That Night I Shouldn’t Have Stayed Alone at the Office

Elena always arrived at the office first and almost always left last. At twenty-eight, she was the administrative coordinator of a property management company downtown: she organized schedules, supervised contracts, and managed twelve people with a combination of efficiency and authority that intimidated those who didn’t know her well. Dark, wavy hair, light eyes behind fine-rimmed glasses, a fitted gray skirt that reached halfway down her thighs, and five-centimeter heels that echoed through the corridors long before she appeared. That was how she arrived every morning.

That morning was no different, although Marcos had stayed on the sofa with his cold coffee and his usual expression. He was an architect, and he had gone four months without a worthwhile commission. He talked to her about estimates, clients who never called, cheaper competition. Elena listened while finishing getting ready in front of the hallway mirror. They kissed each other on the cheek before leaving. A quick, tepid kiss that tasted of nothing in particular.

—I’ll make it up to you tonight —he said.

She smiled, picked up her bag, and closed the door.

***

Don Ernesto arrived at the building at seven-thirty, half an hour before the administrative staff. Fifty-five years old, a worn blue uniform, a cleaning cart with wheels that squeaked along the marble corridors. He was an ordinary-looking man: a prominent belly bulging over his belt, callused hands from decades of physical labor, graying hair slicked back with cheap pomade. No one looked at him twice. He didn’t expect anyone to look at him either.

Except when he looked at Elena.

He had watched her for almost two years with a mixture of resigned fascination and desire that he confessed to no one, not even himself at night. He liked the way she walked through the corridors, her long legs above her heels, the fitted skirt shifting with every step. He liked the way she crossed her arms when reprimanding someone, how the gesture made her blouse pull tight across her breasts. He even liked that she never looked at him, that she spoke to him in that bossy, direct tone of someone giving an order and taking it for granted that it would be obeyed.

—Ernesto —she called to him that morning from the corridor without stopping—. There’s a stain on the accounting carpet. I want it perfect. Not like last week.

—Yes, Doña Elena. Right away —he replied.

She had already turned away before he finished the sentence.

Don Ernesto held on to the cart for a second, watching the direction in which she had disappeared. He let out a long sigh and went to do his job.

***

The day passed as usual. Elena reviewed reports, corrected errors in the settlements of three employees, and had a tense meeting with the operations manager. At four-thirty she asked Ernesto to change a lightbulb in the first-floor bathroom and check the seal around a window that was letting cold into the office at the back. He obeyed without saying anything, as always, without asking questions or complaining.

By seven-fifteen, the floor was almost empty. Only Elena remained in her glass-walled office, and Ernesto was at the far end of the corridor with the vacuum cleaner switched off and the cart parked beside the wall. She finished closing the monthly report, filed the documents, and turned off the monitor. She stretched in her chair, and the dress tightened over her breasts with the movement.

Then there was a knock at her door.

It was Ernesto. He poked his head in, cap in his hands and an apologetic expression on his face.

—Sorry to bother you, Doña Elena. Do you have a second?

She frowned.

—What is it?

—You seemed more serious than usual today. And I wanted to know if I’d done something wrong. If I’d let you down in any way.

It was a clumsy excuse, and they both knew it. Elena looked at him for a few seconds and gestured for him to come in.

—You didn’t do anything wrong. Close the door.

The man entered, closed it carefully, and stood before her with his hands clasped in front of his belly, in that habitual posture of his: hunched inward, as if he wanted to take up less space. Elena sat on the edge of the desk and looked at him.

—What did you really want to tell me?

Ernesto lowered his eyes to the floor. It took him a moment to speak.

—You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in many years, Doña Elena. I’m sorry if that’s insolent. I don’t expect anything. I just wanted to tell you once, before I lost my nerve.

There was silence.

Elena should have sent him home then and there. She should have been offended, should have made him understand that comments like that were not welcome. But there was something in the confession, in the way a tired older man looked at her with such honesty and without expecting anything in return, that disarmed her in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

—I’m not going to fire you for that —she said at last—. But don’t say it again.

—I won’t. Thank you, Doña Elena.

He didn’t leave.

—Is there something else? —she asked.

Ernesto raised his eyes. They were dark and direct when he stopped looking at the floor.

—I’m going to ask you for something, and you can throw me out if you want. I won’t be offended. At home, my wife hasn’t looked at me in years. She tells me I’m old now, that I embarrass her. And you… —he swallowed—. I just wanted to look, Doña Elena. Just look. Nothing more than that. For a moment.

It was an absurd request. It should have outraged her. And it did: she straightened, tensed her shoulders, and was already searching for the words to tell him to collect his things and not come back the next day.

Then the telephone rang.

It was Felipe, an acquaintance of Marcos’s. His voice sounded half guilty, half amused.

—Elena, hey, I’m calling because I think you should know. We’re at Candela, the bar downtown. Marcos has had four drinks and he’s watching the girls’ show as if it were the first time in his life. I thought it would be better to let you know.

He hung up before she could answer.

Elena stared at the phone’s dark screen. She felt a wave of heat rise up her neck: humiliation, anger, something that wasn’t exactly pain but felt very much like it. Four months of unpaid bills and promises that things would get better, and now this.

Let him enjoy himself.

She looked at Ernesto, who was still standing there, not understanding anything that had just happened.

—Close the curtains —she said in a flat voice.

—Doña Elena?

—The curtains. Close all of them.

***

What happened next took place slowly, with the kind of slowness belonging to things that shouldn’t happen. Elena undid the top buttons of her dress with fingers that weren’t trembling as much as they should have been. Ernesto watched her with his eyes wide, not daring to approach or even breathe too loudly.

—You only look —she said—. Nothing else.

—I’ll only look —he repeated—. I swear, I’ll only look.

The gray fabric opened. Her black lace bra appeared, and beneath it the pale skin and breasts Ernesto had imagined for two years from the other side of the office glass. He remained still, breathing more heavily than before, his hands hanging at his sides.

—My God —he murmured, almost to himself.

Then Elena made the mistake that changed everything: she looked him in the eyes.

There was something in that look, in the restrained, respectful hunger of a man no one paid attention to, that reached her in a way she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t desire, at first. It was something else. The certainty that, for that man, at that moment, she was the only thing that existed in the world.

—Come closer —she said.

Ernesto took one step, then another, until he stood before her, so close that Elena could smell cheap soap, work clothes, and the human heat accumulated throughout the day. He slowly raised one hand, waiting for permission, and she didn’t move away. His rough fingers touched her cheek first, then the line of her neck, as if he were checking that she was real. Elena swallowed. Her breasts were rising and falling faster than normal, and this man with a belly and laborer’s hands was looking at her as if she were a queen and a whore at the same time, unable to decide which of those two words fit better in his mouth.

—Like this? —he asked, almost in a whisper.

—Like that —she replied.

Then he kissed her. It wasn’t an elegant kiss. It was slow and awkward at first, with an almost reverent hesitation, but as soon as Elena opened her mouth and let his tongue inside, Ernesto let out a low moan that vibrated against her lips. The kiss quickly grew filthy: tongues rubbing, teeth grazing, hot saliva, the wet sound of two mouths that had wanted to do exactly that for far too long. Elena grabbed the collar of his uniform and pulled him closer, feeling the pressure of his belly against the edge of the desk.

His hands were rough but careful. He touched her as if he were afraid of breaking something, with a slowness that proved more intense than Elena had expected. The contrast between the roughness of his skin and the delicacy with which he caressed her was disturbing. The guilt was there, in the background, but the body has its own memory, and Elena’s had been ignored for months.

When Ernesto tilted his head and kissed her neck, she closed her eyes. His tongue drew a wet line from beneath her ear to the hollow of her collarbone. Then it continued lower, awkwardly moving aside the fabric of her bra, slipping his mouth between the edge of the lace and her skin to suck one hard nipple through the fabric. Elena let out a gasp and placed one hand on the desk to keep her balance.

—Fuck —escaped her in a low voice.

Ernesto looked up, aroused by the sound.

—Do you like it? —he asked, with a raw need that was almost embarrassing to hear.

—Don’t talk so much and keep going.

He obeyed. He lowered his hands to the waistband of her skirt, undid it clumsily, and pushed it down her thighs with fierce patience. The fabric fell to the floor. Then came her underwear, also black and fine, already soaked from heat and friction. Ernesto spent a second staring at the pussy covered by the lace triangle, breathing heavily as if he had just reached a long-desired destination.

—Look at me —Elena ordered, her voice raspier than she expected to hear from herself.

He immediately raised his eyes.

—I want you to touch me —she said.

Ernesto’s hand moved down her belly, firm and callused, forcing its way between the folds of her underwear until it found the moisture already staining the fabric. Elena arched her back when two fingers pressed carefully against her clitoris, slowly rubbing in small circles that pulled a longer moan from her. He had no technique, but he had absolute attentiveness: he followed her breathing, the trembling of her legs, the way her thighs parted.

—You’re soaked —he said, with a mixture of surprise and hunger that made her clench her teeth.

—Because you’re touching me right, idiot.

Her answer drew a brief, almost incredulous smile from him, and Ernesto lowered his mouth again. He moved the fabric aside with his fingers and licked her pussy through the lace, then directly over her already bared skin, carefully at first, then with more pressure, swallowing her moans and pushing his tongue between her wet lips as if he had been born to do it. Elena threw her head back and let out a broken cry when he sucked her eagerly, taking her fully into his mouth, licking her clitoris until the muscles in her legs began to tremble.

—Like that, shit, like that —she murmured, shameless now.

He grabbed her hips to hold her up and kept eating her with hungry devotion, licking, sucking, repeating the motion until Elena began to lose all shame and all awareness of the office. Her glasses had gone crooked; she took them off and left them on the desk without seeing where they landed. The sound of air moving in and out between Ernesto’s lips, wet and constant, mingled with the faint tapping of her heels against the wood each time she shuddered.

Elena ended up braced against her own desk with her knees spread, her body completely exposed from the waist down and her skirt bunched uselessly around her hips. Ernesto straightened, his mouth shining with moisture, and looked at her with heavy breathing, his chest rising and falling beneath his open uniform. He touched his crotch through the fabric, where he already had an obvious erection pushing hard against his work trousers.

—I want to see you —she said, and the order came out like a plea.

He pulled his trousers and underwear down to his knees with clumsy, desperate movements. His cock was larger than Elena had assumed, thick and heavy, its dark tip shiny with pre-cum. It wasn’t pretty; it was real, twenty-five years of fantasy turned into hard, throbbing flesh before her.

—God —Elena whispered, her pussy growing even wetter just from looking at it.

Ernesto looked at her with a mixture of embarrassment and animal pride.

—If you want me to stop, I’ll stop.

—You’re not going to stop even if I beg you on my knees.

He raised an eyebrow, surprised by the bluntness of her answer, and she herself felt an almost painful jolt of excitement in her belly. He took her by the waist, sat her on the edge of the desk, and spread her legs with both hands. Elena’s pussy was exposed, shiny, swollen, throbbing with need. Ernesto brushed the tip of his cock against her wet folds once, twice, barely, making her let out a hoarse moan before she thrust her hips toward him.

—Put it in —she said breathlessly—. Now.

He obeyed, slowly at first, pushing the head inside with firm pressure that made her tense and grip the edge of the desk. Elena felt the penetration like a hot blow, a rough stretch that drew a hiss through her teeth. Ernesto remained still for a second, embedded halfway inside her, waiting for her body to give him complete permission. Then he advanced a little farther, then a little more, filling her inch by inch until he was buried in the wet heat of her pussy.

—Fuck… —Elena moaned, her voice breaking.

—You’re so tight —he answered, rougher than he meant to.

—Move, Ernesto. Don’t just sit there like an idiot.

That made him react. He withdrew almost completely and entered again with a slow, brutal, deep thrust that made the desk tremble. The sound of skin against skin began filling the office: wet, repetitive, obscene. Elena clutched his shoulders, digging her nails through the fabric of his uniform as he fucked her with controlled force that grew with every thrust. His belly rubbed against the edge of the desk. His hips slammed against hers. His cock moved in and out at an increasingly determined rhythm, kneading inside the heat she hadn’t felt in months.

—That’s it —Elena gasped—. Like that. Harder.

Ernesto obeyed without speaking, clenching his teeth and driving into her with longer, dirtier, more desperate thrusts. One hand went to her neck, the other sank into her hip to hold her as he pushed her toward the edge of the desk, opening her wider. Elena felt her clitoris rubbing against his sweaty pubis with every stroke, and the friction rose along her spine like an electric current.

—I’m coming —she warned, although no one mattered anymore except the trembling rising between her legs.

—Come with me —Ernesto growled, completely out of control.

And the phrase, spoken in that broken, filthy voice, was what finally shattered her. Elena pressed herself against him, spread her legs wider, and felt the orgasm come over her like a brutal wave, tearing a short, muffled cry from her as her pussy clenched around his cock. Her muscles closed violently, wet and spasmodic, and Ernesto answered with another deeper, wilder thrust, remaining completely inside her as he released a hot ejaculation that filled her in thick pulses. He moaned, long and hoarse, his forehead resting against her shoulder while his semen spilled inside her in spurts.

They stayed like that for a few seconds, both trembling and breathing as if they had run for miles. Elena felt the heat of his cum leaking between her thighs, mixed with her own moisture. Ernesto didn’t move right away; he remained buried inside her, holding her with both hands, as if pulling out would mean admitting that everything was over.

At last, Ernesto went still with his eyes closed and a hoarse moan that echoed through the silence of the empty office. He separated from her slowly, like someone emerging from a dream he didn’t want to wake from.

***

Elena dressed in silence. Ernesto did too, fumbling with the buttons of his uniform. The office smelled like something it never smelled like at that hour.

—This didn’t happen —she said, recovering her usual tone.

—It didn’t happen, Doña Elena —he replied, his eyes once again fixed on the floor.

—You can go.

He picked up his cap, put it over his graying hair, and left without saying anything else. Elena waited until his footsteps disappeared down the corridor. She took her bag, switched off the desk lamp, and left.

In the corridor she ran into David, a young accounting employee who had returned to retrieve some keys. He looked at her for a second longer than he should have: her lips slightly swollen, her cheeks flushed, her dress not quite properly arranged. He opened his mouth and closed it.

—Good night, David —she said without stopping or looking at him.

—Good night, Doña Elena —he replied, and asked nothing.

***

Marcos was asleep on the sofa when she got home, around a quarter past eleven. He didn’t smell of alcohol. On the dining table there was a plate covered with aluminum foil, a glass of water, and the silverware carefully set out. He had made dinner for her.

Elena stood in the doorway, looking at him.

Felipe had lied. Or exaggerated. Or he had called her out of some old jealousy she didn’t want to understand now. What mattered was that Marcos had been there all night waiting for her with dinner ready, and she had spent that time braced against her own desk with the fifty-five-year-old janitor.

She silently removed her heels and went to the bathroom.

Under the shower, while the hot water poured over her, she tried not to think. But the thoughts came anyway: Ernesto’s rough hands on her hips, his heavy breathing, the way he looked at her as if she were the only real thing in the world. The body keeps what the mind wants to forget.

God. What have I done?

She left the bathroom and slipped into bed, careful not to wake Marcos. He shifted slightly and, without opening his eyes, put an arm around her.

—You’re late —he murmured.

—I know —she said—. Sleep.

She lay staring at the ceiling in the darkness, her husband’s arm around her waist, listening to his peaceful breathing. At some point during the night, sleep overcame her. The last thing she thought about was the squeaking wheels of the cleaning cart.

***

Don Ernesto arrived home around midnight. Consuelo was in the living room with the television on and her arms crossed.

—Again at this hour —she said without getting up—. Your dinner is cold. You don’t even call to let me know.

—Thank you —he replied, and went straight to the bathroom without offering any further explanation.

Under the warm water, with the muscles of his body still heavy from the day, Ernesto didn’t think about Consuelo or his children or the usual complaints. He thought about Elena: the gray dress opening, her light eyes looking at him when she said come closer, the sound she made when she came for the first time against the desk he cleaned every morning.

He dried himself slowly. He went out into the hallway. He passed his wife without stopping.

—Is that all? You’re not even going to talk to me? —she protested.

—I’m tired —he said—. Good night, Consuelo.

He went to bed in the darkness with his hands behind his head and a quiet smile on his face. The ceiling was the same as always. The mattress, the same old wool. But something had changed, definitively and irreversibly.

Tomorrow he was going to go to work early. He was going to clean the accounting corridor carpet before anyone arrived. And when Elena appeared in the doorway with her heels echoing on the marble, he was going to lower his eyes to the floor as always.

But they would both know.