The Hidden Rules of the Student Flat

I started university late, just twenty-two, after two years working in my uncle’s workshop back home. When I finally got a place in Madrid, my parents became unbearably pushy about accommodation. A college residence was far too expensive, and the student flats I’d seen on the listing sites looked terrifyingly damp.

Rubén was the one who got me out of trouble. I’d met him that summer in the village. He was twenty-seven, two years ahead of me at university, and had come to spend August at his grandmother’s house. He found out I was desperate to find somewhere to live and told me about a flat in Malasaña. The landlord, a friend of his family, didn’t want to rent to just anyone; if Rubén vouched for me, the room was mine.

I accepted without thinking. That summer, we had become friends quickly, and I, still trying to figure certain things out about myself, was grateful to have someone I trusted nearby. With a relationship with a girlfriend over for two years and a one-off thing with a guy from my group of friends—Nacho—that nobody knew about, I arrived in the capital with more questions than answers.

What I didn’t suspect was that Rubén had been watching me all my life. Nor that my dalliance with Nacho in the hayloft, those handjobs and mutual blowjobs that had gone no further, hadn’t been as improvised as I thought.

The flat was large, bright, and ten minutes from the faculty. Rubén showed me the bedroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, and read me the landlord’s rules: no smoking indoors, don’t bring people over without warning, respect the cleaning rota. All logical. All reasonable.

The other rules, the ones I wasn’t meant to learn about yet, he kept for later.

The first few days were strange, in a good way. Rubén wandered down the hall with a towel loosely fastened around him, came out of the bathroom completely naked, cooked in a pair of boxers that left nothing to the imagination. I tried not to look, and always looked. My cock showed against my jeans, and he, pretending not to notice, noticed perfectly well. At night I heard the bed in the room next door creaking slowly, and I couldn’t sleep without putting a hand under the sheets.

On Friday of the second week, I thought I was alone. Rubén had said that morning that he was going to Alcalá to see a friend and wouldn’t be back until evening. I took the opportunity to have a long shower, with the water very hot, letting the steam cover everything. I went into the large bathroom, folded my clothes on top of the toilet lid, and stepped beneath the stream.

When I came out, my clothes were gone.

The towel was still there, yes, but my T-shirt, underwear, jeans, and phone had disappeared. I dried myself quickly, pulse racing, and went into the hallway wrapped in the towel. Warm light and quiet music came from the living room.

“Come here,” Rubén’s voice said from the sofa.

I went. Barefoot, with the towel clutched around my waist, the skin on my arms prickled. He was on the sofa in black shorts, his chest bare, my folded clothes resting on his knees as if he’d just ironed them.

“Sit down.”

I sat on the edge of the armchair, holding the towel as though it could still do me any good.

“When you accepted the room,” he began calmly, “we told you the normal rules. This flat, however, is special. There are other rules I’m going to explain to you now. That summer, in the hayloft, I saw you with Nacho. I saw you groping each other and sucking each other off. You don’t need to deny it. So I’m assuming what I’m about to tell you won’t frighten you.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know where he was going with this, but my cock, beneath the towel, was beginning to make its own decisions.

“The landlord’s name is Óscar, and he’s a Master. Here, when he asks for something, you obey. Sexually, too. Do you know what BDSM is?”

“I’ve read a little,” I said, my mouth dry.

“I took a chance on you. If you don’t think you can be submissive, there’s another flat belonging to a friend of his, at the same price. But if you stay here, you accept the hierarchy. Óscar is in charge of the two of us and the other two boys who’ll arrive next month. I’m in charge of the three of you. Did Nacho ever fuck you?”

“No,” I answered, my voice breaking. “Just handjobs and blowjobs.”

Rubén smiled as if that confirmed something. He picked up his phone.

“You can come down,” he said. “He’s agreed to talk to you.”

Óscar lived two floors above us. He took four minutes. When he opened the door with his own key, Rubén dropped to his knees on the floor, hands open on his thighs and his back very straight. I, not knowing what to do, stood up, holding the towel.

Óscar was in his early forties, broad-shouldered, with a tattoo showing above the collar of his shirt. He came closer, looked me up and down, and ripped the towel away with one tug. I stood naked in front of them both, my cock genuinely hard, a clear drop already running down from the tip.

“These are the conditions you haven’t heard yet,” he said, without giving me back the towel. “I come in whenever I feel like it and use you whenever I feel like it. Around the house, you go naked or wear a jockstrap; boxers are only allowed when someone from outside is visiting. From the neck down, you’re always shaved; Rubén knows how to take you where you need to go. The bedroom and bathroom doors stay open if you’re only going in to piss. If I tell you to fuck another man, you obey. The safe word is ‘red’; raising your hand or banging the floor three times with your foot works too. Safe sex isn’t negotiable. Do you accept?”

I was going to say no. I was going to say it. But my cock was throbbing without permission, and my knees were already trembling for another reason.

“I accept,” I said.

A slap across the cheek turned my face. It didn’t hurt as much as it humiliated me, and suddenly my cock was even harder.

“When you address us,” Óscar said without raising his voice, “you’ll say ‘sir’ or ‘Master.’ Repeat it.”

“I accept, sir.”

“That’s better. Before we go on, there’s something you need to know: what happened in the hayloft wasn’t a coincidence. I’ve been fucking Nacho every summer for the past three years. I asked him to sound you out. I wanted to know which way you leaned.”

The floor seemed to open beneath me. They had arranged my life without my knowing, and instead of being disgusted, I was coming inside just from hearing it.

Rubén moved without needing to be told. He gripped my neck firmly and pushed me until I was bent over the dining table. He spread my arms out like a cross, and Óscar tied them to the legs with two leather straps he took from a drawer, as if that table had been set up as an altar from the beginning. My ass was raised, my legs spread, my cock dripping against the wood.

Rubén brought over a set of silicone plugs and a large bottle of lube. He covered my asshole with cold lubricant using two fingers, unhurriedly. He pushed them in and drew them out slowly, opening me, searching for me, until I felt my sphincter relax and began pushing myself against his hand. Then came the small plug. He slid almost all of it in at once and twisted it so the lubricant coated my walls. Then he pulled it out and inserted a larger one. And another. And another. Each turn was another twist in my gut.

“He’s ready,” Rubén said, withdrawing the last plug.

Óscar positioned himself behind me. I heard the belt, the metallic sound of the buckle, the rustle of clothes falling to the floor. He gripped my hips with both hands, pressing his thumbs into my skin. He pushed the head in first, carefully, then, without warning, shoved all the way in with one thrust. My cry caught in my throat. My eyes filled with tears.

“Hold on,” he said very softly beside my ear. “Hold on, because the good part’s coming.”

He started fucking me with long thrusts, pulling his cock almost all the way out and driving back in to the hilt. Every thrust tore a broken moan from me. He changed the angle, feeling around, until he found the spot he’d been looking for. When he touched my prostate, my cock swelled so much I thought it was going to burst. A steady thread of precum escaped me and dripped onto the floor. I was one thrust away from coming without anyone touching me.

He knew exactly when, and changed the angle to stop brushing against my prostate. I was left hanging on the edge of orgasm, breathing raggedly and panting with fury.

“Not yet,” he said. “When I say so.”

He sped up. His thighs slapped against mine with a wet smack. One of his fingers brushed the hair from the nape of my neck and gripped me there, pulling my head back to arch me farther. Beneath my abdomen, my cock throbbed on its own. I began shooting jets of cum onto the table’s wood without anyone having touched me, one blast after another, my vision going white. Óscar managed two, three more thrusts, then came inside me with a low growl, squeezing my hips.

He pulled out slowly. Semen began running down the inside of my thigh.

“Tomorrow, Rubén, you know what to do,” he said as he pulled his clothes back on. “Take him to Tarek. Have him prepare him properly.”

He closed the door as calmly as he had entered.

Rubén undid the straps, stroked my back for a moment, and sent me to shower. He told me to be ready at ten the next morning.

***

On Saturday, he got up before I did. When he came into my room, he opened the wardrobe, rummaged through my clothes, and took out a gray tracksuit and a white T-shirt. He left them on the chair and ordered me to go to the bathroom, empty myself, and wait for him kneeling in the shower tray.

I obeyed without arguing. I emptied myself with the enema bulb, pissed, and knelt on the tray. The cold water on the floor sent a shiver through my shins. Rubén came in calmly, stepped under the stream, soaped himself from head to toe in front of me, and, when he finished, moved aside and pissed over my chest and face. The stream was hot and long, running down my chin, my neck, between my collarbones. I closed my eyes and lowered my head. When he was done, he turned on the water and cleaned me with his free hand as if rinsing a plate.

Dressed in the tracksuit, I followed him out into the street, one step behind as he had ordered. We walked through Lavapiés to some very twisted little streets and stopped in front of a small metal door. Rubén knocked three times, sharply. It opened a crack, and we went inside.

There was a narrow hallway inside, lit by red bulbs. At the end was a room with an examination table and a glass cabinet full of jars and oils. A man—Tarek, I was told later—in his forties, dark-haired, with broad hands, indicated that I should strip and lie face down.

He spread a cream over me that he made himself. It was a mixture of depilatory cream with warm, aromatic oils: cinnamon, cardamom, and something that stung a little. He covered every millimeter of skin on my back, my buttocks, my thighs, and my calves. He waited fifteen minutes, removed the cream with a spatula and a damp towel, and repeated the process with me on my back. When I finished rinsing myself, I was a different body: clean, smooth, not a single hair from my neck to my ankles.

While Tarek depilated me, Rubén had been taken to another room, hanging by his wrists. His handler, an older man, tested three different whips across his shoulder blades and lower back. Rubén didn’t complain; he wouldn’t have been able to even if he’d wanted to, with a leather gag between his teeth. When I saw him come out some time later, red marks crossed his entire back, and he wore a serene smile I still wasn’t capable of understanding.

Before we left, Tarek said the payment was still due.

He made me kneel on a rug. He opened his trousers and pulled his cock out in front of my face. It was long, with a thick head. I ran my tongue over his frenulum first, licked him up and down, sucked the tip as if savoring a piece of candy. It went rock-hard in my mouth within seconds. Then he grabbed my hair, shoved it all the way into my mouth, and began fucking my throat at his own pace, pulling it out only enough to let me breathe. I gagged twice. My eyes filled with tears and saliva. He sped up until he came at the back of my throat, and without pulling out completely, started pissing into my mouth, forcing me to swallow. I managed to swallow almost all of it. A thread escaped from the corner of my mouth and ran down my chin.

Then came the tattoo. An old technique using two pieces of wood, natural ink, and a small pattern Óscar had chosen for me: on the nape of my neck, hidden beneath my hair. When they finished, an old white-bearded man entered the room, came over, took hold of my cock, and jerked me off several times without letting me come.

“Rubén,” he said with a smile, “you’ve brought us a fine little slut. Next time, we’ll fuck him.”

***

We went home talking about trivial things, like any two friends on a Saturday morning. We ate, washed dishes, and hung out the laundry. At nap time, Óscar came down with his key, grabbed Rubén by the wrist, and took him to the bedroom at the back. In the kitchen, I listened for half an hour to the bed banging against the wall and Rubén moaning as if his life depended on every thrust.

When I went to bed that night, I thought I’d be able to sleep. That first Saturday had felt endless. But just as I was beginning to drift off, I felt someone’s weight settling onto the bed, a firm hand turning me onto my stomach, and warm skin pressing against mine. I obediently opened my legs. Rubén’s already-lubricated glans slowly worked its way inside until it was fully in. He began a gentle, almost tender in-and-out. He bit my shoulder and spoke into my ear.

“You’re going to have the most exciting years of your life.”

I believed him. I was already having them.