My Teammate Was Not Who I Thought He Was

Adrián has dark skin, that kind of tan that seems to hold onto the sun even in the rainy Cantabrian winters, when we train with stiff fingers and our breath condenses in the air of the gym. His lips are thick, always glossy, as if he has just run his tongue over them. He has a clean body, hairless, with no shadow to break the sharp line of his muscles. Compact. Defined. A body built to jump higher than anyone else, to take the hits without bending, to push through even if three rivals are hanging off him. At eighteen, Adrián looks like a god.

I don’t say that out loud, of course. I don’t even put it into full words most of the time, because when I do I feel something like vertigo. As if I were leaning over from too high a place and wanted to step back two paces.

I’m not like Adrián. I’m the one who stays half a step behind in the sprints. The one who looks at himself just enough in the locker-room mirrors. The one who has learned to hide so well that sometimes even I don’t recognize myself. I’m the one who watches Adrián when no one can see me, and looks away when someone might see me looking at him.

We play on a handball team from a coastal town in Asturias. The gym floor is always a little damp, the air smells of rubber soles, teenage sweat, and cheap deodorant, and voices bounce off the walls as if everything inside it were more intense.

And Adrián is always at the center. Right wing. Powerful. Certain. Precise. Perfect.

Adrián is straight, I’m absolutely sure of it. That deep voice that hasn’t cracked in years, that way of walking with his chest out, that way he talks to the girls from school without hesitating. If by some strange miracle he were something else, I’d never dare to check.

First, because I don’t have the courage.

Second, because Adrián, at eighteen, seems to live in a world I don’t have access to. A world where no one doubts, no one trembles, no one hides anything.

A world where there are no guys like me.

That Thursday I arrived late to the locker room. The coach had kept me behind to correct a defensive move, and when I finally crossed the door, the steam from the showers was still hanging in the air, thick, mixed with the smell of bar soap and teenage cologne.

The noise of water hitting the tiles echoed through the whole space. I came in with my backpack over my shoulder, still keyed up from training, my heart still beating faster than it should. And then I saw him. Not fully. Just enough.

Adrián was coming out of the showers with a towel slung around his neck, his dark hair stuck to his forehead, his skin still shining from the water. Drops ran down his chest and slowly traced the outline of each abdominal muscle, as if they wanted to linger there, as if they knew I was watching. He leaned toward his locker. The towel dropped a little lower than was decent.

And there it was. For a second. Half a second. But enough for the image to burn itself behind my eyes like a hot iron. Adrián’s cock hung heavy between his thighs, thick even at rest, brown, the tip peeking out from a drawn-back foreskin, his balls low and full, the patch of black hair perfectly trimmed at the base. It wasn’t the cock of a boy. It was the cock of a grown man, hard to look at even limp, the size you only ever see in the videos you watch in secret at night with the volume turned all the way down.

By the time I looked up fully, he had already put on his briefs. Black. Tight. Expensive brand.

But that… that bulged. Too much. So much it was impossible not to notice, impossible not to keep looking a second longer than common sense recommended. The fabric pulled tight to one side, outlining the full shape of the head, the thick vein running up the shaft, the weight of his balls pushing the waistband down. I felt my own groin answer with a sharp jolt, my cock swelling inside my briefs with obscene urgency, far too urgent for such a simple situation.

I stayed there staring, dazed, as if my eyes had gotten stuck to that exact point in time and space. Then Adrián turned his head. And looked at me. Straight at me. Without warning. His dark eyes caught mine with a precision that stole my breath, my heartbeat climbing up into my throat.

I jerked my gaze away. Too fast. Too obvious. I felt heat rising from my neck to my ears, that stupid blush that always gives me away. I bent down pretending to look for something in my bag, even though I didn’t need a single thing.

When I looked up again, Adrián was already wearing his tracksuit pants. But he was still looking at me. Not with discomfort. Not with surprise. With something quieter, more calculated. He ran his tongue over his lower lip, very slowly, while he adjusted the bulge over his clothes with an open palm, without the least attempt to hide it. He shut his locker with deliberate calm and walked out of the locker room without saying a word.

I left a few minutes later, my hands still a little shaky as I tied my shoes, my half-hard cock pressed against my thigh, throbbing with every step.

***

The cold air hit my face the moment I crossed the gym door. The parking lot was almost empty, and the yellow streetlights cast long shadows over the wet ground from the last rain. I started home along the path that skirts the pine grove behind the sports center, trying to convince myself nothing had happened. That Adrián hadn’t noticed. That I was the one imagining things. As always.

And then I heard his voice.

—Hey.

I turned.

Adrián was leaning against the metal fence, looking toward the path that led to the small woods behind the gym. The tip of a cigarette glowed between his fingers, though I didn’t remember ever seeing him smoke. The hood of his tracksuit was pulled down over his forehead. He was waiting for me.

—Can you come here a second? —He nodded toward the woods—. Just for a second.

I didn’t know how to say no. I never knew how to say no when it came to him.

We walked along the path covered in damp leaves that crunched under our sneakers. The air smelled of wet earth, resin, cold. We went on without speaking. I still had the locker-room image burned into my head. Those black briefs. That thick cock outlined under the fabric. And the absurd, burning feeling of having been caught in the act.

Adrián stopped about a hundred meters in, in a small clearing where the trees formed a kind of natural circle. He put a hand in his pants pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. I stared at him. That scene didn’t fit the image I had of him, that image of the perfect boy, the spotless athlete, the model son.

—Do you smoke? —he asked.

I shook my head.

—No.

He smiled faintly.

—I shouldn’t either.

He took out a cigarette and tucked it between his lips. He flicked the lighter on, and the click rang through the forest’s silence like someone had fired a gun far away. He inhaled slowly. Very slowly. His chest rose slightly and then he let the smoke out with a slowness that had me staring despite myself. The smoke came out in a thick white cloud. It hung between us.

—Want to try?

He looked right at me without blinking.

I swallowed.

—I’ve never smoked.

—There’s always a first time.

He stepped closer. Then another step. He offered me the cigarette. I took it. Our fingers brushed. A tiny touch, almost accidental, but enough to send a warm current up my arm and settle it behind my sternum.

I lifted the cigarette to my lips. Inhaled awkwardly. I coughed hard, bending forward a little.

Adrián laughed. A low, rough laugh, nothing like the laugh he used at practice.

—Slowly —he said.

He came closer. He put his hand over mine. Only for a moment. Guiding the movement.

—Like this.

His voice sounded even lower.

I inhaled again. Slower. The smoke scraped down my throat, but this time I held it. Let it out slowly. It drifted between us.

***

And then something strange started. A silent game whose rules I didn’t know and which he seemed to have invented.

He took the cigarette between his lips and inhaled without taking his eyes off me. His gaze pinned mine as if he were waiting for something, an answer, a signal. He exhaled slowly, but not upward like before. Toward me. The smoke came straight at me, slow, wrapping around my face before fading. I breathed some of that air in by accident. I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the forest’s cold.

He inhaled again. Deeper. This time he leaned in a little before blowing the smoke out. So close I could feel the warmth of his breath before the white cloud left his mouth.

—Breathe —he said.

I obeyed. I inhaled slowly. The smell of tobacco mixed with the smell of his skin, that blend of shower gel and fresh sweat I’d recognize in any locker room in the world. It made me a little dizzy. And I knew at that moment, with almost painful clarity, that there was no going back.

The cigarette went back and forth between us as if it were setting its own rhythm, a beat only we could hear. Sometimes he brought it close to my lips without touching me. Sometimes he pulled it away at the last second, as if he enjoyed that tiny distance, as if he were playing with it, with my patience, with my sanity.

At one point he inhaled deeply and, instead of letting the smoke out into the open air, brought his mouth to mine. Very slowly. He didn’t quite touch me. But he was so close I could feel the heat of his breath on my parted lips. And then he blew the smoke out. Straight. Toward me. It went into my mouth before I could stop it. I breathed it in by reflex, by need, by something I couldn’t name.

My heart started pounding so hard I thought he might hear it.

—See? —he murmured.

His voice was low. Almost intimate. Almost tender.

He did it again. And again. Each time closer. Each time slower. Each time leaving fewer millimeters between our lips. And then, without warning, he closed the distance. His mouth slammed against mine with a brutality I hadn’t expected, his thick lips forcing their way between mine, his tongue sliding in hot and wet, seeking mine, pushing it, dominating it. He tasted of tobacco, of someone else’s saliva, of man. I moaned without meaning to into his mouth and he used that moan to push his tongue even deeper, sucking my lower lip, biting it just enough to leave the flesh throbbing.

When he pulled away, a thin thread of saliva stretched between us.

—I’ve wanted to do that for months —he said, his voice rough—. Months watching you look at me in the locker room and never daring to do anything.

I was speechless. My cock had gotten so hard it hurt. Adrián noticed at once. He dropped his hand and put it over my bulge, squeezing through the tracksuit, measuring me without the slightest shame.

—Fuck —he murmured—. You’re rock hard.

His own hand guided mine to his groin. And there, under the thin fabric of the tracksuit, I felt it all. Hard. Huge. Throbbing. I squeezed without thinking, following the full outline of that cock I had seen for a second in the locker room and that now pulsed in my palm like a trapped animal. Adrián let out a low growl right against my ear.

—Take it out for me —he whispered—. Here. Now.

I knelt without thinking. The damp leaves dug into my knees through my pants. I pulled his tracksuit pants and black briefs down in one motion and his cock sprang upward, smacking my chin before standing stiff in front of my face. It was even bigger than I’d imagined. Thick as my wrist, brown, the central vein swollen, the exposed head shining with pre-cum, his balls pressed tight against the base.

I stared at it for a second, mouth open, not knowing where to begin.

—Suck it —he said, grabbing my hair—. Slowly. Enjoy it.

I stuck out my tongue and licked from his balls to the tip, following the vein, feeling his cock vibrate under my touch. When I reached the head, I kissed it first, tasting that salty liquid already leaking from him, then took it into my mouth. I tried to take all of it but it was too much. It caught in my throat halfway through and I had to pull back coughing, eyes full of tears and chin slick with spit.

Adrián laughed softly.

—Slowly, asshole. It’s not going anywhere.

I tried again. More slowly. I sucked the head first, circling the crown with my tongue, drawing a gasp out of him that echoed in the silence of the woods. Then I started going down. Little by little. Taking it in an inch more each time, breathing through my nose, holding back the gagging. His hand guided my head without forcing me, setting the pace, pushing a little when I stopped.

—That’s it, fuck, that’s it —he growled—. You suck cock so well for someone who’s never done it before.

I sucked his cock like I’d spent half my life waiting for that moment. I licked his balls, one by one, took them into my mouth while I jerked his shaft with my hand full of my own saliva. I ran my tongue under the head, over that spot where I knew guys went crazy, and he threw his head back and let out a long moan that made me even harder.

—Stand up —he said suddenly, pulling my arm—. I want to see you.

I got to my feet. He yanked my tracksuit pants down and my cock sprang free, smaller than his but just as hard, red, dripping. He took me in his firm hand and started jerking me off while he kissed me again, that hot tongue sliding into my mouth, biting my lips, sucking my tongue. With his other hand he squeezed my ass over my briefs, slipping his fingers between my cheeks, searching.

—Has anyone ever touched you there? —he asked, his lips against my ear.

—Never —I managed to say.

—Fuck.

The word came out of his chest like a growl. He turned me against the trunk of a pine tree. The bark scraped my hands when I braced myself so I wouldn’t fall. He pulled my briefs down to my knees and I felt the forest’s cold air on my naked ass. Then his tongue. Hot. Wet. He had knelt behind me and was prying my cheeks apart with both hands, licking me where no one had ever touched me before.

My legs trembled. I let out a moan that echoed far too loudly in the silence of the woods.

—Shhh —he murmured against my skin—. They’ll hear us.

But he kept going. He licked me slowly, darting his tongue, pushing, soaking me completely. Then a finger went in, then two, slick with spit, and he slid them inside me. It burned. It burned so much. But at the same time it was the most obscene and perfect sensation I had ever felt in my life. Adrián jerked me off with his free hand while he pushed his fingers all the way in, finding that spot, circling them, opening me up inside.

—I’m going to fuck you —he said, getting to his feet behind me—. Here. Right now. And you’re going to be the first one to feel it.

—Yes —I gasped, pressing my hands against the pine—. Yes, fuck, yes.

He spat into his hand, slicked his cock, pressed the tip against my entrance. He pushed slowly. At first it wouldn’t go in. The head was too thick, my ass too tight. But he kept at it, pressing, pushing millimeter by millimeter, while whispering in my ear to take it, to breathe, to open up for him. And suddenly the tip gave and went in. I shouted into the bark of the pine. I screamed with pain and pleasure at the same time, because I had never felt anything so intense, so full, so mine and so much his at once.

He stayed still for a moment, letting me adjust. Then he started pushing more. Slowly. Taking centimeter after centimeter of that impossible cock until I felt his balls against my ass and knew he had it all the way in.

—Fuck —he groaned—. You’re so tight. So hot inside.

He started moving. Slow pullouts. Long thrusts in. Each one deeper than the last. He held my hips with both hands, digging his fingers into my flesh, yanking me back every time he drove forward. His cock went in and out with a wet, obscene sound that mixed with our panting and the crunch of leaves under his feet.

—Touch yourself —he ordered—. Jerk off while I fuck you.

I dropped a hand and grabbed my cock, starting to jerk off in time with his thrusts. Every time he went in, I squeezed. Every time he came out, I relaxed. I could feel his head rubbing a place inside me I didn’t know existed, a place that made lights explode behind my eyelids, a place that had me on the verge of coming with barely any touch at all.

—I’m going to come —I gasped—. Adrián, fuck, I’m going to come.

—Hold on —he growled, fucking me harder—. Hold on, come with me.

He drove into me with everything he had. Fast. Hard. His balls slapping my ass with every shove, his body pressed against my back, his teeth sinking into my shoulder so he wouldn’t shout. I was jerking myself off like a desperate man, bark scratching my forehead, his cock drilling me from the inside, until I couldn’t hold on anymore.

I came against the tree with a muffled moan. Thick, hot ropes of semen blasted out of my cock, splattering the bark, my own fingers, the leaf-covered ground. My ass clenched hard around his cock and he let out an animal groan, drove all the way in one last time, and stayed there, pressed against the pine, shaking.

I felt him come inside me. Hot. Thick. One spurt after another filling me from within while he bit my neck to keep from shouting. He came for what felt like minutes, emptying himself completely into my ass, driving each pulse deep, marking me inside.

When he pulled out, a thick thread of semen ran down the inside of my thigh. Adrián stayed braced against my back, panting, saying nothing, his cock still hard and dripping between us.

We got dressed in silence, clumsy, still shaking. The woods smelled now of sex, sweat, semen mixed with pine resin.

—Do you want to meet here again tomorrow after training? —he said in a whisper, as if saying it out loud could break something.

—Yes —I said, almost without any will of my own.

—Perfect.

He said it with a calm that didn’t seem to fit the situation. As if all of it, for him, were just another play, already rehearsed. As if he’d been waiting for the exact moment for months.

To my surprise, he then gave me a kiss on the cheek. Or rather on the border, right at the corner of my lips, that exact point where a kiss stops being friendly and starts being something else. A soft, almost shy kiss, after everything we had just done.

He smiled slightly and ran his thumb over the corner of his mouth, wiping away a trace of my saliva.

—I’m bringing lube tomorrow —he said, as if it were nothing—. So it won’t hurt so much.

Then he walked off alone down the path, without looking back, with the same confidence with which he had entered the woods. I stayed rooted to the spot, my ass still stinging, his semen running down my thigh inside my briefs, doubt pounding inside me like a badly bounced ball.

I didn’t understand anything.

Adrián wasn’t straight?