I Woke Up Naked in My Rival’s Bed

The first thing Andrés noticed when he opened his eyes was the ceiling. It wasn’t his. His had a thin crack running across the corner that had been there for two years; this ceiling was smooth, white, and completely unfamiliar. The second thing he noticed was the headache.

He sat up slowly. The blinds let in strips of light that cut into his eyes like blades. He was in a double bed, covered by nothing but a tangled sheet. When he lifted it, he confirmed it: no shirt, no trousers, nothing. He closed his eyes and tried to arrange the fragments of the previous night.

A party. Someone from second year had organized it, in a flat downtown. He had drunk too much. He had seen Mateo. Of course he had seen Mateo. Mateo was always in the same places, wearing that smile that made Andrés’s nerves fray, surrounded by people laughing at his jokes and looking at him as if he were the best thing they had seen all week.

They had argued. He remembered that too. And everything else was blurry.

He dressed in silence, buttoning his shirt slowly so as not to make any noise. From somewhere in the flat came the sounds of the kitchen: the clink of a cup, the tap running. Andrés crossed the hallway on tiptoe, gripped the front-door handle, and turned it carefully.

“Leaving already?”

The voice stopped him. He turned around.

Mateo was leaning against the kitchen doorway. He wore nothing but dark boxers and rubber flip-flops. His hair was tousled, his arms folded across his chest. His athletic body caught the little light coming in from the hallway, and Andrés looked away at once.

“Yes,” he replied. “Thanks for letting me sleep here.”

“Aren’t we going to talk about what happened?” Mateo asked with a smile that was anything but innocent.

“Nothing happened,” Andrés said, with more confidence than he felt. “I was drunk, and you wouldn’t let me leave in that state.”

“That’s true,” Mateo admitted. “But I think there are parts of the night you ought to know about.”

“Mateo.” Andrés tightened his hand around the doorknob. “Nothing happened that you need to explain to me.”

Mateo stepped away from the doorway and moved toward him slowly.

“Are you uncomfortable because of what happened, or because of what didn’t happen?”

Andrés didn’t answer. He opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. He waited for the elevator, watching the numbers above the metal doors, but it was downstairs and he had no desire to wait. He took the stairs.

When he reached the final step, he heard Mateo’s voice drifting down from above, utterly unhurried.

“Silence implies consent.”

Andrés walked out into the street without looking back.

***

The car was where Mateo had told him: at the end of the street, between a gray compact and a white van. Andrés searched his pocket for the keys and didn’t find them. He closed his eyes. He searched again. Nothing.

He had to buzz the intercom.

“I thought we wouldn’t see each other until Monday,” Mateo answered through the intercom, with that calmness of his that always sounded like mockery.

“I left my keys.”

“I’ll bring them down.”

Two minutes later, the building entrance opened. Mateo had put on jeans and a white T-shirt. He handed Andrés the key ring without saying anything, letting it drop into his palm so their fingers wouldn’t brush. The gesture was deliberate. Andrés noticed.

“The car’s around that corner,” Mateo said, pointing toward the end of the street.

“I know.” Andrés started to leave, but stopped. “Thanks. For last night. Seriously.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Mateo held his gaze for a second longer than necessary. “I would have liked you to stay for breakfast.”

And without adding anything else, he went back inside.

***

The note was on the driver’s seat. A sheet of paper folded into quarters, in Mateo’s tight, orderly handwriting:

“You’re welcome for cleaning the interior. You don’t have to pay me back.”

Andrés sat there for a while with the paper in his hand. There was no trace of anything. The car smelled clean, of that generic interior-spray fragrance. He vaguely remembered vomiting the previous night, but everything else was still blank.

Something didn’t add up. Mateo never did favors. Mateo was the guy who stole the best grades from him, the attention of the best professors, the guys he had been most interested in. Mateo had been his rival from the first day they had set foot in the same classroom, and in three years he had never given up an inch without demanding something in return.

And now he had cleaned his car.

He took out his phone and dialed Valeria’s number.

“You’re finally showing signs of life!” she exclaimed when she answered. “Where did you disappear to last night?”

“I need you to tell me what happened. You, Raquel, and me, today, as soon as possible.”

“What happened? You got drunk. You yelled at Mateo in front of everyone. You told him he ruined your life every time he liked someone you had liked too.” She paused. “It was pretty spectacular, honestly.”

“And afterward?”

“Afterward, you two disappeared. I saw you heading toward the bathroom. Mateo came back alone a while later and said he’d put you in a taxi.”

“I woke up in his bed this morning. Without any clothes.”

The silence lasted exactly three seconds.

“Why didn’t you start with that?”

“Because first I need to know what happened before the bathroom.”

“Andrés. All I know is what I saw from outside. To know what happened in the bathroom, I would have had to follow you in, and it was the men’s room.”

Andrés hung up. He looked through the windshield toward Mateo’s building for a moment. Then he searched his contacts for Sebastián’s name.

***

“Seba. I need you to tell me what you saw in the bathroom last night.”

“Good morning to you too,” Sebastián replied, his voice thick with sleep.

“Seba.”

“Andrés, I swear I can’t. Mateo asked me not to say anything.”

“I was there. Tell me, or I’ll tell Valeria you’ve spent six months trying to ask for her number and haven’t had the nerve.”

A long pause.

“That’s blackmail.”

“Seba.”

“Fine.” Another silence, briefer this time. “I went into the bathroom and saw you two. You had Mateo backed against the sinks. You were kissing him. With quite a lot of... enthusiasm. He wasn’t pulling away. When you pushed open one of the stall doors, he stopped you. He went over to the condom machine, and then he saw me standing in the doorway like an idiot. He asked me to leave and not say anything.”

Andrés felt the blood rise to his face.

“So something did happen,” he said. “And he lied to me.”

“Andrés.” Sebastián’s voice was calmer than his. “When I came in, you were the one taking the lead. He was backed against the sinks. It looked like he didn’t want you to stop.”

Andrés hung up. He got out of the car, shut the door without paying attention, and headed for Mateo’s building.

***

He buzzed twice in quick succession. Mateo opened without asking who it was.

Three floors up, the apartment door stood ajar. Andrés pushed it open and went inside. Mateo was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, as if he had been waiting for him.

“I know what happened,” Andrés said before Mateo could speak. “I know about the bathroom. And I know you told me nothing happened, and that was a lie.”

Mateo didn’t deny anything. He looked at him silently for a moment.

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth. Did you kiss me, or did I kiss you?”

“Both, depending on the moment.”

Andrés clenched his teeth.

“And the condom?”

“I never got it. Sebastián came in at that moment. I thought it was better to stop.” Mateo paused briefly. “And you thought so too, even if you don’t remember.”

“Why did you tell me nothing happened?”

“Because I didn’t know whether you wanted me to tell you. Because you were drunk when it started.” Mateo shrugged. “And because I didn’t want you to feel obligated to anything.”

Andrés stared at him.

“Why have you spent three years taking every guy I’m interested in away from me?”

“I don’t take them away. I go out with whoever I feel like.”

“Every time there’s someone I like, suddenly you like him too. As if you had a radar.”

Mateo looked at him in silence for a moment. Something shifted in his expression, something Andrés couldn’t quite read.

“Maybe the radar works the other way around,” he said at last.

“What does that mean?”

“It means maybe I don’t take away the guys you like. Maybe I like the same ones you do because we have the same taste.” He paused briefly. “And maybe that has something to do with the fact that we haven’t been able to ignore each other for three years.”

Silence fell. The dull noise of the street drifted in through the window.

“Last night you told me you hadn’t been with anyone for more than eight months,” Mateo said.

“I was drunk.”

“I know.” He stepped away from the counter and moved closer. “You also told me I was the only one in the class worth a damn.”

“I was very drunk.”

Mateo laughed. A short laugh, without mockery.

“Andrés. I know you can’t stand me. I know our arguments in class drive you crazy. But last night, when you had no control or filter left, you told me something I spent the whole night thinking about.”

“What?”

“That you were better because of me. That competing with me was the only thing that made you really try.”

Andrés opened his mouth. Then closed it.

Shit.

“I’m going to leave,” he said.

“All right.”

But Andrés didn’t move.

The kitchen was small. There was no more than five feet between them. The midday sun came through the window and made everything seem quieter than usual.

“What would happen if I stayed?” he asked softly, without looking at him.

Mateo took a moment to answer.

“I suppose we’d have breakfast. And talk. Without shouting, for the first time.”

“Is that all?”

“For now.”

Andrés looked at him. Mateo looked at Andrés. Neither moved.

“One question,” Andrés said.

“Go ahead.”

“Yesterday, in the bathroom. When Sebastián came in and you stopped. Did you want to stop?”

Mateo took exactly one second.

“No.”

Andrés swallowed. The air between them seemed to thicken, charged with something that had been there too long, crouching beneath every jab, every held glance that lasted a second too long.

Mateo left the counter and advanced slowly, without completely invading his space. He stopped less than a handspan away, close enough for Andrés to feel the heat of his body and the clean scent of his skin mingled with coffee and soap. He didn’t touch him yet.

“Do you remember anything else?” Mateo asked quietly.

Andrés shook his head.

“Just the bathroom. The cold tiles. Your back against the sinks. Your hand on the back of my neck when you brought my mouth to yours. And then nothing.”

Mateo glanced down at his mouth, barely for an instant.

“Then I’ll refresh your memory,” he said.

And this time Andrés was the one to take the first step. He seized Mateo’s T-shirt and kissed him hard, as if he wanted to argue with him down to his breathing. Mateo responded at once, opening beneath his mouth with a low growl, one hand on Andrés’s waist pulling him close, the other rising to the back of his neck, firm, not asking permission but not imposing it either, as if he knew exactly how tightly he could hold him. Their teeth knocked together clumsily at first, desperately afterward. Andrés licked his lower lip, felt Mateo’s breath enter his mouth, and tasted the roughness of the coffee that was still fresh.

Mateo shoved him two steps back against the kitchen wall. Andrés’s back struck the tile with a brief puff of air, and then the last barrier of tension held back for years finally broke. Mateo slipped a knee between his legs, forcing them open a little, and Andrés responded by rubbing against him with an involuntary moan, already feeling the hardness of his cock through the thin fabric of his trousers. The friction tore a trembling breath from him.

“Fuck,” Andrés murmured, without taking his mouth from Mateo’s.

“That’s it,” Mateo said, his voice deep and broken with desire. “That’s how I like you.”

Andrés yanked his hair with a roughness that sounded more aggressive than it was. Mateo let out a low, almost satisfied moan and bit his jaw before lowering his mouth to his neck. Andrés arched his head back as he felt Mateo’s tongue trace a wet path beneath his ear, then lower, to his collarbone. Every kiss was a provocation; every small suck left his skin hot, marked, sensitive. When Mateo slipped a hand beneath his T-shirt, Andrés shuddered all over. His palm was large, rough, and hot as it slid over Andrés’s stomach and rose toward his chest with cruel slowness.

“I’ve imagined you like this for far too long,” Mateo said against his neck, between kisses. “Pissed off. Trembling. Shoving me as if you wanted to break my mouth.”

Andrés let out a brief laugh, almost a moan.

“Shut up and take this fucking shirt off.”

Mateo obeyed without hesitation. He pulled the fabric upward and off his arms, and when Andrés was bare from the waist up, Mateo looked at him as if he had been undressing him with his eyes for far longer than that morning. He traced his chest with his fingertips, as if memorizing the map of his skin: the nipple hardening instantly beneath his touch, the abdomen tensing, Andrés’s breathing gradually coming apart. Then he lowered one open hand to his waist and left it there, firm, as if staking out a claim.

“Look at me,” Mateo ordered.

Andrés obeyed, mouth parted, dark eyes fixed on him.

“Last night in the bathroom,” Mateo said. “When I pushed you against the sinks, your mouth was open as if you needed it. You kissed me just like you are now. And then you grabbed my cock through my trousers.”

Andrés let out a groan of embarrassment and arousal that vibrated in his chest.

“Don’t tell me that if you don’t want me pulling it out right now.”

“I want you to pull it out,” Mateo replied without the slightest hesitation.

Andrés stood still for a second, surprised by how easily the words set his body alight. Then he unfastened Mateo’s belt, tugged open the button of his jeans, and lowered the zipper with deliberate slowness. Mateo moved away from the wall just enough to help him, pushing the garments down over his hips. He wore tight black underwear, and the large, hard bulge showed obscenely through it. Andrés slipped his hand inside the waistband and closed his fingers around Mateo’s cock with immediate firmness.

Mateo let out a breath through his teeth.

“That,” he said, his voice lower. “Like that.”

Andrés stroked him slowly at first, feeling the heat and hardness of the flesh beneath his palm, the smooth skin of the glans gradually appearing as he pulled the underwear down. Mateo was heavy in his hand, firm, throbbing. Andrés ran his hand from base to tip, tracing the foreskin with his thumb and feeling it grow wet at once. Mateo rested his forehead on his shoulder with a muffled moan, breathing deeply so he wouldn’t lose control too quickly.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Andrés murmured, more to himself than to Mateo, and the words came out with a delicious anger.

Mateo raised his head and held his gaze.

“I hope so.”

That was the breaking point. Andrés kissed him again, hard, and while he kept Mateo occupied with his mouth, he finished pulling the boxers down to his thighs. Mateo kicked them off, and they were both naked from the waist down, the kitchen filled with the sound of their breathing and the wet friction of skin against skin. Mateo moved away just enough to guide Andrés toward the table, where there was plenty of room to fall or sit. But he didn’t sit him down; he pushed him forward until his hands rested on the wood, forcing his back to arch.

“Like this?” Mateo asked behind him.

Andrés nodded, his throat dry.

Mateo’s hand slid between his buttocks, parting them with unbearable patience. Andrés held his breath when he felt a fingertip press against him, first one, then two, wet and slowly working their way in. The initial touch was an uncomfortable sting that quickly yielded to Mateo’s practiced, circular pressure. Andrés bit his lip nearly hard enough to hurt himself. It was too much and not enough at the same time; the waiting was driving him insane.

“You’re tense,” Mateo said, brushing his mouth over the back of Andrés’s neck. “Relax.”

“You do it,” Andrés shot back, his voice broken.

Mateo gave a low laugh and added a third finger, stretching him slowly with a precision that made Andrés tremble from head to toe. The kitchen smelled of coffee, soap, and nascent sex, of hot skin and desire held back for too long. When Mateo found the rhythm, Andrés finally let out a clear, long, involuntary moan. He gripped the edge of the table so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“That. Like that,” Mateo repeated, satisfied. “I want to hear you.”

Andrés turned his head slightly and sought Mateo’s mouth, kissing him urgently as he felt him prepare him with a mixture of patience and cruelty. When the third finger finally withdrew and was replaced by the hard tip of his cock, Andrés swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment.

“If you stop now, I’ll kill you,” he murmured.

“I’m not going to stop.”

Mateo positioned himself behind him and pushed slowly, an initial thrust that made them both tense at the same time. Andrés let out a brutal gasp; the penetration was deep, dense, burning, a full pressure that left him breathless. Mateo remained still for several seconds, breathing against the curve of his back, letting him feel every inch, every pulse.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice lower than Andrés had ever heard it.

“No.” Andrés opened his eyes, dazed by the heat. “Keep going.”

And Mateo kept going.

The table creaked beneath Andrés’s hands. Every thrust jolted his body forward, every roll of Mateo’s hips made him grit his teeth and arch farther, seeking more. Mateo gripped him tightly around the waist, setting the pace with almost ferocious precision, deep, wet, leaving him not a second to think about anything except the exact way he filled him. Andrés began moving too, thrusting his hips back to take him better, and in that brutal rhythm a series of broken moans escaped him, no longer hidden.

“That’s what you wanted in the bathroom, isn’t it?” Mateo growled, driving deeper. “You wanted me to fuck you until I shut you up.”

Andrés let out a broken laugh, almost a sob.

“And you wanted me to suck you without stopping.”

“Fuck, yes.”

Mateo changed the angle, and the new thrust tore a long, obscene cry from Andrés. The friction shot through his abdomen, tightened his balls, and made him feel his cock throbbing with painful urgency. He clung to the table as if it were the only thing keeping him upright while Mateo fucked him with relentless insistence, filling him, opening him, making every thrust race up his spine like an electric shock.

Mateo leaned over him, bit the back of his neck, and then spoke into his ear between thrusts.

“Tell me you haven’t thought about this. Tell me you haven’t wanted my cock since first year.”

Andrés was about to deny it out of habit, but his body betrayed him first. One shudder, then another. And then the truth, hot and miserable, came out of his mouth without a filter.

“I wanted it,” he admitted with a moan. “I wanted you.”

Mateo went still for a second, as if the words had struck him harder than any physical blow. Then he thrust again, harder, and Andrés felt his control slip away completely. He wrapped his free hand around his own cock, squeezing himself in time with Mateo’s thrusts, and the contact was enough to make the accumulated tension unbearable. His breathing became a succession of short gasps, his pelvis trembling with every movement.

“Mateo...” he said, no longer challenging him, only needy.

“You have me right here.”

“No, fuck. More.”

Mateo obeyed as if he loved the order. He quickened his pace, the table striking the wall with every thrust, the dry sound of their bodies meeting filling the kitchen. Andrés felt the tension tightening in his lower belly, building into an increasingly sharp ache until he could hold it no longer. He came with a hoarse growl, spilling hot over his hand and the wood, his whole body shaken by the orgasm. Pleasure tore through him with such violence that his knees buckled.

Mateo held him by the waist and didn’t stop. He kept fucking him for several more seconds, breathing raggedly, jaw clenched, until he too began to lose control. Andrés felt Mateo’s cock pulse inside him before he came with a muffled groan, burying himself one last time as he spilled slowly, hot and deep. He remained still, pressed against Andrés’s back, breathing hard until the trembling left his body.

Then he withdrew just enough to slip out of him with an almost reverent slowness. Andrés remained braced against the table, his legs weak and his skin sweaty, gradually catching his breath. Mateo ran a hand over his back and then went to get a kitchen cloth to clean his stomach, his fingers, and the mess they had left behind.

They said nothing for a while.

At last Andrés straightened and ran a hand through his still-disheveled hair. Mateo was still naked from the waist down, his T-shirt askew and his breathing calmer now, as if what had just happened between them were almost normal.

“Don’t screw this up,” Andrés said, his voice still rough.

Mateo raised an eyebrow.

“That sounds like an invitation to try.”

Andrés let out a short, incredulous laugh, and for the first time since opening his eyes that morning, it didn’t sound angry.

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you asked me to fuck you.”

“Don’t say it like that again.”

Mateo smiled, that smile of his that always seemed halfway between mockery and hunger.

“Then don’t give me reasons.”

Andrés shook his head, but he didn’t leave the kitchen. There was something different in the air now, as if everything they had spent years pretending had finally been stripped of its defenses, exposed, filthy, true. Mateo looked at him without fear, and Andrés no longer wanted to look away.

Sometimes rivalry is the most honest way of saying something that still can’t be named.