The Blackout Trapped Us in the Elevator in the Dark

The elevator stopped on the nineteenth floor, and the doors opened slowly. There was only one person inside. I greeted him with a nod, stepped in, and turned toward the doors, pretending that I found the button panel fascinating.

But I didn’t. The only interesting thing in that mirrored cubicle was him.

I studied him out of the corner of my eye, with the discretion of someone who doesn’t want to be caught staring. Thick, wavy brown hair, eyes such a dark blue they looked black, a straight nose, and thin lips curved in an impersonal, almost disdainful smile. High cheekbones, a square chin, and a tall body that stood close to six foot two. His perfectly tailored suit outlined broad, well-trained shoulders without exaggerating them. He was leaning against the wall with the indolence only men utterly confident in themselves possess.

Fuck, he’s gorgeous. I lowered my eyes to the floor, and a shiver ran down my spine.

And to top it all off, I looked like a mess. I’d left college in whatever I was wearing: worn jeans, motorcycle boots, and some random T-shirt. It had seemed more than enough for a five-minute errand, dropping off the paperwork they needed to formalize my internship. It was far too hot for a jacket. Why did I never run into a guy like that on the days I actually made an effort?

***

What I didn’t know was that he had been watching me too. He confessed it later, when there was no reason left to hide anything.

Without needing to turn around, he had felt my gaze fixed on the back of his neck. A crooked smile formed on his lips and, far from feeling uncomfortable, he settled more comfortably against the wall and let me look my fill.

For his part, he went over the few details he had managed to see of me. The first thing that caught his attention was my hair: red, but not that garish orange—instead, a shade closer to dried blood, with flashes of fire. My eyes, on the other hand, were black as coal, set against pale skin sprinkled with bronze-colored freckles. Full lips. An athletic body without the gym-built look, exactly the way he liked them.

Shame I had to meet him in an elevator, he thought. Judging by the helmet I was carrying, he assumed I was a courier, someone he would never run into again. If they had met in a bar, he might have made a move.

***

And then the elevator came to a sudden stop.

The lights went out all at once, and a red emergency light washed the walls. We had stopped between two floors, without knowing which ones.

All I could make out was his silhouette. I reached for the emergency button and pressed it. A beep came from the speaker. A couple of endless minutes passed before a voice answered, and in that silence I felt my pulse begin to race.

“Good afternoon,” said a female voice, somewhat tense. “The system tells me you’re in Meridian Tower. What’s your emergency?”

“The elevator has stopped,” he answered. His Italian accent slipped through despite his impeccable Spanish. “We don’t know what floor we’re on. We were coming down from the nineteenth. I think you’ll have to send someone.”

“All right, sir. How many people are inside?”

“Two. How long will it take?”

“I’m sorry, there’s been a power outage. We expect to restore service in a few minutes. Please remain calm. You’re perfectly safe in there.”

Her voice didn’t sound convinced, but we had no choice except to believe her.

“Do you mind if I take off my jacket?” he asked, turning toward me. “Without air conditioning, this is going to become an oven.”

“Go ahead. Don’t mind me.”

That accent was driving me crazy.

He took it off with slow, precise movements, folded it carefully, and draped it over his arm. I couldn’t stop looking at his forearms. He knew it.

***

The minutes dragged by. We remained silent, each absorbed in his own thoughts, until the speaker sounded again.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’m being told this is a nationwide blackout. We don’t know how long it will last, but it could continue for several hours. There are more urgent emergencies than yours. Please be patient; we’ll send help as soon as possible.”

“What do you mean, several hours?” My voice shot out, out of control. “What do you mean, it isn’t an emergency? We’re trapped in here.”

A sharp click indicated that the communication had been cut off. My breathing became short and irregular. The walls began to close in, I swear, as if they had a life of their own. My vision blurred, and my legs gave way.

“Easy.” He tossed his jacket onto the floor. “Sit down slowly.”

He helped me lower myself with my back against the wall until I was sitting on the fabric, knees bent, arms wrapped around them.

“That’s it. Very good. Put your head between your knees and breathe slowly.”

He knelt beside me and rested a hand on my shoulder. I was shaking. Cold sweat ran down my temple.

“Come on, I’ll help you. Breathe in… breathe out… breathe in… breathe out.” He set the rhythm with his voice, and with each breath the trembling began to ease, until I opened my eyes. “I think it’s over now. It was just a panic attack. Has that happened before?”

“I…” I’d had claustrophobia since I was a kid, but I’d learned to control it. It had been years since I’d had an attack like that. I wasn’t about to tell a stranger. “Well. A bit of claustrophobia. I don’t do well in enclosed, dark places.”

Thank you, I wanted to say, but the word got stuck. I didn’t even know his name.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He was still looking into my eyes, with a smile that was warm now, without a trace of the disdain from before. He held out his hand. “I’m Renzo. My name is actually Lorenzo, but everyone calls me that.”

“Iván.” I shook his hand and was grateful that the dimness hid the blush rising up my neck.

“Well, Iván. We’re going to spend a little while here. If the blackout is nationwide, there are people worse off than us. The elevator isn’t even full, so we have plenty of air to last for hours. The worst part will be the heat.”

He sat down beside me, shoulder to shoulder.

“Sorry, I’m getting your jacket dirty,” I said, embarrassed.

“Don’t worry about the jacket.” He shrugged. “Judging by your accent, you’re not from here?”

“I’m from Madrid. Well, partly. I was born here, but my parents are Uruguayan. I have dual nationality, although I barely remember Montevideo; I was a child the last time I was there. And you? I took you for Italian.”

“Good ear. I’m from Genoa.” A rough laugh echoed through the compartment, and I lost myself in the sound for a second. “It gets hot there in summer too, but not like this.”

“And what brings you to Meridian Tower?”

“A meeting. Nothing that can’t be postponed.” He tilted his head. “And you? I thought you were a courier, because of the helmet.”

“Almost.” I smiled in the darkness. “I came to drop off some paperwork for my internship. I start as an intern in September, if I graduate on time.”

***

I watched him unbutton his shirt cuffs and roll up his sleeves with that same meticulousness, pushing them above his elbows. I became hypnotized by his fingers, long and firm, and imagined them moving over my skin. I barely managed to hold back a sound.

“Shame,” I murmured, surprising myself. I thought I had only said it in my head.

“Shame about what?” Renzo smiled, and the tip of his tongue appeared briefly between his lips.

“Nothing. I was thinking out loud.”

Nervous, I rummaged through my backpack. I took out a bottle of water and drank to keep my hands busy.

“Can I have some?” He held out his palm.

“Sure. Here.”

I handed him the bottle and watched him drink without taking his eyes off mine, slowly, with an intention that raised the hair on the back of my neck. He gave it back with half a smile.

Time stretched on. To keep from losing my mind in the darkness, I turned on the radio on my phone. Knowing what was happening outside anchored me to something. I kept it on for half an hour, then switched it off to save battery, and during the silences Renzo kept me afloat with seemingly meaningless conversation that actually meant anything but.

Because I was starting to like that man, and not just because of his looks. My radar told me that he liked men too. But something else whispered that someone like Renzo would never notice a sweaty intern in a wrinkled T-shirt. I cursed myself again for not making an effort.

***

“Iván…” Barely a whisper. “Can I ask you an indiscreet question?”

“Questions aren’t indiscreet. Only the answers are.”

He chuckled softly.

“Do you like men?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because…” He reached out and, with two fingers beneath my chin, lifted my face toward his. “Because I like you.”

“Really?” I looked at him in disbelief. “Why me?”

“Why not? Besides, you haven’t answered me. Do I appeal to you?” His voice grew deeper as he stroked my lower lip with the pad of his thumb.

“Yes,” I said, and looked away just in time to see a spark ignite in his eyes.

“And…? Answer me one more thing. Do you like me?”

“Y… yes.” I hissed the answer, holding my breath.

I watched him lean slowly over me until he rested his forehead against mine, his lips a millimeter from mine, mingling his breath with mine. His hand caressed my cheek, and I felt the heat of his body envelop me completely.

“And would you…?” he murmured. “Would you like to…?”

He told me afterward that he didn’t like being blunt, but he couldn’t find the words to suggest that in a dark elevator. He didn’t need to find them. I understood perfectly.

And of course I wanted to.

I placed one hand on his chest and the other on the back of his neck, sank my fingers into his hair, and pulled him toward me, erasing the last millimeter between our mouths. I kissed him without asking permission, opened his lips with my tongue, and tangled it with his, tasting him, feeling a rough moan escape against my mouth.

Renzo wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me against his body. His other hand moved down my side to my hip and tugged me onto his lap, straddling him. The heat of the compartment no longer mattered. The darkness had stopped suffocating me and become an accomplice, a hiding place where no one would interrupt us.

I bit his lip. He answered by squeezing me harder, running his fingers beneath my T-shirt and over my back—the same fingers I had spent half an hour imagining on my skin. Each caress drew a shiver from me, different from the one fear had caused. I threw my head back, and his lips moved down my neck, slow and deliberate, biting, licking, sucking my skin until he left marks that would force me to wear a high collar in the middle of July the next day.

“You’re burning up,” he murmured against my collarbone. “And it isn’t the elevator’s heat.”

“Shut up and keep going.”

He chuckled softly and yanked my T-shirt over my head. I felt his hands spread over my bare torso, moving up to my nipples and pinching them between thumb and forefinger until I moaned uncontrollably. My cock was already hard, trapped against the fly of my jeans, and I could feel his beneath his dress pants, pressing against my ass every time I moved.

“Fuck,” I panted. “You’re huge.”

“And you haven’t even seen it yet.”

I undid the buttons of his shirt one by one with clumsy fingers while he sucked first one nipple and then the other, his hot tongue tracing circles until they were hard as stones. When I finally opened his shirt all the way, I buried my face in his chest, smelling his skin—expensive cologne, clean sweat, man—and ran my tongue down his sternum to his navel. His abs contracted beneath my mouth.

He slipped from my grasp, turned me in one quick movement, and laid me on my back over his crumpled jacket, coming down on top of me. He bent down and kissed me again, biting my lip and grinding his erection against mine through the fabric. The friction tore a long moan from me that reverberated off the metal walls.

“Shh,” he whispered with a rough laugh. “They might hear us through the speaker.”

“Fuck them.”

I found his belt by feel, unfastened it, pulled the button free, and lowered the zipper. I slipped my hand inside his boxers and wrapped my fingers around his cock. It was hot, hard, thick, the tip already wet with pre-cum. I squeezed him, and he growled against my neck.

“Take it out.”

I pulled his pants and boxers down to mid-thigh. In the dimness I could barely make out the silhouette, but I felt it in my palm: long, thick, pulsing against my wrist. I stroked it from top to bottom, squeezed the head with my thumb, and spread the fluid over its entire length. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back.

“That’s it, you bastard, that’s it…” he panted. “Harder.”

I pumped his cock with my closed hand while he tore open the button of my jeans and yanked them down, taking my underwear with them. When my cock sprang free, hard and already wet, he grabbed it without ceremony and began jerking me off at the same pace. We stayed like that for several minutes, panting against each other, stroking one another in the darkness, our skin sticky with sweat and our breathing increasingly ragged.

“Wait, wait,” I said. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to come already.”

“Not yet.”

He released me and moved down my body, dragging his tongue over my sternum and stomach, dipping it into my navel, nibbling my hip until he reached my groin. I felt his hot breath over my cock and held my breath. Then, without warning, he took the whole thing into his mouth.

“Fuck!” A cry escaped me and bounced around the compartment.

Renzo sucked me from base to tip, his tongue curling around the head each time he came up, taking me down his throat when he went down. I felt him swallow around the tip of my cock without gagging, as if he had years of experience. I buried my hands in his hair and set the pace, pushing his head down, slowly fucking his mouth, and he let me, looking up at me from there with those dark eyes that, in the red dimness, looked like two embers.

“You suck cock so well, fuck… you suck it so well…” I panted, unable to stop myself.

He pulled my cock from his mouth with a wet pop, licked me from base to tip, sucked my balls one by one into his mouth, and swallowed me whole again. I was about to come. I tugged his hair.

“Stop. I want to taste you.”

He rose just enough to let me do it. We changed positions, and I knelt between his legs. I took his cock in both hands and examined it up close: it felt heavy and throbbing, the veins standing out, the head thick and gleaming. I ran my tongue along its entire length, tasted the salty pre-cum on the tip, and put it in my mouth as far as I could. He hissed and dug his fingers into the back of my neck.

“That’s it, Iván… that’s it, suck it all, you bastard.”

I sucked him eagerly, without holding back, gagging a little whenever he pushed me down his throat. Saliva dripped from my chin and ran over my chest. I pulled him out, sucked his balls, and took him back into my mouth. Renzo began fucking my mouth at an increasingly intense pace, gripping my hair, until I felt his whole body tense.

“Wait,” he growled. “I want to fuck you.”

My breath caught. I looked up at him from below, his cock still brushing my lips.

“Here?”

“Where else?”

“We don’t have anything. No condom or…”

“Wait.” He stretched toward the jacket crushed beneath us and took out his wallet. From an inner compartment he pulled a condom. “Habit. You never know.”

“And the other thing?” I murmured, my mouth dry.

“We’ll improvise.”

He picked up the remaining bottle of water, poured some into his palm, and mixed it with the saliva gathering in his mouth. He laid me on my back again, lifted my legs, and rested them on his shoulders. The position was uncomfortable against the elevator floor, but I didn’t notice at the time. I felt his wet finger press against my opening, circling, pushing slowly until he buried it all the way inside me.

“Relax.”

“I’m relaxed,” I lied, gritting my teeth.

He inserted a second finger and began moving them in a scissoring motion, opening me up. The initial discomfort transformed into something else when he found the exact spot inside me and pressed. A sharp moan escaped me.

“There, right?” He smiled.

“There, fuck, there…”

He worked that spot with his fingers until I was begging for more, moving my hips against his hand, my cock dripping onto my own stomach. He added a third finger and opened me until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Put it in.”

“Impatient.”

He tore open the wrapper with his teeth, put on the condom, lubricated it with the remaining water and saliva, and positioned himself between my legs. I felt the head rest against my opening, pressing slowly, opening me inch by inch. I held my breath.

“Slowly, fuck, slowly.”

“Easy. Breathe.”

He pushed all the way in with one slow, long thrust, and when I had him completely inside me I was left breathless. He was enormous. I felt full, pierced, burning inside. He stayed still for a few seconds, letting me adjust, and kissed me slowly on the mouth while I breathed against his lips.

“All right?”

“Move.”

He began fucking me with measured, deep thrusts, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back to the bottom. Each stroke drew a moan from me. I dug my nails into his back, wrapped my legs around his waist, and asked him to go harder. He quickened his pace. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the metal compartment, obscene alongside our broken panting.

“You’re so tight, fuck…” he panted against my ear. “What an ass you have, you bastard, what an ass…”

“Harder,” I begged. “Fuck me harder.”

He grabbed my hips and began thrusting into me without restraint, striking my prostate with every drive. I clung to whatever I could—his shoulders, the jacket beneath my back—moaning without caring whether someone on the other end of the speaker could hear us. My cock was trapped between our stomachs, dripping and sliding through our sweat each time he sank into me.

“Turn over,” he growled, pulling out of me for a moment.

I turned onto my knees, bracing my hands against the elevator wall and offering him my ass. He positioned himself behind me, grabbed my hip with one hand, guided his cock with the other, and buried it in me again in a single thrust. I cried out. In that position he went even deeper.

“That’s it, yes…” I panted. “Break me, fuck, break me.”

Renzo fucked me savagely, holding my hair with one hand and my hip with the other, driving into me so hard that my forehead struck the elevator mirror. Every thrust tore a moan from me, a “yes,” a “more,” a “don’t stop.” He bent over me, pressed his chest against my back, and whispered in my ear in that Italian accent, now rough and filthy:

“I’m going to fill you with cum, you bastard. I’m going to leave you dripping with semen everywhere.”

That alone was enough to make my whole body tense. He reached around me, grabbed my cock, and began pounding it in the same rhythm as he fucked me. Three, four strokes, and I came with a howl, spurting semen against the elevator wall and squeezing him inside me with my contractions. Renzo lasted two more thrusts before exploding inside me with a guttural growl, biting my shoulder and digging his fingers into my hip hard enough to leave bruises I would discover the next day.

We stayed like that for a few seconds, joined together, panting like two animals. Then he slowly pulled out of me and fell onto his back on the jacket, dragging me down with him. I lay on his chest, listening to his breathing settle.

He ran a hand through my sweat-damp hair.

“Quite a way to meet someone,” he murmured against my temple.

“I’m not complaining.”

He chuckled softly and found my mouth again. I kissed him slowly, more gently now, and he stroked my back up and down. We were sticky, dirty with sweat and semen, and I couldn’t have cared less. I lazily bit his lip and felt his cock, against my hip, beginning to wake again.

“We’re not getting out of here for a while,” he murmured against my skin.

“Good,” I answered, and went back for his mouth.

***

And then, without warning, the elevator shuddered and began to move.

The lights flickered before coming on all at once, harsh after so many hours in the dark. We separated just enough to look at each other, breathless, lips swollen and breathing ragged, while the numbers on the panel came back to life and began to descend. We dressed at top speed, snickering as we tried to hide the stains on the jacket, our tousled hair, and the red marks on our necks.

Renzo brushed a lock of hair from my forehead and smiled—that same crooked smile from the beginning, except now I knew what it concealed.

“Genoa is far away,” he said, “but I’m staying in Madrid for a few days.”

I took out my phone, which finally had service again, and held it out to him without saying anything.

To be continued. Or maybe not. Who knows.