Behind the mature boss, there was a fire that hadn’t gone out

The return flight from Stockholm lasted a long three hours, and I spent them staring out the window without seeing anything. I knew exactly why I’d been called back on short notice: the Swedish client was the husband of the woman I’d spent the last two months with, and when he found out, the scandal was enough to get me put on the first plane home. What I wasn’t sure about was whether a dismissal letter or something different was waiting for me when I got back.

It was neither. Marta, the area director, received me with that expression of hers halfway between exhaustion and irony. —Rodrigo, Rodrigo... no one’s questioning your work. But this habit of yours of getting involved with married women is going to be your downfall. —I tried to say something and she cut me off with a wave of her hand. —Don’t tell me anything, I didn’t ask. Just listen: there’s a branch on the coast that needs someone with your profile. Take the envelope and may God help you.

The envelope contained the transfer. Same salary, new office in Alicante, and a mobility clause I’d signed when I started that left no room to maneuver. I went by the union office out of pure inertia. The answer didn’t surprise me: I had accepted those conditions, they respected them, there was nothing to be done. The following Monday I showed up at my new posting with a box of belongings and the face of someone who arrives knowing he’s been punished.

The branch was an office floor in a nineties-era building near the port. When I walked in, I saw exactly what I was expecting: half a dozen men between forty and fifty, with that tired air of people who’ve been in the same place too long. They looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and pity that felt familiar. The oldest one, a guy with a mustache named Emilio, came up first. —You’re the new guy. What did you do to get sent here?

I told them I didn’t know, that it was a routine transfer. They didn’t believe me, but they didn’t press either. What they did do was start talking about the boss. —Natalia. Widowed, early forties, and a bitterness that seeps out of her pores. She can’t stand men, she tears into all of us equally. —The mustached one lowered his voice. —And on top of that she’s smoking hot, which is the most irritating thing of all. No one here can even get near her.

I was ready to find a severe-looking woman, plain clothes, and that expression of someone who’s spent years convinced the world owes her something. What walked through the door ten minutes later left me speechless. Natalia was a well-kept forty, blonde hair to her shoulders with blunt bangs down to her eyebrows, very light gray-blue eyes, and a figure that showed even under the fitted black suit she was wearing. She walked in high heels and did it with the confidence of someone who had worn them since adolescence. When she saw me, she paused for a second.

—You’re Rodrigo. —It wasn’t a question. —I know perfectly well why you’re here and what happened before. I’m not going to ask you anything about it, but I will warn you about something: whatever you’ve done in other places doesn’t work here. Men with too much ego cause me problems, and I deal with problems fast. You have your own office because you’re coming in as number three, but that doesn’t give you any special privilege. Any questions? —She didn’t let me answer. She turned and went into her office.

The coworkers looked at me with that welcome-to-the-club smile that needs no explanation. The next day they had nothing new to say: she was bitter, ever since she’d been widowed she’d built a wall, nobody knew anything about her personal life because she didn’t give explanations for anything. I listened without saying too much and started forming my own opinion.

Two days later Cecilia arrived, Natalia’s secretary. She was her sister-in-law, the deceased husband’s sister. She had to be around thirty-eight, her hair always pulled up in some kind of elaborate bun, brightly colored clothes, and a shyness so visible it was almost a physical condition. She came up to my office with a nervous smile. —Hi, I’m Cecilia. If you need anything, you know where my desk is. —Her voice was soft, the kind that never rises.

To better understand the context, I called an ex-coworker who had known the company for a long time and never lied to me. She confirmed the essentials: Natalia was competent and highly respected, but since becoming widowed three years earlier she’d shut herself away. Her husband, Erik, had died in a traffic accident. Before that they were one of those couples people talked about, she told me: intense her, him just as much or more. Now Natalia ran on work, distance, and no concessions.

I met Cecilia’s husband a few weeks later, during a company lunch. Roberto was a quiet man, the kind who leaves no trace, with a limp handshake and a reserved demeanor that matched his wife’s pretty well. It turned out we were both into the same multiplayer video game, one that was popular that year, and we exchanged usernames to play a few rounds. We played quite a bit, and without me needing to ask him anything specific, Roberto started letting information slip at his own pace.

The conclusions I drew from those conversations were fairly clear. Natalia’s harshness wasn’t innate: it came from absence. Before she was widowed she was a woman who enjoyed life, in every sense. Now the armor was so solid she had convinced everyone that there was nothing left underneath. With Cecilia, it was less explicit, but something in the way she avoided certain topics made me suspect her husband wasn’t as predictable as he seemed either.

The following weeks I had lunch with Cecilia several times. Her looks had changed, though the shyness was still the same. One day, while we were waiting for the bill, I told her what I thought without overcomplicating it. —You’ve got a great body and you always hide it behind clothes that say nothing. A low neckline would suit you very well, I think. —She turned red to the roots of her hair and stammered something I never quite managed to make out. The next day she came to the office in a dress with a deep neckline that made the entire floor look up. Natalia’s face made it clear she didn’t like it one bit.

It was almost lunchtime when Natalia called me into her office. The others were already leaving, and by the end we were alone on the floor. She closed the door more carefully than necessary and crossed her arms. —Cecilia is my sister-in-law. My husband’s sister. And she’s married. You’ve been flirting with her for weeks and she’s falling into the trap. That ends today. —I let her finish. Then I spoke. —Stop right there. In my private life, you have no authority, and neither does anyone else. I’m not harassing any woman. And just because you’ve decided to live as if the world ended doesn’t mean the rest of us have to do the same.

Something changed in her face. She hadn’t expected me to talk back like that. —I don’t live as if anything ended. I’m a responsible person. —She said it with less conviction than she intended. —Sure you do —I replied—. But since we’re at it: calling me a kid was crossing the line. And let me tell you one more thing: what you need is for someone to remind you that you’re a woman before you’re a director. A good afternoon that wipes that funeral face off you.

She froze. I saw her hold her breath, her arms tightening more firmly across her chest. Her light eyes looked at me with something between fury and an attention that didn’t quite fit the fury. —That’s a serious offense —she said at last, in a voice lower than she meant. —Are you going to take action? —I asked calmly—. I can make it easier for you, if you want. —And without rushing, with all the calm in the world, I started unfastening my belt.

She didn’t move. Her eyes dropped on their own, even if she would never have admitted it. When I was exposed before her, the silence in the office was absolute. I saw her swallow. —Do you want to touch it? —I asked—. Or would you rather keep pretending you don’t need it. —Her arms fell to her sides. Her fingers trembled slightly. She took a step forward. Then another. When her fingers brushed me, it was as if the tension built up over weeks had finally found a channel to escape through.

Her hands explored slowly at first, with the caution of someone who hasn’t done something in a long time and is afraid of making a mistake. But the body remembers, and in less than a minute her movements were surer, hungrier. She lifted her eyes to mine and the mask had disappeared completely. There was no trace of the cold director left in her eyes: there was a forty-year-old woman who had gone too long without anyone touching her the way she deserves.

—Like that —I said in a low voice—. No orders. No hierarchies. —She bit her lip. Then she knelt down slowly, like someone surrendering to something she had resisted for a long time, and took me into her mouth. The heat was immediate, intense. She gave herself over to it with the concentration of people who have held something in for a long time and are finally letting it go. Her hands clutched my thighs and she found the rhythm quickly, as if she had been practicing without knowing it. I guided her head with my hand, letting her feel she was in control while obeying at the same time, until her tongue and lips started working with an obscene, wet, constant confidence, drawing a groan out of me I didn’t bother hiding.

I lifted her when I felt her losing control and sat her on the edge of her desk. I swept an arm across the papers and several fell to the floor. Neither of us cared. I unbuttoned her blouse slowly, button by button, while she looked at me with that mixture of disbelief and hunger that can’t be faked. I pulled her fitted skirt down to her ankles and left it there. Underneath, she wore nothing. Her body was exactly what the suit promised: firm, generous, built with just the right number of years. I parted her legs with my hands and watched her breathe in sharply when I ran my fingers over her already wet cunt, opening her patiently, feeling her thighs tense and her skin rise with goosebumps under every slow, precise caress, each one dirtier in intent than the last.

I touched her slowly, reading every reaction. Every time I got it right, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Her hips pushed forward without her consciously deciding to. —Please —she said at last, voice hoarse and eyes half-lidded—. Please, now. —It wasn’t an order. It was the first genuine request I’d heard from her since I’d known her. I made her even wetter between the thighs, sliding two fingers in carefully, making her knees buckle slightly while she guided me to her rhythm, panting, biting her mouth to keep from crying out.

I entered her slowly, letting her body adjust to mine. The sound she made then, that first long moan escaping through clenched teeth, was the most honest thing that had come out of her since we met. Her legs locked around my waist. I started moving, slowly at first, then harder, while I heard her say things I never imagined that tightly controlled woman would say over the course of weeks. I held her back with one hand and with the other lifted her hips to go deeper, feeling her receive me with a mix of initial resistance and growing surrender, each thrust bringing back a moan wetter, more broken.

I turned her before either of us could finish and bent her over the desk. From that position I took her with more determination, setting the pace myself, and she accepted every shove with a cry muffled against her forearm. Her orgasm hit violently: her whole body went rigid, the cry was long and sharp, and for a few seconds that felt longer, her body was brutally honest about what it felt. I pulled out at the last moment and came over her hips.

***

We stayed silent while we caught our breath. Natalia rested her elbows on the desk and looked at her hands for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was different: lower, without sharp edges. —What happens now? —she asked. —Now —I said while buttoning my pants— you’re going to give me your address. Tonight I’m coming to your place. —There was no protest. There was a long pause, and then she gave it to me from memory, as if she’d been keeping it for this moment without being aware of it.

Her apartment was on a quiet street in the city, on an upper floor with views over the treetops. I arrived at nine and pressed the intercom. The door opened without anyone saying anything. I went up in the elevator and found the door ajar. I went in. Natalia was kneeling in the foyer, barefoot, her shoulders bare, her blonde mane loose around her face. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. The entryway light lit her from the side, leaving the other half in shadow.

I watched her from the doorway for a moment before speaking. —Stand up and go to the living room —I said—. Turn your back to me, leaning on the back of the sofa. —She obeyed without saying anything. Her body moving under that dim light was something hard to look at without reacting. I followed her into the living room. On the coffee table she had left, without me asking, a leather crop that must have been tucked away in a drawer for a long time.

I made her wait in position while I slowly ran the crop along her back, from shoulders to hips. She tensed at the contact, but said nothing. —What do you want? —I asked softly. —For you not to stop —she whispered—. For you not to stop this time. —The first strike was moderate, more to see how she responded than anything else. She responded well: she let out the air in a sound caught between pain and relief, and her hands gripped the sofa back until her knuckles went white.

I punished her methodically and without rushing, alternating the crop with my hands, reading her breathing to know when to speed up and when to pause. Her skin reddened under the blows and she received them with a mixture of tension and surrender that was the exact opposite of everything she showed in the office. When I turned her over and laid her on her back, her eyes were bright and her mouth half-open, her makeup smeared from the effort of holding back. I opened her legs decisively and went back to licking her and fingering her until she trembled all over, first carefully and then with a fiercer and fiercer urgency, while she grabbed my hair and repeated my name as if she no longer knew how to say anything else.

I entered her again, this time with more intent than urgency. I held her gaze while I moved inside her. There were no words this time, from either of us. Only the sound of the two of us in the silence of the apartment, and the final spasms that coursed through her from head to toe, making her dig her nails into my back and leave marks.

I stayed that night. I slept in her bed, with her back against my chest and her breathing slowing until she fell asleep. Before closing my eyes I looked at the ceiling of that bedroom that smelled of an orderly, solitary life, and I thought the following week was going to be very different from the last in that office.

The next day we arrived at work twenty minutes apart. When I went into the office at quarter past nine, Natalia was on the phone. She saw me pass and said nothing, but at the corner of her lips, almost imperceptible, there was something I hadn’t seen in three weeks: the beginning of a smile.