The Summer My Cousins Decided to Put Me in My Place

Iván got off the bus in the middle of the afternoon, dragging a wheeled suitcase that was no use on dirt tracks and wearing white sneakers that stopped being white in the first ten meters. He came from the city, from an apartment with air conditioning and fast wifi, and brought with him three designer T-shirts, a pair of expensive headphones, and the pale skin of someone who had spent the winter in front of screens.

He was twenty-two. His cousins, Rocío and Carla, were the same age, but they looked like another species. They’d lived in the country all their lives, and it showed in their firm forearms, in their short nails stained with work, in that deep laugh that came up from their chests when something truly amused them.

“Well, look who finally showed up,” Carla said when she saw him coming down the path, dragging the suitcase over the ruts. “Want me to help with that, or are you going to break a nail?”

Iván forced a smile and said he could manage on his own. He couldn’t. A wheel got stuck on a stone and he had to carry the suitcase the last stretch, sweating under the sun while the two of them watched from the porch without lifting a finger.

The first week was almost kind. They taught him how to milk, and he did it badly. They taught him how to feed the hens, and he did it worse. They warned him not to go near the young colts, and, to show off, he went anyway, and ended up on the ground with a kick a hand’s breadth from his face. His cousins laughed, but it was still a laughter without an edge, almost affectionate.

That changed the day of the castration.

***

The bull was a five-year-old retinto, enormous, with a trunk-thick neck and two dark testicles swinging heavily every time it moved. They had locked it in a narrow pen since the day before, without food, and the animal was snorting and slamming its flank against the wood.

Rocío and Carla were already ready when Iván reached the fence. Knee-high rubber boots, long veterinary gloves, oilskin aprons stained by older jobs. On a plank table they had laid out a very sharp knife, a pair of elastic forceps, a bottle of iodine, and a spray he couldn’t identify.

“Here to watch, or to help, city boy?” Rocío asked as she snapped on the second glove.

“I don’t know... I’m not sure I want to see this.”

Carla let out a short, dry laugh.

“You watch and learn, cousin. Might come in handy someday.”

The two of them laughed together, and the sound slid down his spine like a thread of cold water.

They tied the bull with one rope around the neck and another around the hind legs. They brought it down on its side with a mix of brute strength and skill, the animal kicking and snorting, the girls working with a coordination that seemed rehearsed for years. Rocío knelt behind it, grabbed the sack with one gloved hand, and pulled downward to stretch the skin taut.

Carla passed the elastic band over the testicles, placed it as high as possible, almost at the base of the cord, and with the forceps stretched it until it locked into place with a dull thud. The bull let out a long, hoarse bellow. The rubber was already biting in mercilessly.

“Now comes the good part,” Carla said, lifting the knife.

With one clean cut she opened the sack from top to bottom. Iván felt his stomach rise into his throat. He watched Rocío pull to bring the whole cord out, watched the blade go in first on one side and then the other, watched the animal shudder with every pass. Blood dripped thickly onto the dust. In less than four minutes it was all over, and the two testicles were left on the ground like burst fruit.

The bull, panting, was released into the recovery pen. The girls took off their gloves, wiped their hands on their aprons, and turned to him at the same time.

Iván was white. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes were fixed on those two lumps abandoned on the earth.

“What’s the matter, cousin?” Carla asked, coming closer slowly. “Did the show shock you?”

Rocío wiped a drop that had splashed onto her cheek with the back of her wrist.

“Look at his face. He’s thinking: ‘Jesus Christ, what if it’s my turn?’”

The two of them laughed again. Iván stepped back, and then again, until the fence cut off his escape and he felt the hot wood against his back.

***

Carla was the first to reach him. She didn’t ask permission. She yanked his belt open, pulled down the zipper, and, with one sharp movement, dragged his jeans down to mid-thigh. His underwear followed a second later, torn down with a tug that brushed the skin of his stomach and left his cock exposed, hanging shrunken against his thigh.

“Hey! What are you doing?!” His voice came out high, cracked, ridiculous even to his own ears.

“Relax, city boy. We just want to compare,” Rocío said, and crouched down.

Iván tried to cover himself with his hands, but Carla seized both wrists and lifted them above his head, bracing them against the fence rail. He struggled, and with a shiver he discovered she was much stronger. Her fingers were rough, the kind that pull teats and handle animals weighing five hundred kilos.

He stood exposed under the July sun, his clothes tangled around his thighs and everything else on display for the two of them. Rocío brought her face close without the slightest pretense, so close he felt her warm breath on the skin of his lower belly. What fear and shame had shrunk now looked small, drawn in, pale beside her iodine-stained fingers.

“Look at that little thing,” she said with a fake sweetness that was more frightening than a shout. “So tucked in, so scared. You know how long it would take us to put the band on you? Less than ten seconds. And you’d hardly even notice.”

She circled his balls with two fingers, not squeezing, just weighing them like someone checking fruit at the market. Iván jerked and his knees buckled slightly, and Carla’s deep laugh rumbled right behind his neck.

“Warm too,” Rocío murmured. “And full. A city male keeps a lot in there, huh, cousin? From never fucking.”

“Shut up...” he managed to stammer, his throat dry.

“Shut up?” Rocío let out a little laugh and gave his sack a gentle tug that drew a sharp gasp from him. “Down here, I’m in charge right now. And you shut up.”

Carla pinned his wrists to the wood with one hand and with the other grabbed his jaw, forcing him to look down, to look at what his cousin was doing to him.

“Look at it properly, cousin. Watch how she handles it. And watch how it starts getting bigger.”

Because it was. Against his will, against all the shame burning his face, his cock began to swell slowly between Rocío’s iodine-stained fingers. She noticed and laughed through her nose, a short delighted sound.

“Well, look at that. The little lord has blood after all.”

She closed her whole hand around it and began to stroke him with humiliating slowness, sliding her rough fist up and down his length, squeezing at the base, pulling the foreskin back to leave the head bare. Iván clenched his teeth and turned his face away, but Carla jerked his jaw back around again.

“No, no. You watch. You watch everything.”

“Look how it grows,” Rocío said, raising her voice so he could hear clearly. “Not bad, the boy. Not big, not small. City-sized. Enough to get him hard and just small enough to make the stupid look on his face obvious.”

She spat into her palm, a warm gob that landed over the head of his cock, and kept jerking him with her now-wet hand. The filthy, wet sound, under the afternoon sun and the dust stained with blood just two steps away, made him close his eyes out of sheer embarrassment. He could feel his cock hard now, pulsing in his cousin’s fist, and a thick drop beading at the tip, which Rocío caught with her thumb and brought to her lips without ever taking her eyes off him.

“Salty,” she said, clicking her tongue. “Like the bull.”

“Rocío, fuck...” Iván panted. “Stop, please, stop...”

“Stop?” She got down on her knees in the dust, between his legs spread by his fallen trousers, and took the base of his cock in a grip like an owner’s. “We’ve barely started, cousin.”

And she took him into her mouth.

Iván threw his head back and a hoarse moan escaped him that he couldn’t quite swallow. Rocío’s tongue was rough, hot, and swept over the head with calculated slowness, sucking the tip between her pressed lips, letting it slip out with a smack and swallowing it halfway again. It wasn’t the timid, awkward sucking of the three college girls he’d been with. It was a mouth that knew exactly what it was doing, milking with the same patience with which it would pull a teat in the morning.

“Look at him, Carla,” Rocío said, pulling him from her mouth with a string of saliva hanging from her lip. “Look at the idiotic face he’s got now.”

Carla laughed right against his ear and bit his earlobe with her teeth.

“He loves it, doesn’t he, cousin? Loves being treated like a calf by your sister.” She let go of his wrists, and he, instead of lowering his arms, kept them there, gripping the fence rail as if it were the only thing holding him up. “Keep your hands where they are. If you move, we’ll tie them up again.”

She stepped back to look at him fully, naked from the waist down, cheeks burning and cock shining with saliva, pointing to the sky. Then, without any hurry, she untied her apron, pulled her T-shirt over her head, and remained in her rough work bra, a wide-strapped one, white once, now gray. She unfastened it in front and tossed it at his feet.

Iván had never seen breasts like that. They weren’t the flat, perky tits from ads; they were big, heavy, with the skin of the chest whiter than the rest and dark, wide nipples, hardened by the hot air. She came up to him, took one in each hand, and rubbed them across his face.

“Suck them,” she ordered. “Suck them properly or I swear I’ll put the band on you myself with the forceps.”

He stuck out his tongue and obeyed. He sucked first one, then the other, the broad nipples filling his mouth, tasting of salt and day-old sweat. Carla grabbed his head with both hands, burying his face between her breasts, smothering him for a second, then letting him go, laughing at how he gasped for air.

Down below, Rocío kept working his cock with her mouth, taking it deeper each time, swallowing it whole until he felt her throat close around his head. She stroked his balls with one hand, rolling them between her fingers, squeezing just enough to remind him that she could do whatever she wanted with them. With the other hand she had unfastened her pants and pulled them down, and when he could look down between Carla’s breasts, he saw her kneeling in the dust, slipping two fingers into her cunt while she sucked him.

“He comes quick, for sure,” Rocío said, pulling off him for a moment. “These city boys come as soon as someone touches them. Right, cousin? Say it. Say you’re going to come in your cousin’s mouth like a filthy pig.”

“Rocío... no...” he gasped.

“Say it.”

She squeezed his balls, a warning, not hard, but enough that the humiliation mixed with a lash of pleasure that almost made him finish.

“I’m going to... I’m going to come...” he managed to mumble, voice breaking.

“In whose mouth.”

“In... in my cousin’s mouth...”

“Very good,” she said, and swallowed him whole again.

But she didn’t let him get there. When she felt him going rigid, beginning to pant in broken bursts, she clamped her fist around the base of his cock like a bridle and pulled it from her mouth. Iván let out a choked moan, almost a cry, and his hips thrust forward on their own, searching for her. Rocío laughed and gave the pulsing head a sharp little slap.

“No, darling. You don’t come until I say so.”

She stood and turned to her sister.

“Get up here, Carla. Try him yourself.”

Carla didn’t need asking twice. She yanked off her pants and panties and stood naked from the waist down, broader in the hips than her sister, with a dark, thick mound that had never once been trimmed. She turned around, braced her hands on the fence rail beside Iván’s, and pushed her ass back.

“Put it in,” she said without turning. “And if you dare come before I’m done, I swear on my mother the next job we do is yours. With the same forceps.”

Rocío grabbed his cock from behind and guided it herself between her sister’s cheeks, setting the head against the opening of her cunt. Iván felt the wet heat, the soft flesh parting for him, and he pushed by pure instinct, sinking in one blow all the way to the hilt. Carla let out a deep, satisfied grunt and pressed her hips back against his.

“Now fuck me, cousin. And if you fuck me badly, I’ll cut you.”

He began to move. At first in fear, then in desperation, clutching Carla’s broad hips, thrusting with shame and anger and lust all mixed together. His cousin’s cunt was hot, tight, closing around his cock in rings every time he pulled out. She didn’t moan; she snorted, short and deep, like the bull in the pen, and threw her ass back to drive him to the root.

Rocío had moved behind him and was stroking his back, his balls between his legs, his ass with an open palm. Every so often she slipped a saliva-wet finger into his hole, without warning, just to see him jolt and fuck harder from the shock.

“Look how the little lord learns,” she murmured near his neck. “Look how he’s already fucking like a farmhand. A couple more afternoons and we’ll have him turned into a stud.”

Carla suddenly clenched her teeth and her whole body shook, her cunt sealing around him in slow, deep convulsions that dragged a long gasp out of him. She came without a sound, jaw tight, and only when she was done did she blow out a breath and laugh through her nose.

“Out,” she said, moving away from him as the cock slipped from her with a wet tug. “Now Rocío.”

Rocío was already at his side. She shoved his chest against the rail and climbed up, looping her legs around his waist, guiding his cock inside herself. She braced on his shoulders and started moving from above, riding him with her rubber boots still on, her strong thighs closing around his sides.

“Come on, cousin,” she panted. “Come on, give it all to me. Leave here whatever you’ve got saved up.”

She bit his neck, licked his ear, and grabbed his balls from behind with one hand, squeezing them with the firmness of a farm girl.

“And now yes, come. Come inside, cousin, I want to feel it.”

Iván couldn’t hold on any longer. He exploded inside her with a broken moan, shaking against the fence, his cock emptying in long spurts while Rocío pressed herself against him so she wouldn’t lose a single drop, laughing softly with her mouth against his neck. He felt his semen overflowing between their bodies and running hot down over his balls into the dust.

Rocío climbed down slowly, never taking her eyes off him. She ran two fingers through her dripping cunt, brought them to her mouth, and sucked them clean.

“Salty, like I told you. Like the bull.”

Carla gave a dry laugh. Iván stayed braced against the fence, trembling all over, his legs unable to hold him, his cock still hard and dripping onto the stained apron Rocío had left on the ground.

***

They let him go as suddenly as they had caught him. Carla hauled his pants up in one rough pull, without a shred of care, trapping his still-sensitive cock against the coarse fabric and drawing a whimper from him, and she slapped his ass as if he were a calf that had just been branded. The smack sounded sharp in the still air of the afternoon.

“Come on then. Help us clean all this up,” she ordered, nodding toward the plank table and the trail of blood in the dust.

Iván obeyed without a word. He picked up the forceps, carried the bucket of water, scrubbed the table while they directed him in monosyllables like a new farmhand. Every time he looked up, one of them was staring at him, and he immediately looked back down. He could feel his underwear stuck to him, damp with what had leaked back down inside his pants, and the smell of sex and blood and sweat rose every time he bent over.

“And next time you get squeamish milking a cow,” Rocío said, picking up the clean knife, “remember how easy it is to leave a male good for nothing.”

They walked back toward the house laughing together, talking in low voices, but not low enough, about how “small” and “cute” everything about him had seemed. Iván stayed behind, by the fence, with his legs still weak and his heart pounding in his throat.

He should have felt only rage. He should have packed that same night and gone back to the city, to the air conditioning and the fast wifi, where nobody knocked him down or threatened him or talked to him like he was livestock. But he didn’t. He stood there watching the two of them climb the porch steps, strong and sure, owners of every inch of that place.

And summer had only just begun.

That night, lying on the cot in the back room, with the window open and the crickets filling the silence, Iván couldn’t sleep. He kept replaying again and again the weight of those hands on his wrists, Rocío’s mouth swallowing him whole, Carla’s tight cunt biting at his cock, the icy sweetness with which the two of them had ordered him to come and not come. He reached down to the bulge that had risen again just from remembering, and jerked off slowly under the sheet, biting his lip so he wouldn’t moan, coming a second time into his palm like a teenager, his face burning with shame and wanting more.

For now we’ll leave you with them on, he thought he understood. But only for now.

He knew, with a mixture of dread and something murkier he didn’t dare name, that they weren’t done playing. And that he, however much shame burned in him, no longer wanted to leave.