Gay

I needed company. Without thinking, I asked him if he wanted to get in with me. What happened next changed everything I thought I knew about myself and my friends.

It was eleven and I couldn’t focus anymore. I opened the app without hope, but thirty minutes later I was walking to his building with a box of condoms in my pocket.

For months I’d been pretending men didn’t interest me anymore. One voice on the phone and a promise of a gift were enough to drag me back in.

We started with stupid stickers at the end of the shift. Then came the nickname. Then the fantasy. That night he texted that my place was closer, and I couldn’t say no.

Two years had passed since the first time. When he replied to my message, I knew I was going to see him, even though something in me said I shouldn’t.

I went downstairs looking for Mateo and Ricardo, and what I found behind the half-open door left me rooted to the hallway floor, breathless and unable to look away.

When I pushed open the metal door, I expected to find him alone, like always. But under that hanging bulb were four more men, and none of them looked in any hurry.

Four days tied to his bed, twelve thousand euros richer, and a body that no longer resists the same way. The worst part isn’t what he does: it’s what starts shining in my eyes.

When I opened my eyes at nine in the morning, Daniel wasn’t the only one in bed anymore. And his best friend was looking at me like he’d been waiting for that exact moment for hours.

I saw the message at eleven at night and knew this time I wasn’t going to make excuses. Fifteen minutes later I was climbing into his car in an empty lot.

At three in the morning, Damián was still sunk into my sofa, shirt soaked with sweat and breathing heavy. And I was no longer thinking about anything else.

I rang his bell with trembling hands. Twenty years older, a declared sadist, no mercy. And me, a virgin, begging him to begin the moment he closed the door.

It was almost eleven at night and the whole building seemed empty. When I turned my chair around, all that was missing was someone opening that door. And they did.

The receptionist winked at him when he handed over the towel. That gesture was only the beginning: in every room, a different body and a new turn-on waited for him.

I got off the bus hot-headed and tight in my pants. I knew what I was going to the vacant lot for, but not that I’d get fucked three times in a row.

When I went barefoot into the kitchen that morning and saw my father sitting there in his underwear, I knew something was going to break before the first coffee.

They knew that strong smell and body hair get me going like few things can. That Saturday they showed up with that smile that meant only one thing: the surprise was for me.

When I reached the clearing, Iker was already waiting, leaning against the rock, with that nervous smile he only ever gave me when we were alone.

When he told me he looked like the singer behind the counter when he dressed up, his mother smiled and I understood it wouldn’t stay a joke.

The Polaroid hung from my neck when she appeared under the threshold, barefoot and smiling, escorted by two men I didn’t know at all.