My New Boss Asked Me to Stay the Night

Quitting the flower shop was the healthiest thing I’d done in years. The gossip, my boss’s absurd demands, my coworkers’ nasty looks: all of it had become a ball of tension I carried with me before I even left the house. That last week, I couldn’t even sleep properly. When I handed in my resignation and saw the manager’s face, I felt, for the first time in months, as if I could breathe again.

I sent my résumé everywhere. Five days later, while I was making the bed, my phone rang with a number I didn’t have saved. I answered almost automatically.

—Good morning, Camila —said a low, polite female voice—. I saw your résumé. I’m interested. Can we meet tomorrow at nine?

She gave me an address in a residential neighborhood, not an office. I said yes without thinking.

I arrived five minutes early. The house had two floors, a high wall, carefully tended plants, and a doorbell that sounded like a long piano note. She opened the door herself. And I was left speechless.

Licenciada Mariana Beltrán looked to be about thirty-seven. She wore a short black dress, fitted at the waist, and suede heels that made her look like a woman out of a magazine. Her brown hair fell in waves to the middle of her back. Immaculate skin, discreet perfume, a precise smile. In my jeans and sneakers, I felt as if I were wearing pajamas.

—Come in —she said, leading me down a hallway to a study with glass doors overlooking the garden.

The interview lasted half an hour. She asked precise questions, wrote two things in a notebook, and before I had finished explaining why I’d left the flower shop, she looked up and cut me off.

—Would you have any problem starting today?

***

On my first day, she barely spoke to me. I was at a desk facing hers, transcribing spreadsheets, answering two calls, and receiving a messenger. She typed without looking up, her back very straight. Every so often she got up to go to the kitchen and came back with a coffee she didn’t offer me. I didn’t dare break the silence.

That was how two weeks passed. I began to understand the routine: Licenciada managed contracts for three or four major firms. She worked from home because, as she told me one of the few times we talked, years ago she’d grown tired of hallways and gossip. The sentence made me smile. I understood it better than she imagined.

The strange things began at the start of the third week.

One Tuesday afternoon, while I was answering the landline, she passed behind me and placed her hand on my waist to give me a folder. She left it there several seconds longer than necessary. Another day, she leaned over my shoulder to look at the screen and brushed my neck with her breath. Another time, she tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as if I were her daughter.

You’re imagining things, I told myself. She’s a lonely, older woman, far too immaculate for that kind of thing.

But I couldn’t sleep peacefully.

***

On Friday she asked me to print some files from her phone. While she received a client in the living room, I connected the phone to the computer and started searching. Her WhatsApp was still open in the browser. I wasn’t going to open it. I truly wasn’t going to open it.

I opened it.

The first chat was with a man. I read it from the bottom up. They were talking about me. “The new girl looks sweet. Let’s hope she lasts longer than the last one,” he said. “This one’s prettier. She has the lips I like,” she replied. I scrolled farther. And farther. I found another contact saved only with an initial: “V.” The conversations were long, full of photos I closed quickly without opening, although I caught sight of a shaved pussy and an open mouth full of semen before the screen changed. The last one was from eight months earlier. After that, silence.

I heard footsteps in the hallway. I closed everything, straightened up in my chair, and when she came in, I heard myself say:

—Excuse me, Licenciada, I can’t find those files.

She looked at me. That wasn’t a boss’s look. It was the look of someone who knows exactly what the other person has been doing and decides, for now, to let it pass.

—Don’t worry —she said softly, coming closer.

She leaned over the back of the chair, placed her hand over mine on the mouse, and left it there. I felt her hair against my cheek. I felt her breath in my ear.

—Here they are —she whispered—. Print them, please.

She withdrew her hand slowly, dragging her fingers along my forearm, and at the very end the back of her hand brushed my breast through my blouse, barely, but enough to make my nipple stiffen. My skin prickled. My heart pounded against my blouse.

***

On Monday she invited me to lunch after work. “I cooked too much,” she said, as if it were casual. While she was taking out the plates, I bent down to reach the wineglasses on the lower shelf. When I stood up, I caught her gaze fixed on my body in the reflection of the pantry glass. She didn’t look away when she saw me catch her. She smiled faintly, as if that too were part of the game.

We ate almost in silence until she put down her cutlery.

—Camila, are you comfortable in this job?

—Yes, Licenciada. Very much.

—I’m glad, because I wanted to ask you something. My previous secretary used to keep me company, sometimes, after work. It’s voluntary, of course. I compensate her well. I live alone, and the truth is, I don’t like sleeping alone anymore.

I swallowed.

—Let me think about it. I have a boyfriend; I’d have to talk to him.

—You have a boyfriend? —her voice dropped half a tone—. I thought I understood that the position called for single women.

There was a long silence. I saw my salary, my rent, the two months it had taken me to get that interview. I also saw the chat with the initial “V,” that other woman who didn’t know where she had ended up.

—I can stay tonight —I said, and my own voice sounded foreign to me.

—Tonight? —She raised her eyebrows, feigning a surprise I didn’t believe—. What about your boyfriend?

—He’s working. We weren’t going to see each other today.

She smiled, and that was the first time her smile seemed complete to me.

—Then make yourself comfortable. You’re at home.

***

She lent me a clean robe, carefully folded, as if it had been ready for some time. I showered, trembling. I sat in front of the television and didn’t understand a word of what was happening on the screen. I could feel her moving around the house, putting things in order, speaking softly on the phone, laughing with someone.

At eleven, she turned off the living-room lights and appeared in the hallway.

—Camila, shall we go?

—Where do I sleep?

—With me. The bed is spacious.

I felt the blood drain to my feet.

—I can sleep on the sofa. I don’t mind.

—No, with me. It’s no trouble at all. Besides, I already told you I don’t like sleeping alone.

I walked slowly to the bedroom. She was already in bed, with a low light beside it. I slipped beneath the blankets as close to the edge as I could, rigid as a board. I heard her get up and lock the door.

—I always do that —she said before getting back into bed.

She lay on her side, looking at me. She took one of my hands and began tracing it with the pad of her thumb.

—Has your boyfriend ever told you that you have beautiful lips? He doesn’t know how lucky he is.

She moved closer. She kissed me. At first it was barely a brush, but then she thrust her tongue into my mouth and slowly searched for mine, pushing it against the roof of my mouth. I didn’t move, not because I consented, but because I didn’t know what one did in a situation like that. She kissed my neck, my collarbone, and pulled my robe open in one yank. I was naked underneath. She stared at my breasts for one long second, as if measuring something, then lowered her mouth and sucked my right nipple until it hardened, without letting go of my wrist. She did the same with the other nipple. She barely bit me. I felt an ugly pulse between my legs and hated myself for feeling it.

I tried to move away. She pressed my wrists against the mattress.

—If you scream —she said, her mouth against my ear—, I’ll call the police and say you broke in to steal. Who are they going to believe? Keep still.

She took two things from beneath the pillow that hadn’t been there by chance: leather-covered cuffs and a gag. She fastened my wrists to the headboard, pulling the strap tight until the leather dug into me. She pushed the gag between my teeth and tied it behind my neck. Tears ran silently from my eyes. She kept speaking to me softly, almost tenderly.

—Shhh. Nothing’s going to hurt. You’ll see how much you like it.

She settled between my legs and opened them with her knees. With two fingers she parted the lips of my pussy and stared at it for a while, like someone who had found something she’d been searching for a long time. Then she lowered her head and licked me from bottom to top, one long, slow stroke all the way to my clitoris. I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want it, and I was getting wet. She licked me again, and again, and when I was slippery enough she pushed her tongue inside me, thrusting and withdrawing, while her thumb made circles on my clitoris. I felt a muffled moan escape against the gag. She looked up without stopping her sucking.

—That’s it, my love —she said—. Let go.

She pushed two fingers all the way inside me. She curled them, searching for a spot I hadn’t even known I had, and there she found it. She began moving them quickly, her palm striking my clitoris with every thrust, while she took turns sucking my breasts. I writhed against the cuffs. My first orgasm came without permission, in waves, and I felt myself soak her hand up to the wrist. She laughed softly and brought her fingers to her mouth, sucking them one by one in front of me.

—You taste good —she whispered—. Delicious.

She climbed on top of me. She opened her robe and pressed her wet pussy against my thigh. She began to move. I felt her hips moving like a man’s, grinding against my leg, leaving a warm trail on my skin. Her nipples were small and hard, and she ran them over my mouth without giving me a moment’s respite, forcing me to suck them through the gag. She spoke to me the whole time, in the voice of someone politely asking for something.

—Look at me. Look at me when I come. I want you to see.

She came there, squeezing my thigh between hers, her face pressed against my neck, barely biting my skin. The mark lasted two days.

She didn’t stop. She lowered herself and opened my legs again. This time she fitted her pussy against mine, scissoring, pushing her clitoris against mine, moving slowly at first and then with force, her hands braced against the headboard for leverage. I looked up at her from below, my gag soaked with saliva, and felt her breasts bouncing over me. I came again, against my will, and she came a minute later, riding my thigh and clutching my hair with one hand.

The third time was with her face pressed to my shoulder, whispering something I didn’t understand, with both fingers inside me again, until she fell asleep like that, on top of me, her fingers still inside. I didn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling until dawn.

***

In the morning she showered and returned to the bedroom naked. I was still cuffed. She looked at me with the same calm with which she had sat down to lunch the previous Monday. She came to the bed, sat at the edge with her legs open in front of me, and began masturbating while looking at me. She rubbed two fingers over her clitoris in slow circles, squeezed one breast with her other hand, and never took her eyes off me. The gag was gone by then, but I didn’t dare speak.

—See what you’ve done to me? —she said—. I’ve been thinking about you all night.

She straddled my face. She planted her pussy over my mouth and lowered herself slightly, until I smelled freshly showered woman and desire. She didn’t need to give me an order. I stuck out my tongue and licked her from underneath. She closed her eyes, braced her hands against the headboard, and began moving over my mouth, grinding herself against me and moaning softly. I searched for her clitoris with the tip of my tongue, and she guided me with her hips. When she came, she pressed my face against her pussy with both hands and didn’t let me breathe for the last few seconds. I felt the warm liquid running over my chin, down my neck, and onto my chest. She slowly climbed off, settled against me, and ran her fingers over my lips, cleaning me as if she were combing a little girl.

She came again over my belly, rubbing herself against my navel. She didn’t hurt me. She didn’t hit me. But she didn’t ask me anything, either.

When she was finished, she took off the gag that was no longer there and ran a finger over my mouth.

—Promise me you won’t scream.

I nodded.

She freed my wrists. They were marked red by the cuffs, and she knelt down and kissed them one by one. She told me she had prepared breakfast and that I could shower first. I walked to the bathroom like an automaton. Beneath the hot water, I cried without a sound. I thought about leaving, grabbing my clothes, and running. I thought that I had nowhere to go, that there were no witnesses, that my word against hers was worth nothing. I also thought—and that frightened me more—about how she had looked at me while she came. As if I were the most desired thing in the world.

She entered the bathroom without knocking. She took off her robe. I watched her in the mirror. This time I said nothing to her. Neither did she. She slowly turned me around, bent me over against the tiles, opened my legs with a gentle kick from her bare foot, and kissed the nape of my neck. She pressed my breasts against the cold wall, and with her other hand she searched for my pussy between my legs. I was wet again, and she knew it. She thrust three fingers into me in one push and began fucking me like that against the tiles, her mouth against my ear, whispering things to me.

—See? It’s asking for it all by itself now. Look how it sucks my hand.

She rubbed her hips against my ass, sliding her fingers in and out, and with the thumb of her other hand she sought my asshole and pressed it lightly, without putting it in, only threatening. I rested my forehead against the fogged glass and came like that, with the hot water falling over both of us, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream. She came afterward, rubbing herself against my thigh and biting my shoulder. I closed my eyes. And let her.

***

Days passed. In the mornings we worked as usual, she focused on her contracts, me on my spreadsheets. In the afternoons she sometimes called me to the sofa and asked me for things that were difficult at first and then not so much. She made me sit on her face with my office pants lowered to my ankles, or kneel between her legs while she continued signing papers with one hand and guided my head with the other. At night she didn’t leave me alone for a minute. She began giving me clothes: dresses like hers, underwear I never would have bought for myself, lace thongs she pulled off me with her teeth.

One Friday she made me kneel in front of her at the desk, held my hair with one hand, and asked me, in that low voice I knew so well, to please her with my mouth. She hiked her skirt up to her waist. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She opened her legs, resting one heel on the arm of the chair, and pressed my face against her pussy until I felt short of breath. I licked her the way I already knew she liked, first her lips, then her clitoris with the tip of my tongue, then sliding my tongue inside and withdrawing it in a slow rhythm. She squeezed my hair whenever she wanted me to go faster, and pulled me away for two seconds whenever she was about to come, so I wouldn’t finish yet. When she finally let me, she came in my mouth with a long, silent shudder, pressing the back of my head against her until I swallowed everything. Then she lifted my face with two fingers beneath my chin.

—Good girl.

I did it without hesitation. When I looked up, I found her watching me with the same intensity as on the first night, but this time mine was no longer the gaze of a victim. It was something else. Something I still don’t know how to name.

I told my boyfriend that work had given me strange hours. I began inventing excuses to stay the night two or three nights a week. He believed me at first. Then he stopped asking. The few times we fucked, I closed my eyes and came thinking about her mouth, her fingers, her voice telling me I was a good girl.

I don’t know when the fear went away. I don’t know when I began waiting for the moment she would shut down her computer and look at me from the other side of the desk with that half-smile. I don’t know when, watching her sleep, I began thinking that the spacious bed had a side for me.

What I do know is that I still say, when someone asks, that I’m not a lesbian.

I say it with less conviction every time.