What I Asked My Best Friend for in the Dark

The first time I asked myself what it would feel like to have another man inside me, I was twenty-three and in a gym locker room, staring straight at the shower without seeing anything. It wasn’t a thought I chose to have. It arrived on its own, the way things do when you can’t ignore them afterward.

I kept it to myself for a long time. I buried it under layers of routine, of dates with girls, of that life you build so you don’t have to explain certain things to yourself. But the thought kept coming back, always at the most unexpected moments, and every time it did, it was harder to dismiss. Over the years I stopped trying.

Marcos has been my best friend since we were seventeen. We studied at the same university, shared an apartment for two years while we were in school, told each other almost everything. I never told him about that curiosity. There were things you simply didn’t say, even if the person in front of you was the one you trusted most in the world. Or maybe precisely because of that.

***

The night that changed everything started the way the best and worst nights do: with nobody planning a damn thing.

It was Friday, in early October. We went out for drinks near my apartment, to a neighborhood bar with a terrace and green-painted wooden chairs, always damp with dew. We ordered a few beers, then a few more, and at some point a bottle of mezcal showed up that no one had exactly asked for, but no one had exactly refused either.

I don’t remember clearly what we talked about. I know we laughed a lot, that by two in the morning we were the last ones at the bar, and that the bartender looked at us with that mix of patience and exhaustion bartenders have at that hour. We walked back on foot, skirting the park, with that warm buzz from the alcohol that makes everything seem reasonably fine.

—Tomorrow I’ll regret this —Marcos said, pointing at the plastic cup he was still holding like he didn’t know where to put it.

—Tomorrow —I repeated.

We got to my apartment, which was closer. We went up the stairs making random comments about the game from the previous week. I threw myself onto my bed without taking off my shoes and Marcos set up the folding mattress on the floor by the window, like he always did when he stayed over. He’d done it a hundred times, in that same apartment, in that same corner. Nothing was different from any other night.

The room went dark. Only a little streetlight came in through the half-lowered blinds: an orange strip across the ceiling.

***

I couldn’t sleep.

My heart was racing, and it wasn’t just because of the alcohol. Since the walk back there had been something buzzing inside me, a kind of electricity I didn’t know where to put. I’d been turned on before we even got into the building, and I still was, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling without seeing it. The idea pressed against my groin with an insistence that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

I heard Marcos settle on the mattress. His breathing became even, slower. I was still the same, skin hot, my dick hard under my pants, and a need that was driving me crazy.

Now or never.

It was a stupid thought. I knew that perfectly well while I was having it. But that’s how these things work: there comes a moment when the pressure inside outweighs the fear, even if only for a fraction of a second, and in that fraction of a second you make a decision that can change everything or change nothing. You don’t know which of the two until after you’ve said it.

—Marcos —I said softly.

Silence. Then:

—What.

It wasn’t a real question. It was the tone of someone caught between sleep and wakefulness who can still answer, but barely.

—I’m horny —I said. My voice came out firmer than I expected.

A pause.

—Me too —he replied, with the calm of someone confirming it’s cloudy outside.

I stayed quiet for a moment. My heart was pounding hard in my chest.

—I wanted to ask you something —I said—. Something different.

Another silence. This one longer, more conscious.

—What thing.

I breathed slowly before answering.

—For a long time I’ve wanted to know what it feels like. With a man. —I stopped for a second—. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to do it to me. From behind. Let it be a secret between us, and if you don’t want to, it’s fine, but I wanted to ask anyway.

The silence that followed was the longest of my life. I counted it. It lasted maybe fifteen seconds, which at that hour of the morning and with that question hanging in the air is an eternity.

—No —Marcos said.

My stomach dropped.

—Okay —I answered—. Sorry for...

—It’s not that I don’t want to —he cut in—. It’s that I don’t know.

Another silence.

—Come on —I said, and surprised myself by saying it—. I’ll do you first. And then you do me.

I heard Marcos move on the mattress. Sit up slowly.

—Come over here —he said.

***

I got off the bed carefully, as if making too much noise might break something. I sat on the edge of the mattress. Marcos was on his back, eyes closed or almost closed, hard to tell in the dark. When I got closer, he took a deep breath and lifted his hips slightly, offering himself without saying it.

I unbuckled his belt. Slowly. I lowered the zipper. The fabric gave way and his cock came out, truly hard, heavy, the tip shiny with moisture. I stared at it a second longer than normal, swallowing, because seeing it like that, so close, so real, turned me on more than I wanted to admit. I wrapped my fingers around it and felt how hot it was. It wasn’t some fantasy heat; it was living flesh, throbbing under my hand.

—Fuck —I muttered.

He let out a short laugh, barely a breath.

I started jerking him slowly, and right away I felt how he responded, how he grew even harder in my palm. I lowered my head and took him into my mouth. The salty taste filled my tongue. Marcos let out a low, contained moan, and that sound went through me from top to bottom. I sucked him eagerly, opening my mouth just enough, running my tongue along the wet shaft, feeling him grow in my mouth until he almost touched my throat. I was surprised by how natural it felt, by how quickly my body understood what to do.

Marcos’s fingers rested for a moment on my head, not pressing, just lying there, and that gesture felt more intimate than everything else. I buried my face between his legs with more hunger, taking him little by little, listening to his breathing get shorter. Every time I eased off, he would murmur a very low, hoarse “like that, like that,” as if he didn’t want to break the room’s bubble.

—Lick my ass —he said in a very low voice.

I lifted my head.

—Not that —I replied.

—It was a joke.

—Ah.

I went back down, laughing under my breath, and this time I sucked him harder, sliding my mouth from the tip to the base, wetting him completely. My hand matched the movement, squeezing and releasing, and my other hand went on its own to my groin, rubbing over my pants in desperation. I was so hard it hurt.

—I want to see you —Marcos said suddenly.

I stopped.

—Now?

—Yeah.

I yanked down my pants and underwear almost violently, letting them fall to my ankles. The room’s air brushed my cock and I shuddered. I stayed kneeling, naked from the waist down, shame mixed with fierce need. Marcos sat up a little and looked at me like he was hungry for that too.

—You’ve got a pretty one —he said.

The sentence hit me straight in the gut.

—Don’t tease me.

—I’m not teasing you.

He sat up, pulled me toward the mattress, and forced me closer. Then we kissed, for the first time that night, a clumsy kiss at first, tasting of alcohol and saliva, but quickly dirtier, more urgent. I bit his lip and he answered by grabbing the back of my neck, opening his mouth wider, thrusting his tongue into me as if he wanted to taste all of me.

When we pulled apart, we were breathing hard.

—Got anything? —he asked.

—No.

A short silence.

—Saliva —I said.

—It’ll have to do —he replied.

***

I leaned against the edge of the mattress, on my knees on the floor, arms stretched out in front of me. My hands were trembling, though not from the cold. The room was silent except for the distant sound of a car passing in the street. My ass was exposed, my skin prickling, my heart pounding in my throat.

Marcos got behind me. I felt his hand settle firmly on my hip, like an anchor. I heard him spit into his palm and then his fingers, warm and wet, found my opening, probing, parting me just a little. The first contact tore a gasp out of me that I tried to smother against the blanket.

—Relax —he said.

—I am relaxed —I lied.

He laughed under his breath and kept going. He slipped one finger in carefully, then another, and I clenched my teeth. The sensation was strange and delicious at once, a mix of pressure, burning, and a deep tingling that made me arch my back. Marcos moved his hand slowly, searching, opening me patiently, barely going in and out, while his other hand held my waist so I wouldn’t move too much.

—Like that, let it happen —he murmured.

His voice made me even weaker. I lowered myself onto my forearms, breathing deeply, feeling myself slowly opening, my own body finally surrendering to what it had been waiting for for years.

When he wanted to put his cock in, the first attempt was difficult. I had to tell him to wait. He was thick, hot, heavy, and the moment he pressed the tip against my opening I felt myself tense again.

—Come on —I said, my face buried in the blanket.

—Tell me if it hurts too much.

—Stop talking so much and fuck me.

That made him laugh, but it also made him hard against me again. He pushed a little, just enough for the head to enter and for pain to bite me from the inside. I let out a muffled moan. We kept going. I breathed three times. With each breath, a little more. The tip advanced, then the thickness, forcing its way in with a fierce pressure that made me see stars for a second.

When he got all the way in, it was a pain I hadn’t expected: sharp and hot at the same time, concentrated in a point I hadn’t known could hurt like that. For a few seconds I focused only on not making a sound. We were a wall and a half away from the neighbor’s apartment, and the hour wasn’t ideal for waking anybody up. I bit the inside of my cheek and waited.

Marcos held me still with both hands on my hips. He didn’t pull out or move at first. He stayed there, inside me, full and tense, and I felt every beat of his cock against my insides, every pulse, every tiny contraction that left me breathless.

The pain began to change. Slowly, but it changed: it started mixing with another sensation, a deep pressure that wasn’t exactly pleasure but wasn’t just discomfort either. Something nameless I hadn’t imagined like that. Something I wanted to keep feeling. My ass burned, yes, but beneath the burn there was a strange, dirty, powerful pleasure, as if they were opening up a new place in my body.

—Keep going —I told him in a whisper.

He moved. Very slowly at first, carefully, not rushing anything. I gripped the bedsheets with both hands. I wanted to touch myself, but the position wouldn’t let me, so I stayed still and let myself be carried by that sensation that was taking over everything else. Marcos started fucking me with short, restrained strokes, going all the way in and then pulling back only slightly, as if he were testing how far he could take me without breaking me.

—More —I asked.

Marcos pushed a little harder. He let out a low sound, almost a growl, and I felt it in my back before I heard it with my ears.

—You fit me well —he said, voice thick.

The phrase lit me up.

—Put it deeper in me.

He obeyed. The bed creaked with every slam of his hips against my ass. My moans became more open, less controlled, and I started moving too, pushing back to take him better. The pleasure built up at the base of my cock, hard and aching, while he drove his dick into me with a rhythm that grew more and more confident.

—You’re squeezing me —he gasped—. Holy shit.

—Keep talking like that —I shot back, and I heard myself say it in a voice that didn’t seem like mine—. Keep going.

Then he changed the angle. One hand on my hip, the other grabbing my chest from behind, and he started driving into me deeper, brushing that inner spot that made me let out a choked cry. My whole body tensed and then suddenly loosened, as if a cord had snapped inside me. I came first, all over the mattress, without touching myself, my cock throbbing between my legs and pleasure exploding at the base of my abdomen in a hot, short, brutal spasm.

—That’s it —Marcos murmured, breathing hard—. That’s it.

The shame lasted a second. Then all that remained was the savage feeling of having him going in and out of me, more and more disordered, the sound of our bodies slapping together getting wetter and wetter. I kept moaning, feeling open, used, satisfied, with an intensity that left me almost dizzy.

—I’m gonna come —he said suddenly.

I don’t know where it came from. But I thought it and said it, without a filter, and he didn’t answer with words. His fingers tightened on my hip. He thrust once more, deep and slow, and then he went still. I felt him pulsing inside me, warm, and heard his breathing become long and slow as he came hard, releasing his load inside me in several thick bursts that made my whole body shudder. I felt the heat spread through my insides, the wetness gathering where there had been pain, and that feeling of being filled to the bottom left me trembling.

He stayed there for a moment without pulling out. Then he slid out slowly and lay flat on his back on the mattress, breathing like he’d run a race.

I was still on my knees, legs weak, ass open, cock dripping against my thigh, my chest rising and falling out of rhythm. I put a hand to my face, disbelieving.

—Thanks —I told him.

I don’t know if it was the right word. I couldn’t think of another one.

***

I got up and went to the bathroom.

I closed the door quietly, turned on the cold shower, and jerked off standing under the stream. I grabbed my cock with my hand, still sensitive, and worked myself until the pressure I’d built up finally broke. I came almost immediately, with an intensity that left my knees weak for a second, feeling the load come out in short pulses that the water washed down over my stomach and thighs. I stayed under the water until the trembling in my hands faded.

I looked at myself in the fogged-up mirror.

That happened.

For the next two days I walked differently. Not in a way anyone else could notice, but I could: a kind of new awareness of my own body, like when you hurt a muscle you didn’t know you had until you feel it working.

I thought about Marcos a lot. Not in a romantic way, or at least not in a way I knew how to classify. More than anything, I thought about the firmness of his hand on my hip. How sure he’d sounded when he said, “Come over here.” The fact that the next day neither of us had mentioned anything, as if there were some tacit agreement nobody needed to propose.

On Monday he texted me to ask if I wanted to go watch a game that afternoon.

I told him yes.

We went. We watched the game. We ate pizza. We laughed at the same things as always. Normal.

***

Today we’re still friends. Good friends. The kind who call each other when something important happens, who show up unannounced and fit on the other’s couch without needing permission.

We never spoke of that night again. There was no awkward conversation, no distance, nothing to solve. It was simply never mentioned again, the way certain things happen that exist in their own parentheses and don’t need an explanation to have been completely real.

Though there are nights, when we go out and drink too much and the way home feels long, when the thought comes back. When I wonder whether it would be enough to tell him again.

I still haven’t done it.

But I think about it a lot.