Office

I had spent years faking it in my husband’s bed. That night, a man half my age whispered a bolero in my ear, and everything I thought was asleep inside me suddenly woke up.

For years we were no-strings-attached lovers, and she was always in charge. The day she signed my dismissal, I decided that, for once, I would set the terms.

No one looked at me at that party. I rubbed the lamp out of boredom and wished for a body no one could ignore; I never imagined the price.

For months she had been preparing the same lunch without me understanding the message. That afternoon, I came home determined to answer her the way she wanted.

It was meant for Andrés, my boyfriend. But the blue double check appeared three seconds later, and I realized, my stomach turning cold, that I’d sent it to the wrong man.

She told me to come back at ten, when she was closing, and promised to suck me better than anyone. It took four nights to find her at the register again.

Bored in front of the television and alone in a bed that was too large, she closed her eyes and let her hand do what she hadn’t allowed herself to do for two years.

I’d spent weeks watching her from the corner of my eye as she emptied the wastebaskets. That night, alone together in the office, she was the one who asked me to help her.

She slid the bolt behind me, and before I could protest, her fingers were already searching for my belt. She only said, “I heard it was your birthday.”

I accepted a drink after work, thinking it would be innocent. Three hours later, I realized I’d never wanted it to be.

I knew exactly what crossing my legs in front of his desk would do. What he didn’t know was the surprise I was hiding beneath my skirt.

I had been at reception for a month when the Friday party changed everything: a hand beneath the table, a decision I hadn’t planned, and a Monday that was no longer work.

He was the age of my older daughter and stretched up to look down my cleavage while I signed papers. I said nothing. The next day I chose the dress with him in mind.

Everyone at the office talked about Marcos’s wife’s body. I only wanted to see it with my own eyes, even if I had to invent a dismissal to do it.

Her suitcases were in the car and her resignation was in hand. She only had one more door to cross before starting over—and that door changed everything.

I had been unemployed for months when I started working at his warehouse. I never imagined that my best friend’s serious, broad-handed father would undo me with a single look.

It was eight-thirty, half an hour before the client’s call, and I already knew exactly how I wanted us to spend the wait.

I took a seat in the third row with a cold coffee and my skepticism folded inside my notebook. I didn’t know every word she said would rewrite who I was, down to the last button.

We’d spent a week planning that night: her husband at soccer, my wife in class. What we didn’t plan was how many times we’d be interrupted.

I always took his comments as office banter, until the night I closed my suitcase, put on my makeup in the mirror, and knocked on his door.