Start

"If they don't choose you," Rosa said, and for the first time all evening her voice slowed, as if she were choosing each word one by one, "you'll go back inside. And you'll wait for the next boat. And the one after that. Until someone wants you, or until Mr. Leroy decides you're no longer worthy of the place you occupy."

Candy felt the marble beneath her knees grow colder. Nothing in the room had changed: the lamps were the same, the perfume the same, Rosa's hand still there, but for a moment she seemed to see the room from the outside, as if she had stepped outside herself and was looking at a kneeling girl, wearing a red collar and a fresh brand on her hip, and that girl was her, and there was nowhere else she could be.

"Ma'am," he said, his voice firmer than she'd expected. "May I say something?"

"And'."

"I'm not afraid of being chosen," Candy said. "I'm afraid of not being chosen."

Rosa looked at her. For a moment, she did nothing: she didn't laugh, she didn't smile, she didn't do anything. Her hand remained still on her collar, and her blue eyes remained fixed on hers, and Candy felt that this was the first time Rosa had truly looked at her, not as one might look at a newcomer, not as one might look at a task to be completed, but as one might look at something one has just discovered and doesn't yet know where to put it.

Then Rosa looked down, and when she looked up again, the smile was back, but it was a different smile: smaller, more intimate, as if it had cost her something.

“So you’re already better than I thought,” she said.

His fingers suddenly closed around Candy's collar, and this time the grip was firmer, not enough to hurt, but enough to leave no doubt as to who was holding whom. Candy felt the velvet press against her throat and heard her voice break there, and she didn't try to pull it back.

“If you behave,” Rosa said, and she closed her mouth again, and her voice went low again, “you stay with me.”

The grip didn't loosen. Candy remained still, kneeling on the marble, her neck held tightly in his hand and the brand burning on her side, and she waited—without knowing what, without knowing for how long—while the room around them continued to exist, the lamps lit, the absolute silence, and somewhere outside, beyond the walls, the sound of the sea that never ceased.

Then the hand opened.

It wasn't a relief. It was worse: it was like throwing off a winter blanket and suddenly feeling the air rush in. Candy inhaled deeply, and the collar granted her the breath it had denied her all this time, and her throat burned as if it had been constrained for a year. She remained on her knees, motionless, not knowing if she would be able to move. No one had told her.

Rosa stood up. Heels, twice, and then the rustle of skimpy dresses being adjusted, the sound of a woman straightening as if nothing had happened. Candy kept her eyes down, fixed on the pale marble before her, and waited.

“Get up,” said Rosa.

Candy tried. Her knees didn't respond immediately: they had been on the marble for too long, and now her skin seemed glued to the floor, as if her body had decided to stay there forever. She supported herself with her hands, slowly pushed herself up, and for a moment the world spun around her: the lamps, the tattoo artist's metal cart, the leather of the empty chair. The tattoo artist was already folding his instruments, his broad back turned toward them, as if he had never been in that room before.

"He doesn't count," Rosa said, and Candy realized she'd followed her gaze. "He's seen everything there was to see in this room. He can't see anything anymore."

The tattoo artist picked up the cart and left without a word. The door opened, closed, and for the first time Candy realized how large the room was, and how empty it now felt, with only her, Rosa, and the marble inside.

“Come,” said Rosa.

She crossed the room without turning to see if Candy was following. Her heels clicked on the floor at regular intervals, and Candy walked behind her, her knees still weak, her candy-pink bikini askew, her collar reminding her to stand straight with every step. She didn't know where they were going. She didn't ask.

Rosa stopped in front of the leather chair. She didn't sit down. She stood, turned three-quarters, and pointed to the floor with a jerk of her chin.

"Guardia," he said.

Candy looked. For a moment she saw nothing: just marble, like everything else. Then her eyes adjusted to the light and saw it: in front of the chair where Mr. Leroy was sitting, there was a stain. Not large. A thick, white lump, with a transparent halo around it that had begun to dry at the edges. And further ahead, toward where she had been kneeling, two more stains, smaller and more elongated, as if they had emerged while she had lowered her chin.

Master Leroy's cum. Dripping from his mouth as he swallowed it. Splattered on the marble like something no one had thought to clean up.

Candy felt her face flush. It wasn't shame, or at least not just that. It was the fact that the stuff was hers, and now it was there, on the floor, and anyone who came in would see it and know exactly what had happened in that room. The collar pressed against her throat as she swallowed.

"See?" said Rosa. "When you do a job, you do it well. And when you leave a mark, you clean it up."

She knelt again, not next to Candy this time, but in front of her, between her and the larger stain, so that Candy had to look at her face to see the floor. Her skirt rose to her thighs. Her knees rested on the marble with the same ease with which another woman sits on a chair.

“Come here,” he said. “On all fours.”

Candy felt the sentence strike her, but she didn't immediately understand it. On all fours. Like an animal. She looked at Rosa, and Rosa looked at her with those silent blue eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, something akin to rebellion welled up inside her. Not a thought. A movement of the body, a resistance in the knees, in the hips, as if her back were pushing against her head.

Then the moment passed. Or maybe not, maybe it was just that her body understood before her mind that there was nothing to decide. Candy lowered herself. Her hands on the marble, her knees on the cold slab, her back straight in a horizontal line. The bikini hugged her hips. The collar, in that position, hung slightly forward, and she felt it slide against her throat like a hand resting on her.

“Exactly,” Rosa said. “Good girl.”

From down there, the floor was a different story entirely. Candy could see it up close, the pale marble with its gray veins, and she could see the stain a hand's breadth from her face: the dense core at its center, the surrounding halo that had begun to harden, a thin thread reaching toward her as if it had flowed in that direction. She could smell it. She had never smelled it like this, up close, with nothing in between: salty, bitter, a little metallic, and underneath it all, something warmer she couldn't define.

"Do you see it?" Rosa said, her voice now coming from above, from a place Candy couldn't reach without raising her head. "It's yours. You left it. And now you're taking it back."

Candy looked up. It was a mistake: Rosa was there, sitting on her heels, her thighs spread, her hands resting on her knees, and she was looking down at her with an expression Candy had never seen on a human face. It wasn't malice. It was hunger. A calm, patient hunger, like that of someone who knows the food is already on the table and is in no hurry to eat it.

"With your tongue," Rosa said. "Not with your fingers. Not with your hand. With your tongue."

Candy closed her eyes. She counted to three, as she had with the needle. Then she opened them again, lowered her head, and her tongue slipped out of her mouth before she could even decide.

The first contact was strange. The marble was cold, and the cum on it was cold too, but not as cold as before: it was a thicker, more vivid cold, as if the thing had retained some of Master Leroy's heat within it. Candy felt the flavor explode on her tongue, all at once: salt, bitterness, an aftertaste rising to her nose. The same flavor that had lingered in her throat for two hours. Only now it wasn't inside her. It was outside, on the floor, and she was scooping it up.

She licked. Once, from the edge toward the center, and her tongue caught a white film that melted against the roof of her mouth. She swallowed without thinking, then stopped, her eyes closed, her breath coming out of her nose in short gasps.

“Again,” said Rosa.

Candy licked again. The second time was easier, or maybe harder, she wasn't sure, because now she knew what to expect, and the taste didn't catch her by surprise, and then she felt everything else: the marble chilling her knees, the collar hanging against her throat, the bikini constricting her hips, and her toes curling against the floor with each swipe of her tongue. She even felt her own vagina: she didn't want to feel it, but it was there, moist against the fabric, and every time her tongue worked the marble, her body reacted on its own, as if someone had pulled a string.

"Proteggimi," said Rosa.

Candy raised her head slightly, just enough to see Rosa above her. Her tongue remained still, a finger's breadth from the floor. Rosa leaned forward and her fingers reached up to cup her chin, again like Master Leroy had done, but with a different intention, as if she were measuring something.

“I didn’t tell you to stop,” he said. “I told you to look at me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then look at me and continue.”

Candy licked again. And this time it was different, because now she couldn't close her eyes: she had to watch Rosa do it, and Rosa was watching her, and that exchange of glances was worse than any command. Candy licked the marble and looked up, and Rosa looked down, and there was nothing between them except the space of a hand's breadth and the sound of her tongue on the floor, that small, wet sound that seemed enormous in the empty room.

She licked the larger stain until it was completely consumed. The dry edges melted under her tongue, the dense center expanded, and Candy had to struggle to collect even the transparent halo that had spread around it. The flavor filled her mouth, she no longer perceived it as something separate: it had become the flavor of the room, of the marble, of that evening. It trickled down her throat with her saliva, and she swallowed, and each time Rosa made a small nod with her chin, as if counting.

"There's another one," Rosa said. "Here it is."

He pointed with his foot, the toe of his shoe slightly raised. Candy followed his gesture: the second stain, smaller, elongated, a foot away from her. She moved on all fours, her knees scraping the marble, and felt the collar swing against her chest with each movement. She bent down and licked that one too, and this time the flavor was more intense, because the stain was thicker, and because it had been there longer, and because Candy—she realized as her tongue moved—was no longer thinking of Mr. Leroy. She was thinking of Rosa. Of Rosa looking at her. Of Rosa saying, "Look at me and continue," and doing so, and in that moment there was nothing in the world that mattered more.

The third spot was the furthest. Candy crawled there, the bottom of her bikini bottom shifting over her hips, the new mark pulling the skin of her hip with every movement. When she lowered her head, her tongue touched the marble and found the sperm already almost dry, hardened into a thin crust, and she had to work it harder, with the tip, with her entire mouth, until it melted and ran down her throat like the others.

When he finished, she remained there. Her forehead almost touching the floor, her breath hot and moist on the marble, her tongue still out, her mouth full of the flavor that now belonged to her. She didn't get up. She didn't know if she could.

The silence dragged on. Candy felt her heart pounding against her collar, felt the cold sweat on her back, felt—and this was what brought tears to her eyes—her body trembling again, in little waves, as if she'd been running. Her knees burned. Her hip burned. Her throat burned. And beneath all this, low down, where the bikini pressed, there was a heat that had nothing to do with pain.

Then Rosa's hand slid to the nape of his neck.

He didn't push her. He didn't squeeze her. He simply rested under her collar, where her short hair ended, and remained there, warm and still, as if waiting for Candy to stop shaking. Candy closed her eyes and waited. She didn't know what she was waiting for. Maybe an order. Maybe another humiliation. Maybe just for that hand to stay where it was.

“Get up,” said Rosa.

Candy slowly rose, pressing her hands against the marble, straightening her knees with a creak she felt more in her bones than in her ears. She remained kneeling before Rosa, her face level with her chest. Her scent was still in her mouth. Her lips burned.

Rosa leaned over. Her hand moved from the nape of her neck to her chin, her thumb resting under Candy's lower lip and beginning to clean it, slowly, precisely, from center to corner, gathering the saliva and residue that had remained there. Candy felt the knuckle brush her skin, felt the thumb move back, brushing again, leaving nothing. She didn't close her eyes. She couldn't. Rosa was too close.

"This way," Rosa said, her voice low, almost feeble, as if speaking to a child. "This way you'll learn your place."

The thumb stopped at the corner of her mouth. Rosa held it there for a moment, pressing lightly, and Candy felt her breath catch under the pressure. Then Rosa withdrew her hand. She looked at her thumb—which glistened in the lamplight—and brought it to her lips, licking it, just once, slowly.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “at dawn.”

He stood up. His heels clicked on the marble, once, twice, and then he walked away toward the door. Candy remained kneeling where she was, her mouth still open and the taste of Maestro Leroy in her throat, and she didn't move, not because she couldn't, but because no one had told her to. The door opened. The light from the hallway flooded the room in a long beam, and for a moment Candy saw her own shadow cast on the marble, kneeling, with the red collar and the fresh brand on her hip, and she didn't recognize it.

"The girls' new room is the third on the right," Rosa said from the door. "Don't let them find you in the hallway."

The door closed. The marble was clean again. Candy stood there, alone, with that taste in her mouth and her knees shaking, staring at the spot where the stains had once been and where now there was nothing left: just clean, smooth marble, as if no one had ever passed that way.

The girls' new room was the third on the right, and Candy had found it because there was nothing else to look for. The hallway was long and narrow, with white walls that yellowed under the dim light of the lamps, and with every closed door she passed, she could hear her breathing echoing from the opposite wall. The collar felt heavy on her neck as if it hadn't felt heavy all evening. The mark on her side tugged at her with every step, her skin still warm, and she walked slowly so as not to let it rub against the fabric of her bikini.

The door was ajar. Inside, darkness and two breaths: slow, regular, like those of someone who has slept a long time.

Candy entered and closed the door silently behind her. The room was small: three low beds lined up against the wall, a metal wardrobe, a window with the shutters drawn, through which a thin ray of moonlight filtered, bisecting the floor. On the bed closest to the door, a figure lay motionless under a sheet. On the bed at the far end, another. The third bed, the one in the middle, was empty, and on it lay something folded, something pale she couldn't make out in the dim light.

Candy approached. The bed was carefully made, the corners of the sheet tucked under the mattress, and on top, arranged in a row, were a white T-shirt, a pair of cotton panties, and a small towel. Nothing else. No note, no explanation. Someone had come in and left them there while she was still on the marble, licking the floor.

She slipped off her bikini. The fabric quickly released her skin, and for a moment, just a moment, she stood naked in the middle of the room, the collar still around her neck, because no one had told her to remove it and she didn't know if she could. The air was cool. The brand pulsed on her side like a living thing.

She pulled on her T-shirt. The cotton was rough, worn, and loose on her shoulders. Her panties were clean and shapeless, the kind of thing you give to someone who doesn't need to please anyone. She dried her face with the towel—the dried saliva on her chin, the salt, the residue Rosa hadn't picked up—and then slipped under the sheets, lying on her back, her collar pressing against her neck through the pillowcase.

The bed was hard. The pillow smelled of industrial soap. From the next bed, the breathing of the sleeping girl continued, regular, indifferent, and Candy remained still, listening to it and counting. She didn't know what to count. Perhaps the minutes. Perhaps the times her heart beat against the collar.

He woke before the bell rang. He didn't know how: no sound, no light, just his body suddenly stiffening under the sheets as if something had called him. Outside, beyond the shutters, the sky was still dark, but not black: a gray that was just beginning to lighten in the east, the first breath of day.

She slowly got up. The other two were still asleep: one with his mouth open on the pillow, the other turned toward the wall. Candy grabbed her towel and went out into the hallway.

The shower was shared, at the end of the hall, a white-tiled room with four wall-mounted showerheads and no door. The water came out cold, then lukewarm, then cold again, and Candy quickly washed herself with her hands, without soap, feeling the sting of the branding under the stream. She ran her fingers through her short hair, rinsed her mouth, and spat. When she stepped out, the air in the hall seemed warmer than before.

She returned to her room. The other two had woken up: one was sitting on the edge of the bed, the other standing in front of the locker. Neither looked at her. Neither spoke. They dressed in silence, one by one, and Candy did the same: her T-shirt, her panties, the collar she'd never taken off. She looked down at her bare feet. She had no shoes.

The doorbell rang when the sky beyond the shutters was already pink. A low, metallic sound, coming from outside, perhaps from the pier, or from some point above the village Candy hadn't yet seen. The three effeminate men left the room one after another and joined others in the corridor—five, six, seven—coming down from different doors, all dressed alike, all with the same low step, all staring straight ahead.

Outside, the morning air smelled of the sea and humidity. The path sloped between two rows of palm trees toward the bay, and Candy walked it with the others, her bare feet on the warm gravel, and for the first time she saw the village in daylight: the low roofs of the houses scattered among the trees, the blinding white of the pool below, the long expanse of beach stretching to the left, still deserted, still in shadow. There was no one there. There were no customers, no owners, no men. Only effeminate men, lined up, walking toward the water.

The pier was a strip of pale concrete that jutted out into the sea for about thirty meters, with two rusty bollards halfway along it and a tall streetlamp at the end, still lit but now useless in the growing light. All the girls stopped on the gravel, about ten meters from the entrance, and lined up: no one had told them, or perhaps someone had told them long ago and they hadn't forgotten. Candy stood at the end, last, and waited.

The sea was flat. The horizon to the east was a copper-colored stripe that widened with every breath. And then, from that stripe, a black dot emerged.

The black dot transformed into a silhouette. The silhouette became a boat, not large, but white, two-story, with a row of dark portholes along its side and a small flag she couldn't identify. It approached slowly, leaving a wide wake that shimmered in the new light, and the sound of the engine only halfway reached the shore, a dull roar that made the gravel vibrate under Candy's feet.

None of the girls moved. No one spoke. Candy felt her stomach tighten, and it wasn't hunger: she hadn't eaten anything since the night before, but it wasn't hunger. It was the same sensation she'd felt on the marble, in front of Maestro Leroy's chair: her body understanding before her mind, preparing for something she couldn't yet define.

The boat slowed. The engine changed pitch, lower, slower, and the bow turned toward the dock with a slow, seemingly calculated movement. A man stepped out from the side—perhaps a sailor, or a crew member—grabbed a line and threw it toward the nearest bollard. The line missed its target. He picked it up and threw it again, and this time it wrapped around the iron, and the boat accelerated until it hit the concrete with a dull thud that echoed along the dock.

A black man in a white shirt was the first to descend the ladder. It wasn't Mr. Leroy. He was shorter, stockier, with a shaved head and a gold earring, and he descended with the ease of someone who makes this journey every day. He stopped on the dock, looked at the line of effeminate girls with an indifferent expression, then turned to the ladder and waved.

And then they came down.

There were four of them. Four men, all black, all dressed in light vacation clothes: open shirts, Bermuda shorts, sandals, and all with something Candy recognized before she even understood it: the calm of those who have paid. They walked slowly, unhurriedly, and as they descended, their eyes scanned the row of effeminate boys as if they were a fish stall at a market. One of them stopped halfway down the steps and laughed at something another had said. Another lit a cigarette. The third put his hands in his pockets and began walking along the pier toward the shore, and with every step he took, Candy felt his breathing become shorter.

The fourth man was the last to descend. He was the tallest of the four, thin, and wore a blue shirt open at the chest and a straw hat, which he removed as soon as he touched the concrete of the pier. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, ran a hand over his shaved head, and then looked down the row. His eyes moved slowly from left to right, not stopping at anyone, and when they reached the end—Candy, the last—they stopped.

Candy felt that gaze like a hand. She did nothing. She looked ahead, as she'd been told, toward the point where the pier met the gravel, and kept her face still, and felt her heart pounding against her collar so hard it seemed impossible anyone could hear it.

The man in the straw hat stepped off the pier. His feet barely sank into the gravel, and he approached the line with that slow pace that didn't ask anyone's permission. He passed the first girl—a broad-shouldered blonde, steady as a penny—and didn't stop. He passed the second, the third. He stopped in front of the fourth, looked at her for a moment, and then continued on.

He arrived in front of Candy.

He stopped. He didn't say anything. He looked her up and down—he was really tall, taller than he'd looked from the dock—and his eyes traveled from her red collar, her white T-shirt, to her bare feet on the gravel. Then they slowly rose and settled on her face.

“This,” he said.

The voice was low, calm, and not addressed to Candy. It was addressed to the man in the white shirt, who had approached without her hearing him and was now standing there, two steps away, a notebook in his hand.

The man in the white shirt looked at Candy. Then he looked at the notebook. Then he looked again, and for a moment, just a moment, something flashed across his face, something that looked like a calculation.

"It's new," he said. "Made yesterday."

"I see," said the man in the hat. And he smiled. It was a faint smile, barely reaching his eyes, and Candy felt a knot in her stomach. "The new ones are the best. They haven't learned to pretend yet."

He took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. Then he raised one hand—his right hand, the one with the ring, because he also had a ring, a dull silver circlet on his pinky—and placed it on Candy's head, among her short hair, pressing it lightly, as if checking to see if a door is locked.

"What is your name?"

Candy opened her mouth. Her throat was tight, and her voice came out lower than she intended.

“Candy, sir.”

"Candy." He repeated as if tasting it. "And tell me, Candy. Are you ready?"

The hand on his head didn't move. Behind him, the other three men had stopped on the gravel and were watching them: one with his hands in his pockets, one finishing his cigarette, one still laughing at something. The line of effeminate men remained motionless. The sea beyond the pier was as flat as a sheet of paper.

Candy felt the brand burn on her side. She felt the collar tighten around her throat with every breath. Beneath it all, she felt the heat that hadn't left her since the previous night, the heat that had remained inside her as she licked the marble, the heat that now stirred again and made her legs tremble.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

The man in the hat looked at her for a moment longer. Then he withdrew his hand, put the hat back on his head, and turned to the other three.

"I'll take this," he said. "You can check out the others."

And he began walking toward the path that climbed, toward the houses, toward the pool, toward the village Candy had only glimpsed half asleep. He didn't turn to check if she was following. There was no need. Candy felt her feet moving before her head could even make up her mind, one step out of line, then another, and the warm gravel beneath her soles, and her collar swinging against her chest with each step.

Behind her, the man in the white shirt closed his notebook. The boat remained moored to the dock, the engine off, the wake already dissolved in the water. And on the gravel, where Candy had waited in line, there was only the imprint of her bare feet, two small footprints that the morning tide would not erase before noon.

The path wound through the palm trees at a gradient Candy hadn't calculated. The hot gravel stung the soles of her feet, and every now and then, a larger stone made her stumble slightly, never enough to make her fall, just enough to remind her that she had no shoes, that no one had given her any, and that the man in the straw hat hadn't looked back once since they'd left the pier.

He walked three steps ahead of her. His blue shirt unbuttoned, the skin on his back slightly slick with sweat under the now-high sun, his hat swinging on his head with every step. He didn't speak. He didn't slow down. Candy kept pace as best she could, her thighs still burning from the night's marble, the mark on her hip pulling at her skin with every movement, as if someone were stitching it back together.

The village, in the daylight, was different. The low houses with pale tile roofs, the white sand paths winding through hibiscus bushes, the palm trees casting long, sharp shadows on the ground. A woman in a white uniform was washing the edge of a pool with a garden hose and looked up when they passed. She looked at Candy. She looked at the red collar. Then she returned to her hose and said nothing.

The man stopped in front of a bungalow at the end of the driveway. It was larger than the others, with a dark wood veranda and two deck chairs folded against the wall, and the door was already open.

“Come in,” he said, and went first.

Candy climbed the two wooden steps. The boards felt warm underfoot. Inside, the air was cool thanks to the air conditioning, and it smelled clean: soapy, cottony, something completely different from the marble in the room. The floor was made of light, polished wood, and Candy placed her feet on it with a sense of relief she couldn't hide.

The bungalow was a single, large room, with the bed at the far end, against the left wall, and a kitchenette to the right. But Candy didn't look at the bed. She looked at the table in the center, the three chairs around it, the three open bottles of beer, the three glasses, and the ashtrays with cigarette butts inside.

And then he looked at the men.

They were sitting. One on the edge of the bed, legs spread, phone in hand, who looked up when the door opened. One on the chair in front of the window, who turned slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. And the third, standing in front of the refrigerator, straightened, beer still in hand, and smiled.

Three. Not one.

Candy felt her stomach tighten, as if a hand were closing in. She stopped a step from the door, her shoulders leaning against the jamb, and looked at the man in the straw hat, who had already removed his hat, hung it on a hook beside the door, and was running a hand over his shaved head with the calm of someone who'd just returned home.

"I told you it was new," said the refrigerator man. He was younger than the other two, with a short beard and a gold chain shining around his neck. "I didn't believe it."

"Look at her neck," said the man on the bed, without looking up from his phone. "It's been branded since yesterday."

«I see it.»

The man in the hat—who was no longer wearing it, and Candy realized she didn't know what to call him, didn't even know if he had a name—slumped into the empty chair and grabbed a beer. He drank. Then he looked at Candy and, for the first time since they'd entered, spoke directly to her.

"Close the door."

Candy turned. The door was behind her, made of light wood like everything else, the handle cold under her hand. She closed it. The click of the lock hit her like a second collar, one she couldn't see but that tightened just as tightly.

"What's your name? Did I ask?" the man said. "Candy. Right."

“Yes, sir.”

"Good." He put the beer on the table and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. "So, Candy. These are my friends. That's Michael on the bed. That's David over there." He jerked his chin toward the refrigerator guy. "And I'm Marcus."

Michael didn't look up from his phone. David raised his beer in a greeting that wasn't a greeting, and smiled again, a smile that had been there for a long time, as if it had just come to him.

“Nice to meet you,” David said.

Candy didn't answer. She hadn't been asked anything. She stood against the door, hands at her sides, bare feet on the light wood, and waited.

Marcus looked at her for a moment without saying anything. Then he stood up, grabbed his beer, and approached her. He walked slowly, as he had on the pier, and when he was a step away from her, he stopped and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger: the same gesture as Mr. Leroy, the same grip, and Candy felt his body recognize her before her head did, felt her knees buckle a little, felt her throat open as if she were about to say something she hadn't yet decided to say.

"Did they explain the rules to you?" Marcus asked.

“Yes, sir.”

"Which?"

Candy swallowed. Her collar pressed against her throat as she did so, and for a moment the words Rosa had said to her in the living room—look ahead, don't change your expression—seemed so distant, spoken in another life, to another person.

"That I must do as I'm told," he said. "That I mustn't speak unless asked. That I must behave."

"Good." Marcus released her chin, but didn't move away. "Good is a word that means nothing. Good for whom?"

“For you, sir.”

"For me." He repeated it as if considering it. "And if I told you it's good for me, would that mean anything else?"

Candy didn't answer. She didn't know what to say. She felt the heat of his body just inches from hers, she could smell his skin—sweat, salt, beer—and, underneath it all, she felt her heart pounding against her collar like an animal locked in a cage too small.

Marco turned to the others.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Should we keep her with us or make her wait outside?"

"Keep it," David said, laughing. "It's new. I want to see how it behaves."

Michael finally looked up from his phone. He looked at her—a single, long gaze that traveled down her neck to her bare feet and back up—before returning his gaze to the screen.

"Do as you wish," he said. "The afternoon is long anyway."

Marcus nodded. Then he took Candy by the collar—not by the arm, not by the hand, but by the red velvet, sliding his fingers under the edge and tugging gently, and led her toward the center of the room, toward the table, and stood there, in front of the chairs, the beer still in his other hand.

“Kneel down,” he said. “Here.”

He pointed to the floor at her feet. Not marble, but pale, warm wood, its grain running parallel under the light filtering through the shutters. Candy bent down. Her knees hit the boards with a dull sound, and for a moment, just a moment, it almost felt like a relief, after the gravel and the path.

"Like this," Marcus said. "Now look."

He unbuckled his belt with one hand. The buckle jingled, the leather strap hissed out of the loops, and Marcus placed it on the table without looking at it. Then he unzipped it. Then he pulled down his shorts just enough.

His penis slid out, dark, heavy, already half-erect. It wasn't as long as Master Leroy's: it was shorter, thicker, with the skin taut over the moist tip. Candy felt her mouth fill with saliva and her throat tighten, and for a moment, just a moment, she thought of Rosa, of what Rosa had said to her, of what Rosa would say if she saw her now.

“Take it in your hand,” Marcus said.

Candy raised her right hand. Her fingers trembled slightly, and she saw it—saw her hand move toward him with that tremor she couldn't stop—and felt the warmth of Marcus's skin beneath her palm before she even closed her grip. It was warm. It throbbed. Candy squeezed it gently, and Marcus inhaled through his open mouth, a short sound that made her thighs contract.

“Louder,” he said.

She squeezed. The skin slipped beneath her fingers, and Candy felt his penis harden in her hand, grow, fill her palm until it almost hurt her fingers. She moved it, up and down, slowly, as she'd seen, as she imagined it would be done, and Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, and his hand rested on her head, in her short hair, and pressed gently.

“Mouth,” he said.

Candy leaned forward. The tip touched her lips, and the flavor was different from Maestro Leroy's: saltier, younger, with a hint of bitterness that rose to her nose. She opened her mouth and took it. The first few inches filled her mouth, and her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, and Candy felt her jaw drop open like it had the night before, like it would drop open again, like it probably would for the rest of her life.

“There,” Marcus said. “Like this.”

Behind her, David whistled softly. "Look at it. It's really new."

"Shut up," Marcus said, but there was no anger in his voice. Just a slow possession, as if he were telling David that that mouth was his, now, for as long as he needed.

Marcus remained still for a time Candy couldn't measure. His hand remained still on the back of her neck, his thumb barely touching her hairline, and Candy realized he was waiting, not for her, not for her lips, but for something inside himself, as if he were deciding how much of the afternoon he wanted to spend there. Then his voice came from above, calm, and it wasn't addressed to her.

«Michael.»

The phone stopped scrolling. Candy felt the silence shift weight in the room: the hum of the air conditioner, David's beer hitting the table with a soft thud, and beneath it all, her own breath coming out of her nose because her mouth was still full.

“What is it?” asked Michael.

"Let it go."

A rustle of fabric. Footsteps on wood. Candy didn't look up—she couldn't, she hadn't been told to, and Marcus's cock was still filling her mouth to the corners of her lips—but she felt Michael's body stop on the other side of the room, near the window, and she felt his gaze on her. His gaze fell on her as it had the first time, from her collar to her feet, and she realized that her knees were spread on the floor, her thighs were spread without her noticing, her pink bikini was pulling on her hips because of the position she was in.

"Look at her carefully," Marcus said. "Because she's here now."

«I see it.»

"Then stop playing hard to get."

Michael didn't answer. But he didn't go back to bed, either. He remained where he was, arms crossed, and Candy felt the weight of those two gazes fixed on her simultaneously: Marcus's, holding her by the nape of the neck, and Michael's, leaning over her without touching her. And for the first time since she'd entered that bungalow, she noticed that David hadn't stopped smiling.

“Your hand is shaking,” David said. “Do you see it shaking?”

"This is news," Marcus said. "You have every right to tremble."

He said it softly, almost absentmindedly, and Candy wasn't sure if it was a defense or a way to get her back. Maybe both. Marcus's hand slid from the nape of her neck to her cheek, his thumb lightly pressing the corner of her mouth where his penis was tugging at her, and Candy felt saliva dripping down her chin and onto her chest, between the two triangles of her bikini, and she didn't dare wipe it away.

"Now I'll explain how it works," Marcus said. "Listen carefully, because I'll only say it once."

Candy looked up. It was a small movement, just her pupils, but it was enough for Marcus to notice and make him tighten his grip on her cheek slightly.

"You belong to Master Leroy," he said. "We all know that. No one here touches anything that Leroy hasn't already decided. But Leroy sent you with me for the afternoon, and that means you're mine for the afternoon. Mine, Michael's, David's. In that order."

“Yes, sir.”

The words came out slurred because her mouth was still busy, and Marcus laughed, a short, nasal laugh that made his penis vibrate between her lips.

“I didn't tell you to talk.”

"No, sir."

"There." He took her chin and lifted it, and his penis slipped out of her mouth with a wet sound that filled the room. Candy finally inhaled, and the saliva cooled on her chest, and for a moment the room seemed larger, clearer, more real than it had been until that moment. Marcus looked down at her, his slimy penis dangling in front of her thigh, and he didn't compose himself, he didn't sit up.

“David,” he said. “Come here.”

David stood up from the refrigerator. It took him three steps, but Candy felt him coming before she even saw him: the scent of his skin, different from Marcus's, sweeter, with hints of sunscreen and rum. When he was beside her, he crouched down, his face level with hers, and looked at her intently, as if he were examining an item he was about to purchase.

“Hello,” said David.

Candy didn't answer. She hadn't been told to speak.

“Good girl,” David said, laughing. “See what she’s learning?”

"Learn because I told him to," Marcus said. "Not because you're nice."

David raised his hands in surrender, but didn't move away. Instead, he reached out with his right hand and grasped Candy's collar between two fingers, the red velvet slipping under his nails, and tugged gently, just enough for Candy to feel her throat tighten and have to bend her neck forward to avoid suffocation. It wasn't brutal. It was worse: he was curious. As if he were testing how far she would go.

"How long have you had it?" she asked, not letting go.

“Since this morning, sir.”

"And the brand?"

"Since last night, sir."

David whistled again, the same whistle as before, and let go of the collar. "Last night. And you're already here doing this." He turned to Michael, who hadn't moved from the window. "Do you hear that? Last night."

“I feel it,” Michael said.

It was the first time Michael had uttered more than three words, and Candy noticed how his voice was lower than the other two's, slower, as if each sentence took a minimal effort from him that wasn't worth it.

Marcus bent down, grabbed her right shoulder, and pulled her up. Candy rose to her knees, then to her feet, her legs tingling from the renewed blood flow, and for a moment she had to brace herself against the table to keep from falling. Marcus's beer was there, a few feet away, still half empty, condensation dripping onto the paper placemat.

“Take off your clothes,” Marcus said.

Candy reached for her bikini. Her fingers were shaking, and she knew it, and she knew all three of them could see it: David, who had risen and was standing a few feet away with his arms crossed, Michael standing at the window, Marcus, who had sat on the edge of the table and was watching her as if he were watching someone else do a job for him. Her bra slipped through her fingers twice before finally giving way. It fell to the wood with a wet sound. Then it was her panties, which caught on her hip, in just the right place, on her still taut, shiny skin, and Candy had to twist sideways and bend over to remove them, and she felt the eyes of all three of them following her as she moved, and she felt her own penis moving against her thigh, half-erect since she'd entered the room and now with nothing to hide it.

She stood still, hands at her sides, bare feet on the pale wood, her red collar and nothing else on. The light filtering through the shutters cut her body into horizontal stripes: one across her chest, one across her belly, one across her thighs. For a moment, Candy saw herself as they saw her: thin, hairless, with the black mark protruding from her hip like a signature placed in its place by someone else.

“Turn around,” Marcus said.

He turned around.

"Still."

He turned and realized he was showing her off to the others, showing her off, like a horse before being sold, and that this surrender was all they asked for now. They weren't touching her. They weren't using her. They were just looking at her, and that look carried more weight than Marcus's words had a minute before.

"The brand is new," David said, his voice lower, almost to himself. "You can tell it's new. The skin around it is still red."

"Last night," Marcus said. "He told you."

"Yes, look." David moved closer and leaned over Candy's hip, so close that she felt his warm breath on the skin of her hip, and then she felt the tip of a finger rest on the edge of the tattoo—not on top, but on the edge, where the skin was still red—and press lightly. Candy gasped. She couldn't help it. Her breath escaped between her teeth and her knees shook slightly.

“Does it hurt?” asked David.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He withdrew his finger. “So you remember.”

Marcus rose from the table. He picked up his beer, took the last sip, and set the empty bottle down next to the others. Then he looked at Michael, and something passed between them wordlessly—an agreement Candy didn't understand, an order she hadn't been told—and Michael nodded, just once, and finally turned away from the window.

He approached with the same slow pace he'd used to observe. When he was in front of Candy, he stopped and studied her from above, and Candy noticed that he was the tallest of the three, that he had large hands, and that he wasn't smiling. He hadn't smiled since she'd entered. He grabbed her collar—not like David, with two curious fingers, but with his whole hand, the velvet disappearing in his fist—and pulled her toward him, and Candy took a step, then another, and found herself an inch from his chest, his face at the height of her collarbone, her nose inundated with her scent.

“Open your mouth,” Michael said.

Candy opened it.

She made no effort to release his grip. He held her like that, her mouth open and empty, his hand gripping her collar, and he looked at her—into her mouth, into her eyes, in a way that left her no choice but to remain still and wait. A second passed. Three. Candy's tongue landed on her lower teeth and remained there, and her jaw began to ache from the effort of holding that position, yet Michael didn't move.

Then, without haste, with his free hand, he unzipped his shorts.

Michael's penis stuck out straight and hard, and Candy immediately realized it was the largest of the three. Not as long as Maestro Leroy's, but shorter, with a vein running down his side like a stitch. Michael didn't take it in his hand. He let it dangle there, in front of Candy's face, and waited.

“Do you see it?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

"Then why do you keep your mouth shut?"

Candy opened her mouth again. She felt her jaw crack—it had been open too long before, and now it hurt the sides of her face—but it didn't matter. Michael grabbed the back of her neck with his free hand, the same large hand that had held her collar, and pulled her forward until the tip brushed her lower lip. He didn't push it in. He held it there, resting it, a point of heat against her mouth, and Candy tasted it before she even took it: salt, and beneath the salt, something bitter that rose to her nose.

“You take it,” Michael said.

Candy leaned forward. She took it in her mouth, and it was different from Marcus's: fuller, wider, filling her cheeks before reaching her throat. Her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth, finding no room, and for a moment she felt like she couldn't breathe, as if her mouth were filled to the brim. Then she remembered: breathe through your nose, slowly down, and she inhaled, her throat opening a little and Michael slid even lower.

"Like this," Michael said. There was no warmth in his voice. It was an instruction, nothing more.

Behind her, Marcus had sat down again on the edge of the table. Candy could feel him more than see him: the wood creaked under his weight, the beer bottle clinked against the placemat. Then his voice, addressed to David, became calm, as if he were commenting on the weather.

"Look at him. He hasn't learned to relax his throat yet."

“It needs time,” David said.

«He doesn't have time.»

Candy felt Michael's hand tighten on the back of her neck, just a little, a warning, and she knew she had to go even lower. He went even lower. The tip pressed against her throat, and she felt it open, give, expand around him like something she didn't know she could do. Her eyes filled with tears. She didn't close them. She kept looking at Michael's face, which stared blankly at her, as if waiting for something that hadn't yet arrived.

“That’s enough,” Marcus said.

Michael let go of her. His penis slipped out of her mouth with a wet sound, and Candy inhaled deeply, saliva dripping from her chin in a long stream that fell onto her chest. She didn't wipe it away. She didn't dare.

Marcus stood up from the table. He approached Candy from behind and placed a hand on her shoulder—his left, the one not holding the beer—and gently pushed her down until her knees touched the light wood again.

"Now you'll take them both," he said. "Michael in front. Me in back."

Candy felt her stomach tighten. She didn't understand right away, she didn't want to understand right away, and then Marcus's hand slid down her back, between her shoulder blades, to the hollow of her waist, and stopped there, flat, warm, as if to gauge how much space she had available.

"I didn't ask if you were ready," Marcus said. "I told you what to do."

“Yes, sir.”

Michael knelt before her. It was a fluid, effortless movement: one knee, then the other, and now his face was level with hers, and his eyes were watching her intently, black, steady, unhurried. He grabbed her collar with one hand and held it there, like a rein. With the other, he guided his penis toward her mouth.

“Open up,” he said.

Open candy.

Behind her, Marcus had lowered himself. Candy felt his hands spread her buttocks—two warm palms pressing, separated, indelicately—and she felt the cool air of the room reach her where it had never been before. Then she felt the head of Marcus's penis against her ass, hard, round, pressing but not penetrating.

"Relax," Marcus said. "If you tense up, I'll hurt you. And I don't want to hurt you, at least not right away."

Candy tried to relax. She didn't know how. Her body tensed on its own—her shoulders, her back, her thighs—as if her skin knew something her mind still didn't. Michael, facing her, held her by the collar and thrust his penis into her mouth, and for a moment Candy had to do two things at once, and neither was possible.

Then Marcus pushed.

He entered a finger's breadth, maybe even less, and stopped. Candy felt the tearing, not pain, not yet, just a fullness she'd never felt before, a body opening where it had never opened before. A sound escaped her throat, muffled against Michael's penis, and Michael heard it, because he tightened his grip on her collar a little.

“Again,” Marcus said. “Slowly.”

He pushed again. Another inch, then he stopped again, and Candy felt her breath coming out of her nose in short, labored gasps, and she felt the saliva dripping from Michael's chin, and she felt—this she realized only a second later—his penis hardening against her thigh, without anyone touching it, without anyone asking.

"There," Marcus said, his voice lower, closer to Candy's ear. "See, you're in there?"

He pushed again. Deeper this time, and Candy felt her anus opening around him as if something were giving way, and the pain came: a dull, diffuse ache that filled her belly and made her fingers clench against the wood. Michael, in front, began to move. Not quickly. Not forcefully. Just in and out, slowly, and Candy realized that the two rhythms didn't match: Michael was entering while Marcus was exiting, Marcus was entering while Michael was exiting, and that her body had to learn to stay between those two movements without giving in.

“Protect me,” Michael said.

Candy looked up. Michael was kneeling and looking down at her, his face devoid of any emotion: neither pleasure, nor anger, nor boredom. Only attention. As if he were reading something Candy didn't know, something written on her face.

Marcus pushed harder. Candy felt her body jolt forward, and her mouth filled up to Michael's throat, and for a moment she couldn't breathe, and her head spun, and tears streamed down her cheeks and fell onto the light wood.

"Good," Marcus said, and his hand rested on her back, between her shoulder blades, warm and firm. "Like this. Don't stop."

David approached. Candy felt him coming before she saw him: the smell of sunscreen and rum, and then the rustle of his Bermuda shorts being undone. He knelt beside Michael, sideways, and took his penis in his hand, beginning to move it slowly, watching Candy. He didn't say anything. There was no need.

Michael sped up. Marcus sped up to answer. And Candy, between them, her mouth and ass full and tears streaming down her chest, felt her body give way, not to her head, not to her will, but to that simple thing that kept her knees spread on the wood, her back bent forward, and her throat relaxed around Michael, as if she'd always known how to do it.

“Here we go,” Marcus said. “Keep it.”

Michael held her tightly. Both hands now on her collar, the red velvet disappearing into his fists, and Candy couldn't move her head, couldn't close her mouth, couldn't do anything but lie there and take what was being given to her. Marcus grabbed her hips and pulled her back against him, and his cock slid in all the way, and Candy heard a sound escaping her throat—a low moan, vibrating against Michael—that she didn't recognize as her own.

Then Marco arrived.

It was a warmth that pervaded her as she stood in the water.

"Thank you, gentlemen," she said. The phrase came out spontaneously. She hadn't learned it there.

The three laughed. The old man patted her on the shoulder, like a dog who's been carefully brought back. Then they returned to the fishing rods, and Candy got up and continued along the path toward the large pool.

Her legs were still shaking, but less so. The taste in her mouth had transformed into three distinct flavors, and she could no longer distinguish them, and perhaps that was for the best. The sign banged against her chest with every step, and the writing continued, toward the pool, toward the sauna, toward the beach bar, toward everyone who hadn't yet read it.

At the pool entrance, a bouncer in a black polo shirt sat on a stool, his cell phone in his hand. He looked up when Candy arrived, read the sign, and laughed, a short, stifled laugh, as if he'd seen the scene before. Then he nodded.