What My Father Allowed That Weekend

The silence in the dining room was so thick you could almost cut it with the fish knife. My parents were seated across from me, but neither of them touched their food. My mother tortured the linen napkin between her fingers. My father kept his gaze fixed on his glass of red wine, as if he expected to find some answer at the bottom of the glass.

“Marina, we need to talk about something serious,” he finally blurted out.

His voice, always so firm, sounded broken that night. They told me the truth all at once, without anesthesia. The company’s problems, the investments that had gone under, the debts breathing down our necks. The house, my university, the car, everything was hanging by a thread. I felt dizzy. I was twenty-one years old and had a life I thought was guaranteed forever.

“This weekend one of my partners is coming,” my father continued, looking me in the eye for the first time. “His name is Don Vicente. He’s a man of incalculable wealth, but he’s demanding as well. Whether we end up out on the street depends on him.”

He reached out and squeezed my hand over the tablecloth. His fingers were ice-cold.

“You have to understand, daughter. We’re all going to have to make sacrifices. I want you to do everything in your power to make Don Vicente feel comfortable, truly at ease, this weekend. We cannot afford for him to leave unhappy. Do you understand?”

I nodded, though a shiver ran down my spine. Comfortable with what, exactly?

***

Don Vicente arrived on Friday afternoon in a sleek black car. The first thing I noticed was the way he occupied space: a man in his mid-fifties, with gray hair combed back and a suit that pulled a little at his belly. He had that arrogance of men who know they can buy anything, even people’s will.

His gaze traveled over me from head to toe the moment he crossed the threshold. It was no discreet glance. It was a slow, possessive scan that lingered on the neckline of my dress.

“Well, Gonzalo,” he said to my father without taking his eyes off me, “you didn’t tell me your daughter was such an spectacular woman.”

“She’s my greatest treasure,” my father replied, with a servile smile that made me want to vomit.

The atmosphere in the living room changed instantly when my mother walked in. I froze. In my twenty-one years, I had never seen her like that. She was wearing a red satin dress so short it barely covered her ass, with a neckline that left her breasts almost bare, rising with every breath. Her makeup was aggressive: blood-red lips, heavy eyes, and her hair loose down her back.

When our eyes met, I saw a flash of shame in hers. She hid it immediately, like someone putting on a mask.

“You already know Carmen,” my father said in a tone meant to sound proud and that came out as sheer desperation.

Don Vicente let out a deep laugh. He walked over to my mother and, without a word, took her hand to kiss it. But he didn’t stop there: he held it captive while his other hand traced her bare arm.

“Gonzalo, you’re a lucky man,” he said, not letting go. “Two beauties under one roof.”

My mother forced a smile, a pitiful grimace, and let herself be touched.

“I hope the weekend is to your liking, Don Vicente,” she whispered, in a false, syrupy voice.

He wasted no time. With a brazen gesture he put his hand on her waist and pulled her toward him, pressing his body against hers. I watched that hand slide down without the slightest shame and squeeze one of her buttocks over the satin, the fingers imprinting into her flesh. My mother jolted, but she stayed there, letting herself be groped in front of my father and me.

“It’s going to be an unforgettable weekend,” he growled, looking at me while still squeezing. “I like the hospitality in this house.”

My father, instead of smashing his face in, merely poured another glass of wine.

“Of course, Vicente. We want you to feel like a king.”

***

I left there and locked myself in my room with a slam of the door, my heart pounding against my ribs. Everything disgusted me: the sheen of sweat on my father’s forehead, that man’s predator smile and, above all, the dress my mother had put on. I wasn’t going to witness that. I wasn’t going to watch them hand over the family’s dignity in exchange for a wad of bills.

I threw myself on the bed and buried my face in the pillow, trying to let the scent of fabric softener erase the trail of stale tobacco and desire Don Vicente had left behind.

A few minutes later the door opened slowly. From the perfume and the cold sweat I knew it was her. My mother sat on the edge of the mattress. I didn’t move.

“Marina…” her voice was barely a thread, with none of the flirtation she’d had in the living room. “Look at me.”

I turned over. Her makeup had smudged a little, which made her look even more defeated. She seemed small, despite how explosive she looked in that satin.

“I’m so ashamed, daughter. You can’t imagine how much,” she said, lowering her gaze to her ring-laden hands. “But you have to understand why we’re doing this. It’s not just money. It’s an old debt.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, sitting up.

“Two years ago, when everything was going well, your father humiliated Vicente in front of the entire board. He laughed at him, called him a lucky bumpkin. Now Vicente has come back with the noose in his hand. He’s offered to save us, yes, but he didn’t come just to invest. He came to collect the debt in the dirtiest way possible.”

“Then Dad can go bankrupt alone,” I spat in anger. “This is wrong, Mom. I’m ashamed to see you like this. It’s disgusting the way you let that pig touch you just because he didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

Something changed in her face. Her fragility disappeared and her eyes turned to steel. She looked at me with a hardness I had never known, a hardness that made me feel small all over again.

“You’re a spoiled child, Marina,” she snapped, now cold and cutting. “You love the clothes you wear, you always went to the best schools, you always lived wrapped in cotton wool. What will become of you when we have to move to a fifty-square-meter apartment on the outskirts? When you have to sell your handbags to pay the electric bill? Do you think your friends will keep calling you?”

I was speechless. Reality hit me like a slap. I saw my wardrobe full of clothes, I saw my future of privilege wobbling over the abyss.

“The standard of living you love so much has a price,” she added, “and Don Vicente has the checkbook open.”

She headed for the door, but before leaving she turned back.

“In fifteen minutes I want you downstairs, before dinner. And whatever you see that man do to me, smile.”

The door closed. I was left alone in the dim light, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My hands were trembling when I reached for the red lipstick. Daddy’s little girl was dead. The bargaining chip had just accepted her fate.

***

We had dinner under unbearable tension. Vicente took the lead in everything, in a dirty, direct way. During the meal he kept groping my mother under the table. She turned red, let out little gasps she tried to cover with coughing, while my father talked about stocks and investment funds as if nothing were happening.

“Carmen, you have magnificent breasts,” Vicente suddenly blurted out, cutting off my father. “Gonzalo, do you mind if I check how soft they are?”

My father swallowed and tightened his grip on the cutlery, but he nodded with a submissiveness that churned my stomach.

“Go ahead, Vicente. You’re our guest of honor.”

The man reached his hand over the table and pulled one breast out over the red fabric, weighing it shamelessly.

“Magnificent. At company dinners, I always noticed your wife’s body.”

My mother let out a little laugh, pretending all that crudity amused her.

“You are quite bold, Don Vicente,” she said, covering herself again with the dress.

The air in the living room had become unbreathable: a thick vapor of whiskey, sweat, and my mother’s sweet perfume. As soon as dinner ended, Don Vicente sank into the wingback chair with his legs spread, like a king on a throne that didn’t belong to him.

“Carmen, come here. My knees are cold,” he ordered, his voice thick with drink.

I saw my mother hesitate for just a second. Then, with a movement of her hips that made my stomach clench, she sat on him. The satin rode up to her groin and showed that she wasn’t wearing stockings, only bare skin pressed against the old man’s dark trousers. Vicente didn’t wait: he shoved his hands into her ass and squeezed until his knuckles went white.

“That’s what I like. A woman who knows how to obey,” he growled.

He and my father resumed their talk of percentages, interest, and debt. It was a surreal, obscene scene. My father stood by the fireplace, a glass of cognac trembling in his hand. He tried to maintain a businesslike conversation, but his eyes kept drifting again and again to where Vicente’s hands disappeared beneath the red fabric.

While talking about money, Vicente unfastened her neckline, pulled out a heavy breast, already with the nipple standing stiff, and began kneading it as if it were modeling clay. My mother let out a broken sigh, halfway between a sob and a gasp. She looked at me for an instant, her eyes clouded with a shame that was turning into something darker.

“Your wife always got me going, Gonzalo,” Vicente said, licking her neck. “An elegant lady looking down her nose at me, as if her life were perfect.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. The disgust rose in my throat like acid. I stood up suddenly to run out of that madhouse, but before I could take a second step my father’s hand closed around my arm like a vise. It hurt. He dragged me toward him and pressed his lips to my ear, his breath of alcohol burning my skin.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he hissed, with a coldness that froze my blood. “Hasn’t your mother explained it to you? You need to be present. Watch and learn what it costs to keep your little whims going, Marina. We both have to be here. That’s the deal.”

He shoved me onto the sofa and forced me to sit beside the old man and my mother.

***

Vicente didn’t take long to lose interest in finance. He grabbed my mother by the hair, pulled her back to expose her throat, and with his other hand he opened his fly. His cock sprang out, congested and obscene.

“Suck it, Carmen. Show me you’re worth the investment,” he ordered.

My mother, before my eyes and my father’s, slid from his lap to the floor. She knelt between his legs and obeyed. The wet sound filled the silence of the living room, broken only by the old man’s grunts of satisfaction. I wanted to close my eyes, I wanted to vomit, but I felt a hot stab between my legs that horrified me. The humiliation was so absolute that, in some twisted way, it was sinking into me.

Vicente yanked her up and threw her onto the coffee table, sweeping the crystal glasses away, which fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. He tore off her underwear and put her on all fours.

“Look at this, Gonzalo. Look how your wife opens herself up for money,” he shouted, positioning himself behind her.

He went in with no preparation, with a single dry thrust that tore a scream of pain from my mother. And then the most disturbing thing happened. After the first seconds of pain, the tone of her moans changed. They were no longer protests. She started arching her back, seeking the contact, moving her hips against him with animal desperation.

“Yes… oh God, yes!” she cried, losing all decorum, all the facade of the perfect mother.

She was coming in front of us. Her breasts bounced with every thrust, and Vicente was punishing her with almost inhuman savagery. My mother moaned, completely surrendered to the pleasure of being used as merchandise. I felt my underwear soak through. The image of her being possessed like that, the smell of sex and power, my father’s fixed, empty stare… all of it pushed me to the edge.

Without warning, Vicente lifted his hand and brought it down hard on my mother’s right buttock. The crack was dry, brutal. I saw the skin flush red instantly. She let out a muffled cry of pain and surprise.

“That’s what you are!” he shouted, slapping her again on the other buttock. “Say it. Say you belong to me, Carmen.”

“Yes… I belong to you, Vicente,” my mother gasped, her voice broken. And to my horror, her hips were moving harder with each blow, craving more.

“More… give it to me harder!” she begged, with not a trace of dignity, surrendered to the pleasure that man was giving her in front of us.

Vicente smiled sadistically and grabbed her hair.

“You like it, don’t you? You like being treated like this,” he growled. “Then get ready, because tonight you’re not sleeping a wink.”

He emptied himself inside her with a roar while my mother convulsed in a violent orgasm that left her trembling on the table.

He pulled his pants up with leisurely calm, looked at me, and smiled. A smile that said, without any doubt, that this was only the beginning.

“Let’s go to bed, Carmen,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Say goodbye to your husband and your daughter. You won’t be sleeping all night.”

He went off to the bedroom without adding anything else. My mother stayed there, sprawled among the broken glass, panting, with an expression of guilty pleasure I will never forget. And I, in the dim light of the living room, touched myself over my clothes, realizing with terror that I was aroused. Tomorrow will still be the weekend, I thought. And I knew, with a knot in my stomach, that next time the old man’s gaze would not stop on my mother.