The Mature Candidate Nobody Expected in That Contest

When the announcement landed in my inbox that Monday morning, the first thing I thought was that it was just another of those corporate initiatives that do little good and get filed away before the quarter is over. The subject line said: “Embajador of the Year Contest — Farmacorp S.A.” The company was looking for a face for events, presentations, and institutional photos. I had been with that company for twelve years. I had beaten my sales quota for four consecutive years. And yet no one had ever proposed anything to me until Mr. Edmundo Castellanos — the chairman of the board, seventy years old as of January, silk tie and Swiss watch — decided we needed an ambassador.

My younger coworkers started whispering to each other as soon as the posters went up on the hallway walls. Daniela, twenty-six, had already touched up her makeup in front of the bathroom mirror. Patricia, twenty-eight, was hunting for public speaking courses on her phone. I looked at them from my desk, took a sip of coffee, and smiled to myself. I was forty-three, with the body I’ve kept disciplined ever since my divorce, firm tits that still fill a lace bra, an ass that the pencil skirt can’t quite hide, and decades of practice reading exactly what men want when they look without daring to say it.

I was going to win this.

I went to Mr. Castellanos’s office at ten in the morning on Tuesday, when most of my coworkers were still deciding whether to risk it. His secretary told me to wait. I waited less than two minutes. When I went in, he was standing by the window facing the main avenue, hands in his pockets, the day’s newspaper folded on the desk as if he had just set it down.

—Lorena —he said. Not “Mrs. Lorena,” not “miss.” Just my name, with that casual familiarity of men who have never needed to be formal to get what they want.

—Good morning, Mr. Edmundo. I’m here to enter the contest.

He turned slowly. He was a man who had learned to hide desire through decades of practice, but no one ever masters it completely. He looked me over from head to toe in the instant it took him to cross the room, that fraction of a second in which the eyes do what protocol forbids. I was wearing a navy pencil skirt that fell below my knees. Discreet. Professional. But I knew exactly what that cut hinted at when I walked, and I knew the neckline of the blouse showed just enough for a man his age to wonder how hard those tits were underneath the bra.

—Fill out this form —he said, handing me a sheet and pointing to the edge of his desk.

As I wrote, bent over the dark wood surface, I felt his presence behind me. He didn’t move. He was simply there, less than a meter away, silent. The kind of silence that isn’t indifference but focused attention on the curve of my ass pressed against the navy fabric.

—You’ve been with us a long time —he said at last.

—Twelve years, Mr. Edmundo.

—It shows. —He paused with intent—. Experience is an asset not everyone knows how to recognize in time.

I handed him the form without saying a word. I looked him straight in the eye and held the silence one second longer than necessary. He didn’t look away.

—There are some interesting candidates this year —he said, lowering his voice even though we were the only ones in the room—. But I think you might have an advantage if we talk in more detail about your profile. This afternoon, after six. Can you stay?

—Here, I suppose.

—Here.

I said goodbye with a smile that was not innocent, and he understood it correctly.

***

At quarter past six, the building was almost empty. The hallway lights were running at half power. Mr. Edmundo’s secretary had already taken her bag. I knocked on the door twice, unhurried.

—Come in —his voice said from inside.

I went in. He was seated behind the desk, his jacket hanging over the back of the chair and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to the elbows. On the corner of the desk was a bottle of red wine, already uncorked, and two glasses.

—I’m glad you came —he said, pouring me some without asking whether I wanted it.

—I’m glad you invited me —I replied, taking the glass.

We sat facing each other. For twenty minutes he talked about the profile the company was looking for: presence, communication, image. I listened, nodded, answered with precision when appropriate. And all that time, behind every word, there was another conversation neither of us named. It was that kind of double dialogue that only exists when two adults know exactly where they’re going and prefer to get there without rushing.

When I placed my hand on the desk to emphasize a point, he covered it with his. Large, dry, firm.

—You know exactly what you’re doing —he said.

—I always do.

He stood up and walked around the desk slowly. I didn’t move. He positioned himself behind me, brushed the hair away from my neck with one hand, and his lips grazed the skin just below my ear. Barely a touch. Enough to make the air leave my lungs without a sound.

I had gone three years without anyone touching me like that. Three years of sales meetings, quarterly reports, work dinners where I was the competent executive and nothing more. Three years of being useful, being reliable, being invisible to anything that wasn’t my professional performance. Three years of sliding two fingers into my cunt in the shower because there was nothing else.

His hands slid from my shoulders to settle on my hips. I let him. More than let him: I wanted him to.

I turned and kissed him.

It was a kiss without urgency, with tongue from the very first second, deep, while his hands squeezed my ass over the skirt. The kind of kiss only someone gives when they’re not afraid of losing what they already have. I liked that. I liked that he wasn’t acting with the anxious clumsiness of someone who needs to confirm the opportunity is real. He knew it was real. I knew it. There was no need to hurry.

He unbuttoned my blouse button by button without taking his eyes off mine. When the fabric gave way and fell open, he slid his fingers inside the black lace bra and freed my tits one by one. He lingered for a moment looking at them before lowering his mouth. He sucked one nipple until it hardened like stone and then the other, alternating, barely biting, tugging with his lips. I loosened his tie and opened his shirt. He smiled with my nipple still between his teeth.

—You’re an extraordinary woman, Lorena.

—I know —I said, and it wasn’t arrogance.

The papers on the desk fell to the floor when he swept them aside with a clean gesture. He helped me up onto the edge of the desk. He took my face in both hands and kissed me again, slower, while his palms moved over my thighs beneath the skirt. His fingers were patient, methodical. They weren’t going straight anywhere. They were tracing. Memorizing. Sliding up the inside of my thigh, stopping just before the edge of my underwear, then gliding back down.

—I’ve been watching you for a long time —he admitted against my mouth.

—I know —I repeated.

—And you never said anything?

—I was waiting for the right moment.

He found the elastic of my underwear and pulled it down slowly. I straightened slightly to help him. My panties hung from one ankle until I kicked them off. Skirt hiked to my waist, legs spread over the mahogany desk, my shaved cunt already soaked and shining under the desk lamp. He touched me with his hand first, with the same patience with which he had explored everything else. His fingers slid over my lips without entering yet, rose to my clit, barely brushed it, then went back down. When he found the exact spot, my hips moved on their own toward him.

—There —I said softly—. Right there. Put them in.

He slid two fingers all the way inside, curled upward, and his thumb rested on my clit. He repeated it with the same precise rhythm, in and out, until I had to brace myself on his shoulders not to lose my balance. I could hear them going in and out of my soaked cunt, that wet sound of fingers fucking a pussy I hadn’t heard from the inside in a long time. The pleasure built layer by layer, with no leaps, no haste. That was what I had been missing for so long: someone unafraid to take the time it takes.

—Eat me —I said—. Get on your knees and eat me.

He knelt in front of me without complaint, a seventy-year-old man between the legs of the woman who was going to win the contest. He spread my pussy lips with his thumbs and stuck out his tongue. The first stroke was long, flat, bottom to top, and ended circling my clit. The moan that escaped me filled the whole office. I gripped the edge of the desk with both hands. I closed my eyes. Outside, the city was still the city: traffic, horns, the steady noise of a Thursday afternoon. Inside, there was only his mouth sucking my clit and his fingers sliding back in and out of my cunt while he ate me.

—Like that, old man. Like that. Don’t stop.

He took me to the edge with a slowness that drove me insane. His tongue worked in precise circles, his fingers fucked me at a steady pace, and I drove my hips into his face without a shred of decorum. When I felt the orgasm about to explode, when my thighs and belly were already clenching, he stopped. He pulled out his fingers and moved his mouth away. He stood up and looked at me with his chin shining from my wetness.

—Not yet —he said.

I climbed down from the desk with trembling legs and unbuckled his belt. I yanked down his trousers and boxer briefs. His cock sprang up hard, harder than I expected from a man his age, thick at the base, the head already slick with pre-cum. I bent down without asking permission and took it into my mouth halfway. His hand found the back of my neck and squeezed, not to force me, but to steady himself. I sucked slowly at first, wrapping him in my entire tongue, up and down, letting it slip from my mouth to lick his balls and then taking him back in. When I had him soaked in my saliva, I picked up the pace. I sucked his dick as if I’d been denied it for three years, because that was exactly what had happened. I heard him let out a growl when the tip hit the back of my throat.

—Enough —he said hoarsely—. Enough or I’ll come in your mouth, and I want to fuck you first.

I wiped my lips with the back of my hand and smiled. I turned him with my hands, pushing at his chest. I sat him down in his own leather chair, the chairman’s chair. I climbed on top of him with my knees on either side of his hips, grabbed his cock with one hand, positioned it exactly where I wanted it, and looked him in the eye when I lowered my ass and took him all the way in. The air burst from his mouth in a dull slap. I didn’t close my eyes. I wanted to see his face while I swallowed his cock to the base.

I set my own pace from the start. I rose slowly until only the tip was inside, then dropped down hard, feeling his cock fill me completely each time. Every movement chosen, every angle calculated. He held my waist, but it was I who set the tempo and intensity. I remembered to take off the rest of my blouse and bra, and I put my tits in his mouth while I kept riding him. He sucked my nipples with his eyes closed while I drove his cock into me again and again. That’s how it works when a woman knows exactly what she wants: she doesn’t wait for the other person to guess, doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t hesitate. She takes it. She rides it. She comes on top of it.

—Look at me —I told him—. Look at my face when I come.

He lifted his head. I lowered one hand and rubbed my clit with two fingers while I kept moving over him. The first orgasm hit fast, clenching my cunt around his cock in waves, and he had to grip my hips hard to keep from coming right there. I didn’t stop. I kept riding him, a little slower but without pausing, until the sensitivity turned back into heat.

—Put me on all fours —I told him as I climbed off him—. On the desk.

I braced myself on my elbows over the mahogany, ass lifted toward him, my skirt still bunched at my waist like a wrinkled waistband. He moved behind me and shoved his cock back into me in one thrust. He grabbed my hair with one hand and my hip with the other and started fucking me with no pretense of gentleness. The desk creaked with every plunge. I pushed my ass back, meeting him, tightening around him on purpose every time he entered. The second time I came like that, with my cheek pressed against the glass of the desk, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream too loud, feeling him slam into the back of my cunt again and again.

The tension accumulated over three years of orderly loneliness released itself with every movement, every breath becoming harder to control. I liked that he held out without breaking too soon. I came twice before he came once. When he finally couldn’t hold back anymore, he pulled out his cock, turned me around, and came on my tits with two guttural grunts, thick ropes of semen splashing over my nipples and sliding down my belly. I wiped it with two fingers, brought them to my mouth, and showed him.

When it was over, we stayed still for a few minutes. His shirt wrinkled. My skirt out of place. The wine glasses barely touched. The city outside kept moving.

—Tomorrow you’ll have an answer —he said at last, his voice a little rough.

—I have no doubts —I replied, climbing off his lap with the same calm with which I had climbed on.

I straightened myself in the small mirror hanging by the door. He watched me without adding anything else. I said goodnight and left with my panties still in the pocket of my coat.

***

The next day, Mr. Edmundo called me to his office first thing in the morning.

—Lorena, you have met all the criteria of the selection process —he said, with the formal tone of someone reading minutes—. However, the rules establish that the final candidacy requires the approval of the board of directors. There are eight members. This afternoon you have a meeting with them in the main room, at four o’clock sharp.

I looked at him for a second without blinking.

—Is the evaluation criterion the same as yours?

He looked away toward the papers on his desk.

—I trust you’ll rise to the occasion.

I walked into the room at four o’clock sharp. Eight men, all over sixty. Dark suits, expensive watches, the kind of silence used deliberately as a tool of power. They gestured me to the seat at the far end of the long table. I sat down slowly, unhurried. I looked at each of them before any of them opened their mouths.

—Mrs. Lorena, we have reviewed your file carefully —said the man presiding—. Mr. Edmundo speaks very highly of you. Very highly, indeed.

—He’s a man with good judgment —I replied.

Someone smiled. Another cleared his throat. A third turned his head slightly toward the window.

I understood perfectly well what was happening. And in that moment, while I looked at them one by one around that enormous table, I made the decision with the same coldness with which I always make the important ones: with full information, no illusions, no drama.

Twelve years in that company. Twelve years of exceeding quotas, of projects delivered ahead of schedule, of meetings where no one had ever truly listened to me. And now, finally, the whole room was looking at me. Eight boardroom cocks thinking the same thing under the table.

Let them look.

I stood up, closed the door softly behind me, turned the key, and smiled at all of them with the smile I’ve spent three decades perfecting.

—Gentlemen —I said, beginning to undo the first button of my blouse—, where do we start?