn’t spend a cent on her own pleasures.

She walked into the living room and turned to stand in front of her slave.

—Don’t get me wrong —she said, weighing every word—. You asked me to let you lick my feet. Then you confessed what you were. So from today on I’m treating you like what you are.

Damián kept his head down. She gave the leash a little tug, just to remind him who held it.

—Since you crossed that door, you stopped being a person. You’re my dog. What are you?

—Your dog and your slave, mistress —he answered, and kissed the tip of her boot.

—It’s not enough for me that you say it. You prove it to me.

She picked up the short whip and laid it across his back with a sharp crack. Damián arched, let out a groan that broke in his throat, and yet his body betrayed him: the erection was immediate, brutal, impossible to hide.

—Look at you —she murmured, almost amused—. You can’t even pretend you don’t like it.

Another blow, this time low on his back. He trembled, clenched his teeth, and a second later he came without her even touching him, spilling onto the parquet in gasps that sounded more like shame than pleasure. Renata raised an eyebrow. She had not been doing this long, and the power she had over an adult man still surprised her.

—Look what you’ve done to the floor —she said—. Clean it. With your tongue.

Damián obeyed without lifting his gaze. While he did, she settled onto the sofa and watched him like someone watching an animal perform a trick it has learned well.

—From now on you only speak when I order you to —she added—. The rest is silence. Dogs don’t have opinions.

He nodded against the floor.

***

The doorbell interrupted her. Renata frowned; she wasn’t expecting anyone. She went to the peephole and, when she looked out, a slow smile crossed her face. It was Carolina, Bruno’s wife.

She opened the door, leaning her shoulder against the frame, without inviting her in.

—What do you want?

—What do I want? —Carolina was trembling with rage—. What you did to my husband is unforgivable. I came to tell you to your face, and I’m warning you I’m going to report you for assault.

—Of course —Renata replied, unruffled—. As if there were any witness to what you’re claiming.

She opened the door a little wider and nodded toward the inside of the living room, where Damián was still kneeling, mute.

—Look. That one there is my slave. Does he look happy to you? —She gave the air a tug as if she were holding an invisible leash—. Bark.

—Woof, woof! —Damián obeyed from inside, without lifting his head.

Carolina stepped back, pale.

—Your word against mine —Renata continued, never losing her composure—. And there’s no one here to confirm anything. Do you really think you’re going to get anywhere by coming to my door and shouting?

—You’re a fucking brat… —Carolina spat, and before she could think, she lunged forward, grabbed her by the hair, and yanked hard.

The pull tore a short, sharp cry from Renata. For an instant the pain blurred her vision. But rage was faster: she drove her fist into the other woman’s stomach, and Carolina doubled over and fell to her knees on the landing, winded.

***

Renata dragged her inside by the wrist and kicked the door shut. She sat astride her and pinned both her hands to the floor.

—You almost ripped my hair out —she said, her voice low and trembling with fury—. Do you know what happens to the ones who lay a hand on me?

Carolina struggled, but she was light and exhausted. Renata held her wrists with one hand and with the other turned her face to the side.

—Please, let me go —the woman gasped—. I didn’t mean to… I don’t know what came over me.

—Too late.

She forced her onto all fours by pulling her hair and took up the strap whip again. The first blow crossed her back; the second, lower. Carolina screamed, but between the pain and the crying something else slipped out, a different sound that gave her away just as her husband had been given away in the entrance hall.

—Take off your clothes —Renata ordered.

—What…?

—Are you deaf? —Another lash—. Your clothes. All of them.

With shaking hands, Carolina stripped right there on the living room floor and remained kneeling, arms crossed over her chest in a futile gesture of modesty.

—Bitches don’t talk —Renata said, taking a second collar from the package still open on the table—. They only bark.

She fastened the collar around her neck and clipped on the leash. Carolina no longer resisted. Something in her gaze had changed: fear was still there, but beneath it another thing was beginning to show, something she herself did not dare name.

***

Renata dragged her to where Damián had cleaned the floor and smashed her face down against the parquet, rubbing her cheek over the wet patch while she held the back of her neck down with her heel.

—Lick my boots clean —she ordered—. And do it properly.

Carolina stuck out her tongue and began to lick the leather, first with disgust, then with a surrender that scared her. When they were spotless, Renata smiled.

—Now comes the good part —she said—. Down in the entrance, your husband left something dirty. We’re going to fix it.

She tugged the leash and led her to the door. Carolina clutched the frame.

—Please, no. A neighbor could see me.

—Bitches don’t talk —Renata repeated, and a tap of the whip on her thigh made her shut up.

They stepped out onto the landing: one woman dressed, pulling on a leash, the other naked and on all fours with a collar around her neck. The elevator took them down to the entrance. Carolina kept her head bowed, her eyes fixed on Renata’s boots, unable to look at anything else.

—I knew it —Renata said when she saw the stain on the entrance tiles—. I knew you hadn’t cleaned it. Start. And if someone comes in and sees you, that’s your problem.

The woman bent down and licked the entrance floor clean, while her heart hammered in her chest with every footstep heard on the stairs.

***

Just as she was finishing, the elevator door opened and Elvira appeared, a lifelong neighbor, a family acquaintance, shopping bag in hand. She froze.

—And what is this, Renata?

—What you see, neighbor —she answered naturally, as if commenting on the weather—. A bitch who came to lick clean what she dirtied in the entrance.

Carolina squeezed her eyelids shut, wishing she could disappear.

—Say hello to the neighbor —Renata ordered.

—Woof —Carolina barked in a thread of a voice, and bent to kiss the tip of Elvira’s shoe, while Elvira stared at her in scandal and a curiosity she couldn’t quite conceal.

Elvira said nothing else. She shook her head, muttered something under her breath, and went up the stairs. Renata smiled: after that, not a single word of complaint would ever make sense.

***

She shoved Carolina back into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor. The woman was trembling, but also breathing hard, her thighs clenched, plainly aroused by the humiliation.

—You’re as submissive as your pig of a husband —Renata said, watching her—. You knew it and that’s why you came. Spread your legs.

Carolina obeyed. Renata lifted one leg and offered her the tip of her boot.

—If you need it that badly, do it yourself. Against the boot. And hurry up.

The woman rubbed herself against the leather, first slowly, then without control, biting her lip not to moan and failing. Renata took out her phone and recorded everything without her noticing. When Carolina came, it was with a long shudder that left her weak, broken on the elevator floor.

—Look what you’ve done to this —Renata said when the doors opened on her floor—. Clean it before you leave.

Carolina licked the elevator floor, tasting something she had never tasted before and that day, defeated, no longer disgusted her.

***

Before letting her go, Renata took out a lipstick and wrote a couple of words and a phone number on her chest. Then she threw her handbag, her keys, and the clothes shredded by the lashes at her.

—For the session and for the collar, you transfer me three hundred euros —she said—. By Bizum, with a clear message saying what it’s for. And grateful.

Carolina gathered her things as best she could and went forward on all fours to her own door, opened it, and slipped inside without daring to look back.

Minutes later, Renata’s phone vibrated with the notice of a transfer. The message came with it, written by hands that were surely trembling: “Tribute from your neighbor for today’s session.”

Renata smiled, put the phone away, and went up to her apartment. Damián was still kneeling where she had left him. She spent a while longer with him, until she was tired, and then sent him to the shower and dismissed him to his home.

It had been a long afternoon. She poured herself a drink, sank into the sofa, and closed her eyes. Let them all learn who rules this building.