The Punishment Those Four Women Had Prepared for Him

Renzo liked to show off, and he had every reason to be proud of what he had between his legs. Nature had been generous with him, perhaps too generous, and from a young age he had turned that advantage into a kind of addiction. It wasn’t enough for people to notice him in the gym locker rooms. He needed other people’s surprise, their shock, that tenth of a second in which a stranger’s face went from confusion to horror.

He had started out timidly, almost by accident, letting himself be seen a little too much while changing. But soon that wasn’t enough for him. He began going to the big park on the outskirts, the one that bordered the lake and filled up with women runners at dusk. He always wore a long dark coat and a black cloth mask that covered half his face. That way, he told himself, nobody would ever be able to recognize him.

His favorite prey were young women who went running at nightfall, when the paths were almost deserted and the streetlamps still hadn’t fully beaten back the dim light. He loved the scream, the wide-eyed stare, the way some of them would freeze for an instant before running off. That reaction fed him more than anything else.

Showtime, he thought as he waited among the bushes.

That December night was bitterly cold. The air smelled of wet leaves and smoke from a distant fireplace. Any other man would have hunched deeper into his coat, but for Renzo the chill of the night against his groin had exactly the opposite effect. That sensation of freedom, of total exposure, hardened him like nothing else.

He saw a woman coming up the path. She was running with a steady stride, in shorts despite the temperature, and a tight T-shirt that left little to the imagination. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail that swung with every step. Renzo held his breath and waited for the exact moment.

When she was a few meters away, he jumped out onto the path and flung his coat open wide.

—Pervert! —the runner shouted, clutching a hand to her chest.

He smiled beneath the mask. He jerked his hips in an obscene gesture, that little number he had rehearsed so many times, pleased with the shock he was causing. Mission accomplished. He turned to disappear back into the brush before anyone could follow him.

And then his blood turned to ice.

In front of him, blocking his way in a semicircle, were four women. Four dark uniforms, four pairs of eyes that showed neither fear nor disgust, only cold, professional calm. Before his brain could process what he was seeing, he felt a brutal blow shoot up from his groin. He looked down: the runner had planted her foot in him with surgical precision. His knees buckled on their own and he fell onto the frozen ground, doubled over on himself.

—Good work, Nadia —one of the uniformed women said approvingly, the calmest-looking one, as she approached without hurry.

—Wasn’t hard —the runner replied, stretching the muscles in her neck as if she had just finished a workout—. Did you see, though, how good an actress I am?

The others laughed softly. It had all been a trap. They had been after him for weeks, gathering complaints from frightened women, and at last they had him down in the mud like the animal he was. Renzo tried to sit up, babbled something that never made it into a word, and firm hands hauled him up and pinned his wrists behind his back.

***

The neighborhood police station was a low, empty building at that hour. December left the streets dead, and among the neon lights hung garlands and cardboard cutouts with Christmas motifs. There were only the five of them. No superior, no witnesses. Renzo understood, with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, that tonight the usual rules were not going to apply.

They took him to a room in the back, stripped him without ceremony, and tied his wrists above his head to an iron column. He was left exposed, he who had always boasted of exposing himself, but this time without the slightest control over the situation. The difference, he realized, was everything.

—Well, aren’t you brave —said the calm woman, the one who seemed to be in charge.

She came over with a regulation baton and, with its tip, barely grazed his sex, which humiliation had left limp and shrunken. The touch, soft and mocking, made his whole skin prickle.

—These things usually end with a fine, you know? —she went on, dragging the baton along with calculated slowness—. And a guy like you goes right back to it as soon as he walks out the door. So tonight we’re going to try another method. Something you’ll remember.

—And you’ve got us working on Christmas, too —complained another one, a woman with glasses and a low-cut top who had leaned against the wall with her arms crossed—. I was having such a peaceful week.

Renzo opened his mouth to protest, to appeal to his rights, to threaten them with lawyers. But no voice came out. There was something in the way those four looked at him —without hatred, almost with amusement— that completely disarmed him.

The youngest of the group, a blonde with light eyes and a mischievous smile, came into the room carrying a cardboard box. Red ribbons, shiny balls, and silver garlands stuck out of it. She set it down on a table and clapped once, delighted with herself.

—I have the best idea in the world —she announced.

She rummaged among the decorations and pulled out two small golden bells, the kind hung on Christmas trees, tied to a red cord. She knelt in front of Renzo with a delicacy that was more unsettling than any violence, and tied the cord around his scrotum, tightening it carefully. The bells hung down, and with his slightest movement they jingled with a cheerful, almost childish sound, grotesquely out of place.

—Jingle bells! —sang the blonde, and kicked him sharply in the groin.

The pain shot up into his stomach. Renzo folded in on himself as far as the restraints allowed, and the bells rang with the spasm, drawing a general burst of laughter. The four women were laughing, one wiping tears from her eyes, another holding her side. The sound of their laughter and the bells mixed in his ears until they blurred together.

—Oh, Lord, you’ve just made my shift —said the one with glasses, drying her eyes.

—Mine too —another answered, unable to stop laughing.

***

The humiliation went on with methodical cruelty. Every time Renzo tried to move to ease the strain in his arms, the bells gave him away with their tinkling and sparked another round of mockery. He learned to stay still. He learned that any gesture he made became a spectacle.

One of the guards, the quietest up to then, took a candy cane from the box, one of those red-and-white ones handed out at this time of year. She held it up so he could see it clearly, smiled, and moved behind him. Renzo understood what she intended and instinctively clamped his muscles, tensing his whole body.

—Relax —murmured the woman in charge, planting herself in front of him.

She wrapped her hand around his scrotum and squeezed without warning. The pain was so sudden and so exact that Renzo lost all resistance, his whole body went slack, and using that second the woman behind him did her job. He felt the intrusion, cold and humiliating, and screamed with all his might. But the bells, shaken by the jolt, rang louder than his voice and swallowed it whole amid the renewed laughter of the four women.

—I’ve never seen anyone sing carols with their balls —said the blonde, doubling over with laughter.

Renzo clenched his teeth. His pride, the only thing that really mattered to him, was breaking into pieces in that icy room. And worst of all, what he would never admit even under torture, was that somewhere dark inside his body, mixed with pain and shame, there was something like arousal peeking through. Being at the mercy of those women, without control, without his mask, completely exposed, awakened in him a sensation he didn’t know how to name and that terrified him more than the punishment itself.

When he had recovered a little, he lifted his head. The four of them surrounded him, and a couple were taking pictures of him with their phones, laughing at every angle. The one in charge came closer, grabbed his hair, and forced his face up to look at her.

—I hope you’ve learned your lesson —she said. She dropped her other hand and wrapped it around his sex, which to his embarrassment was starting to harden again, and began to move it slowly, in a caress that was as much reward as threat—. Because if we catch you in that park again, I swear this will be the least of it. The little bells will become permanent, understand me?

Renzo nodded, unable to speak. An unbearable mixture of pleasure and pain ran up his spine. Just when he felt he was about to lose control, she yanked her hand away and delivered one last sharp blow that erased every sensation except burning.

—Good boy —she concluded—. Now get dressed.

They untied his wrists and handed him old clothes they kept there for cases like this. They were tight on him, showed everything, but Renzo no longer cared if anything showed. He just wanted to disappear. While he dressed with trembling hands, they removed the bells, though the cord left a reddish mark on his skin.

—Remember what we talked about —said the blonde, opening the door for him with a theatrical bow—. Behave yourself or you’ll get coal. Or little bells. Your choice.

The four of them drove off in the patrol car laughing, leaving him alone on the sidewalk under the garlands flickering indifferently.

***

Renzo went home on foot, hunched in on himself, with a dull pain rising from his groin and another, deeper one, he didn’t know where to place. He lay down in bed without turning on the lights. And, against all logic, he discovered he was still hard. The brief caress from that woman, the feeling of having been completely at her mercy, had left him in a state he couldn’t get out of.

He closed his eyes and put his hand on his sex. He stroked it slowly, carefully, because every touch reminded him of the punishment, and yet he couldn’t stop. He needed to release the tension the four women had built up in his body and then left half-finished. He was very close already, holding his breath, when a sound reached him from the street, unmistakable.

Bells. A group of people was passing under his window, shaking Christmas ornaments, singing carols.

The tinkling pierced his brain like a jolt. Suddenly he was tied to the column again, exposed, ridiculed, the cord tight and laughter echoing around him. Fear erased desire in an instant. He looked down and saw his erection deflating without mercy, shrinking until it was almost lifeless. He tried again and again, but it was useless. While those bells were ringing in the street, his body would not obey him.

After Christmas, when the streets finally shed their decorations and carols, he recovered some normality and was able to finish what he had started that night. But the damage had already been done. It was enough for him to hear, in any shop window, on any corner, the cheerful jingle of little bells for fear and shame to rush back into his mind and make his pride shrink right along with them.

He never went back to the park. And every December, when the city filled with lights and sleigh bells, Renzo lowered his head and quickened his pace, remembering the four women who had taught him, in the worst possible way, what it feels like to be completely at another’s mercy.