The Butcher in the Mountains Taught Me What Hunger Was

Iván grew up in Punta Cala, a seaside town where each child’s fate was already written in the nets his father cast out every night. He was the second son, the one who brought the most disappointment home. His brother set out at dawn in the boat; Iván stayed in bed pretending to sleep until the slamming door told him he could breathe again.

His mother got up before five, opened the stall opposite the harbor, and sold whatever came in the baskets. Squid, red mullet, sardines, mussels. He smelled of brine even after washing his hands three times. Iván learned to eat fish the same way he learned to keep quiet: so as not to disappoint anyone.

What he truly couldn’t stand was the smell of freshly opened cod. That wet, slack thing his father would drop onto the marble, with its pink gills still moving, expecting him to stick his fingers in and say something nice. His brother’s face lit up. His father looked at him with pride. At Iván, he looked the way one looks at a son who is missing something.

When he turned nineteen, they gave him a secondhand motorbike. They left it in the courtyard with a clumsy ribbon tied to the handlebars. He understood at once what the intent was: that he should ride the gentle hills around Punta Cala, the same hills where his brother had gone strolling with his girlfriends, the same hills where, according to the family script, a fisherman’s son met the girl he would marry.

Those hills meant nothing to Iván. What he had watched since childhood was the sierra.

It was far away. A gray wall of stone at the end of the horizon, almost always crowned by a white haze that seemed to move even when there was no wind. His mother said people up there were strange, that they lived among the crags, that they did things nobody talked about at the table. His father went deaf whenever anyone mentioned the sierra. Every night before bed, Iván looked at that dark band from his window and felt something tighten in his chest that he couldn’t name.

***

One morning in March he filled the tank and took off without telling anyone. He was twenty years old, two months and fourteen days old.

The road climbed in curves that curled back on themselves. The asphalt grew narrow, with no white line, and on one side there was a wall of bare rock and on the other a precipice without a barrier. His hands sweated inside his gloves. Every time a car came down toward him, he had to press himself against the rock and hold his breath.

He realized he no longer smelled salt. The air had turned dry, mineral. It smelled of turned earth, fresh manure, firewood burning somewhere. For the first time in his life, that smell opened hunger in him. A kind of hunger he had never felt. It wasn’t hunger for food. It was something else. It gathered below his navel and spread to his thighs. He gripped the handlebars harder and kept climbing.

The town was hidden in a hollow between three peaks. It was called Risca Alta, according to a rusted sign. It had a square with an iron fountain and four or five streets leading off from it. He parked the motorbike beside the fountain. Two old men were playing cards on a bench. They stared at him without bothering to hide it. Iván left his helmet hanging from the handlebars and walked toward the only place with its shutter open.

It was a butcher shop.

The butcher was behind the counter. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight. He had forearms corded with veins, a white apron stained with dried blood, and a smile that seemed to have been waiting for him before he even walked in. Iván pushed the door awkwardly, rang the bell louder than he meant to, and stood frozen in front of the display case, breathing hard. He placed both hands on the glass without realizing it. He left his fingerprints there.

—You’re from the coast —the butcher said. It wasn’t a question.

—Yes.

—First time in the sierra?

Iván nodded. The other man came out from behind the counter. He walked slowly, wiping his hands on the apron. He smelled of firewood, coarse salt, and something metallic Iván couldn’t identify. He stopped a handspan away from him. He took a piece of chicharrón from a tray, still warm, and brought it to his mouth with his fingers. Iván parted his lips without thinking. The butcher slipped his index finger in along with the piece. He left the fat on his tongue. Waited.

Iván bit down. The fat dissolved in his mouth, salty, crisp, with a sweet undertone that made him close his eyes. When he opened them, the butcher was still looking at him with that same smile, his finger still level with Iván’s lips.

—That’s only the beginning —he said.

***

Iván spent that first night in the room above the butcher shop. The butcher came up after the shutters were already closed. He came up with two bottles of beer, a plate of cured meats, and nothing else. He didn’t bother asking if he could stay. Iván didn’t ask either.

His name was Diego. He had big, rough hands with fine scars across the knuckles. He made Iván try the blood sausage, spreading it with his thumb on the bread and not letting him take the knife. He made him bite the chorizo straight off the piece he was holding. He gave him a drink from his own bottle, not the other one. Every gesture was a small lesson in how things were done up there. Iván learned quickly. For the first time in his life, he was hungry to learn.

When Diego kissed him, his mouth tasted of spices and raw onion. He didn’t ask. He placed one hand behind Iván’s neck and pulled him close. Iván let himself go as if he had been preparing for this since he was twelve. He felt the scrape of stubble against his chin, the weight of the other man’s chest against his own, the hardness of a belt digging into his hip. Diego’s hand slid down his back, pinned him against the table, shoved a knee between his legs, and tore a moan from him by barely brushing his mouth with his tongue.

Iván opened up without thinking, with that clumsy urgency of someone who has spent too long swallowing his own desire. Diego unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time, as if he wanted to hear each one give way. Then he ran his palm over Iván’s chest, pinching his nipples until they hardened. Iván arched his back and felt heat rise through his belly. Diego smiled against his neck and bit him, first softly, then harder, leaving the exact mark where he would later look at himself in the mirror.

—You like it like this, coast boy? —Diego murmured, his low voice right against his ear—. You like being touched like this?

Iván answered with a broken sound, because the question hit him exactly where he was most short of air. Diego slid a hand inside his trousers, found his cock already hard, and closed his palm around it with insolent confidence. Iván let out a long, humiliating gasp and lifted his hips, seeking more. Diego felt it and squeezed harder, stroking the head with his thumb until it trembled.

—Look at you —he said—. You’re desperate.

And he was. He was desperate for that hand, for that mouth, for the smell of meat and soap and male sweat that surrounded him. Diego pushed him toward the bed without letting go. Iván fell back onto the narrow mattress, and the butcher stayed standing for a second, looking at him as if he already knew exactly how this was going to end. Then he took off his apron, unfastened his trousers, and knelt between Iván’s legs.

The first touch of that tongue against the tip of his cock ripped a muffled cry from him. Diego held him by the thighs, spread him wider, and began to suck slowly, with cruel precision, licking the foreskin, running his tongue along the vein underneath, taking him all the way into his mouth until Iván lost any idea of shame. He sucked him eagerly, noisily, swallowing saliva, sliding his lips along the whole wet length. Every time Iván tried to move, Diego held him tighter and forced him to stay still, to feel every centimeter of that hot tongue.

—Not yet —Diego said, releasing him just enough to speak—. I want to see you all the way when I break you.

Iván clutched the sheets with rigid fingers. His stomach trembled, his legs ached from being held open, and still he wanted more. He wanted the mouth again, wanted the hand, wanted Diego’s cock inside him even though he still didn’t know how that huge body was supposed to fit into his. Diego stripped off the rest of his clothes with dirty calm, and when he lay down on top of him, Iván felt the weight of his chest, the hard heat of his thighs, the friction of their hips against each other.

Diego kissed him again, sliding his tongue in until he almost choked the air out of him. Then he moved lower, parted his legs with his hands, and ran two fingers damp with spit along the slit of his ass. Iván went still for barely a second, reflexively tense. Diego gave his hip a short slap.

—Open up. I’m not going to hurt you if you stop fighting.

Iván obeyed. He had always obeyed when someone sounded certain. He felt the finger enter slowly, then the second, opening him with brutal patience, pushing, turning, finding the exact spot until pressure became pleasure and pleasure became a burning need. He moaned at the way they rubbed inside him, at the way Diego drew him out of himself centimeter by centimeter, his mouth pressed to Iván’s neck so he could bite him every time the moan escaped louder.

When Diego positioned himself between his legs, Iván was already soaked with sweat. He held the cock in his hand, guiding it to the tight entrance, and rubbed it there once, twice, making him gasp. Then he pushed. First the tip. Then a little more. Iván felt the hot stretch, the delicious burn, the flesh opening by force as Diego entered him slowly, with a measured brutality that did not make it any less brutal. Iván clutched his shoulders and screamed at the feeling of being filled, thick, deep, until he was nailed inside him.

—That’s it —Diego growled—. Just like that. Take me.

And then he truly fucked him. First slowly, pulling almost all the way out only to drive back in with a hip thrust that ripped a spasm from him. Then faster, harsher, making the bed crack against the wall. Iván felt each thrust in his belly, in his ass, in his balls, in his throat. Diego grabbed one leg and hooked it over his shoulder, changing the angle to go deeper. He hammered into him again and again, and every time he did, white flashes bloomed behind Iván’s eyelids. The room smelled of sweaty skin, spilled beer, semen about to spill.

—Tell me you want it —Diego said, jaw clenched.

—I want it —Iván answered, barely a voice.

—Louder.

—I want it harder.

Diego smiled, animal and satisfied, and grabbed his cock again to squeeze it in time with the thrusts. Iván broke. Pleasure surged up all at once, sharp, unbearable, and he came with a moan that came from the depths of his chest, spilling thick, hot, filthy cum over his belly and Diego’s hand. Diego kept fucking him without slowing, driving in and out through the spasms, until Iván was disarmed beneath him, crying without tears, open, empty, and more alive than ever.

Then Diego let out a short growl and drove in all the way, clinging to his hips. His whole body tensed. Iván felt the hot lash inside, the deep, flooding release filling his ass with a viscous weight that made him shudder from head to toe. Diego stayed still for a second, breathing hard over his mouth, then withdrew slowly, letting some of the semen escape down Iván’s thigh. The two of them stared at that whitish trail as if it were proof of something that could no longer be undone.

That night Iván learned what it was to desire a man and let a man desire him. He learned the weight of a larger body on top of his. He learned that the first time doesn’t hurt as much as people say if the person holding you knows what he’s doing. He learned not to hold back sounds, because Diego liked hearing them and he liked that Diego liked them.

At dawn Iván woke up alone in the bed. He went downstairs barefoot. Diego was already opening the butcher shop’s shutter. He glanced over his shoulder and offered him a steaming cup of coffee.

—You staying? —he asked.

—Yes.

***

Risca Alta had few inhabitants, but they all seemed eager to feed the newcomer. The word spread fast. The butcher had a new boy upstairs, a boy from the coast who had arrived on a motorbike and hadn’t left. Curiosity turned into a game. Into a challenge. Each one wanted to be the one who got him stuffed with something.

Vicente, the shepherd, took him to the corral one morning. He taught him how to shear a lamb between the legs, with the animal held tight against his chest. He taught him other things too, that same afternoon, in the hayloft, with the sun coming through the slats in the wood and cutting their skin into yellow stripes. Vicente hardly spoke while he did it; he grunted like an animal, tired and satisfied. He pulled Iván’s pants down right there, braced him against the plank wall, and licked his mouth first, then his neck, then his stomach, until he had him opening up from sheer need. Then he spread his legs and took him with rough patience, working fingers into his ass until Iván started gasping, shoving him against the hay while he marked his ass cheeks with his palms. The barn smelled of dust, warm wool, and old sweat, and every moan from Iván bounced off the wood as if the hay were listening too. Vicente taught him how to ride on top, gripped his hips to set the rhythm, and came with a low growl, never taking his eyes off Iván’s face, as if he wanted to see exactly when his shame broke.

Roque, the man from the bar, was waiting for him at closing time with two glasses of orujo poured. He was older, almost the age of Iván’s father, with gray hair and the broad neck of a man who had carried crates all his life. He’d corner Iván against the bar when no one was left, without turning off the light, without quite closing the door, as if he didn’t care whether anyone saw. Iván stopped caring too. Roque handled him without hurry, opened his fly beneath the counter, and sucked his cock with a kind of slow rage, as if he wanted to devour his youth in sips. Then he bent him over the bar, lifted his shirt, and punished his ass with short, noisy thrusts that made the empty bottles dance on the shelf. Iván loved the roughness of his hands, the way he held his face to force him to look at him while he came inside him and left his belly stained with the strong smell of orujo and semen.

Toño had a mill at the end of a path of loose stones. Iván went up to see him on Sundays in the late afternoon. He was the quietest of all and the most demanding without saying a word. He indicated where to stand with his hand, how to turn, when to stop. Iván obeyed with a docility he hadn’t known was in him. In the mill, the sound of the water covered almost everything, but not enough to drown out the gasps when Toño laid him face down on sacks of grain, spread his ass cheeks, and drove into him with a dry force, like a man used to giving orders without raising his voice. Afterward he made him kneel to lick his cock until it was red and throbbing, and he wouldn’t let him come until he himself was on the verge of losing control. Then he grabbed him by the hair and shoved his mouth against his pubis, letting out a restrained moan when he finally emptied into his tongue.

Diego never asked where he had been. When Iván returned to the room above the butcher shop, he found supper already waiting. Diego knew. It didn’t bother him. He liked that the whole town wanted what he had sleeping in his bed.

But none of them filled him. Iván always came back with that indecipherable hunger below his navel, unsated, expectant.

***

One October day a man arrived in the village on foot, soaked through in the rain, carrying an umbrella in one hand and a covered dish in the other. He had straight black hair plastered to his forehead. Iván recognized the features of his face before their eyes met.

It was Hiroshi. The boy who always sat in the last row in his class in Punta Cala. The one who didn’t play football with the others. The one who had left at sixteen without saying goodbye and about whom little was said afterward, because nobody knew exactly where he had gone.

He came up to the butcher shop. He knocked on the door with the tip of the umbrella. Iván opened it.

—They told me you eat —Hiroshi said.

Under the cloth he was carrying a porcelain tray with a duck. Not just any duck. It was glazed, glossy, perfumed with bitter orange and ginger. The neighbors who had seen him come in were laughing down in the butcher shop. “That won’t fill him,” they said. “We’ve seen that boy eat an entire side of beef.”

Hiroshi laid a tablecloth over the table Diego never used. He took out two glasses he had brought wrapped in a cloth. He carved the duck without hurry. He made Iván sit down. He told him to close his eyes to smell it before biting. He told him not to swallow without chewing. He made him discover, in a single mouthful, all the flavors he had been gobbling down until then in a rush.

Then he took him to the bed and taught him the same thing, but more slowly. Without urgency. Without challenge. Without wanting to be the one who left him without hunger. On the contrary. He kissed each part of him like someone reading an old recipe. He pulled his trousers down with a slowness that drove Iván mad. He took his cock in his hand and stroked it until it was hard and trembling, then leaned down and took it into his mouth, sucking it with exquisite calm, not swallowing it in one go, savoring the frantic shiver it drew from him. Iván held his head, not to hurry him but because he needed to feel him there, needed that tongue running over all of him, surrounding him, making pleasure rise up cleanly and without guilt.

When Hiroshi made him turn over and brushed his ass with two wet fingers, Iván was already surrendered. He spread his legs over the sheets and let himself be prepared slowly, with a tenderness that hurt almost more than the roughness of the others. Hiroshi was in no rush. He kissed him at the nape, on the back, between the shoulder blades, and entered him with dark patience, pushing his cock in centimeter by centimeter until Iván let out a long moan unlike any before. It wasn’t hunger. It was the vertigo of feeling something that asked nothing in return.

Hiroshi took him from behind, hands clamped into his hips, setting a firm but gentle rhythm, and each thrust seemed to reach his head too, as if it were rearranging everything that had previously been twisted inside him. Iván touched his cock while Hiroshi fucked his ass, came against the mattress with a spasm that left his mouth open, and Hiroshi kept moving until he came inside him too, deep, without roughness, breathing his name against the nape of his neck as if it were a word he had been keeping for years.

Then he turned him over again and kissed him on the mouth, letting Iván taste both of them on his tongue. It wasn’t a kiss of hunger, but of pause. Of recognition. As if at last someone had taught him that desire did not have to be a blow or a competition.

When Hiroshi fell asleep on Iván’s chest, his hair still damp with rain, Iván felt, for the first time in his life, what it was to not want that moment to end.

The next morning he went downstairs to the butcher shop. Diego was sharpening a knife on a stone. He looked at him without lifting his head.

—Are you leaving with him? —he asked.

—No. But I don’t eat the same way anymore.

Diego let out a short laugh, almost proud, as if he had been waiting months for that answer.

Iván never went back to Punta Cala. He stayed in the sierra. He kept going up to the room above the butcher shop some nights. He kept going down to Roque’s bar. He kept silent in Toño’s mill. But now, twice a month, Hiroshi came from wherever he lived, laid his tablecloth over the table, and reminded him that hunger isn’t killed: it’s cultivated.