The Stranger in the Vacant Lot Taught Me to Obey

Today is the day. Today I stop imagining it and finally do it.

My name is Daniel. Yesterday I turned the age that officially made me an adult, and I still couldn’t believe it when I woke up this morning. I’m short, thin, with short brown hair, nothing that would stand out on a carriage full of people. For two years I kept telling myself no, that I didn’t really like men, that it would pass. And for two years I’d been lying to myself. Today I’ll find out for sure. Today I lose my virginity.

I’m on the bus that goes out toward the outskirts of the city, my backpack clutched against my legs. There’s an empty lot I’ve been reading about for months in forums and stories: a cruising area half an hour from my house, among abandoned warehouses and tall weeds. To kill the last few minutes I open the contacts app on my phone. I’ve given myself a ridiculous name, “For First Time,” because I couldn’t think of anything better. It doesn’t even take a second before it rings.

—What are you looking for? —someone writes.

I look at his profile. Not bad at all. Early thirties, light eyes, a smile that invites you in. Will this be the one to strip my innocence away? I’m about to reply when I lift my head and realize we’ve already arrived.

I hit the stop button, sling my backpack over my shoulder, and get off. Nobody else gets off with me, and I prefer it that way. I pull my cap down over my eyes, in case someone recognizes me, and head down the street toward the back, where asphalt gives way to dirt and weeds. I’m nervous. My hands are sweating. But there’s something stronger than nerves, something pushing me forward with a tingling I’d never felt before.

In the distance I see a guy my age walk by. Then another, and another, all heading the same way, like pilgrims toward some place only they know. That’s the direction. I quicken my pace along a narrow path through the brush, head lowered. And I nearly run right into a man.

He’s tall, in his fifties, broad-shouldered, blond, wearing a gray suit that fits this muddy place like a slap in the face. He looks me up and down with a grimace of annoyance.

—Don’t you watch where you’re going? —he snaps, in a flat tone that admits no answer.

—Sorry —I stammer, looking away.

I keep going with my heart racing. Farther on I see two guys tangled up in the bushes, hands under their clothes, breaths coming in broken gasps. The scene fascinates me and embarrasses me in equal measure. Today it’s your turn, Daniel, I tell myself. I start wandering around. I cross paths with one guy, look at him, he looks back, but he doesn’t quite do it for me. Then the same thing happens with another. I check the time and nearly forty minutes have gone by in useless circling. You have to decide, I order myself.

I reach into my backpack looking for my cigarettes to calm myself down and realize I left them at home. I curse under my breath. I look around, and who do I see? The man in the suit, sitting on a fallen log, smoking slowly and staring at his phone screen. He looks up. He sees me. And gives me a crooked smile.

—Well, look who it is again —he says.

—Yeah, seems like it —I answer, avoiding his eyes.

—Seems your fate is to keep running into me. —He takes a long drag without taking his eyes off me.

—Can I have a cigarette? —I ask, because it’s the only thing I can think of.

—Earn it. —He says it without raising his voice, but the phrase lands like an order, firm and final, while smoke drifts slowly from his lips.

—And how do I do that? —I murmur.

He stands up without answering. “Follow me,” he says, and I go after him like an automaton, as if someone had switched off the part of my brain that decides. We take a few steps and then he stops.

—No. Better you go in front.

And when I pass him, I feel his hand close around the back of my neck. He guides me with steady pressure, neither rough nor gentle, just sure. It’s a new, incredibly strange sensation, and I admit I like it more than I should. I’m hard in my pants from that alone. I turn my head and he catches my gaze again. This guy is going to take my virginity. I don’t care what he asks of me, but I’m finally doing it.

We reach a half-ruined shack, no doors, lost in the middle of nowhere. His hand shoves me inside and he leans in close to my ear.

—Take off your pants and underwear. On your knees.

—Why do I need to take off my pants? I can do it just fine without…

I don’t finish the sentence. The slap lands first, dry, right on my cheek. It doesn’t hurt, but it cuts off my breath and leaves my face burning.

—Okay, sorry —I say at once, and obey. I pull my pants and underwear down to my ankles and kneel on the cold dirt.

—See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? —He crouches a little to look at me—. Let’s see if you’re one of those who only learn through a beating. You know what comes next, don’t you?

—Yes —I whisper, reaching my hands toward his belt.

—Take it out without unfastening me. The only one with his pants on the ground here is you.

—Yes, sorry.

I slip my hand through the fly and free it. It’s half hard, neither huge nor small, thick, with the foreskin covering it. I like that detail. I remember something I once read, a trick with the tip of the tongue between the head and the skin, playing with the frenulum instead of just sliding my mouth up and down. He’s got hair too, and I like that as well; I don’t understand the obsession with shaving everything.

I start tracing it with my tongue from base to tip, and back again, unhurried, feeling it stiffen under my lips. When it’s fully hard, I take it all the way in, remembering the frenulum, pressing it with the tip of my tongue on every upward stroke. I’m doing it right. I lift my eyes and find him staring straight at me, not blinking. I don’t know whether to hold that gaze or hide from it. Focus on what’s in your mouth, Daniel.

Suddenly I feel his hand on the back of my neck again, pushing me deeper. I gag. I look at him with tears in my eyes and he’s still there, unflinching, watching me as if he were studying every reaction. He starts moving, setting the pace himself, deeper and deeper each time. The gagging keeps coming and he doesn’t seem to care. It gets harder and harder for me to move my tongue. His head pushes its way into my throat and I understand that the only thing I can do is stop resisting, surrender, try to control the nausea, and hand over all the control.

There’s a moment when I’m just about at my limit, but he notices and eases up just in time. He’s an expert, controlling every second. And he starts again, even deeper. I look up into his eyes again and this time he lets a half-smile appear.

—Good boy —he says softly—. You’re doing very well. Not much longer.

That phrase sends a shiver down my spine. He’s going to come like that, just like that? It goes against everything I’ve always been told about taking care of myself, but right now I don’t care at all. I’ve given myself over. My only priority is him.

And then it happens. A deep groan, one final thrust, and I feel a hot stream pouring into my throat. And you know what? I come too, without even touching myself, just from that. He keeps moving slowly, emptying himself, and I look for his eyes. He’s satisfied. I don’t know whether to swallow or not, so I do what I once saw in a video: when he pulls back, I open my mouth to show him. A thread slips from the corner of my lips and he notices. With his finger, unhurried, he gathers it up and puts it back into my mouth.

—Swallow —he orders in that same voice.

And I swallow. And I grin like an idiot.

—Thank you —I murmur.

—Good boy.

I run my tongue over it one last time, just in case there’s anything left, and he steps back.

—Stop —he says.

I stay on my knees, motionless, waiting for an order that doesn’t come, while he puts his now-soft cock away. He looks at me without saying anything. His expression is no longer as hard as before, and I’m surprised by how much I like that calmer look.

—What’s your name? —he asks.

—Daniel. And you?

—Ramón.

—How old are you?

—I turned eighteen yesterday —I answer, still kneeling.

—So you lost your virginity with me as an adult.

—Yeah. Well… actually I lost it completely. It was my first time.

—For a first-timer, you didn’t do badly —he says, almost with a kind of borrowed pride—. And now you’ve been baptized. Come on, get up and get dressed.

I do it without looking up, buttoning my pants with fingers that are still clumsy. What a strange experience. I never imagined I’d behave like this, obeying a stranger as if my brain had been reprogrammed. And yet I feel good. Calm. Floating in some kind of warm cloud.

***

He’s looking at a phone. I pat my pocket and mine isn’t there. I look at the ground. Neither is it there. Then it hits me: the phone in his hand is mine.

—That’s my phone. Give it back.

He doesn’t react. He keeps swiping the screen with his thumb.

—Give me the phone —I repeat, this time angry.

—That’s no way to talk to me —he replies calmly, holding it with two fingers over the opening of a broken window, as if he’s about to drop it—. Ask nicely and I’ll give it back to you.

—Give me the phone, please.

—On your knees.

And I kneel again. I don’t know why I do it, but I do, and I ask him the way he wants.

—Ramón, please, can you give me my phone back? —I beg him, and my face burns with shame.

—That’s more like it, obeying me. See? It’s not that hard, is it? —At last he holds it out to me.

I check it for a few seconds, in case he deleted anything or looked too much. Everything’s fine.

—Don’t trust me? —he asks, amused.

—No —I answer without looking at him.

He laughs under his breath. Then he extends his arm and offers me a cigarette, the one I had to earn.

—Happy birthday —he says.

—Thanks. —I stand up, put it between my lips, and he lights it for me.

—Do you come here often? —I ask, taking the first drag.

—Not that often.

—Will we see each other again? —It’s incredible how much he unsettles me when he looks at me like that.

—I think so. See you later.

And without another word, he turns around and leaves. He leaves me empty, with a crash I hadn’t expected. I stand there still, watching him disappear through the weeds, and not once does he turn his head. I have the absurd urge to follow him, to go with him wherever he’s left his car. I’m a complete wreck. Why did he say he thinks we’ll see each other again? Does he expect me to come here every day looking for him?

I pick up my backpack. Inside, in the top pocket, I’ve got a couple of condoms I brought just in case. The funny thing is, my plan had been different; I was the one who was supposed to take the lead. How ironic. How did I let a stranger come inside me without protection? My mind suddenly jumps to the tests I’ll have to take, to how long it takes before anything shows up. But even that thought can’t completely erase what I felt before.

I reach the bus stop. There are two other guys from the area waiting for the same bus. I pull the brim of my cap down and look at the ground. When I get on, I go straight to the back row, put on my headphones, and let the radio play by itself. An old ballad repeats something about doing it right, and in my head those words are spoken by him, with his calm voice and his hand on my neck. I still have his taste in my mouth.

When I open my eyes, one of the two guys from the stop has sat down next to me. Latino, early twenties, an easy smile.

—Sorry, is this seat free? Can I sit here?

—Yeah.

—Nice to meet you, my name’s Bruno. And you?

—Daniel —I answer automatically.

—You’re from the area, right? —he says, winking at me.

I don’t feel like talking at all.

—I have no idea what you’re talking about. —And I turn the volume up on the radio.

What an afternoon. I close my eyes again. Today I stopped imagining it. And I can’t think of anything else but when I’ll run into him again.