The Slave Who Agreed to Lose Control

Marina had been hanging on that profile for almost a year. On his photos, on his short videos, on the cold way he wrote every word. The man called himself Raven and had made it very clear, in capital letters, that he did not accept new slaves. He wasn’t looking, he didn’t reply, he didn’t negotiate. And even so, she couldn’t get him out of her head.

She had written to him several times. Long messages, humiliating ones, in which she offered herself without conditions or limits, for whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. She couldn’t get any lower. And each time she got the same thing: silence. But silence didn’t extinguish anything. Quite the opposite. Every new photo of those women used on nothing more than a whim was like fuel for an idea that had lodged inside her and wouldn’t leave.

Almost a year had passed since her last unanswered message. And even so, she kept checking the profile every day, waiting for new material, which trickled in only sporadically. When something did appear, she looked at it again and again until she had memorized it. It was the closest she was ever going to get to him, she told herself. And she made do.

Until she stopped making do, because on some ordinary Tuesday, one with nothing special about it, a message arrived.

It was HIM. The entire object of her obsession, writing to her. Marina read the first line and had to sit down. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her a while to open the conversation. This can’t be real, she thought. But it was.

The proposal was risky. Very risky. So reckless that anyone with even a shred of self-preservation would have said no without thinking. Marina read it three times in a row, and by the third she already knew she was going to accept. She would have accepted anything if it meant getting to know him. This was no exception.

She replied that of course. That she would be there on Friday at the place and time indicated, dressed as he asked. That if he wanted anything else, whatever it was, she was at his feet. I hope he wants more, she thought as she sent the message, her heart hammering against her ribs.

***

At work on Friday she was useless. She got everything wrong, reread the same email five times without understanding it, checked the clock every two minutes. Inside, she was a bundle of nerves stretched to the limit. She could barely eat anything at midday. When she finally left, she went straight home.

She showered thoroughly, slowly, as if the water could prepare her for something she knew there was no possible preparation for. She got herself ready carefully. She sent her friends a message telling them she was going away for the weekend to a retreat with people from work, an excuse she had rehearsed so it would sound boring and no one would ask questions. She grabbed her keys and left with plenty of time to spare.

The villa was on the outskirts, in an area of large houses separated from one another by high hedges. Marina arrived before time and stayed in the car, a street away, watching. She had twenty minutes left, and they felt endless. She thought about starting the car and going home. She thought seriously about it, several times. And each time, the idea of never knowing what would have happened felt more unbearable than the fear.

At exactly the appointed hour she got out of the car, walked to the gate and rang the bell.

She expected to see him. But another man opened the door, of the same build, broad-shouldered, with a calm that gave nothing away. It wasn’t Raven. He let her in without a word, crossing a well-kept, very private garden, hidden from the street by the vegetation. He left her waiting in the hall, alone, standing on a cold marble floor.

And then he appeared.

Skinny jeans, a T-shirt that emphasized his chest and arms, and an air of confidence that filled the entire room. He smelled like recent sex, and that detail, so deliberate, so calculated to remind her that she was the latest in a long line, made her legs tremble. Marina lowered her gaze without being told to.

—You’re the bitch who’s been chasing me for months, aren’t you? —he said, without greeting her—. You clear on what you’re here for?

—Yes, Sir —she replied, and was surprised by how steady her voice sounded—. I’m very clear, Sir.

—Good. —He circled her slowly, looking her over the way you look at a purchase before paying for it—. I’m glad. You’re going to come in very handy this weekend.

He stopped in front of her and pointed toward a closed door at the end of the corridor.

—Now you’re going into that room. You’re going to undress, put on what’s on the bed, and take what’s on the nightstand. —He paused deliberately, letting each word fall on its own—. Remember one thing: there are cameras all over the house, except in that room. So if you want to fuck off, this is the only place and the only moment. After that, no.

—Thank you, Sir.

Marina hesitated. But only for a few tenths of a second. She watched him walk away down the hall, that body that had dragged her into the greatest madness of her life, and she knew she wasn’t going to move toward the exit. She pushed the door open and went in.

***

The room was almost empty. A brand-new bed, with the sheets still marked by the folds from the packaging, and a nightstand. Nothing else. No paintings, no visible window, not a single personal object. A room designed so there would be no trace of anyone in it.

On the bed was what she would be wearing for the next forty-eight hours: a pair of thick leather wrist cuffs and ankle cuffs, with metal rings, and a wide collar, closer to a medical neck brace than a play accessory. The leather was new, stiff, and smelled strong. Marina undressed slowly, folded her clothes on the only chair, and fitted each piece into place. The cuffs pinched her. The collar forced her to keep her chin up. When she finished, she looked at her hands, gloved in leather, and could hardly recognize them as her own.

What came next was the serious part. On the nightstand were two small white pills and a glass of water. She didn’t know exactly what they were. But she knew perfectly well what they were for: to sedate her, to leave her halfway to unconsciousness for hours. From his message she also knew they wouldn’t be the last ones that weekend, and that a doctor would monitor the doses. The result would be the same from beginning to end: forty-eight hours without will, without any possibility of stopping anything, completely handed over to whatever they decided to do with her.

She had taken next week off to recover. Even so, there was a part of her head that wouldn’t shut up. What if they go too far? What if I wake up in a hospital having to explain to a nurse how I got here? The fear was real, concrete, physical. It had settled in her stomach like a stone.

Here she hesitated longer. She picked up the glass, set it down. Picked it up again. She thought about the door, about the only room without cameras, about how she was still in time. She thought about the whole year waiting, the unanswered messages, the feeling of being nobody to him. And she thought that now, at last, she was exactly what she had always asked to be.

She swallowed the two pills in one gulp and sat on the edge of the bed to wait.

***

A couple of minutes passed. Maybe three. At first she didn’t feel anything, and that made her even more nervous. Then the dizziness started, gentle, like the first step of a slow drunk. The room’s walls lost some of their edges. The weight of her head dragged downward and she had to rest her hands on the mattress to keep from tipping over completely.

That was when the door opened.

Raven came in first. Behind him, two more men, huge, whom Marina saw blurred, like figures at the back of a dream. He looked at them, not at her, and spoke as someone giving instructions over a freshly delivered package.

—Here’s what I promised you. She’s taken the first dose. Give her another one every eight hours, not one less and not one more. Andrés, the doctor, will come by from time to time to check on her. —He paused and took a step closer to the bed—. I’ll come back for her on Sunday at five.

Marina tried to say something. Her tongue wouldn’t respond.

—She has no limits —he went on, not lowering his voice for her, as if she were no longer quite present—. But don’t overdo it. I want her back in one piece, I’m interested in renting her out again. And remember that the whole house records. The videos will come out of here only lightly edited, so be careful what you do, because it’s not just for you.

One of the two men said something Marina could no longer understand. The ceiling moved slowly above her head. She felt the room tilt, or maybe she was the one tilting, she wasn’t sure. She noticed the leather against her wrists, the weight of the collar forcing her chin up even as her eyelids grew heavy as lead.

The last thing she clearly registered was his voice, already at the door, saying something that sounded like an order and a farewell at the same time. Then the words stopped being words and became only warm, distant noise.

That was as far as Marina’s consciousness reached.