The Maintenance Supervisor Who Made Me Feel Like a Woman Again

The move fell on a Tuesday in October. It was hot, the truck arrived late, and the kids had been wound up since morning. Rodrigo and I had been together for thirteen years, and the last four had been a slow fading out: silent dinners, parallel weekends, conversations reduced to the logistics of the children and the bills. Sometimes there were moments of intimacy, yes, but they were brief and mechanical, like ticking off a task. He’d get on top, move for three minutes, and come with a grunt, without looking at me, barely touching me. I’d be left half-wet, my panties back on before he was already snoring. I’d stopped complaining. I had my job, my children, and deep down I kept telling myself that this state was normal after so long. But I still expected more from him. That he would put in even a little effort. That he would choose to be there.

The official reason for the move was the new school, closer, with a better program. The real reason was the hope, mine at least, that changing houses might change something I no longer knew how to name.

When the truck turned into the street and we came through the gate of the development, he appeared.

Marcos was about sixty, with silver-gray hair, light eyes behind a thin, understated pair of glasses. Tall, slender, with that particular calm people have when they don’t need to prove anything. He was the head maintenance supervisor of the complex and offered to guide us to the house in the administration’s little electric vehicle. An unimportant gesture, I suppose. But I received it as if it carried weight.

The house was exactly what I had imagined: high ceilings, natural light, that smell of fresh paint that promises beginnings. I started unloading boxes with something like excitement. And then Rodrigo’s phone rang.

I stopped when I heard him say:

—Sure, no problem. I’m not busy. Clara’s handling everything.

I walked up, furious, while he was still talking.

—Rodrigo —I said quietly, not wanting the kids to hear—. We just got here. The truck is waiting.

He barely looked at me. He said something about how I could handle everything and vaguely pointed toward the movers and Marcos, as if we were all part of the same service team. When he got into the car and drove off, I was left on the sidewalk with empty hands and that lump in my throat I knew too well. The children were still running through the yard, not understanding a thing.

It was Marcos who came over without a sound and picked up the first box without anyone asking him to.

—You don’t have to bother —I told him. My voice came out more broken than I meant it to.

—No trouble at all. That’s what I’m here for —he replied, with a calm that didn’t pretend at anything.

He didn’t add anything else. He didn’t ask what was wrong, didn’t make a pitying face, didn’t say any of those obligatory phrases that force you to answer. He simply worked beside me. And while he did, I noticed his eyes stopping on me. On my shoulders, on my legs, on my face. Not invasively, but with a quiet attention, as if what he saw genuinely interested him. When I bent down to lift a box, I felt perfectly how his gaze settled on my ass, and instead of feeling uncomfortable, I pressed my pants a little tighter against my skin as I stood up.

No one had looked at me like that in a very long time.

Before he left, I told him they’d have to come to dinner with his wife sometime, without even knowing whether he had one. He smiled and said he’d keep it in mind. I stood there in the entryway for a moment, watching him walk away, not quite understanding what was happening to me. Or yes, I did understand, but I didn’t want to name it yet: my panties were damp and my pulse was high, and all we had done was carry a few boxes.

***

The next day, with the house still in disarray, I discovered that the new washing machine was still in its box. Rodrigo hadn’t shown up in the morning. He supposedly had a meeting he couldn’t postpone.

I called Marcos. I can’t really explain why I called him and not some technician. But I did.

He arrived before noon. I was wearing dark leggings, a thin white T-shirt, and my hair tied up any old way. While he checked the connections under the cabinet, I moved around him taking things out of boxes, all the while aware of his presence in a way I hadn’t been aware of anyone’s in a long time.

At one point he asked me to help him move the appliance toward the wall. I took off the apron tied around my waist without thinking twice. The T-shirt was thin and I wasn’t wearing a bra. I noticed the exact moment his eyes changed. He didn’t hide it, but he didn’t exaggerate it either. A direct, brief look, as if recognizing something. He saw my nipples pressing against the white fabric, hardened by the air and by the awareness of being watched, and he didn’t look away until he wanted to.

I didn’t step back. I didn’t cover myself.

No one had looked at me like that in far too long.

That feeling of being desired after so much indifference was strange and mixed: shame and something deeper I didn’t want to name yet. I felt a tug between my legs, a sharp rush of heat, and I had to press my thighs together for a second to calm it.

Afterward we had coffee in the kitchen. I don’t remember exactly how I started talking, but at some point I was telling him that Rodrigo and I had spent years as two strangers under the same roof, that I was tired of pretending everything was fine, that sometimes I woke up in the morning feeling as if I had disappeared inside the role of mother and wife and no longer knew who I was outside of it. I didn’t say it, but I thought it: it had been months since I’d come with anyone but myself in the shower.

Marcos listened without interrupting. Without giving advice, without making a face, without saying the things people say when they don’t know what to say. He just listened. And that, in itself, was more than I had expected.

—I don’t understand how a man can ignore what he has right beside him —he said at last, in a low voice.

I blushed. I looked away for an instant. And when his hand rested on the table, near mine, I didn’t pull mine back right away. I left it there, brushing his, for a few seconds longer than necessary.

When he left, it took me a good while to get up from the chair.

***

Two days later I tried out the living room fireplace for the first time in my life. In ten minutes I managed to fill the ground floor with smoke. I opened windows, coughed, cursed under my breath, and called Marcos.

Before he arrived, I changed. I put on a short white linen skirt and a fitted black top. New panties, the lace ones I’d had tucked away unworn for months. I dabbed a little perfume between my breasts and a little more inside my thighs. I didn’t ask myself why I was doing it. I already knew.

He arrived in half an hour. The afternoon was gray and cool, one of those autumn afternoons that smell of wet earth. Inside the house, with the fire already lit and the low light of the living room, everything felt smaller and warmer.

While he inspected the flue of the fireplace, I arranged the wood stacked beside the hearth. I got up quickly to fetch more logs and felt the skirt ride up. I straightened slowly. I didn’t pull it down.

I heard his silence. That particular kind of silence that has a weight of its own.

At one point we both bent down at the same time over the hearth to coax the flames and ended up completely covered in ash. We looked at each other, faces a mess, and the humor made everything easier, less tense. We threw ourselves onto the living room rug, exhausted and laughing like teenagers.

My skirt had ridden up above my thigh.

I didn’t pull it down.

I saw the exact moment the humor left his face and something else remained: more direct, more serious. The living room fell silent and the only sound was the crackling of the firewood.

—Clara —he said, very softly.

—I know —I answered.

His hand touched my knee. Slowly, without hurry, as if he were giving me time to decide. I didn’t move. I closed my eyes for an instant, and when I opened them, his face was much closer.

The first kiss was almost a question. Soft, very brief, waiting. I gave him the answer I had: I moved closer, and the second was not soft at all. It was urgent, hungry, weeks of built-up tension spilling out all at once. His tongue entered my mouth with a decisiveness that made me tremble, and I took it in and bit his lower lip, sucking on it slowly before letting it go. His hand slid up my nape and held my head with a firmness that made me let out a sound before I could even think about it.

His hands found the hem of the top and pulled it off in one motion. The cool air of the living room brushed my skin for a second before his palms covered it. He touched my breasts with both hands, learning their weight, unhurried, squeezing and spreading them to see them better in the firelight. My nipples had hardened until they hurt. Then he lowered his mouth and took one between his lips.

What he did with his tongue was slow, deliberate, and absolutely effective.

He sucked gently at first, then more firmly, his tongue circling steadily while his fingers pinched the other nipple between thumb and forefinger, tugging just enough to make it hurt and feel good at the same time. Each pressure of his mouth sent a direct jolt much farther down, to a point between my legs that was already throbbing like a second heart. My back arched of its own accord on the rug, offering him more breast.

—Marcos —I said, and my own voice surprised me.

He didn’t answer with words. He switched to the other nipple, bit it carefully, sucked it until it shone, wet and hardened. He kept going, methodical and attentive, as if he had all the time in the world and there was nothing else that mattered. No one had touched me like that in years, with that real intention, with that genuine desire to be there.

His hands slid down my stomach, lifted my skirt to my waist, and he looked at me for a moment before touching me. The lace panties were soaked, darkened at the center. He ran a finger over the fabric, feeling how wet I was, and smiled.

—You’re completely soaked —he said, and it wasn’t a question.

—I’ve been like this since you walked in —I answered without thinking.

He moved the underwear aside and two fingers found their way in without hesitation. They went in slowly, and I felt my cunt swallow them with a wet sound that made me ashamed and turned me on at the same time. His thumb began moving over my clit in continuous, precise circles, neither too hard nor too soft, exactly the pressure I would have used on myself.

I spread my legs wider on the rug.

—Like that —I begged between breaths—. Don’t stop.

He moved his fingers in and out with a rhythm that grew firmer and firmer, curling them inward to reach that spot Rodrigo had never sought out. My inner muscles tightened on their own, squeezing his fingers, asking for more. The wet sound grew louder with every motion, mixed with my ragged breathing and the crackling of the wood.

—Look at me —he said.

I opened my eyes. His were fixed on mine, and his hand never stopped working. Watching him looking at me while he did that, that absolute attention on my pleasure, was what finally broke me apart.

Pleasure rose fast, faster than my lungs could handle. I felt myself clench around his fingers, my hips beginning to move on their own, seeking more pressure, and I stopped being aware of the living room, the house, anything outside that exact point where his hand was working.

—I’m about to… —I started to say, and couldn’t finish.

I came with a long shudder that left me voiceless. My cunt clenched in spasms around his fingers, over and over, and I felt a hot gush run down the insides of my thighs to the rug. My knees came together instinctively and then opened again. I let out a sound that filled the whole room. He kept moving his fingers slowly until the last tremor passed, and then he brought them to his mouth and sucked them one by one, looking at me, never breaking eye contact.

When I looked at him, he was smiling. Not arrogantly, but with something more honest. Warmer.

—I want to taste you —he said—. All of you.

He spread my legs all the way. My skirt was already bunched at my waist, my panties hanging from one ankle. He lowered his mouth straight between my thighs and his tongue found my clit on the first pass. A slow, flat lick, from bottom to top, that made my hips lift off the rug.

—God —I said—. God, Marcos.

He started sucking my clit with his lips, his tongue moving nonstop over it while a finger went back inside me. He sucked, released, licked, sucked again. He changed the rhythm just when I thought I was getting used to it. I felt his tongue go down to the entrance of my cunt and slip inside, penetrating me with his tongue for a moment before rising back to the clit.

I grabbed his head with both hands, not wanting to pull him away, quite the opposite. I pressed his face against me.

—Don’t stop —I repeated—. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

He slid two fingers in again and moved them in the same rhythm as his mouth, and within a minute I felt the second wave coming, faster and more violent than the first. I came in his mouth with a cry I didn’t even try to hold back, moving my hips against his face without any control, and he stayed there licking me, drinking me, until I stopped shaking and had to push his head away because I couldn’t take any more.

He climbed up my body leaving a trail of kisses, and I tasted my own cunt in his mouth when he kissed me. It didn’t bother me. Quite the opposite. I sucked his tongue to take all of him in.

I reached for him and unbuckled his belt with clumsy fingers. He was hard, ready. When I pulled his cock out of his clothes, a sound escaped me. It was thick, thicker than Rodrigo’s, with a pronounced vein running underneath and the head already shining with fluid. I held it in my hand for a moment, measuring, stroking slowly up and down, watching his jaw tense.

—Put it in my mouth —I told him—. I want to taste it.

He moved until he was kneeling at the level of my face. I parted my lips and he slid it in slowly. I closed my mouth around it and started sucking him with hunger, with years of hunger built up. My tongue traced the whole length of him, wrapping the head, going down to where I couldn’t reach. I grabbed his balls with my other hand and squeezed them carefully, and he let out a rough groan above me.

—Like that, Clara —he said in a broken voice—. Like that, my God.

I sucked him until I felt his hips start moving on their own, until I could feel his pulse beating in my mouth. Then I pulled him out with a wet sound, looked up at him from below with shining lips, and drew him toward me.

—Come in —I said, looking him in the eyes—. Come in now. Fuck me.

He did it slowly. Centimeter by centimeter, stopping each time I made a sound, as if he wanted to hear all of me before going on. He opened me, filled me in a way I had never felt before, a continuous stretch that drew a long moan out of me as he kept going in. When he was completely inside, both of us froze for an instant. Only the fire, only our breathing, only my cunt throbbing around his cock, getting used to it.

Then he began to move.

At first slowly, in long rocking thrusts that filled me completely. He came almost all the way out and sank back in again, with deliberate calm, letting me feel every centimeter with every push. The sound of the wood burning mixed with our breathing and with the dull friction of the rug and with the wet sound of our bodies meeting. I clung to his shoulders with half-lidded eyes, focused on every movement.

—More —I begged—. Harder.

He sped up. His thrusts became more direct, deeper. Every strike of his hips against mine pushed me up over the rug, made my breasts slap against his chest, tore a gasp from the bottom of my lungs. The fire’s heat reached me from one side and the heat of his body from the other. I felt pleasure winding up again, something building once more.

—Get on your knees —I asked, my voice rough—. I want on top.

He slid out of me and lay back on the rug. I straddled him, took his cock in my hand and guided it into me slowly, watching it disappear inside. I started moving, first in circles, then up and down, bracing myself with my hands on his chest. He watched me from below with clenched jaws, his hands on my hips, guiding me without forcing me.

—Look at yourself —he said—. Look at yourself, fuck.

He lifted my breasts with his palms and pinched my nipples at the same time. I rode him harder, faster, feeling his cock hitting me inside at exactly the angle I needed. My own body began to decide for me: my hips moved on their own, my cunt tightened on its own, the sounds came out on their own.

—Like that —I said between breaths—. Exactly like that.

I came for the third time with a sound I didn’t try to control, leaning back with my hands on his thighs, impaled, trembling inside and out. He held my hips while I came on top of him, and as soon as the last spasm passed he lifted me by the waist and turned me over.

—On your knees —he said—. Face down.

I got on all fours on the rug, my face against my bent arm and my ass up. I felt the tip of his cock searching for the entrance, and then it slid in again with a single thrust that tore a cry from me. From that angle it felt even deeper, even fuller. He grabbed my hips and started fucking me hard, without the restraint he’d had before, crashing into me again and again, with a steady rhythm that made flesh slap against flesh all over the room.

—Yes —I said into my arm—. Yes, yes, yes.

One of his hands slid up my back and grabbed my hair, tugging just enough to lift my face. With the other he spanked my ass, not hard, more like keeping time, and I felt my skin heating where he struck me. No one had ever spanked my ass before. I liked it more than I expected. I pushed back asking for more.

—Again —I said—. Again.

He gave it to me. And again. And kept fucking me without stopping, his breathing getting heavier and shorter, until he said my name in a low voice and squeezed my hips harder.

—I’m going to come —he said—. Clara, I’m going to come.

—Inside —I told him, without hesitation—. Come inside.

He drove in all the way with a rough groan and I felt the pulse of his cock inside me, hot spurts one after another filling me to the brim. I tightened around him to milk him dry, and came again on top of him, the fourth time, short and sharp, while he kept emptying himself inside. I closed my eyes to keep that moment for as long as possible.

When he pulled out, I felt a hot thread run down the inside of my thigh to my knee. We both collapsed onto our sides on the rug, pressed together, soaked with sweat, the fire still crackling beside us.

***

We stayed still for a while. The fire kept burning. Outside, the sun was already gone. In the living room the light was warm and low and everything smelled of burnt wood and sex, of both of us.

Afterward we went to the kitchen. We made coffee in silence, side by side, without awkwardness. My legs were still weak and his cum was between my thighs, and he kept giving me short kisses on the shoulder whenever he passed close to me. I liked that: that there was no need to fill the space with words.

When we sat down with the cups in our hands, we looked at each other for a moment before speaking.

—This complicates things —I said.

—Maybe —he replied.

—It shouldn’t happen again.

Marcos nodded, serious, without irony, without hurry. And then, after a silence:

—You decide.

That was all. No promises, no requests, no trying to write what would come next. He simply left the decision in my hands, which was exactly where it needed to be.

That night, when Rodrigo came home late and got into bed without saying anything, I was awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. I could still feel the soft sting on my ass where Marcos had spanked me, still felt his semen drying between my legs because I had deliberately not showered.

I thought about the fire, the rug, Marcos’s hands moving over me with an attention I hadn’t received from anyone in years. His mouth, his cock, the way he had looked at me while I came on his fingers.

And I knew I was going to call him again.