Everything We Kept Quiet About in the Office

There are people you share an office with for years without ever really knowing who they are. That was how it was with Carmen for a long time. Four years sitting three meters apart, sharing the photocopier, the coffee machine, and hallway small talk, without either of us knowing what the other was hiding behind that life of meetings and deadlines.

Everything changed one October night.

The team had gone out to dinner to celebrate a new contract. A downtown restaurant, two long tables, too much wine, and that strange energy that builds when people from work mix alcohol with being outside the usual context. As the night went on, people began drifting away: first the ones with small children, then the ones who rise early out of conviction, then the ones who were simply bored. By one in the morning, Carmen and I were the only ones left at the table.

—Another? —she asked, pointing at the half-empty bottle.

—Why not.

That night Carmen wore her hair down, something she almost never did at the office. She was forty-two, though I didn’t know that until much later, when she told me herself with a mix of pride and defiance that was very much her own. Tall, broad-backed, with big tits barely contained by her blouse and a way of looking at you that made you feel she was reading your mind without apparent effort.

—How long has it been since you fucked someone? —she asked suddenly.

It was so direct I almost spat out my wine.

—Is that a work question? —I said.

—No. —She smiled without taking her eyes off mine—. It’s a question from two people alone in a bar at one in the morning.

I told her it had been almost a year. My separation had been long and exhausting, one of those endings where nobody is entirely right but both end up with scars that take a long time to close. We had loved each other well for a long time, but there were things I never found within that marriage. In the end, the weight of what was not said was greater than the weight of what was.

When I finished talking, Carmen nodded with an expression I recognized instantly: the look of someone who knows exactly what you’re talking about because she’s been in the same place.

—It took me two years to get out of the hole —she said—. After the divorce. My daughter was nine and I had become a shadow of myself. —She turned the glass between her fingers—. But I got out.

She said it the way someone says they survived an accident: with the particular calm of someone who is no longer afraid of that memory because she has looked it in the face too many times.

—And now? —I asked.

—Now I fuck whoever I want —she replied—. Without asking anyone’s permission.

That line hung between us.

The night ended at the bar door, with a hug that lasted a second longer than normal and the unmistakable feeling that something had changed, though neither of us yet knew exactly what.

***

The following weeks were strange in a pleasant way. At the office, everything stayed the same on the surface: meetings, reports, the ten o’clock coffee, the usual complaints about the printer not working properly. But sometimes, when we crossed paths in the hallway, Carmen would look at me with that sideways smile that made me think of the bar conversation and everything that had been said and, above all, what had not yet been said.

One Friday afternoon, after the rest of the team had left, she came over to my desk and dropped a folded piece of paper on the keyboard.

—Read it when you’re alone —she said, and walked away without waiting for a reply.

It was a list. Ten things written by hand in tight, neat script with no cross-outs, as if she had known them by heart before she started. It wasn’t a work to-do list. It was a list of things she liked doing in bed, things she had done, and things she wanted to do. Sucking off a stranger in a bathroom. Being fucked by two men at once, one in front and one behind. Eating out a woman until she came three times in a row. Getting fucked in the ass slowly, with lube and patience. Cumming on someone’s face when he asked for it.

I read it three times.

There were things I recognized because I had done them too, in different versions. Others surprised me less for their content than for the clarity with which she wrote them, without apologies or detours. There was something in that list that was more intimate than any conversation we’d had up to then, more revealing than any drunken confession at a bar. My cock got hard just imagining her writing it, with that tight, uncorrected handwriting, like someone drafting a contract.

That night I wrote mine.

On Monday morning I left it on her desk before anyone arrived.

—Have you read it yet? —I asked her at midday in the kitchen, while we waited for the microwave to finish.

—Three times —she said. The way she said it confirmed what I already knew: that at bottom we were the same kind of person, someone who keeps a lot inside and tells little, until we find someone worth telling.

***

From then on, we started talking seriously. Not at the office, but afterward: coffees that ran long, improvised dinners, walks with no real destination that ended in conversations we could have had with almost no one else.

Carmen told me what had happened after her divorce. The first months of total darkness, the effort of keeping her head above water while caring for a little girl and rebuilding a life from zero. And then, almost without meaning to, the awakening. A friend dragged her to a gathering that was not exactly what it seemed. It was a private party in a house outside town, with clear rules and people who knew each other. There she met people who lived with an honesty about desire she had never seen up close: without shame, without needing to justify themselves to anyone. That same night, she told me, she ended up on her knees sucking off a guy she had just met while a woman fingered her pussy from behind. It wasn’t a dramatic conversion. It was gradual, like the way your vision clears after you’ve been in a dark room too long.

—It took me a while to understand I could want what I wanted without that making me a bad person —she said—. That wanting to fuck doesn’t need justification. That a woman can come from different things with different people and not be broken because of it.

She told me about nights that fit no conventional mold. About situations she had sought out with her eyes open and from which she emerged knowing more about herself than before. She told me about one in particular, in a rented apartment with two men she barely knew, where she spent hours lying on her back with one buried in her pussy and the other fucking her mouth, until both came at the same time and she was left with her face and tits soaked in semen, laughing. She told it without drama and without the tone of someone trying to impress. It was just what she had lived.

I told her mine. That my marriage had been good in many ways, but that there were things I never found within it. That when I was young I had fucked men, two in particular, who marked me in ways I didn’t really know how to handle for years. That one of them had taught me how to suck a cock properly, how to swallow without gagging, how to take it in the ass when he asked for it. That I kept that buried for a long time as if it were something to be fixed rather than simply a part of who I was.

Carmen listened without interrupting, without changing her expression.

—Do you still deny it? —she asked when I finished.

—No. Not anymore.

—Good —she said simply, as if it were the only possible answer.

That night, when we said goodbye, I realized I had gone years without having a conversation that deep, the kind that keeps echoing in your head for days. And I also realized it had been a long time since I had felt so seen by someone without having to explain myself.

***

There was a night, a few weeks later, when things between us took another turn. It wasn’t fully planned, or at least that’s what we told ourselves afterward. We had met to review a project we were handling together and dinner, as usually happens when there is trust and wine and desire, drifted into more interesting territory.

We went back to my apartment under the pretext of a drink we both knew was not just a drink.

We didn’t even get as far as pouring it. As soon as I closed the door, Carmen pushed me against the entryway wall and shoved her tongue into my mouth with a determination that left no doubt. She kissed the way she fucked, I understood later: hungry, without haste but without pause, biting the lower lip just before letting it go. I grabbed her ass over the skirt and she laughed against my mouth.

—Four years waiting for this —she murmured—. Let’s do it right.

She led me to the sofa without stopping kissing me and got on her knees between my legs before I could react. She undid my pants with the same efficiency with which she drafted reports, pulled them down with my briefs to my knees, and stared at the cock already waiting hard for her with a smile that was half triumph and half hunger.

—Look at it —she said—. All mine.

And she took it into her mouth to the hilt, all at once, without pauses or preamble. I felt her take me to the throat, swallow around the head, pull back slowly leaving a trail of saliva hanging from her chin, and start again. Carmen sucked cock like her life depended on it: her tongue wrapping around the crown, her hand keeping time at the base, her eyes locked on mine every time she came up. When I buried my hand in her hair and pressed her head a little, she moaned around my cock and sped up.

—Like that —she said when she let go for a moment, her lips shining—. Fuck my mouth. Don’t be afraid.

And I listened. I grabbed her hair with both hands and started moving her head myself, pushing it all the way down, listening to that wet sound every time she hit her throat. She let me do it, breathing through her nose, tears in her eyes but not looking away. When I felt I was about to come, I pulled her off.

—Not yet —I said.

—Thank God —she answered, wiping her chin with the back of her hand—. I want you to fuck me.

She stood up, pulled her blouse over her head, and unclasped her bra with one movement. Her tits dropped heavy, big, with her nipples already hard and very dark. She pulled her skirt and panties down at once and stood naked in front of me, completely shameless, her shaved pussy shining under the lamp light.

—Lie down —she ordered.

I lay on the sofa and she climbed on top of me, straddling my face, her knees on either side of my head.

—Eat me properly —she said, and lowered her pussy until it rested against my mouth.

I ran my tongue from bottom to top in one long stroke, from her perineum to her clit, and felt her shudder. She was drenched, with a taste that was strong and clean at the same time. I spread her lips with my fingers and started licking her slowly, circling her clit, sliding my tongue inside, then back up. Carmen moved over my face without a shred of shame, gripping the back of the sofa, rubbing her cunt against my mouth as if she were fucking me.

—Like that, fuck, like that —she panted—. Put it deeper. Suck my clit. Don’t stop.

I pinned my tongue to her clit and slipped two fingers inside her at once, curling them upward, hunting for that spot that makes women’s hips go out of control. I found it immediately. Carmen let out a hoarse cry, clenched her thighs around my head, and started coming with her cunt pressed to my mouth, soaking my chin and throat, trembling from top to bottom for what felt like minutes.

When she finally moved away, she collapsed beside me with ragged breathing and a smile that filled her entire face.

—Fuck —she said—. I knew you’d eat it well, but not that well.

—I want to fuck you —I told her.

—Fuck me now.

I put her on all fours on the sofa and positioned myself behind her. Her ass was raised, her back arched, her pussy open and still soaking, and beneath it her asshole showed pink and tight. I dragged my cock along her slit, rubbing it there, and she pushed her hips back.

—Put it in already, don’t play.

I drove into her in one thrust, all the way in, and we both moaned at once. She was hot and tight, and she took me with that hunger of a woman who hasn’t been fucked properly in a long time. I started slowly, letting her get used to me, but soon she began pushing her ass back against my hips, asking for more.

—Harder —she said—. Fuck me however you want. I’m not made of glass.

I grabbed her hips and started fucking her hard, pulling almost all the way out and sinking back in to the balls, with that skin-on-skin noise filling the living room. I slapped her ass and she moaned louder. I slapped it again. I left her cheek red and my hand was stinging.

—Pull my hair —she asked.

I seized her mane in a fist and pulled back, arching her even more, fucking her at that savage pace she was asking for with every moan. With my other hand I wet my thumb in her own saliva and her own slick and pressed it to her asshole, pushing slowly until I slid it all the way in.

—Oh, fuck —she gasped—. Yes, like that, put your finger in while you fuck me.

That detail drove her wild. She started grinding her ass against my cock and my thumb at the same time, tightening her cunt around me in a way that made me understand I wasn’t going to last much longer. She came again, still on all fours, her face smashed against the sofa arm and long moans she couldn’t even try to hide.

—Come inside —she said between gasps—. I’m on the pill. Come all inside me.

I sped up, pulling out my finger and gripping her ass with both hands, giving her the last thrusts to the hilt, and came inside her with a guttural moan, emptying myself completely into her pussy, feeling her clench around me, squeezing out every drop. I stayed still for a moment, still inside, feeling her spasms and mine blend together.

When I pulled out, my semen started sliding down the inside of her thigh. She turned around, put two fingers to her pussy, gathered what was spilling out, and put it in her mouth without taking her eyes off me.

—Delicious —she said, sucking her fingers clean.

I learned things about Carmen that are not learned with words. I discovered that beneath the calm she projected in the office, beneath that efficiency and professional distance, there was something very different: an attention to detail, a physical presence that occupied space in another way, an intensity that didn’t ask permission and didn’t apologize for existing. I discovered she liked having her hair pulled, dirty talk whispered in her ear, her throat squeezed without being fully squeezed, being spit in the mouth when she asked for it. I discovered she could come three or four times in the same night without getting tired, and that after the last one she would still suck you off slowly, as thanks.

She learned things about me too, I suppose. Or at least that’s what she told me later, with that honesty of hers that can sometimes feel almost uncomfortable because it is so direct.

Later, lying in silence with the outside lights coming in through the half-drawn blinds, Carmen suddenly laughed for no reason.

—What? —I asked.

—That we spent four years in the same office —she said—. And I had no idea you fucked like this.

—And I had no idea you came like that.

—What a shame. —She paused—. Or not. Maybe it had to arrive when it arrived.

That’s exactly what I think now, looking back from a distance.

***

We tried. It would be hypocritical not to say it. There were a few weeks when we both tested whether it could be something more structured, a relationship with a name and rules and future plans. Weekend getaways, dates arranged in advance, that feeling of building something with a recognizable shape.

But the two of us had too much life built separately, too many ways of being that didn’t fit well into a box with a label. It wasn’t a lack of affection. It was an excess of freedom, if that makes sense when you try to explain it.

It didn’t end badly. It ended with a long conversation on a Sunday afternoon on her terrace, with cold coffee and no drama, with the honesty we had taught each other to have.

—It doesn’t work like that —she said.

—No —I agreed.

—But we still fuck?

—Yes. We still do.

And we did. Just without calling it anything specific.

***

What we have now is hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it. We are not a couple, but we’re not simply friends either. We love each other, that’s real, but in a way that doesn’t need exclusivity or promises or easy answers.

We share things with each other that we share with no one else: plans, confidences, adventures that are sometimes together and sometimes separate but always end up being told in full detail. Which cock made her come best last week, what cunt tasted strange, what guy asked her for weird things and what things she did to him. Carmen has a way of listening that makes you want to tell her everything, without the filter we use with the rest of the world. Without the kind of reaction that makes the other person feel weird or excessive. When I tell her something, whatever it is, her first response is never to pull back.

I, I think, offer her something similar. A space where she doesn’t have to explain who she is or why she wants to fuck whoever she fucks.

A few weeks ago, Carmen came back from a trip she had taken alone. She called me from the airport before the return flight had even taken off.

—I have to tell you something —she said. She sounded alive, in that particular way she does when something has happened that’s worth it.

—Tell me.

And she told me everything, right there, with the background noise of the announcements and people passing by. That she had let two brothers fuck her in the same hotel room, one behind and one in front, taking turns until both of them came on her face at the same time. That she had spent an hour swallowing semen and asking for more. She told me because she couldn’t wait, because that’s what we are to each other: the person you tell things to before you’ve even landed.

—How was it? —I asked when she finished.

—Very good —she replied—. I’ll tell you better in person. With details.

—Tell me everything.

—Everything —she promised.

That’s ours. That’s what we are. Two people who learned, late but well, that there isn’t just one way to fuck and to love, and that sometimes the person who understands you best is someone you found without looking, sitting three meters beyond your desk for four years.

There’s much more to tell. Our separate stories, what we’ve fucked together, what we’ve learned from people who crossed our path and left marks on our cunt or our cock. All of that will come in time.

For now, you know who we are.

— Diego and Carmen