Chapter 6: El mensaje inesperado
The smell of his own room was suddenly cloying. The cheap cologne on his dresser, the stale coffee grounds from a mug he’d forgotten for days, the faint, ever-present scent of his own anxiety sweating through his skin. Martín sat on the edge of his unmade bed, the blue-checkered sheets tangled around his feet. The law textbook open on his lap was a blur of black and white.
His phone, face-down on the pillow, was a silent black rectangle. It felt like it was generating its own heat.
He had stared at the photo for exactly seventeen seconds, according to the timestamp, before locking the screen and throwing the phone as if it had burned him. It had landed softly on the pile of clothes by his door. Now, the entire room seemed to orbit that spot. The image was burned onto the back of his eyelids every time he blinked. The pale curve of her breasts, the shadowed dip between them, the dark, taut peaks. The composition was clumsy, hurried. Real. The message beneath it pulsed in his mind: ‘Por esto. ¿Te gusta?’
He hadn’t answered. What was there to say? No was a lie. Sí was a surrender. Anything else was a negotiation he didn’t know how to start.
The phone vibrated against the fabric of a discarded sweatshirt. A low, insistent buzz that seemed to travel up through the floorboards into his bones.
He didn’t move.
It buzzed again. Then a third time in quick succession. Texts. A follow-up barrage.
His hand moved without consulting his brain. He retrieved the phone. The screen lit up, illuminating his face in the dim room.
Three new messages from the unknown number.
‘Se te ha caído la lengua?’
‘Bua, no me ignores. Que me estoy aburriendo aquí sola.’
‘En serio, hazme una videollamada. Solo un minuto. Te prometo que me pongo algo.’
He breathed out, a shaky laugh that held no humor. The promise to get dressed was the most obscene part. It framed everything that had come before as a preliminary, a teaser. The real show was negotiable.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard. He typed a single letter, then deleted it. He thought of the library, her body pressed into the carrel beside him. The bus, her finger tracing circles. The gym, the damp, shocking crush of her. Each incident was a tile in a mosaic he was only now seeing the full shape of. It wasn’t random. It was a campaign.
A new bubble appeared. ‘Venga, tío. No seas aburrido. Es viernes.’
The casualness of it, the peer-pressure nudge, broke something loose in him. A reckless, furious curiosity. What did she want? What was the end point of this? His fingers moved, typing a reply before the caution could rebuild.
‘Por qué? Qué quieres.’
The reply was instantaneous. ‘Quiero verte la cara.’
Simple. Devastating. She didn’t want to perform; she wanted to witness. She wanted to watch him watch her. The power wasn’t in the display, but in his reaction to it.
The video call request appeared on his screen before he could process it. A stark, green button over her default profile icon. It vibrated in his hand, a digital summoning.
He stood up. Walked to the window. The street outside was quiet, a few parked cars under the orange glow of the streetlamp. A normal Friday night. In another universe, he was maybe deciding which series to watch, or texting a friend about football.
He accepted the call.
The screen resolved into pixels of color and shadow. She was in a bed, propped against a headboard he didn’t recognize. The lighting was warm, from a bedside lamp, casting one side of her face in gold, the other in deep shadow. She was, as promised, wearing something—a loose, gray tank top with thin straps. It hung off one shoulder. Her hair was down, a dark mess around her face, which broke into a wide, triumphant grin the second she saw him.
“¡Hala! Lo has hecho,” she said, her voice tinny through the speaker but unmistakably hers. She shifted, the camera jostling. “¿Dónde estás? Enséñame tu cueva.”
He said nothing. He flipped the camera, panning it slowly around his room—the messy bed, the tower of books, the pathetic bull plush on the floor.
“Joder, qué ordenado,” she laughed. “Me gusta el toro. Tiene cara de ser un pervertido, como tú.”
“No soy un pervertido,” he said, his voice rough from disuse.
“Claro que no,” she said, her tone dripping with mock agreement. He flipped the camera back to his face. She was closer to the screen now, her eyes searching his. “Te noto nervioso. ¿Es la primera vez que una tía te manda una foto así?”
He didn’t answer. His silence was confirmation enough.
Her smile softened, turned conspiratorial. “Bueno, pues ya está roto el hielo.” She leaned back again, and the neckline of her tank top gaped. He could see the inner swell of a breast, the lace edge of a bra that wasn’t the black one from before. This was pale, maybe pink. “¿Y? ¿Qué me dices?”
“¿De qué?”
“De la foto, tonto. ¿Te gustó o no?” She asked it like she was asking if he preferred pizza or pasta.
He felt a hot flush creep up his neck. “Marta, esto…”
“¿Esto qué?” she interrupted, her eyebrows raising. “¿Esto es raro? ¿Esto no se hace?” She gave a one-shouldered shrug, making the tank top slip another centimeter. “A mí me mola. Me pone ver tu reacción.” Her eyes flickered down on her own screen, looking at his image. “Y ahora mismo se te ve la reacción muy bien en la cara.”
He was trapped. His own image, a small rectangle in the corner of the screen, showed his wide eyes, the tight set of his jaw. He was providing exactly what she wanted: a live feed of his own discomfort.
“¿Qué quieres?” he asked again, the question a defeated sigh.
“Nada. Hablar. Es aburrido estar sola un viernes.” She picked at a thread on her blanket. “Cuéntame algo. ¿Qué has hecho después de la biblioteca?”
The casual pivot disarmed him. “Nada. He venido a casa.”
“¿Solo? Qué vida más triste, Martín.” She pouted, then her expression brightened with an idea. “Oye, ¿te acuerdas del año pasado, en la fiesta de fin de curso, que te pusiste hasta el culo de kalimotxo?”
He did remember. A vague, blurry memory of laughing too loud, of the sticky-sweet taste of cheap wine and coke. “Sí.”
“Pues yo también. Y te vi bailando. Eras un desastre.” She giggled, a genuine, light sound. For a moment, it was just two classmates sharing a memory. Then her gaze sharpened. “Y yo estaba con este top rojo, ¿te acuerdas? El que se me salían un poco las tetas. Y tú me mirabas.”
He hadn’t. Or maybe he had. He didn’t know.
“Me mirabas,” she repeated, her voice dropping to a murmur. Her hand came up, and her fingers trailed idly along her collarbone, down to where the fabric of her top met her skin. “Como me miras ahora.”
He wasn’t breathing. The room was airless. Her finger hooked under the strap of her tank top, easing it down over her shoulder. The movement was slow, hypnotic. The fabric pooled at her upper arm, revealing the pale strap of her bra, the smooth curve of her shoulder and the top of her breast.
“Marta,” he whispered, a warning with no force behind it.
“¿Qué?” she said, all innocence. Her other hand came up and mirrored the action on the other side. Both straps were now down, the tank top held up only by the faint push of her breasts beneath. She held his gaze through the screen, her eyes dark and unblinking. “¿Te estoy distrayendo?”
He couldn’t form words. His body was a traitor, a live wire of unwanted anticipation.
“Porque si te estoy distrayendo,” she continued, her voice a husky thread, “lo puedo dejar.”
She didn’t leave it. With a small, deliberate shift, she let the fabric fall.
It slid down to her waist, leaving her in just the pale lace bra. It was cut low, pushing her breasts up, the shapes full and unmistakable against the delicate fabric. She didn’t touch herself. She just sat there, letting him look, watching him look.
“Mejor?” she asked.
He was paralyzed. The distance between them, the digital divide, meant nothing. She was in his room, more present than anything else.
“Tócate,” she said.
The command, so blunt, so quiet, shattered the last pane of glass between them.
“¿Qué?”
“Lo has oído. Tócate. Mientras me miras a mí.” There was no playful banter left. Her voice was low, direct, saturated with a kind of greedy authority. “Yo te enseño, y tú me muestras que te gusta. Es justo.”
His mind screamed no. His hand, resting on his thigh, felt like a foreign object. He looked at her on the screen—her defiant, plain face, her spectacular body offered like a challenge. The hatred he was supposed to feel was there, but it was molten, mixed with something else, something terrifying and compelling.
The momentum was irresistible. It had been building since the first touch on the bus. Every glance, every press, every whispered word had been a step down this exact path.
His hand moved. The rustle of his track pants was deafening in the quiet room. He watched her watch him, her lips parting slightly, her breathing visibly quickening. A flush spread across her chest.
“Así,” she breathed, a gratified whisper. One of her hands finally moved, rising to cover a breast through the lace, her fingers kneading gently. “Así, Martín.”
He closed his eyes, but it was worse. The darkness only amplified the sound of her breathing, the soft, fabric-on-skin sounds from her end of the call. He opened them again, locked onto hers. He was performing for her. She was conducting him. The shame of it was acute, but it was woven through with a dark, undeniable thread of pleasure.
This was the line. And he was so far across it he couldn’t even see it anymore.
Her other hand fumbled at the side of the screen, her eyes never leaving his. There was a click. A tiny, digital sound.
His brain, fogged with sensation, processed it a second too late.
A green light, small and steady, appeared next to her camera icon on his screen. It had been off before.
She was recording.