The Warning I Ignored at the Company Party

My name is Adrián and I’m writing this from the worst moment of my life. No one died. What happened is worse than that, because you can’t reproach death for anything. Carla, the woman I loved most, decided to sleep with another man, and with that single decision she made it impossible for her and me to stay together.

My job forced me to travel from Valencia to Seville a couple of times a month. Carla couldn’t stand being alone at home; it scared her in a way she couldn’t even explain herself. I talked it over with my bosses and they agreed to let her come with me. She worked remotely, so with her laptop she could carry out her tasks from anywhere in the country without any problem.

That Friday I got home and found her nervous, because the next day I was leaving on a trip for a whole week. Seven nights alone. She was an only child, her parents had died years earlier, and all her friends had their own families and couldn’t keep her company. I’d barely stepped through the door when she fixed her eyes on me.

—Carla, I have good news —I said.

—Was the trip canceled? —she asked, anxious.

—No, the trip is still on. But I spoke to the bosses and asked them to let me take you with me.

Her face went from disappointment to joy in an instant.

—And what did they say?

—That there’s no problem. They’ve already booked a double room for the two of us.

Carla started jumping up and down and hugged me so hard I thought she’d crack my ribs. What I didn’t know then was that that gesture, that generosity of mine, would be the beginning of the end of our marriage. If I had known that afternoon what I know today, I would have laughed at my own naivety. But as they say, reality beats fiction, and reality ended up running me over.

***

My company worked with another one in Seville on a joint project. Every time I traveled I met with Gonzalo, my counterpart, and we went over what had been done between trips. Gonzalo was forty-five, ten years older than me and fifteen older than Carla. He was an attractive man, one of those who clearly live in the gym: you could tell underneath his suit that he had a well-built body. I ran every morning before going into the office, just enough to keep myself healthy, but my physique was average. My face wasn’t remarkable either: neither handsome nor ugly, a face that doesn’t bother you but that nobody remembers.

I don’t know how he found out about the flight, but he was waiting for us at the airport when we got off the plane. It surprised me, though I didn’t give it much importance. Gonzalo and Carla looked at each other a second too long, until he held out his hand and she shook it. After that everything was normal. Too normal, I learned later.

The project was going full steam ahead, so the two companies organized a party: dinner and, later on, music for anyone who wanted to dance. Carla wore her long red dress, the one with the open back. I wasn’t surprised: it was her favorite and she always wore it when we went out dancing. They seated us at Gonzalo and his wife’s table. While Carla enjoyed the night, his wife stayed serious, like someone who knows something the others still don’t.

We had a good dinner, and then my little hell began. Who in their right mind wears new shoes to a party. After a while dancing with Carla, my feet hurt so badly and it was so hot in the room that I went out onto the large adjoining terrace to get some air.

I sat down on a stone bench by the railing and, when I took off my shoe, I discovered a sizeable blister. Carla came out after me, worried.

—Are you okay, Adrián?

—Yes, don’t worry.

Gonzalo appeared behind her. He had just cut short a tense conversation with his wife before reaching us. Seeing the scene, his wife turned around and went back to the party to get herself a drink, even more annoyed.

—Do you mind if I take Carla dancing? —Gonzalo asked.

—No, of course —I replied—. I don’t want a blister to ruin her night.

—Are you sure, Adrián? —she asked doubtfully.

—Sure. As soon as the pain calms down I’ll come in too.

Some people will think I’m the most idiotic man in the world. But until that night Carla had never given me a single reason to distrust her, and I knew how much she loved dancing. What could go wrong? I had a pack of bandages in the inside pocket of my blazer. I put one on. The pain was still there, but at least I could step without limping. When I got up to go back in, someone approached: it was Gonzalo’s wife. Around forty, very well preserved. A truly attractive woman.

—I’m going to give you some advice —she said—. Distrust my husband.

—They’re just dancing —I answered—. I don’t think it’s that serious.

—I warned you.

—You haven’t told me your name.

—Lorena. And you’re Adrián, right?

—That’s right. I’ll keep your advice in mind, but I trust Carla completely.

Lorena gave me the saddest smile I’ve ever seen in my life. I was about to ask her something, but she had already turned back toward the party. When I went in, Gonzalo and Carla were chatting at the bar, drink in hand, nothing strange in sight. I joined them, checked that everything was in order, and when the pain came back I suggested to Carla that we head back to the room. As we said goodbye, Gonzalo and Lorena were arguing again in low voices. They fell silent as soon as they saw us nearby. I didn’t miss the look Lorena gave me before leaving.

I understood it perfectly: she was telling me not to forget what she’d said. The week ended, we went back to Valencia, and our life returned to its rhythm. I even found myself smiling, thinking Lorena had been mistaken.

***

In my department, where I was the supervisor, someone made a serious mistake with a project. The delivery date was closing in and there was no choice but to put in overtime for weeks. When I told Carla, I expected a reproach that never came.

—I’m sorry to leave you alone some nights —I said—. You’re paying for dishes you didn’t break.

—Don’t worry —she replied—. I know you’re staying because there’s no other way. And since we’re both in the same city, I’m not as afraid: you’re one call away.

I kissed her and went to the shower, exhausted, with the problem still unresolved. Carla didn’t complain a single time. We kept making love, less than before, but with the same devotion as always. I promised myself I’d make it up to her as soon as it was all over.

***

Two months after that trip, one night I was in my office, absorbed in reports, when someone cleared their throat. I looked up. It was Carla.

—What are you doing here? —I asked, surprised.

—Adrián, I have to tell you something —she said—. I thought I could live with it, but I can’t keep hiding it from you.

—Hide what? —I feared the worst when I saw she couldn’t look at me.

—Gonzalo and I…

—Stop! I don’t want to know any more! —I cut her off—. Since when?

—For a few weeks now.

—I can’t believe it, Carla! His wife warned me about it at that party and I trusted you blindly!

Carla wiped away her tears and, rubbing her hands together, began to tell me everything, knowing that each word finished sinking our marriage. That night at the party she had felt something the moment she had him in front of her, a current she didn’t want to take seriously at first. But as the evening went on she discovered a man who was funny, full of things to talk about, who danced just as well as she liked. Curiosity kept growing. Even so, she loved me, and she convinced herself it was a passing nonsense.

When my company got into trouble and I stopped traveling, Gonzalo started coming to Valencia to oversee the project. She couldn’t tell me how, but he got her number and one night invited her to dinner. Carla was on the verge of warning me, but I looked so stressed that she thought there was no point in worrying me over a dinner. Besides, going out would do her good so she wouldn’t spend another night alone at home.

That first dinner, according to her, was just dinner and dancing at a trendy place. But once home, going over the night under the shower, she became aware that that man attracted her the way a flame attracts a moth. She had his number on the screen, her finger over the delete key, and she didn’t delete it. That was the beginning of the end.

They started talking every night I stayed in the office. Interest became obsession, obsession became desire, and desire seeped into her dreams. She woke up aroused and tried to calm herself with me the few times we coincided, without succeeding. The next time Gonzalo came to Valencia, she accepted another dinner she should have refused. And what was inevitable happened.

They went back to the same place, only this time he was much bolder. As soon as they finished dessert, Gonzalo held her gaze across the table with that son-of-a-bitch calm of a man who already knows what he’s going to do to you and is taking your pulse to see whether you’re going to back out. Carla said that, as soon as he brushed her knee with his, she felt a brutal electric shock in her pussy. It wasn’t an innocent touch: he kept it there, pressing, slowly moving up the inner side of her thigh while they talked about any old bullshit, as if the whole table weren’t burning beneath them. She was dying of shame and desire at the same time, her panties getting wetter by the moment, and he noticed it right away from the way her breathing changed.

They left the place under the excuse of smoking and slipped into the back alley. Gonzalo shoved her against the wall, grabbed the back of her neck with one hand and kissed her with no fucking preamble at all. His tongue came into her mouth like an order. Carla responded hungrily, opening up, sucking his tongue, letting out a muffled moan when he squeezed her tits over the dress. Her bare back hit the cold brick and the contrast between the heat of his body and the roughness of the wall made her tremble from head to toe.

—You’re wet —he told her, burying his face in her neck—. Fuck, Carla, you’re burning up.

She didn’t answer. She fumbled at his belt and felt the hard, huge cock pressing against her hand. His pants outlined an obscene bulge that left her breathless. Gonzalo knelt in front of her just enough to lift her dress and push her panties aside. There was no tenderness: he slid two fingers between her lips and found her cunt soaked, hot, throbbing.

—Look how you’ve got me going —he murmured, rubbing her clit with his thumb until it tore a broken gasp from her.

Carla clung to the edge of the wall while he kept working his fingers into her, faster, harder, until her legs started shaking. Then he stood up, lowered his zipper, and pulled his cock out with a brusqueness that was almost offensive, thick, dark in the alley’s dim light. She saw it for a second before he spread her legs wider and drove into her with a sudden thrust against her body.

—I want you to fuck me —Carla whispered, beside herself—. I want to feel you inside me.

Gonzalo held her by the hips and entered her at once, without asking permission again, forcing his way into her cunt with a hard shove that made her cry out. The impact sent a spasm through her whole body. She was so wet he slid all the way in on the first thrust, and even so he pulled almost all the way out to plunge back in with rhythmic violence, hitting the exact spot that made her lose her mind. The sound of their bodies slamming against the wall mixed with both of their ragged breathing and the distant noise of the party still going on inside, as if the world had no idea what was happening a few meters away.

Carla came first, clenching his cock in internal spasms that made him growl through his teeth. He kept fucking her deep, even harder, gripping her hips as if he wanted to split her in two, and ended up spilling inside her with a hot load that filled her completely. She felt the semen flooding her cunt and the filthy pleasure of being taken all the way to the hilt, used and satisfied, while he kept her pinned to the wall, panting against her shoulder.

After that, there was no turning back. They started seeing each other in secret whenever they could, first to repeat that, then because they no longer knew how to stop. She told me that in the car he had made her kneel, that he’d made her suck his cock until he was trembling, that he had fucked her on an office desk when they had barely ten minutes and that she had ended up with her legs open and her makeup smeared, biting her hand to keep from screaming. I listened and couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding and I was genuinely afraid I’d drop dead right there. That confession had just devastated fifteen years of my life in a matter of minutes, leaving inside me a void as if something had been ripped out of me.

—Carla, I need you to leave the house for me tomorrow morning so I can collect my things —I said, defeated.

—I didn’t want it to end like this —she replied—. You have to believe me.

—It doesn’t matter whether I believe you. The damage is already done. You committed the wrong, but we both pay for it.

—I’m truly sorry. You don’t control feelings —she said—. I wish I hadn’t felt anything. But when I met him, something stirred in me, and at the very least you deserved the truth.

—I see you’ve made up your mind —I murmured, looking out the window—. I hope you know what you’re doing.

—I know the most likely thing is that I’ll crash headfirst into a wall —she replied—. But if I don’t try, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

Carla got up to hug me when she saw how broken I was. I took two steps back and put my hand between us. I didn’t want her comfort. I wanted her gone.

—Remember: the house is for me only tomorrow morning —I said, swallowing my tears—. After that you’ll be free. My lawyer will contact you about the divorce.

—And what do we do with the house? —she asked, her lip trembling.

—Pay me my share and keep it, or sell it and split it. I don’t care.

—You don’t want it?

—No. Tomorrow will be the last time I ever set foot in it —I answered, as the levees broke and tears ran down my face.

She lowered her head, turned around, and left the office, leaving me alone with a weight crushing my chest.

***

I couldn’t work anymore that night. I booked a room in a nearby hotel; luckily, a last-minute cancellation left me a spot. On the way to the elevators I passed the bar, still open, and sat on one of the stools in the middle.

—A strong whiskey, please.

—Rough day, sir? —the bartender asked.

—The worst.

I saw him put back the bottle I’d chosen and take down another from a higher shelf.

—No need for anything special —I said.

—Trust me, this one is very good. You’ll thank me later.

I don’t know how many hours I stayed there or how many glasses went down, but for a while the pain crushing my chest eased. Closing time came and I went back to the room to wrestle with that newly installed emptiness, lying there staring at the ceiling, wondering what I had done wrong. And, worse still, whether Carla had ever loved me or if I had only been a consolation prize while she waited for something better.

***

I watched the first rays of sunlight come in through the window. I took a long shower and went to collect my things. Luckily I had never been one to accumulate: all of my stuff fit in three boxes. I stopped by the company to ask for the morning off, but I didn’t feel able to drive and took a taxi. When I got to the building entrance, my heart tightened and I broke down crying. At that hour the neighbors were asleep and I didn’t have to give anyone any explanations.

I went through the house one last time, treasuring memories that would never happen again. The last stop was the bedroom. Carla kept her word: she wasn’t there; maybe she hadn’t even slept in it. I picked everything up except three things I left on the bed, side by side.

The first, the envelope with the letter in which I confessed my love. I got so nervous in front of her that the words wouldn’t come, so I wrote them down. The day I gave it to her my hands were trembling so much that I dropped it to the floor, and she was the one who picked it up and read it crying. She looked at me and said yes. For years that letter meant my love for her; after her confession, it came to represent absolute heartbreak.

The second, my wedding ring. I still remember the trembling at the altar, the sweaty hands, the dry mouth, the fear of not being able to say my vows, and how just her taking my hand was enough for me to know everything would be all right. For two years it was the definition of fidelity. Since last night, its definition had changed: infidelity, disloyalty, betrayal.

The third, the key to what used to be our home. I crossed the entire city looking for the perfect place before we got married, and when I was about to give up, I found it. I brought her there blindfolded to surprise her; I’ll never forget how her eyes shone when she removed the blindfold, or the force with which she hugged me, crying with joy. That key meant commitment for four years. Now it meant abandonment.

I left the three objects together. Carla knew me well and would understand the message. I looked at the house one last time before closing the door and walking toward the taxi. The blow had been brutal. I had no choice but to lick my wounds and move on, hoping that someday someone would fill that emptiness again.