The Lady of the Basement Taught Me to Obey

Time did not pass in that basement; it stood still, heavy, hanging from the low ceiling along with the chains that held me to the wall. I had stopped counting the hours. I had also stopped trying to break the locks: they were too thick, and every yank only drove the metal deeper into my wrists. All I had left was thinking, and thinking hurt almost as much as the marks.

I thought about all the women I had treated like objects, the ones I had looked down on, the ones I had fucked without looking them in the face and then thrown out of my bed the way you throw out the trash. Some of them had pooled together enough money to hire Doña Casilda. I still wasn’t convinced that any of it was fair. I only cursed my luck and waited, with my mouth sealed and my body numb, for the door to open again.

And it opened.

Doña Casilda came down the steps unhurriedly, with that calm of hers that was more frightening than any shout. She was a large woman, with broad arms and heavy hands, dressed in a dark robe buttoned all the way to the neck. She carried a canvas bag. She set it on the floor in front of the stool, and from inside she pulled out a huge can of dog food and a long-handled spoon.

What does she want now?

—You’ve been locked in here for many hours. You must be hungry —she said, and her voice was almost kind—. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of feeding you. You’re going to eat this. It’s what you deserve.

***

From the same bag she took out a long, stiff plastic apron, the kind fishmongers wear so they don’t get dirty. She slipped it over her head and tied the straps at her waist in a dry knot. Then came the gloves: thick, rubber ones, which she pulled on, forcing each finger in with meticulous patience. The squeak of the rubber against her skin made the back of my neck prickle. When she was done, she clapped loudly, like someone announcing the start of something.

—I’m going to take off your gag —she warned—. One warning. If you scream, if you disrespect me even with your eyes, I’m coming back with the strap and I’ll whip you until you run out of tears. Do you understand?

She grabbed my hair with the gloved hand and yanked upward to force me to meet her gaze. I nodded as best I could. Her eyes were hard, without a trace of doubt.

Two stupid hopes lit up in my head. One: if she uncovered my mouth, at some point I could scream and someone would hear me. Two: sooner or later she would have to unchain me to go to the bathroom, and that would be my chance. I clung to both. I was wrong about both, though I didn’t know it yet.

It took her quite a while to free my mouth. When she finally ripped off the last wrap of tape and pulled out the rag that sealed it, I breathed as if I were rising from the bottom of a well. For a moment the air tasted like freedom. Doña Casilda sat in the armchair in front of me, opened the can, plunged in the spoon, and brought it to my lips.

—Open.

I didn’t open. I preferred hunger first. Her gloved hand cut through the air and slapped me so hard it turned my face and left my ear ringing. I opened my mouth on instinct, and the war began. She shoved in the spoon loaded with that pasty mess and I spat it out. She loaded it again, and I spat again. The floor filled with splashes. Her breathing grew heavier and heavier.

—I said swallow —she hissed—. You’re making me angry.

—I’m not eating your trash —I shouted at her, my voice broken.

And then I let out what I’d been holding in for hours: I screamed for help, I screamed toward the ceiling, toward the stone walls, toward anyone who might be upstairs. My first chance. The only one I thought I had.

***

Doña Casilda stood up from the armchair slowly, and I knew at once that I had made a serious mistake. I had never seen her like that. She did not shout. That was the worst part. She merely pointed at me with the gloved finger while her jaw tightened.

—I’m going to teach you to obey me —she said softly—. And you’re going to regret this moment very, very much.

She went around the stool and stood behind me. She slipped her forearm around my neck, as in a wrestling hold, and with the edge of that same hand she pinched my nose shut. I couldn’t breathe. With her other hand she plunged the glove into the can, brought it out loaded, and shoved it all the way into my mouth, pressing with the pads of her fingers so no space remained. Then she covered my lips.

—Swallow if you want air.

Her method was foolproof. I swallowed. I swallowed because the body is more cowardly than pride, because lungs know nothing of dignity. She loaded the glove again and again, without giving me a second to spit, until the can was empty and I had eaten every last crumb, scraping her fingers clean. I was crying with rage and disgust, and she didn’t care the slightest. It was exactly what she wanted.

—Now you’ll eat another —she announced—. Because I say so. That way you’ll learn for next time.

She took a second can from the bag and repeated the whole ritual. The glove inside my open mouth, my nose clamped shut, air negotiated in exchange for each mouthful. She left me no other way out. When she finished, I felt bloated, humiliated, ruined.

***

—I warned you —she said, picking up from the floor the rag that had sealed my mouth before—. I told you the strap would come back if you disobeyed me. A few rounds will help you remember.

She gagged me again. She wound tape over tape around my mouth and head, without sparing any, making sure I couldn’t push the rag out with my tongue. She used up the rest of the roll. When she was done, I was deaf to my own breathing, locked inside myself.

—Enjoy the silence —she murmured—. Next time it’ll be something worse. Do you think I’m not capable of it? We’ll find out if you scream again.

She went to the shelf and unhooked a brown leather strap. She weighed it in her hand. Then she changed her mind, smiled, hung it back up, and opened a cabinet from which she took out a very different one: black, made of thick rubber. A strap she had made herself. Today I know she’d fashioned it from the rubber of an old tire, scraping the surface until it stood bristling with tiny spikes. That day I only saw a hard black thing in her hand, and the way she smiled as she looked at it.

—I’ve been dying to use it —she said, savoring every word—. It’s going to hurt like hell, I promise you. I’m going to whip you until my arm gets tired, and when I’m done you’ll never disobey me again. Cry as much as you want. But in silence.

She stood behind me, yanked down my pants and underwear in one pull, leaving my ass naked, trembling under the yellow light of the bulb. I felt the basement’s cold air lick my buttocks before the first blow, and I tensed from head to toe, knowing there was no going back now. It began.

***

The first blow tore a howl from me that the gag swallowed into a dull moan. The second was worse. The rubber spikes bit into the flesh of my buttocks and dragged at the same time, and each strike left a line of fire that added itself to the last. I lost count. I clenched my teeth against the rag, shut my eyes, and let the pain empty me from the inside out.

When it stopped, I was something else. The skin on my ass was burning, raw, and the simple brush of the basement’s cold air over the marks made me shudder. Doña Casilda was breathing hard, satisfied, wiping her forehead with her forearm. I had learned the lesson she wanted to teach me, and we both knew it.

She went around the stool and planted herself in front of me, still panting from the effort. She lowered her gaze and a slow smile crept across her mouth. I lowered my eyes too, and then I saw it: my cock, between my legs, hard as a rock, pointing at the ceiling, throbbing in time with my own crazed heartbeat. I hadn’t wanted it. My body had betrayed me without permission.

—Well, well —she murmured, with a new tone, almost amused—. So the strap gets your cock hard. Look at that. A real macho man, drooling for a few lashes like a heat-struck dog.

She extended the gloved hand and caught it between two fingers, squeezing the base with the rough rubber. I jolted against the chains. A thin thread of clear liquid was already beading at the tip.

—Look at that. You’re already leaking. —She slid her thumb over the glans, gathering the drop, and rubbed it over the lips of the gag—. Keep that. It’s your own lust, and I want you breathing it for the next few hours.

Then she ran her hand down the shaft, squeezing me with calculated slowness. It wasn’t a caress: it was a demonstration that this too belonged to her. She closed her gloved fist around my cock and jerked it three times, very slowly, staring into my eyes. I moaned against the rag, humiliation rising from my gut to my face.

—Don’t even think about coming —she whispered—. Your load is mine, and I’ll decide when I let you release it, if I ever let you at all. If you stain my floor without my permission, I’ll whip you another round just like this one, and this time over the fresh marks. Do you hear me?

I nodded, eyes wet, while she kept moving her hand up and down, squeezing, easing off, playing with my resistance. The rubber scratched my cock’s skin and claimed it at the same time, and I couldn’t move away, couldn’t close my legs, couldn’t do anything but stay still, chained, with my ass on fire and my cock trembling between the fingers of a stranger who hated me. When she noticed I was starting to swell, when she saw my breathing catching, she let go all at once and stepped back.

—No —she said, satisfied—. Not yet. You still have a lot to learn.

She wiped the glove on the apron, as if she’d just touched something dirty, and went back to her business.

—I don’t want this room to be a pigsty —she said, her voice calm again—. It’s time to empty your body. Like a clean animal.

For a second I fooled myself again. She’s going to let me go. She’s going to take me upstairs. This time for real. But then I saw her go back to the shelf and take down a transparent medical bag and a long silicone tube, thick and flexible. She hung the bag from a hook in the wall and began filling it with a warm liquid. She wasn’t going to let me go. She had never intended to let me go.

—See this tube? —she asked, holding the end up in front of my eyes—. It’s going to go all the way up your ass. Relax, because the easier you make it, the less it’ll hurt. If you fight it, it’ll go in anyway, I guarantee it.

She positioned herself behind me. She spread my buttocks with both gloved hands, pulling them apart carelessly, and I felt the cold air touch my hole directly. A rough thumb traced up and down over it, probing, pressing the wrinkled rim until it gave a little. Then came the tube. The cold tip, smeared with something slick, pressed against my anus and began to push in, slowly at first. I twisted, clenched my sphincter, tried to force it out, and she stopped with a sigh of annoyance.

—You never learn —she said—. The hard way, then.

She shoved without mercy. The tube forced its way through the closed ring, and I felt it working deeper inside me, centimeter by centimeter, stretching me, burning me, until it went all the way in and I felt the silicone base press against my bruised buttocks. I was crying against the gag, tears running down my chin, and she didn’t care; it was, again, exactly what she intended. With her other hand she palpated my belly, pressing it lightly, measuring me from the outside. Then she opened the clamp on the bag and the warm liquid began to flood into my ass. I could feel it rising inside me, pushing, searching for space, while the tube remained stuck in me like a stake. The pressure built with unbearable slowness, a sensation of fullness skirting the limit of what I could endure, and my cock, to my horror, stayed hard, throbbing in the air, leaking again.

Doña Casilda saw it and let out a short, satisfied laugh.

—Look at you. Your ass full and your cock hard. You’re going to make a good little animal, I can already see that.

She closed the clamp when the bag was completely empty. She squeezed one buttock with the glove, pressing it down against the tube, making sure nothing escaped too early.

—The enema’s a long one —she said, heading for the door—. I’ll be back in two hours to take it out. Hold out as best you can. If you leak, even a drop, tomorrow it’ll be three bags in a row. When I’m done, you’ll be clean inside and out.

She peeled off the gloves by the edge, finger by finger, and tucked them into her pocket. She never touched her prisoners with bare hands. Before closing up, she turned back to me one last time and looked my naked body over from head to toe, chained, my ass spread by the tube and my erection pointing into nothing.

—One more thing. I already spoke with the women who hired me. I told them I’d punished you and let you go, and they were satisfied. —She paused to let it sink in—. No one’s coming to look for you. You’re going to spend a long while here, learning manners from me. I’m not taking your gag off. And the day I do, if you scream again, I’ve already warned you what will happen. You decide whether you obey or not.

She shut the door and locked it from the outside. The bolt sounded final, absolute. I was left alone in the dimness, my ass on fire, my belly swollen and pressing against itself, and my cock still hard, throbbing with no one touching it. Counting a time that no longer belonged to me. I had hours ahead of me before she came back. And, for the first time, I didn’t think about escaping. I thought about obeying.