The Master’s Arrangement the Night Before the Trip

Ámbar finished closing the suitcase without being entirely convinced by the plan. The other two were in favor of doing it that way, and she didn’t want to seem like an overbearing Mistress imposing every step. Besides, she didn’t have a better plan. It had been a month since they’d lowered the shop’s shutter for the last time, and the trip was the only thing left ahead of them.

The business had belonged to her, Renata, and Daniela for three years. They sold it in February, split what little was left after settling debts, and decided to say goodbye to that stage by crossing the continent together before each took her own path. It was a farewell and, like any farewell worth the trouble, it demanded one last ritual.

The ritual had a first and last name: Maximiliano.

They had met him through Renata, who had known him for years and referred to him, with a crooked smile, as “the little cousin.” They weren’t family. It was her way of making clear that she knew him too well to fear him. Maximiliano ran a tattoo studio down at the port, a man just over fifty, darkened by the sun, with a thick mustache and the habit of speaking as if no one could contradict him.

The three of them arrived at the studio at dusk. The only employee, a tattoo artist covered in piercings, looked up from her magazine, sized them up at a glance, and went back to reading. Maximiliano was waiting for them in the back room, with the door ajar and two drinks poured that no one intended to touch.

“From tonight until you’re back from the trip, no pleasure between you,” he announced as soon as the door closed. “Not between the two of you, and not alone. That’s the rule. And so you can get through the abstinence without going crazy, tonight I’m giving it to you. I’ll start with the blonde.”

Daniela didn’t flinch. She was twenty-three, had an impossible waist, and breasts that drew more attention than her blue eyes, which was saying a lot. She had worked for Ámbar long enough to know that this was part of the game, and that the game had its rates.

“Payment first,” she demanded, not moving from the doorway.

Maximiliano looked at Renata.

“She’s not a partner, so we agreed on a separate amount,” Renata explained, folding her arms. “You pay her and I’ll pay you back, or let her wait until we get home.”

“We’ll sort it out later.” Daniela shrugged and started unbuttoning her blouse. “But the arrangement is mine with her, not with you. I’ll let you use me tonight.” She let the fabric fall and unclasped her bra. “You can spank me. On the ass, as much as you want. Not on the breasts, though, because I don’t want to show up marked and have the Mistress get annoyed.”

Ámbar watched her from the corner in silence, with that stillness that was hers and that counted for more than any order. It was enough for her simply to be there for everyone in the room to remember who set the pace.

***

Daniela took off her skirt. She kept her heels on, thin and very high, because Maximiliano asked her to with a gesture when she made a move to crouch and take them off. She lay down on the table in the back and opened her legs with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times.

“All yours,” she said.

He took her without preliminaries, and it soon became clear that the girl didn’t need any. She was ready, wet, lubricated by the mix of tension and habit. Maximiliano leaned down and brushed his lips against the tip of one of the heels.

“You hardly even register,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Turn over.”

Daniela rolled over on the table and offered him her ass. It still held the bluish shadow of old spanking, from three days before, and the idea of adding more made a shiver run through her that she didn’t know if it came from annoyance or desire. He gave it to her. He thrust from behind, setting the rhythm with dry smacks on already bruised skin, and each blow made her clamp down around him until she came with a long moan, her fingers digging into the edge of the table.

Maximiliano held out a little longer, demanding that she tense her body, clench, work for him. When he finished, he pulled back sweating and let himself fall against the wall, his pants still halfway down one leg.

“Clean me up,” he ordered, expecting a refusal that would give him an excuse to keep insisting.

There was no refusal. Daniela knelt without needing to be told twice and did as she was told, slowly, looking him in the eyes the whole time, because she knew that looking straight ahead while you obey is the finest way to remind a man that obedience is also a choice.

“That’s it,” he said, his voice rough. “Exactly like that.”

When she was done, Daniela dressed without rushing, gathered her blouse and bra, and stopped for a second in front of Ámbar before leaving.

“Permission, Mistress?”

“Go,” Ámbar replied. “And don’t touch yourself until I say so.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The blonde crossed the shop, gave the tattoo artist a distracted glance, and went out into the street. The rule was already weighing on her, and she liked feeling the weight of it.

***

“We’re alone now,” Maximiliano remarked, finally pulling up his belt. “Are you sure, Renata?”

“Sure, I’m not,” she replied, letting her black hair loose. “I suspect you’re going to make it hurt on purpose. But I want what’s mine, and what’s mine includes this.” She sat on the edge of the table and began taking off her stockings. “Use lube with me. I’m not her.”

“Yes, little cousin.”

Renata was fourteen years older than Daniela, dark-haired, dark-skinned, with hazel eyes and a wiry body that barely hinted at curves but carried a presence that was hard to ignore. She wore heels even higher than the blonde’s, twenty-centimeter stilettos she could manage because she had a large foot and a dancer’s balance. She lay down on the table and opened her legs with a gesture that was not surrender, but concession.

“Go ahead.”

Maximiliano took his time. He prepared her with calculated care, pausing every time she complained, not out of tenderness but because he knew Renata’s pleasure lived right on the edge between pain and rage. He entered her slowly, measuring each thrust against the sounds she let out through clenched teeth.

“I’m afraid this part is the one that burns the most,” he apologized, without stopping.

“Don’t apologize,” she spat. “I know you. You don’t feel it.”

He laughed under his breath and kept going. Renata endured it with her eyes closed and her jaw tight, letting the burn rise and turn into something else. There came a point when her complaints changed tone, grew deeper, rougher, and Maximiliano noticed it the way a dog notices fear: with his whole body. He picked up the pace, convinced he had her.

“Now you’re going to ask me for it,” he panted. “You’re going to ask me to finish.”

“That’s what you think,” Renata answered.

***

When he finally emptied himself, he stayed lying on his back on the floor, satisfied, with that lowered guard men get when they’re convinced they’ve won. It was his mistake. The only one that truly mattered.

“Fuck me again!” he begged, still gasping. “Please, one more!”

“After how much that burned?” Renata sat up slowly, a look of annoyance crossing her face as she climbed down from the table. “And you’re still asking?” She set one foot on the floor, then the other, and straightened up on her twenty-centimeter heels like someone drawing a blade. “Stay there. Don’t move.”

He obeyed, believing it was part of the reward. Renata approached and planted the stiletto point straight into his chest, resting her weight on it slowly, calibrating, until the tip left a red half-moon on his brown skin. Maximiliano moaned, and to his own surprise, he hardened again.

“Look at you,” she said, fascinated by his humiliation. “You come with this. You were the one in charge, weren’t you? The one making the rules.”

“Renata…” he started.

“Shut up.” She drove the other heel into his thigh, marking a second red point. “The rule about not touching each other until we get back applies to them. I didn’t accept any rule of yours tonight. You accepted mine and didn’t even realize it.”

Ámbar, from her corner, finally let out something like a smile. She hadn’t said a word all night. She hadn’t needed to. She had orchestrated everything with the bare economy of her presence: she gave in to his demands so he’d lower his guard, knowing Renata would collect the full debt when the time came.

“Do it again!” Maximiliano pleaded, writhing against the floor. “Please!”

“See? Now you’re asking me properly.” Renata withdrew the heel, settled herself between his spread legs, and measured the distance with the toe of her shoe. “But I decide when. And I decide no.”

The blow caught him off guard, dry and exact, delivered with all the accumulated hunger of the night. Against all expectations, or perhaps because of them, Maximiliano came a second time, staining his belly, folded in on himself, between the pain and a pleasure no one but her controlled anymore.

“That’s where you stay,” Renata said, gathering her clothes without haste. “The next time you think you’re in charge, remember this night.”

She dressed in front of the studio mirror, fixed her hair, and put her heels back on, the same ones with which she had just signed her victory. Ámbar opened the door for her.

“Well done,” the Mistress said softly, for her alone.

“I learned from the best,” Renata replied.

They went out together into the street, where Daniela was waiting by the car, chewing over the rule with a new patience. Three women heading for the port, toward a trip that would begin that very morning, leaving behind a closed business, a stage paid off, and a man stretched out on the floor of his own studio, discovering too late who had been in control from the start.