The Four Tied Him Up in the Basement and the Punishment Began

Damián Vázquez had gotten out of prison barely three months earlier, and in that time he hadn’t changed a gram of what he was. He was thirty-six years old, with a body honed in expensive gyms and a smile he used like bait. He had been a swimmer, had played semi-professional soccer, and carried an inherited fortune that included two houses, brand-new cars, and a yacht moored at the yacht club. That same fortune had served him for something more useful than luxuries: buying a judge.

He had been convicted of assaulting three adult women, all older than twenty-five, all seduced and then forced in his downtown apartment. The sentence was five years. He got out after two and a half for “good behavior.” Those who had followed the case closely knew that good behavior had the color of money.

Prison hadn’t made him repent. It had only taught him to be more careful, to leave no traces, to erase messages. Next time I won’t make the mistake of letting them talk, he sometimes thought, while driving at night along the waterfront. He couldn’t imagine that somewhere, someone was thinking exactly the same thing about him.

***

Lucía, Carla, Noelia, and Sabrina had known each other since high school. They had met in a classroom at a public school, the four of them listening to the same music, the four of them with the same badly hidden rage toward men who thought they owned the world. A literature teacher lent them the first books that gave words to that rage, and from then on they were inseparable.

They had learned to defend themselves early. When one of Lucía’s boyfriends raised a hand to her for going out dancing without telling him, the other three didn’t argue. Carla drove a kick into his groin that folded him in half; Noelia landed a second before he had even finished falling. The boy ended up on his knees, white as a sheet, out of air, clutching himself with both hands.

—The next time you touch one of us —Noelia told him, crouching down to his face— you’ll leave the neighborhood in an ambulance.

After that, they understood something: together, they were something else. They started training kickboxing, not as a sport, but as a method. They perfected a single technique until it became infallible. And for years they were content to humiliate some nightclub asshole, empty his wallet, leave him hard and stranded. Until Damián’s case made every newspaper, and the four of them agreed, without needing to say it aloud, that this time things would be different.

***

For a month they did intelligence work. They wrote down Damián’s routines as if they were keeping a diary: what time he trained, which nights he drove alone, when he turned off his phone. The plan was simple, and that was why it was dangerous: any improvisation would ruin it.

Lucía would be the bait. She was the one who best fit the type of beauty Damián hunted, and she knew how to use it. The idea was to lead him to a deserted lot with the promise of something easy, and once there, while she kept him distracted, Carla—the strongest of the four—would stab a fast-acting anesthetic into his neck with a syringe. Asleep, he would be dead weight, easy to transport to the country house Sabrina had inherited, lost among hills, with no neighbor for miles, and a basement with thick walls that looked as though it had been built for exactly what they intended to do.

They waited for the right night. Damián left the gym after eleven, gym bag over his shoulder and his car parked half a block away. Lucía appeared leaning against the hood, playing with the keys, pretending there was a problem with the engine. He took the bait in less than a minute. When he got close enough to believe the night belonged to him, he felt the cold prick in his neck, managed to turn his head, and the empty lot slipped out of his hands like water.

***

He woke up naked.

That was the first piece of information his brain managed to sort out: he was completely naked, seated in a wooden chair, with his wrists cuffed behind his back and his ankles tied with rope to the front legs. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. The floor was concrete. It smelled of damp and earth.

While he was unconscious, the four of them had taken their time. They had stripped him with almost bureaucratic neatness: the shirt unbuttoned button by button, the socks folded inside each shoe, the belt rolled up on a table. They had left the last thing for the end, and they had enjoyed it. With a pair of scissors they cut the fabric of his boxers around him, unhurriedly, until he was exposed. They had taken pictures. Then they finished cutting and put the pieces in a bag.

—Welcome —Lucía said, sitting backwards on a chair, her arms crossed over the backrest—. You slept like a baby.

It took Damián a while to speak. When he did, his voice came out thick.

—What the fuck is this? Do you know who I am?

—We know exactly who you are —Noelia replied, not lifting her eyes from the device she was checking on the table—. That’s why you’re here and not at home.

He pulled at the metal of the handcuffs. They didn’t give even a millimeter. He tried with his feet; the rope was loose, he thought, and for a second he believed he could get free. He rocked forward, misjudged the weight, and the chair toppled sideways. He hit the concrete with a dull thud that echoed through the whole basement.

The four of them came in before he had finished cursing.

—There it is —Carla said, looking down at him—. The champion trying to escape.

They lifted him between the four of them and set the chair upright again. Damián was huffing, with a hurt shoulder and a scrape on his cheek.

—That was a mistake —Lucía said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear—. Here, every single thing you do has a price. And you’re paying for this now. Girls, what do we vote?

—I say electricity —Sabrina said, appearing from the back with a metal box in her hands. Two wires with clamps came out of the box; on top there was a dial and a small needle gauge—. So he understands with his body what he doesn’t understand with his head.

—Approved unanimously —said Noelia.

***

For the first time since he’d woken up, the arrogance vanished from Damián’s face. He looked at the device, looked at the clamps, and something in his stomach clenched like a fist.

—Wait, wait —he said, and his voice came out an octave higher—. I’ve got money. A lot. Whatever you want. Accounts, cash, whatever. Don’t do anything crazy, let’s talk.

—Money? —Lucía laughed without humor, a short, razor-edged laugh—. You bought the judge with money. You bought the prosecutor with money. Two guys just like you let you walk out onto the street. And now you come here offering us the same thing. —She crouched until she was at his eye level—. It’s not enough. Not this time.

Sabrina came closer with the clamps. She took his chest with nurse-like coldness and clipped one onto each nipple. The metal was cold, and Damián shuddered before anything even happened.

—With those pecs he ought to hold up pretty well —she commented, connecting the wires to the box—. Let’s start here.

She turned the dial. The current shot through him like a lash from the center of his chest. His whole body tensed against the restraints, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords, his eyes rolling white for an instant. The scream came out hoarse, bounced off the concrete walls, and cut off only when Sabrina turned the dial down.

—Too much —Carla said, assessing him with her arms crossed—. We don’t want him dead. We want him awake.

—Relax, I’m controlling it —Sabrina replied, and turned it again, this time just a little.

The second shock was longer and lower. Damián trembled, gasped, his head drooped forward and they yanked it up by the hair. They gave him a third one, then a break. His nipples had gone red, the skin around the metal marked. His chest rose and fell like that of a cornered animal.

—This —Sabrina told him, letting go of the clamps— is what happens to you for trying to escape. The next shock won’t be up here.

—It’ll be lower down —Noelia added, and the four of them laughed at the same time.

Carla crouched between Damián’s spread legs and took his cock in one indifferent hand, like someone picking up a tool they weren’t sure worked. She squeezed it, moved it, let it flop against his thigh with contempt. Damián had a spasm of humiliation that rose from his stomach to his face.

—Look at this, girls —Carla said—. With this dick he finished off three women. With this same dick he’s going to finish off in here, right, champ?

—No... —he began, and his voice cracked—. No, please, don’t...

—Don’t what? —Lucía grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back—. Don’t want us to see your cock? We’ve already seen it, you piece of shit. We took pictures. Now we’re going to see what it’s good for.

Sabrina licked two fingers and ran them over the glans with clinical slowness. Damián clenched his teeth, fought his body, but the flesh betrayed him: his dick began to swell between Sabrina’s fingers, indifferent to what its owner thought.

—Look at the poor bastard —Noelia laughed—. He doesn’t care who’s handling it. He gets hard even with the women who are going to kill him.

—He’s a dog —Carla said—. A dog doesn’t choose. He goes where he’s touched.

Sabrina closed her hand around it and started jerking him off with a firm fist, with absolutely no tenderness, as though milking a machine. The other hand pinched his balls every time he tried to clamp his thighs shut. Damián moaned despite himself, eyes squeezed shut, face red with shame and with the effort of not reacting to the stimulation.

—Look at me, motherfucker —Sabrina ordered, and slapped the inside of his thigh so hard it cracked like a whip—. Look at my face while I jerk you off. Like you did with the girls when you covered their mouths.

She pried his eyes open with her free hand, forcing his eyelids apart, and kept working his cock against his will. Damián felt the orgasm climbing up his spine like betrayal, and the four of them realized it before he did.

—He’s going to come —Sabrina announced, amused—. Look at the rapist, he’s going to come for us all by himself.

—No, no, no —he gasped—. No, please, stop, stop...

—Ah, no. Now you finish —Lucía squeezed his jaw with one hand—. Now you come like a little slut, in front of us, and then we keep talking.

Sabrina tightened the pace, dry, hard, without a drop of saliva, and Damián came with a guttural howl he didn’t recognize as his own. He shot over his own stomach, over his thighs, over her hand, which didn’t even bother to move away. When he was done, Sabrina wiped her fingers in his hair, dragging semen along his temple and forehead.

—There —she said—. Now you’re marked.

Damián was crying silently, head hanging, chest jerking up in spasms. Never in his life had he felt so small, not even on the first night in prison. This was worse than any shock, because his body had betrayed him in public, in front of the four women who decided whether he lived or died.

—Now —Lucía said, taking off her T-shirt at her leisure, left in a black bra— comes the part for us.

She climbed onto him astride, with her jeans still on, and set her cloth-covered cunt right over his soft, sensitive cock. Damián jolted in pain. She laughed, pressed harder, and began moving on top of him slowly, rubbing against him, using him like furniture.

—This is the only thing you’re going to do right tonight —she whispered in his ear, biting his earlobe—. تحمل the weight.

She came like that, fabric against skin, her mouth open against his neck, sinking her teeth into his shoulder when the orgasm shook her. When she finished, she got down, straightened her clothes, and patted his cheek with two fingers, almost tenderly.

—Thanks, champ.

—My turn —said Noelia.

She unbuttoned her jeans, pulled them and her panties down to her knees, and sat backwards on Damián’s face, pressing her ass against his mouth. With one hand she pinched his nose shut. With the other she reached behind her, grabbed his hair, and shoved his head against her cunt.

—Lick —she ordered—. Lick and take it like a good boy, you motherfucker. And if you bite me I swear on my mother Sabrina will grab your balls with the machine again. Stick your tongue out like you’re asking for forgiveness.

Damián stuck out his tongue. He moved it however he could, choking, nose blocked and mouth occupied. Noelia ground against his face with the calm of someone collecting an old debt, moving her hips in slow circles, setting the rhythm with tugs on his hair. When she came, she pressed his head so hard against her that he felt like his neck was going to snap. She finally stood up, breathing deeply, and looked at his face smeared with slick and saliva.

—You’re much better like this —she told him—. Quiet and on your knees. You ought to keep that face forever.

Carla and Sabrina didn’t touch his body. They stood in front of him, one pressed against the other, and started kissing less than a meter from his face, their hands each buried under the other’s clothes. They made him watch. Every time he looked down, one of them jerked his hair up so he’d keep looking. Sabrina ended up with Carla’s fingers inside her cunt, moaning softly against her mouth, and not once did they look at him. It was like not existing. It was worse than everything before.

When they were done, Carla wiped her hand on Damián’s cheek and smeared the sticky palm over his lips.

—Lick —she said. He licked—. See how easy it is to obey? Your victims learned that fast too. You taught them.

Damián’s cock, against all logic, had gotten hard again sometime during the last act, traitorous once more, pointing alone at the ceiling. Lucía nodded toward it with her chin.

—Look at that. Look at the poor little thing —she said—. He never learns. He gets hard with the four women who are going to ruin him.

—Let him deal with it —said Sabrina—. Let him keep it hard all night and let nobody touch it. That’s a punishment too.

And there they left him, with his cock hard and lonely in the air, old come glistening on his stomach, his face sticky, his breathing coming in ragged pulls.

—Now then —Lucía said, looking down at him—. Now it’s time for water.

***

They brought a bottle of water to his mouth and let him drink. Not out of pity: they wanted him intact for what came next. While he swallowed, the four of them argued among themselves with a calm that chilled his blood more than shouting would have.

—I say we let him sit like that for a while —Lucía said—. Let him think. Let him sweat. Fear works on its own.

—I’d keep going now —Carla replied—. He’s soft, he’s begging. This is the moment.

—Majority rules —Noelia cut in—. We let him rest. And when he opens his mouth again to threaten us, we pick back up.

Damián listened to them deciding what to do with his body as if it were an object on a table, and he understood, with a clarity that turned his stomach, that he wasn’t getting out of that basement by force or by money. Those four women weren’t going to leave witnesses, and he knew it better than anyone, because that was exactly the calculation he himself had made before, from the other side.

—Please —he muttered, and there was nothing left of the champ in that voice—. Please.

Lucía leaned in until her mouth was a centimeter from his ear.

—That word —she told him slowly—. I’d bet more than one woman said it to you. And you didn’t stop. —She straightened and looked at her friends—. We have all night. And we’re just getting started.

The sensation of having absolute control over that man coursed through the four of them like a current of its own, stronger than any voltage. Sabrina carefully coiled the wires and left them on the table, in plain sight, where Damián could keep looking at them during the break. Fear, as Lucía had said, worked on its own.

They turned off the basement bulb when they left. They left him in the dark, tied up, listening to their footsteps receding up the wooden stairs. And in that darkness, for the first time in his life, Damián Vázquez wished with all his might that he had never gotten out of prison.