I Cheated on My Boyfriend with the New Office Manager

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 an advertising agency in the downtown neighborhood, and a boyfriend, Tomás, whom I had been with for four years. Tomás was good and predictable. He cooked pasta on Sundays, sent me memes in the afternoon, and accepted without a fight 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 because of me, but because of 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 I had never been invited to.

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

He was the kind of height that makes you lift your head. His white shirt clung to his arms without looking deliberate. Short fair hair, and a small smile that seemed to be assessing everything and everyone. When it was his turn to introduce himself, he looked at the whole room, but when he said, “nice to meet you,” his eyes landed on mine for a second longer than necessary.

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

—They’ve already told me about you —he answered, and squeezed my palm with that calm firmness men have when they’re used to things going their way.

That night, while Tomás was telling me something about work, I caught myself distracted, thinking about the pressure of a handshake.

***

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

I responded like a good professional, laughing just enough, keeping my distance with polite remarks. 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 open than usual. Tomás would say, “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.

—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 sometime.

The elevator stopped on my floor. Damián held the door open with his arm outstretched, and as I passed, my shoulder brushed his shirt. Just a shirt, Camila. Just a shirt. That’s what I told myself as I walked to my desk with my heart pounding where it shouldn’t have been.

***

On Thursday, the office organized an after-work drink 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 stayed pressed against mine under the table and neither of us moved it away.

We talked about trips, about the branch where he had 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 didn’t say anything. But he ordered another drink.

When it was time to leave, he insisted on driving me.

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

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

In the car, the air was still. I gave him directions that didn’t quite lead 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, without looking at me—. I live right next door. I promise I’ll take you to your door afterward.

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. Only one.

—One drink —I said.

***

The apartment was new, the walls bare, a low table with two empty glasses and a bottle of whiskey halfway through. Damián poured drinks, handed me a glass, and sat on the sofa opposite 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 tentative kiss. It was the kiss of someone who had already made up his mind when he invited me over. His mouth was hot, still carrying the taste of whiskey. His hands held my face first, then slid down over my shoulders, my back, until they found the zipper of my skirt.

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

I didn’t say it.

He led me to the bedroom walking backward, never breaking contact with my mouth. He sat me on the edge of the bed, knelt between my legs, and pulled off my blouse with the same calm patience I had already seen at the office. He wasn’t in a hurry. He looked at me as if he were studying me.

—You knew this was going to happen —he said.

—No —I answered, even though I had known for days.

I took off his shirt. He had a firm torso, none of Tomás’s familiar softness. I traced him with my hands as if I were reading a new language. Every muscle was a word I had never learned. When I reached his belt, I was the one who undid it, slowly, looking him in the eyes.

He undressed without any theatrics. The lamp light cut his body into shadows. When he came closer, I wrapped my hand around his cock and understood, with a mixture of vertigo and curiosity, that the night would not be anything like any I had had before.

He gently pushed me back onto the bed. He opened my legs with his hands, unhurried, and began tracing me with his mouth from my navel downward. He did it slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. I arched my back and clutched the sheets.

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

He obeyed. He took me to the edge twice without letting me fall, 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 and was still trembling when he looked up at me again.

He gave me no respite. He settled over me, kissed my still-wet mouth, and entered me slowly. I let out a sound that was half surprise, half relief. He fucked me with a rhythm that felt studied, intense but restrained, as if he knew exactly how much he could ask of me.

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

We stayed like that for what felt like an immeasurable time. In the bed, against the bedroom wall, seated on top of him at the edge of the mattress. At one point I knelt, took him in my mouth, and looked up from below with the strange satisfaction of having the most sought-after man in the office surrender to my rhythm. Then he took control again and turned me over on the mattress, his hands on my hips, his chest against my back. I was only aware of the sweat at the nape of my neck and my own voice asking for things I had never dared ask for out loud.

We both came. Afterward he collapsed onto his back, one arm over his eyes, breathing heavily and taking a long time to calm down. I leaned against his chest, listened to his heart hammering under his skin, and felt that foolish, luminous thing that is believing you have found something important.

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

—I’ll let you know —he answered.

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

***

I got home in a taxi at three in the morning, my shoes in my hand and my hair still smelling of his cologne. Tomás was asleep on the sofa with the television on. I looked at him from the living-room doorway for a long while, waiting to feel guilty. I didn’t. What I felt, rather, was a cold clarity: I didn’t want that life anymore.

I lay down in the guest room on the excuse that I didn’t want to wake him. I didn’t sleep. I stayed staring at the ceiling, replaying 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’ll 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 with the idea of washing the previous night off my skin and keeping it only in my head. I dressed better than any office day. I put on the dress Damián had glanced at on Tuesday and a perfume I saved for birthdays. At eleven thirty, with my lips painted, I opened the chat with him.

“Good morning, darling. 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 looked at it every twenty seconds for a quarter of an hour. Then every minute. I convinced myself he’d be in a meeting. That it was early. That men don’t answer that fast. I forced myself out onto the balcony to get some air.

Forty minutes later, it vibrated.

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

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

I stared at the screen for a long time. So long that it turned 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 my dress on and my lips painted, and stayed like that, 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.