What the Receptionist Heard in 412

Beatriz heard her before she saw her. Twenty-two years on the night shift had taught her to recognize every step against the marble lobby floor: the hurried executive, the lost tourist, the man stumbling back from a business dinner. Those heels were different. Firm, measured, as if the hallway belonged to them. Clack. Clack. Clack.

The woman who appeared beneath the lobby’s cold lights didn’t walk; she moved as if the hotel belonged to her. Black dress, impossibly tight, shiny red heels, and a leather handbag that creaked with every motion. She chewed gum with that slow, arrogant laziness only certain women allow themselves at a certain hour.

—Good evening, how may I help you? —Beatriz asked in her usual professional tone, adjusting the black tie over her white shirt.

—You can help me a lot, beautiful —the other woman replied. Her voice was husky, playful—. I’m here to see Mr. Damián.

Beatriz checked the screen. Damián Iturralde, suite 412. The guest note was clear: “Access for one female companion permitted.”

—And you are...? —she left the sentence hanging, waiting for a surname.

—The slut he asked for —the woman cut in without blinking.

Silence thickened. Beatriz blinked twice, feeling the heat rising up through her ears.

—Excuse me? —she managed to ask.

—That I’m the slut he asked for. The whore you call when you want your cock sucked properly, not when you want someone to tell you they love you. Or what, don’t I look like one?

—I... I was asking your name, for the register —Beatriz stammered, eyes fixed on the monitor.

—Sorry, gorgeous. Camila —she said, then pressed her lips together to pop a bubble of gum. The pop echoed through the empty lobby like a starting gun—. And you?

—Beatriz.

—Pretty name. Even prettier woman —Camila leaned over the counter. The creak of her dress stretching was almost imperceptible, but Beatriz registered it anyway. The neckline opened just enough to show the tops of two large breasts, braless, pressed against the fabric—. Walk me up? I get lost in these halls.

Beatriz nodded without answering. In the corridor to the elevator, their footsteps sounded uneven: flat shoes against red heels, marking a rhythm neither of them had chosen.

***

The elevator was narrow. Too narrow. Beatriz fixed her eyes on the digital numbers changing with a rhythmic beep while she felt Camila’s slow breathing a few inches from the back of her neck.

—Have you been here long? —Camila asked, and now, without the lobby noise, her voice sounded almost like a purr against the steel walls.

—Six years in this hotel. Twenty-two in hospitality.

—Twenty-two years... —Camila gave a low whistle, a thin sound slipping between her teeth—. That’s a lot of people you’ve tended to. Don’t you ever get tired of always being the good girl? Never felt like someone should pin you to the pillow and shove it all the way in?

Beatriz didn’t answer. Camila took one more step closer. Now the gum sounded right behind her ear: a slow chew, almost obscene in that metal cubicle.

—Twenty-two years following the rules —Camila whispered. Her warm breath raised goosebumps on Beatriz’s neck, and Beatriz let out a broken sigh she couldn’t stop—. Tonight, the only thing I want you to follow is my voice. And maybe, after that, my tongue between your legs, if you behave.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. The doors opened with a metallic clack. Camila stepped out first, without waiting, and the red heels resumed their arrogant rhythm over the corridor carpet.

—Ah, before you ask —she said, without turning around—. I do women too. I suck pussy better than most men who think they’re experts. In case you’re interested in something different from hotel forms.

Beatriz didn’t answer. Her jaw was tight and there was an uncomfortable heat between her legs she’d spent twenty years convincing herself did not exist.

***

The door to 412 opened before Beatriz finished knocking. Damián appeared in a black silk robe, gray hair combed back, dark eyes scanning Camila from head to toe with a hunter’s calm.

—You took your time —he said. Deep voice, commanding.

—Good things are worth waiting for, handsome —Camila replied, walking in as if the suite belonged to her.

Beatriz made to leave.

—Wait —Damián stopped her—. Bring us a bottle of champagne, please.

—Of course, sir.

The door closed behind her with a sharp click. Beatriz lingered a second too long in the corridor, listening as the voices on the other side turned to laughter, the laughter to whispers, and the whispers to silence.

***

In the service area, the air was different: kitchen steam, clinking silverware, the constant hum of the dishwasher. Beatriz found Mauricio unloading a tray.

—Can you take a champagne to 412?

—Impossible, Beatriz. I have to bring up the 308 order now. —The metal cloche covering the dish gave a dry clank as he set it back on the tray.

—All right. I’ll take it —she murmured, picking up the silver bucket. The ice struck the bottle, a crystalline tinkle that followed her to the elevator.

Something in her chest was beating wrong. A rhythm that wasn’t hers.

***

When she reached the fourth floor, she knew something had changed. The corridor’s silence was not the silence from before. It was a charged silence, cut through by sounds seeping through the wood of 412.

Beatriz raised her hand to knock. Lowered it.

On the other side there was a rhythmic, wet muack, muack, and a low male grunt. A woman’s voice answered with a long sigh that ended in a husky little laugh.

—Take that off already —Damián said, authoritative—. I want to see your tits.

—Impatient, daddy —Camila answered, and immediately came the unmistakable sound of a zipper going down, the fush of fabric sliding over a body, the soft thud of the dress falling to the floor.

—Mmm... look at those nipples —he growled—. Come here, kneel down. Get my dick out.

Beatriz stood still. The bucket felt heavier than it should have. An uncomfortable heat rose from her stomach, and instead of knocking, she took a step back. Another. She leaned her back against the opposite wall of the corridor.

She was going to wait. Just a few seconds. Until the moment passed.

But the moment didn’t pass. It intensified.

—Mmm... let’s see what you’ve got —she heard Camila say, with a clarity that surprised her. The wall wasn’t that thin; it was the wooden door, filtering everything as if the suite had a microphone taped to the inside—. Oh, handsome, look at that cock you’ve got... hard and thick, just how I like it.

—Suck it. All of it. I don’t want a single centimeter left untouched by your tongue.

Then came a sound Beatriz had never heard with such sharpness: the rhythmic, deep, viscous movement of Camila’s throat working. A sustained glup, glup, glup mixed with Damián’s guttural groans. Wet smacks could be heard, a long slurp every time she let his cock slip free to catch her breath and swallow it again, the splat of saliva spilling over and dripping onto his balls.

—Aaaaah... that’s it, slut... that’s it —he roared. His voice came from his chest like an animal echo—. Take it all, come on... deeper... both hands on my balls, like that. Fuck, you’re such a good sucker, holy mother of God...

—Mmmff... mmmff... —she answered, mouth full, barely choking, and then gasping when she pulled off to lick his head with the tip of her tongue, circling the crown with a wet tsk, tsk—. All yours, daddy. Pull my hair if you want. Fuck my face.

—That’s what I wanted to hear.

And immediately the rhythm changed: it stopped being the glup, glup of her sucking on her own and became a dry, obscene plaf, plaf, plaf of Damián’s pelvis slamming into Camila’s face. She gagged, coughed, spat saliva, and came back. She always came back.

Beatriz closed her eyes. The bucket trembled in her hands. Her fingers, which had signed thousands of receipts, checked thousands of IDs, and handed out thousands of key cards, were now shaking with a new loss of control.

***

She should have left. She should have set the bucket down on a side table and gone back down to the lobby to invent an excuse. Instead, she took two silent steps toward the door and pressed her ear against the wood.

The rhythm of the sounds had changed. Damián had pulled his cock out of Camila’s mouth —you could hear her wrecked breathing, that thread of saliva snapping with a liquid sound— and now he had her on the bed. The metallic creak of the springs, the sharp thudding of bodies colliding, Camila’s voice turned into a broken symphony.

—Open your legs wide, I want to eat your pussy first.

—Aaay, daddyyyy... —she panted, and then the sound changed: a long sucking noise, a hungry mmmff from Damián burying his face between Camila’s thighs, an obscene, sustained slurp.

—Look how much you’re dripping, you fucking bitch... you’re soaking wet.

—Eat me, suck my clit, like that, like that, oh God... fuck me, I can’t take it anymore, fuck me.

—Not yet. I’m going to make you cum with my tongue first.

Beatriz heard, with a clarity that made her face burn, the relentless sloshing of his tongue working down there, the constant shlick shlick mixed with Camila’s high moans. And then the trembling: her thighs closing around his head, the muffled scream, the shaken “oh God, oh God, I’m cumming, daddy” all in one breath.

—Aaaaaaahhhh...

Brief silence. Breathing. And then the mattress creaking again, Damián’s voice: “Now turn over, on all fours.”

—Aaah... daddy... slower... —and immediately the opposite—: go on, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

Beatriz felt her uniform starting to get in the way. The shirt collar was tight against her throat. The pencil skirt pressed heavy against her thighs. She set the bucket down on the corridor side table —the ice tinkle sounded absurdly small compared with the storm she was listening to— and took hold of her tie.

She loosened the knot. Just the knot, she told herself. Just that.

But then it was the first button. Then the second. The black silk tie fell onto the carpet with a whisper that felt to her like a roar.

—Plaf, plaf, plaf! —came from the other side.

The bed was creaking constantly. Damián growled with that animal cadence that no longer allowed words. Camila laughed and screamed at the same time, alternating tender insults with incoherent pleas.

—Fuck my pussy apart, daddy, tear it up! —she shrieked—. Fuck, your cock is so big, so big...

—Shut up and take it, slut. All for me. This whole pussy is mine.

Beatriz covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She didn’t know whether it was to keep from moaning or from crying out. Her other hand, without her fully deciding it, slid under the open shirt and settled on the lace of her bra.

She pressed. Soft at first. Then not so soft. She found the nipple beneath the fabric and pinched it between two fingers until a trembling exhale escaped her. In twenty-two years she had never had her hands there during a shift. Never.

***

—Aaaaooohh! —Camila’s scream cut through the door like a whipcrack.

Beatriz bit her lip so hard she tasted metal blood. The pencil skirt remained pulled down, professional, impeccable, but inside her body was another one. Her legs were shaking. Her forehead pressed against the cold wood, and her broken breathing mingled with the gasps from inside.

A voice in her head kept saying: enough, enough, someone’s going to get off the elevator, enough.

Another answered: no one’s getting off the elevator at this hour.

She listened to the second.

With one sharp motion —so sharp it surprised even her— she hiked her skirt up to her waist. The synthetic fabric brushed her thighs with a quick fush-fush she felt engraved into her skin. Her fingers searched over her panties, rubbing slowly, almost ashamed, until the rhythm from inside pulled her under. She was already soaked. The cotton clung to her cunt, outlined her lips, gave way under the pressure of her middle fingertip searching for the clit.

—Plaf, plaf, plaf! —it didn’t stop.

—Take that, bitch! —Damián was shouting.

—Yes, you motherfucker, yes! —Camila answered, with a laugh broken by ecstasy—. Harder! Break me! Give it to me all!

Beatriz pulled her panties aside. The first direct contact drew such a long sigh from her that she feared they’d hear it. She was dripping. Her fingers soaked at the slightest brush of her lips; hot fluid ran down to her perineum. She slid one finger in. Then two. Her own cunt received them with a tight squeeze that made her gasp against the door. She began to move with an urgency she hadn’t known she had stored away, two fingers going in and out while her thumb hunted for her swollen clit. Her fingers splashed in her own wetness, an intimate shlick-shlick syncing, without her deciding it, with the thrusts on the other side.

—Aaaaaaah... —escaped her.

She covered her mouth again. This time with both hands, almost on the verge of blowing her whole breath into her palms. But one had to go back down immediately. She couldn’t stop. Her fingers entered with a wet plip each time, and she heard her own cunt splashing to the same beat as Camila’s cunt on the other side.

***

There was a change in rhythm inside. A brief silence, a rough male order —“Now come here, I want to taste your ass”—, a different creak of the mattress. And then a new sound: a plastic wrapper being opened, a dry plop, followed by a viscous shlick Beatriz didn’t need to see to understand.

—That’s extra, handsome —she heard Camila say, with a husky laugh.

—I’ll pay it. Anything. I want to fuck your ass till I break you.

—Put it in slow at first, daddy. It’s tight.

—Loosen up. Breathe. Loosen up, it’s going in now... there... fuck, you’re squeezing me tight, you fucking bitch...

—Aaaay... aaay... slow... oh God... more... a little more... aaah, all the way... now you’ve got it all the way in...

What came next was a succession of new moans. Higher. More fragile. Camila had lowered the tone of command and raised the tone of surrender, and to Beatriz that change did things twenty-two years of professionalism had not prepared her to feel.

She pressed her forehead to the door and let her fingers do their work. Inside, the rhythm became merciless: a much more violent plaf, plaf, plaf, accompanied by the sharp slaps Damián was landing on Camila’s bare skin. The sound of an open hand against a cheek —slap!— repeated every three or four thrusts.

—Aaajja, aaajja, aaajja! —Camila screamed, voice mangled—. Fuck my little ass, daddy, fuck it all, come on!

—This is what you are, right? A fat-assed whore made to get it from behind. Say it.

—I’m your whore, I’m your whore, I’m your little ass whore! Aaaaah!

—Put a finger in your cunt while I fuck your ass. I want to feel it.

—Yes... yes... aaaah, God, like that, with the finger inside it’s different, daddy... I’m going to die, I’m going to die like this...

Beatriz felt her whole body tense, from heels to nape. A sweet cramp ran through her belly and settled between her legs. She closed her eyes. Pressed her lips together. Her fingers did not stop moving: two inside, thumb above, clit throbbing against the pad like a second heart. She could feel her own cunt’s saliva sliding down the inside of her thighs, wetting the elastic of her stockings.

—Aaaah, I’m going to cum! —Damián thundered from inside.

—On my tits, daddy! Empty yourself on my tits, I want to see you splatter!

The obscene shlop of the cock sliding out of her ass could be heard, Damián’s frantic scramble over the mattress, and then a long, broken animal grunt as he came. Camila was laughing and moaning at the same time, and Beatriz could imagine, without seeing, thick ropes landing on her nipples, her neck, her open mouth.

—Aaaah, daddy... so much... oh... it’s hot... mmm, let me lick the tip to get the last of it out...

—There... there... yes... aaaah...

Beatriz couldn’t take it either. A long, silent spasm went through her body, and she stayed pressed to the door, panting against the wood, eyes rolling back and pulse pounding in her ears like a drum. Her cunt throbbed around her own fingers, squeezing them in waves, and she felt a warm trickle slip out, soaking her entire palm and running down her wrist.

On the other side, almost at the same time, both their cries faded into a series of short gasps. Then silence. Only the hum of the air conditioning and the beat of her own heart.

***

Beatriz straightened slowly. It took her a while to regain control of her hands. She cleaned her fingers with a tissue from her pocket —the paper became translucent from how soaked it was— and rolled it into a little ball she tucked back into the same pocket. She lowered her skirt, adjusted her damp panties against her still-throbbing cunt, buttoned the shirt one button at a time, and tied her tie in front of the corridor mirror with a precision that no longer answered to anything internal: pure muscle memory.

She lifted the silver bucket. The ice had almost melted. The bottle was warm.

She knocked twice. Tap, tap.

Damián appeared, still wrapped in his robe, hair tousled and an odor of perfume, semen, and sweat drifting around him.

—Took you long enough —he said, in a relaxed, almost amused tone.

—Sorry, sir. There was a delay in the kitchen.

—No matter. Thanks, dear.

He took the bucket. The door shut with the same dry click as before. Beatriz breathed for the first time in what felt like an hour.

***

Twenty minutes later, the familiar click-clack of heels sounded again in the lobby corridor. Clack, clack, clack. Camila was heading toward the exit, lips freshly painted, black hair pinned up, wearing that feline attitude of someone who has just won something.

She stopped at the counter. Rested two fingers on the marble and pushed a small white card toward Beatriz.

—In case you want to call me someday —she said, with a crooked smile—. My personal card. I work with women too, remember. And you could use someone who’d lick your pussy until you scream; it shows on your face.

Beatriz nodded. The card was simple, with a name and a number.

—And here —Camila took two bills from her purse and slid them across the counter—. For your attention.

—It’s not necessary...

—It is, doll. You were excellent audience. I heard you, you know? Those little fingers against the door. The gasping when you came. I almost asked Damián to let you in.

Beatriz looked up sharply. Camila was watching her with a knowing smile, like someone who knows exactly what happened on the other side of the door. She blew her a kiss into the air —a loud, playful muack— and walked out through the hotel’s revolving door.

Beatriz was left alone with the lobby’s silence, the card in one hand and the bills in the other. Twenty-two years of an impeccable career, of pressed uniforms, of professional smiles. And one entire night heard from a corridor, with her fingers inside and her mouth covered. Tomorrow, when she sat in front of the bathroom mirror, she wouldn’t quite know what face to give the woman in the reflection.

But she didn’t throw the card away.