The Supervisor Who Took Off Her Mask That Night

That autumn I arrived at my cousin Marcos’s company at the worst moment of my life. I had just come out of a long relationship and the empty apartment had become unbearable. Marcos called me one Monday afternoon while I was staring at the ceiling, doing nothing useful.

—Carlos, can you give me a hand with the budget control on a job? It’s an important renovation, there are grants involved, and I need someone I trust to oversee the spending. I’ll pay you well.

I didn’t even take three seconds to say yes.

The job was the renovation of an old cultural center in the north, a nineteenth-century building with high ceilings, hallways that creaked underfoot, and a stone façade darkened by time. The project lasted three months. I showed up on Monday, met the site manager, a quiet, methodical man named Rodrigo, and we started working well from day one. I needed that: something to think about.

The foundation funding the renovation sent its own supervisor two weeks after work began. She arrived on a Tuesday morning with a folder under her arm and a gaze that examined everything calmly, without hurrying. Her name was Beatriz. She must have been around forty, maybe a little older, with her hair tied back in the simplicity of someone who doesn’t need to try too hard. She wasn’t the kind of woman who walked into a room hoping to be looked at, but it was hard not to. She had tits that showed discreetly beneath her blouse, and a round ass that filled out her pencil skirt in a way that made it hard to stop looking when she turned around.

—Beatriz Palomares, project coordinator for the foundation —she said, offering me her hand—. I’m here for anything you need.

That same morning we went over the plans together for two hours, and I knew she knew what she was doing. She asked precise questions and her observations were always relevant. No beginner’s clumsiness.

***

During the first week we kept to the formal distance of two people sizing each other up. But construction sites have a way of breaking down that distance. You share coffee at eight in the morning, argue over budget items at midday, and end up talking about anything by late afternoon, when the bricklayers leave and the dust settles over everything.

Beatriz was precise and direct. She didn’t waste time beating around the bush. But when she let her guard down, she had a dry sense of humor that always caught me by surprise.

—What did you study? —she asked one morning while we waited for a delivery of materials.

—Technical engineering. I’ve got two subjects left to finish my master’s.

—You’re still studying while you work?

—I try never to stop. When you stop learning, something dies inside.

She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher.

—Not many people your age think that way —she said.

She was ten years older than me. It wasn’t a secret to either of us, and neither of us pretended it wasn’t true.

With time we started having breakfast together at the corner bar, one of those tiny places with tables pushed close together where you end up telling everything without meaning to. She told me about her divorce, five years earlier. She summed it up in a few words and a lot of silence between them. She had married young to someone who turned out to be a completely different person from the one she had thought he was. The discovery left her without solid ground for a while. After the divorce she threw herself into work, and that was how she had gone on ever since.

—Don’t you miss having someone? —I asked one morning, without really thinking before saying it.

She looked me in the eyes before answering.

—I miss contact. The warmth of another person nearby. But getting into a relationship, I don’t know. I don’t have the same ability to believe things as I used to.

—And sex? —I blurted out, rougher than I meant to.

She laughed from deep in her throat, without looking away.

—I miss that too. It’s been a long time since anyone touched me for real.

I didn’t say anything. Sometimes the best thing is to keep quiet and let someone’s words take up the space they deserve. But the phrase stuck in my head for the rest of the day, as I imagined what it would be like to put my hands on that woman, so sure of herself and so restrained at the same time.

***

Halfway through the project, the opportunity came up to buy ceramic materials at a very good price through a supplier Beatriz knew, a friendly man named Roberto who had his warehouse about ninety miles away. There was a batch of tiles left over from another project, and it fit perfectly with what we needed. The savings were considerable.

—Will you come with me to see it? —Beatriz asked.

—Whenever you want.

We left on Thursday morning in my car. The drive was calm, with that ease that settles between two people when there’s no need to fill the silence anymore. We got to the warehouse at eleven, chose the materials, agreed on the price, and Roberto insisted we eat at his house before heading back. His wife had made a stew and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

At four in the afternoon, with the sky already overcast and the air heavy, we set off back.

The rain started thirty kilometers in. By fifty it was a deluge. The roads in that area are secondary roads, with tight curves, shoulders that disappear when the water rises, and verges that aren’t verges at all but the edge of a ravine. I was driving slowly when I saw the hazard lights of the traffic jam that had formed ahead. I stopped behind the last car.

—Wait here —I told Beatriz, and got out to ask.

A man in a rain poncho explained to me that a landslide had come down onto the road. It was closed. Traffic had confirmed it. No one knew how many hours it would take to clear.

I got back to the car soaked to the bone. Beatriz had already called Roberto. He had been expecting it: he offered us his daughter’s apartment, which was empty that week. Fifteen minutes away.

—There’s no other option —she said—. We can’t stay in the car all night.

We turned around and got there before seven. Roberto left us the keys, explained where everything was, and left after making sure we didn’t need anything. The apartment was small and clean: a kitchen, a living room with two armchairs and a sofa, and two bedrooms at the end of the hall.

Beatriz changed clothes and came out to the living room in jeans and a navy blue sweater that had nothing to do with the woman from the folder and the technical decisions. She was the same person, but different. More herself, maybe. The jeans showed off her ass with a precision the pencil skirt had only hinted at, and under the sweater her tits moved without a bra, with her nipples showing when she walked past the lamp.

***

At nine-thirty the power went out.

The thunder that preceded the blackout shook the windowpanes. Beatriz, who was sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hands, went rigid. In the sudden darkness I heard her held breath.

—Are you okay? —I asked.

—Thunder scares me irrationally —she said softly—. Since I was little. I’ve never been able to get over it.

I found the candles Roberto had pointed out to us and lit two. The flickering light gave shape back to the room and to her face. Her hands were clenched around the cup.

—Come here —I said, pointing to the sofa—. Nothing’s going to happen to you.

I sat down beside her. I took the blanket folded over the sofa arm and draped it over her shoulders. Another thunderclap, closer this time. She pressed herself against me without thinking, with the pure instinct of someone looking for something solid when the ground is shaking. I put my arm around her back and said nothing.

The thunder went on for a long hour. At first we talked, about unimportant things: the job, Roberto, the absurdity of the situation. Then we stopped talking. The heat of her body against mine became a presence that was hard to ignore and that I didn’t want to ignore. I could feel one breast pressed against my side, soft and heavy under the sweater, and I was starting to get hard in a way that would be impossible to hide in three more minutes.

—It’s been a long time since I was like this with anyone —she said quietly, without moving.

—Like what? —I asked.

—Close. That’s all. It’s been years since I knew what this felt like.

The candle flickered. A distant thunderclap this time. The storm was beginning to move east.

When she turned her face toward me, our eyes were very close for a second that lasted longer than normal seconds do. Then her lips found mine with an urgency I hadn’t expected, as if she had been holding something in for too long and no longer had any reason to keep doing it.

I kissed her slowly at first. Then not so slowly. I pushed my tongue all the way in and she bit it, moaning softly. Her hands clung to my neck and she breathed hard, letting fragments of sentences escape between kisses that didn’t need finishing.

—I’m ten years older than you —she murmured against my mouth.

—I know —I said.

—I just wanted you to know —she said, and kissed me again.

I slipped my hand under her sweater and found her bare breast, hot, with the nipple hard as bone. I pinched it between my thumb and forefinger and she let out a gasp straight into my mouth.

—Fuck —she whispered—. Keep going.

I yanked her sweater up and pulled it over her head. Her tits were right at my face, generous, with large areolas and dark, swollen nipples pointing upward. I lunged at them without thinking. I took one whole nipple into my mouth and sucked hard, pulling with my lips, biting it until she arched her back against the sofa.

—Yes, like that, suck my tits —she gasped, grabbing the back of my neck so I wouldn’t stop.

I switched to the other nipple while squeezing the first breast with my free hand. Beatriz was breathing with her mouth open, moving her hips against the sofa as if she were already looking for friction. I popped open the buttons on her jeans with one hand and pulled the zipper down. I slid my fingers under her panties and found her soaked, her cunt open, her clit swollen under my fingertip.

—You’re dripping —I told her in her ear.

—I’ve been like this for two weeks because of you —she replied with a crooked smile—. Since breakfast at the bar.

I rubbed her clit with my middle finger in slow circles and she closed her eyes, clenching her teeth. I slid two fingers inside her and felt her cunt tighten around them, hot, snug, slippery. I moved them slowly, curling them upward, while I kept sucking her tits.

—Fuck me now —she said suddenly, hoarse—. I can’t take it anymore.

I lifted her for a moment to pull her jeans and panties down her legs. She was naked from the waist down, with her tits out from under the sweater that had fallen, her shaved cunt shining in the candlelight. Before I let her take anything off me, I pushed her back against the sofa and knelt between her legs.

—What are you doing? —she gasped.

—Eating your pussy —I said—. I’ve wanted that for two weeks too.

I spread her legs wide and buried my tongue between her lips. She was hot, salty, with a thick taste that clung to my palate. I found her clit with the tip of my tongue and started licking it slowly, up and down, then in circles, then sucking it between my lips as if it were a little nipple. Beatriz gripped the back of the sofa with both hands and started moving her hips against my face.

—There, there, don’t stop, fuck, don’t stop —she kept repeating like a litany.

I slid two fingers into her again while I kept sucking her clit. She pressed my head against her cunt with her hand and I felt her thighs tense around my face. She came with a stifled cry, trembling all over, clamping down on my fingers inside her with a force that almost hurt me.

—Wait, wait —she gasped when I tried to keep going—. Give me a second.

I sat up and she pulled me upward by the shirt. She undid it with buttons nearly torn off and slipped it off me. Then she went after my belt with both hands.

—Show it to me —she said—. I want to see it.

I pulled down my pants and briefs at once. My cock sprang free, hard, the head already wet. Beatriz licked her lips without noticing and took it in her hand. She squeezed it slowly, measuring it, running her thumb over the glans.

—That’s some cock you’ve got —she murmured—. Come here.

She leaned forward and took it in her mouth without ceremony, all the way to the back. I felt the wet heat of her mouth closing around me and had to grab the back of the sofa so I wouldn’t buckle at the knees. Beatriz sucked like she was hungry, her head moving up and down, sucking hard every time she reached the glans, looking up at me from below with shining eyes. She took my balls into her mouth one by one, licked my shaft from base to tip, swallowed me again until her eyes filled with tears and she had to pull back coughing a little.

—Lie down —I told her, voice broken—. I need to fuck you now.

She lay back on the sofa, spreading her legs for me, and motioned with one finger for me to come. I positioned myself between her thighs, grabbed my cock, and ran it over the lips of her cunt, soaking it with her juices. When the tip found the entrance, I pushed slowly, watching it sink in millimeter by millimeter. Beatriz threw her head back and let out a long moan.

—Yes, all of it, give it to me all —she gasped.

I pushed in all the way, until my balls hit her ass. She was tight as hell, hot, so wet my cock moved inside with obscene ease. I started moving slowly, coming almost all the way out and then sinking back in, watching it slide in and out shiny with her juices. She gripped my arms, digging her nails into me.

—Harder —she begged—. Fuck me harder.

I grabbed her legs behind the knees, threw them against her chest, and started pounding her for real. The sofa creaked with every blow. Her tits bounced against her face, obscene, with reddened nipples. Beatriz moaned without caring about anything, cursing between gasps, squeezing her cunt around my cock each time I hit bottom.

—Like that, like that, don’t stop, you’re going to make me come again —she shouted.

I changed her position without pulling out: I put her on all fours on the sofa and got in behind her. I grabbed her ass with both hands, spread it apart, and saw her cunt open and red, waiting for me. I shoved back in in one thrust and she let out a cry. I started fucking her from behind, holding her by the hips, pulling her hair when she asked for it, slapping her ass until it was marked.

—Talk dirty to me —she gasped over her shoulder—. Say filthy things, fuck, don’t go quiet.

—You’re such a slut —I told her, driving into her hard—. A whole foundation supervisor begging for cock like a whore.

—Yes, I’m a whore, your whore tonight, don’t stop —she moaned—. Spread my ass wider, look at me properly while you eat me out.

She came again a few minutes later, her cunt contracting around me in waves that made me lose my rhythm. Before she recovered, I flipped her onto her back again and lifted her up onto me. She got herself onto my cock, took it in her hand, and sat down slowly, sinking it into her cunt with her eyes closed.

—Oh God, you’ve got me so full —she whispered.

She started moving on her own, riding me slowly at first, then faster, bracing her hands on my chest, her tits bouncing in front of my face. I grabbed one and took it into my mouth without stopping my thrusts upward, meeting her with my hips. Beatriz bit her lip, took one hand to her clit, and started rubbing herself while letting herself drop onto me.

—I’m going to come with you inside me —she gasped—. Come with me, you come too.

I felt the spasms starting at the base of my cock. I grabbed her by the hips, held her down on me, and emptied myself inside her in three or four jolts that left me breathless. Beatriz came at the same time, throwing her head back, clamping down around me while I filled her with cum. When it was over, she collapsed onto my chest, sweaty, gasping against my neck.

We stayed like that a long while, my cock still inside, softening slowly, until it slipped out with a sticky sound and a thread of semen ran down her thigh.

—Fuck —she murmured against my shoulder—. I needed this more than I thought.

We spent the night in the same room, under the same blanket, with the thunder moving farther away little by little. Beatriz was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to ask for it. There was no clumsiness or artifice, only a direct, unapologetic surrender that threw me off in a very good way. The second time, well into the early hours of the morning, was different: more urgent, more animal, less thought out. I woke up with her mouth on my cock, sucking it slowly to get me hard again, and as soon as it was ready she got on top of me and took it in herself, fucking me in silence while I was still waking up, biting her fist so she wouldn’t scream loud enough to be heard from the kitchen.

In the morning, before getting up, we did it again. This time slowly, on our sides, her spooned against me, entering her from behind while I kneaded her tits and bit her neck. She came with hardly a sound, with a long shiver running through her whole body. Then we had breakfast with the coffee Roberto kept in the cupboard and left once the sun had already dried the asphalt.

In the car, for a good while, neither of us spoke. We listened to the radio without really listening to it.

—This doesn’t change anything at the job —she said halfway back, looking out the window.

—It didn’t have to change anything —I said.

—Good.

But it did change some things. Not on the project, which kept its rhythm with the same efficiency as always. But in the way we looked at each other in the mornings when we arrived, in the excuses we found to be the last to leave in the afternoon. Three more times in the two months left on the project: once in her hotel room, with her kneeling and sucking me against the TV stand before bending over the bed so I could fuck her from behind; once in an empty job site at nine at night, against a freshly plastered wall, with her skirt hiked to her waist and her panties hanging from one ankle; and the last time in my car, in an empty lot, with her astride me in the passenger seat, riding me until the windows fogged up. Always with the same clarity: no promises neither of us would have known how to keep, no drama, no need to put a name on something that would only complicate everything.

On the last day, when the job was finished and the documentation boxes loaded into Beatriz’s car, she said goodbye to Rodrigo and the others with a professional handshake. She gave me a hug that lasted a little longer than necessary.

—It’s been a good quarter —she said softly by my ear.

—The best I’ve had in a long time —I answered, and I meant it.

***

Over the years that followed, we wrote to each other every now and then. Short emails, without big declarations. She told me what project she was working on, I told her what I was up to. Life moving forward, each of us in our own direction, without pretending it was anything else.

Five years later I got a different message. She had left the foundation and opened her own technical coordination studio. She was doing well, she said, freer than ever. And at the end, almost as an aside: “If you ever pass through here, let me know. I’m glad you’re still in touch.”

I didn’t wait to pass through there. I picked up the phone and called her that same afternoon.

We saw each other one spring weekend, in her city. She was forty-five and had a different energy from the one I remembered, looser, like someone who has finally let go of something that weighed too much. Her studio was doing well. She had taken up a hobby she’d abandoned years earlier. She looked whole.

That time there was no storm. Just a quiet room, two glasses of wine, and the same old ease of being close without needing any more explanation than what bodies give. We fucked three times that night: the first with her on top, riding me slowly, looking into my eyes as she came; the second on all fours at the edge of the bed, face buried in the pillow and ass lifted, while I pounded into her holding her hips; and the third at dawn, with her straddling me in the desk chair, facing away from me, hands on the backrest and tits out, letting me split her open from behind while she watched the first light of morning through the window. She finished by swallowing what I had left to spill, kneeling between my legs, semen shining on her lips when she smiled at me.

We kept seeing each other. Not as often as I’d like, but with the kind of quality few meetings have. Beatriz is one of those people who remind you there’s more world than what you can see from your own window. She taught me that, among other things.

Among other things I don’t forget.