What the Principal Asked Me for to Save My Son

Mariana Castaño parked the car in the nearly empty school parking lot and did not dare get out right away. Her hands stayed on the wheel, knuckles white. She was forty, had two children, and a typed sentence tucked inside her handbag. Lucas, the eldest, had been caught selling weed to his classmates in the girls’ bathroom. Permanent expulsion, the paper said. No school, no scholarship, no university.

That morning she had dressed carefully. Navy knit dress, wide belt cinching her waist, discreet heels. Then, in front of the mirror, she had opened the lingerie drawer and stared for too long. She chose underwear her husband had never seen: a black lace bra that lifted her tits until they spilled from the neckline, and matching panties, tiny, disappearing between her ass cheeks. She told herself it was coincidence, that it was simply the first thing she had found, that it made no difference.

Lie.

Esteban had spent eighteen years working double shifts at the packaging plant and had never been able to look at her like that, with the kind of hunger she sometimes felt at the supermarket, in the bank queue, in the elevator. Mariana had grown used to smothering that hunger with patience and white wine. Today, however, the hunger came with her, sitting beside her in the passenger seat.

She got out of the car. The main corridor of the school smelled of disinfectant and photocopier ink. She knocked on the principal’s office door and a deep voice invited her in.

—Mrs. Castaño. Come in.

Ricardo Méndez was in his fifties, broad-shouldered, his gray hair combed back with a perfect part. When she went in, he half rose and pointed to the chair in front of his desk. Mariana felt the man’s gaze travel over her without shame: from the neckline to the belt, from the belt to the hem of the skirt. She crossed her legs and, for an instant, felt furious with herself for the small, ridiculous pleasure it gave her.

—Thank you for seeing me so quickly —she said.

—It was unavoidable. Your son has crossed the line.

—He’s just a kid, Ricardo. He’s eighteen on paper but inside he’s fifteen. His friends… At home I try…

—You at home, your husband at the factory, the grandmother in the nursing home. I know the list, Mrs. Castaño. I know it very well. Every week some mother walks through that door with the exact same list.

There was a silence. Mariana leaned forward a little. She knew exactly what she was doing. She also knew that he knew.

—I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Lucas from leaving school with a record —she said.

—“Whatever it takes” —Méndez repeated slowly, savoring the phrase—. That’s a very dangerous blank check, Mariana. May I use your first name?

—Of course.

—Good. I’m asking you for the last time. When you say “whatever it takes,” do you know what you’re saying?

She swallowed. She felt her heart pounding against her bra. She nodded.

—I want to hear it in words.

—Whatever is necessary, Principal.

He let a few more seconds pass. Then he stood up, walked around the desk at an unhurried pace, and locked the door without taking his eyes off her.

—Stand up.

Mariana got to her feet. The dress had wrinkled over her hips and she felt the fabric tightening across her thigh. Méndez came close enough to stand one step away, close enough for her to smell him: stale tobacco, expensive cologne, cold coffee.

—Take off your dress —he said—. Slowly. And while you do, tell me why you’re willing to do this.

—Because my son needs it.

—No. That’s the lie you’ll tell yourself tomorrow in front of the mirror. Today I want the truth.

She lowered the side zipper. The sound seemed too loud in that office with cork walls. The dress gave way and fell to the floor, forming a perfect circle around her heels.

—I’m here because for years no one has looked at me the way you’re looking at me now —she answered, without fully recognizing her own voice—. Because for years no one has touched me. Because at home I sleep next to a man who can’t even smell me.

***

Méndez sat on the edge of the desk, arms crossed, watching her as a buyer examines merchandise before closing the deal. Mariana stood in front of him in black bra and panties, heels still on, stockings pulled up to mid-thigh. Her legs were trembling, but she did not cover herself. She felt her nipples harden beneath the lace simply from the weight of that gaze.

—Come here —he ordered.

She obeyed. Méndez took her by the waist, not roughly but with authority, and turned her slowly, as if assessing her under better light. He ran his open palm over her ass, squeezing it over the panties, weighing it. Then he struck her sharply, a short slap that made her flinch and tore a tiny involuntary moan from her. One hand slid up her back to the bra clasp. He unhooked it with the same ease a clerk opens a file. Mariana’s tits fell heavy, the dark nipples already hard as stones.

—Every time you come into this office —he told her in her ear as the bra fell—, you’re coming in like this.

—Every time?

—Every time the deal has to be renewed. And deals are renewed, Mariana. Always.

He took a breast in his whole hand, weighing it, and pinched the nipple between thumb and forefinger until she clenched her teeth. He bent down and took it into his mouth, sucking hard, biting it, pulling on it with his lips until she let out a gasp she could not contain. He moved to the other breast, licked it all over, bit beneath it, left a red mark of saliva and teeth on her pale skin.

He turned her again and sat her on the desk. He swept a few papers aside with his elbow, and they fell to the floor. He spread her knees with the palm of his hand, unhurried, and stared at her pussy through the black panties for what felt to her like forever. The fabric was already dark with moisture, stuck to her lips, outlining the slit.

—Look at you —he said—. You’re soaked, Mariana. I haven’t even touched you down there and you’re already asking for it.

She closed her eyes, red all the way to her neck. He pulled the panties aside with two fingers, without taking them off, leaving her pussy bare. He looked at it for another second, like someone admiring something that already belonged to him, and then bent down and ran his whole tongue from bottom to top, slowly, pressing the clit with the tip. Mariana arched and nearly toppled backward onto the desk.

Méndez gripped her thighs with both hands, spread her legs even wider, and buried his face between them without the slightest decency. He licked her cunt all over, sucked each lip one by one, pushed his tongue inside and drew it out slowly, tasting her. He pressed his thumb into her clit while he kept eating her out, in a rhythm that undid her. He sucked with hunger, making noise, a wet suction sound that bounced off the office walls and made Mariana both ashamed and thrilled.

Mariana tried to think of Esteban. Of the last dinner the two of them had alone, three years ago, at the neighborhood pizzeria. Of Sunday routine: laundry, football, a lukewarm beer. Of her husband’s gray hair. She couldn’t. She couldn’t hold onto any image for more than three seconds. The principal’s mouth had been between her legs longer than her husband could ever remember being. Méndez’s thick fingers slid inside her, two at once, and began pumping her while his tongue kept working her clit. She brought one hand to her mouth to keep from screaming and with the other grabbed his head and ground his face against her cunt, moving her hips now without control.

—Come —he ordered, pulling his mouth away for a second—. Come on my face, Mariana. Let it be heard all the way to the corridor.

He went back to sucking her clit, this time faster, fingers going in and out to the knuckle, and she came with a rough groan she did not recognize as her own. Her legs shook, her belly clenched in waves, and she felt a burst of wetness spill from her cunt and smear his chin and tie.

When he straightened up, she was already soaked and ashamed of being so. Méndez’s face was shining, his mouth red, and he was smiling at her like someone who has just confirmed something. He grabbed the back of her neck and pushed her down, gently but without allowing any misunderstanding.

—On your knees.

She got down from the desk and knelt on the rough carpet. She undid his belt, his trousers, all of it, with fingers as clumsy as a teenager’s. She pulled down his briefs and his cock sprang out, hard, thick, veined, bigger than she had imagined. She stared at it for a second, mouth slightly open, and felt a thread of saliva gather on her lower lip. He let her do it, looking down at her with a calm smile.

—Don’t disappoint me, Mariana.

She did not disappoint him. She grabbed his cock with both hands, the first she had touched that wasn’t Esteban’s in eighteen years, and ran her tongue along its whole length, from the balls to the tip. She kissed the glans, took it all into her mouth slowly, and started sucking him the way she hadn’t sucked anyone in years. She took him in and out, helped herself with her hand at the base, played with her tongue around the glans. She slobbered all over him, left his cock shining with saliva, and every time she drew it out of her mouth there was a loud sucking sound that filled the office.

Méndez held her head with one firm hand, setting the pace. He shoved her mouth to the back of his throat, jammed himself down her throat and held her there for a few seconds, until her eyes watered and she gagged. When he let her go, she inhaled and took him in again on her own, deeper this time, determined to do it well. She licked his balls, took them into her mouth one by one, ran her tongue beneath them while she jerked his cock with her hand.

—That’s it, good girl —he whispered—. Good mother. Look how much you like it. Look at the drool. You don’t do this to your poor husband, do you? You were saving this for me.

—Look at me —he told her at one point—. I want you to look at me while you do it.

She lifted her eyes. She saw his face from below, the blue eyes half-lidded, the satisfied grimace. She also saw, over his shoulder, the framed diploma on the wall. “Ricardo Méndez Aguirre. Pedagogy.” And, right next to it, a family photo: him, a blonde woman, two teenage daughters in the uniform of another school.

She did not look away. She kept sucking, kept taking him into her mouth with it open and her tongue out, kept letting him use her throat while he looked down at her the way one looks at a new employee who is being tested.

***

Afterward he sat her on the desk again and laid her back, sweeping the rest of the folders aside with a swipe of his hand. He pulled her panties off with two fingers, slowly, like someone stripping petals from a flower that cost him nothing, and slipped them into the inside pocket of his jacket. Mariana closed her eyes.

—Look at me —he repeated.

She obeyed. He spread her legs wide, positioned himself between them, and rubbed the head of his cock over her entire cunt, up and down, smearing himself with her wetness, tapping the tip against her clit until she moaned again. When he finally pushed inside, he did it in one thrust, sinking all the way in, and Mariana let out a short, sharp cry that echoed off the cork walls.

—Hush —he told her, covering her mouth with his hand—. There’s a parents’ meeting next door in half an hour, Mariana. Hold it in.

He began to fuck her slowly, almost coming all the way out and then driving back in to the hilt, making her feel every inch. She clutched the edge of the desk with both hands. He seized her tits, squeezed them, pushed her until she matched whatever rhythm he wanted. Then he took her thighs beneath the knees, lifted her legs onto his shoulders, and started fucking her for real, thrusting hard, making the desk bang against the wall with every shove.

—Look at me —he repeated—. Look at me while I fuck you, Mariana. Look at me properly.

She looked at him while he entered her. She looked at him when he held her thighs. She looked at him when he bent over her and whispered that this was only the first payment. She looked the whole time, because the only way to endure what was happening was to turn it into something she herself was choosing, even if it wasn’t entirely so.

He flipped her face-down over the desk, kicked her legs apart, and thrust into her from behind again, grabbing her hair, driving himself in to the balls. Her thighs hit the wood with every stroke, her tits were crushed against the papers, and she felt the principal’s cock battering the depths of her cunt again and again. He ran his thumb over her asshole and pressed a little, without actually going in, just to remind her who was in charge. She let out a new moan, deeper, more animal.

—Next time I’m coming in here too —he told her—. Did you hear me?

She nodded with her face pressed to the desk, unable to say anything. He fucked her like that, holding her by the hair and hip, for what felt to her like another whole lifetime. Then he turned her over again, got on top of her, grabbed her face with both hands, and kept pounding her face-to-face, staring without blinking, until she felt the trembling start again inside her.

There was a moment, near the end, when she stopped pretending. She stopped thinking about Lucas, about Esteban, about the crumpled paper in her handbag. She stopped thinking about the blonde woman in the frame. She stopped thinking, period. She clung to the principal’s back with both hands, dug her nails in over his shirt, and heard herself moan the way she hadn’t heard herself moan since before her first pregnancy. She came again, her cunt clamping around his cock in spasms, and he held on a few seconds longer before pulling out and coming over her, a thick jet of hot cum landing on her belly, her tits, and her chin.

When it was all over, Méndez moved away at his own pace. He ran two fingers along her neck, gathering a little of the spill, and put them into her mouth without asking permission. Mariana sucked them, never taking her eyes off him, no longer quite sure what face to make. Then he dressed in front of her as if they were once again principal and worried mother. He nudged the wrinkled dress toward her with the tip of his shoe.

—Tomorrow you’ll tell your son he got out by a hair’s breadth —he said—. You’ll also tell him this doesn’t happen again. And that will be true for him. Not for us.

—Not for us —she repeated, not knowing whether it was a question or surrender.

—The next time you see an envelope from the school in the mailbox, you’ll come. And the next time you wake up at three in the morning feeling your husband doesn’t fill any space, you’ll come too. You’ll make an appointment through the secretary like any other mother and you’ll come in here the way you just came in today. Understood?

She nodded. She had no air left for anything else.

She dressed as best she could, with the principal’s semen still drying on her skin, between her tits, inside the black bra she fastened wrong again. The dress smelled of office and man. The panties were nowhere to be found. Méndez had tucked them into the pocket of his jacket, like a seal in a safe. Mariana did not dare ask for them. She felt her cunt still leaking as she walked to the door and down the inside of her thigh.

***

She left the office with the feeling that the corridor was twice as long. The janitor was still sweeping at the far end. A fluorescent light flickered overhead. By the time she reached the car, it was already raining. She sat with her hands on the wheel, just as she had two hours earlier, but the woman who had parked there no longer existed.

She thought of Esteban coming home tired from the factory that night, of the smell of food in the oven, of a routine without suspicion. She thought of Lucas, saved without knowing it. She thought of the blonde woman in the frame. She thought of herself in front of the mirror tomorrow morning, trying to invent the lie Méndez had promised.

She started the engine. Tears fell without effort, but they were not only tears of shame.

Somewhere on the way back, when she was already heading down the avenue that led to her housing development, without fully realizing it, she caught herself calculating how many weeks Lucas had left until the end of term. How many more excuses she could use. How many more times she could go back to the principal’s office without anyone at home suspecting.

She also thought about Ricardo, about how easily he had thrown the lock, about how he had sat on the edge of his desk like a man sitting on his usual throne. She imagined him the next day, seeing another mother, repeating the same script in another deep voice. It made her angry. It made her jealous. It also gave her something darker she could not name, something that made her clamp her thighs at the traffic light and notice the wetness between them again.

When she got to the garage, she stayed inside the car another ten minutes. She looked in the rearview mirror. She fixed her hair. She moistened her lips. She searched through her handbag for tissues, lipstick, the house keys, and brushed the crumpled school letter with her fingertips. She took it out, tore it into four pieces, and put it back again, this time in the inside pocket, the one that never opened.

Tomorrow, in front of the mirror, she would practice the face she was going to make when Esteban came home and asked how it had gone at the school. She would say the principal had been understanding. That Lucas was staying. That everything was fine.

And it would be true, in a way. Lucas was staying. Everything was fine.

Women like her, she thought as she rode the elevator up, do not break.

They reorganize themselves.