Antithesis

ANTITHESIS

Many people, especially those who are unaware of the profound darkness of the human heart, may find it inconceivable that there are others who cannot live their lives without order and control. They do not understand it, and it seems impossible to them that someone could live under total dependence on another person, with a strict hierarchy and absolute routine, where each person knows their role and almost everyone follows the rules.

Clemente had created this world. Better said, he had inherited it and improved it. As a good survivor, he had learned how to overcome difficulties, get back up when he had fallen, and take advantage of every opportunity that presented itself. He had taken advantage of every opportunity that came his way.

He knew everyone around him very well and took advantage of their weaknesses, benefiting from the strengths of those same individuals.

Clemente was the center of life in this closed, tightly controlled, and absolutely unjust world: only he had rights and no obligations, and the other three people who lived there were completely subject to his control and power.

He defined the rules, set the schedules, and fixed the obligations of each person. Everything was determined by his will, which could not be contradicted. But these rules were arbitrary, and he changed them whenever he wanted. He demanded obligations that he had not previously informed them of and handed out rewards and punishments at his whim.

Despite this, Iñaki, Phillipe, and Paulus knew their place and respected the hierarchy. It was Phillipe who was the slave called to be close to Clemente, while Paulus was the one who carried out orders, applied punishments, and supervised, and Iñaki was the last, the worst of all, the one who received no rewards, only punishments, the one who had to provide and suffer.

Clemente had a predilection for Phillipe: he had discovered him and had formed him almost exclusively as a slave. To his delight, Phillipe resembled him in his arbitrary and narcissistic behavior, in his tendency to feel envy and jealousy towards everyone. He was an athletic, beautiful slave, with the face of an angel, but fallen and perverse, a dog who enjoyed pain, both receiving it and giving it. He had no codes.

Clemente enjoyed playing with Iñaki and Paulus's feelings. He knew that there was sexual and emotional tension between them, but he teased and annoyed them. He liked the self-absorbed and unexpressive behavior that usually characterized him, but beneath that mask of disinterest, he knew what was going on and recognized the training he had undergone under the Russian Master: he had also experienced it and did not forget it. If he had survived it, it was because he was strong and valuable.

It was strange that Clemente, who had barely finished secondary education, with no known profession or special attraction, had managed to dominate two university pr...