The Night Adrián Was Humiliated on the Way Home

Adrián was finishing his master’s degree in history and had spent the last couple of months chaining late-night classes together. He was twenty-eight, had a girlfriend waiting for him with dinner gone cold, and was in the habit of getting home when half the city was already asleep. The route from the university forced him through a neighborhood of narrow streets and burned-out streetlamps, a shortcut that had become routine because, until that night, nothing had ever happened to him.

But that night the air smelled different. A disquiet he couldn’t explain settled at the nape of his neck the moment he left the lit avenue behind. He walked faster than usual, alert to every doorway, convinced someone was measuring his steps from behind.

It wasn’t paranoia. At the mouth of a dead-end alley, two silhouettes peeled away from the shadows and cut him off.

—Hey, you —said the taller one, with a smile that was anything but friendly—. What have you got there?

Adrián didn’t think. He handed over his wallet, his phone, and his backpack with trembling hands.

—Take it all, please. I don’t want any trouble.

—Not so fast —the second one replied, pocketing the haul—. I think tonight we’re going to have a bit of fun with you.

What came next was a string of humiliating orders that Adrián obeyed, frozen by fear. They made him strip right there, in the middle of the street, while the two of them laughed at his body shrinking from the cold and the shame. He covered himself as best he could, begging them to let him go.

—Look at the little gentleman —the tall one mocked—. Bad luck has really had it out for you, hasn’t it, champ?

Beside a dumpster there was a pair of abandoned high heels. When they saw them, both robbers’ faces lit up with an idea that made Adrián’s stomach turn.

—Put them on —one of them ordered, tossing them at his feet—. Tonight you’re going to be our little doll.

—Please, no —Adrián pleaded, almost voiceless.

—Shut up and do as you’re told.

With no alternative, he forced his feet into those heels two sizes too small. They pinched so tightly he could barely move his toes, and as soon as he tried to take a step, his knees gave out.

—They look amazing on you, princess —the other one howled with laughter.

Unaccustomed to heels, Adrián stumbled and fell face-first into the filth of the alley. As he tried to get up, his foot slipped on a fruit peel and he landed, ass-first, on an abandoned liter bottle that drove into him from behind with a suddenness that stole his breath.

—Ow! —was all he managed to say, doubled over on himself.

The shock and the contraction left the bottle trapped there, wedged in badly. Rather than helping him, the two strangers pulled out their phones and started taking pictures of him, their laughter bouncing off the alley walls.

—No, not the photos! —Adrián begged, covering his face with one arm.

But the flashes kept lighting up his misfortune over and over until the neighborhood windows began to switch on, and the robbers, satisfied, disappeared the way they had come with all of his belongings.

***

Alone, naked, and hurting, Adrián desperately searched for something to cover himself with. In the same dumpster he found a short, tight dress, made of cheap, shiny fabric, that someone had thrown away. He had nothing better, so he put it on while his body was still protesting from the bottle lodged inside him.

He tried to walk, but the tiny heels had jammed onto his feet and he didn’t know how to move in them. After two more falls, he decided that getting around on all fours was the least catastrophic option. At least that way he didn’t notice the weight of the bottle so much with every movement.

What would Carla think if she saw me like this? he wondered, and the mere idea of his girlfriend finding him dressed like that, crawling through a run-down alley, made him want the earth to swallow him whole.

That was when, in the distance, he heard sirens. They were coming fast. Adrián understood at once that there was no possible explanation for his appearance: a half-naked man in heels and a stolen dress, crawling along in the middle of the early hours. They would mistake him for anything but a victim.

Panic pushed him to flee in the opposite direction from the noise. He ran as best he could, stumbling at every stride, slipping into narrower and darker side streets, lungs burning and heart ready to burst. He needed a hiding place, and he found one in a fire escape that led up to an open window.

He climbed awkwardly, slipped through the window into what looked like a dim bedroom, and, without thinking, slid under the bed. There, holding his breath, he waited for the world to calm down.

The sirens receded until they faded away completely. Adrián was beginning to peek out when he heard the bedroom door open. He ducked back in at once. It was the people who lived there: a couple.

—Did you hear that? They’re gone now —the man said—. They sounded like they were right outside.

—They gave me the creeps —she replied—. This neighborhood gets worse every day.

—As long as nobody gets in here... —he muttered, dropping his keys on the bedside table.

—What if we relax a little? —she purred, and Adrián heard a conspiratorial giggle.

—Lucía... —the man protested without much conviction.

The mattress creaked above Adrián’s head. From his hiding place he watched the couple’s clothes fall to the floor, one by one. First came kisses and whispers, then cuddling, and after a while moans that left no room for doubt. Adrián, paralyzed, realized with horror that two strangers were fucking right above him.

The bed frame began bouncing to the rhythm of the thrusts. Adrián was lying face down, with the bed so low that every jolt pressed the bottle against his body and crushed everything else into the floor, mixing pain with a stimulation he hated feeling.

—Like that, Óscar, like that! —she panted.

—You like that? —he answered, between muffled laughs.

The pace quickened and Adrián couldn’t bear it anymore. Anxiety overpowered caution and, at the worst possible moment, he decided to come out of hiding.

—God, I’m going to... —the man began to say.

Adrián poked out from the side of the bed just as the couple, tangled in a full-on position, saw him appear. The bottle, from the friction and movement, came loose at that instant and smashed against the floor with a crash that cut the scene off dead.

—There’s someone in the house! —she shrieked, covering herself with the sheet—. Call the police!

—What the fuck are you doing here?! —he roared.

***

The man, with no time to put anything on, leapt out of bed and went after Adrián, who was already crawling toward the door. But in the hallway the heels betrayed him again and he fell face-first. His pursuer, barefoot, stepped on the bottle shards, let out a howl, and collapsed on top of him in a ridiculous tangle of arms and legs.

—Hey, get off me! —Adrián protested, trying to wriggle free from the other man’s weight.

The man, in pain and still worked up from what he’d left unfinished in the bedroom, hauled himself up as best he could, furious and red with shame. Adrián took advantage of the confusion to drag himself into the bathroom, get inside, and throw the bolt.

—Get out of there, you degenerate! —the owner bellowed, hammering on the door.

Cornered, Adrián looked for an escape. He found the hamper and, in a gesture of pure desperation, grabbed an undergarment to cover himself a little more than the torn dress allowed. Then he opened the bathroom window and lowered himself down into the courtyard.

Bad luck wouldn’t let go of him for a second. The clothing tag caught on a gutter and left him hanging in midair, swaying with a yank that tore a high cry from him.

—Aaaah! —he howled, kicking at the void.

The fabric finally gave way and Adrián fell into the bushes of a nearby park, which cushioned the impact just enough that nothing broke. He lay there staring at the sky, wondering what he had done to deserve such a night.

He got up like an old man, aching in places he hadn’t even known he had. He tried to wash his face in a park fountain, but the heels played him one last bad trick: he slipped and fell headfirst into the freezing water. He came out shivering, at least clean, though now the soaked dress was completely transparent.

Disoriented and freezing, he spotted two figures across a street and approached them in the hope of asking for help. Under the flickering light of a streetlamp he discovered, too late, that they were two women who worked that corner.

Seeing him appear, swaying on the heels and stuffed into a see-through microdress, they mistook him for competition invading their territory. One of them came closer with a hostile look, and when Adrián opened his mouth to explain, she kicked him hard enough to buckle his knees.

—This is our corner, handsome —the first one warned him.

—If I see you around here again, you’ll be sorry —the other one finished.

Adrián, too out of breath to protest, did the only thing he still knew how to do that night: he ran like hell, staggering down the street with two strangers chasing him and dawn beginning to show between the rooftops. Somewhere along the way, as he ran barefoot at last —because one of the heels had gone flying— he promised himself that he would never, under any circumstances, take that shortcut again.

When he finally reached the entrance to his building, the dress in tatters and his pride in even worse shape, he found the door open and Carla waiting for him in the hallway, looking like she understood absolutely nothing. She opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but Adrián raised a hand, exhausted.

—Don’t ask —he said—. Please, don’t ask tonight.

And he went into the shower, determined never to tell anyone how the road home had turned him, for a few impossible hours, into the humiliated laughingstock of the whole neighborhood.