Expected publication: early September.
Say Red
Explicit where it needs to be. Psychological throughout.
The work
Independent collection
Explicit when the scene demands it. Psychological through its consequences.
Say Red brings together ten independent adult stories about desire, power, consent and psychological cost. Each story explores a different situation: a rule, a negotiation, a gaze, a decision or a boundary that changes the relationship between those involved.
The collection does not follow a continuous cast of characters. Its unity lies in a shared question: what happens when desire stops being an idea and becomes a choice with consequences.
The scene matters. So do agency, what is accepted, what remains outside the agreement, and what is left afterwards.
Editorial status
Expected publication: early September.
The collection is undergoing final editorial work and review. This page presents its literary territory and overall structure; story-specific information will be published once the edition is complete.
Structure: Ten independent stories about desire, power, consent and their consequences.
Themes
Content
For adult readers
Contains explicit sex between adults, direct sexual language, power dynamics, exploration or negotiation of boundaries, exposure or observation in some stories, and emotional vulnerability.
Story-specific content notes will be finalised when the edition is complete.
The letter
Follow the process without the noise.
Receive author notes, non-graphic excerpts and confirmed news about Say Red and Néstor N. Val’s other works.
Reading axes
What the book explores
How power is built
Power can also belong to the person who designs the frame.
Consent under pressure
Pact, boundary, exit and choice are part of the story.
Psychological cost
Something changes after the scene.
The collection is independent of La Jaula and the author’s other work.
Stories
Ten stories, ten pacts
1. The Exchange
When Marta and Alicia reunite in Madrid after ten years apart, their old complicity returns—along with their taste for provoking each other. In Alicia’s apartment, they invent a simple game: each woman may ask for something, and the other must comply; only “red” can stop it. What begins with massages, teasing and awkward confessions gradually becomes a negotiation of exposure, command and desire. The real exchange is not who obeys, but which kind of power each woman chooses not to use.
2. Willing to Pay
Valeria wins negotiations from the fourteenth floor of a major firm and controls every variable in her life. Alone in the office one night, she discovers that risk and surrender can excite her more than any professional victory. She turns to Nico, a blunt, grounded man who refuses to treat her like an institution, and agrees to explore that desire under one clear rule: she can stop everything by saying “red.” What Valeria sees as a controlled experiment soon sharpens every decision she makes at work.
3. When You Dare to Ask
At work, Sergio boasts that he could take two women at once, but Lucas discovers that fantasy leaves him cold. What unsettles—and draws—him is imagining Sonia, his partner, desired by someone else while he watches. After weeks of embarrassment and deleted messages, he finally tells her. Sonia does not reject him, but she makes one thing clear: she will decide how, when and with whom they explore it. For Lucas, asking is only the beginning. He must learn what it means to watch without losing his place.
4. The Night She Let Herself Get Lost
Lucas has wanted Elena, his neighbor, for six months, but cannot find the courage to say so. One night he invites her over for a suspense film, and they turn the scares into a wager: whoever moves loses and owes the other a massage. Elena loses on purpose—or so it seems. The game gradually shifts from accidental contact to a direct proposition, while she asks him more than once whether he wants her to stop. Between desire, embarrassment and surprise, Lucas discovers what happens when he stops being the one who only waits.
5. The Test
For years, she has taken the lead in bed and mistaken Pablo’s patient obedience for submission. Then he challenges one of her certainties: can she remain silent during sex? They make a wager. If she moans, he will stop the scene. What looks like a test of self-control becomes a sequence of cuts, pauses and rules that leaves her close to the edge. As she tries to prove she is still in command, she discovers that the real desire may not be winning, but choosing when to stop defending herself.
6. The Cove
Raúl travels alone to a hidden cove to find out what it feels like to be naked without pretending. For almost an hour, he believes the place will remain empty—until Marina and Sara arrive. They notice his arousal but do not mock him. Instead, they watch, make him wait and offer a framework as clear as it is provocative. Between beer, sunscreen, salt water and a towel that can no longer serve as cover, Raúl must decide whether to keep hiding or accept that being seen may be exactly what he came looking for.
7. What She Knows
The narrator begins truly watching Darío after noticing his smallest reaction to a message and hearing Andrea’s name again. An open tablet confirms his curiosity about trans women—a desire he has never mentioned. She could confront him or pretend she saw nothing. Instead, she turns the information into a map and explores it on her own terms. Over several nights, she tests angles, gestures and boundaries, alert to every sign of refusal. What she learns will change their relationship—and the power she exercises within it.
8. The Part That Takes Control
At a bar, a woman accustomed to taking the lead becomes intrigued by a man whose calm seems immune to her provocations. He proposes a pact: she will choose each step and can stop everything with a single word. Convinced that desire can also be a form of power, she follows him home to test the limits of them both. But as she moves forward of her own accord, she begins to discover that choosing every move does not always mean staying in control.
9. Not a Word
After discovering that Mateo went alone to a sex club and crossed a line he never discussed with her, the narrator decides not to confront him. She registers for a private evening and builds an alibi with her eyes wide open. There she finds Sebas, her husband’s best friend, and the two recognize each other while they are with other people. They do not touch or speak, yet sustain one another’s gaze all night, turning silence into a pact. When she returns home, she carries a secret that is not revenge, but power.
10. Taking Turns
Esther and Gonzalo take their power game toward an inversion neither can pretend not to want. She begins on top, setting the pace and withholding pleasure; he waits until he decides to turn her and take control. What follows is not a simple struggle for supremacy, but an increasingly precise alternation of commands, obedience and changed positions. In their bed, power belongs to no one forever. It passes from one body to the other, forcing an uncomfortable question about who truly decides when either of them gives way—and leaving consequences that remain after the scene ends.
18+ For adults. Contains explicit literary eroticism, power dynamics and psychological conflict.