I Cheated on My Boyfriend with the New Manager at the Office

My name is Camila, and until that week my life had the shape of a black-and-white printed calendar. Twenty-six years old, a steady job at a downtown advertising agency, and a boyfriend, Tomás, with whom I’d been in a relationship for four years. Tomás was kind and predictable. He cooked pasta on Sundays, sent me memes in the middle of the afternoon, and accepted without arguing whatever series I put on at night. He didn’t have the most sculpted body in the world. He had that soft belly that appears when two people settle too comfortably into each other.

I, on the other hand, had started looking at myself in the bathroom mirror with a certain irritation. Not at myself, but at the routine. I did Pilates three times a week, watched what I ate, wore pretty lingerie even when I already knew the night would end with Tomás falling asleep before I did. I had the feeling I was saving something for a party to which no one had invited me.

On Monday, Damián arrived. They’d announced him by email the week before: new project manager, transferred from another branch. I had imagined a gray-suited man, bald, with a briefcase. When he walked into the meeting room, I nearly spilled my coffee on my skirt.

He had that height that makes you lift your chin. The white shirt fit snugly on his arms without looking deliberate. Light hair, cropped short, and a small smile that seemed to be sizing up everything and everyone. When it was his turn to introduce himself, he looked over the whole room, but when he said, “pleased to meet you,” his eyes landed on mine a second longer than necessary.

—Camila. I handle the big accounts —I said, shaking his hand when we were introduced.

—I’ve heard about you —he replied, and squeezed my palm with that calm firmness men have when they’re used to things working out for them.

That night, while Tomás told me something about work, I caught myself distractedly thinking about the pressure of a handshake. And in bed, when Tomás lifted my nightgown with his usual routine and slid his fingers into me with that predictable delicacy, I realized I was imagining another mouth. I closed my eyes, pressed my legs against his hand, and came faster than usual, biting my lip so I wouldn’t let slip a name that wasn’t his.

***

The days that followed were a small, civilized, almost invisible pursuit. Damián would show up at the coffee machine just when I went downstairs. He’d ask me questions about software anyone could have answered for him. He’d stand beside me at the copier and just stay there, still, talking to me about the weather as if he were talking about something else.

I answered like a good professional, laughing just enough, keeping my distance with polite phrases. But inside, I had started doing my makeup differently. I wore the tight skirt on the days I knew we’d have a meeting. I left one more button undone than usual. Tomás would tell me, “you look so pretty today,” in the kitchen, and I’d feel a knot in my stomach, because I knew I hadn’t dressed up for him.

One afternoon, in the elevator, we were alone.

—Got any plans for the weekend? —he asked, looking at himself in the ceiling mirror.

—Nothing special —I lied. Tomás and I had a barbecue at his sister’s house.

—Too bad. We should celebrate the move at some point.

The elevator stopped on my floor. Damián held the door with his arm extended, and as I passed, my shoulder brushed the fabric of his shirt. Just a shirt, Camila. Just a shirt. That’s what I told myself, walking to my desk with my heart pounding where it shouldn’t, and my cunt already wet beneath my skirt.

***

On Thursday, the office organized an after-work hangout at the bar on the corner. Three rounds of beer, two of something stronger, and suddenly the table had emptied out. Damián, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, sat down beside me. His knee pressed against mine under the table, and neither of us moved it away.

We talked about travel, about the branch where he’d worked before, about a dog he’d had as a kid. When Tomás called me for the third time, I silenced the phone with a gesture that felt final. Damián noticed. He said nothing. But he ordered another drink. His hand slipped under the tablecloth and gripped my thigh just above the knee, his fingers slowly spreading inward. I didn’t move. When his thumb brushed the edge of my panties, a short sigh escaped me that he pretended not to hear.

When we left, he insisted on driving me home.

—I live ten blocks away, I can manage a taxi —I protested.

—Get in. You can get out wherever you want afterward.

In the car, the air was still. I gave him directions that didn’t exactly take me home. Damián stopped half a block from my building and left the keys in the ignition.

—One more drink at my place —he said, not looking at me—. I live right next door. I promise I’ll drop you at your door after.

I thought of Tomás waiting for me with the living room light on. I thought of my tight skirt. I thought of the brush of his shirt. Just one drink. Just one.

—One drink —I said.

***

The apartment was new, the walls bare, a low table with two empty glasses and a bottle of whiskey half-finished. Damián poured us drinks, handed me mine, and sat on the sofa across from me. We looked at each other in silence for a full minute. Then he stood up, came over to where I was, and kissed me.

It wasn’t a testing kiss. It was the kiss of someone who’d already decided when he invited me. His mouth was hot, the taste of whiskey still on it. His hands held my face first, then slid down my shoulders, my back, until they found the zipper of my skirt. He yanked it open and the skirt dropped to the floor with a dull thud. I was left in stockings, blouse, and panties, and he grabbed my ass with both hands, pulling me against the hard bulge outlined in his pants.

—Tell me to stop and I stop —he murmured against my ear.

I didn’t say it. What I did was slip my hand between our bodies and squeeze his cock through the fabric. I felt it throb. Damián let out a low, rough laugh and bit my neck.

He led me to the bedroom walking backward, never breaking away from my mouth. He sat me on the edge of the bed, knelt between my legs, and pulled my blouse off with that calm patience I’d already seen at the office. He wasn’t in a hurry. He looked at me as if he were studying me. He unclasped my bra, slid it down my arms, and paused for a second staring at my tits before leaning down to suck them. He licked one nipple and then the other, biting slowly, tugging with his teeth until I moaned. He circled them with his tongue, took them fully into his mouth, and I arched my back, searching for more.

—You knew this was going to happen —he said, his mouth still on my breast.

—No —I answered, even though I’d known for days.

I took off his shirt. His torso was firm, without the familiar softness of Tomás. I traced him with my hands as if I were reading a new language. Each muscle was a word I’d never learned. When I reached his belt, I was the one who unbuckled it, slowly, looking him in the eyes. I pulled down his pants and boxers in one tug and his cock sprang free, hard, long, thicker than I’d imagined, the tip already shiny with liquid.

He undressed without theatrics, finishing taking off the rest of his clothes. The lamp light carved his body in shadow. When he came closer, I wrapped my hand around his cock and understood, with a mix of vertigo and curiosity, that the night wasn’t going to resemble any I’d had before. I took him with both hands and started stroking him slowly, feeling him pulse against my palm. I lowered my head and ran my tongue over the glans, tasting that salty drop at the tip. Damián let out a groan and buried his fingers in my hair.

—Like that, baby. Suck it all —he said.

I obeyed. I opened my mouth and swallowed as much of him as I could, feeling him filling my throat. I went up and down, bobbing my head, while my hand worked the part that wouldn’t fit. I sucked him with hunger, saliva dripping down my chin, looking up at him from below to see the effect I had on him. He gripped my neck without forcing me, setting the rhythm. I felt his body tense and pulled away; I didn’t want him to come yet.

He pushed me gently back onto the bed. He opened my legs with his hands, unhurriedly, ripped off my soaked panties, and began tracing me with his mouth from my belly button downward. He did it slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. I arched my back and gripped the sheet with my fingers.

When he reached my cunt, he didn’t touch it right away. He blew on me, kissed the insides of my thighs, licked very close without quite making contact, until I asked him to. Only then did he open my lips with two fingers and sweep his entire tongue from bottom to top, long and flat, until he pressed the tip into my clit. A cry slipped out of me, and I muffled it against the back of my hand.

—Harder —I begged, in a whisper I didn’t recognize.

He obeyed. He sucked my clit between his lips, nibbled it, licked it in quick circles while sliding two fingers into me and curling them inward, searching for that spot Tomás had never known how to find. He brought me to the edge twice without letting me fall, pulling his mouth away whenever he felt I was about to explode, smiling against my wet pussy, and when he finally let me come, I did it biting the back of my hand so I wouldn’t scream. My body shook from the inside, my cunt tightening around his fingers in waves, and I was still trembling when he lifted his gaze back to me, his mouth and chin shining with me.

He gave me no respite. He settled on top of me, kissed my still-wet mouth —I tasted myself on his tongue— and entered me slowly. I let out a sound that was half surprise, half relief. I felt him making his way in, pushing little by little, filling me centimeter by centimeter to the hilt. When he was all the way inside, he stayed still for a second, looking at me, and then he started moving. He fucked me with a rhythm that felt studied, intense but controlled, as if he knew exactly how much he could ask of me. Each thrust pulled a gasp from me, and with each one I felt him hitting a place inside me that made me grit my teeth.

—Look at me —he said, and I opened my eyes.

—Harder, please —I begged him—. Fuck me hard.

He braced himself on his arms and started driving into me with need, without restraint, all the way in each time. The bed creaked. My tits bounced with every thrust and he lowered his head to suck them without stopping. I dug my nails into his back, wrapped my legs around his waist so he could get deeper, and let myself moan without shame, with a voice Tomás had never heard in four years.

We stayed like that for a time that lost all measure. In the bed, against the bedroom wall —he lifted me up, my back against the cold brick, while I held on to his shoulders and he fucked me from below, his cock driving into me from top to bottom with each bounce—, seated on top of him at the edge of the mattress, riding him slowly at first and then desperately, feeling how with every drop down my clit crashed against his bone.

At some point I knelt down myself, took his cock back in my mouth, and looked up at him with the strange satisfaction of having the most sought-after man in the office surrender to my rhythm. I sucked him calmly, letting him push into my throat until it made me tear up, then licked his balls one by one while my hand ran over his cock slick with saliva. He pulled my hair, called me a “whore,” and I heard it as the hottest praise anyone had ever given me.

Then he took control again and turned me over on the mattress, face down, lifted my ass with both hands, and drove into me from behind in one single thrust. I howled into the pillow. His hands on my hips, his chest against my back, his mouth on my neck. He fucked me hard, with a brutal rhythm, smacking my ass every so often with his palm until it turned red. All I could register was the sweat on my neck and my own voice asking for things I had never dared ask aloud. To fuck me harder. Not to stop. To fill me. To use me however he wanted.

—I’m gonna come —I warned him, my voice breaking.

—Come on my cock, baby. Come all over it.

I came like that, impaled on him, my face buried in the pillow and my cunt clenching him in spasms I couldn’t control. Damián held out for two more thrusts, growled something I didn’t understand, and emptied himself inside me, hot spurts I felt reaching the deepest part while he kept fucking me through the last contraction.

We both finished. Then he let himself fall back on the bed, one arm draped over his eyes and his breathing heavy, taking a long time to settle. I leaned against his chest, listened to his heart pounding under his skin, and felt that stupid, bright thing it is to believe you’ve found something important. Between my legs, his semen was still dripping warm onto my thigh.

—Are we doing something tomorrow? —I asked, still with my mouth against his sternum.

—I’ll let you know —he replied.

He said it without opening his eyes, and I heard it as a promise.

***

I took a taxi home at three in the morning, with my shoes in my hand, my torn panties in my purse, and my hair still smelling of his cologne. Tomás was asleep on the sofa with the TV on. I watched him from the living room doorway for a long time, waiting to feel guilty. I didn’t. What I felt instead was a cold clarity: I no longer wanted that life.

I went to sleep in the guest room under the excuse of not wanting to wake him. I didn’t sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling, going over every minute of the night, and at nine in the morning, still without having closed my eyes, I opened the chat with Tomás and wrote.

“Tom, it’s not about you, it’s about me. I haven’t been okay for months and last night I realized it. I need some time. We can talk when you can, but I’ve already made my decision.”

I hit send before rereading it. Then I turned off notifications and left the phone face down on the nightstand.

I took a long shower, almost as if I wanted to wash the previous night off my skin and keep it only in my head. I dressed better than on any office day. I put on the dress Damián had glanced at on Tuesday and a perfume I usually saved for birthdays. At eleven thirty, with my lips painted, I opened his chat.

“Good morning, baby. Lunch today? I can pick you up if you want.”

I left the phone on the kitchen table and poured myself a coffee I didn’t need. I checked it every twenty seconds for a quarter of an hour. Then every minute. I told myself he must be in a meeting. That it was early. That men don’t reply that fast. I forced myself out onto the balcony for some air.

Forty minutes later, it vibrated.

“Can’t, baby. I’m with a girl from the gym. Another day.”

Beneath it, a photo. Damián, in his bed —the same bed— with a blonde on top of him, laughing toward the camera, her hair stuck to her forehead, a sheet barely covering what it had to.

I stared at the screen for a long time. So long it shut off by itself. I turned it back on. The photo was still there. The blonde looked at me as if she knew my name.

I turned off the phone. I sat in the kitchen chair with the dress on and my lipstick on, and I stayed there, motionless, until the sun shifted to the other side and hit my face.

Tomás had answered my message a few minutes later. I read it later, that same night, when there was nothing left to fix. Take all the time you need. I’m here. Four words, the most expensive of my life.