The Punishment the Runner Gave the Exposer
Bernardo was one of those lecherous old men who had been raised in a time when no one told them no. He spent his days shut up in his tiny apartment, in front of a television he could barely hear anymore, brooding over memories. And among all those memories, there was one that always came back, like a wound he preferred to scratch open rather than let scar over.
It was the years when he went out to Olmo Park in a poorly tied robe and waited for a runner to pass by. It was enough for him to open it, show himself, and enjoy the look of shock on the women’s faces before strolling off calmly. His friends from the barracks looked the other way when a neighbor complained. To them it was just another joke, another barroom anecdote. Good times, Bernardo thought. Times when a man like him could do whatever he wanted.
Maybe I should bring those good times back to life.
The idea lodged in him that afternoon and wouldn’t let go. He got up from the armchair with a creak of his knees, put the old moss-colored robe over his naked body, and looked out the window. Night was falling slowly over the park, orange and warm. He went downstairs under the pretext of taking out the trash, left the bag next to the dumpster, and kept walking toward the grove, where the lampposts left more shadow than light.
His body was no longer what it had been, and he knew it. His belly hung over, the hair on his chest had turned white, and down there everything was small, wrinkled, asleep. Age did not forgive. Every year it took more and more to wake that flaccid bird that barely responded. But the habit of exposing himself had nothing to do with the body, and everything to do with power. With the idea of imposing his presence on a woman who had not asked for it.
He sat on a bench to wait, his hands folded over his lap like any old man. It didn’t take long for her to appear.
She came jogging along the main path, setting the pace with her breathing. She was young, short, with firm thighs and a sway to her chest that could be guessed beneath her sports shirt. Blonde, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounced with each stride. Exactly the kind of woman Bernardo got turned on by.
—Just a little more and I’ll beat my record —she told herself, focused on the watch on her wrist.
The old man got up from the bench and stationed himself to one side of the path. He waited for the exact moment, when the runner was only a few meters away, and then he flung the robe wide open, showing yellow teeth in a smile he had been practicing for decades. He had made a bit of an effort before going out, just enough for the whole thing to look a little less pathetic.
The woman braked hard. Her soles screeched against the gravel.
What Bernardo didn’t know — what would never have occurred to him — was that that night he had chosen the wrong woman. Renata had been practicing self-defense three times a week for years, and not for sport, but because she was fed up. Fed up with men like him. Fed up with lowering her gaze and quickening her pace. Gestures like that no longer frightened her; they provoked a cold, very specific rage.
—Seriously? —she said, almost out of breath, looking him up and down—. At your age?
Bernardo opened his mouth to spout one of his usual lines, but he didn’t get there in time. Renata took two steps, planted her supporting foot, and unleashed a sharp, precise kick straight between the old man’s legs. The blow was so hard that he felt everything shoot upward inside him, as if his whole body wanted to flee the pain through his throat.
The park went white. Bernardo didn’t even manage to scream. He folded in on himself, let out a shrill groan, and dropped to his knees on the gravel, hands clamped over his crotch, the robe open and forgotten.
—Filthy old man —he heard from far above—. Times have changed. People like you are trash, did you know that?
He wanted to answer, but only a thread of saliva and a moan came out. His forehead was pressed to the ground and his eyes were full of tears that were not from sadness, but from pure physical pain. Renata crouched beside him, without a trace of haste, and tilted her head to look at him the way one looks at an insect.
—Let’s see that thing you’re so proud of.
She shoved his hand away with a slap. What she found made her smile with contempt: a shriveled penis, wrinkled, hidden among gray pubic hair, and two testicles that were beginning to swell and redden beneath the skin.
—Well, look at that. This is what used to scare the girls in the park. —She clicked her tongue—. Pathetic.
Bernardo, as best he could, managed to get partly upright. His legs were trembling, his stomach was churning, and he wanted to throw up. He tried to drag himself toward the bushes, gather what little dignity he had left, and disappear into the night. But she wasn’t finished.
—Wait, wait. Where do you think you’re going? —Her voice sounded almost sweet, and that was the most unnerving thing of all.
The old man froze, hunched over, holding his lower belly with both hands. His testicles were throbbing, swollen and hot, and every step was agony. When he tried to take one more, he felt the woman’s body press against his from behind.
***
Renata slid one arm across his chest, almost like a hug, and lowered her other hand slowly toward his crotch. Bernardo tensed all over, convinced she was going to squeeze, twist, finish off the punishment. He shut his eyes and braced for the second blow.
The blow didn’t come. Instead, her fingers closed gently around his dormant penis and began moving up and down, slow, deliberate.
—What… what are you doing? —he stammered.
—Doing you a favor you don’t deserve. Shut up.
It had been so many years since any hand but his own had touched him that Bernardo’s body betrayed him immediately. Despite the pain rising in waves from his testicles, despite the fear, that wrinkled penis began to respond, to fill, to harden against his will.
—It doesn’t change that much, does it? —she murmured against his ear, never stopping her hand—. You’re all the same. I kick you and you still get hard. That says a lot about you.
Still holding him from behind, she guided him to the bench where he had waited in ambush a little earlier. She made him sit with a shove to the shoulder. The feel of the cold bench against his swollen testicles drew a groan from him, but Renata didn’t stop. She knelt in front of him, between his spread legs, and kept masturbating him with her hand, setting the pace as she pleased.
—Look at me properly —she ordered him. With her free hand she lifted the hem of her T-shirt and exposed her chest, her nipples prickling in the fresh night air—. This is what you wanted to see, right? So look. I’ll let you look while I make you come with my hand. It’s the last decent thing you’re going to feel in your life.
Bernardo didn’t understand anything and no longer tried to understand. Pain and pleasure mixed in the same nerve, indistinguishable, to the point that he didn’t know whether he wanted her to stop or to go on forever. The woman’s hand was firm, fast, merciless. Every stroke tugged at something very deep in his punished belly.
—That’s it. Let it all go —she said, watching his face with a crooked smile, enjoying the grimace of a man caught between suffering and desire—. I want to see you come. After that I’ll leave you alone.
The old man clenched his teeth. His legs shook uncontrollably, and his toes curled inside his old sneakers. He felt the pressure build, rise, concentrate in one burning point. He threw his head back, opened his mouth in a mute expression, and at last, with a hoarse grunt from deep in his chest, he came.
And then they both heard it.
Right after the last spasm, at the exact moment pleasure reached its peak, something gave way inside him. A different pain, brutal, final, split his body in two. His testicles, already battered by the kick and swollen to the limit, couldn’t withstand the pressure of the orgasm. Bernardo let out a scream that tore through the park’s silence, doubled over, and slid from the bench to the ground.
Renata sprang back, wiping her hand on the grass with a grimace of disgust.
—Well. I sure didn’t expect that. —She stood up, adjusted her T-shirt, and looked at the man writhing at her feet, pale, sweating, no longer able to form a word—. Though, come to think of it, you had it coming.
In the distance, between the lampposts along the path, the silhouettes of two police officers appeared as they made their nightly rounds. Renata saw them, gauged the distance with the coolness of someone whose conscience is clear, and took off jogging again as if nothing had happened, recovering her lost pace, her blonde ponytail bouncing in the dark.
—Have a good night, grandpa —she said without looking back.
***
The officers found him lying in the gravel, his robe open and his face twisted. This time there were no laughs and no looking the other way. This time no one lifted a finger to protect him. They took him to the hospital, but there wasn’t much left they could do for him, and the few years he had left would be spent remembering that night, over and over, on repeat, as the perfect punishment.
In another time, he would have gotten away with it. The runner would have lowered her head, quickened her pace, swallowed the shock and disgust in silence, and Bernardo would have gone back to his apartment satisfied. But times change. And with them, consequences change too.
