Punishment

I was warned she was bitter, that she hated men. What no one said is that behind that armor she’d gone years without anyone truly touching her.

Nine hours until my flight and there wasn’t a single bed free in the whole airport. Then she looked at me from her table and asked, “Do you feel like sitting with me?”

I woke up tied up in a basement, naked and at the mercy of the woman I was investigating. I had no idea that in a few hours I’d be the one holding the whip.

When Elena opened the doors, the smell of burned flesh reached her before the sight. Two broken bodies, a filthy job, and a guard determined to stop it.

I woke up cuffed to the ceiling in a room full of whips and rings. Two women meant to break me. No one warned them I learn fast.

Rodrigo crawled behind her heels through the castle halls, naked and with the collar biting his throat. That was the queen’s breakfast.

I walked into her room with a tray and she looked at me from the bed, almost naked, and asked: “Do you like what you see?” Something in me woke up without warning.

The plaid skirt, the thigh-high stockings, the smeared makeup. That afternoon alone at home, I became who I most wanted to be, and my body surprised me in a way I never expected.

Rodrigo hung from the Pillar on the brink of collapse. Valeria could not defy the Queen, but she would not let a healthy man die through negligence.

I woke with my hands tied in a dark room. I didn’t know how I got there. I did know I was investigating the wrong people.

Rodrigo hung from the Pillar of the Condemned when Catalina crossed the threshold. Guard Nora already had her hand on her dagger. There were rules no one broke in that castle.

For years I was the beast in bed. Men feared me or pleased me. No one had ever tied me up. No one until I gave my email to that stranger in chat.

Hanging on tiptoe with his neck bitten by metal teeth, the captive awaited death when the healer found the gap between the order and mercy.

By day I was the same invisible wife as always. At night I wrote what I didn’t dare ask for. Until someone read it and decided to give it to me.

I arrived at the complex looking for a body that would obey without question. What I found that afternoon surpassed everything I had imagined.