What They Forced Me to Do to See My Husband in Prison

Success had been a drug with a fast kick and a devastating hangover. With Kuroda’s injection of capital, funneled through the impeccable Octavio Belmonte, Damián’s real estate project took off like a rocket. For eight months, growth was meteoric. The figures in the reports danced green and upward, investors came like flies to honey, and the name of Grupo Rivas rang out in financial circles with an aura of invincibility.

Damián, swollen with ambition and blinded by flattery, began making increasingly reckless decisions. Octavio, from his silent post as a ghost advisor, watched with a cold smile. He offered no warnings. He only facilitated more connections, more “opportunities” that tightened the rope to the limit.

The collapse was as sudden as it was brutal. A bad stock bet, a hidden debt that came to light, an adverse report from a ratings agency. The domino effect kicked in within days and confidence evaporated. Grupo Rivas’s shares, which had touched the sky, began a free fall. From stratospheric value to irrelevance in less than a week. The headlines were merciless: “The Real Estate Icarus,” “The Ambition That Devoured Rivas.”

Damián was singled out as the sole culprit. The mastermind, the visible face, the perfect scapegoat. He was arrested in his own office, in front of his stunned employees. The family home was searched with humiliating thoroughness, agents sliding their hands over the furniture I had chosen so carefully.

I, thanks to a cunning separation of assets Octavio had suggested months earlier, was kept out of direct legal reach. I was not guilty in the eyes of the law, but I was the wife of the man most hated by the ruined small investors. The public shaming, the looks in the street, the reporters camped outside my door, all of it became unbearable. With the little I could salvage, a disguise and a borrowed car, I fled.

I took refuge in the only possession that still felt untouched by the nightmare: a small, rustic wooden cabin that had belonged to my parents, hidden in a fold of the mountain an hour from the capital. There, silence was absolute, broken only by the wind in the pines and the creaking of old wood. I spent the first two days in a state of numbness, sleeping for hours, eating as little as possible, staring at the fire in the hearth without seeing it.

***

On the third day, at dusk, while the sky over the peaks was turning orange and purple, the disposable phone I thought I had abandoned forever vibrated on the pine table. A ghost heartbeat in the silence. With hands that took their time obeying me, I picked it up. The screen showed an encrypted number and a message signed with two initials: OB.

The rigor of the law also applies to conjugal visits. I read it twice, as if the words might change shape. Tomorrow. Visiting hours for high-security detainees: 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. You must arrive at 1:45 p.m. Dress code: discreet but unquestionable elegance. Black dress, moderate neckline, skirt to the knee. Sheer stockings. No jewelry. No handbag. Report to the main entrance of Aguasvivas Penitentiary and ask for Sergeant Vega. That is the only instruction you will give. The rest, you will obey.

The message continued, and each line was a finger squeezing my throat. Remember: any deviation, and the photographs of the Astoria suite, along with the full breakdown, will be sent to the prosecutor’s office as additional evidence of the accused’s character. And to all the media. Your cooperation is the only currency you have to buy silence. And perhaps, a little mercy for Damián.

I put the phone down on the table. There was no rage or crying. Only a deeper emptiness. Octavio was not finished. Damián’s downfall was not the end; it was a new stage, even crueller. The prison. The rigor. And I, as always, the instrument.

***

The next day I followed the instructions to the letter. I put on a black wool dress, simple, with a V-neck that barely revealed my collarbone. The straight skirt reached just below my knees. Opaque stockings, almost governess-like. Closed-toe low heels. I pulled my hair back into a severe bun. In the cabin’s mirror I looked like the widow of a criminal, a figure of mourning and penance.

Aguasvivas Penitentiary was a gray concrete fortress, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers. The cold mountain air mixed with an almost physical pressure. At the main gate, a guard with a bored expression eyed me suspiciously.

“Name?” he asked without fully lifting his gaze.

“Mariela Rivas. I’m here to visit my husband, Damián.”

“Visiting hours don’t start until two. Wait over there.”

I took a deep breath before saying the phrase I had been ordered to use.

“I have to ask for Sergeant Vega.”

The change in the guard was immediate. The boredom vanished, replaced by instant curiosity and a flash of something else, something expectant. He nodded, picked up an internal phone, and murmured a few words. Minutes later, a woman came out through a metal door. Sergeant Vega was broad, with a hard face and small eyes that scrutinized me from head to toe without bothering to hide it. Her olive-green uniform was immaculately pressed.

“Mrs. Rivas. Follow me.”

There was no greeting or explanation. I followed her down a long, dim corridor, walls painted a faded hospital green. The sound of my footsteps echoed in the emptiness. We were not heading toward the general visiting rooms. We veered down a side hall to an unmarked door Vega opened with a key.

It was a small room, white, cold. More like a doctor’s office than anything else. In the center was an examination table covered with disposable paper. A surgical lamp hung from the ceiling. In one corner, a stainless-steel sink.

“The security procedure for high-security conjugal visits is strict,” Vega said, her voice flat and bureaucratic. “We must ensure you are not bringing in any prohibited object. You will undress completely. Place your clothes on that tray.”

She pointed to a metal tray on a side table. I looked at it, panic beginning to crawl up my throat.

“Naked? But… I’m only here to…”

“Those are the rules, Mrs. Rivas. Either you comply, or the visit is canceled. And your husband doesn’t get to see you. Nor does he get the small improvement in his situation that your cooperation might produce.”

Her stare was impenetrable, but the message was clear. Octavio had spoken to her. This, too, was part of the rigor.

With clumsy movements I began to undress. First the shoes, then the coat I wore over the dress. The sergeant watched motionless, arms crossed. The zipper’s sound was harsh in the silence. The black garment fell at my feet. Then, with numb fingers, I removed my stockings and underwear. I stood there with the black panties in my hand, feeling Vega’s gaze fixed on the patch of warm dampness staining the inside —the anticipated humiliation had wet my cunt without permission—. I let them drop into the tray, my face burning. I felt absurdly vulnerable, standing in the center of the cold room, under the white, merciless light. My skin prickled all over, my nipples shrank, hard as stones, and I felt the cold air slip between my thighs, brush my shaved sex lips.

“Up on the table. Gynecological position.”

The words hit like a low blow. I hesitated, but Vega’s look left no room for argument. Face burning, I climbed onto the cold paper. I lay back and, feeling every movement was a betrayal of myself, placed my feet in the metal stirrups, spreading my legs wide. The paper crackled under my ass. I felt my cunt being obscenely exposed to the white light, the lips parted, the clit in the air. The humiliation was so sharp it blurred my vision for an instant.

Vega approached. She put on a pair of latex gloves with a snap that sounded like a gunshot. She said nothing. Her hands, strong and impersonal, began the inspection. First she checked my hair, behind my ears, inside my mouth, forcing me to stick out my tongue and touch the roof of my mouth with its tip. Two gloved fingers went into my mouth as far as the uvula, making me cough. Then, with atrocious coldness, she examined my breasts, taking them fully in her hands, weighing them in her palms, pinching my nipples between thumb and forefinger until I let out a soft moan. She pinched them as if they were buttons that needed testing. I held my breath, staring at the white ceiling, trying to detach myself from my own body. But the cold and nerves betrayed me, and I felt my nipples harden even more against her gloved palm, giving me away.

“Well, well,” Vega muttered, and it was the most human thing I heard her say all morning. “Doesn’t take much to get her tits hard.”

Then she focused on the pubic area. She spread my labia majora with two fingers, pulling them apart until I felt the skin go taut. The inspection was meticulous, invasive, obscene. She traced each labium minus one by one, gently tugged at the clitoral hood, exposing it. An electric jolt shot through my pelvis. I tried not to show it, but my hips made a tiny involuntary movement against the air. She inserted one finger up to the knuckle, moving it roughly, looking for some imaginary object. I held back a moan, from pain and from a shame so deep it burned inside me. The finger came out shining, wet. Vega looked at it for a second under the light, then wiped it slowly on the paper covering the table, right between my open thighs, so I would see it. After that she inserted two fingers, scissored them inside me, used her fingertips to search for the rough spot on the roof of my vagina, pressed. A gasp escaped me. My nipples throbbed. My cunt contracted, traitorous, around the чуждые fingers.

“Wet,” Vega dictated aloud, as if filling out a report. “Very wet, Mrs. Rivas. Note it down, if needed.”

There was no one else in the room. She was saying it for me. To sink me one inch deeper.

The examination continued. Vega ordered me to turn over and get on all fours on the table. With my ass in the air and my knees apart, she forced me to lower my chest against the paper so she could present my backside. I felt her fingers spread my buttocks apart. The anus came into view, tight with cold and fear. A gloved finger, wet with something cold —lubricant, I don’t know where it came from— pushed against my ass. I clenched by reflex.

“Relax,” she ordered. “Relax or we’ll put in two.”

I obeyed. The finger went in to the hilt, turning inside my ass with methodical slowness. I bit down on the disposable paper so I wouldn’t scream. Beneath my stomach I could feel my thighs squeezed together, and the wetness from my cunt ran down the insides of my thighs, betraying me again. The finger came out with a wet pop. Vega said nothing. She tugged at the imaginary elastic I no longer wore, then gave my right cheek a dry slap that rang through the room.

“You may get down.”

I climbed down from the table, trembling. Just when it seemed she was done, the sergeant went to the door and opened it without letting me get dressed.

“You may come in.”

Two more guards entered, young men with expressions halfway between curiosity and poorly concealed lust. They stood beside Vega, looking at me while I remained naked and exposed, standing on the cold tiles, without even an arm to cover myself, because Vega had ordered me with a gesture to keep them pressed to my body.

“Security inspection complete, negative,” Vega said, like someone delivering a report. “Only the final visual verification remains by protocol. Spread your legs, Mrs. Rivas. Hands behind your neck.”

It was a blatant lie. There was no protocol that included this. I raised my hands and crossed them behind my head. The gesture lifted my breasts, offered them. I spread my legs until I felt my thighs trembling. The guards ran their eyes over every inch of my body, their gazes lingering on my erect nipples, on the neat patch of trimmed pubic hair, on the wet sheen of my lower lips, exchanging complicit looks. One cleared his throat. I saw the youngest man’s pants bulge at the crotch, with no attempt to conceal it. The other gave the faintest smile, his tongue running over his lower lip.

“Turn around slowly,” Vega ordered. “And stay there. Three seconds on each side.”

I turned. I felt their eyes pinning themselves to my ass, to the red mark Vega’s slap had left on my cheek, to the wetness gleaming between my thighs. The seconds stretched into an eternity of obscene exposure. I shut my eyes tightly, but I could feel their stares like dirty hands on my skin, invisible fingers opening me, squeezing me, entering me.

“Good. You may get dressed,” Vega said at last, with disdain. “You’ll be taken to the special room. You have twenty minutes.”

***

I dressed with trembling hands. My panties were soaked, the fabric sticking to my cunt with a tiny wet sound. I felt as if the dress no longer covered me, as if the humiliation had soaked into everything, as if the three pairs of eyes that had seen me open were now traveling with me under the black wool.

The guards escorted me down another corridor. One of them —the youngest, the one with the bulge— walked directly behind me. Near a camera-free corner, I suddenly felt his right hand slide up beneath my skirt, glide along the inside of my thigh, and two thick fingers push the wet fabric of my panties aside. His middle finger drove into my cunt in one brutal thrust, all the way to the knuckle. A gasp escaped me. It was so quick I almost doubted it had happened. The guard withdrew his finger, took it to his mouth without stopping, sucked it, and whispered in my ear while gently pushing me forward:

“The lady’s nice and wet. Come back soon.”

I kept walking with my heart hammering against my ribs and my cunt throbbing against the wet fabric. No one would believe me if I told them. No one. And I wasn’t going to tell anyone either.

The room was small, divided by a thick, scratched glass pane, with phones on each side.

On the other side of the glass Damián appeared, escorted by a guard. I barely recognized him. He had lost weight alarmingly. The suit that once fit him perfectly now hung from his shoulders. He had deep dark circles under his eyes, a grown-out, unkempt beard. But the most devastating thing was his eyes: once full of ambition, then of confusion, now they reflected only animal fear and total defeat.

When he saw me, his eyes widened. He sank into the chair and brought the phone to his ear with trembling hands. I took mine.

“Mariela…” his voice came out broken, a thread of sound. “Are you… are you okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak, my throat closed by a knot of contradictory emotions: pity, rage, disgust, and a strange, distant compassion. Under my skirt, my cunt kept clenching in tiny contractions around the memory of the guard’s finger, and I felt the revulsion at my own body churn in my stomach.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I ruined everything for you…” he began to sob, his body curled in on itself. Tears ran down his face uncontrollably. “I’m dying in here, Mariela… I can’t… They’re animals… They’ve got me… They make me suck the guy in the next cell, Mariela… every night… they shove it in my mouth and I can’t… I can’t…”

I watched him cry, this broken man, this husband who had been my accomplice and my executioner, now reduced to a terrified convict confessing in a child’s voice that other men were stuffing their cocks into his mouth every night. His tears were real, the crying of a lost child. And in that instant I understood that Octavio had achieved his masterpiece. He had not only destroyed our life, our marriage, and Damián’s body. He had also crushed his spirit, leaving him like this: a man crying behind glass, with his mouth marked by other men’s dicks, while I, his wife, bore on my flesh the fresh mark of a guard’s finger in my cunt and a sergeant’s open palm on my ass, another humiliation designed by the same architect of our ruin.

The rigor of the law was hard, yes. But Octavio Belmonte’s rigor was infinite. And I, on the other side of the glass, with my panties soaked and my nipples still hard under the dress, could only watch the final wreck, knowing that my own submission had paved the way to that cell, and to that table, and to the guard’s finger in the corridor. The twenty minutes passed in silence, broken only by Damián’s sobs, until a guard touched his shoulder and signaled that time was up.