Conclusion

I signed the transfer myself. By Friday his desk was cleared. She watched them wheel the monitor away and did not stand. When the elevator took him for the last time I felt the small snap of whatever was left between them. She felt it too. Then it went quiet inside her.

That night I called her in after the floor emptied. She locked the door without being told. I looked at her until she understood, then nodded at the desk. She bent over it, skirt up, underwear down, and waited. I took her from behind, one hand on the back of her neck, slow enough that she felt every inch. She stayed silent except for her breathing. When I finished I stayed inside her. She rested her forehead on her arms and did not move until I pulled out.

“He’s gone,” I said.

“I know.”

“You can still leave.”

She fixed her clothes. Her hands did not shake. “Where would I go?”

She already knew the answer.

Within a week the small suitcase lived in the bottom drawer. She changed in the bathroom, slept on the sofa when I worked late, and woke when I wanted her. Some nights I woke her at two with my hand between her legs. She opened without speaking. Other nights she cried while I moved inside her—silent tears that ran into the cushion. She never asked me to stop. Afterward she cleaned herself in the dark and lay back down. The regret stayed. She learned how to carry it.

The office noticed, then stopped noticing. She no longer flinched when I touched her hair in front of others. She brought coffee and stood close enough for my hand to rest on her hip. People lowered their voices and kept walking. What had been rumor became simple fact.

He called three times the first week. She declined every one. On the fourth she answered. His voice cracked through the speaker.

“Just tell me you’re okay. Please. Tell me he didn’t—”

“I’m fine,” she said. Flat. “Don’t call again.”

She hung up. That night I fucked her on the sofa while she stared at the ceiling. She thought about his voice. I felt the dull ache mix with the sharper one between her legs. When I told her to look at me she did. I wiped a tear from her cheek and kept going. She let me.

She learned the hour I usually wanted her and began waiting. She learned how I liked her mouth, how long I liked to stay inside her after, how I preferred the marks visible the next day. She gave all of it. In the early mornings, when the office was still dark and her body hurt in the usual places, the regret rose thick and heavy. She pressed it down, checked her phone, saw nothing from him, and deleted the thread anyway.

One night I took her against the glass. City lights behind us. I held her wrists above her head and fucked her slowly while she watched our reflection. Her face stayed calm. Only her eyes looked tired. When she came she made a small broken sound and hated herself for it. I felt the hate. I kissed the side of her neck—cold mouth, warm skin—and said nothing. She stayed where I put her until I was done.

Later she sat on the edge of the desk in my shirt, legs bare, staring at the empty space where his desk used to be. I worked. She did not speak. The regret was still there, constant, but it no longer moved her.

When I closed the laptop I looked at her.

“Come here.”

She came. She climbed into my lap, sore and quiet, and rested her head on my shoulder. My hand settled on her thigh. For a long moment she was still. Then the words started, low and ragged, pressed against my collar.

“Please… don’t make me do it again tonight. It hurts. I’m still sore from this morning. Please. I’ll do anything else. Just not that. Please.”

Her voice cracked on the last word. She kept going, softer, almost begging into my shirt. “I’ll use my mouth. I’ll stay all night. Just please don’t put it in. Not again. Not yet. I’m sorry. Please.”

I let her talk. The begging was severe, desperate, the kind that comes when someone already knows it will not work. My hand tightened on her thigh. She felt it and the words stumbled, then continued anyway, smaller now.

“Please. I’ll be good. I won’t cry. Just… not inside. Please.”

I turned her face up with two fingers. Her eyes were wet. She was still whispering the same pleas. I kissed her once, slow, and felt her shiver.

“On the desk,” I said.

She made a small sound—half sob, half surrender—and climbed off my lap. She bent over the desk again, skirt already gone, and spread her legs without being told. The begging had not stopped. It had only dropped to a whisper against the wood.

“Please… it hurts… please…”

I pushed in anyway. She was tight and raw. She cried out, then bit her own wrist to muffle it. I held her hips and took what I wanted while she kept begging, voice breaking, body giving. Outside the glass the office stayed dark. Somewhere in the city her brother was still waiting for a call that would not come. She stayed exactly where I put her, my personal thing, sobbing and pleading and opening for me anyway, and I did not stop until I was finished. The regret stayed with her. So did I.