My Husband Negotiated My Price with the Club Owner

Daniel arrived earlier than expected, and I knew from the way he dropped the keys on the table that something was on his mind. We had spent a week dodging each other around the house like two strangers sharing a rental, and I was tired of that thick silence. I left my coat and bag on the sofa and sat down across from him.

—Who goes first? —I asked.

—You —he said, and ran a hand over the back of his neck, that gesture of his when he doesn’t know how to get into it.

—You know what hurts me most? That by now you still don’t trust me. That a month goes by, two months, and you keep things to yourself until they blow up. I can’t stand finding out everything from other people.

—I think too much about the consequences —he admitted—. I keep going over how you’re going to take it, and the days slip away from me. Until it blows up in my face.

I got up to get some water so I wouldn’t cry in front of him. When I came back, he was still standing there, hunched in on himself, and that disarmed me more than any reproach.

—Talk to me —I insisted—. What are you afraid of? Anything, I’ll understand. I may like it more or less, but I’ll understand it.

He hugged me, and everything I had planned to say was left aside. We stayed like that for a long while, healing from so many crooked days.

***

—I want to tell you something —he said at last, sitting on the edge of the sofa—. The other night, when I went to pick up Selena at the Recodo, Rubén approached me.

The name raised goosebumps on my skin. Rubén was the owner of the place, the man who managed Selena and half a dozen other girls with a mix of hard hand and calculated caresses. I had been there a couple of times the summer before, first out of curiosity, then because something about that sordid atmosphere drew me in in a way I didn’t dare admit out loud.

—And what did he want?

—To speak plainly, he said. —Daniel took a deep breath—. He knows who you are when you walk through that door. That the night you stayed until closing with Selena was no coincidence. And he made me an offer.

—I see where this is going. To you or to me?

—To both of us.

I stirred an imaginary drink, staring into space. I knew exactly where that was headed, and my heart had started racing in a way that had nothing to do with outrage.

—Tell it to me in his words —I asked—. I want to hear them exactly as he said them.

Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were back at that bar again.

—“Your wife is good for this, Daniel. She’s, by far, the best one who’s ever come through my place. She’s got a body, but above all she’s got class, and that can’t be bought here. People still ask me when the Madrileña is coming back. I’m not asking you to move, that would be too much. But if she comes by here two or three nights every fifteen days, to start with, and word gets around, the three of us will be rolling in it. I’m not forgetting you: there’s a cut for the husband who brings in the lady.”

—How generous —I murmured.

—“Don’t look at me like that. Your wife wouldn’t do it for money, I know that, and you don’t need it either. But I’m going to tell you something: the day you’ve got the first bills in your hand for letting somebody else take her, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I’ve seen it in other men. It’s more addictive than any drug.”

I listened in silence, my knees pressed together, aware of how each phrase sank in deeper than I wanted to admit.

—And what did you say?

—That I’d think about it.

—That you’d think about it —I repeated, and let out a short laugh—. Come on, Daniel, admit it. The idea of taking a cut of what I’d make by whoring myself out turns you on like crazy.

—I didn’t say that.

—No need to. I can see it on your face. —I moved a step closer—. I can picture the scene: you sitting at the bar with a drink, bargaining my price with him, haggling as if I were merchandise. And the worst part is that imagining it gets me hot too.

Daniel swallowed. I knew him too well: his breathing a little shorter, his hands too still on his thighs.

—There was something else —he said—. A condition.

—Go on.

—All his girls have a mark. A tattoo. A number.

I went cold for a second. There it was, my limit, the wall everything else slammed into.

—A number.

—Nine —he said softly—. That would be you. At home, Mrs. Vidal. In his place, Nine.

***

I sat down beside him. The part of me that had been waking up for months pushed forward with a force that frightened me; the other, the sensible one, clung to that detail like a red-hot nail.

—The number doesn’t matter to me —I said slowly—. I even like it, if I’m honest. A stranger calling me by a number, reducing me to that, you listening from behind a door as I become someone else. That melts me. But a tattoo, no. Picture it in thirty years, on a body that isn’t this one anymore. I don’t want to have this engraved on me forever. It’s the only thing I won’t negotiate.

—I told him that. I stalled him on that point.

—And he was satisfied?

—He said we’d talk about it. That for now it was enough that you were willing.

I turned toward him. The tension from the last week had turned into something else, a hot current running through both of us at the same time, and neither of us was bothering to hide it anymore.

—Did I disappoint you? —I asked—. About the tattoo.

—No. Not at all.

—Liar. You were thrilled at the idea of handing me over to him. Of taking me by the hand to that door and leaving me inside.

—Only if you want to —he said, and his voice had gone hoarse.

—This is the strongest thing you’ve done since the night you paid me before sleeping with me —I reminded him, moving close enough to feel his breath—. You behaved like a pig that time. But you opened my eyes. You showed me who I really am.

—Shut up.

—I don’t want to shut up. Are you going to deny that it turns you on to see me come home after being with another man? That you suffered on purpose the day you saw me getting out of that guy’s car, hair messed up, mascara smudged?

—Stop.

—I’m not stopping. —I put one arm around his neck, braced myself with the other on his waist, and pressed against him until I felt how hard he was—. See? You don’t need to say anything. Your body has already confessed for you.

***

—All right, yes —he burst out at last, gripping my hips—. It turns me on. I can’t help it. The idea of selling you turns me on. I try to resist, but since you make it so easy, why deny it? I’d die to do it exactly as you describe: take you by the hand to that door and hand you over.

—At last —I whispered against his mouth—. At last you’re saying it.

We kissed with an urgency that had been building for days. They were not soft kisses. They were kisses of hunger, of reconciliation, and of something darker that the two of us had been feeding in silence. I bit his lip, he slid his hand under my blouse and pinched my nipple until he tore a moan from me.

—Tell me how it would be —I asked, while unbuckling his belt—. That night. I want to hear it.

—You’d dress in black —he said, his voice breaking under my hands—. The short dress, the one that hits mid-thigh.

—No bra.

—No bra. Red lips.

—A lot of mascara, a lot of shadow. High heels. —I pulled down the zipper and freed him, hard and hot against my palm—. And you’d come in with me on your arm, introduce me as Nine, and then step away.

—I’d step away to listen from behind the door —he gasped.

—To listen to another man call me by my number. To use me. To hear me moan for him knowing you’re on the other side, touching yourself.

I shoved him onto the sofa and stripped off the dress I wasn’t even wearing, just the real clothes I tore off in handfuls. I straddled him and guided his cock until it went in in one hard thrust, without patience, all the way to the hilt. Daniel let out a growl and dug his fingers into my hips.

—Say it again —I demanded, moving slowly, torturing him—. Say you’d sell me.

—I’d sell you —he obeyed—. I’d take you there myself. I’d take payment for you and go home to wait for you.

—And when I came back —I picked up the pace, my nails in his chest—, smelling of another man, with his mark still hot on me, you’d fuck me on top of all that, right?

—Yes. Fuck, yes.

I leaned over him, my breasts against his face, and he covered them with his mouth while I rode him faster and faster. The fantasy wrapped around both of us, the bar, the number, the faceless man waiting for me in a room, the half-open door with my husband behind it. I don’t know at what point it stopped being a conversation and became a single scene we were living through at the same time with our bodies.

—I’m coming —I warned—. Don’t stop, don’t you dare stop.

—Come for me thinking about it —he said in my ear, squeezing me against him—. Come for me being Nine.

And I came like that, my whole body shaking, with that word echoing inside me, while he emptied himself in a long spasm and held me as if he were afraid I might really leave with another man that very night.

***

Afterward we stayed tangled up on the sofa, catching our breath, his hand drawing lazy circles on my back.

—Well? —he asked after a while—. What do I tell Rubén?

I smiled against his shoulder. The sensible part of me was still there, watchful, drawing the only line I wasn’t going to cross. But everything else had already said yes long before he came home.

—Tell him Nine is available —I replied—. But he can keep the mark for his other girls. You’ve already marked me where no one can see.

Daniel gave a low laugh, that laugh of his for when something overwhelms him and he loves it at the same time. Outside, it had started to rain, a soft, steady rain, as if the future were waiting to be written and neither of us wanted to do anything to avoid it now.