I Came Back to the Cross-Dresser’s Place Without Being Called

I worked for a telecommunications services installation company. The job was routine most of the time: arrive, install the equipment, check the signal, explain the basics to the customer, and leave. Some shifts we did in pairs when the installation was complicated or the building required it. It was on one of those double shifts that we arrived at Marcos’s apartment.

Before even ringing the bell, it was obvious something was different. In the hallway leading to the apartment at the back there were photographs hanging on the walls: the same man at different moments, in different clothes. In some he posed for carnival, in high heels, with a plume tail and sequins barely covering what was needed. In others he was in casual clothes, but the way he carried himself, the gesture of his hand, the angle of his head, were those of someone who did not care about fitting into any mold.

My shift partner, Darío, muttered something while we waited for the door to open. He had that habit of needing to classify everything to feel comfortable. I didn’t answer.

Marcos opened the door for us. He must have been about thirty-five, with very well-cared-for skin and loose clothing. There was something in the way he moved that was not exactly feminine but neither was it the rigid masculinity I was used to. He was simply himself, with no visible effort to be anything else. He greeted us calmly, showed us where the equipment was, and offered coffee, which neither of us accepted.

Darío went straight to the router. I toured the apartment checking the signal in each room. In the bedroom there was a large mirror over the bed, perfumes lined up on the dresser, clothes hanging in the open closet where garments you wouldn’t expect to find together were mixed in. I did my job without saying anything, but I watched him more than I needed to in order to do it well.

On the ride back to the depot, Darío made another comment. I told him to shut up. He didn’t answer.

I thought about Marcos for the rest of the afternoon. Not in any special way, not exactly the way one thinks of someone one likes, but in a curious way, like when something won’t leave you alone and you don’t understand why. There was something about him that I didn’t know how to name, but that I also couldn’t ignore.

***

Almost three weeks passed. I was assigned to a zone that included that neighborhood. There was no request under Marcos’s name in the system. Even so, I took the street that led to his building, parked in front of the door, and sat in the car with the engine off.

I have no reason to be here.

I got out. I rang the bell.

It took a minute for him to answer. When he appeared on the intercom, I made up that we had received an automatic report of intermittent service on his line. It wasn’t true. He said he hadn’t noticed anything but to come in anyway, that it was better to check.

He opened the door wearing a light robe, his hair still wet. The apartment smelled of soap and something citrusy I couldn’t identify.

He gave me room to check the router. I sat in front of the equipment, pretended to read the data on the screen, and after a few minutes said everything was fine, that it was probably a false alarm from the system.

—Thank God —he said without getting up from the armchair—. Want something to drink? I have homemade lemonade.

—Sure.

He went to the kitchen. He came back with two glasses and sat half a meter from me. We drank slowly. My gaze returned to the photos on the walls.

—Do you always dance in the comparsa? —I asked.

—Every year since I was twenty-one. —He pointed to one specific photo—. That one’s from last carnival. It took me almost a month to make that costume.

It was a photo taken from behind: high heels, a tail of green and gold feathers, his hair gathered into an elaborate headdress.

—You look really good —I said.

—Thanks. —He looked at me for a moment—. I know some people find it strange.

—I don’t think it’s strange.

We looked at each other. He stood up slowly, without urgency, as if what was about to happen had already been decided and there was no need to rush it. He took off his robe and was left in high-waisted lingerie, black lace that barely contained the shape of his cock pressing against the fabric. He held out his hand to me.

I stood up. I took it.

He led me down the hallway to the bedroom.

***

Inside, he closed the door with his foot and pushed me against the wall. He kissed me with his mouth open, tongue going straight for mine, while his fingers undid the buttons of my uniform pants without any clumsiness. He could feel I was already hard before he even touched me and smiled against my mouth.

—Look at you —he said quietly—. Thinking about coming all this time, weren’t you?

—Shut up —I muttered.

—No. Say it.

He pulled my pants down to my knees and slid his hand into my briefs. He grabbed my whole cock in one hand and started stroking me slowly, with his warm palm, measuring my length. I rested the back of my head against the wall and let out the air I’d been holding for three weeks.

—I came for this —I said.

—I know.

He knelt right there, in the hallway by the bedroom, black lingerie marking his ass as he lowered himself. He pulled my briefs down to my knees and took my cock into his mouth without preamble. He sucked it all, to the hilt, until I felt the heat of his throat tightening around my head. Then he pulled off slowly, lips firm, leaving a strand of saliva hanging from his chin.

—Holy shit —I said.

He looked up without letting me go. His eyes were bright, his mouth open, his left hand wrapping around the base while his right squeezed my balls with a delicacy that was the complete opposite of the brutality with which he was sucking me. He sucked with hollowed cheeks, with rhythm, with a technique no woman I’d been with had. He knew exactly what to do with his tongue under the frenulum, with his throat, with his lips tight along the ridge of the crown.

I grabbed his wet hair. I started moving his head without thinking. He didn’t resist. On the contrary, he relaxed his jaw and let me take his mouth at my own pace, letting me push all the way in every two or three strokes. When I felt I was about to cum down his throat, I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away.

—Wait, wait —I said in a low voice.

He looked up and smiled without saying anything. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. He finished stripping me there on my feet, shirt, belt, everything to the floor. Then he gently pushed me toward the bed.

I fell back onto the mattress. He climbed on top of me, still wearing the lingerie, and sat on my stomach. I looked at the tight bulge against the black fabric, the flat belly, the hips wider than I had imagined the first time I saw him. I put my hands on his thighs and slid them up to his waist.

—Take it off —he said.

I pulled down his lingerie. His cock sprang hard against his belly, bigger than I had guessed from the way he moved when he was dressed. I grabbed it. It was hot and pulsing in my hand. I stared at it for a second, not knowing what I was supposed to do, until he took my wrist and set the rhythm.

—Like that. The way you do it yourself.

I started stroking him slowly. He closed his eyes and arched his back slightly. When he opened his eyes again, he looked down at me with a calm that was almost a challenge.

—Never sucked one before? —he asked.

—No.

—Want to?

I nodded without thinking. He moved off my stomach, knelt beside my face, and brought it to my mouth. I ran my tongue over the tip first, carefully, tasting the salty fluid already seeping out. Then I opened my mouth and took it in as best I could. It felt huge right away, I gagged, and he pulled it out of my mouth at once.

—Slowly —he said—. Use your tongue. No teeth. You’ll learn.

I tried again. This time I ran my tongue all along the shaft, from the balls to the tip, slowly, wetting it completely. I licked the head the way I remembered liking to be licked myself. I heard his breathing catch above me and that turned me on more than anything else.

—That’s it, that’s it —he said—. Take a little more.

I took it in. He moved slightly, giving me time. I grabbed his ass with both hands while I sucked him, feeling the tight flesh of his cheeks, the shaved skin. He stroked the back of my neck with his fingers, didn’t push, let me keep learning.

After a while he pulled back. He looked down at me with dark eyes.

—I’m going to do something to you —he said—. Trust me.

He got off the bed, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and took out a bottle of lube and a condom. He climbed back up. He opened my legs with his knees and settled between them. He poured a squirt of gel into my hand and guided it to my own cock.

—Keep stroking yourself —he said—. I’ll do the other part.

He put lube on his fingers and ran them between my legs, over my perineum, farther back. When the first finger touched my ass I tensed completely. He stopped.

—Breathe —he said—. Nobody’s forcing you to do anything.

I breathed. I loosened up. The finger went in little by little, up to the knuckle. Then he started moving it in circles, searching for something. When he found it, a moan escaped me that I hadn’t known was in there.

—There —he said, more to himself than to me.

He slid in a second finger. I kept stroking myself while he opened me up, and it was the mix of the two that had me on the edge of coming before anything else had even started. When he felt I was ready, he pulled his fingers out, put on the condom, coated it with lube, and lifted my legs onto his shoulders.

—Look at me —he said—. Don’t close your eyes.

He pushed in slowly. The head went in first and I made the instinctive motion of pulling away, but he had me pinned by the hips. He kept pushing. I felt a burn that made me clench my teeth, and then something gave all at once, and he was inside, all the way in, his belly against my ass and his eyes locked on mine.

—Holy shit —I said again.

He stayed still for a moment. Then he started moving. Long withdrawals, thrusts all the way in, a rhythm that kept building without haste. I was still stroking myself, hand slick with lube, and with every thrust he hit the spot inside me he’d found with his fingers. It was like being fucked from both sides at once.

—Tell me if you like it —he said through his teeth.

—I like it —I said—. Keep going. Don’t stop.

He grabbed me behind the knees and spread my legs wider. He started fucking me faster, deeper, with the bed creaking and the ceiling mirror throwing back the image of him on top of me, back arched, ass tensing with every thrust. I could see in the mirror my own cock in my hand, wet, and his going in and out of me. I came before I even realized it. The shot hit my chest first, then my stomach, in bursts that left me shaking.

He held out for a few more seconds, still fucking me while I finished cumming, until he went rigid, buried to the hilt, and let out a rough moan that came from deep in his throat. I felt his cock throbbing inside me, the condom filling, and he slowly collapsed onto my chest, wet hair stuck to his forehead.

When we were done, we lay back on the bed with the ceiling reflected in the large mirror. Outside, the street noise went on as always. Inside, silence.

—I’m glad you came back —he said after a while.

—Me too.

—Are you going to come back again?

—Yes.

I didn’t hesitate to answer.

***

I went back for almost two years. Not with any fixed regularity, not with any promises of any kind, but with a frequency we both accepted without needing to name it. Whenever I could arrange it, I called him at the cell number he’d given me on a piece of paper the second time I went, and we set a time. He was always there.

I got to know him in other ways during that time. He worked independently in graphic design, doing jobs from home for small companies and agencies. He had a dry sense of humor and firm opinions about unexpected things. He told me about carnival, about how he’d started sewing his own costumes at nineteen, about what he felt when he danced in front of an audience. He wasn’t someone who needed to explain himself, but when he talked about those things, he did it with a clarity I found admirable.

One afternoon, while he was getting dressed after I was already ready to leave, he said without looking at me:

—If you weren’t in a relationship, I think you’d want to stay longer.

—Probably —I said.

—Nothing wrong with that. I’m just saying.

Neither of us added anything else. I left. He walked me to the door and kissed me before I went out, as he always did.

***

The dinner was his idea. He had moved to a larger apartment in the same neighborhood, a fourth-floor place with windows overlooking a quiet inner courtyard. He called me one Wednesday to let me know.

—Friday at eight, if you can arrange it.

I could.

I arrived on time. Marcos opened the door wearing clothes I hadn’t seen before: a silk blouse with a wide neckline over fitted black pants, his hair loose, light makeup only around the eyes. He wore long earrings that flashed every time he turned his head. The new apartment smelled of food and lit candles.

—Take a shower if you want —he said, pointing to the bathroom—. There’s clothes for you on the chair.

In the bathroom I found a gray silk robe, a clean towel, new soap. I showered slowly. When I came out, the dining table was set with porcelain plates, cloth napkins folded, a candle in the center.

—Sit down —Marcos said from the kitchen.

We had dinner for more than an hour without hurrying. We talked about a movie we’d both seen without knowing the other had too, about a place in the neighborhood that had closed recently, about a funny story with a client that had happened to him that week. The food was good, made by him himself, as he confirmed when I asked. Under the table, at some point, his foot brushed mine. Neither of us moved away.

When we finished, I got up to take the plates to the sink. When I turned around, Marcos was standing beside the table, leaning on the edge with his arms crossed and an expression I knew well by then.

—Leave the plates —he said.

I went over. We kissed standing up, with the taste of wine still on our lips. His hands traced my back over the robe. Mine found his waist, then his hips. I unbuttoned his pants and let them drop to the floor right there. Underneath he wore a lace thong that barely contained his already hard cock.

—Sit on the table —I said.

He looked at me for a second, surprised that now I was the one talking like that. I swept the plates aside with my forearm, sent a glass crashing to the floor without caring, and he sat on the edge of the table with his legs open. I tore the thong off him in one tug. His cock bounced against his belly.

I knelt between his legs. I had learned in two years. I took him by the base and put him in my mouth all the way, no teeth, tongue pressed against the underside, exactly as he had taught me. I sucked him whole, until he moaned low with his head thrown back. I ran my tongue over his balls, sucked them one by one while still stroking his cock with a hand full of saliva.

—Come here —he said at last, his voice broken.

I stood up. He took off my robe. He turned me around and pressed me against the table, face down, with my arms stretched out among the plates and the candle. I heard the drawer of the sideboard open, the sound of the condom wrapper, the lube bottle that I don’t know when he’d already put there.

He opened my ass with both hands and ran his tongue between my cheeks. I tensed and then went limp all at once. He’d never done it to me like that. He licked me slowly, in circles, pushing his tongue in until a sound escaped me that I didn’t even recognize. Then came the fingers, then the head of his cock, then him whole inside me, his hands gripping my hips and the table creaking under my weight.

He fucked me slowly at first, then harder. My cheek was pressed against the tablecloth, I felt breadcrumbs against my face, the candle dripping wax onto the floor, cutlery clattering with every thrust. I didn’t care about anything.

—Look —he said at one point, pulling my hair so I’d lift my head.

I looked up. In the hallway mirror, visible from where we were, you could see everything: me bent over the table, him standing behind me fucking me with the silk blouse still on, half open, the earrings moving with every thrust. It was a scene that looked like it belonged to someone else, to another night, not mine.

—Look —he repeated more softly—. Look how I fuck you.

—Keep going —I said—. Don’t stop.

He shoved into me harder. I stroked myself against the table with my free hand while he drove into me. I felt every hit in my prostate, every thrust making me see white. When I came, it went over the tablecloth in two, three spurts that soaked the fabric and kept dripping. He held on, dug his nails into my hips, and came right after, with a tight groan clenched between his teeth, still inside me.

We stayed braced against the table, him over my back, breathing hard. Then he turned me around slowly, kissed me on the mouth with the taste of wine and sweat mixed together, and led me to the bathroom by the hand.

***

We showered together afterward. There was wax from the candle on the tablecloth and the dining room floor needed to be wiped down. Marcos inspected it from the bathroom door with an expression between laughter and astonishment.

—I’m going to have to buy a new tablecloth —he said.

—I owe you.

—Yeah, you do.

We laughed. It was one of the few times I heard him laugh like that, without holding back, really.

While I got dressed, he tidied up slowly, robe on, moving around the apartment with no hurry at all. I stayed watching him from the hallway for a moment before he saw me.

I could stay, I thought. Make up any excuse.

I didn’t stay. But before leaving, at the door, he held me back with a hand on my chest and kissed me in a way that lasted longer than the usual goodbye kisses did.

—See you soon —he said.

—See you soon —I repeated.

We didn’t repeat that dinner exactly. But there were other nights, other dinners, other moments I kept to myself without telling anyone. Marcos stayed Marcos: direct, not asking for anything I couldn’t give, not making anything more complicated than it had to be.

I kept going back for a while longer, until circumstances changed and the visits became more spaced out without either of us ever fully deciding it.

Some encounters have no name. They simply happen, repeat themselves, and one day you realize they left you with something you don’t know where to put, but wouldn’t want to give back either.