Domination

I came home with my body still trembling from the night before. I never expected to find him sitting on the sofa with my laptop open on the table.

Every Thursday night, he knocked on the parish priest’s door with his head bowed. No one in town imagined what happened once the gate was bolted.

He left the sheet on the bed, folded in four, with my new name written at the top. Every line was an order, and I already knew I would obey them all.

I painted my wife’s nails red for her date with another man. She held the only key to what kept me locked up—and that night changed everything.

For years we were no-strings-attached lovers, and she was always in charge. The day she signed my dismissal, I decided that, for once, I would set the terms.

I slid my red nails over my hairless skin and smiled: in a few hours I would stop being the quiet girl from the fourth floor and become something else again.

Mara helped me fasten the red dress and whispered that the night would be mine. I didn’t know the village’s most respected man would be among the guests.

She had spent weeks thinking about them both: the shy deliveryman and the serious physiotherapist. That night, she summoned them together to teach them something neither dared ask for.

The night I missed the last bus in the rain, I learned that freedom had a price—and that this patient-handed man knew exactly how much I was willing to pay.

When the obi tightened around her waist, she knew there was no turning back: every fold erased a little more of her, and she had never desired anything with such shame.

Carmen explained the rules: bathe twice a day, obey every bell, and never ask questions. That night, I understood what kind of niece my uncle wanted.

For months she had been preparing the same lunch without me understanding the message. That afternoon, I came home determined to answer her the way she wanted.

I asked him not to come back. But when I saw him again on my porch, I knew I would be the one setting the rules for the game we shouldn’t be playing.

It was meant for Andrés, my boyfriend. But the blue double check appeared three seconds later, and I realized, my stomach turning cold, that I’d sent it to the wrong man.

When the bathroom door opened, I already had the gun raised and a very clear idea of how I was going to bring that bastard to heel before we left.

I spent half an hour preparing provocations for a room full of women. What I hadn't prepared for was what they would do to me when I lost control.

She told me to come back at ten, when she was closing, and promised to suck me better than anyone. It took four nights to find her at the register again.

My father never looked at her the same way again after that week. Neither did I, once I learned what she had done to save us all from ruin.

I walked into that workshop giving orders, as I always do. I never imagined that a grease-covered mechanic would remind me who was really in charge that afternoon.

The first order came at seven in the evening, and I understood that night I would obey everything without asking, in front of a camera and a man I knew only through his written voice.