My New Boss Hated Me Until That Dawn

When I was notified of my transfer to the controls section, it hit me like a bucket of ice water. I had my routines with the night shift: few conversations, a lot of silence, a boss I’d learned to avoid. Andrés, the only coworker I sometimes shared a coffee with, tried to cheer me up with sensible arguments. I’d have my afternoons free, he said. I could read, go to the movies, see my boyfriend.

That word always made me smile inwardly. I had never had a boyfriend. My last girlfriend had left years ago with all my savings, with all my hopes. It took me three years to pay off the debts I signed because I believed her. First they denied me a visa for Canada, then she found another partner, and I never saw a cent of the dollars. But that’s another story. That morning I walked in at five to eight and swore I’d never be late again.

In controls, you count packages, arrange boxes, deal with products that arrive broken. One of the girls explained to me that the secret was to keep your eyes open and speak little in front of the boss. The boss was named Marisol. According to the same advice, you should never contradict her. They assigned me a long table with a PC at one end, stacks of order slips, a phone that rang at odd times, and an entire section devoted to cosmetics. Another girl explained the system to me; I recorded it on my cell phone and got to work before anyone could notice I was lost.

Marisol arrived right on the dot at eight and went into her office. That first week we didn’t exchange a single word. I didn’t like her, although I have to admit she had good taste. Her perfumes were expensive, her makeup always perfect. She was taller than me, without exaggerated curves, but with a grace in the way she walked that made you look at her ass whether you wanted to or not. And I, who hadn’t slept with anyone in years, more than once caught myself imagining her naked on her desk, legs spread and that painted mouth moaning my name.

The two-week pay period ended without major setbacks. I paid the last installment of the refinancing and, despite the bank’s insistence, canceled the card. Two years of purgatory are enough. The next day I had my first clash with her.

There was a mistake that wasn’t mine. Marisol called me out in front of everyone and, when I tried to explain, she yelled at me. I told her firmly I wasn’t going to put up with that and followed her into her office with the delivery notes in my hand. I showed her she was the one in the wrong. Her eyes lit up. She told me that even if I was right, she was the one in charge, and asked me to leave. She never spoke to me again. But that pay period my overtime hours didn’t appear under my name, and two written warnings showed up. On the third they’d fire me.

I put in the effort. I stopped taking lunch so I could review my lists calmly. In less than two months the numbers were spot on, but I lost almost four kilos and started getting compliments in the street and on the loading dock.

One afternoon, just as I was closing out the inventory, two trucks arrived late and I had to stay. I left almost at nine, starving, with a neat hatred for the human race. I crossed the loading dock, greeted the guard, and hurried toward the corner. And then I saw Marisol getting out of a car. The driver got out after her. A chubby, semi-bald guy dressed in expensive clothes that didn’t fit him right. Marisol turned around and spoke to him sharply. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. What I did see was the punch. It left her sprawled on the pavement like a limp body.

I ran. The guy threw her purse at her, got back in the car, and took off with an absurd screech of tires, like in bad movies. The blow had landed between her mouth and nose. Her face was covered in blood and she was breathing with difficulty. Not caring if I stained my clothes, I wiped her face with a handkerchief and brought the perfume up to her neck so she’d react.

“Get away! I don’t need you! Damn busybody!”

“Calm down, girl,” I told her.

Then she hugged me and started crying, and I felt as defeated as she did.

“I have to get my car,” she said when she managed to breathe.

She looked for her keys in her purse. Her clothes were covered in dirt, her knees scraped raw. I understood I couldn’t let them see her like that at the company at that hour. I thought about making up a robbery, but the idea made me laugh and hurt at the same time. I called a taxi.

In five minutes we were in my room. Marisol didn’t speak during the ride. She looked out the window as if the city were чужд to her, and maybe it was, as all of us are when something like that splits the night in two. In my room I prepared warm water, alcohol, disinfectant. I washed her face patiently. Her lips were swollen, but the blow wasn’t as serious as it had seemed. I put ice in a napkin and she held it herself against her mouth.

“You should see a doctor,” I suggested.

She didn’t hear me. I, on the other hand, couldn’t stop looking at her. Now that I could see her without a desk between us, I noticed she was pretty. Snub nose, light brown eyes, thin brows, dyed blond hair. Her skin was only a shade lighter than mine: she was mixed-race, I was Black.

“It’s my husband,” she said.

“Do you have children?”

She shook her head.

“We’re separated. He lives in Lisbon. He came to get me.”

I opened the fridge again. I found two pieces of melon, an apple, orange juice, and a serving of noodles from the day before. I settled on a cup of cold chocolate. The violence had closed my stomach.

“I… I’m going home,” she murmured.

“Does that seem wise? Who lives with you?”

“My sister. She’ll be worried.”

“Call her first,” I told her. “You can’t risk him waiting for you.”

“No. He wouldn’t dare,” she answered, but she was already dialing.

While she talked, I thought about how strange all of this was. I knew nothing about Marisol and I didn’t want to get involved.

“My sister’s on her way,” she said when she hung up.

I gave her a sedative and laid her down on my bed. I turned on the TV with cartoons, the only harmless thing I could think of. Without realizing it, we both fell asleep. Her sister arrived almost an hour later. They argued over whether Marisol should leave or stay. I asked permission to weigh in and said she should stay, and not go to work the next day. That startled her, as if the company would collapse without her. I asked how she was going to explain the swelling. She nodded, defeated. Her sister had brought her clean clothes. We went to bed early.

***

Marisol got up before I did. She made coffee and put her dirty clothes in a bag.

“Do you know how to drive?” she asked me.

I nodded.

“These are my car keys. Bring it back before noon. I already spoke to HR and told them I had an accident on the way out. Put Lorena in your place.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not at all. But you should see a doctor.”

The area around her nose was purple.

“You’ve already helped me enough. Believe me, I’m going to thank you forever.”

“What if he comes back?”

She shook her head.

“He won’t come back. By now he’s already at the airport. His flight to Lisbon leaves in two hours. He’s not coming back.”

I didn’t ask anything else. When I was about to feel sorry for her, I forced myself out of the room. I didn’t want that feeling on me.

***

Marisol came back three days later with the swelling gone and an invented allergy to justify the bruise. That night, when I arrived at my little room, her sister was waiting for me at the door. I offered her ginseng tea and prepared myself to listen.

“Marisol was married to him for almost six years,” she began. “They separated three years ago and he moved to Lisbon. But every year he comes back and they have a vacation fling. This time he wanted to convince her to go with him to Portugal. To start the visa paperwork and… well, you know how those things end.”

“And what happened?”

“My mother and I convinced her it would be the biggest mistake of her life. He’s a man with money, but an unbearable macho. Marisol would leave her job and live at his mercy.”

“Before you keep telling me private things,” I cut in, “I want you to know I have no kind of relationship with your sister. As a boss, she’s treated me pretty badly. Why are you telling me all this?”

“I came to ask for your help.”

I was so surprised I almost blurted out my preferences so she’d leave. But that seemed unnecessarily harsh.

“I don’t know what I can do.”

“Marisol decided to sue him. And you’d be a very valuable witness.”

I agreed, though I didn’t like the idea at all. My tongue always does the opposite of what my head tells it to.

***

Things moved fast on a Friday. Almost everyone had left when three loaded trucks arrived: cosmetics, medicines, and cleaning products. Before Marisol came down, I took over the delivery notes and convinced the drivers to help me check the merchandise. When she came down from her office, she found me surrounded by boxes.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she said, dismissing the drivers with a wave.

“If you finish the medicines, I’ll handle the cosmetics.”

“Done.”

Ten minutes later she took off her jacket and I copied her. The head of security showed up to remind us that after eleven no section could be open. Marisol recommended, with sharp irony, that he also inform them his subordinates had let three trucks in after seven, something expressly forbidden. The man left without a word.

We finished almost at one in the morning. Marisol sat in front of my PC and wrote a blistering email addressed to management.

“Let’s go, I’ll drive you home. This is going to cause trouble,” she said, annoyed.

She drove in silence. Only when she parked in front of my door did she take my hand before I got out.

“I think I owe you an apology. Or several. How about tomorrow night we go out for a drive and… talk?”

I nodded. It was strange for me to have a date after so long. And even stranger to have one with no apparent possibilities.

***

I got to work after noon, just as she had suggested. At 12:30 she called me into her office.

“I’ll pick you up at eight. Dinner or something more casual?”

“We’ll decide on the way.”

“Done.” She smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile. And my God, smiling, she was a different woman.

I dressed as if for a real date. Red skirt with pink geometric flowers, sleeveless cream linen blouse, string bracelet with porcelain details, sandals and matching purse. A lace mantilla with gold trim, a keepsake from my old opulence before bankruptcy. Marisol arrived five minutes before eight. Turquoise dress with thin straps, stilettos, flawless makeup.

We had dinner at a place near the old quarter. Beef tenderloin with mushrooms, plum-in-wine dessert. I learned her whole story: a childhood with an alcoholic, wealthy father, a miserable marriage according to her, with a plain miserable bastard according to me. When we were on our fourth drink, she looked at me steadily.

“Now you.”

“A sentimental and financial disaster like yours. I never got anything back. I had to sell the house, the car, the business. But I’m debt-free now.”

“And you recovered from the other thing, which is the most important.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re self-assured. And sensible. Even if sometimes you act too cautiously.”

I felt heat rise into my cheeks. Marisol noticed my discomfort and changed the subject at once.

“The night is young. Want to take a walk by the harbor?”

We sat on a terrace full of couples and young guys drinking beer. I ordered a piña colada with crushed ice and she was amazed by the coincidence: it was her favorite drink too. We talked about adolescence, school, silly things I had stopped telling anyone years ago. It was almost two when she stifled her first yawn.

We got into the car. Just as she started it, her cell phone rang. She spoke with her sister, visibly irritated.

“Let’s go to my apartment,” she said when she hung up. “My sister forgot to lock the door. Sometimes I think she has early Alzheimer’s.”

“I hope nothing serious happened.”

Marisol lived on the fourth floor of a building in the north of the city. There was no private security, at least that night, and the elevator was out of service. Before she went in I stopped her and checked the lock. At that moment the power went out and I pulled out the little flashlight I always carry in my purse. Nothing had happened. Marisol turned on a battery inverter and the living room lit up.

“Do you live alone?”

“With my sister. But on Fridays she goes to my mother’s house in the interior. She comes back Saturday to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. Sit down. Want something to drink?”

“Ice water.”

The living room was small but neatly arranged. A modern sofa, a tidy rug, an entire wall of books. Marisol brought me the glass and turned on a small stereo. She searched through the recordings until an old bolero, the kind our mothers used to listen to, filled the silence. Then came a slow ballad I couldn’t stop humming, and that’s when she looked me in the eyes. Two tear tracks darkened by mascara rolled down her cheeks.

“That’s us,” she said. “Strange. Nobody knows anybody. Nobody understands anybody.”

I got up from the sofa and hugged her.

That warmth, that kind of solidarity capable of binding two women together in a situation like that, made us stand without either of us deciding to. We stayed embraced in the middle of the room, in the dim light. Her perfume began to soak into me. I felt my nipples harden against the thin fabric of my blouse, pressing into her tits through the turquoise dress. I was afraid it showed. I have to let her go, I thought, before I start something I won’t be able to stop. Then she asked me not to let go.

“Say it again,” I murmured, my voice broken.

“Don’t let me go. Hold me, please. It’s been years since anyone touched me for real.”

The soft flesh of her mouth was so close to mine that I let myself be kissed. And that first kiss was not timid: her tongue went straight into my mouth, looking for mine, sucking it as if she’d been practicing the gesture for months. I bit her swollen lip and she let out a moan that dropped through my belly and soaked my panties in a second. I grabbed her ass over the dress and pulled her against me, feeling the heat of her pussy through the fabric. Marisol found my breasts with both hands and pinched my nipples between thumb and forefinger, twisting them until she tore a moan out of me.

“Damn, they’re so hard,” she panted against my mouth. “You like tits, don’t you? It shows.”

“I like yours. I imagined them a thousand times at the office.”

“And what did you do to me in your head?”

“I sucked them until you screamed.”

“Do it now.”

I lowered the dress straps from her shoulders and unclipped her bra with clumsy fingers that needed her help. Her breasts fell heavy, brown, with dark, erect nipples, so big it made my mouth water. I took them in both hands, squeezed them, kneaded them as if I had to learn them by touch. Then I lowered my head and took an entire nipple into my mouth, sucking with delayed hunger, circling it with my tongue, biting it slowly. Marisol grabbed the back of my neck and pressed my face into her tits.

“Like that, like that, harder. Suck them like they were a cock. Like you were sucking me off.”

I moved to the other nipple and did the same, biting it until she herself slid her fingers into my hair and tugged. My thighs were getting slick with how wet I was. I lifted the skirt of her dress and slipped a hand between her legs. Her panties were barely a piece of fabric, a soaked triangle. I yanked them aside and found her cunt open, swollen, dripping onto the inside of her thigh.

“You’re drenched, Marisol,” I told her in her ear.

“Since you touched my hand in the car,” she answered, and sank her teeth into my neck.

I shoved two fingers into her cunt at once and she spread her legs right there, bracing her back against the wall. I finger-fucked her like that, dress hiked to her waist and tits out, while I bit her neck and pressed my thumb into her clit. Marisol rode my fingers with her pelvis, up and down, panting dirty things in my ear.

“Deeper. Fuck me harder. Like that, Black girl, like that, don’t stop.”

“You like being fucked by your employee?”

“I like being fucked by you, shut up and keep going.”

I said it while biting her earlobe and she laughed with her mouth slightly open, showing me her teeth. I pulled my soaked fingers out and took them to my mouth. I licked her juice off my skin slowly, never taking my eyes off her, and she stood frozen, staring back at me.

“You taste delicious,” I told her.

“Then come eat it. Straight from the source.”

We made our way to the bedroom, stumbling over clothes. I finished pulling her dress down in the hallway, yanked off her loose panties, and she stayed in heels, only in heels, walking toward the bed with her ass tight. I undressed with a clumsiness that made her laugh when she saw it. Marisol lay on her back on the bed and offered herself completely, spreading her legs shamelessly, showing me her shaved cunt with a neat little triangle on top and everything else bare and gleaming.

“Come,” she said, and parted her cunt lips with two fingers. “Lick me. Lick all of me until I come on your face.”

I knelt between her legs and ran my tongue from her asshole to her clit in one long stroke, tasting all of her. Marisol arched her back and screamed. I did it again, slower, pushing my tongue into the entrance of her cunt, sucking her swollen lips one by one, climbing up to the clitoral hood and showering it with quick little licks. I grabbed her thighs from underneath and lifted them, folding her almost in two, to drive my tongue deep inside her. I fucked her with my tongue for a long while, in and out of her cunt, while she groped her tits and called me a pussy-licking whore.

“Put it in my ass too,” she panted. “Lick my ass, dirty Black girl.”

I ran my tongue over her tight little asshole and she let out a sharp cry. I licked it for a while, circling it with the tip of my tongue, while two fingers kept sliding in and out of her cunt. Then I went back up to her clit and sucked it like a fruit, taking it whole between my lips, sucking it in rhythm. I felt her tense all over: her thighs squeezing my head, her belly contracting, her hands digging into my hair.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t stop, you fucking cunt, don’t stop.”

She came in my mouth with a shudder that lasted almost a full minute, soaking my chin, clamping my head between her thighs until I almost suffocated. When I let go, my face was drenched in her and I had a smile that didn’t fit my expression.

“Now you,” she said, pulling me by an arm to settle me on the bed.

She laid me on my back and spread my legs with her hands, without asking permission. She looked at my cunt carefully, like someone studying something they’re about to buy.

“You’re just as soaked as I am, look at that.”

She ran two fingers through my slit, top to bottom, smearing herself with me. Then she sucked them slowly, never taking her eyes off me.

“Delicious. I knew you’d taste good.”

She lowered her mouth and ran her whole tongue over me in one go. I screamed. It had been years since anyone touched me, much less like that, with that hunger. Marisol licked me slowly at first, learning the terrain, and then started sucking my clit with a technique that made me think she had lied when she said she had no experience with women. She slid two fingers into me and curled upward, finding the exact spot, and with her mouth she didn’t let up. I gripped the headboard with one hand and her hair with the other, rocking her face against my cunt.

“Like that, like that, mama, like that, don’t stop.”

It slipped out and I burst out laughing between moans. Marisol lifted her face for a second, her chin glistening, and smiled at me.

“Mama’s going to leave you unable to walk tomorrow.”

She went back down. She drove three fingers into me and sucked me with a new fury, flicking her tongue against my clit, moaning too against my flesh. The orgasm rose from my heels. I felt the walls of my cunt closing around her, the blood rushing to my ears, the fact that I was screaming something I couldn’t make out. I came with a long spasm, clenching around her fingers, pushing her face with my hips. When I finished I was shaking all over.

Marisol climbed up my body kissing my skin: the pubis, the stomach, between the breasts, the neck, and finally the mouth. We kissed tasting of me, of her, of the two of us mixed together, and that kiss was almost as intense as the orgasm.

“We’re not done,” she murmured in my ear. “Not even close.”

She turned around and climbed on top of me from behind, sixty-nine. She settled her cunt on my face with calculated slowness and lowered her mouth to mine. I grabbed her ass with both hands and spread it open, and started licking everything all over again, cunt and asshole, while she devoured me. We ate each other like that for a long while, rubbing our faces against each other’s pussies, spitting, licking, biting. Marisol came again before I did, flattening my face with her ass, and I followed a few seconds later, choking back the cry against her soaked cunt.

When she got off and settled beside me, we were both shining with sweat and saliva. I fell asleep at once, with one of her legs crossed over mine and her breasts against my back, so reality would turn into dream.

***

The high sun slipping through the curtains woke me. Through my half-open eyes I made out Marisol’s naked figure standing beside the bed. The slight roundness of her belly, a neatly trimmed little triangle, the cunt still a little swollen from the night, two dark patches a little higher up, and a wicked smile I had never seen at the office.

A wall clock showed nine.

“I’ll race you to the shower,” she said.

I followed her. When I had rinsed my mouth, I joined her under the stream of warm water. Marisol took the soap and started lathering me up like a little girl, laughing, running soapy hands over my tits, my belly, between my legs. And those soapy hands didn’t take long to stop being innocent. She slid two fingers into my cunt right there under the water while she sucked on one nipple, and I pressed her against the tiles and opened her legs with my knee.

“Not again,” she protested, laughing. “I won’t be able to walk.”

“One more. Quick.”

I finger-fucked her with three fingers right there, with the water falling over us, while I bit her neck and she tugged at my wet hair. She came quickly, pressed against me, biting my shoulder so she wouldn’t scream. Then I knelt in the shower and licked her cunt again, with water soaking my face, until she came once more holding onto the towel rack bar.

When we got out, we made love one more time on her bed, this time without urgency, without fear, slowly, looking into each other’s eyes, rubbing our soaked cunts against one another until we came almost at the same time, wrapped in each other’s arms. Certain she wasn’t regretting a thing.

“Do you think we should talk?” she asked afterward, still breathless, lying on my chest.

“I think we should.”

“I’m starving. And you?”

“Me too.”

“Good,” she said, pleased. “Looks like we agree on something else.”