Submission

The ad said “free erotic session for young guys.” What it didn’t say, and what I understood perfectly, was how he planned to charge me that night.

I’d been sending him nudges for months with no reply. That morning he answered with two words that had me on my knees before I even opened the door.

When he opened the door in his boxers and told me “on your knees, quietly,” I knew the Uber ride across town would be worth it.

He wore an impeccable suit, and beneath it, the lace only he could see. When the office latch clicked, Noa stopped being the perfect assistant.

They caught him stealing food in the middle of the night; when they forced him to raise his face beneath that tangled mane, the patrician recognized eyes he thought lost forever.

Ten minutes off, a soccer video game, and a ridiculous bet were enough to unravel everything Bruno thought he knew about his friend in one afternoon.

We were late to the academy every morning, but we never skipped that ritual between the sheets. Today, for the first time in weeks, he was the one spreading my legs.

I’m thirty-four and I never doubted what I was. Until that seed started growing inside me, silent and persistent, and I could no longer ignore it.

I felt his big body pressing into my back with every brake, and when he whispered, “we get off at the next stop,” I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no.

I’d been at the company for three weeks when he leaned over the table and told me I had something that caught people’s attention. That same afternoon, I followed him.

When that man put his hands on my back, I knew it was no longer about the fever or the exhaustion from the trip, but about something I had been avoiding for years.

I spent a year looking for someone willing to take me completely. The email from that stranger changed everything: she didn’t want to play with me, she wanted my whole life.

He knocked expecting a routine exam. A stranger in a robe opened the door with a smile that promised trouble, and he knew that afternoon he wouldn’t be in charge.

—Tonight you’re not serving me with your hands —she said, lifting her skirt while I remained on my knees, waiting for the only order that truly mattered.

Her feet on the edge of my chair were only the beginning. That night I found out how far I was willing to go to please her.

I’m a patrician used to buying everything I desire. That afternoon I discovered there are men you don’t command: you obey them.

She told her grandfather she was leaving, but she never even exited the building: Sonia was waiting at the end of the hall with five unwashed old men and a promise that made her tremble.

For years I stole her flip-flops to hide away with them. The afternoon she caught me on a ladder, she knew exactly how to use my secret.

The neighbors’ complaints didn’t scare her; they turned her on. In that elevator it smelled of beer and dirty man, and she was already on her knees before reaching the top floor.

One look from her after catching me on my knees by her bed was enough to break our friendship and begin something else: obeying every whim without protest.