My Roommates Found Me Like This

I met Diego on an ordinary Tuesday, one of those days when you expect nothing and everything ends up happening. We’d been talking on the app for a couple of weeks, half-formed photos, messages that turned hotter when it got late, and in the end he invited me to his student apartment in the old quarter. He told me his roommates were out partying and wouldn’t be back until dawn.

—We’ve got the whole night to ourselves —he wrote—. Come at your own pace.

The building was one of those old ones, with a wooden staircase that creaked and a lightbulb that flickered on every landing. I climbed the four floors slowly, my heart pounding in my throat. You can still turn back, I thought. But I didn’t want to. I’d been wanting exactly this for too long.

Diego opened the door in his boxer briefs, hair tousled and smiling without a trace of shame. He was taller than he’d looked in the photos, broad-shouldered, with a tattoo climbing up his ribs. He looked me up and down without a shred of modesty, as if he already knew what we were going to do and was just checking the inventory.

—So you’re the big guy everyone talks about —he said, leaning on the frame.

—Everyone? —I asked.

—The apartment group. I told them you were coming. —He bit his lip—. Don’t worry, they’re not here.

The flat smelled like stale beer and cheap cologne. There were bottles on the kitchen table, a stack of unwashed dishes, and a guitar propped against the sofa. Diego took me by the wrist and led me to his room, kicked the door shut behind us, and shoved me against the wall before I could say anything.

His mouth tasted like mint and something sweet. He kissed me hungrily, with that urgency of someone who’d been imagining it for days, and I answered just as hard, gripping the back of his neck, feeling the heat of his body through his clothes. He yanked my T-shirt off in one motion and stood there staring at my chest.

—Fuck —he murmured—. The photos didn’t do you justice.

***

What came after was slow at first. Diego laid me out on his bed, a narrow student bed with sheets that smelled like him, and took his time. He traced my body with his mouth, teeth grazing my neck, his tongue sliding down my sternum. Every time I tried to rush him, he pinned my wrists to the mattress and made me wait.

—Easy —he whispered—. No rush. We’ve got the whole night, remember?

The room was dim, lit only by a table lamp with a red shade that tinted my skin a warm, almost unreal color. I watched him from below, breath coming in broken bursts, while he prepared me with a patience that drove me crazy. Two fingers, then three, cold lube and then his mouth again, until I was begging him.

—Please —I said, my voice breaking.

Diego smiled and positioned himself between my legs. He lifted them, spread me open in a V that left me completely exposed, and entered slowly, centimeter by centimeter, watching my face so he’d know exactly when to stop and when to keep going. When he was all the way in I let out a long moan that he swallowed with a kiss.

—That’s it —he said against my mouth—. You’re mine now.

He started moving with a deep, steady rhythm. I clung to his shoulders, feeling sweat sliding down my temples, the mattress creaking, his hot breath in my ear. The world shrank to that red room, to his body on top of mine, to the pleasure rising in waves. I lost track of time. I didn’t know whether it had been ten minutes or an hour.

And then I heard the key.

***

It turned in the lock at exactly two in the morning, because I saw the clock on the nightstand at that very instant. First came the hallway light, white and cold, cutting a strip across the floor of the room. Then the voices.

—Diego! Where the hell have you gotten to, man? We brought pizza and beer for the…

The sentence broke off.

Toni was the first to open the door all the way. Tall, dark-haired, in a tank top with gym-hardened arms, he froze with the pizza box still in his hand. Behind him, lined up one after another, the rest appeared: Iker, lanky and blond, with those endless basketball-player legs; Rubén, red-haired and freckled, with the wiry body of someone who swam every morning; and Saúl, the quietest, short but all muscle, his phone already halfway out of his pocket.

There were four seconds of silence that felt like an eternity.

Diego was still on top of me, inside me, both of us sweaty and breathing hard, bathed in that red light like a scene from a movie. And I looked at all four of them, one by one, without closing my legs, without trying to cover myself with the sheet that was a hand’s breadth away.

In my head, one sentence kept repeating over and over. They’re seeing me like this, open and surrendered, and I’ve never been this turned on in my life.

Toni was the first to react. A nervous laugh slipped out of him, and then a slow, dangerous smile that changed his whole face.

—Holy shit —he said quietly—. Diego, what is this? A welcome gift?

Diego didn’t move. Neither did I. But I clenched around him once, hard, so he’d understand I wasn’t going anywhere. He let out a restrained growl and dug his fingers into my hips.

Iker stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. The strip of white light disappeared and the six of us were left in that red dimness.

—Guys —Iker said, his voice rougher than he intended—. This is the one Diego was talking about in the group. The big guy. The one who wrote that he wanted to be fucked senseless.

Rubén bit his lip. Saúl already had his phone in his hand, though the screen was off, as if he still didn’t quite dare.

Diego finally spoke, his voice trembling but thick with desire.

—Boys… let me introduce you. His name’s Mario. And, well… he was letting me do whatever I wanted to him.

Silence again. I could feel it in the air, that heavy tension, four guys standing at the foot of the bed not quite knowing what to do with what they were seeing. The decision, I realized, wasn’t theirs. It was mine.

So I was the one who spoke.

—You can do more than stare —I said, my voice broken with pleasure, looking at all four of them in turn—. If you’ve got the nerve.

That was the spark.

***

Toni yanked his shirt off and threw it to the floor.

—Well, if the big guy’s inviting us —he said—, it’d be rude to turn him down.

In less than a minute all four were naked around the bed. Diego slid out of me slowly, and I felt the emptiness like a punch to the gut, a lack I needed to fill immediately. He stepped aside, leaning against the wall, watching with a smile and one hand busy, happy to hand me over to the rest.

Toni climbed onto the bed and positioned himself between my legs. He lifted my hips with both hands and looked at me with something like reverence.

—Look at how he left you —he murmured—. He’s opened you up like a flower.

He drove in with a thrust that ripped a moan from somewhere deep inside me. It wasn’t gentle. I didn’t want it to be, and he knew it. He grabbed my thighs and started moving with brutal force, the headboard banging against the wall, while I writhed beneath him looking for more.

Iker came up on the other side and leaned over my face. He didn’t ask permission, and by then I didn’t want him to. I opened my mouth and took him in, feeling the weight of his desire, Toni’s hands buried in my hips, two different rhythms splitting me in half and leaving me breathless.

Rubén and Saúl waited at the sides, impatient, taking turns, their eyes moving from my face to my body and back again. Saúl eventually turned on his phone, but not to record anything that would leave that room; he left it on the nightstand, the camera pointed at the ceiling, as if he just needed an excuse to have both hands free.

—I can’t believe this —Rubén said, almost to himself—. I can’t believe this.

***

And that was the whole night. Me in the center of that narrow bed, surrounded by five strangers who with every minute became a little less strange. Toni pounding into me without mercy, Iker in my mouth until tears sprang to my eyes, Diego watching from the wall with that smile of someone who had orchestrated the whole thing. And when Toni came, Rubén took his place, and when Rubén was done Saúl replaced him, and Iker was replaced by Diego again, in a carousel that seemed endless.

We changed positions a thousand times. They bent me over on all fours, sat me astride them, laid me on my side with one leg raised. They passed me from hand to hand as if I were the best idea they’d ever had in their lives, and at some point I stopped telling who was who: there were only hands, mouths, hot bodies, and the red light tinting everything unreal.

—Fuck, Mario —Iker panted at one point, his forehead pressed to my back—. You’re the best thing that’s ever come into this apartment.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I was too far gone, too deep inside that sensation consuming me. Every thrust brought me closer to an edge I’d been leaning over for hours without falling, and when I finally did fall, I did it with a cry that escaped me without permission, clinging to the sheets, my whole body shaking.

They didn’t stop. They kept going until, one after another, they gave in too, until the room was filled with ragged breathing and tired laughter and the weight of five bodies collapsing onto a bed that had never been made for so many.

***

It was dawn when I left. The gray light of morning was coming in through the window while I dressed in silence, the four of them asleep in a heap and Diego awake, watching me from the pillow.

—Will you come back? —he asked.

I tied my laces without answering right away. Through the window, the old quarter was waking up, the first trucks, a shop shutter going up in the bar across the street.

—That depends —I said at last, with a half smile—. Are your roommates planning another night out?

Diego laughed softly so as not to wake the others.

—For you —he answered—, we’ll stay home every weekend.

I went down those four floors of wooden stairs with my legs still trembling and one very clear idea in my head. This won’t be the last time. And by the way the door closed behind me, I knew they were thinking exactly the same thing.