We Signed a Submission Contract in Tokyo Without Reading It

The first airport we saw when we came back was Narita, but the last one, Buenos Aires, was where Camila clung to my arm until she dug her nails in. We’d slept in stretches on the plane, with pills, and now we were walking toward Immigration with our eyes down, as if the officers could smell on us what we’d signed.

—Sebastián —she whispered—. If they ask me what we did those six weeks over there, I don’t know what to say.

—Vacation —I said, without conviction—. We say it was vacation.

She nodded. On her wrist, a cheap bracelet we’d been given at the end of the program glinted. Memory of the championship, the inscription in Japanese said. I’d tucked mine at the bottom of my suitcase, next to the sealed DVDs we swore we’d never open.

***

Six weeks earlier, it was all a check and a smile. Mr. Hayami had welcomed us onto the set in a pearl-gray suit and a chopped-up English hewed into shape like it was being attacked with an axe. He had us sign a five-hundred-page contract that nobody translated.

—Standard —he insisted, tapping the signature page with his finger—. Competition program. Grand prize, one hundred thousand dollars.

Camila signed without reading. I signed after reading the first twenty pages. The person who should have read the rest was the one who would regret it, and I never imagined that person would be me, locked in a dressing room with flickering neon, listening to the roar of the audience through the wall.

The show was a Japanese variation on BDSM as television spectacle. Foreign couples competed in endurance under domination: how much the chosen submissive, picked by the audience, could take before asking for the safe word. Camila volunteered first. Camila always volunteered first.

They strapped her to a lacquered wooden sawhorse, naked except for a black leather collar cinched tight around her throat. They pried her legs open with two metal bars screwed to her ankles, her cunt exposed to the studio’s icy air, her pink lips shining under the spotlights. A square-built Japanese man in a dog mask knelt between her thighs and ran his tongue from bottom to top, from her ass to her clit, once, twice, three times. Camila clenched her teeth. I, chained to the wall across from her, watched with my cock hard against my will, and I hated myself for it more than I hated Hayami.

Then came the candles. Hot wax dripped drop by drop over Camila’s tits, over her erect nipples, over her belly. She was screaming and coming at the same time, because another man, hooded, was shoving two fingers into her cunt while a third licked her asshole with an artisan’s patience. The audience roared every time the pleasure meter climbed on the screen. Camila came three times that night before she said the safe word. She didn’t say it. They said it for her when the doctor raised his hand.

We won. That was what mattered. We won, they said, and they took us to an infirmary with white walls and cameras even in the water glasses.

That’s where Hayami dropped the line that sank us.

—Congratulations. The contract extends another forty-five days. Page four hundred ninety-two. Recovery and promotion. Additional compensation, two hundred thousand.

—What? —Camila tried to sit up on the gurney and couldn’t. The fresh marks on her thighs wouldn’t let her move without holding her breath.

—We didn’t sign that —I said.

—You signed everything —Hayami replied, and opened the page himself, as if he knew by heart exactly where he’d trapped us.

I argued. I shouted. I threatened the embassy. Hayami pulled out an envelope with photos: our house in Buenos Aires, Lucas’s school, the waiting room at Mía and Joaquín’s daycare. The stares went quiet.

—It’s legal in Japan —he said, folding the envelope carefully, as if putting away used napkins—. And if you break contract, two hundred thousand penalty. And the DVDs show up on any channel. Any Latin American channel.

Camila looked at me from the gurney with those eyes that no longer blinked. I nodded. And we signed again, this time on our own bodies.

***

The following weeks were a lit cage. They turned the infirmary into a reality-show set, with fixed cameras in every angle and microphones in the pillows. They broadcast live, twenty-four hours a day. Hayami called it the human side of the show.

Camila couldn’t walk properly the first few nights. I learned to hold her with one arm under her back and the other under her knees, the way I used to when she was pregnant with Joaquín. Every step she took was a conversation with pain: a short breath, a pause, another breath. Every step was also a shot. The cameras moved on their own, on silent rails, chasing the close-up that would get the best ratings.

The hardest part wasn’t the pain: it was the routine. Wound care every morning, baths every night, mobility exercises under the gaze of a nurse named Aki who always smiled, even when Camila cried in silence. The bathroom camera, hidden behind the mirror, recorded how she undressed, how she sat in the tub, how she covered her breasts with her hands when the water ran too hot. I tried to put my body between her and it, but there were four cameras, and I was one.

The second week, Hayami came into the infirmary with two technicians and a list.

—Reconnection therapy —he announced—. Page five hundred seven. Winners must fuck on camera every three days. Ratings.

Camila covered her face with the sheet. I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palm. But we signed, we’d already signed, everything had already been signed.

That night, with the floodlights on over the infirmary bed, I slipped her nightgown off slowly, trying not to let my hands shake. Camila still had marks from the wax from the previous week, small pink spots around her nipples. I kissed each one, one by one, as if asking forgiveness. She took my head and pressed it against her chest.

—Do it right —she whispered—. Don’t let them see we’re crying.

I went down her belly with my tongue, skirting the newest scars, until I reached her cunt. She was shaved, the skin still sensitive from the set’s last treatment. I spread her lips with my fingers and ran my tongue all the way over her clit. Camila arched her back and moaned, and I hated that she moaned for real, because it meant her body was betraying her in front of the cameras. I licked her slowly, in lazy circles, pushing my tongue inside and coming back up. I sucked her clit until the veins stood out in her neck and she yanked my hair with both hands.

—Inside —she panted—. Put it in now.

I climbed on top of her. I’d been hard since before we started, hard with fear and rage and love all mixed together. I grabbed my cock —my cock— with my hand and guided it to her cunt. I went in all at once, all the way. Camila closed her eyes. I closed mine too. We moved together, with the old rhythm of twelve years sharing a bed, ignoring the lights, ignoring the hum of the camera rails. I fucked her slowly at first, then harder, propping myself on my elbows so I wouldn’t crush her bruised ribs. Each thrust tore a gasp out of her, each gasp tore a tear loose that slid to her ear.

—Come inside —she said in my ear—. Let them know it’s you.

I came. I came with a rough groan from my gut, emptying myself inside her, pushing every last drop of semen against her womb. Then I stayed on top of her, breathing into her neck, and she held me with her legs and her arms and everything she had left.

When they turned the lights off, we both cried, silently, mouths pressed to each other’s skin so the microphones wouldn’t catch a thing.

Every three days, the same thing. Sometimes they made me penetrate her in the ass, and I’d prep her with my fingers and saliva while she bit the pillow. Sometimes they made her suck my cock kneeling beside the bed, looking at the camera. Camila learned to suck with her eyes open, to lick the balls, to swallow the whole load with a professional smile that made me want to smash the mirror. We both learned that sex could also be work, and that work could end in semen and tears at the same time.

One night, sitting on the edge of her bed, I took her hand and looked straight into her eyes.

—Camila. You’re not alone.

—I know —she said. And then, quieter, without moving her lips so the cameras couldn’t read it—: But the kids are.

That was the first night she prayed. I don’t pray, but that night I stayed awake staring at the ceiling in case someone was listening.

***

The last two weeks were promotion. They pulled us out of the infirmary in new clothes, loose ones Hayami had personally chosen so the marks he considered most marketable would show through. Morning shows, late-night shows, cable shows. The same question repeated in thirty different variations: how does it feel to be the Latin American couple that won?

Camila learned how to answer. She learned to smile while lifting the hem of her blouse just enough to show the purple line cutting across her side. She learned to say “for my family” with her voice breaking in exactly the right place, just before the commercial break.

I learned other things. I learned to count yen while they asked if the punishment night had been hard. I learned to smile without showing my teeth. I learned that if I looked at Camila during the interview, my eyes would fill; so then I learned not to look at her.

In one of the backstage areas, a fat producer, smelling of sake and tobacco, cornered her against the hallway wall and slid his hand under her skirt. I saw the gesture from the other end. Camila didn’t move. She held his stare with a calm that scared me. The guy groped her cunt over her panties for a few seconds, laughed, and left. Camila walked over to me, took my arm, and whispered in my ear:

—Don’t do anything. Four days left.

On the final show they asked for a photo. Camila in the center of a white set, legs slightly apart and arms crossed over her breasts, showing the tattoo they’d given her the first week above her pubis. A small black barcode, indelible. Championship seal, they called it. Hayami framed the photo and hung it in a hallway at the studio, alongside other women with the same mark, all wearing the same smile of truce.

—Welcome to the club —Hayami told Camila.

Camila didn’t answer. I squeezed her hand until her knuckles turned white, and I promised myself that photo would never make it to Buenos Aires.

***

The final check was nine hundred sixty thousand dollars. Prize, extension, interviews, in-kind gifts converted. Hayami sent us off in a black limousine that smelled of new leather.

—Come back anytime —he said—. Latin America soon, huh? We’re already in talks.

His wink followed me all the way to boarding.

***

We landed on a Sunday afternoon. In the living room, the kids had taped up a crooked banner in red tempera: Welcome home, champions! My in-laws were smiling with that new smile that doesn’t ask questions. My parents had cooked milanesas. Lucas, Mía, and Joaquín hung around our necks as if they wanted to swallow us back in.

—Mom brought presents! —Mía shouted. She was five years old and absolutely certain the world always brought presents.

We’d bought everything at the airport, in that strange urgency, as if toys could cover the holes we’d come back with. A robot that shot lights for Lucas. A doll in a sparkly dress for Mía. An electric train for Joaquín. Camila knelt with effort —her body still taut, the scars still pink under her long blouse—, hugged the three of them together, and buried her face in Joaquín’s hair.

My father-in-law patted my back.

—The debts. Your old lady called. We paid everything. Good job, son.

I nodded. I said nothing. What was I supposed to say?

We had dinner, the seven of us, at the long table, with the TV screen turned off for the first time in years. Lucas, who was seven, asked the first question between the first and second bite.

—And in Japan, do they have real robots? Why can’t we watch the show?

—It’s for grown-ups, champ —I said, cutting the milanesa into little squares as if he were still three—. It’s like a quiz show, but with hard words.

—What words?

—Adult words.

Mía lifted the spoon with flan on it.

—Mom, you said it was like a game. Did they tickle you? Once, on a call, you were crying.

Camila went very still. I saw her hand squeeze the fork until the metal left an imprint in her palm. Then she let out her breath, smiled, fixed Mía’s bangs, and said:

—Oh, honey. It was tickling, yes. But sometimes tickles sting a little. Like when you play fairy and scrape your knee. Remember?

—Yes.

—Well. Like that.

Joaquín, who was four and always the quietest, looked at the train in the unopened box. Then he looked at her.

—Mom, did the game hurt?

Camila bent down, kissed his forehead, kissed him two more times, and told him the only true thing she could say that night.

—A little, Joaco. But it’s over now. And what hurt more was thinking about you.

I changed the subject with an easy trick. I took out the robot, showed Lucas the laser button, made it parade across the tablecloth. My parents laughed. My in-laws laughed. The kids laughed. Camila laughed too, and I looked at her laugh as if it were an open wound, then looked away again.

***

When the kids were asleep and the parents had gone, we were left alone on the sofa. The house smelled like cold milanesa and cheap floor wax. For the first time in years we had no debts. For the first time in years we could pay school fees without thinking. For the first time in years the empty fridge wasn’t waking us up.

Camila rested her head on my shoulder. Then, without saying a word, she found my hand and slipped it under her blouse. I found her nipple, still sensitive, still marked. She exhaled.

—I need you to put it in me —she whispered—. Here. In our bed. No cameras. No lights. Nobody.

I carried her to the bedroom the way I used to when she was pregnant. I undressed her slowly, unhurriedly, kissing every scar as if I could erase it. I licked her nipples until they went hard, lowered my mouth down her belly, skirted the barcode on her pubis, and spread her thighs. Her cunt was shining, wet, waiting for me. I ate her out in one go, without pausing, tongue inside and thumb on her clit, until she came screaming my name into the pillow so she wouldn’t wake the kids.

Then I climbed on top, and slid my cock in slowly, centimeter by centimeter, looking into her eyes all the way in. Camila wrapped her legs around my waist and drove her heels into my back.

—Harder —she panted—. Like home. Like before.

I fucked her like I hadn’t fucked her in six weeks: no audience, no script, no breaks for the commercial cut. I grabbed her tits with both hands and drove all the way in each time, listening to the wet slap of her cunt against my pubis, feeling how she tightened around my cock every time I came down. Camila came twice more before I could hold out. The second time she clawed down my back, and those scratches were the first ones I’d thanked her for in a long time.

—Inside —she asked me again, like in the infirmary—. But now because I want it.

I came inside her with a growl that tore out of my chest, pushing until I emptied myself, and stayed pressed to her for a long while, feeling her heartbeat against mine. She stroked my hair slowly.

—Was it worth it? —she whispered.

I kissed the scar near my hairline. It was small, almost invisible, but I knew it. I’d watched it form.

—For them, yes —I said—. But I swear never again.

—Hayami said the show is coming here.

—It’s not coming.

—If it does…

—It’s not coming.

I took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, with that old strength, the one from before, the one I’d missed for six weeks.

—Sebastián —she said after a while—. Someday they’re going to ask.

—Yes.

—When they’re older.

—Yes.

—What do we tell them?

I thought. I thought about the sealed DVDs in the box in the closet, next to the passport, next to the marriage certificate, next to an old photo from the summer we met. I thought about the tattoo she covered even to sleep. I thought about Mía’s question and Joaquín’s silence.

—We tell them —I said, choosing each word as if I were walking a narrow bridge— that Mom and Dad did something so you wouldn’t go through what we went through. And that they were wrong about how they chose to do it. But that they love each other. And that they’re here.

Camila stayed quiet. Then she nodded slowly and closed her eyes.

That night I slept with my hand on her waist, feeling every breath. I dreamed of the white set, the flash, Hayami’s kind laugh. I jolted awake at four, sweaty, with the phrase don’t look on my lips. It was what I’d told her in the studio, when the cameras started, so she’d close her eyes. Now I was saying it to myself, in my bed, in my house, with my children asleep on the other side of the wall.

Camila stirred. She didn’t open her eyes, but she found my hand, found it, and squeezed my fingers without saying a word.

Shadows always come back. We both knew that. But for the first time in six weeks, that night, the shadows stayed on the outside.