Mexico City, the city of bright lights and dreams of changing lives.
I, Alejandro, 23 years old, a young man from the provinces, recently graduated as an engineer, but without a stable job. My family in the village was poor, my parents were old and sick, and the debt to loan sharks to pay for my studies had become a chain that dragged us all down. I dreamed of a bright future, but the cruel reality had cornered me. Then Doña Carmen appeared, as a way out as tempting as it was dangerous.
Doña Carmen was 47 years old, a widow, and the owner of a chain of luxury restaurants. She wasn’t beautiful: her face was marked by wrinkles, her dyed black hair couldn’t hide the passage of time. Her gaze was penetrating, her smile confident, like that of someone in control.
“Alejandro, I’ll make sure you have a comfortable life. I’ll pay off your family’s debts. I just need you to be my husband,” she told me one afternoon in her private office, where expensive perfume mingled with the cold air from the air conditioner.
I shuddered, thinking of Isabel, my ex-girlfriend from back in the village, but the pleading looks from my parents made me nod. “It’s just a contract,” I repeated to myself, swallowing my disgust.
The wedding was quick, without a lavish party, just a few family members present, and the poisonous murmurs of the neighbors. Doña Carmen wore a red silk dress, her fingers studded with gold rings tightly gripping my hand.
“From now on, you are my husband, Alejandro,” she whispered in a sweet but authoritative voice.
I forced a smile, thinking, “She’s my mother’s age… how did I end up here?”
The first few days after the wedding were suffocating. Doña Carmen controlled me like a puppet. She forced me to quit a small job I’d gotten and took me to live in her luxurious, yet cold and lonely mansion in Polanco. She checked my phone and cut off my communication with friends.
“You’re my husband, you must obey,” she said with a sharp look.
I protested: “You can’t treat me like a prisoner!”
She just laughed: “Have you forgotten the contract? I paid your family’s debts. If you betray me, they lose everything.”
My father, Don Manuel, who had begged me to marry her, only sighed: “Hang in there, son, it’s for the family.”
My mother, Doña Teresa, looked at her with envy, as if Doña Carmen had stolen something valuable from her.
The tension grew. She demanded that I behave like a “real” husband, from the clothes I had to wear to the caresses I refused.
“You could be my mother! How do you expect me to love you?” I yelled once.
She responded furiously: “Love? Do you think I need love? I just need you to play your role as a husband.”
The wedding night arrived, the one I’d dreaded the most. The room was decorated with roses and candles, but to me it was a prison cell. I tried to linger in the shower, but when I got out, she was already in bed, wearing a light nightgown and a disturbing look.
“Come here, dear husband,” she called to me in a honeyed voice.
I sat on the edge of the bed, trembling.
“No… I don’t feel well,” I stammered.
She laughed, caressing my shoulder with her wrinkled hand.
“Don’t be afraid, I’ll be gentle.”
I pushed her away.
“Don’t touch me! I can’t!”
Her face hardened. Suddenly, she pulled back the sheets. And what appeared underneath stopped me in my tracks: it wasn’t her body, but a pile of documents, photos, and contracts. At the very top, a photo of me with Isabel, my ex-girlfriend, taken in the village months before, with a handwritten note: “Do you think I didn’t know?”
I fell to my knees, panicking.
“What… what does this mean? What do you know?”
“Did you really think I married you just to have a young husband? I know you were still in contact with Isabel, even though you swore to break up with her. These papers prove that you diverted the money I gave your family into Isabel’s account, planning to run away with her after I paid your debts.”
I was speechless. It was true: I had secretly sent money to Isabel, dreaming of escaping and starting a new life with her.
But Carmen wasn’t just a rich, lonely widow: she was a calculating strategist. She had hired a detective to follow me before the wedding. He didn’t want me; he wanted revenge. Isabel, the woman he loved, had worked in one of his restaurants… and had stolen money from his accounts. When Carmen discovered I was with Isabel, she plotted her perfect revenge.
“Do you think I’m naive?” she laughed scornfully. “I’ve already sent all this to the police. Isabel will be arrested for fraud. And you… you’ll stay here, like my husband. If you try to escape, your family will lose everything.”
I broke down, pleading:
“Please don’t hurt Isabel! I’ll do whatever you want!”
She left the room with a cruel smile, leaving me with the documents that looked like a death warrant.
Days later, Isabel was arrested. Even though I hated it, I had to stay by Carmen’s side, fulfilling my role as “husband” in this bitter contract. My family was freed from debt… but the price was my freedom and my love.
Life went on, but for me every day was a prison. I worked in Carmen’s restaurants, under her constant control. At night, I dreamed of Isabel, of my lost freedom.
That wedding night wasn’t the beginning of a love story… but the beginning of a sentence I hadn’t chosen.
