HIS WIFE HIRED ME TO BE INVISIBLE

The doorknob moved. Alex was against me, and his hands were at my waist. His mouth was on my neck. By the time the doorknob stopped moving, my chest ached with his pull. "Alex. Stop," I kept my voice low. "Not at all," he replied. His voice echoed on my skin. "Someone will see us," I said. Both palms on his chest. He did not step back. "Let them see us." He kissed me. My hands stopped pushing and started holding. My heart hammered. It was something I wanted and shouldn't have wanted and couldn't have wanted. We were in Camilla's office, which was on the top floor. The office had glass walls and silence that’s expensive, literary to maintain. Her desk was behind me, a cold-leather mahogany desk, more expensive than my mother's house. She was downstairs in the boardroom for the quarterly board review, which lasts for two hours, he said. I knew what we were doing was wrong in every direction. She was his wife. She was my boss. His shirt felt warm against my fingers, and his blood soaked through the fabric. "Maya," he called. My name sounded heavy in his mouth, heavier than anything else. "I am your wife’s driver," I said. "You are mine," he replied while looking at me. Not in my face. At me. The part that lay below the uniform, the schedule, and the eight months of good service. I looked back. That was a mistake. Looking back was a way of mentioning things without announcing them. How do you express the fact that I also wanted this without saying a word? My hand searched for the hem of my skirt—something warm between my fingers near my inner knee. The leather creaked beneath me. My head went back while his mouth went to my collarbone. Not a kiss. Something more specific. A claim. A question with which I was responding with the sweep of my spine. I held his shirt tighter, and my spine was against the desk. He was the contrast of cold, above all else. I felt both things at once. Cold behind me. Heat ahead of me. My hands were in the weave of his shirt, pulling instead of pushing. Click I heard the sound of the doorknob. My stomach dropped without me even realizing it. Then I understood the handle had not turned on its own. Someone had gripped it. There was someone on the other side of the door. We both went still at the same time. Dumbfounded. We were not expecting anyone at the moment since Camilla was in the boardroom. Only that information came out from both of us at the same time. Alex looked at me quietly without being scared. The quiet that suggested he had done this before. Then he moved two steps back, tucked his shirt, and strengthened his collar. Within five seconds, he looked as if he had been at the window all along, observing the scenery and meditating mindlessly. He barely spoke in a whisper. Go. "Behind the desk," "There is no time." "Behind it. Now." I slid off the surface. My legs could barely hold me. I folded myself into the space behind the mahogany, which was dark and tight. The carpet smelled of ancient wood and cleaning fluid, and that particular lack of dust that came from daily care. I had to stop breathing so heavily. My earring hit the floor. I heard it land, I felt the gap in my left ear. The sudden lightness where gold ought to be. I turned to watch the tiny disc tumble toward the middle of the room. "Leave it," he muttered. I was already moving. I reached my hand around the corner. I discovered the earring with my fingers and wrapped them around it. My earring was small and made of gold. My initials “MC” were written on the back. It was a gift from my mother before I took up this job. Before I became invisible. I pressed it into my palm. The edge cut into my skin. I felt real pain, which distracted me while the rest of my body trembled in fear. I heard heavy heels on the marble. I knew that sound that I had heard for eight months of working with Camilla. The sound came from two hallways away. It suddenly stopped. "Alex?" she called. The same calm voice in which she had used to read board agendas and driver's schedules. "I thought you were in the meeting," she paused. "I forgot the tablet," Alex replied. Her footsteps entered the room. She moved past the door and went across the desk towards me. Each step measured and precise, reflecting the gait of a woman who owned the ground she walked on. I covered my mouth with both hands. The earring punctured further into my palm. I did not make any sound. Her heels stopped beside my head. Close enough to touch me. Her Cold Flower perfume reached me. The same smell I perceived on the headrest every single morning, on the coat I had hung in the wardrobe. I knew it before I could smell it. My chest locked. I could not breathe. "Warm in here," she said. "Did you move my chair?" “No,” Alex replied. “Why did you ask?" "It is not where I left it." She replied She knew where she always kept her things. The chair was angled toward the window. The pens were lined up by color. Everything in the world was put to her liking. "Maybe the cleaners did," Alex said. "Maybe," she responded. She moved away from the desk. The tablet floated above the credenza. Then her footsteps came back slowly. She was looking through things quickly, trying to find evidence. She stopped in front of Alex. "Fix your collar," she said. "It is crooked." "Thank you," Alex replied. Fabric moved. The same shirt I had held two minutes earlier. The same buttons I had touched. "See you at home." She said. "See you later," Alex replied. She turned. Her heels moved towards the door. Each step was deliberate. A woman who had not seen what she wanted to see. Or had not found what she was looking for. I let out half a breath while she was at the handle. My phone was on the desk above me. I put it down when I came in and forgot it when he kissed me. Camilla didn't check behind the desk. She took out her own phone. She typed something short and put it back. My phone buzzed once more. She turned the handle of the door. She walked out, and the door closed. I counted to twenty. My heart was slowing, and my hand was bleeding where the earring had cut. I stood and went up against the wall. My back was to the glass. The city sprawled behind me, indifferent to what just transpired in this room. My hands were not merely shaking; they were doing something more intentional. That was worse. Alex looked out at the city. He sounded like someone who had seen this coming and chosen ahead of time how it would feel. "She knew I was here," I said. "She knew someone was here," he said. He turned from the window. "That is not the same thing." No fear on his face. Just the silence that told him he was a step ahead of her. He was always one step ahead. "Go. She will be going out soon." I looked at my phone and saw one message. It was from Camilla's number. The message was just four words. Bring the car. Now. I held the screen towards him. He looked at it and nodded. He was not surprised. "Alex," I took the earring between my two fingertips and showed him. "I almost didn't pick this thing up." This thing that would have proven I was in this room. He went across the room and took the earring from my palm. He turned it over once and tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat. He placed it on the left side of his heart and said nothing. I watched him do it. "Go," he said. He left first. The door closed behind him. Quiet and certain. A man who had never been apprehended. I stood alone in her office and looked at the message on my screen. I opened the thread and took a screenshot before I had time to think too much. She had sent a task. Bring the car without asking where I had been. She did not bother to know why my phone was on her desk. A woman who asks suspiciously. Surprisingly, Camilla had not asked. I tucked the phone away in my pocket and walked toward the elevator. Eight months of walking through this corridor, the lobby, using the elevator button through the garage entrance. My invisible route in this edifice. I sat in the driver's seat. I felt cold on the backs of my thighs, and cold against my spine like her desk had been. I started the engine. I did not know what she knew. Neither did I know what she was going to do about it. This stuck with me. Four minutes later, she strode through the lobby doors and entered the car without a glance. She crossed her legs and opened her phone. The silence between us had its own kind of familiarity. And we both knew it. And neither of us would say it. "Drive," she said. "Where to, ma'am?" I asked. "The Grill," she replied. I pulled into the street. The city moved past. Busy. Indifferent. I watched the road and the mirror. She looked up. Caught my eye. You look different today," she said. "Long morning." She met my gaze in the mirror. "Yes," she said. I kept my eyes on the road. Hands at ten and two. Kept a neutral face, I had been building for eight months. She turned back to her phone while I drove. The seat was cold beneath me. She said nothing, kept her silence. She had not confronted me either. END