My First Gay Encounter Started as an Economics Class

On an economics podcast, someone was explaining supply and demand as two lines that cross until they find a common point. That point, the voice said, is the deal: the place where the one who has something and the one who needs it reach an agreement with neither too much nor too little left over.

Ramiro was listening to the podcast in the kitchen while stirring the rice. He had no idea that those two crossing lines were, in fact, his phone and that of a guy named Iván.

Ramiro was Argentine, from Rosario, though he had been living in Seville for more than fifteen years. Single, fifty-three years old, he had four or five years left until retirement. He had a part-time job that left him free in the afternoons and an average body: receding hairline, clean-shaven face with smooth skin, a bit of soft belly over his belt. He spent his idle hours walking along the riverbank, reading, and doing a little exercise when he felt like it, which was not often.

When night fell, the ritual was always the same. Rice Cuban style, a couple of television channels, and bed. Before sleeping he opened his phone, read a couple of erotic stories on a blog he followed, masturbated thinking about whatever came to mind, and turned off the light. Another day gone.

Bored with that routine, he started trying new things on screen. He, who considered himself unquestionably heterosexual, began watching videos of trans women. From there he moved, almost without realizing it, to videos of young guys, and from there to blowjob videos. He was fascinated by those homemade gloryholes: a man sitting in a chair, a curtain at half height, and someone on the other side on their knees doing their job in silence.

One night he found himself staring at the ceiling after one of those videos, turning it over in his head. He had realized something. There were two people, or more, agreeing to suck and be sucked for free, on an ongoing basis. One need on one side, another need on the other, and a meeting point where both were satisfied without money getting involved. There was a deal. There was, he thought with a smile in the dark, a crossing of supply and demand.

***

The next day he opened the AI chat on his phone and asked about hookup apps. He was convinced no woman would suck him off for free, and he didn’t like paying for anything. So he refined the question and asked for a list of apps for men.

A guy can suck me off without asking for anything in return, he reasoned. And if I just stay still and don’t touch anything, what’s the difference from a woman sucking me off?

It was a dishonest logic, he knew that, but it kept him from looking at himself too hard in the mirror.

He downloaded the best-known app in the field, the one with the yellow-and-black icon, and carefully filled out the profile. He verified the photo so no one would take him for a fake profile. In the bio he wrote just one line: “I need someone to suck me off.” Nothing else.

He didn’t upload a photo of his cock. He put up a picture of his underwear with the bulge outlined and another full-body shot cropped right below the chin, no face. That, he told himself, was his demand. It was on the table.

In that same app universe there was another profile. Iván’s, a young guy who had uploaded photos dressed as a woman and whose bio said: “I need to suck a cock.” That, of course, was the supply.

Iván carried his own history. Since adolescence he had enjoyed dressing in his sister’s clothes, and over the years he had bought himself an entire secret wardrobe: lingerie, sets, skirts, stockings. All the things that made his slim body, flat-chested and firm-arsed, look like a woman’s. According to him, he still wasn’t gay. He had just tasted another man more than once after a certain afternoon with a friend, and he’d gotten hooked. If you like it, you like it.

***

The match came through that same afternoon. The message didn’t take long.

—Hi, I’m Ramiro.

—Me, Iván.

—Want to suck a cock? —On those apps nobody beats around the bush.

—Yes, I do. Show me.

Ramiro pulled his pants down in the bathroom and took a picture. He sent over a good-sized cock, thick, with a circumcised glans that was redder toward the base and a little lighter toward the tip. It gleamed under the mirror’s white light and showed the pronounced veins along the shaft until the hand cut across it at the base.

—Mmm… I want that one.

—You like it? —Ramiro asked.

—I love it.

—I saw in your photos that you dress as a woman. Would you suck me off like that, dressed up?

—Yeah. If I’m going to eat a good cock, I want to do it dressed like a little whore. In my everyday life I’m straight.

—Same as me, —Ramiro replied.

Both of them say straight. He thought about it for a second and didn’t care. Labels, at that hour of the afternoon, were useless.

—When? —he wrote.

—Give me an hour. Send me the address.

***

An hour later, Iván was in the building entrance. He came up in the elevator wearing gray tracksuit pants and a backpack over one shoulder, as if he were coming back from the gym. And in a way, that was exactly it: he’d come from training his body in case the blowjob moved on to a second phase. Inside the backpack he carried all the clothes and accessories he intended to put on.

When Ramiro opened the door, a chill of nerves ran up the back of his neck. This was, in truth, his first experience with another man, and his body knew it even if his head tried to pretend otherwise. He let him in and the boy, without further ceremony, went straight into the bathroom so he wouldn’t waste time showing himself as he was every day.

Ramiro waited in the living room with sweaty hands. He sat down, stood up, sat down again. He poured himself a glass of water and didn’t drink it. On the other side of the door he heard the sound of zippers and of something being uncapped, a sweet perfume beginning to seep through the crack.

When the bathroom door opened, someone else came out. A made-up figure, with lips painted a dark red, almost black, a shoulder-length wig pulled back into a ponytail, a short top that exposed his whole waist, and a denim skirt with nothing underneath. The legs, shaved and bare this time, ended in black leather boots with a bit of heel.

They didn’t need to talk much. In five steps, Iván was standing in front of him and gently pushing him by the chest so he would sink down onto the sofa. He had undone his pants on the way, without Ramiro realizing when. He didn’t pull them down all the way; he left his soft belly visible and the underwear where the erection could already be made out.

The boy knelt on the rug between his spread legs. He brought his face close and inhaled hard through the fabric, pressing his nose against the bulge and breathing in slowly, as if he wanted to keep every nuance before touching anything. He licked the cotton until it was damp, feeling the hardness grow underneath, and only then did he pull the pants and underwear down in one motion.

The cock sprang free, just as hard as in the photo. Iván took it in whole, all the way to the back, without pausing and without any hesitation. He let it go only long enough to catch his breath and then plunged back down, eyes closed, running his lips along the shaft and down to the balls. One testicle, the other, the shaft again, and back to the throat.

For the first ten minutes Ramiro barely moved, gripping the edge of the sofa, stunned by what he was feeling. It wasn’t just the mouth. It was the surrender, the eagerness of that boy who seemed to be enjoying it more than he was. When he could no longer stay still, he sat up a little and gave him a smack on one ass cheek, over the skirt.

Iván tightened his lips around the shaft and let out a deep moan without taking it out of his mouth. He liked it. Ramiro understood that immediately and gave him another, and another. With each smack, the boy quickened his pace, as if he’d lost control and wanted to lose it completely.

He no longer closed his lips. He kept them open, letting saliva drip onto the man’s groin, moving his head up and down as fast as he could. He was going for the finish, choking himself, banging into the back of his own throat and not easing up.

Ramiro put both hands on the wig and held it firmly. He knew what was coming. After a few thrusts against his mouth, he started emptying himself onto the boy’s tongue, in a long pulse that rose up from his thighs. He felt the throat closing around it, swallowing, and that completely undid him.

When he stopped coming, he wanted to pull away, but Iván wouldn’t let him. He gently took his hands off his head and went down one last time to the base. There he closed his lips and slowly moved back up, dragging with the pressure everything left in the shaft, leaving a streak of lipstick in his wake. When he reached the top he closed his mouth, looked up at the man he had just milked, swallowed, and only then smiled, satisfied.

***

Ramiro stared at the ceiling for a long while, trying to make sense of what had just happened. A simple, stupid idea came to him: nobody sucks better than someone who has one too and knows exactly how it works.

—I want to come every day, —Iván said, still kneeling, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

—Every day won’t be possible, —Ramiro answered, laughing for the first time all afternoon—. But two or three times a week, yes.

—Yeah? Can I come every week? —The boy’s face lit up in a way that was hard to describe, an almost childlike excitement that didn’t match the smudged lipstick.

—I want you to come. Tomorrow too, at the same time.

—Then you’ve got a regular cocksucker.

—I’ve got a regular cocksucker, —Ramiro repeated, more to himself than to the other man—. I can’t believe it.

From that afternoon on, the routine changed. There was no more rice Cuban style eaten alone or stories on the phone before bed. Two or three times a week, the intercom would ring in midafternoon, the gray tracksuit would disappear into the bathroom, and out would come the other version, the one with the dark lips and denim skirt. Ramiro emptied himself completely on every visit, sometimes twice in a row, without lifting a single finger himself.

Iván only wanted that: to put on his skirt, kneel down, and swallow, over and over again. He said he was still straight, and Ramiro found it amusing to hear him say it. He, too, no longer bothered naming what they did. The two lines had crossed at the exact point. Supply and demand had found their agreement, and for once, the agreement cost both of them nothing.