The Confession of an Naive Secretary

Lucía took years to accept that her worst talent had been choosing badly. It wasn’t a lack of intelligence or character; it was a dangerous mix of pride, desire, and that need to prove that no one could decide for her. When she remembered her first months away from home, already turned into a human resources secretary, she felt like tearing up a sheet of paper, crumpling it into a ball, and throwing it at the trash can as if it were that man’s head.

The first one was named Darío. She met him when she moved to the city to study business administration, in a cheap apartment near the university. Lucía was twenty-one, legally an adult, naive, and stubborn. Her friends had told her not to move in with a man she had only seen through messages, but she insisted the price was good, the place was close, and he seemed kind.

—Guys who offer a cheap room don’t do it out of charity —a friend told her in a bar.

—If he tries anything, I’ll tell him no and that’s that —Lucía replied, laughing as if everything were simple.

Darío was charming the first few days. He helped her with the boxes, made her coffee, asked about her classes, and pretended to be interested in everything she said. When Lucía told him she wanted a quiet life, a steady partner, and a house where she could raise a family, he nodded with such perfect seriousness that she decided to ignore the small alarm that went off in her chest.

One afternoon, while she was cleaning the bathroom with rubber gloves on, she heard him shout from his room. She thought something had happened to him and went in without knocking. Darío was in front of the computer, furious about a game, and he turned on her as if she had insulted him.

—Who gave you permission to come in? —he snapped.

Lucía apologized, went out for a walk, and called a friend. The friend told her to get out of there. Lucía, of course, didn’t listen. She went back to the apartment, knocked on Darío’s door, and asked if he’d calmed down yet.

—Sure, gorgeous. Come in.

She found him naked, sitting in the chair, with a hard erection and the screen full of obscene drawings. Lucía froze, red to her ears. He didn’t cover himself. On the contrary, he smiled with shameless confidence, pointed at his cock, and asked:

—Do you want it up or down?

She should have left. She knew that later. In that moment, his brazenness seemed like desire, and desire seemed like proof that she was attractive. She closed the door with trembling hands. Darío got up, took her by the waist, and shoved her onto the bed. Lucía fell on her back, laughing nervously, her heart pounding in her throat.

—Just like that? —she asked.

—I’m not wasting time —he said, while he pulled down her cotton pants.

He kissed her badly, with too much tongue and too much haste. Lucía tried to keep up, but he was already slipping his hand between her legs, searching for her wetness with clumsy fingers. He spread her thighs, pulled aside her underwear, and touched her cunt without any delicacy. She shivered, not so much from pleasure as from surprise, though her body responded before her mind did.

—Look at you —murmured Darío—. You act all good, but you’re soaked.

Lucía moaned, embarrassed. He bent down just enough to lick her, but he did it with the same impatience he brought to games and arguments. He ran his tongue over her clit, sucked for a second, and pulled back again, satisfied as if he’d already done enough. She wanted to ask for more, because a stab of pleasure had run through her belly, but she didn’t dare.

Darío lifted her legs and settled between them. He rubbed against her opening, sliding on Lucía’s wetness, and thrust inside her all at once. She let out a sharp cry. It hurt at first, but she also felt an intense, new pressure that made her grab the sheets. Darío started moving fast, with short, rough thrusts, looking at her as if he expected her to thank him for every thrust.

—There, see? —he panted—. This is what you wanted.

Lucía didn’t know what she wanted. Pleasure came in bursts, mixed with discomfort and the silly thrill of doing something forbidden in the bed of a man she barely knew. He squeezed her thighs, opened her wider, and sped up. The bed hit the wall. She moaned, first softly, then louder, because the friction began to light her body up despite his clumsiness.

Darío suddenly turned her over and put her on all fours. Lucía obeyed by reflex. He slapped her ass, positioned himself behind her, and shoved back into her cunt, this time at an angle that made her gasp into the pillow. His hands gripped her hips hard. Each thrust pushed her forward. She closed her eyes, confused by the heat rising from her pelvis and by the shame of hearing herself moan.

—Next time, in the ass —he said.

—No —Lucía answered, turning her head—. Not there.

Darío laughed. He kept fucking her for a few more seconds, then pulled out of her cunt and pressed the tip against her asshole. Lucía tensed at once.

—I said no.

He pushed just a little, enough to hurt her. Lucía shrieked, sprang away, and looked at him naked, breathing in anger and fear.

—What’s wrong with you? —she said—. I told you no.

—Don’t be a buzzkill. We were doing fine.

Lucía left the room trembling, gathered her clothes as best she could, and locked herself in her own. Darío called her dramatic, frigid, and worse things from the hallway. She got dressed, went down to the street, and walked until the cold air calmed her burning face. When she called her friend, she tried to justify it.

—He got too turned on —Lucía said—. Maybe he didn’t know how to stop.

—Don’t fix it in your head —her friend replied—. That guy is an asshole.

Lucía went back anyway. For a week she lived with Darío in a roller coaster of apologies, insults, laughter, sex, and silence. He was kind when he wanted something and cruel when she hesitated. One night, after watching a game in the living room, he told her that this time she would have to suck him off. Lucía agreed because she wanted to try it, because she wanted to feel like she was deciding something, because she still confused experience with surrender.

She knelt in front of him on the bed. Darío stroked her head as if he were training someone. Lucía held his cock in her hand, looked at it closely, and felt a mix of curiosity, nerves, and slight disgust that embarrassed her to admit. She licked it from the base to the glans. He let out a satisfied groan.

—Take it deeper —he ordered.

Lucía opened her mouth and took him in slowly. The taste was salty, the texture hot, and the weight of the cock on her tongue made her tear up when he pushed his hips. She pulled back coughing.

—Not so hard.

—You have to learn —Darío said, gripping her by the hair.

He shoved it in again. Lucía moved her mouth carefully, using her hand to cover what she couldn’t take. He kept the rhythm with fingers buried in her hair. She listened to his grunts, felt saliva gathering at the corner of her lips, and tried to breathe through her nose. Something about seeing her kneeling seemed to excite him more than the sex before.

—That’s it, just like that. Good girl.

The phrase made her angry and, at the same time, sent a dark rush of shame through her. Lucía touched herself between the legs without thinking. She was wet again, and that contradiction left her stunned. Darío saw it and smiled.

—You love being used.

She didn’t answer. She kept sucking him off, faster now, wanting to finish and also wanting to prove she could do it right. Darío panted, squeezed her neck, and came in her mouth without warning. Lucía choked, swallowed part of it, and let the rest run down her chin. He leaned back, satisfied, while she wiped herself with the back of her hand.

—See? It wasn’t that bad —he said.

Lucía sat on the floor, throat irritated, with the strange feeling that she had crossed a door and didn’t know whether she wanted to open it again. That night she showered for a long time. The next day, Darío smiled at her as if nothing had happened.

With time, she agreed to other things. Some she liked; others she tolerated out of fear of losing the kind version of him. She bought lubricant and a small toy to prepare herself alone, convinced that if she did things “right” everything would be less humiliating. When she finally told him, Darío laughed so hard that he made her feel ridiculous.

—The holiest ones always end up the sluttiest —he said.

Lucía was on all fours, red with shame, her body ready and her dignity on the floor. Darío took the toy from her, mocked her for not knowing enough, and arranged her however he liked. She asked for lubricant. He said it wasn’t necessary. She insisted. He silenced her with a slap.

The anal penetration was rough from the very first push. Lucía clenched her teeth, feeling her body resist while Darío pushed ahead impatiently. It wasn’t like she had imagined. It wasn’t slow or careful. It was pressure, burning, and a hot shame that climbed up her back. When he found a rhythm, she clung to the sheet and tried to breathe.

—Slower —she asked.

Darío slowed only a little, not for her, but so he could last longer. Lucía noticed the pain beginning to blend with an intense, dirty feeling that was hard to name. She touched her clit with two fingers, looking for something to pull her out of the discomfort, and managed to wring out a brief, almost furious pleasure. She moaned into the pillow and hated that he heard it.

—See? —Darío panted—. You like it.

It wasn’t that simple. Nothing was. She felt pleasure, yes, but also anger, exhaustion, and a sadness she didn’t know where to put. Darío drove into her harder until he came inside with a satisfied grunt. When he pulled out of her, Lucía felt relief before anything else. He wiped himself with paper, went to the living room, and told her to take a shower.

A month later, while he was at a bar with his friends, Lucía packed a suitcase. She didn’t plan a speech or a scene. She packed clothes, documents, some money, and her university notes. She took the subway to her parents’ house and said the living arrangement had gone badly. She didn’t tell everything. She still couldn’t.

She lost independence, yes. She went back to enduring questions, schedules, and advice she hadn’t asked for. But one night, looking at the ceiling of her old room, she understood something with brutal clarity: in that apartment she hadn’t been free either. She had only changed the voice telling her what to do.

Then came other men, other mistakes, other versions of the same pattern. Lucía became harder, more distrustful, and crueler when judging anyone who seemed weak. She changed careers, went into human resources, and learned to spot lies in interviews, fake gestures in meetings, and smiles hiding contempt. Sometimes she was right. Sometimes she saw ghosts.

Years later she met Esteban, a calm man who didn’t try to buy her with praise or break her with contempt. He didn’t erase what had happened, because no one erases those things. But he showed her that desire didn’t have to come mixed with fear, and that tenderness was not a lack of character.

When Lucía remembered Darío, she no longer thought of her first time as a clumsy adventure or a romantic fall. She thought of a warning written on her own skin. And every time a young woman walked into her office with a smile that was too confident and a boyfriend speaking for her, Lucía felt as if she were twenty-one again. Then she took a deep breath, chose her words carefully, and did what no one had managed to do for her in time: turn on an alarm before it was too late.