My Cousins Didn’t Know I Was Watching Them

My cousins Mateo and Ricardo were the only relatives I really felt comfortable with. Ricardo was the older one, forty-three, divorced for years, with the calm of someone who no longer had anything to prove. Mateo had just turned twenty-six, had lived alone since he was twenty-two, and always had some new story to tell. The three of us had grown up together, and although life had taken us down different paths, on Saturday nights we usually met at Aurelio’s house, my neighbor and lifelong friend.

Aurelio had that enormous house with an inner courtyard, where we could fire up the grill and stay late without bothering anyone. That Saturday in October, the plan was the usual one: beer, barbecue, and some bad movie to laugh at.

—I’m going to the market for a minute; we’re out of onions and charcoal —Aurelio said, grabbing his keys—. Don’t break anything.

—Relax, what are we going to break? —Mateo replied from the couch.

The door closed, and the three of us were left in the living room. I was thirsty and had my usual curiosity about other people’s pantries, so I got up.

—I’m going to see if there’s anything to snack on while he’s gone.

I walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, then the cupboard. I found some olives and a bag of potato chips, which I carried under my arm. I figured I’d been there five minutes, no more. When I returned to the living room, nobody was there.

I stood in the doorway with the bag of chips in my hand, looking at the two cushions sunken into the sofa. Not a sound. No footsteps, no doors. And the kitchen was only a few feet from the living room; there was no way they could have gone out without my hearing them.

—Mateo? Ricardo?

My voice sounded weaker than I intended. I repeated myself, a little louder. Nothing.

***

I left the chips on the coffee table and started searching the house. The courtyard first. The sliding door was closed and the lights were off. I went back inside. The guest room was empty too. That left the bathroom at the back, the one Aurelio had remodeled the previous year, which opened onto the service hallway.

I walked without making a sound, though I’m not sure why. Maybe instinct, or because something in the silence of that house told me I shouldn’t interrupt whatever was happening.

Halfway down the hallway I saw it: a pair of dark-blue briefs lying on the floor, right in the doorway of the bathroom. The door wasn’t completely closed. The fabric had gotten caught between the frame and the door, leaving a gap barely two fingers wide.

I stopped. My heart began pounding against my chest in a way I hadn’t remembered since adolescence. I should have turned around. I should have coughed loudly and gone back to the living room. But I didn’t. I took one more step, slowly, and brought my face close to the gap.

What I saw rooted me to the floor.

***

Ricardo had Mateo braced against the sink, both of them completely naked, both with their backs to the door. The bathroom’s white light made Ricardo’s broad back gleam, the freckles on his shoulders, the dark line of hair descending along his spine to the cleft of his ass. Mateo was thinner, paler, and his body disappeared against Ricardo’s as if he wanted to crawl inside him.

Ricardo held him from behind, one open hand spread over Mateo’s chest, his fingers pinching a nipple, while the other moved down between his legs. He had Mateo’s cock in his hand. He stroked it slowly, his wrist firm, a closed fist moving up and down at a rhythm that got into my blood. I watched Mateo’s cock appear and disappear inside Ricardo’s fist, hard, veined, the head glistening.

—Look at how hard you are —Ricardo whispered in his ear, loud enough for me to hear—. All mine.

Mateo let out a short moan and tipped his head back onto Ricardo’s shoulder, then sought his mouth from the side, twisting his neck. They kissed with their tongues out, wet and shameless. Ricardo’s hand never stopped working Mateo’s cock, and every so often he ran his thumb over the tip and drew a shudder from him.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real.

But it was real. And I couldn’t move.

Ricardo whispered something else in his ear, something I couldn’t make out. Mateo nodded without opening his eyes and answered softly:

—Yes, go on, fuck me already.

Then Ricardo gently turned him around, placed him facing the mirror, and made him brace both hands on the edge of the sink. Mateo looked at him in the reflection, biting his lower lip, and smiled at him with a mixture of complicity and embarrassment that melted me. He spread his ass with both hands without looking away, putting himself on display. I saw Mateo’s hole clenched and pink, and Ricardo staring at it with his mouth half open like an animal.

Ricardo knelt behind him for a second and put his mouth there without warning. He ate Mateo’s ass with his tongue out, pushing it inside him, sucking him, spitting on him. Mateo bent over the sink and let out a long moan, covering his mouth with his hand.

—Shut up —Ricardo ordered, his mouth still pressed against him—. They can hear you all the way out in the street.

He stood again. His cock was rock-hard, thick and dark with blood, aimed straight between Mateo’s cheeks. Ricardo leaned to the side and grabbed the soap dispenser. He coated his cock with two pumps, then lubricated Mateo too, pushing one finger into him, then two, moving them inside him calmly until Mateo began rocking his hips backward, asking for more.

—Easy —I heard Ricardo say, this time clearly—. Slowly. I’m going to put it in now.

***

I had entered a place I couldn’t get out of. My body had decided for me. I felt my erection pressing painfully against my pants, and I brought my hand to the bulge without thinking. I squeezed it through the fabric, once, twice. The sensation sent a shiver from the back of my neck to my heels. I lowered my zipper just enough to pull out my cock and grasp it in my hand, hidden in the hallway’s darkness.

On the other side of the door, Ricardo positioned himself behind Mateo. I watched him grip Mateo’s waist with one hand and guide his cockhead against the hole with the other. Mateo spread his legs, planted them firmly against the tiles, and looked at him again in the mirror.

—Look at me —Ricardo told him—. Don’t close your eyes.

Mateo didn’t take his eyes off the reflection.

He pushed in slowly, clenching his jaw. I watched Ricardo’s head force its way in, watched Mateo’s ass yield inch by inch, and watched Mateo expel his breath in a sudden, long, broken gasp, his mouth open in a silent O. Ricardo’s entire cock disappeared inside him. He stayed still, impaled deep inside his cousin, his hands firm on Mateo’s hips. He gave him time. I couldn’t stop looking at Mateo’s face in the mirror: his glassy eyes, his parted lips, his tongue showing between his teeth.

—You’re so fucking tight —Ricardo murmured through clenched teeth—. Christ, you squeeze me tighter every time.

—It’s yours —Mateo answered softly, his voice trembling—. Move, you son of a bitch, move.

When Ricardo began moving, he did it at a slow, almost careful rhythm. He pulled his cock almost all the way out, leaving the head inside, then thrust back in to the hilt with a dull push of his hips. Mateo responded immediately, driving his ass backward every time Ricardo advanced. Their bodies met softly and dully, barely a wet slap every few seconds. One buttock against the other’s hipbone, a slow smack-smack that hammered inside my head.

Mateo had opened his eyes again and was looking at Ricardo through the mirror with an intensity I couldn’t describe. His own cock hung hard between his legs, dripping onto the marble sink in a transparent thread that stretched and broke with every thrust.

I had put my hand on myself without realizing it. I held it firmly and stroked slowly so I wouldn’t lose the rhythm of what was happening on the other side. Every time Mateo moaned, I tightened my fist. The dark stain of my own fluid wet my palm.

***

The rhythm changed. Ricardo grabbed Mateo by the nape of his neck, gently but firmly, and pulled his head back. He spoke into his ear, louder this time, no longer trying to be careful.

—Do you like the way I fuck you, little cousin? Do you like it?

—Yes… yes, daddy…

—Say it properly. Say it.

—I love you fucking me, come on, harder, harder…

Ricardo released his hair and grabbed both of Mateo’s hips, digging his fingers into the flesh, and started fucking him in earnest. The thrusts grew longer and deeper, still controlled but with a different force behind them. Ricardo wasn’t a man who hurried. Every movement seemed thought out, measured, calculated to draw exactly what he wanted from Mateo. Mateo’s ass trembled with every blow, his cheeks bouncing against Ricardo’s pelvis, and Ricardo’s balls struck Mateo’s with a wet sound that was killing me.

And Mateo gave him everything: the short moans that escaped against his will, the hips seeking the thrust, the hand that slipped from the sink and dropped to grab his cock. He began beating himself off to the rhythm Ricardo imposed, his wrist a blur with how fast it moved.

—That’s it, jerk off for me —Ricardo growled—. Milk that little cock of yours dry.

I pulled my phone from my back pocket with my other hand, not to record—I would never do that—but to check the time. They’d been at it for seven minutes. Aurelio would take fifteen minutes, twenty at most. They had little time, and it seemed they knew it too, because something in the cadence quickened.

Ricardo thrust harder. He slapped Mateo’s ass sharply, then again, leaving the red mark of his hand. Mateo let out a higher moan and bit the back of his free hand to keep quiet. I clenched my teeth so I wouldn’t do the same, my cock pulsing in my fist.

—I’m coming —Mateo panted—. Ricardo, I’m coming…

—Hold it. Hold it a little longer.

—I can’t, I can’t…

—Together. With me. Hold it.

***

What happened next took place almost at the same time. I don’t know whether it was planned or coincidence, but they both came together. Ricardo drove all the way in, stayed there, and wrapped both arms around Mateo from behind, crossing them over his chest. He bit Mateo’s shoulder with restrained force, his teeth marked on the pale skin, choking a guttural growl between them. I watched the muscles in his back tremble, watched his whole body tense for a long moment, his ass clenched, and I knew he was emptying his load inside him. One spasm, another, another. Ricardo’s cock pulsing inside Mateo’s ass, pumping come deep inside.

Mateo held his breath for a full second. Then he let it out in a muffled moan against his own wrist, and his entire body jerked forward. I watched the toes of his bare feet curl against the bathroom floor, an image I would never forget. The first white spurt shot out and splattered the front of the sink beneath the mirror. The second landed on the marble. Then came the thick dripping, heavy strings of semen hanging from his cockhead and stretching until they burst against the porcelain.

—Oh God… oh God… —Mateo murmured, still shaking, while Ricardo gave him one last short thrust and bit his neck.

My own hand closed tightly around my cock. I felt the warm wetness on my fingers before I understood what was happening. I was coming too, silently, clenching my teeth until they hurt. The spurts came inside my underwear, one after another, while I watched Ricardo pull out of Mateo’s ass with a white strand stuck to his cockhead and a thick drop showing between my cousin’s cheeks. I had come without barely touching myself, just from watching them fuck.

***

I moved away from the door as if it had burned me. I walked backward for the first few steps, then turned and went to the bathroom at the other end of the house, the guest bathroom. I locked the door. I lowered my pants, saw the stain, and cleaned myself with wet toilet paper as quickly as I could. Fortunately, my underwear was dark and the stain didn’t show too much. Fortunately, there was a clean handkerchief in my pants pocket.

I flushed to cover my tracks and went back to the living room. I sat on the sofa, grabbed the remote, turned on the television, and put on the first channel that came up. An old black-and-white soap opera, a couple arguing in a dining room. I turned up the volume just enough to provide some background noise.

Mateo and Ricardo appeared a few minutes later. They were dressed as before, their hair just slightly damp at the temples. Mateo was carrying two glasses of water and handed one to Ricardo. They sat beside me, one on each side, as if they were the most normal things in the world.

—What are you watching? —Ricardo asked, looking at the screen.

—No idea. It was already on.

—Change it, this is depressing.

I handed him the remote. Mateo reached over, grabbed the bag of chips I had left on the table, and opened it. He began eating in silence without looking at me. But out of the corner of my eye I saw him smile, just barely, the kind of smile that appears when you remember something you shouldn’t.

Ricardo changed the channel until he found an old soccer match. He settled into the sofa. His arm brushed mine as he rested it on the back, a touch that lasted a second but was branded into my skin like a hot seal.

—Aurelio’s taking a while —he said without taking his eyes off the screen.

—Yeah —I answered—. He’s taking a while.

Mateo offered me the bag of chips. I took it with the hand I hadn’t used; the other still smelled like something I preferred not to think about. I reached in, took a handful, and chewed without knowing what I was eating.

Aurelio came in ten minutes later, carrying two bags and complaining about the price of charcoal. We started preparing the grill as if nothing had happened, all four of us in the courtyard, laughing about the same old stories. Ricardo patted my shoulder as he passed, a lingering pat, and looked me in the eyes for a second longer than necessary. When his hand dropped, his fingers brushed the small of my back, just above my belt, and lingered there for a fraction of a second longer than one cousin would normally leave his hand on another.

That night, in my bed, I couldn’t sleep. I closed my eyes and saw them. Ricardo’s back, Mateo’s toes curling against the tiles, the reflection of the two of them in the bathroom mirror, Ricardo’s hard cock sliding in and out of my cousin’s ass. And the question that wouldn’t leave me alone, circling like an echo: if Ricardo had lingered one second longer as he passed beside me, had he done it on purpose?

I had no answer that night. But the following Saturday, when Aurelio went to the market again, I didn’t get up to look for anything in the kitchen. I stayed on the sofa. And waited.