Chapter 7: La foto y el chantaje
The green light didn’t blink. It just sat there, a tiny, unwavering ember of evidence.
Everything in Martín froze. His hand. His breath. The frantic, shameful rhythm of his own heart seemed to stutter and die. The physical pleasure evaporated, replaced by a cold void that spread out from his gut.
On the screen, Marta’s satisfied smile didn’t waver. She saw his understanding hit. She watched the color drain from his face in real time.
“No te preocupes,” she said, her voice a low purr that crackled through the speaker. “Es solo para mí. Un recuerdo privadito. Para las noches aburridas, ¿sabes?”
The tone was all wrong. It was the voice you used to calm a spooked animal, right before you closed the trap. There was a possessive gleam in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. This wasn’t shared secret; it was a trophy.
“Apágalo,” he managed to say. The words were dry, barely audible.
She pretended not to hear. Her hand, which had been moving over her lace-covered breast, stilled. “¿Qué pasa? Te has cortado. Sigue. No me gusta a medias.”
“Marta, apaga la puta grabación.” His voice was firmer now, frayed with panic.
She sighed, a performative sound of disappointment. “Qué dramático.” Her finger moved, tapping the screen off-camera. The green light vanished. “Ya está. Feliz? Era solo un chiste.”
But it wasn’t a joke. The air had changed. The forced intimacy of a moment before was now something else, something contaminated. He felt exposed in a new, terrible way. His image, his reactions, were no longer ephemeral. They were data. A file. Saved.
He couldn’t do it anymore. The link between his brain and his body had been severed by that green light.
“Cuelga,” he said.
“Venga, no seas así. Justo cuando se ponía bueno.” She pouted, but it was hollow. She’d gotten something better. “Al menos dime buenas noches.”
He ended the call. The screen snapped back to his messaging app, to the thread with her photo still visible, a pale blotch of pixels against the darkness.
He threw the phone onto the bed. It landed face down with a soft thud. His hands were shaking. He tucked himself back into his track pants, the motion mechanical, disgusted. The scent of his own arousal lingered in the room, now smelling sour, like guilt.
He paced. Three steps to the door, three steps back to the window. The silence was a physical pressure. His mind raced in tight, terrified circles. A recording. She has a recording. Of my face. Of me…
What for? Her stated reason—a private memory—was obviously a lie. The unstated reason hung in the air, toxic and obvious: leverage.
The phone buzzed on the bed. He flinched.
He had to look. He snatched it up.
A new message. No photo this time. Just text.
‘He guardado esto. Por si algún día necesito que hagas algo por mí. No te preocupes, solo es un recuerdo entre nosotros. 😉’
The winking emoji was the final twist of the knife. Casual. Chummy. It framed blackmail as a shared secret.
His fingers fumbled over the keyboard. ‘Bórralo.’
The reply was instant. ‘Por?’
‘Porque no lo quieres.’
‘Pero sí lo quiero. Me gusta verte. Eres especial.’
‘No soy especial. Bórralo.’
‘No.’ The single syllable was a wall.
He typed, deleted, typed again. Threats were useless. Pleas were fuel for her. He was out of moves. He stared at the word. No. It was her ultimate rejection, after all his minor ones.
Another message popped up. ‘Relájate, tío. No es para nadie más. Es nuestro. Pero pórtate bien conmigo, eh? Buenas noches. 💤’
He didn’t answer. He put the phone on his dresser, screen down, and walked out of his room. The hallway was dark. The bathroom light was on. He stood in front of the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and stared at his own dripping reflection. He looked the same. But he felt marked. Infected.
The next two days were a hazy, low-grade panic attack.
Saturday bled into Sunday in a monotonous blur of attempted studying and failed distraction. Every notification from his phone was a jolt of adrenaline. But she was silent. The silence was worse. It let his imagination run wild. Where was the file? On her phone? In the cloud? Did she watch it? The questions were needles under his skin.
He saw her everywhere. In the curve of a coffee stain on his desk that somehow looked like her shoulder. In the hum of his laptop fan that sounded like her low laugh. His own room felt like a crime scene.
On Sunday evening, his friend Pablo called.
“¿Qué pasa, macho? Sales o qué? Están los del Econ en el Bar López.”
“No, no salgo,” Martín said, his voice tighter than he intended.
“¿Estás malo? Suenas raro.”
“Estoy bien. Solo cansado.”
“¿De qué? De frotártela pensando en esa bruja Marta?” Pablo laughed, a loud, guffawing sound. It was an old joke between them, born from Martín’s frustrated complaints months ago.
The word ‘bruja’—witch—echoed in his ear. It felt too close to the truth now, and not funny at all. Martín forced a dry chuckle. “Algo así.”
“Pues vete a tomar una cerveza y se te pasa. Te esperamos.”
“Que no, Pablo. En serio. Otro día.”
He hung up and sat in the growing darkness. Pablo’s call had done something. It had highlighted the gulf between his old life and this new, shadowed one. He couldn’t tell Pablo. He could never tell anyone. The shame was too complete, too complicated. How would he even explain it? She recorded me without my consent was true, but it was only the sterile, legalistic spine of the story. The flesh of it—the months of provocation, his own reluctant fascination, the final, willing surrender—that was his to carry alone.
The silence broke just after ten p.m.
His phone lit up. Not a video call. A normal call. From the same number.
His blood turned to slush. He let it ring four times, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had to answer. Ignoring it felt more dangerous.
He swiped accept, brought the phone to his ear. Said nothing.
“Hola,” her voice came through, bright and normal, as if they’d just spoken an hour ago about homework. “¿Qué haces?”
“Nada.”
“Suenas triste. ¿Te has quedado con las ganas desde el otro día?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Escucha, te llamo porque necesito un favor.”
The word ‘favor’ landed like a lead weight. This was it. The point of the recording. His grip on the phone tightened.
“¿Qué favor?” he asked, his voice flat.
“El lunes, después de clase de Derecho Romano. El profesor me ha pedido que me quede a ayudarle a llevar unos libros a su despacho. Son una pila enorme, y yo sola no puedo.”
Martín blinked. It was so mundane, so plausible. “¿Y?”
“Y quiero que tú me ayudes. Que te quedes tú también. Y que me ayudes a llevarlos.”
A favor. A simple, public, benign favor. It was a test. A first, gentle pull on the leash.
“Puedes pedirle a alguien más,” he said.
“Pero quiero que seas tú.” The tone shifted, just a fraction. The playful lilt hardened at the edges. “Venga, Martín. Es solo llevar unos libros. No es para tanto. ¿Me ayudas o no?”
The unspoken words hung in the static between them: ¿O prefieres que nuestro recuerdo privado deje de serlo?
He closed his eyes. The path forked in front of him. One direction was refusal, conflict, the unknown horror of that video seeing the light. The other was this: compliance. Carrying books. A small, degrading surrender.
“¿Qué hora?” he heard himself ask.
Her smile was audible. “Las doce y media. Te espero en el aula. Gracias. Eres un cielo.”
She hung up.
He sat holding the dead phone to his ear for a long time. The trap wasn't sprung. It was just being set. And he had just agreed to walk right into it.