The Game of Submission Renata Imposed That Afternoon

What I’m about to tell still isn’t easy for me to sort out in my head, because it was at once the most disturbing and the most exciting thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life. And I was only watching.

It was a stifling July afternoon. Renata had invited us to her villa on the outskirts of town, a huge house with a garden and a pool that no one could see from the street. I was stretched out on a lounger, with a lemonade that had already gone warm, while Renata and Ximena were swimming naked. It wasn’t the first time I had seen them without clothes, but that afternoon there was something different in the air, a tension I couldn’t name until it was too late.

Renata had always had that commanding air about her. She spoke little and, when she did, everyone obeyed without even realizing it. Ximena was her exact opposite: nervous, eager to please, always looking for other people’s approval. That afternoon, watching the two of them in the water, I understood that there was something between them I was only just beginning to suspect.

—Get out of the water —Renata said suddenly.

She didn’t ask. She ordered. Ximena obeyed at once, without question, and stood at the edge of the pool, dripping wet and trembling slightly despite the heat.

What is going on here?

—Lucía, you stay where you are —Renata told me without looking at me, as if she were reading my mind—. Just watch. Say nothing.

I wanted to get up. I wanted to say I’d better go. But I didn’t. I stayed nailed to the lounger, my heart pounding in my chest and a curiosity I was ashamed to admit.

***

Renata approached Ximena with a calm that made my skin crawl. She brushed her jaw with two fingers, tipped her face up, forced her to hold her gaze.

—Do you remember what we talked about? —she asked in a low voice.

—Yes —Ximena answered, almost in a whisper.

—Say it properly.

—Yes, ma’am.

Something tightened inside me at those two words. This wasn’t a joke between friends. It was an agreement, a pact the two of them knew by heart and that I was seeing for the first time. Renata was the mistress. Ximena surrendered herself to her completely, and she did it with a mixture of fear and desire that showed in every gesture.

—Today someone’s watching —Renata said, pacing slowly around her—. That makes it better, doesn’t it? Having Lucía see you obey.

Ximena closed her eyes. She nodded. Her breathing had turned short, ragged, and I saw the skin on her thighs rise in goosebumps despite the sun beating down on the garden.

I didn’t move. I could barely breathe. My cheeks were burning and there was an uncomfortable wetness between my legs that I refused to admit even to myself.

The strangest thing was the silence. There was no music, no laughter, none of the usual chatter of an afternoon with friends. Only Renata’s orders, crisp and precise, and the splash of water every time Ximena changed position. Every word fell into the garden with a weight that seemed to bend the air, and I took them all in as if they were meant for me too.

Then I realized I’d been gripping the edge of the lounger with both hands for quite a while. I slowly loosened my fingers, embarrassed, and discovered I didn’t even remember when I’d set the lemonade down. Everything that existed was happening three meters away from me, and I was incapable of looking anywhere else.

—On your knees —Renata said.

Ximena knelt on the hot tiles at the edge, head bowed and hands on her thighs. Renata stood in front of her, dominating her with the mere posture of her body, one hand on her hip and the other stroking her wet hair with a tenderness that clashed with the hardness of her voice.

—Good girl —she murmured—. Now you’re going to do exactly what I tell you. If you do it well, you get a reward. If not, we repeat it until you learn. Is that clear?

—Yes, ma’am.

***

What followed forced me to swallow several times. Renata turned every minute into a lesson in power. She ordered her to do little things —to lean, to open herself, to hold an uncomfortable position while the sun burned her back— and Ximena carried them all out, trembling, her eyes shining with a submission that seemed to keep her upright more than to humiliate her.

—You’re enjoying this —Renata told her, bending down to speak into her ear, though loud enough for me to hear—. You like being watched while you obey. You like feeling small.

—Yes —Ximena admitted, her voice breaking—. I like it.

—Tell Lucía. Look at her and tell her.

Ximena slowly turned her head and pinned me with her eyes. I’ll never forget that look: vulnerable, surrendered, lit up with a desire she had no need to hide.

—I like it when you see me like this —she told me.

I felt the ground shift beneath me. I wanted to look away and couldn’t. I wanted it to end and, at the same time, I prayed it would go on. Renata noticed, of course. Renata noticed everything.

—You can’t stop watching either, can you, Lucía? —she said, without turning toward me—. Relax. You don’t have to do anything. You’re only a witness. But we both know what’s happening to you.

I didn’t answer. There was no need. My body answered for me: my ragged breathing, the legs I squeezed together without meaning to, the heat that no longer came from the sun.

***

Renata turned her attention back to Ximena. She made her stand up, led her to the pool steps and positioned her with her back to me, hands on the rail and body leaning forward. It was a posture of absolute exposure, total surrender under the harsh afternoon light.

—This is the part that’s hardest for you —Renata told her, sliding a hand down her back to the curve of her waist—. The part that embarrasses you most. That’s why we’re going to do it in front of her.

Ximena moaned, a sound halfway between protest and surrender.

—Please —she whispered.

—“Please” is not “no” —Renata replied, quoting Ximena’s own rules back to her—. If you want to stop, you know the word. Do you want to stop?

There was a long, thick silence, broken only by the buzz of cicadas. Ximena shook her head.

—No, ma’am.

—Then go on.

What Renata asked of her next was the very heart of their game: a raw intimacy, stripped of filters, the kind you only give when you trust the person in charge blindly. Ximena obeyed, body tense and face hidden between her arms, exposed completely on those steps, knowing I could see everything. It was degradation, yes, but a degradation she had chosen, one that drove her to the limit, and that Renata administered with an almost devout precision.

—That’s it —Renata said, stroking the back of her neck as Ximena obeyed—. Look how brave you are. Look how much you give yourself.

The pool water stopped being clean. No one seemed to care. Renata watched her submissive with cold satisfaction, lips parted, while Ximena trembled from head to toe, pierced by a mixture of shame and pleasure that I recognized far too well because I could feel it throbbing in my own body too.

***

When it was over, Renata wrapped her arms around her. That was the other side of the game: after control, care. She held her, kissed her temple, whispered things I couldn’t hear but that made Ximena soften completely against her chest, as if she could finally let go of all the weight she’d been carrying.

—You did perfectly —Renata told her—. I’m proud of you.

Ximena was crying a little, but she was smiling. That contradiction completely undid me. There had been no cruelty in what I’d just seen, even if it looked that way from the outside. There was such absolute trust between the two of them that I was left speechless, one of those connections ordinary people never manage to understand.

At last Renata turned to me. She looked at me for a long time, assessing me, reading me the way she had read Ximena all afternoon.

—You don’t have to say anything —she said—. I know exactly what you’re thinking. And I know you’re going to come back.

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to say what I’d seen was too much, that it wasn’t for me, that I’d only been passing through. But I stayed silent, because it would have been a lie and she would have known it instantly.

—Next time —she added, with a half-smile that made my skin prickle—, maybe I won’t let you only watch.

***

I left the villa with weak legs and my head spinning. In the car, with the windows down and the hot air hitting my face, I tried to convince myself I would never set foot in that house again.

I didn’t succeed. I knew it as soon as the engine started: a part of me, one I hadn’t known until that afternoon, was already counting the days until Renata’s next invitation. And that part, the one I discovered while watching, was the one that scared me most. Because I knew exactly what it wanted.