That Summer the Cook Taught Me More Than Cooking

I arrived in the village of Cabo Marena at twenty-seven, with two hundred pesos in my pocket and a backpack that smelled like the bus. I’d come from Puerto Sabino, three days riding three different buses, and had no plan beyond finding something hot to eat and somewhere to sleep. Summer was just beginning, and the air was already heavy with salt and frying oil.

I walked along the main street—which was really the only street—until I saw a sign written in black marker on a piece of cardboard: “Kitchen helper wanted. Ask inside.” The restaurant was small, with two windows facing the sea and a peeling wooden door. It was still closed. I sat in the little square across the street, beneath a tipu tree dripping yellow flowers, and waited.

A while later, a rust-colored Ford Falcon pulled up in front of the place. A short, solidly built man got out, his T-shirt stuck to his back with sweat. He must have been forty-eight, fifty at most. Close-cropped gray hair, a thick neck, heavy arms covered in black hair. When he turned around, he fixed me with gray eyes that looked freshly washed. Full lips and very white teeth.

“And who are you?” he asked, without putting much force into his voice.

“Bruno. I saw the sign. I’m here about the job.”

He opened the door and motioned with his chin for me to come in. Inside, it smelled of bleach and old oregano.

“Know how to do anything?”

“The basics. Chopping, peeling, frying. I learned from my mom.”

“That’ll do. I’m Ramiro.” He tossed me a damp rag. “Start with the tables.”

I wiped down every table while he lit the burners and brought out two enormous pots. When I finished, he appeared with a café con leche and three croissants.

“Eat slowly. You won’t have time later.”

I devoured breakfast as if it were the last meal on earth. He watched me from the corner of his eye, half smiling, while he chopped onions. His thick fingers moved quickly, without stopping. I realized he was sizing me up.

“You’re not running from anything, are you? Because I don’t want trouble here.”

“No, Ramiro. I came looking for money, that’s all.”

“Good. It’ll be packed at noon. Afterward I’ll take you to a boardinghouse I know.”

The lunch service was madness. Tourists dripping wet from the beach, kids screaming for breaded cutlets, a woman who sent her steak back three times. I washed, chopped, served, and washed again. Ramiro never lost his composure: he ran the kitchen like an orchestra, with the pots as his instruments. We closed at three, exhausted.

He kept his word about the boardinghouse. I showered, collapsed onto a cot that smelled of cheap lavender, and slept like a log until seven-thirty. When I returned to the restaurant that night, Ramiro was getting out of the car. A short, curly-haired woman had dropped him off; she gave him a quick kiss and left.

“My wife. She lives cooped up in the house. She doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t bother anyone,” he told me as he opened the padlock.

The night was even worse than lunchtime. When we finally switched off the last dining-room light and were left alone with the sound of melting ice, I was soaked from the nape of my neck to my ankles. I leaned against the cash counter, took off my apron, and stretched my back. The loose shorts Ramiro had told me to bring so I could work “comfortably” clung to my ass when I arched my waist.

Ramiro walked behind me. The first time, I felt the brush of a hip, barely anything. I thought it was the narrow passageway. The second time was no accident: he planted his open palm on my right ass cheek and squeezed.

I went rigid. I didn’t turn around.

“Stay still, boy,” he murmured, his rough voice very close to my ear. “It’s been obvious since you walked in that you’re one of mine.”

With one yank, he pulled my shorts down to my knees. The hot kitchen air struck my bare ass. I felt his hand run over my buttocks, spreading them apart, and a thick finger, wet with saliva, press against my asshole.

“Want me to give it to you?”

“Give it to me,” I whispered.

He shoved the whole finger inside me. I bit my lip to keep from shouting. The man had a bricklayer’s hands and knew exactly how hard to push. He worked my ass slowly, twisting his finger, opening me up, while with his other hand he turned my head and sucked on my neck. Then he put in a second finger.

“Grab my cock,” he ordered.

I brought my hand to the bulge in his pants. Ramiro had a rock-hard, thick cock that pushed against the fabric of his fly. I pulled down the zipper and took it out. It was a dark cock, the foreskin already retracted, the head shining. I began jerking him slowly while he opened me with two fingers, then three. Every time he pushed, I let out a sharp breath.

“Shut up, fag,” he repeated, almost laughing. “If they hear you moaning like that, tomorrow every customer will come in with a hard-on.”

He pressed his cock against my ass from the outside. He began moving his hips against my hand, grunting softly. His cock throbbed all over, thick and hot. I felt the tension start at its base, and a few seconds later he unloaded everything into my hand and onto the counter. One thick jet, then another, then one more. He sank his teeth into my shoulder so he wouldn’t howl.

“Goddamn,” he said, breathing hard. “It’s been about ten years since I came standing up.”

A long honk sounded in the street.

“My wife. Pull your shorts up, quick.”

He tucked away his still-hard cock, washed his hand in the sink, and went out through the front. I stayed leaning against the counter for two long minutes, his cum still in my palm, trying to understand what the fuck had happened. I washed up, fixed my shorts, and went out into the street. Ramiro was already getting into the car without looking at me.

That night at the boardinghouse, I jerked off twice in a row thinking about his fingers.

***

The next day he didn’t say a word. Not one strange look, not one joke, not one brush against me. We cooked, served customers, and closed. I thought it had been nothing more than a release and that it ended there. I was wrong.

When the last couple paid and left, Ramiro locked both doors and lowered the blinds. He came back from the storeroom with a different look in his eyes.

“Come here, Bruno.”

I followed him to the back room, a windowless space with shelves of cans reaching all the way to the ceiling. Two foam sleeping mats, the kind fishermen used for naps, had been laid across the tiles. On top of them sat an already opened bottle of olive oil.

Ramiro was getting undressed. He took off his shirt, lowered his pants, and removed the undershirt beneath it. He stood there with his cock raised, pointing at my chest. He grabbed it and poured a stream of oil into his hand.

“Come eat, boy. It’s all yours.”

I knelt on the mat and ran my tongue from the base to the tip. Ramiro let out a guttural growl, like some huge animal. I licked his hairy balls, every wrinkle, every inch. His cock gleamed with oil and saliva. When I took it into my mouth, he planted both hands on the back of my head and pushed it all the way in. I arched, swallowed, breathed through my nose, and went down again.

“That’s it, that’s it, my boy. Eat slowly, we’re not in a hurry.”

I sucked his cock until the tip turned purple. I jerked him with one hand while the other squeezed his balls. Ramiro tugged my hair, pulled me off, made me spit on his glans, then shoved it back into my mouth. He loved making my eyes water.

He pulled me to my feet, turned my face, and kissed me. It was a long kiss, tongues tangling, saliva hanging between our mouths when we separated. He ripped off my T-shirt, pulled down my shorts, and threw me facedown onto the mat.

“Get on all fours.”

I raised my ass. He spit on me, poured more oil over his cock, and pressed it against my asshole.

“I’m going to put it all the way in at once. Take it.”

He pushed. I sank my teeth into my forearm to keep from howling. The head entered with a burning sensation that rose into my throat, and then the rest slowly worked its way in, inch by inch, until I felt his hot balls against mine.

“All the way in. All for you.”

He stayed still for a second, breathing against the nape of my neck, and then began to move. At first slowly, pulling almost the entire cock out and calmly pushing it back in. Then faster. He gripped my waist with both hands and started fucking me as if he meant to split me in two. The mat squeaked, my cock slapped against my belly, and sweat ran from his forehead down onto my back.

“Fuck me, Ramiro, fuck me hard,” I begged, panting. “Break my ass, come on.”

“You like it like that, you little bastard?”

“Like that, Daddy, like that, don’t stop.”

He slapped my ass, leaving his handprint. Then he slapped me again. He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, arching me. He drove into me all the way every time, pulled out and pushed back in, pulled out and pushed back in, growling things against my ear.

“You’re a slut. A beautiful slut. Look how my cock sucks your ass. Look how much you want it.”

He turned me over and laid me on my back, lifted my legs onto his shoulders, and entered me again. Now I could see his face: gray eyes half closed, gray hair stuck to his forehead, wet lips. I grabbed his face and shoved my tongue into his mouth while he kept thrusting.

I jerked myself off quickly, without looking. I felt the knot rising. I came across my belly in four or five spurts, squeezing my ass around his cock. Ramiro let out a long growl, drove himself deep inside me, and came. I felt his cock throbbing inside me, one pulse after another, as he filled me with hot cum. When he tried to pull out, his cum spilled down the sides and ran onto the mat.

He collapsed beside me, drenched. He ran a hand across my chest.

“I’ve got a cabin half an hour from here, right on the sea. My wife went to her sister’s for ten days. Want to come?”

I didn’t think about it.

“I’m coming.”

***

Ramiro fucked me that night in the cabin, with the window open and the sound of the sea covering our screams. He fucked me on the sand at dawn, while the beach was still empty. He fucked me standing against the sink while he had me prepare mate. He fucked me lying in the patio hammock, olive oil running down my legs. And again that night, after the restaurant, again and again.

It lasted ten days. Then his wife came back, and I returned to the boardinghouse. We kept working together until the end of summer, with the occasional encounter in the storeroom, always after closing, always with the blinds down.

When I boarded the bus back to Puerto Sabino, my pockets finally full, Ramiro waited for me at the terminal with a package of sandwiches and a crooked smile.

“Come back next year, boy. The kitchen will be waiting for you.”

I never went back. But of everything I learned that summer in Cabo Marena—cutting onions julienne, deboning fish, getting the breading on the milanesas just right—the lesson Ramiro taught me outside the kitchen was the one that stuck with me most. Even today, whenever I smell old oregano, I get hard.