The Day I Got Fired for Helping a Stranger

This happened a couple of years ago, and I still can’t believe how everything ended up tying together. I’m telling it exactly as I lived it, without dressing it up, because if I dressed it up, I wouldn’t believe it myself. I was twenty-six, a single father to a little boy, and I worked at a big construction firm, Vértice, in a junior technical position. The only thing that kept me in that job was punctuality. I was never late. Never.

That morning I was walking through downtown with the sun beating down hard and my shirt already stuck to my back. I had ten minutes left to get there and I was calm, with time to spare. Then I saw her.

She was crouched over a bicycle on the sidewalk, fighting with a chain that had come off. She was cursing under her breath, with greasy hands and her hair falling across her face. She looked about twenty-four, with a body anyone would have looked at twice, but that wasn’t what stopped me. It was the annoyed look on her face, that mix of urgency and anger of someone whose morning has just been ruined.

—Need a hand? —I asked her, setting my backpack on the ground.

She looked up and let out a breath all at once, relieved.

—Please. I have to sign something important and I’m going to be ridiculously late.

I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. The chain was jammed against the frame and the wheel wouldn’t turn. It took longer than I expected; I ended up with black fingers and a grease stain on my white shirt. While I wrestled with it, she talked to me, asked me questions, laughed at my concentrated face. When the wheel finally spun smoothly, she looked at me as if I’d solved her life.

—You’re a lifesaver. Seriously. I don’t know what I would’ve done.

—Nothing, go on, don’t worry about it —I said, and only then did I check the time.

Forty minutes. I’d lost forty minutes. I left almost running, but it was already done.

***

I arrived sweaty, with the grease stain like a confession on my chest. My boss was waiting beside my desk, with the face of someone who had spent the morning rehearsing what he was about to say.

—You say you have a son, that you’re responsible, and look at the time. This is a serious company. Take your things.

There was no argument. I gathered the little I had into a box: a photo of my son, a couple of pens, my mate gourd. I rode the elevator down staring at the floor, thinking about the daycare payment, about the grandmother who looked after him, about how the hell I was going to explain this at home.

And when I walked out into the lobby, there she was again. Pushing the same bicycle, coming into the same building. Our eyes met and her face lit up.

—The bike hero! What are you doing here?

—I worked here —I said, lifting the box—. Until five minutes ago. I was late and they fired me.

Her smile faded little by little, as if she were only now putting the pieces together.

—Don’t tell me it was because of… —she didn’t finish the sentence—. I want to die. It’s my fault.

—It’s not your fault. It was my choice to stop.

—Wait for me —she said, grabbing my arm—. I have a five-minute errand inside and then I’m taking you to lunch. It’s the least I can do. Don’t you dare say no.

I waited for her on the sidewalk, smoking, still not fully realizing that I had just lost my job. When she came out, there was something different in the way she looked at me. Less guilt, more curiosity.

—I’m Renata, by the way.

—Damián.

***

We went to a small place a couple of blocks away, one of those spots with tables packed together and good house wine. We ordered something to share and ended up spending the afternoon talking. I told her about my son, about the routine of doing it all alone, about what that job I’d just lost meant. She really listened, elbows on the table, eyes fixed on me.

At some point the conversation changed temperature. It wasn’t one specific line or gesture; it was everything at once. The way she leaned forward, how she lowered her voice, the foot that brushed my leg under the table and stayed there, still, measuring my reaction. I didn’t pull away. She smiled sideways and her foot slid up, slowly, until it brushed the bulge in my fly. She felt how hard I was and let out a rough little laugh, never taking her eyes off me.

—You know something? You ruined my morning without meaning to —she said—. Let me fix your afternoon. I’m going to fuck you until you forget about work, the time, and your own name.

She paid before I could protest, took me by the hand, and we walked to a hotel around the corner. In the elevator we couldn’t hold back anymore. I kissed her against the mirror, she grabbed my grease-stained shirt and pulled me close, shoved her tongue all the way into my mouth and buried her hand in my groin, squeezing my cock over my pants.

—You’re rock hard —she whispered against my mouth—. You need to break me.

By the time the doors opened, our mouths were red and our breathing was ragged.

The second we shut the room door, the outside world stopped existing. I took off her jacket slowly, then her blouse, while she undid my shirt with impatient fingers. Underneath she had a black bra that pushed her tits up; I yanked it off and they dropped heavy, her nipples already hard, dark, begging for a mouth. I grabbed one breast full-handed, sank my fingers into the flesh, and sucked her nipple hard, tugging it with my teeth until she let out a long moan and dug her nails into the back of my neck.

—Like that, go on, bite them —she panted—. Harder.

I pulled down her skirt and panties in one motion. She was drenched; I could see the shine between her thighs before she even spread her legs. Her skin was burning. Every time my hands went up, she arched her back and breathed deeper, as if she’d been waiting for this since I knelt in front of her bicycle. She finished ripping my shirt off, fumbled with my belt, and dragged my pants and boxers down in one jerk. When my cock sprang into view, she let out a quiet “holy shit” and grabbed it with both hands.

—What a cock you’ve got —she said, and without another word she put it in her mouth.

She sucked me slowly at first, testing me, her tongue circling the tip, then deeper, until she made me hit the back of her throat and stayed there, looking up at me with watery eyes. She took it all the way out, spat on the head, and swallowed me again. She ran her tongue over my balls, took them into her mouth, sucked me from base to tip with her palm working along. I grabbed her hair with both hands and started fucking her mouth slowly, carefully, but she dug her nails into my ass and pulled forward, asking for more. I pushed deeper, her tongue spilling out, her mascara smearing, and still she wouldn’t pull away.

—Come here —I said, tugging her hair to lift her up—. I’m not ready to come yet.

I laid her back on the bed and took my time. I kissed her neck, went down the middle of her chest, sucked each breast, bit her ribs, her stomach, the bone of her hip. When I reached her cunt, I spread it open with my thumbs and paused for a second to look at it, pink, swollen, dripping. I ran my tongue all the way from bottom to top, slowly, tasting her, and she let out a little cry from deep in her chest. I licked her slowly first, tracing her clit with the tip of my tongue, then shoved two fingers inside and started moving them while I ate her pussy with hunger. She buried her fingers in my hair and began moving against my mouth, slowly at first and then without hiding it at all.

—Right there, right there, don’t stop, lick all of it, don’t stop, you fucking asshole —she whispered in my ear with a mix of command and plea that drove me insane—. Put it in with your tongue, go on, fuck me with your mouth.

I curled my fingers inside her, pressing just the right spot, and sealed my lips over her clit, sucking hard. I felt everything tighten, the walls closing around my fingers. When she came, she did it clutching the sheets, with her thighs squeezing my head and biting her lip so she wouldn’t scream too loud. Her stomach was still trembling when I pulled my tongue away, soaked with her.

—Come here —she said, tugging my arm—. Now. Put it in already.

I climbed over her and ran the tip along her lips, wetting myself good in her juices, teasing her. She reached for me with her hips, impatient, and grabbed my cock to line it up at her entrance.

—Don’t make me beg. Fuck me.

I shoved it in at once, all the way, and we both let out the air at the same time. She was hot, tight, squeezing me like a wet fist. I fucked her slowly for the first few thrusts, letting her feel every centimeter, and she wrapped her legs around me and dug her heels into my ass, asking for more.

—Harder, harder, break me open.

I braced on my knees, grabbed her hips and started pounding her deep, pulling almost all the way out and driving it back in in one shot, to the hilt. The bed slammed against the wall, she moaned with her mouth open, her tits bouncing with every thrust. I spat on the middle of her chest and rubbed it over her nipples with my hand. I grabbed one breast with one hand and with the other I squeezed her throat, just a little, and she came again, digging her nails into my forearm.

—Turn me over —she panted when I eased up—. I want it from behind.

I turned her over and put her on all fours. Her ass lifted round and white, with red marks from my fingers on her hips. I ran my hand along her back, up to the nape of her neck, and pushed her head down against the pillow, leaving her ass high in the air. I ran the tip over her cunt, got it wet, and shoved it all the way back in. I grabbed her hair and started fucking her hard for real, setting the rhythm with my hips, every slap sounding sharp against her ass. I slapped her ass and she yelled for another. I gave her two, three, until the mark turned red. —Fuck me harder, Damián, come on, give me everything —she kept repeating, her mouth pressed against the sheet.

I moistened my thumb in her own cunt and pressed it to her little asshole, pushing just slightly. She moaned higher and arched her back more. I slipped it in slowly to the first knuckle while I kept fucking her from the front, and I felt everything close around it, the whole body of hers trembling. She came screaming into the pillow, her body folded and her legs shaking so hard she could hardly hold herself up.

I turned her over again, lifted her up, and sat on the bed with her on top of me, speared on my cock. We kept looking into each other’s eyes the whole time, and that —watching each other while she moved on me— was what made it feel truly intense. She rose and fell slowly, rolling her hips, with her hands on my chest, and I grabbed her tits and sucked one and then the other. When she felt me tense up, she sped up.

—Where? —I asked through clenched teeth.

—Inside. Come inside. I’m on the pill. Fill me up.

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed her waist and drove her down onto my cock with the last thrusts, and I came with a roar, spilling inside her, feeling her come again on top of me, squeezing me until the last drop. We both finished at the same time, exhausted, sweating, laughing without really knowing why.

We stayed until night. We ordered drinks, and half an hour later we were at it again, her on her stomach while I slipped it into her from behind slowly, no rush, whispering every filthy thing that came to mind into her ear. The third time I fucked her against the glass of the window, with the city behind us, her pressed to the pane with her tits flattened and me standing behind her, fucking her until she came moaning my name. We talked in between about the kind of things you only tell a stranger or someone who already feels close. I don’t know when it stopped being just an afternoon thing.

***

What I didn’t know that night, lying there with my head on her chest, was who Renata was. I found out later: she was the only daughter of the owner of Vértice. The same company that had fired me that morning. She had gone in to sign some papers for the family account the day her bike broke. I had fixed the chain of the construction firm’s heiress without having the slightest idea.

But I only put that together later. The first thing that happened was that we never separated again.

We saw each other every day. I picked her up in my old car, she showed up with a smile that undid me. One night, after fucking without hurry, with her still straddling me and my cock inside her loosening little by little, I dared to tell her everything.

—My ex left me when she was eight months pregnant —I said, looking at the ceiling—. She went off with someone else. I kept waiting for her to come back, like an idiot. One day a friend of hers knocked on the door with a two-day-old baby in her arms. She left him there, with a baby bottle and nothing else. Since then I’ve been both father and mother.

Renata stayed silent. Then she held me tight, saying nothing, which was exactly what I needed.

—I didn’t have it easy either —she said after a while—. My old man raised me with money but no time. My mother died when I was little and he sent me to boarding schools so he wouldn’t have to look at me. I have everything and nothing. With you, for the first time, I feel like I’m building something real.

***

A few days later I introduced her to my son. It was in the park, after daycare. The boy looked at her, studied her the way kids do, and suddenly clung to her legs and asked if she was a princess. Renata laughed with tears in her eyes. From then on they were inseparable: she cooked for him, made up stories for him, and the two of them would fall asleep on the couch in front of cartoons. Seeing them like that finished convincing me of something I already knew.

One rainy afternoon, with bitter mate between us and the kid napping, Renata pitched me the idea.

—You know a ton about systems and construction. I’ve got contacts and some money saved up. Why don’t we build something of our own? Software for construction companies, an app, whatever. Little by little.

I kissed her in answer, and that kiss ended with her sitting on the kitchen table, skirt hiked up to her waist, panties pushed aside, and me on my knees eating her pussy until she came, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t wake the boy. Then I stood up, grabbed her ass, dragged her to the edge of the table and shoved it in at once, fucking her slowly so the wood wouldn’t make noise, looking into her eyes the whole time, until I finished inside her with my forehead pressed to hers.

We set up the company in a tiny storefront; she handled the clients and I programmed at all hours. The first good contract put us on the map. And the fuel for all of it, beyond the work, was what happened when we shut the shutter: her seated on the desk with her legs open, me between her legs eating her cunt until she shook, and then fucking her over a client’s papers, against the filing cabinet, on the floor, wherever we happened to land. The desire was still intact from that first afternoon at the hotel.

***

Only one thing was left: meeting her family. And that was where the last twist came in.

We went one night to her father’s house, a huge place in a gated community. We walked in hand in hand. In the living room, standing there, was a man in his sixties, impeccably dressed, with the face of someone who never lost a negotiation. Renata did the introductions.

—Dad, this is Damián. My boyfriend, and my partner.

The man stared at me and the color drained from his face. I recognized him a second after he recognized me.

—You’re the kid I fired from Vértice for being late —he said, slowly.

My stomach tied itself in a knot. Renata looked back and forth between us, not understanding.

—Yes, sir —I said—. I was late because I was helping your daughter with her bicycle.

Renata covered her mouth.

—It was him! You fired him the day I came to sign the papers!

There was a long silence, the kind that lasts a lifetime. The old man held my gaze, then looked at his daughter, and something softened in his face.

—I fired you for no good reason —he said at last—. And you ended up making my daughter happy and building a company that runs better than some of my businesses. —He held out his hand—. I couldn’t have asked for a better match for this stubborn girl. Welcome.

That night we stayed over at the house. And honestly, I still laugh when I tell this: I lost the best job of my life for helping a stranger in the street, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes things fall into place right when you think they’re falling apart.