Submission

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.

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.

I arrived at the motel saying I didn’t want to go on, convinced I would stop everything. I had no idea how much I’d enjoy losing that argument with myself.

No one looked at me at that party. I rubbed the lamp out of boredom and wished for a body no one could ignore; I never imagined the price.

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.

It had been an eternity since a man had touched her. Two strangers and a crowded train were enough for her body to betray her without permission.

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.

I went in as a frightened student and came out as her. Behind the black curtain, without names or faces, I discovered how much I wanted a stranger to use me.

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 had never set foot outside dressed as a woman. That early morning, I painted my lips in a gas-station bathroom and drove to him without thinking about what would follow.

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.

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.

I arrived with my tape measure and my nerves frayed. All I wanted was to avoid the west wing, but he had already asked for me at reception.

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.

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.