The Smaller Size I Gave Her on Purpose in the Dressing Room

I recognized Valentina the moment she crossed the glass door and left the streetlight behind. She came to the interview wearing a navy-blue dress, modest at the neck but fitted at the hips, and a blonde strand falling over her left temple. She had a small tattoo on her right shoulder —a waterfall falling into a lake— that peeked out beneath the short sleeve every time she moved her arm.

I was head of personnel at the central office, had been seriously dating Mateo for two years, and I had never before stopped so much on another woman. But when Valentina leaned over to sign the entry form, I couldn’t help looking at her neckline. The dress was trying to contain her breasts and not quite succeeding. Her waist was narrow, her hips wide, and her legs ended with that calm firmness of someone who has walked a lot and never thought twice about it.

—You come very highly recommended —I told her, trying to keep my voice normal.

—Thanks. I really wanted this interview —she replied, and when she smiled, a dimple marked her left cheek.

She held my gaze a second longer than necessary. I lowered my eyes to the paper, as if the form data interested me.

I hired her that same morning. Not just because of her résumé: because of something in the way she sat, as if it cost her to take up so much space and at the same time she didn’t want to apologize for taking it up.

She started two days later.

***

That first week I tried to treat her like anyone else. I introduced her to the team, showed her the coffee machine, explained the access codes. But every time she passed near my desk, I looked up. I didn’t notice until it was too late, until I’d already twisted my neck searching for her between the cubicles.

It’s admiration. It’s healthy competition between women. It’s just that she’s very beautiful, nothing else.

On Thursday of her second week, Valentina appeared beside my chair while I was typing up a report.

—Sorry —she whispered—. They told me I had to see you about the uniform.

I turned my chair. She was right above me, backlit by the overhead light, and from that angle her neckline filled my entire view before I could force myself to look at her face. I swallowed, not entirely hiding it.

—Of course. Come with me.

I walked ahead. The storeroom was at the end of the hall, a rectangular room with metal shelves, two full-length mirrors, and a curtain separating the fitting area. For months, no one had gone in there except for inventory.

—What fabrics do you prefer? —I asked, flipping through the catalog.

—Something that breathes, if possible. I run hot.

I smiled without looking at her. I marked the option down.

—Size.

—M, usually. Sometimes L in the shoulders.

I nodded. I wrote M on the form.

She started telling me, without being asked, that she came from a job where they didn’t even let her breathe, that now she lived alone, that her cat was named Pedro, that she loved clothes but never had time to buy them. At first I answered with monosyllables, and little by little with full sentences. I told her about the store where I’d modeled for a while. I told her about the summer in Cabo San Telmo. I told her things I hadn’t told Mateo in months.

When I looked at the clock, almost an hour had gone by.

—Shit —I said—. I had a meeting.

—I stole your time, sorry.

—No, I stole it.

We both laughed, briefly, looking at each other too much. I bent down to take three blouses from the lower shelf. When I grabbed them, I didn’t look for M. I took three size S, slowly, without her seeing. Then I straightened and handed them to her.

—Try these on and see if they work. I’ll wait outside.

Valentina slipped behind the curtain. The curtain was heavy, opaque; only her bare feet were visible on the cold tile floor.

I sat on the little bench and crossed my legs. Then uncrossed them. Then I tried to focus on the catalog and discovered I’d been staring at the same page for two minutes without understanding what it said. Between my thighs there was a wetness I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t stop. I pressed my knees together. My panties were sticking to my cunt. It didn’t help.

***

Ten minutes passed.

Fifteen passed.

I was about to call her when I heard her, faint, almost drowned out by the air conditioning.

—Camila…

—Yes?

—I think… I need help.

I stood up so fast the chair screeched against the floor. I pulled the curtain aside and froze in the doorway.

Valentina was standing in the middle of the fitting room, in a black cotton bra and panties, no lace, nothing elaborate, and somehow that was worse. She had managed to get her head into the blouse, but her arms had gotten stuck in the sleeves and the fabric had stopped at her chest. Her face was covered by the white garment, her arms out in a cross, her wrists trapped in the too-tight cuffs. The bra was barely holding her up: two taut cups shifting with each attempt to wriggle free, and at the tip of each one her hard nipples were outlined against the cotton.

And behind her, the mirror.

The mirror showed me her back, the curve of her spine sinking into the elastic of her panties, the dimples above her sacrum, her thigh braced against the other in an attempt at balance. When she jerked herself trying to get out of the blouse, the mirror gave me her pelvis thrusting forward in small jerks, her tits bouncing against the bra, her blonde hair flattened under the fabric. Her panties had ridden up between her butt cheeks and drew a dark streak of moisture down the center, right there, a round stain that left no doubt she was wet too.

I didn’t move.

—Camila?

—Yes, yes, I’m coming.

I didn’t.

I stayed another second, two, three, looking, feeling my face start to burn from my neck upward. Then I stepped back toward the curtain, made a little noise on purpose as if I had just arrived, and went back in clearing my throat.

—Don’t worry. Let me help you.

—I got the size wrong —she said, her voice muffled by the fabric.

—It’s my fault. I brought you an S.

—An S?

—Sorry. I mixed it up.

—You mixed it up?

She didn’t answer anything else. I don’t know whether it was because the blouse was covering her mouth or because she’d already understood.

I moved behind her. The first thing I had to do was slide my fingers between the fabric and her skin and push upward to get the blouse over her head. It was a ten-second operation.

It took a lot longer.

I laid my open palm on the small of her back, right where the spine dips before the rise of the panties. Her skin was burning. Not from heat: from embarrassment, or something else. I slid my hand slowly upward, taking the blouse with my knuckles. My fingers brushed the bra clasp, passed it, kept going between her shoulder blades. The blouse loosened on her. She inhaled through her nose, held her breath for a beat, then let it out very slowly.

—Almost there.

—Mmh.

It wasn’t yes. It wasn’t no. It was the sound of someone who didn’t want it to end.

I ran my other hand along her side, over the curve beneath her arm, to free one wrist. My fingers accidentally brushed the outer line of her breast, where the bra leaves skin bare. I felt her shiver. So did I.

—Lift your arms. Slowly.

She lifted her arms. The blouse rose to reveal her chin, then her mouth parted open, then her eyes. Her pupils were very dark and her forehead was shining.

When I finally pulled the blouse over her crown and let it hang from one finger, Valentina didn’t move. Her arms were still up, her hands on my shoulders, as if she hadn’t realized she was free already.

I didn’t lower mine either. Mine was resting on her left shoulder blade.

We looked at each other.

—Camila —she said very softly—, did you bring me an S on purpose?

I could have lied. I could have laughed, told her it was an inventory mistake, apologized again. The fitting room curtain was closed, the storeroom empty, the back hallway never had anyone in it at that hour. Mateo didn’t exist inside that room. My life didn’t either.

I pressed my fingers a little against her shoulder.

—Yes.

She didn’t lower her arms. She left them where they were, around my neck, without quite closing them. She was waiting for something. So was I, even though until that moment I hadn’t known what.

—Why? —she asked.

—Because since the interview I haven’t been able to stop looking at you.

—Me neither.

She said it like that, without pause, as if she’d had it ready for days. As if the only thing she’d been waiting for was for me to make the first mistake.

I felt her breath against my cheek. I felt the air conditioning hitting the bare skin of her back. I felt the mirror behind us reflecting the two of us in a posture that could not be explained innocently in any way.

I leaned in just a little.

She tilted her face toward me, so slowly that it gave me time to choose, to step back, to tell her none of this had happened.

I didn’t step back.

I kissed her.

It was a small kiss at first, just contact, my lips against hers. She tilted her head and parted her mouth. I parted mine. When her tongue touched mine, I felt everything I’d been telling myself for two years collapse.

She pulled away just enough to breathe and came back for me. She pressed my nape with one hand. With the other she grabbed the lapel of my shirt and tugged, not opening it, just claiming it.

—Close the curtain properly —she murmured against my mouth.

I closed it without looking, feeling around, not separating my face from hers.

When I turned back, she was already sitting on the wooden bench, still in her underwear. The tangled blouse was on the floor in a crumpled white ball. She held out her hand to me. I gave her mine and let her pull me down until I was kneeling between her open legs.

From down there she looked enormous. I put my hands on her thighs and spread them wider. The black panties had a dark stain soaking the cotton right along the line of her cunt. I smelled it before I touched her. She smelled like an aroused woman, like warm sweat, like something that had been building up for days without either of us saying it.

—Camila —she whispered—, for God’s sake.

I ran my tongue over the fabric. I felt the swollen clit beneath the cotton. She slipped one hand into my hair and pressed me against her cunt without asking permission. I sucked the fabric, bit it slowly, let my saliva mix with what she already had inside. The panties clung to her cunt like a second skin.

—Take them off —she panted—. Take them off, please.

I hooked my fingers in the elastic and pulled down. She lifted one cheek, then the other, and the black panties ended up hanging from one ankle. Her cunt was shining. Her blond pubic hair was trimmed short, her lips swollen, already open without me doing anything, and in the middle a clear wetness was running down the inner side of her thigh.

I spread her lips with my thumbs. Her clit peeked out, hard, the size of the pad of my pinky finger. I ran the tip of my tongue over it, barely, and she gave a sharp jerk of her hips that nearly knocked me against the bench.

—Fuck me —she groaned—. Look how wet I am.

I was looking. Looking and sucking. I buried my whole tongue against her clit, moved it in circles, flattened it there and held firm while she ground her pelvis against my face. I gripped her thighs with both hands so she couldn’t get away. I licked from her asshole to her clit in one long stroke, tasting all of her. She grabbed my head with both hands and pushed me deeper.

—Yes, right there, right there —she moaned, covering her mouth with her forearm so she wouldn’t scream—, don’t stop, don’t stop, I swear, don’t.

I pushed two fingers into her cunt while I kept sucking her clit. She was so wet they went in all at once. Inside she was hot, so tight I could feel her muscles hugging my fingers. I started moving them upward, searching for the rough spot, and when I found it I watched her arch completely over the bench.

—There, there, don’t move from there —she panted—, Camila, I’m going to come, I’m going to come in your mouth.

I curled my fingers inside her and sucked her hard clit with hunger, as if I’d been waiting for that mouth for two years without knowing it. She started trembling. A shudder grabbed her from the thighs and ran up her belly. She took both hands to her tits, slid her hands inside the bra, and squeezed her own nipples while I ate her cunt.

She came with a long moan, muffled against her own shoulder. I felt her cunt closing around my fingers in spasms, one after another, while I kept licking her clit to stretch her orgasm until she herself pushed my head back because she couldn’t take it anymore.

I stood up with my chin shining. She kissed me like that, wet with herself, without disgust, tasting her own flavor from my mouth.

—Now you —she said softly—. Now it’s your turn.

She pushed me gently against the mirror. The glass was cold against my back. She undid the first buttons of my shirt with clumsy fingers, lowered my bra without taking it off completely, and sucked one of my tits with her whole mouth, drawing on the nipple until it hurt. With her other hand she hiked up my skirt and slipped her fingers under my panties.

—You’re drenched —she whispered against my breast—. Fuck, you’re drenched.

—Shut up —I gasped—. Shut up and put them in me.

She shoved two fingers inside me. My cunt sounded with how wet I was. She started fucking me with her hand, fast, without care, while she bit my neck so she wouldn’t leave a visible mark but left one anyway. I spread my legs wider and braced myself against the mirror. I grabbed her wrist and set the rhythm, harder, deeper.

—Like that —I told her in her ear—, like that, don’t stop.

She knelt too. She yanked my panties aside until the seam tore and buried her mouth in my clit. She sucked me like I was a ripe fruit, mouth wide open, swallowing what I was dripping. She slid two fingers into me again and with the thumb of her other hand she started pressing my asshole, not entering it, just pressing.

I came against her face in less than a minute. My knees buckled. A moan escaped me too loud and I had to bite the back of my hand until I left the mark of my teeth in it. She kept licking me slowly while I came down, one tremor after another, until I slid down the mirror and ended up sitting on the floor with my skirt up and my legs still open.

We stayed there a while, her between my legs, her cheek resting against my thigh, both of us breathing hard.

—Mateo —I said, without meaning to say it.

—Later —she answered, without lifting her face—. Later you think about Mateo.

I stroked her blonde hair, all mussed up. I felt her tongue come out again, slow, giving one last lick along the inner side of my thigh, like someone saying goodbye to a dish she doesn’t intend to return.

***

We left the fitting room half an hour later.

I had messed-up hair and one fewer button on my shirt. Valentina was wearing an M blouse, the size that belonged to her, with her whole body inside it and her arms perfectly in the sleeves.

We walked to the end of the hall without touching. When we reached the door to the main office, she turned and said:

—Tomorrow we need to try on the pants.

—Mm-hm.

—Are you going to bring me a smaller size?

I looked at her without answering.

—Yes, Camila —she insisted, not smiling—. Bring me an S.

Then she crossed the office, greeted a couple of coworkers, sat down at her desk, and started working as if nothing had happened.

I stayed leaning against the doorframe. My phone was vibrating in my pocket. It was Mateo. I didn’t answer.

For the first time in years I understood, very clearly, that my life had just split in two.