My First Time with a Man Started on the Train

I always thought my head was clear about what I liked. Women. The curve of a hip, the weight of a breast in the palm, the taste of a painted mouth. That was what kept me from sleeping well and woke me with my hand in my briefs. That was my thing.

But there was also, in some darker corner, the other thing. The fantasy I never told anyone. The idea of feeling someone else’s cock thrusting against me, forcing its way in, holding me still. I’d imagined it a thousand times in the shower, alone, with my fingers groping awkwardly for what I had never really dared to seek.

Straight, yes. But not entirely.

I’d been taking the same 7:30 train to the studio where I worked for years. That line was always packed, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for reasons I don’t know. That October morning was one of those. I got on at the third stop and already had to fight for a place near the door, hanging onto the pole with both hands so the swaying wouldn’t throw me onto the girl in front of me.

By the time we reached the center, the car was full in a way you can’t explain to anyone who has never lived it. Body against body, coat against coat, breath against the nape of your neck. The smell of perfume mixed with leather and damp. And nobody spoke, because speaking would mean admitting you were there.

First I felt the thigh. A firm thigh pressed against mine, separated only by the fabric of our pants. I didn’t pay attention. There were six other people pressed against me and every movement of the train made them all bounce around. It was normal.

Then came the hand. It wasn’t a hand that touched; it was a hand that stayed. Resting carefully on the small of my back, right where the shirt ends. It could have been an accident, someone steadying himself however he could. But the hand didn’t move when the train stopped at the next station. Nor when it started again.

I turned my head just a little, pretending to look at the route map. And I saw him.

He was a tall man, in his late thirties, wearing a gray overcoat and a white shirt open at the top button. He had a defined jaw, a neatly trimmed three-day beard, and his eyes were fixed on some point in the window, as if he were concentrating on anything but me. But his hand was still where it had been.

I looked forward again. My heart was beating in my throat.

I had two options. One was to move. All I had to do was take half a step, ask permission, change places. Anyone would have done it. The other was to do nothing.

I did nothing.

I waited. Three more stops passed and the hand was still there, now a little lower. It was pressing me lightly, just enough for me to know it wasn’t accidental. I wasn’t breathing normally. The pole I was holding onto was wet with my own sweat.

Then I felt his cock.

It was hard. I had no doubt how hard it was, because it pressed against my ass cheek with the firmness of something that had intent. The fabric of his pants and mine were all that separated us. I could judge its thickness, its length. I could imagine what it would be like without clothes.

And instead of moving away, I pressed back too.

It was a tiny movement, barely a millimeter. But it was enough. I felt him understand the answer. His hand tightened a little more on my back and his cock sought a better position between my ass cheeks, separated by the two layers of fabric that, at that moment, felt like an insult.

I closed my eyes. My mouth was dry.

I started moving too, carefully. Every sway of the train was an excuse. If anyone looked at us, they couldn’t prove anything. But I knew what I was doing and he knew what I was doing. And that was the only thing that mattered.

His hand moved up from the small of my back to my waist. Then it slid down, slowly, to rest on my hip, almost touching the front of my pants. I was hard too. I had it pressed against the pole, hidden by my own hand and by the back of the girl in front of me.

Three more stops. The car could barely hold any more people. I was acting like a slut, spreading my legs just a little, pushing back every time the train jolted. He was breathing near my ear now. I could feel the heat of his breath on my ear, could smell the mix of coffee and mint from his toothpaste.

“I get off at the next stop,” he said, so low I could barely hear him.

He didn’t ask me. He didn’t invite me. He said it like information, like he was giving me a fact and I could do with it whatever I wanted.

My stop was four stations farther on.

I nodded slightly.

***

I got off behind him. The platform was crowded, so for about a hundred meters we walked as if we didn’t know each other, him in front and me two steps behind. We went out onto the street. It was an office district with old buildings. He walked three blocks without looking back. I followed him like a dog, still feeling the hard cock crushed against my pants.

He stopped in front of an old building, the kind with a worn marble entrance and a cage elevator. He took out his keys, opened the door, and went in. He left the door ajar.

I stood on the sidewalk for three seconds wondering what I was doing. I had a meeting at nine. I had a girlfriend who was waiting to have dinner with me that night. I had an entire life that fit on the other side of that door.

I pushed it open and went in.

We went up six floors in silence. The elevator was so small we had to stand facing each other. He looked at me properly for the first time. He had dark green eyes and a tired smile on his lips. He smelled good. He smelled like a man who takes care of himself, like cologne with woody notes, like something clean mixed with sweat.

“Is this your first time?” he asked.

He’d read me, I suppose. The way I was breathing. The clumsy way I’d followed him.

“Yes,” I said.

He nodded. He didn’t say anything else. When the door opened, he stepped out first and opened the apartment. It was a large studio, with the bed unmade in one corner and books piled on the floor. The curtains were half closed. A cup of coffee half full sat on the table.

He took off my coat. He slid it down over my shoulders with a calm I hadn’t expected, as if he had all the time in the world. Then he took off my sweater. He left my shirt on. He pushed me gently against the wall and stayed there, looking at me, his palms on either side of my head.

“If at any point you want to leave, you leave,” he said.

I nodded.

And then he kissed me.

I had never kissed a man. I thought I’d be put off by the beard, that I’d feel disgust, that my body would suddenly remember that this supposedly wasn’t for me. None of that happened. All I felt was the weight of his mouth, the exact pressure, a tongue that came in with the confidence of someone who knew what he was doing. I grabbed his waist without thinking.

He unbuttoned my shirt one button at a time. When he got to the last one, he knelt and pulled down my zipper with his teeth. His cock was so hard it slipped out almost without help. And then, straight on, without asking permission, without ceremony, he shoved it all the way into my mouth.

I closed my eyes and let out the air I’d been holding since the station.

***

What happened after that I can’t tell very well. I remember flashes. I remember he made me kneel. I remember tasting his for the first time, salty and hot, thicker than it had looked through the fabric. I remember that it was difficult at first, that he didn’t rush me, that he let me go at my own pace. I remember that when I understood how, I didn’t want to stop.

I remember that afterward he took me to the bed. That he made me get on all fours without saying a word, only with his hand in the middle of my back. That he prepared me patiently, with saliva and with a gel he took from the drawer, with his fingers first, one and then two, while I buried my face in the pillow and bit my lip so I wouldn’t make a sound.

When he went in, I did. I made noise. I couldn’t help it.

It was a mixture of pain and something I couldn’t name at the time. Something like the first time you try a strong drink and it burns, and at the same time you want more. He held my waist with both hands and stayed still. He waited for my body to get used to it, for me to start pushing back. And when I started, he started.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t brutal. It was as if he knew exactly what I needed, as if he had studied me for years instead of minutes. Every thrust pulled a new sound out of my throat. The bed creaked. The curtains filtered a yellow light that moved with the wind.

I came first, without touching myself, my face against the pillow and his hand gripping my hip. He came shortly after, with a low grunt, hugging my back, collapsing on top of me with all his weight.

We stayed like that for a long while. I don’t know how long. Then he got up, brought me water, asked if I was all right. I said yes. It was true.

While I was getting dressed, he asked if I took the train at that same time every day.

“Almost every day,” I said.

He smiled to one side. He didn’t ask for my phone number. He didn’t give me his. He went out to the kitchen while I tied my shoelaces and made me a coffee. I drank it standing up, looking out the window.

When I was leaving, at the door, he grabbed the back of my neck with one hand and kissed me again. Slowly. As if it weren’t the last time.

“If you get on the wrong car again,” he said, “you know where to find me.”

I went out onto the street. It was 9:20. I had missed my meeting and a message from my girlfriend asking where I was. I walked to the station with my legs still shaking.

That night I had dinner with her. I told her I’d had a complicated morning at the office. She believed me. I kissed her on the forehead when she fell asleep and lay awake staring at the ceiling for a long time.

I’m still straight. I still desire women, especially mine. But now, when I get on the 7:30 train on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I look differently. I look at the hands, the gray coats, the defined jaws. I look all the way to the back of the car, waiting.

Nobody knows what a man is looking for at rush hour. Sometimes, not even he himself.