What I Felt When I Reunited with My High School Friend

Toni hated doing the shopping on Saturdays for the same reasons he hated processions, Christmas markets, and any event that involved more than three people per square meter: too many people doing too many stupid things at the same time.

The Saturday supermarket was a battlefield. Women with carts driving like they’d just passed their test in a raffle, hipster couples blocking the superfoods aisle while debating whether organic avocado justified mortgaging their grandchildren’s future, and retirees who used their weekly outing to catch up with the neighbors right in front of the yogurt fridge.

And there he was, at forty-eight, pushing a cart that squeaked as if it had arthritis, with a basket containing bread, beer, and that existential sadness of single-serving portions that supermarkets package with such care they seem to scream, “This guy eats alone!”

But the worst part, the truly traumatic part, was the wine aisle. The aisle where men went to die of secondhand embarrassment, because everyone—absolutely everyone—pretended to know about wine when in reality they chose bottles with the scientific method of “not too expensive, not too cheap, because then I’ll drink it while watching series in my underwear.”

Toni grabbed a bottle at random. Twelve euros. It sounded like the price of a responsible adult who paid taxes and sorted his recycling.

“Notes of vanilla and oak with a long, lingering finish. The only thing lingering is going to be my hangover tomorrow, but fine.”

And then, just when he was having his zen moment of consumerist acceptance, someone appeared on the other side of the shelf. Tall. Thin. Black hair down to his shoulders, falling straight as if the universe had hired a stylist just for him.

Toni looked up. And his stomach lurched with a force that would have impressed an Olympic gymnast.

“No. Fuck. It can’t be.”

But it was. Adrià. Adrià Vendrell. Adrià “I-moved-to-the-capital-to-study-things-with-a-lot-of-letters” Vendrell. There he was, in the damn supermarket, buying wine like any mortal. Though, of course, even then he did it with class: a black long-sleeved shirt with the first two buttons undone, dark jeans that fit as if an Italian tailor had cried while making them, and silver-gray streaks at the temples so unfairly attractive they should have been banned under the Geneva Convention.

“Why do I think it’s unfair that he’s so hot? The fluorescent lights are frying my neurons. Or maybe I’m having a stroke. Yes, that must be it.”

Adrià looked up. His dark, almost black eyes locked onto him with the precision of a sniper.

—Toni?

“Shit. He’s seen me. He’s smiling. Say something. Anything. But don’t sound like a complete idiot. Please, brain, cooperate for once in your life.”

—Adrià! —his voice came out too high, like a teenager whose voice is changing in the middle of an oral exam—. Man, it’s been... what? Thirty years?

—Something like that —Adrià smiled with that slight smile of his, like he knew some secret joke about the universe and was saving the punchline for the perfect moment.

He came closer with that way of moving Toni remembered perfectly: deliberate, unhurried, as if space adapted to him rather than the other way around.

—You’re... the same —Toni lied, because that’s what you said in these cases.

—You too.

“Holy-level white lie. I’m balding like a billiard ball, with a beer belly that defies gravity, and I sweat just standing still. He looks like he stepped out of an arthouse vampire movie.”

They shook hands. And that was when Toni noticed Adrià had pianist hands: long fingers, cool despite the infernal supermarket heat, firm but not aggressive. A stupid shiver shot up Toni’s arm like badly insulated electricity.

“They’re just hands. Normal hands. Stop thinking about the hands. STOP. THINKING. ABOUT. THE. HANDS.”

—Do you live here? —Toni asked—. I thought you were out doing important things.

—I was. I came back six months ago. I teach at a high school. Literature.

—My memory’s great, huh?

—Great memory —Adrià repeated.

Awkward silence. The kind that makes you aware of every sound: the squeaky cart in aisle three, the child crying near the frozen foods, your own heart beating like a parade drum. Toni rubbed his beard, a nervous tic he’d developed to hide his double chin. Adrià watched the gesture and his smile widened by a millimeter, which in his body language was equivalent to laughter.

—And you? Are you still here? —he asked.

—I never left. I work in IT, remotely. I live downtown. Just... you know. Life.

—Do you still see anyone from school?

—Only Bruna. Do you remember her?

And then something happened. Almost imperceptible, but Toni caught it: a glint in Adrià’s eyes, a tension at the lips, as if Bruna’s name had switched on something in his perfectly organized brain.

—Bruna —Adrià repeated, savoring the name like an expensive wine—. The rocker with the black hair.

—She’s still the same. More so, if anything. She has a bar, White Noise, down at the port. I go a lot.

“I go every Tuesday and Thursday like clockwork. Pathetic, but the beer is cheap and nobody asks why I’m still single.”

Another silence, but this one was begging to be filled. Toni felt the visceral need to fill the void, as always.

“Invite him. Why? Because thirty years ago he was untouchable and mysterious and now he’s here buying wine like a human being. Because maybe this is a sign from the universe. Or a brain tumor.”

—Hey, if you want... —he scratched the back of his neck—. This Thursday Bruna closes late and sometimes we stick around for a drink. You could come. I’m sure she’d love to see you.

Adrià looked at him intently, as if dissecting him.

—I’d love to —he said at last, and his voice sounded genuine, which was almost worse—. Thursday? The seventh?

—Yeah. Around eight.

—Perfect.

Adrià grabbed a bottle without looking at the label, without hesitation. Twenty-three euros. Of course.

“Because he’s one of those people who know about wine. And books. And probably existential philosophy and the complete filmography of some Swedish director. Asshole.”

—See you Thursday then.

—Yeah. Great. Thursday. Eight o’clock. At the bar. White Noise. At the port.

“You’ve already said it all twice. Shut up, Toni. SHUT. THE. HELL. UP.”

Adrià gave him one last look and walked off down the aisle with a stride that seemed choreographed by the universe itself, black hair swaying with each step. Toni stood there, staring at the bottles without seeing them, heart pounding like crazy for a forty-eight-year-old guy who had just had a normal conversation with a former school acquaintance.

He grabbed the first tetra pak he found—three euros and twenty, “generic red” flavor—and practically ran to the checkout.

—The Mediterranean diet —he muttered to the cashier as she scanned his purchase: bread, beer, and boxed wine. The cashier didn’t laugh. Nobody ever laughed at his jokes. Never.

***

White Noise occupied an old orange warehouse, five minutes from the seaside promenade. The facade kept the peeling 1950s tiles, but the violet neon sign with the venue’s name gave away that inside, time had stopped in another decade. The exposed brick walls were covered with original concert posters—not reproductions, the real thing, with bent corners and beer stains from decades past. It smelled of beer spilled years ago, old wood soaked through with stories, and a ghost of tobacco that no law had managed to wipe out.

Toni arrived early. As always. Bruna was behind the bar, drying glasses with a cloth that had seen better days. She wore a tight black leather skirt that outlined her generous hips without apology, biker boots with tinkling buckles, and a fitted black T-shirt. Her black hair fell straight to mid-back. She was fifty and didn’t give a shit who knew it.

—You’re early —she said without looking up—. Nervous?

—No —Toni lied, sitting on his usual stool.

—Liar. You turned beet red when you mentioned him the other day.

—I did not.

—Almost as red as that time I asked if you’d masturbated thinking about me.

—That was a year ago and you were drunk!

—And you didn’t answer —she smiled, wickedly—. Which was answer enough.

Toni drank beer so he wouldn’t answer.

—How’s Adrià? —she asked.

—The same. Paler. Long hair. He looks like an indie movie vampire.

—Sexy vampire or scary vampire?

“Sexy. Definitely sexy. Don’t say that out loud.”

—Normal —he muttered.

—Uh-huh. So, sexy vampire.

The door opened with the jingle of the bell. Adrià came in as if floating, dressed in black but with a variation: a burgundy shirt with the first two buttons undone, tight black jeans, boots that shone faintly. He brought a bottle of wine wrapped in gift paper.

—Adrià —Bruna came out from behind the bar and they hugged. A long hug, the kind that means something more than politeness. Toni watched, feeling a strange stab in his chest.

“Jealous? Don’t be ridiculous. Jealous of what? Of whom?”

—Thirty years —Bruna said, pulling back—. You’re...

—Old? —Adrià smiled.

—I was going to say handsome, but fine, old too.

Adrià sat on the stool next to Toni. Up close he smelled of something woody, subtle, expensive, probably with an impossible-to-pronounce French name. Bruna uncorked the bottle with expert movements and poured three glasses that gleamed like rubies under the violet lights.

—To reunions —she toasted.

The wine was good. Too good. It tasted of red fruit and spices, with that long finish connoisseurs always mention on the label and that Toni had always thought was nonsense.

—Do you remember that concert we snuck into? —Toni asked, warming up.

—We climbed the back fence —Adrià smiled—. And ended up in the front row because everyone was too drunk to complain.

—It was incredible.

—Did you two go to concerts together? —Bruna asked, intrigued—. Were you friends?

—Acquaintances —Toni said, unsure.

—Friends —Adrià corrected, looking straight at him—. We were friends.

“Were we? Maybe yes. Maybe more than that.”

The wine disappeared quickly. Bruna put on another record, that music kids these days didn’t know how to appreciate, and the atmosphere relaxed. Toni noticed his shoulders loosening.

“Okay. This is okay. Just three old friends drinking. Normal. Everything normal.”

But then Adrià’s hand brushed his when he reached for his glass. An accidental touch. Probably. And he didn’t pull away: it stayed there, his fingers millimeters away, the heat of his skin crossing the tiny space between them.

“He’s doing it on purpose. Or is he? If I look at him, he’ll notice. Notice what? Nothing. There’s nothing.”

—So, your love life, Adrià? —Bruna asked, direct as a punch.

—Recent breakup. My partner wanted marriage, kids, a house in the suburbs. I wanted something else. Freedom. Not pretending to be someone I’m not just to fit into someone else’s script.

—Partner? —Toni blurted before he could stop himself—. Man or woman?

“Idiot. Why did you ask that?”

Adrià looked at him without blinking.

—Man. Dídac. We lived together for two years. Though before that I’ve been with women too.

He said it with the same casualness as someone saying, “I like coffee.” Toni felt something shift in his chest, uncomfortable and exciting at once.

“Bisexual. Okay. That... that’s it. Information. Just information.”

—Cool! —he murmured, eloquent as a broken dictionary.

—Surprised? —an arched eyebrow.

—No. Yes. I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s... cool.

—I think it’s perfect —Bruna said—. More options for everyone. I only do men, though I’ve fantasized about women. And you, baldy?

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

—Me... women. Only women. That’s how it is, right?

Adrià didn’t say anything. He just looked at him with that gaze that seemed to read entire books inside your brain.

***

With the second bottle, Bruna got up and went to the turntable. A guitar intro played that sounded like distilled joy.

—Let’s dance —she said suddenly.

—I don’t dance —Toni protested.

—Liar. I saw you dancing at the graduation party.

Adrià stood and held out his hand, those long fingers Toni couldn’t stop looking at.

—Come on.

“I can’t say no to that hand. To those fingers. To that smile.”

He joined them, feeling ridiculous and alive at the same time. Bruna got between the two of them, laughing, her hips brushing Toni and her back brushing Adrià, her leather skirt softly creaking. Then she grabbed both their shirts and pulled them closer until the three of them were almost in an embrace, moving slowly. Toni felt Bruna’s chest against his and Adrià’s hip brush his side, and he thought that maybe that was what being alive felt like.

“I want more. I don’t know what I want. But I want more.”

The song ended. They stayed like that a little longer than necessary, breathing the same air. Then Bruna pulled away, laughing nervously.

—Fuck. It’s hot in here.

Adrià returned to his stool as if he had just calmly finished a coffee. Bruna leaned on the bar and looked at Toni with eyes that promised trouble.

—You know what I think? You should wear a leather skirt. Like mine. You’ve got good legs. Hairy, yes, but strong.

Toni nearly spat out his wine.

—You’re very drunk.

—Drunk but right. Right, Adrià?

Adrià looked at Toni’s legs, openly appraising them.

—Could work.

Bruna disappeared into the back room and came back with a second black leather skirt, larger, clearly for men, with studs along the sides.

—Look what I found! From when my ex had his midlife crisis. Try it on. Just to see.

—Fuck off.

—Or are you scared? —Adrià murmured, soft, dangerous. He had stood up and was very close. Too close. Deliberately invading his space—. I don’t think you’re boring. I think you’re afraid of not being boring.

Toni swallowed.

“He’s so close. He smells like wine and that expensive cologne. And something else. Desire. Danger.”

—What if you wear it just for us? —Bruna said, running her hands over her own skirt—. Here. No photos, no witnesses. Just to see how it looks on you. How it feels.

“How it feels. What if it feels good? What does that mean? What does it say about me?”

Toni looked at the skirt. The leather gleamed under the violet lights like a promise or a threat.

“It’s just a skirt. It’s just clothes. It means nothing. Right?”

—If I do it... will you promise not to laugh?

—Cross my heart —Bruna said, serious for the first time in hours.

—Promise —Adrià repeated.

Toni took the skirt. The leather was cold and smooth against his fingers.

“I’m crazy. Completely crazy. But I’m already here. Fuck it.”

—Okay. But I’m closing the bar and we’re going to your place, Bruna. I’m not putting it on here like some damn stripper.

Bruna clapped, genuinely happy, her own skirt creaking with the movement.

—Deal!

Adrià smiled, that smile that promised things Toni didn’t dare imagine.

—This is going to be very interesting.

“Interesting. Yeah. Or disastrous. Or something completely different.”

***

Bruna’s apartment was two streets up, a penthouse with high ceilings and exposed wooden beams, a red velvet lamp in the living room, and a huge sofa full of cushions that smelled of cheap incense. She tossed her bag, lit a candle, and put another record on the turntable in the corner, something slow, dirty, with a heavy bass and a broken voice.

—Bathroom’s at the back —she told Toni, pressing the skirt against his chest—. Change. No excuses.

Toni went into the bathroom with hands shaking as if he’d downed three coffees in a row. He looked at himself in the mirror. Bald, gray beard, belly that no longer fit in the belt. The guy in the mirror was forty-eight and had the face of someone who hadn’t had sex in eighteen months.

He pulled down his jeans. Stood there in briefs and T-shirt. Took the leather skirt, rolled it up until he found the waistband, and pulled it up over his hairy legs. The lining was smooth, slippery, cold against his thighs. He fastened the hooks.

“Fuck. It fits. It fits well.”

The skirt fell just above the knee. The leather hugged his hips and left his legs exposed in a way he had never felt before. He felt the air moving between his thighs and a strange, indecent jolt climbed his spine.

He opened the door before his nerve failed.

Bruna let out a long whistle. Adrià, seated on the sofa with his legs crossed and a glass of wine in hand, straightened slowly, and Toni saw his gaze darken in a way that left no doubt.

—Holy shit —Bruna said—. You’re fuckable, baldy.

—Don’t bullshit me.

—Seriously —Adrià set his glass on the table without taking his eyes off him—. Come here.

And that “come here” wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order wrapped in velvet, spoken by a guy who knew exactly what he was doing. Toni walked to the sofa because his legs moved on their own. Bruna sat on the armrest with her skirt hiked up to mid-thigh, and Adrià stretched out a hand and caught Toni by the wrist.

—Sit down.

He sat. Between the two of them. Thigh against thigh against thigh. His breathing had gone strange, shallow, as if he both lacked air and had too much. He felt Adrià’s fingers travel up his arm, slowly, to his neck. He felt Bruna’s hand fall on his knee and slide beneath the edge of the leather.

—Toni —Adrià whispered, very close to his ear—. Do you want me to stop?

“No. No. Please don’t.”

—No —he said out loud, hoarse.

Adrià turned his face with two fingers under his chin and kissed him. No rush. With tongue. And Toni discovered at forty-eight that kissing a man tasted like red wine and something salty and burning, and that the beard scraping against his own didn’t disgust him: it got him hard so fast it hurt against the fabric of his briefs.

Bruna laughed softly and bit his ear on the other side.

—He’s hard as a rock. Look at the bulge in the skirt.

—Shut up —Toni panted.

—No —she said, and slid her hand under the leather, found the elastic of his briefs and grabbed his whole cock with her cold hand—. You’ve got a thick one, asshole. Why didn’t you tell me?

Adrià laughed against his mouth without stopping the kiss, and Toni felt another hand—the pianist fingers—lift his T-shirt, find a nipple, pinch it. A stupid, high moan escaped him, and the other two laughed at the same time.

—He’ll cum in two minutes —Bruna said, working him with her wrist.

—Wait —Adrià gently moved her hand aside—. Not like that.

He stood up. Unbuttoned the burgundy shirt button by button as if it were some fucking ritual, and underneath appeared a pale, lean torso with smooth skin. He unfastened his jeans. Pulled them down along with his boxer briefs in one motion. And there he stood, hard cock pointed forward, long and narrow, the tip already shining with fluid.

Toni stared like an idiot. He had never seen another cock up close. Never. And now it was a meter away, throbbing, and his mouth filled with saliva.

—Suck him off —Bruna said in his ear, pushing his neck forward—. Come on, do it. I know you want to.

—Bruna, fuck...

—No, she’s right —Adrià ran his fingers over Toni’s bald head, slowly, and gripped the back of his neck—. You want to. It shows. Open your mouth, Toni.

And Toni, kneeling on the edge of the sofa with the leather skirt hiked up over his thighs, opened his mouth. Adrià pushed his cock between his lips without rushing, halfway in, and Toni felt the weight, the salt, the taste of hot skin, and discovered he liked it. He liked it a lot. He sucked as best he could, clumsy, with too much saliva, and Adrià moaned for the first time that night, a low sound from deep in his throat.

—Fuck, Toni. Suck me like that. Tighten your lips. Yes. Yes, like that.

Bruna had stripped behind him. He felt her large breasts slam against his back, her hard nipples pressing between his shoulder blades. She lifted the leather skirt from behind, yanked his briefs down to his knees, and gave his ass a hard smack.

—This hairy ass is mine —she said—. Keep sucking him and I’ll take care of you from behind.

Toni moaned with Adrià’s cock still in his mouth. Bruna spread his thighs with her knee, pressed herself against his back, slid her fingers around to the front and grabbed his cock. She started stroking him while with her other hand she scratched his chest. Toni didn’t know where to put his head: in front, the cock going deeper and deeper; behind, Bruna’s tits flattened against him and her hand fucking him with a slow, filthy rhythm.

—I’m gonna cum —Adrià panted, holding his head now with both hands—. Swallow it. Swallow it all, Toni.

And he came. A hot, thick, salty spurt that filled his mouth at once. Toni swallowed by instinct, swallowed what he could, and the rest ran down his beard and spilled onto the leather skirt shining over his thigh. Adrià pulled out slowly, still hard, and ran his thumb over Toni’s lower lip, gathering the semen that had leaked out.

—Good boy —he murmured—. Very good boy.

And Toni, who had spent thirty years swallowing beer at lonely bars, thought he had never in his life been called two words that got him this hard.

Bruna laughed behind him. She let go of his cock and lay back on the sofa, spreading her legs wide open. No panties. Her leather skirt hiked up to her waist and her shaved cunt gleaming and open under the red lamp light.

—Now you, baldy. With the skirt on. Fuck me like that, with the leather on. I want to feel it rubbing against me.

Toni climbed onto the sofa still dazed. Adrià, behind him, helped position him, grabbed his cock and guided it straight to Bruna’s cunt. Toni pushed and went in hard, and Bruna let out a guttural moan, digging her nails into his shoulders.

—Fuck, fuck, fuck... you’re so tight —Toni panted.

—Fuck me hard —Bruna wrapped her legs around his waist, biker boots brushing his skirt—. Tear me up, baldy, go on.

And Toni did. He fucked her with all the rage built up from eighteen months without sex, with Adrià’s cock still in his mouth, with the leather skirt rubbing between his thighs and slapping against hers with every thrust. The sofa creaked. Bruna screamed uncensored obscenities—give it to me, fuck, more, more, like that, harder, asshole—. Her tits bounced with each drive and Toni lowered his head and licked a nipple while he kept moving his hips.

And then he felt Adrià behind him.

He felt his hands pry his ass cheeks apart beneath the skirt. He felt something cold—saliva? oil? he didn’t know—slide over his hole, and then a long, firm finger slowly entering.

—Wait... wait... —he panted, but the finger was already inside and touched something that made him see lights.

—Keep going? —Adrià asked in his ear, voice low, rough.

—...keep going.

Another finger went in. Toni moaned like he never had before, and kept fucking Bruna, now with the rhythm set by Adrià, who pushed from behind every time Toni wanted to pull out. He was trapped between the two of them. Bruna underneath, arching, already coming—fuck I’m cumming I’m cumming, clenching around his cock like a fist—; Adrià behind, fingers buried deep in him, whispering filthy things into his ear.

—Look at you. With the skirt on. Fucking Bruna. With my fingers in your ass. And you love it, Toni. You love it, asshole.

—I love it —he panted, too weak to lie—. I love it, fuck.

—Come inside her. Go on. Fill her pussy while I’ve got you like this.

And Toni came. He came with a roar probably heard by the neighbors, with the leather skirt plastered to his body with sweat, with Adrià’s fingers buried deep in his ass and Bruna’s cunt milking his cock with sharp contractions. He emptied himself completely. A long, thick orgasm that had been building for years.

He collapsed on top of Bruna, breathless. Adrià let himself fall to the other side, breathing hard, black hair stuck to his forehead. The three of them lay piled together on the sofa, sweaty, smelling of sex, leather, wine, and something new Toni still didn’t know how to name.

Bruna laughed first. A rough, happy laugh.

—Well. The skirt looks fucking great on you, baldy.

Adrià stretched an arm over Toni and stroked Bruna’s hair. Then he lowered his hand and caressed Toni’s cheek, with that deliberate slowness of all his gestures.

—I told you it was going to be interesting.

Toni closed his eyes. He could feel the other man’s cum sliding down his beard, his own dripping onto the leather of his thigh, two hot bodies pressed against him and one absolute certainty burning through his chest: tomorrow, when dawn came and he was once again a bald forty-eight-year-old pushing a squeaky cart through the supermarket, he would no longer be the same.

“I’m not the same anymore. And I don’t intend to be again.”

(To be continued...)