The Rancher Who Picked Me Up in His Pickup

The room smelled of used sheets and cheap cologne when Baltasar finished. He moved away from the woman, slipped off the condom with two fingers, and let it drop to the floor without looking where. She, a big-breasted blonde who called herself Brenda, was still lying there, catching her breath, with a grimace that was meant to be a smile.

—You’re a stunner, baby —he said, and left two bills on the nightstand.

—Glad you liked it.

He got up heavily, his ninety-odd kilos creaking in his knees, and went into the bathroom. She heard the long piss, then the rush of the shower. When he came out, still wet, he scratched his hairy belly and took his gold watch, a chain with a cross the size of a finger, and his phone from the nightstand. She looked at the towel tossed on the floor and the water pooled on the tiles. He realized where that look was going.

—Sorry —he said, without meaning it—. I don’t like smelling like anything but myself.

He went down the stairs in jeans and a red shirt open two buttons, his graying mat of chest hair showing. At the door, Dolores, the owner, was waiting for him.

—Don Baltasar, what did you think of the new girl?

—Fantastic. She’ll do great, you’ll see. —He put another bill in her hand—. This is for introducing me to her and for the room.

He put on mirrored sunglasses, lit a cigarette, and walked toward his black pickup, a gleaming beast with a bull sticker on the tailgate. It was ten in the morning and he had four hours of driving ahead of him.

***

Baltasar Quintana, fifty-two years old, a rancher through and through and proud of it, preferred to strike deals face to face even though he had the latest phone model in his pocket. He was going to buy some black pigs and close the sale of two fighting bulls. Three hours later, forty kilometers short of his destination, he pulled off into a rest area where an old friend ran a tapas bar.

—I knew it was you without even seeing you! —Honorio called from behind the bar.

—How’s that?

—That bull sticker on that machine you drive. You bastard, things are going well for you.

—Pour me a beer and some tapas. I’ve got a long day ahead.

Honorio served the beer and leaned on the counter.

—You looked like you’d already been to Dolores’s place.

—I had my balls full. And she’s got a new girl, a blonde who’s a treat.

—They say she’s worth what she costs. It’s a bit out of the way for me, but every time I pass by I think twice.

While they were talking, a skinny boy came in from the shower area, a backpack over one shoulder. He was young, hairless, with a somewhat ambiguous look, dark, his long hair tied back in a still-wet ponytail. He walked with a certain fragility, measuring each step. He took cigarettes from the machine and came over.

—Good afternoon. Do you know if any bus goes up to Las Cumbres del Vado?

—There’s only one in the morning —said Honorio—. And hardly anyone takes it.

—Then I’m going to see if I can find a trucker heading up there. —He fixed his gaze on Baltasar—. Or maybe you, sir.

—Ask for a taxi, that would be the normal thing —Baltasar replied, raking him from head to toe with eyes that didn’t hide a thing.

The boy held his gaze for a second too long, shrugged, and left. Honorio spat into the sink.

—He’s Saturnino’s grandson, the goat man’s. Good kid, though you can see what he looks like. Las Cumbres is at the far end of the county, up high. Twenty kilometers off the road.

—He’s in for it, then.

Baltasar finished his beer, left a few coins, and said goodbye with a hug. But when he climbed into the pickup he didn’t start it right away. He looked back and forth across the forecourt until he found him: the boy’s skinny silhouette by the roadside ditch, thumb out, ponytail shining in the sun. Something tightened inside him, an old hunger he knew well.

He started up, pulled out onto the road, and when he reached him, he braked and lowered the window.

—I can give you a lift if you show me the way.

—Great! I thought you weren’t going to…

—Stop thinking and get in.

***

The boy buckled his seat belt and dropped his backpack between his legs. Baltasar watched him through his mirrored sunglasses: skin without a single mark, a slender neck, long fingers.

—You tell me where to turn, Adrián.

—How do you know my…? —He stopped, glanced for a second at the eagle tattoo on the man’s forearm, and decided not to ask—. You’re very kind.

—Use tu, don’t call me sir. I’m not that old. Well, I am old, but not that old.

Adrián smiled. The road began to climb between holm oaks and dry brush. The engine answered with a deep purr every time Baltasar pressed the pedal. The boy rested his elbow on the window and let the breeze move the loose strands of his hair.

—You’ve got an amazing pickup —he said, and his hand rested, as if by accident, on the driver’s thigh.

Baltasar didn’t move it away. He drove like that for a while, with the other man’s palm warming his jeans, feeling the boy test the ground with tiny caresses. When he reached a long, empty stretch, he took one hand off the wheel and brought it to Adrián’s hair, wound his ponytail around his fingers, and gave it a slight tug, just enough to make the boy throw his head back.

—Look ahead, you’ll get us killed —murmured Adrián, but his voice had gone husky.

—Is that good or bad? —Baltasar looked back at the road, though his hand stayed a moment longer at the boy’s nape—. From what I can tell, I at least don’t disgust you.

—Nothing about you disgusts me —said Adrián, letting his fingers slide up the man’s thigh until he felt the bulge growing under the fabric—. I’d bet you’re one of those who likes to be in charge.

—You’ll know soon enough. Is there somewhere around here to stop?

—A bit farther up, in the moorland, there’s an abandoned shepherd’s hut. Nobody goes by. You can pull off there.

***

The track turned to dirt and stones. At the end a low adobe building appeared, with no door or windows, the ground around it covered in dry grass. They got out. Baltasar lit another cigarette, took a deep drag, and went over to the boy, who was waiting for him leaning on the tailgate.

—You don’t even offer —said Adrián.

In answer, Baltasar grabbed him by the waist and kissed him hard. He towered over him by a full head. The boy went for his belt while Baltasar bit at his neck, rubbed his graying beard against his jaw, and pulled down the zipper of his sweatshirt. He took a blanket from the pickup bed and spread it inside the hut. Grasshoppers sprang from the weeds; a couple of birds took off from the eaves.

They undressed slowly, sizing each other up. Baltasar was a mass of muscle and gray hair, broad-chested, with huge hands. Adrián, on the other hand, was all fine lines: pale skin, flat stomach, two small tattoos —a wolf and a bird— on his ribs. They stood there for a moment looking at each other, feeling what was in front of them, before the boy knelt on the blanket.

He did it eagerly, without hurry, alternating tongue and lips, lifting his eyes now and then to hold the man’s gaze. Baltasar stroked his hair, let the ponytail come loose, and gave a low growl every time the boy tightened. Then he laid him down, spread his legs, and returned the favor with a patience Adrián hadn’t expected from such a brute. He bit the inside of his thighs, dragged his rough beard across places that made him arch his back and gasp.

—You got something? —Baltasar asked, his voice rough.

Adrián reached over to the backpack and took out a bottle and a condom. The man smiled: the boy had come prepared, and he liked that. He set it in place carefully, without roughness, taking his time opening it with his fingers while the boy panted and begged for more through clenched teeth.

—Slowly... like that... —murmured Adrián.

—You hang in there. I know what I’m doing.

He went in little by little, attentive to every flinch, stopping when the boy squeezed his eyelids shut, moving forward when he relaxed. Adrián dug his heels into his back and, when he finally had him all the way in, let out a long moan that bounced off the adobe walls. From there it became a back-and-forth that grew deeper and deeper, the man’s hands holding his hips, his beard against his neck, both of them sweating under the hut’s low, hot roof.

—Do you like it? —Baltasar asked, jaw clenched.

—Yes... don’t stop...

They came almost at the same time, the man with a muffled roar, the boy shuddering beneath him, clutching his broad shoulders. They stayed still for a moment, chest to chest, catching their breath, the hum of insects the only sound. Then they pulled apart and lay on their backs on the blanket, staring up at the worm-eaten beams of the roof.

***

Baltasar looked at his watch and cursed under his breath. They dressed quickly and got back into the pickup. This time, when he lit a cigarette, he offered one to the boy before pulling out.

—You burn through energy for your age —said Adrián—. How old are you?

—Fifty-two. And you?

—Twenty-two.

—It’s not your first time with an older guy. I can tell.

—No —the boy laughed, blowing smoke out the window—. Though my beginnings were weird, don’t think otherwise.

—Tell me about it. We’ve still got some climbing left.

Adrián settled into his seat and watched the scrubland rolling by on the other side of the glass.

—I’d just turned eighteen. I worked one summer on a big estate, far from home, picking olives. There was a foreman there, a man in his forties, quiet, strong, one of those men who never need to raise their voice. I watched him without really knowing why, and he noticed.

—And one day it happened.

—One day I stayed behind at the end of the shift helping him lock up the warehouse. We were alone. He asked if I wanted to stay a little longer. —Adrián smiled to himself—. I said yes before he’d finished the sentence. He never pushed me at any point; he led me slowly, patiently, letting me decide every step. That night I understood what I liked.

—Good teacher.

—The best. After that summer I knew what I was looking for. Guys like you, seasoned, who know what they want but don’t treat you like an object.

Baltasar let out a long whistle and squeezed his knee without taking his eyes off the road.

—Well, today you got yourself a fine specimen —he said, and they both laughed.

They talked about nonsense the rest of the way: the price of livestock, the towns that were emptying out, the children Baltasar had scattered around the county and who texted him all the time. The boy told him about his grandfather, the goat man, and why he went up to see him every few weeks. By the time they reached Las Cumbres del Vado, just a handful of houses hanging off the hillside, they seemed like old acquaintances.

—This is where I get off —said Adrián.

He got out, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and leaned into the window for a moment. No kisses, no promises. Just a look that said everything.

—Thanks for the ride, rancher.

—Take care, kid.

The boy walked away uphill. Before he turned the corner, he looked back and saw Baltasar, leaning on the tailgate of the pickup beside the bull sticker, lighting another cigarette and scratching his belly with that calm of a satisfied animal. Then the man got into the cab, rolled the window all the way down, turned the radio up full blast, and drove back down the road toward the valley, with the feeling that he had emptied out of something more than just tiredness.