Photo: Sarah Maxwell

Sex Negative is the Cut’s series on the messy, clumsy, unromantic reality of boning.

In my mid-20s, I was single and working in the property management office of one of those big glass tower condo buildings in Manhattan’s Financial District. You know the ones — full of low-level Wall Street guys and business-school bros. Most of the guys were young and pretty cute, but I always kept my hands to myself. One tenant, though, had different plans.

My job was pretty standard corporate property manager office work. One day, an existing tenant came into the office looking to upgrade from his one-bedroom, so I grabbed some keys and took him to an empty apartment for a tour. He was pretty obviously flirting with me the entire time, and I certainly didn’t try to divert his attention. Nothing physical happened, though, until we came back to the apartment a couple weeks later to do a walk-through the day before he moved in. We were in the bathroom checking everything when I felt him come up behind me and put his hands on my hips. A bold move, but we’d been flirting and joking around with each other at every opportunity in between our first meeting and this one, so it was a welcome one.

We started making out, which quickly turned into groping and then me unzipping his pants and getting on my knees. We were right where we were supposed to be for business reasons, and no one would miss us if we were gone a couple extra minutes. I was really into it — the little hint of danger was exciting. That’s when I heard the front door open, two men talking in Spanish, and then the front door close again. I’ve never whipped a dick out of my mouth so fast in my life. I scooted over as silently as possible to close the bathroom door before they saw us.

Pretty quickly I realized the men in the apartment were from the building’s maintenance crew, there to make a couple repairs we had noted in previous visits. I had no idea how long it would take them, but I knew he and I both had to be as silent as possible for however long we had to be in there. I just kept thinking to myself, “If anyone finds out I’m in here with this guy, I’m going to lose my job, and I know he can’t support the both of us because I’ve seen his paychecks.”

I’m not sure how long I sat there before I started to get bored, mostly because I hadn’t brought my phone with me and had no idea what time it was. The guy, pants still open, kept touching my shoulder and the back of my head, which seemed like an encouragement to get back to sucking his dick, thinly veiled as an act of comfort and reassurance. Once I calmed down, though, I did want to finish things up, mostly to ensure we could have sex again in the future, in a slightly less career-compromising scenario. Before things had taken a turn, I had been having a lot of fun.

When I was satisfied that the maintenance guys were occupied with what they were doing and weren’t gonna try to bust into the bathroom, I reached for him again and finished him off. We hooked up many more times afterward, and although we’ve both gone our separate ways from that building long ago, he still sends me the occasional dirty Snapchat.