The Bubble Hostel Where I Learned to Be Watched

It had been months since I’d set foot in the mall on Avenida Bolívar when I saw her come out of a bookstore carrying two bags. It was Mariela. The same crooked smile from when we were twenty-three, the same hair gathered in a careless bun, the same habit of biting her lip when someone said something that surprised her. We had broken up for reasons that, seen from our thirties, I can’t quite remember now. A stupid fight, two months without speaking, a pride neither of us wanted to give up first.

That day we walked to a café on the first floor. After that came dinner at a Peruvian restaurant in the old neighborhood. After that came my apartment, a bottle of red wine, and our clothes piled on the hallway floor.

Life had given us a second chance and I had no intention of wasting it.

A few months after getting back together, I discovered that Mariela had developed a taste for traveling within the country. No flights or resorts. Boutique hotels, hidden hostels, remote estates with views of the sea or the mountains. I, who had always been more of an airport person, let myself be dragged along. We spent one weekend in a glass-roofed cabin in the mountain range. Another on a sailboat anchored off a tiny island. Another in a wooden house on the edge of a lagoon.

One afternoon, killing time on Instagram, I found a site that glued me to the screen. It was a hostel with bubble suites. The concept was simple and radical at the same time: there were no walls. The entire property was outdoors, surrounded by jungle, and the bedrooms were transparent plastic domes set on wooden platforms. The shower, the sink, even the toilet: everything was exposed. The bubble was the only translucent thing. You lay down and saw the whole sky.

I made the reservation right away. Or rather, I tried to. The next available dates were eleven months out. I booked the first one that matched the first anniversary of our getting back together, sent the deposit, and saved the confirmation email like it was a winning ticket.

***

A month passed, and Mariela called me on a Thursday night with a voice heavy with something I couldn’t identify.

—I have a surprise for this weekend —she said—. Something we’ve never done.

—Something legal?

—Almost.

I laughed. I pressed her to tell me what it was, but she wouldn’t give anything away. She only asked me to wax my entire body, wear comfortable clothes, and trust her.

—If we’re going to a nude beach, that’s not news —I protested—. I’ve walked around naked on half the coast.

—It’s not that —she said, and hung up.

On Saturday we left at nine in the morning in her pickup truck. The GPS wasn’t pointing to any airport. Nor to the coast. We were climbing a narrow road that wound north through the valley, between coffee plantations and cloud forest. By midmorning we reached a green-painted iron gate, hidden among ferns. There was no sign. Only an intercom.

When the gate opened, I recognized the place at once. It was the bubble hostel. The same one I had booked for eleven months later.

—How did you get a room? —I asked, still inside the car.

—The owners are friends of a friend —she said without looking at me—. They do special openings off schedule.

Something in her tone made me think that wasn’t the end of it. But the place was so beautiful that I left the question hanging.

***

The property was exactly like the photos. A long infinity pool overlooking the valley, a hammock stretched between two trees, an open kitchen under a thatched roof. And, scattered along the slope, six transparent bubbles with king-size beds inside.

We spent the afternoon unpacking and walking the paths leading out from the property. When I came back, I found Mariela in the pool, naked, her wet hair stuck to her shoulders.

—And the clothes? —I asked.

—Not needed here. The place is designed so you don’t wear them.

It was true. The shower was outdoors, separated from the path by a row of tropical plants. The toilet had side walls but no roof. No point on the property was visible from the road or a neighboring house: the jungle acted as a wall.

I stripped and got into the water. We played for a while as if we were twenty again: she pushed me against the edge, I bit her neck, she laughed and darted away. In a pause between kisses I asked her about the surprise.

—The surprise is us —she said.

She waited a second. I could see her choosing her words.

—I belong to a group. It’s called The Mirror Fraternity. We’re exhibitionists and voyeurs in equal measure. This hostel is where we meet. No one else is here right now besides us, but when there’s an active session, the owners install cameras in places only they know.

I lost my breath. I stepped back in the water.

—So a group of strangers has been watching me naked all afternoon?

—No. That’s not how it works.

She took her phone from the edge of the pool and showed me an open app. A grid with six black squares. None of them streaming.

—The cameras only turn on when the guest decides. There’s a button in every area of the property. If you press it, the camera covering that area goes live. If not, it stays off. No one sees anything unless you want them to.

It took me a long minute to process that. Mariela waited in silence, water up to her shoulders. I saw that her jaw was tense.

—Who watches?

—The other members. There are fourteen of us. I’m the only one who still hadn’t contributed. To get in, you have to let yourself be seen at least once. That’s the rule.

—And the others have seen you?

—Not yet. I got in through friendship with the founders, but I owe my session. I’ve been on the waiting list for two years. If I wanted to contribute with you, I needed to bring you here.

—You could have told me before —I said, annoyed.

—If I’d told you before, you wouldn’t have come.

She was right, and that annoyed me even more. But when I looked at her, I realized she was more exposed than I was. She had spent two years enduring a secret fraternity’s waiting list and had risked the one thing she had with me—the trust we had only just recovered—in order to get in.

***

We got out of the water and dried off in silence. I walked to the bubble, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at the sky through the plastic. Mariela came in behind me, lay down beside me, and rested her head on my chest. She didn’t speak. She knew she was waiting for an answer I didn’t yet have.

I ran my hand through her wet hair. How many times had I fantasized, in private, about being seen? About being recorded. About a peephole. The difference between a fantasy spoken in a low voice and a fantasy made real in a transparent bubble was only a matter of courage.

—Where’s the button? —I asked.

She lifted her head slowly.

—On the side of the bed. Under the nightstand.

I reached out. It was a metal disk the size of a coin, slightly set into the wood. I pressed it. A green light came on.

—If they’re going to watch me —I said—, they might as well watch me doing what I actually like doing.

***

I kissed her like I hadn’t kissed her all afternoon. Slowly, biting her lower lip, letting my tongue brush her palate. She swung herself astride me and pushed me down onto the mattress.

I ran my hands down her back until I got hold of her breasts. They were firm, the nipples already hard from the cool night air. I sucked one, then the other. Mariela arched her back and let out a long, contained sigh.

I moved down her belly. I kissed her navel, the curve of her hipbone, the inside of her thigh. When I reached her sex, I found it already soaked. I ran my tongue over her whole slit, from bottom to top, and felt her shudder. I repeated the motion more slowly. Then I focused only on her clit, drawing small circles while I slid two fingers into her.

Mariela grabbed my hair with both hands. She wasn’t pushing me away or pulling me off, just holding me there, as if she were afraid I’d stop. I kept licking and kept fingering her until her whole body tightened and she let out a cry that bounced inside the bubble. I didn’t stop, and two minutes later she came again, quieter, more undone.

I sat up. My mouth and chin were soaked. She looked at me with bright eyes, still breathing hard.

—Your turn —she whispered.

***

I lay back in the center of the bed. Mariela came down my body kissing me all the way. When she reached my sex, she took it in both hands and took me into her mouth slowly, all the way to the back of her throat. The sensation tore a groan from me.

I thought about the cameras. Fourteen invisible eyes were seeing that same thing. The idea lit me up to a degree I had never felt before. Every lick felt multiplied. Every sound I made was for an audience that couldn’t see us but was there, attentive, hanging on the next movement.

It was going to spill out of me so fast I had to stop her. I lifted her by the shoulders, kissed her, and whispered in her ear what I wanted. She smiled and turned around. She braced herself on her hands and knees in the center of the bed, giving me her back, offering me everything she had.

I spread her ass cheeks with both hands and buried my face between them. I ran my tongue over everything I found, without order, without strategy. Mariela pressed her forehead into the pillow and let out a deep, animal sound I had never heard from her before. I slid two fingers into her again. Then three. Then I grabbed her by the hips, knelt behind her, and drove into her in one thrust.

I started slowly. The bed made no noise, but our bodies did, and I amplified it on purpose. I squeezed her hips. I ran my hand up her back until I got her hair in my fist. She let me do what I wanted, and every time I picked up speed, she answered with a cry that escaped her unfiltered.

—I want you to finish inside —she said, her voice broken—. Don’t stop.

I wasn’t going to stop. I drove harder, faster, until my orgasm rose from the soles of my feet and exploded in my waist. I buried myself in her as deeply as my body would allow. She came almost at the same time, squeezing me with everything she had.

***

We lay there for a while in silence, bodies pressed together, listening to the crickets in the forest beyond the plastic. Then I stretched out, found the button under the nightstand, and pressed it again. The green light blinked and went out.

We went down to the outdoor shower. The moon was full and the water droplets gleamed on Mariela’s skin as if it had been dusted with silver. We soaped each other up slowly, without hurry. We didn’t talk about the Club. That part had already been said.

The rest of the weekend we spent turning buttons on and off. In the pool, in the kitchen, in the hammock, and again in the bubble at dawn. We gave the invisible audience five or six more scenes, each one longer than the last. Mariela kept her side of the bargain, and I discovered that the idea of being watched, far from making me uncomfortable, sent my pulse racing in a way I hadn’t expected.

When we went back to the city on Monday night, she handed me the phone with the app open. The grid still showed six black squares, but now all of them were dark: the next weekend was being arranged by another couple, at another hostel from the same group.

—If you want to watch —she said—, now you can too.

I touched the screen. The first square lit up.